The Rudolf Steiner Archive

What I am going to say today is intended to deal with primary and secondary education, and to deal with it in such a way that what is of essential value can be useful for the present time, the grave times, in which we are now living. I believe you will have seen for yourselves that what could be given only as outline in my book The Threefold Commonwealth has many deep contributing factors—indeed very many, if we take into consideration all that arises from the new shaping of the world. So that actually in everything that must be said on this subject, preeminently where fresh activity has to be aroused, only guiding lines can be given to begin with instead of anything of an exhaustive nature.

When we look at the times in which we are living—and we need to do so for we have to understand them—it must constantly strike us what a gulf there is between what must be called a declining culture and a culture that may be described as chaotic, but all the same on the up-grade. I expressly draw attention to the fact that today I am wanting to deal with a special aspect of my subject, and therefore ask you to take it in connection with the lectures as a whole, once they are brought to completion.

I should like to start by drawing your attention to something that is clearly noticeable, namely, how the culture based on bourgeois social contract is in rapid decline, whereas we are witnessing the dawn of another culture based on what is largely not understood and represented by the proletariat. If all this is to be understood—it can be felt without being understood but will then lack clarity—we must grasp it in its symptoms. Symptoms are always a matter of detail; I ask you to remember this in what I am saying today. I shall naturally be forced by the subject itself to take details out of their context, but I shall take pains so to shape this symptomatology that it will not be able to work in the way of agitators or demagogues, but will really be shaped by the relevant circumstances. We may meet with much misunderstanding in this direction today, but that we shall have to risk.

Now in the course of years I have often asked you to bear in mind that, on the ground of the world-outlook represented here, it is perfectly possible to be a real upholder and defender of the modern natural scientific approach to the world. You know how frequently I have referred to all that can be said in defense of this approach! At the same time, however, I have never failed to point out what a fearful counterpart it has. Quite recently I reminded you that this can be seen at once when anyone, as a result of what we call here the symptomatic method of study, points to some particularly telling example and goes to work quite empirically. Now in another connection I have had to sing the praises of a recent remarkable work by the outstanding biologist Oskar Hertwig, Das werden der Organismen—Eine Wiederlegung der Darwinischen Zufallstheorie. Then, to avoid misunderstanding after the publication of a second book of his, I have had to remark how this man has followed up a really great book on natural science with a quite inferior work on social conditions. This is a fact fraught with meaning for the present time. It shows that even on the excellent foundation of the natural scientific approach to the world, what is pre-eminently necessary for an understanding of the present times cannot arise, namely, knowledge of the social impulses existing in our age. I want today to give you another example to bring home to you with greater emphasis how, on the one hand, bourgeois culture is on the decline and can be saved only in a certain way; how, on the other hand, there exists something that is on the ascent, something that must be carefully tended with understanding and judgment if it is to be a sarting point for the culture of the future.

Now I have before me a book that is a symptomatic and typical product of the declining bourgeoisie. It appeared immediately after the world war with the somewhat pretentious title The Light Bearer. This light bearer is admirably adapted to spread darkness over everything which today is most necessary for social culture and its spiritual foundation. A remarkable community of people have foregathered, who in separate articles have written remarkable things about a so-called rebuilding of the social organism. Naturally I can quote only certain passages from this rather voluminous work. To begin with we have a scientist named Jakob von Uexkull, really a good typical scientist who—and this is the important point—has not only a certain knowledge of natural science, is not merely well versed in it, but in his research work is recognised as an accomplished scientist of the day. He feels impelled, however, like others bred in the scientific tradition, to treat us to his views upon organising the world socially. He has learnt about the 'cell-state' as the organism is often called in scientific circles. He has certainly learnt to develop his mind, with which he then observes the social life. I want to refer you just to a few instances from which you may be able to see how this man, not from his knowledge of natural science but as a result of his scientific method of thinking—really quite correct but wholly absurd for practical life—how he now looks at the structure of modern society: he turns to the social organism, to the natural scientific organism, the organism as it is in nature, and finds that "the harmony in a natural organism can at times be disturbed by processes of disease"—and referring to the social organism goes on to say:

“All harmony can be disturbed through disease. We call the most terrible disease of the human body cancer. Its characteristic is the unrestrained activity of the protoplasm which, without considering the preservation of the organs, goes on producing more and more protoplasmic cells. These press upon the bodily structure; they cannot, however, fulfil any function themselves for they are lacking in structure.

“We recognise the same disease in the human community at large when the people's motto: liberty, equality, fraternity, replaces the motto of the state: compulsion, diversity, subordination.”

Now here you have a typical scientific thinker. He looks upon it as a cancerous disease when the impulse towards liberty, equality and fraternity arises out of the people. In place of freedom he wants to put compulsion, in place of equality, diversity, in place of fraternity, subordination. This is what from the 'cell-state' he has learnt to adopt as his method of viewing things, and which he then applies to the social organism. The rest of what he puts forward too is not without significance when considered from the symptomalogical point of view. He goes so far as to find something in the social organism that corresponds in the natural organism to the circulation of the blood, not at all in the way I have described it in various lectures, but as he himself pictures it. He goes to the length of looking upon gold as blood circulating in the social organism and says: “Gold possesses the faculty of circulating independently of commodities, finally reaching the collecting centres represented by the great banks (Gold heart)”. Thus this scientist seeks a heart for his social organism and finds it in the collecting centres of the great banks, “which can exercise an overwhelming influence on the movements of both gold and commodities”.

Now I particularly stress that I have no intention of making fun of anything here. I want just to let you see how a man, who from this point of view has the courage to think things out to their logical conclusion, is actually obliged to think. If today many people deceive themselves about our having during the last three or four centuries brought evolution to the point of making this kind of thinking quite intelligible, then it is evident that these people are asleep in their souls, that they give themselves up to cultural narcotics which prevent their looking with wide awake souls at what is concealed in bourgeois culture. For this reason I have shown you a symptom that sheds light on this light bearer, sheds light on the elements of present-day culture, in so far as, out of the scientific method of thinking, this culture understands the social life. In a further examnple I want to show you how different a result we experience from what we meet within the spiritual sphere.

Among those belonging to the society just mentioned there is a man with a more spiritual bent, by name Friedrich Niebergall. Now this Friedrich Niebergall is quoted because his attitude towards certain things we consider of value is most sympathetic. But I should like to say here that what matters is the nature of the sympathetic attitude with which from such a side certain matters are approached. If we know this, and if we are not mere egoists but understand the great social impulses, perhaps we do not value this sympathetic attitude very highly; and it would be good if in these matters we were not to give ourselves up to illusion. We know, some of us at least could know, that what we carry on here and call spiritual science, or anthroposophy, we have for some time considered to be the true spiritual foundation of what today is on the ascent. Here, it is true, extremes meet; and I have always been forced to experience how some of those very people who participate in our anthroposophical endeavors turn to other movements they feel to be closely akin, but which differ from our endeavors in that they belong to the worst phenomena of the bourgeois decline, whereas spiritual science has from the first been strongly opposed to all that is behind this. So we find confused together in a certain Johannes Müller, who has no power of discriminating the different streams—like Niebergall for example—we find in this Johannes Müller a phenomenon showing just the characteristics of our decadent culture; and on the other hand (you know I do not say these things out of mere foolishness) you find mention of my name. It is true that all kinds of elegant things, most elegant things, are said about what I try to accomplish. You must, however, realise how in all that is put forward in anthroposophy my every effort is directed towards taxing man's understanding and fighting in a pronounced way against anything in the way of nebulous mysticism or so-called mystic theosophy. This could be done only by approaching the highest spheres of knowledge with clear insight, lucid ideas, which will be striven for when through natural science we have learnt, not the natural scientific outlook of today, but true thinking. After the gentleman in question has declared how fine much of anthroposophy is, he adds: “Round this basis of practical truth there then springs forth a confused medley of alleged knowledge concerning the life of the soul, of mankind and of the cosmos—as once was the case in the all-embracing gnostic systems offered out of the secret wisdom of the East to an age seeking in like manner inner depths and peace of soul.” It is not possible to say anything less to the point than this. For the fact that the author describes this as confused nonsense, a confused medley, rests solely on his lacking the will to adopt the mathematical method of our spiritual science. This is generally the case with those wishing to gain conceptions from a knowledge that is on the decline. The result of disciplining inner experience by mathematical method appears to this author therefore to be a confused medley. But this conf used medley that brings into the matter mathematical clarity, perhaps indeed mathematical dryness, is what is essential, for it preserves what is meant to be pursued here from all fantastic mysticism, all nebulous theosophy. Without this so-called confused medley there can be no real foundation for the future life of spirit. It is true that by reason of our social conditions there had to be a struggle to make it possible for spiritual science to be carried on in the very modest dimensions it has reached today. We had to struggle with what very often appears as a result of most people—who now have time, and nothing but time, for the affairs of spiritual science—still having those old habits of thinking and perceiving which are on the decline. Hence, we have to struggle so hard against what easily spreads in a circle such as ours, namely, sectarianism, which naturally is the very opposite of what is meant to be cultivated here, and against every kind of personal wrangling which, it goes without saying, leads to the systematic slandering that has flourished so exuberantly on the soil of this movement.

Now whoever studies the life of spirit today from symptoms such as these will soon come to the point of saying: What is particularly needed in the sphere of spiritual endeavour is a return to original sources. The clamor for a new form of social life is always heard at a time when people harbor the most widespread anti-social impulses and anti-social instincts. These anti-social impulses and instincts are particularly evident in people's private intercourse. They are to be seen in what men give or do not give—to each other. They are to be seen in the characteristic way people ignore the thoughts of others, talk others down, and finally pass them by. In our day the instinctive capacity really to understand the people we meet is extraordinarily rare. The following also is a disappearing phenomenon—the possibility of people nowadays being convinced of anything unconnected with their social status, education or birth. Today people have the most beautiful thoughts, but it is very difficult for them to be enthusiastic about anything. In thought they pass by all that is best, and this is a deeply rooted characteristic of our age. As consequence of this fact—you know that recently I have talked of logic based on fact as being important for the present time in contrast to mere logic of thought—as consequence of this a longing exists in men today to have recourse to authority and the pronouncements of feeling rather than by their own inner activity to work through to things. Those today who talk a great deal about freedom from authority are the very people who, at heart, believe in it most firmly and long to submit themselves to it. Thus we see, only it is generally unnoticed because most people are asleep, a rather questionable tendency among those who, without finding any way out of it, are involved in this cultural decline, namely the tendency to sink back into the bosom of the old Catholic Church. Were people to realise what lies in this tendency to return to the Catholic Church they would be much astonished. Under the present conditions, if this tendency were to increase, at no very distant date we should have to witness a mighty swing over to the bosom of the Catholic Church by masses of the people. Whoever is able to observe the special features of our present culture knows that this is threatening us.

Now whence does all this arise? Here I must draw your attention to an essential phenomenon of our present social life. The special feature of what in the last few centuries has increased to ever wider dimensions, and will increase further in those lands which will preserve their civilisations throughout the present chaos—this special feature is the technical coloring of the culture, the particular technical shade taken on by the culture of recent times. Were I to speak exhaustively on this subject, I should have to point in detail to all that now is referred to just in passing; and one day I shall do so. This technical culture has indeed one quite definite quality; this culture in its nature is through and through altruistic. In other words there is only one favourable way for technical accomplishments to be wide­spread, namely, when the men actively engaged in them in contrast to egoism, develop altruism. Technical culture makes it increasingly necessary—and those who are able to observe these things see the necessity on every fresh advance of technical culture—for work organised on a technical basis to be entirely free from egoism. In contrast to this there has developed at the same time what has had its origin in capitalism, which must not necessarily be linked to technical culture or remain so linked. Capitalism, when it is private capitalism, cannot work other than egoistically, for its very being consists in egoistic activity. Thus in recent times two streams meet in diametrical opposition to one another: modern technical life which calls upon men to be free from egoism, and, coming from the past, private capitalism, which can prosper only by the assertion of egoistic impulse. This is what has made its way into our present situation, and the only means of extricating ourselves is to have a life of spirit which has the courage to break away from the old traditions.

Now today there are many people concerned with the problems of future primary and secondary education, school education, and of professional training for human beings. Especially when we are studying the question of primary and secondary education we must say to these people: Well and good, but with the best will in the world, can you interest people at large in primary and secondary education if you do nothing to change present conditions of education and matters of the spirit? Have you the material for the work? What actually are you able to do? With your principles—perhaps socialistic in a good sense—you may be able to found schools for a great mass of the people and to found institutions for their higher education. You may organise everything of this kind to which your good will impels you. But have you the material really to organise for the benefit of the people what you want with good will to extend to them? You tell us that you found libraries, theatres, concert halls, exhibitions, lecture courses, and polytechnics. But the question must arise: What books do you have in your libraries? What kind of science is dealt with in your lectures? You place on your library shelves those very books which belong to the bourgeois culture that is on the decline; you hand over the scientific education in the polytechnics to men who are products of that bourgeois culture. You give the nature of education new forms, but into these new forms you cast what you have absorbed of the old. For instance you say: For a long time we have been trying to give primary and secondary education a democratic form; up to now the various states have been against this for they want to educate men to be good civil servants.—True you are opposed to this education of good civil servants; you allow the people to be educated by them, however, for up to now you have nothing else in mind but these civil servants whose books are on the shelves of your libraries, whose scientific method of thinking you propagate by means of your lectures and whose habits of thinking permeate your colleges.—You see from this that in these serious times the matter must be taken far more profoundly than it generally is today.

Now let us just look at certain details to have at least something clear before us. We will begin with what we may call primary and secondary education. Under this heading I include everything that can be given to the human being when he has outgrown the education to be acquired in his family, when to this must be added the education and instruction obtained at school. Those who know the nature of man are clear that school education should never be a factor in the evolution of the human being until approximately the change of teeth has taken place. This is just as much a scientific law as any other. Were people to be guided by the real nature of human beings instead of by mere dummies, they would make it a regulation that school instruction should not begin till after the change of teeth. But the important question is the principles upon which this school instruction of children is to be based. Here we must have in mind that whoever is able to bring his thoughts and efforts into harmony with the ascending cultural evolution can really do nothing today bµt recognise, as inherent in the principles holding good in school education and instruction, what lies in the nature of the human being himself. Knowledge of human nature from the change of teeth until puberty must underlie any principles in what we call primary and secondary education. From this, and from a great deal of the same nature, you will realise that, if we take this as our basis, the result will be the same education for everyone; for obviously the laws which hold good in human evolution between approximately the seventh and fifteenth years are the same for all human beings. The only question we need answer concerning education and instruction is: To what point have we to bring human beings by the time they reach their fifteenth year? This alone may be called thinking in terms of primary and secondary education. At the same time this alone is thinking in a modern way about the nature of instruction. The consequence of this today will be that we shall no longer ignore the necessity of making an absolute break w1th the old school system, that we shall have in all earnest to set to work on organising what, during the years specified, is to be given to children in accordance with the evolution of the growing human being. Then a certain basis will have to be created—something that , when social goodwill exists , will not be a nebulous idea for the future but something practical which can be immediately acted upon. The basis for this will have to be created in the first place by a complete change in the whole nature of examination and instruction of the teacher himself. When today the teacher is examined, this is often done merely to verify whether he knows something that, if he is at all clever and doesn't know it, he can read up in a text book. In the examination of teachers this can be entirely omitted, but with it will go the greater part of such examinations in their present form. In those that will take their place the object will be to discover whether the man, who has to do with the education and instruction of the developing human being, can establish with him a personally active and profitable relation; whether he is able to penetrate with his whole mentality—to use a word much in fashion—into the soul of the growing human being, into his very nature. Then the teacher will not just teach reading, arithmetic or drawing; he will be fit to become a real moulder of the developing human being.

Thereupon, from all future examinations, which will take a very different form from their present one, it will be easy to discover if the school staff are really creative in this sense. For this means that the teacher will know: I must help this pupil in some particular way if he is to learn to think; another in another way if he is to unfold his world of feeling.—For the world of feeling is intimately bound up with the world of memory, a thing few people know today, most modern professors .being the worst possible psychologists . The teacher must know what to give to his pupil if the will is to unfold in such a way that the seeds, sown between his seventh and fifteenth years, may bring about the strengthening of the will for the whole of his life. The cultivation of will is brought about when everything that has to do with practical physical exercises and artistic pursuits is adapted to the developing being. Whoever is a teacher of those who are in process of development will concentrate all his effort on enabling the human being to become man. In this way he will discover how to utilise all that is conventionally called human culture—speaking, reading and writing. All this can best be utilised in the years between seven and fifteen for the development of thinking. However strange it may seem, thinking is the most external thing in man, and it must be developed on wha tever establishes us in the social organism. Consider how the human being on coming into the world through birth lacks any propensity towards reading and writing and how these belong to his life as a member of a community. Thus, for the development of thinking we must, comparatively early, have good instruction in languages, naturally not in what was spoken formerly but in languages as used today by the civilised peoples with whom we have contact. This efficient teaching in languages would naturally not consist in teaching the grammatical anomalies as is done today in the grammar school; it must be started in the lowest classes and continued. It will be important too that teaching should be given in a conscious way to unfold the feeling and the memory bound up with it. Whereas everything relating to arithmetic and geography—of which children can absorb an extraordinary amount when it is given them rightly—stands between what has to do with thinking and what has to do with feeling, everything taken into the memory has more to do with pure feeling, for instance, the history that is taught, the myths and legends that are told. I can only touch on these things.

But it is also necessary in these first years to give particular attention to the cultivation of will. Here it is a matter of physical exercises and artistic training. Something entirely new will be needed for this in these early years. A beginning has been made in what we call eurythmy. Today we witness a great deal of physical culture that is decadent and belongs to the past; it pleases many people. In its place we shall put something that so far we have had occasion to show only to the employees of the Waldorf—Astoria factory through the sympathetic help of our good Herr Molt; we shall put what—if it is given to the growing human being instead of the present gymnastics—promotes culture in both body and soul. It can so develop the will that the effect remains throughout life, whereas cultivation of the will by any other means causes a weakening of it when vicissitudes and various experiences are met with in the course of life. In this sphere particularly, however, we shall have to go to work with common sense. In the way instruction is given, combinations will have to be made little dreamt of today; for instance drawing will go hand-in-hand with geography. It would be of the greatest importance for the growing pupil to have really intelligent lessons in drawing; during these lessons he would be led to draw the globe from various sides, to draw the mountains and rivers of the earth in their relation to one another, then to turn to astronomy and to draw the planetary system. It goes without saying that this would have to be introduced at the right age, not for the seven-year-olds but certainly before they reached fifteen, perhaps from the twelfth year onwards, when if done in the right way, it would work on growing youth very beneficially.

What in a didactic and pedagogical way I have just now been discussing concerning primary and secondary education will, in accordance with the logic of facts, have a quite definite consequence, namely that nothing will play a part in teaching that is not in one form or another retained for the whole of life. Today, as a rule, only what is included among the faculties plays its part rightly—what is done by learning to read is concentrated in the faculty of reading, what is done in learning to count is concentrated in the faculty of arithmetic. But just think how it is when we come to things having rather to do with feeling and memory. In this sphere children today learn a great deal only to forget it, only to be without it for the rest of life. In future, stress must be laid on this—that everything given to a child will remain with him for life.

We should then come to the question: What is to be done with the human being when having finished with the primary and secondary school he goes out into life? Here it is important that everything unsound in the old life of spirit should be overcome, that at least where education is concerned the terrible cleft made by class distinction should be abolished.

Now the Greeks, even the Romans, were able to devise for themselves an education that had its roots in their life, that was bound up with their way of life. In our time we have nothing which binds us in our most important years with our quite different mode off living. Many people, however, who later take up positions of authority, learn today what was learnt by the Greeks and Romans, and thus become divorced from life today; added to which this is spiritually the most uneconomical thing possible. Besides, we are today at a point in human evolution—if people only knew it—when it is quite unnecessary for preserving our relation to antiquity that we should be brought up in their ideas. What people in general need of the old has for a long time been incorporated in our culture, in such a way that we can absorb it without years of training in an atmosphere foreign to us. What we should imbibe of Greek and Roman culture can be improved upon, and this has also been the case; but that is a matter for scholars and has nothing to do with general social education. What is to be imbibed from antiquity for our general social education, however, has been brought to such a stage through the work of great minds in the past, and is so much in our midst, that if we rightly absorb what is there for us we have no need to learn Greek and Latin to deepen our knowledge of antiquity; it is not in the least essential and is no help at all for the important things in life. I recall how, to avoid misunderstandings, I found it necessary to say that, though Herr Wilamowitz is most certainly a Greek scholar of outstanding merit, he has nevertheless translated the Greek plays in a way that is really atrocious; but, of course, these translations have been acclaimed by both the press and scholars. Today we must learn to let people participate in life; and if we organise education so that people are able to participate in life, at the same time setting to work on education economically, you will find that we are really able to help human beings to a living culture. This, too, will enable anyone with a bent towards handicraft to take advantage of the education for life that begins about the fourteenth year. A possibility must be created for those who early show a bent towards handicraft or craftsman ship to be able to participate in what leads to a conception of life. In future, pupils who have not reached their twenty-first year should never be offered any knowledge that is the result of scientific research and comes from scientific specialisation. In our day, only what has been thoroughly worked out ought to have a place in instruction; then we can go to work in an out-and-out economic way. We must, however, have a clear concept of what is meant by economy in didactic and pedagogical matters. Above all we should not be lazy if we want to work in a way that is economic from the pedagogical point of view. I have often drawn your attention to something personally experienced by me. A boy of ten who was rather undeveloped was once given over into my charge, and through pedagogical economy I was enabled to let him absorb in two years what he had lacked up to his eleventh year, when he was still incapable of anything at all. This was possible only by taking into account both his bodily and his soul nature in such a way that instruction could proceed in the most economical way conceivable. This was often done by my spending three hours myself in preparation, so as in a half-hour or even in a quarter to give to the boy instruction that would otherwise have taken hours—this being necessary for his physical condition. If this is considered from the social point of view, people might say that I was obliged in this instance to give all the care to a single boy that might have been given to three others who would not have had to be treated in this way. But imagine we had a social educational system that was reasonable, it would then be possible for a whole collection of such pupils to be dealt with, for it makes no difference in this case whether we have to deal with one or fourteen boys. I should not complain about the number of pupils in the school, but this lack of complaint is connected with the principle of economy in instruction. It must be realised, however, that up to his fourteenth year the pupil has no judgment; and if judgment is asked of him this has a destructive effect on the brain. The modern calculating machine which gives judgment the place of memorising and calculating is a gross educational error; it destroys the human brain, makes it decadent. Human judgment can be cultivated only from and after the fourteenth year when those things requiring judgment must be introduced into the curriculum. Then all that is related, for example, to the grasping of reality through logic can be begun. When in future the carpenter or mechanic sits side-by-side in school or college with anyone studying to be a teacher, the result will certainly be a specialisation but at the same time one education for all; but included in this one education will be everything necessary for life. If this were not included matters would become socially worse than they are at present. All instruction must give knowledge that is necessary for life. During the ages from fifteen to twenty everything to do with agriculture, trade, industry, commerce will have to be learnt. No one should go through these years without acquiring some idea of what takes place in farming, commerce and industry. These subjects will be given a place as branches of knowledge infinitely more necessary than much of the rubbish which constitutes the present curriculum during these years. Then too during these years all those subjects will be introduced which I would call world affairs, historical and geographical subjects, everything concerned with nature knowledge—but all this in relation to the human being, so that man will learn to know man from his knowledge of the world as a whole.

Now among human beings who receive instruction of this kind will be those who, driven by social conditions to become workers in a spiritual sense, can be educated in every possible sphere at schools specially organised for such students. The institutions where people today are given professional training are run with a terrible lack of economy. I know that many people will not admit it but there is this lack of economy; above all validity is ascribed to the most curious conceptions belonging to the world-outlook that is on the decline. Even in my time I have experienced this—people have begun to press where it is a question in the universities of historical and literary subjects, for fewer lectures and more "seminars"; today we still hear it said that lectures should be given as little space as possible on the programme but seminars encouraged. One knows these seminars. Faithful followers of a university tutor gather together and learn strictly in accordance with the ideas of this tutor to work scientifically. They do their work under his coaching and the results of the coaching are forever visible. It is altogether another matter if a man, in the years when he should be learning a profession, goes of his own free will to a course of intelligent lectures, and then has the opportunity of embarking upon his own free exposition—though certainly this would be connected with what the lectures contained. Practical application can certainly be included in the programme but this exaggerated emphasis on seminars must be stopped. That is just an undesirable product of the second half of the nineteenth century, when the emphasis was on the drilling of human beings rather than on leaving them to develop freely.

Now when we are discussing this stage in education it must be said that a certain educational groundwork ought to be the same for everyone, whether he is destined to be a doctor, a lawyer or a teacher; that is one aspect of the matter; in addition to this, everyone must receive what contributes to the general culture of man, whether he is to become a doctor, a machine maker, architect, chemist or engineer; he must be given the opportunity of receiving general culture, whether he is to work with his hands or his head. Today little thought is given to this, though certainly in some places of higher education many things are better than they were. When I was at the Technical College in Vienna a Professor was giving lectures on general history. Each term he started to give his general history; after three or perhaps five lectures he ceased—there was no longer anyone there. Then, at this college, there was a Professor of history of literature . Thus there were the means to receive what was universally human besides specialised subjects. To these lectures on the history of literature, which included exercises in rhetoric and instruction on how to lecture, like those given, for example, by hand—to these lectures I always had to drag someone else, for they were held only if there was an audience of two. They could be kept going, therefore, only by a second being dragged in, and this was someone different practically every time. Except for this, the only attempt to provide students with the information they needed about conditions in life was by lectures on constitutional law or statistics. As I said, these things have improved; what has not improved is the driving force that should exist in our whole social life. This will improve, however, when there is a possibility for all that constitutes the universally human not to be made intelligible only to those with a definite professional view but intelligible from a universally human aspect. I have often been surprised how distorted my lectures on anthroposophy have been by my audience; for if they had taken them in a positive way they could have said: we won't bother about the anthroposophy in these lectures, but what is said about natural science, which receives great praise when coming from the ordinary natural philosopher—that is enough for us. For as you all know these lectures are always interspersed with general information about nature. But there are many people who are not interested in taking things from a positive angle, preferring to distort what they have no wish to accept. What they refused to accept, by the very way in which the thoughts were formed, by the whole mode of treatment, as well as the necessary interspersing of natural science, could be taken as contributing to universal human knowledge, which the manual worker could receive just as well as the scholar, and which was also generally intelligible as natural science. Just consider other endeavors towards a world-outlook. Do you imagine that in monistic gatherings, for instance, people can understand anything if they have not a scientific background? No, and if they have not, they merely gossip. What here we pursue as anthroposophy is something that can change all knowledge of nature, and even of history, so that everyone will be able to understand them. Just think how intelligible to everyone what I have shown to be a great leap historically in the middle of the fifteenth century can be. That, I think, is intelligible to everyone. But it is the groundwork without which there can be no understanding at all of the whole social movement in our time. This social movement is not understood because people do not know how mankind has developed since the middle of the fifteenth century. When these things are mentioned people come forward and declare: Nature does not make leaps, so you are wrong to assume there was such a thing in the fifteenth century. This foolish proposition that nature never makes a leap is always being harped upon. Nature continually makes leaps; it is a leap from the green leaf of a plant to the sepal which has a different form—another leap from sepal to petal. It is so too in the evolution of man's life. Whoever does not teach the history that rests on senseless conventional untruth, but on what has really happened, knows that in the fifteenth century men became different in the finer element of their constitution from what they were before, and that what is brought about today is the development of what they have grasped in the centre of their being. If there is a desire to understand the present social movement, laws of this kind in historical evolution will have to be recognised. You have only to call to mind the way in which matters here are dealt with and you will say: To understand all this no special knowledge is necessary; there is no need to be a man of culture; everyone can understand it. This indeed will be what is demanded in the future—that no philosophies or world-conceptions should be propagated which can be understood only by reason of a form of education belonging to a certain class. Take up any philosophical work today, for example, by Eucken or Paulsen, or anyone else you want information about, take up one of those dreadful works on psychology by university professors—you will soon drop it again; for those who are not specially trained in the particular subject do not understand the language used. This is something that can be set right only by universal education, when the whole nature of education and instruction will be absolutely changed in the way I have tried to indicate today.

You see, therefore, that in this sphere too we can say: here we have a big settling-up—not a small one. What is necessary is the development of social impulses or, rather, social intincts, through instruction, through education, so that people do not pass by one another. Then they will understand each other so that a practical living relation is develcped—for nowadays the teacher passes his pupil by, the pupil passes his teacher. This can happen only if we run our pen through what is old—which can be done. The facts of the case do not prevent this; it all goes back to human prejudice. People cannot believe that things can be done in a new way; they are terrified that their life of spirit may lose what was of value in the old way. You have no idea how anxious they are on this score. Naturally they are unable to take all this in; for instance they cannot see all the possibilities created by having an instruction that is economical. I have often told you that provided this is done at the right age it is possible from the beginning of geometry—the straight line and the angle—up to what used to be called the pons a sinorum, the Pythagorean theorem. And on my attempting this you should have seen the joy of the youngsters when, after three or four hours work, the theorem of Pythagoras dawned upon them. Only think what a lot of rubbish has to be gone through today before young people arrive at this theorem. What matters is the enormous amount of mental work wasted, which has its effects in later life; it sends its rays into the whole of life, right into its most practical spheres. Today it is necessary for people to come to a decision in these matters—fundamentally to re-organise their way of thinking. Otherwise—well, otherwise we simply sink deeper into decline and never find the path upwards.

It was certainly out of a profound understanding of the world in general but above all out of a deep feeling for art, that Goethe coined the words: “The man to whom nature begins to reveal her open secret feels an irresistible longing for her worthiest exponent—art.” Without sacrificing any of the spirit in Goethe's words we may perhaps complete what he said by adding: “The man to whom art begins to reveal her secret feels an almost invincible antipathy towards her least worthy exponent, the science of aesthetics.” That science is not what I wish to dwell upon today. It seems to me not only true to the spirit of Goethe's words but wholly in sympathy with it if we speak of art and the experiences we can have, and may frequently have had, in connection with art, in the way we like to relate those we had, or still have, with a trusty friend.

When human evolution is in question we speak of “original sin”. Today I don't want to enlarge upon whether the shadow-side of man's life—important as that side is—can be exhausted if we speak of original sin in the singular. But it seems to me that in connection with a perceptive feeling for art and the creations of art it is necessary to speak of two original sins. Certainly one of these is the copying, the reproduction of the physical, that is, of what belongs purely to the world of the senses. The other seems to me to be the wish to express, represent or reveal, through art, the super-physical,. But it becomes very difficult to approach art either perceptively or creatively if both physical and super-physical are rejected. Yet the following seems to me to be in keeping with a sound human feeling: Anyone wishing in art for the physical alone can hardly get beyond a refined form of illustration, imitation which may indeed be raised to the level of art but can never become true art. And it can well be said that it reflects a life of soul run wild when anyone is willing to be satisfied by the merely illustrative element, of copying the physical or what is given in any other way by the sense world alone. It is due, however, to a kind of possession—possession by one's own understanding and reason—when there is a desire for the embodiment of an idea, for the artistic embodiment of what is purely spiritual. Interpreting a world-conception poetically, or through pictorial art, is not compatible with cultured taste; rather does it correspond to a state of barbarism in man's life of feeling Art itself, however, is deeply rooted in life; were this not sort through the whole way in which it arises it would have no justification for existence. For in face of a purely realistic world-conception art must exhibit all manner of unreality and into it must play many of the illusions of life. It is precisely because art is obliged to introduce into life what for a certain understanding is unreal, that, in some way or other, its roots must go deep down into life.

Now it may be said that from a certain boundary of perceptive feeling—from a lower boundary up to one that is higher, which in many people has to be first developed—artistic feeling in life makes its appearance everywhere. Even if not in the form of art itself this feeling arises when, in the ordinary physical existence met with in the world of the senses, what is super-physical and occult somehow makes its presence known. It arises within the super-physical, the result of pure thought, what is feelingly perceived and experienced in spirit—not by means of empty symbols or lifeless allegories but as if it would itself take on life in a physical form—lights up in a form that is perceptible to the senses. That what is ordinarily physical in everyday life has within it the super- physical, as if conjured there by magic—this is perceived by everyone who confines his mood of soul within the two boundaries mentioned.

We can certainly say this: If I am invited by anyone into a room with red walls, I take something for granted about the red walls which has to do with artistic perception. When I am taken into a red room and am face to face with the man who invited me there, I shall have the quite natural feeling that he is about to tell me all kinds of interesting things. If he does not do so I shall feel that my being invited into the red room had something insincere about it and I shall go away dissatisfied. If anyone receives me in a blue room and by his chattering stops me from getting a word in edgeways, the whole situation will make me uncomfortable and I shall complain that in the very colour of his room the man has been lying to me. One is constantly coming across such things in life. On meeting a woman in a red dress we shall feel that she rings untrue if she seems shy; and a woman with curly hair will appear genuine only if rather pert and if she is not pert we shall feel disappointed. It goes without saying that things need not be like that in in life; it is right that life should lead us away from such illusions. But there is a certain limited sphere in our mood of soul in which our feelings tend in this direction.

Naturally, too, these things are not to be taken as universal laws; they may be differently perceived by many people. The fact remains, however, that everyone in life, when confronting the external things of the sense-world, has a feeling that they contain, enchanted within them, what is spiritual—a spiritual situation, a spiritual attitude, a spiritual mood.

It may really appear as if what is seen here to be a demand of our soul, and which so often in our existence affords us bitter disappointment, must call for a special sphere of life to be created for the satisfaction of these particular needs. This special sphere seems to me that of art. Art fashions out of the rest of life precisely what satisfies the tendency lying within the limits of perception mentioned above.

Now it may be that we can fully realise what is experienced in art only by investigating more deeply the processes taking place in the soul, either in artistic creation or in the enjoyment of art. For we need only to have lived a little with art, we need only have made some attempt to get on intimate term with it, to find that the soul-processes in the artist and the lover of art we are about to describe are in a certain sense inverted yet in reality the same. What I am wanting to describe is experienced in advance by the artist; he experiences to begin with a certain process of the soul which then resolves itself into another process; whereas the man who just enjoys works of art experiences first the second process I refer to, and only afterwards the one from which the artist makes his start. Now it seems to me that the difficulty in approaching art psychologically lies in people not going deeply enough into the human soul to grasp what actually evokes the need for art. Perhaps ours is the first age fitted for giving clearer expression to this artistic need. For whatever we may think about a great many of the trends in the art of recent times, whatever we may think about impressionism, expressionism, and so on—the discussion of which often springs from a source that has nothing to do with art—whatever we may think about all this, one thing cannot be denied. We cannot deny that since these trends have prevailed, artistic perceptions, artistic life, out of certain regions of the soul far down in the subconscious and formerly not drawn from thence, have now been brought more to the surface of consciousness. Today there is of necessity more interest in the artistic and art-appreciating processes of man's soul—promoted by all the talk about things such as impressionism and expressionism—than was the case earlier, when the artistic concepts of the scholar were very far from what was actually living in art. In recent times, where the study of art is concerned, concepts, conceptions, have arisen which in a certain respect—at least in comparison with former days—come very near the creations of present-day art.

The life of the soul is really infinitely more profound than is generally supposed. Few people have any idea that, subconsciously and unconsciously, the human being has in the depths of his soul a number of experiences seldom spoken of in ordinary life We have to go deeper down into this life of the soul to discover the mood lying between those two boundaries. Our life of soul swings, as it were, between the various conditions, which all more or less represent two different types. On the one hand there is in man's soul something that seems to surge freely from its depths, something that often torments it, though quite unconsciously. It is something that, when the soul is especially susceptible to the mood mentioned, has a constant urge to discharge itself into consciousness as vision—though this should not take place in the case of a soundly-constituted human being. Our life of soul, when it has a tendency to this mood, is always striving, far more than we recognise, to transform itself in the sense of this vision. A healthy life of soul consists simply in confining the wish for visions to the striving for them, so that they may never actually arise.

This striving after the vision, which in reality exists in the soul of each of us, can be satisfied if we confront the soul with an external impression, an external form—for example, a work of sculpture—containing what is striving to arise but should not succeed in doing so when the soul is sound: the morbid vision. This work of art then, this outer form of what is thus striving to arise, will confine in a beneficial way to the depths of the soul what is actually wanting to become vision. We offer the soul, as it were from outside, the content of the vision, but we offer it a real work of art only if we are able out of our legitimate striving for the vision to divine what form, what plastic impression, we have to offer the soul to compensate for its longing after the visionary. I believe that many of the modern ways of approach which meet us in what is called expressionism get near this truth, and that explanations of them show a groping after what I have just been saying. People do not go far enough, however; they do not look sufficiently deeply into the soul, nor do they come to know that irresistible desire for that is visionary which is actually In the souls of us all. This is however, only the one side, and on becoming familiar with artistic creation and the appreciation of art, we can very well see how there is a source of artistic work which reflects this need of man's soul.

But there is another source of art. The source of which I have just been talking lies in a certain constitution of the human soul, in its desire to have what is visionary as a spontaneous conception. The other source lies in this—that secrets magically conjured within nature herself can be discovered only by allowing oneself, not to make scientific assumptions which are not needed, but to perceive what these deep mysteries really are in the nature that surrounds us.

These deep mysteries in nature around us, when spoken of, may perhaps appear very strange to the consciousness of present-day people. Yet there is something that precisely from our time onwards will make the kind of kind of mysteries to which I refer more and more recognized by the general public. There is in nature something which is not just the growing, sprouting life that delights the healthy souls in nature, there is also what we call death, destruction, what is constantly destroying and overcoming one life by another. Whoever is able to perceive this will also find—to make this excellent example—when confronting the human figure that this figure in its outer realisation in life, is all the time being killed by a higher kind of life. It is the secret of all life that there is ceaseless extermination of lower life by one that is higher. The human form, permeated as it is by the human soul, the human life, is continuously being killed, overcome, by this human life, this human soul. This happens in such a way that the human form may be said to bear something within it which, if left to its own life, would be quite different. It cannot pursue its own life, however, because within it a higher life, a life of another kind, is always deadening it.

On approaching the human form the sculptor, if only unconsciously, discovers this secret through his perception. He finds that this human form is wishing for something that does not come to expression in the human being but is killed by a higher life, the life of the soul. The sculptor conjures forth from the human form what is not existing in the actual man, something missing in the actual man hidden by nature. Goethe perceived something of this kind when he spoke of “open secrets”. We can go further and say: This secret is underlying the wide realms of nature everywhere. Strictly speaking no colour, no line, appear in nature without something lower being overcome by what is higher. The reverse can also be true; the higher can be overcome by the lower. It is always possible, however, to break the spell and to re-discover what has thus actually been overcome—and this is what constitutes artistic creation.

If , on reaching what has been overcome and then freed from enchantment, we know how to experience it in the right way, it becomes artistic perception.

About this same artistic perception I should like to say something more precise.

A great deal in Goethe's work still has to be brought to light, and that often contains truths very important from the point of view of man. Take Goethe's theory of metamorphosis which starts out with how, for example, the petals in a plant are merely transformed leaves, and which is then extended to all forms in nature. When once what lies in this theory is brought fully to light by a more comprehensive development of natural science than was possible in Goethe's day, when through an all-embracing perception nature has been unveiled, Goethe's theory of metamorphosis will be capable of fuller life and of far wider application. I may say that the understanding of this theory of his is still very limited; it is capable of wide extension.

If we keep to the human figure the following may be said by way of illustration: Whoever studies the human skeleton finds, even when studying it quite superficially, that this human skeleton consists of two definite members; this might be carried further but would lead us too far afield for today. The skeleton consists firstly of the head, which to a certain extent merely rests on the remaining skeleton, and secondly of that remaining skeleton. Anyone sensitive to the metamorphosis of form, anyone. who can see how one form passes over into another—in the sense Goethe meant when he said the green leaf passes over into the colourful petal—will be able, on extending this mode of observation, to see that the human head is a whole, the rest of the organism another whole, and that one is the metamorphosis of the other, In a mysterious way the whole of the rest of man may be said—when suitably perceived—to be capable of transformation into a human head. And the human head is something which in a rounded and more developed form contains the entire human organism,. The remarkable thing is, however, that when we are capable of perceiving this when inwardly we are able really to transform the human head into the appearance of man himself, the result in both cases is something quite different, In the one case, when the head is transformed into the whole organism, something appears which shows man as a kind of ossified being, contracted, narrowed, driven throughout. into a sclerotic condition. If we let the rest of the organism work upon us so that it becomes head, we get something in appearance very unlike an ordinary man but reminding us of one only in the forms of the head, Something appears that in its growth shows no tendency to form the bony structure of the shoulder-blades, but aims at becoming wings, at spreading indeed above the shoulders, and from the wings. developing upwards over the head to appear like a kind of hood that is trying to seize hold of the head in such a way that what in the human form constitutes the ear is spread out and joined up with the wings, In short, there appears a kind of spirit-form and this spirit-form rests enhanced within the human form. This it is which, if we develop further the perception of what Goethe foreshadowed in his theory of metamorphosis, throws light into the mysteries of human nature. From this example we can see how nature in all her various spheres has the characteristic of striving—not abstractly but visibly, concretely—to be something absolutely different from what is presented to our senses. When our perceiving is thorough, nowhere do we have the feeling that any form, anything at all in nature lacks the possibility of developing beyond what it is into something quite different. Such an example as this shows particularly well how in nature one life is constantly being overcome, and even killed, by a higher life.

We do not bring to visible expression what is thus perceived as a double man, as this twofold quality in man's growth, only because something higher, something superphysical, so unites these two sides of the human being, so balances them, that we have the ordinary human form, The reason why nature—not now in an outward, spatial way but inwardly and more intensively—seems to us so magical, so mysterious, is because in each of her works she is wanting to offer us more, infinitely mores than she can, and because she puts together her several parts, all that she organises, in such a way that a higher life swallows up the life inferior to it, allowing it only partial development. Whoever directs his perception to this, will everywhere find that this open secret, this magical quality running through the whole of nature is—like the inward striving after the vision, but here working from outside—what stir a man up to take his stand somewhere beyond nature, to choose something special out of the whole, and from there to let shine forth what nature is seeking to do in one of her works—what can become a whole but has not become so in nature herself.

Perhaps I may mention here that in the Anthroposophical Society's building at Dornach, near Basle, an attempt has been made to realise in plastic form all that has just been indicated. We have tried to make a sculptural group in wood to represent what may be called the typical man; but this group represents the typical man in such a way that what otherwise is only tendency, and held in check by higher life, first comes to expression in the whole form only in gesture which is then brought back into a state of rest. The endeavour has been made plastically to awaken this gesture which in the ordinary human being is kept under—not the gesture made by the soul but the one that is killed before it leaves the soul, the one held under by the life of the soul—and then to bring it to rest again. Thus it has been sought first to set the resting surface of the human organism in movement through gesture and then to return it to a state of repose. Through this one came quite naturally to see that something had to be given greater prominence. This something, a potentiality in every man but obviously held under by the higher life, is the asymmetry existing in us all—no-one's right and left sides being formed alike. But when this has been given greater prominence and what is held together in a higher life has been set free, then with a slightly humorous touch it has to be united with another, higher stage; then it is necessary for what approaches us in a natural way from outside to become reconciled. It becomes necessary to atone artistically for the offence against naturalism—for this stressing of asymmetry and for this translating into gesture of various things which have then to be brought to rest again. This inner offence had to be atoned for by our showing, on the other hand, the overcoming brought about when, through metamorphosis, the human head passes over into the sombre, constricted form which, in its turn, is overcome by the representative of man. This form is at the feet of the representative of man and thus can be felt as member, as part of him. The other form we had to create in addition expresses what feeling demands when not the head but the rest of the human form becomes powerful—as indeed it is in life though held in check by higher life—when all that generally remains in a stunted state is too prolific in its growth; what, for example, is characteristic in the shoulder-blades, what unconsciously is in a man's very formation, in him as a certain Luciferic element, an element that strives to get outside man's essential being. If all that lies in the human form, as arising from impulses and desires, takes actual shape—whereas otherwise it is overrun by a higher life, by the life of the understanding, the life of the reason, which develops and comes to realisation in the human head—then this makes it possible for us to free nature from enchantment, to capture from nature its open secret, by ourselves separating again the parts which nature killed by making them into a whole. Thus the onlooker is obliged in his heart to bring about what nature has already done before him. Nature has done all this, she has brought harmony to man in such a way that his various single members are combined in a harmonious whole. By setting free what has been enchanted into nature, we at the same time break nature up into her super-physical forces. Then there is no need to seek through dry allegory, nor in a way that is intellectual and without artistic feeling, for any idea, anything thought out, anything purely superphysical and spiritual, behind the objects of nature. One just asks nature quite simply: How would you develop in your various parts were your growth undisturbed by a higher life? We come to the rescue of something superphysical that has been held in the physical by enchantment and free it from the physical bonds that held it spellbound. We actually come to be naturalistic in a supernatural way.

I believe that in all the various tendencies and endeavours of recent times, still very much in an elementary stage, which call themselves impressionism, I believe we may perceive in all these the longing of our time really to discover and give shape to secrets of this kind, to this kind of physical-superphysical. For a feeling is abroad that what is actually accomplished in art—in artistic creation and in the appreciation of art—must today be raised into fuller consciousness than has been the case in former epochs. What is accomplished, namely, that a suppressed vision is appeased or that nature is confronted by something which repeats her process—this has always been striven for. Actually these are the two sources of all art.

But let us go back to the time of Raphael. In his time the striving naturally took a different form from that of our day, of, for example, Cézanne or Hodler. What in art is represented by these two streams, however, has always been aimed at, though more or less unconsciously. But in former times it would have been looked upon as very primitive had the artist himself been unaware that in his soul something approaches nature, of a spiritual though unconscious kind, which when the artist seeks it in the physical-superphysical removes the spell from what has been enchanted into nature. Thus if we stand before one of Raphael's works we always have the feeling—if we are willing to attempt the interpretation of what otherwise remains in the obscurity of the subconscious without occasion for expression—the feeling that in this work of art we come to an understanding with something, and also indirectly with Raphael himself.

About all this we may have the feeling (as I said, there is no occasion to speak of it even in our own soul) that we have been together with Raphael in a former life on earth, when we learned from him many things that have entered deeply into our soul, and that this centuries-old connection with the soul of Raphael had become entirely subconscious—suddenly, however, springing into life again as we stand in front of his works. We believe we are face to face with something that took place long ago between our soul and that of Raphael.

From the artist of more recent times we get no such feeling, The modern artist leads one spiritually, as it were, into his studio; what there takes place comes very near to the level of consciousness and belongs to the immediate present. Because this longing, this need of the age, prevails, the rising conception that is actually a suppressed vision, seeks in our time satisfaction through art. On the other hand there meets us, though today in a rather elementary form, a breaking- up of what is otherwise union—an imitation of nature's own process.

What infinite significance everything gains that recent painters have attempted in order to study the various colours, to study the light in its variety of shades, and to discover how, ultimately, every effect of light, every shade of colour, aims at becoming more than it can be when forced into a whole where it is killed by a higher life. What have they not attempted in order that, starting from a feeing of this kind, light should be awakened to life, treated in such a way as to set free what, when the light has to serve in bringing about the ordinary processes and happenings in nature, remains enchanted within light. We are only at the very beginnings of all this. From these beginnings, which today are the expression of a legitimate longing, it will probably be possible, however, to experience that something in the realm of art becomes a secret—a secret which is then revealed. When put into words this sounds rather trite but many things that sound so hide secrets; we have to draw near these secrets, especially to perception of them. What I am meaning here answers the question: Why is it impossible to portray fire and air? It is quite clear that in reality fire cannot be painted. No one could have the true perception of the painter who would want to paint the glittering, glowing life that is only to be held fast by the light. It should never enter the head of anyone to want to paint lightning—still less to paint the air!

On the other hand we have to admit that everything contained in light conceals within it what is striving to become like fire, striving to develop in such a way that it says something, gives an impression of something welling up out of the light, out of each single shade of colour—just as human speech wells up from the human organism. Every effect of light wants to tell us something, every effect of light has something to say to some other effect of light nearby. In every effect of light there is a life which is overcome, deadened, by higher conditions. If our perception takes this path we discover what the colour feels, what the colour is saying, and what is being striven for in this age of “plain air” panting. If we discover the secret of colour this perception is widened and we find that, strictly speaking, what I have just been saying is perfectly valid; but not in the same way for all colours because the colours say very different things. Whereas the bright colours, the reds and the yellows, attack us and tell us a great deal, the blue colours take the picture more into the realm of form. Through blue indeed we enter form, enter essentially into the form-creating soul. We have been on the road to such discoveries but often we have stopped short halfway. Many of Signac's pictures seem so little satisfying—though in another respect they can give much satisfaction—because blue is always treated in the same way as, let us say, yellow or red, without any recognition that a patch of blue when next to yellow expresses something quite different in value from yellow beside red. This appears rather trivial to anyone with a feeling for colour, yet in a deeper sense people are only just beginning to discover such secrets. Blue, violet, are colours which take the picture right out of the realm of the expressive into that of the inner perspective. It is quite conceivable that, solely by the use of blue in a picture by the side of the other colours, one can produce a wonderfully intensive perspective without the aid of any drawing. It is possible to go further in this direction. We come then to recognise that a design might be called the work of colour itself., When anyone succeeds in putting movement into his use of colour so that, in a mysterious way, the design follows the guidance of the colour, he will notice that this is particularly the case with blue. It is less so with yellow and red for it is not in their nature to be led in that way to inner movement, to move from one point to another. If we want to have a form inwardly in movement—in flight, for instance—a form which by reason of its inner movement at one time becomes small inwardly, at another big, a form moving in fact within itself, then without having recourse to any rational principle or any, never justifiable, intellectual aesthetics, but proceeding from a quite elementary feeling, we shall find ourselves absolutely obliged to use and bring into movement various shades of blue. We shall notice that in reality a line is able to come into being, the design able to make its appearance, definite form to arise, only when we continue what we began when setting the blue colour into movement. For every time we pass from the realm of painting, of working in colour, to that of outline of form, we carry the physical over into what is essentially superphysical. Passing from the bright colours through the blue and from there somehow inwardly into the picture, we shall have in the bright colours the transition to a physical-superphysical, which may be said to contain a slight superphysical tone: this is because colour always has something to say, because colour has soul that is always superphysical. We shall then find that the further we go into the realm of drawing the more we enter the abstract superphysical, which, however, because it makes its appearance in the physical must take to itself physical form.

Today I can give you only an indication of these things. It is clear, however, that this is the way to understand how in one particular sphere the colour, the sketch, can be so used in creative art that in its application is everything of which I said it is held under the spell of nature, and from this spell we free the super-physical, which is hidden in the physical and deadened by a higher life.

How, if we look at plastic art we shall find that here both for plane surfaces and lines, there are always two interpretations only one of which, however, I shall be speaking about. To begin with, right feeling will not suffer the plastic surface to remain what it is, for example in the ordinary human form; there it is killed by the human soul, by the life of the human being, thus by what is higher. When we have first drawn out, spiritually, the life of the soul in the human form, we have then to seek the life of the surface itself, the soul of the soul of the form itself. We see how this is to be found if we do not bend the surface once only but a second time as well, so that we get a double curve. We notice how in this way we can make the form speak, how, deep in our subconscious, as opposed to what I have shown to be more an analysing tendency, there is also a tendency that is synthetic. The physical nature falls into what is genuinely physical-superphysical, which is overcome only by the higher stages of life. Inside those barriers of the soul of which we have spoken, we have as instinctive urge to free nature from enchantment in this way, in order to see how the physical-superphysical lies hidden in nature in as many different forms as, shall we say, crystals in their rock bed, which because they are in that rocky bed have their surfaces worn down. But a man has within him, often very decidedly so, just when in his subconscious this cleavage, this analysing, this breaking down of nature into the physical-superphysical is very pronounced—he has within him the faculty that may be called aesthetic synthesis, a tendency to synthesize in art.

The strange thing is that anyone with a capacity for rightly observing his fellow men will discover how they always use one of their senses in a very one-sided way. When with the eye we see colours, forms, effects of light, we are giving the eye a most one-sided development. In the eye there is always something resembling the sense of touch; the eye while looking is, at the same time, always feeling. In ordinary life this is suppressed. Because the eye is given this one-sided trend, however, if we are able to perceive such things, we still find the urge in us to experience what is thus suppressed, namely, what the eye develops as a sense of feeling, a sense of self, a sense of movement when we move through space and feel the motion of our limbs. What in the eye is thus suppressed of the other senses, we feel—although it remains quiescent—to be aroused by looking at the other man, What is thus aroused by what we see, what, however, is suppressed by the one-sided trend of the eye, it is this that is given form by the sculptor.

The sculptor actually models forms which the eye indeed sees but sees so dimly that this dim vision remains in the subconscious. The sculptor makes use of that point where the sense of touch is just passing over into the sense of sight. Therefore he must, or will anyway try to, reduce the quiescent form, which to the one-sided eye is only an object, to reduce this form to gesture that is always inciting imitation of itself, and then to bring back this gesture, that has been thus conjured up, into a state of rest. In reality what in one direction has been aroused and in another direction brought again to rest, what when we create or enjoy artistic work is active in us as a process of the soul, is always, from one aspect, like a man's in-breathing and out-breathing in ordinary life. This process drawn up from the human soul has, at times, a grotesque effect, although on the other hand it promotes a feeling of the vastness, the endlessness, of all that has been enchanted into nature. The development of art—we see this in certain attempts made in recent decades and especially in those of today—moves altogether towards penetrating these secrets and more or, less unconsciously putting such things into form. There is no need to talk much about them; they will increasingly find expression through art.

We shall perceive, for example, the following. In the case of certain artists it can indeed be said that more or less consciously or unconsciously they have perceived something of this kind—we understand the recently-deceased Gustave Klimt, for instance, particularly well if we allow such assumptions to hold good for his perceptions and his reason. Some day the following will be perceived. Let us suppose someone were to feel the desire to paint a pretty woman. There must then take shape in his soul some kind of image of her. Anyone, however, who is sensitive can perceive that, the moment he has made this fixed image of her, he has inwardly, spiritually, super-physically deprived her of life. The very moment we decide to paint a portrait of a pretty woman we have spiritually given her over to death, we have taken something away from her. Otherwise, we could look at the woman as she is in life, we would not give shape in our picture to what it is possible to present there artistically. For artistically we have first to kill the woman; then we must be able to bring to bear that light touch of humour in order inwardly to call her back to life.

Now anyone with a naturalistic approach cannot do this; naturalistic art suffers from the inability to adopt this lighter touch. Naturalistic art therefore offers us a great deal that has no life, that kills all that is higher in nature; and it lacks that light touch needed for giving renewed life to what in the first place it has to kill. In the case of many charming women it appears indeed as if they had not only been secretly killed but maltreated beforehand. This deadening process always moves in one direction and is connected with the necessity for creating anew that which, on a higher level of life, overcomes in nature what is striving for existence There is always first a deadening, then through this lighter mood a giving of fresh life. This process must take place both in the soul of the creative artist and in that of the art-lover, Anyone wishing to paint some cheery young mountain-peasant has no need to make a faithful copy of what he sees; he must above all be clear that his artistic conception has killed the young peasant or anyway benumbed him and that he must awaken fresh life in this stiff image by fashioning him in a way that brings him into new connection with the rest of nature. This was attempted by Hodler and. is entirely in sympathy with what artists are longing for today,

These two sources of art can be said to represent very deep needs, subconscious needs, of the human soul. The satisfying of what would become actual vision, but is not permitted to do so in a man of a sound nature, this always develops more or less into the form of art called expressionism—though the name is not of importance. What is created with the purpose of re-uniting what in some form has been broken up onto its physical-superphysical constituents, or has been deprived of its immediate physical life, will lead to impressionism. These two needs of the human soul have ever been the source of art; and by reason of man's general development in recent times, the first of these needs has taken the expressionistic path , the second the impressionistic. In all probability as we hasten towards the future this will increase very much. If our perception is extended, and not just our intellectual consciousness, the art of the future will be perceived as the intensifying particularly of these two trends. These two trends—and this must be constantly emphasized if we are to avoid certain misconceptions—do not represent anything in the least unsound. Men will fall into an unsound condition if, between those two boundaries, the healthy, primitive and natural pull towards the visionary is not satisfied through artistic expression. Or they will do so when what is always going on in the subconscious, namely, the breaking down of nature into what is physical-superphysical in her is not, through the true touch of artistic humour, constantly permeated by a higher life so that they are enabled to recreate in their artistic work what is creatively brought to expression by nature.

I firmly believe that the processes of art lie in many respects extremely deep in the subconscious, yet in certain circumstances it can be important for life to have living, telling conceptions of the artistic process such as have an effect upon the soul that no weak conceptions can exercise, conceptions which flow actually into the feeling. When in accordance with feeling these two sources of art hold sway in the human soul, we shall certainly realise out of what sound perception Goethe spoke when at a certain moment of life (such things always savour of one-sidedness) he felt the pure, genuine, artistic nature of music: “Therefore music represents what is supreme in art, because it has no possibility of imitating anything in nature, being in its own element both content and form.” (As I said, this is one-sided, for every art can reach these heights; but characterizations are always one-sided.) Every art, however, in its inherent element becomes its own content and form, when it does not wrest nature's secrets from her by subtle reasoning but discovers in the way indicated today, the physical-superphysical. I believe that in the soul there often takes place a quite secret process when we become aware of the physical-superphysical in nature. It was Goethe himself who coined the expression “physical-superphysical”; and in spite of his having called the secret “open” it can be discovered only when subconscious forces of the soul are able to sink themselves deeply into nature.

What is visionary comes into being in the soul because the superphysical experience is pressing to discharge itself, is surging up out of the soul. The outward experience that is spiritual experience, not through vision—which in spiritual science is purified till it becomes Imagination—but through Intuition. Through the vision we place what is within us to a certain degree outside, so that the inner becomes in us the outer. In Intuition we go outside ourselves—step out into the world. This stepping out, however, remains an unreality as long as we are unable to set free what is spell-bound in nature and is always wishing to overcome nature by a higher life. If we made our way into what belongs to nature when this is freed from enchantment, we then live in Intuitions. In so far as these Intuitions prevail in art, they are indeed connected with intimate experiences possible for the soul when, outside itself, it is united with external things. This is why Goethe, out of his actual, highly impressionistic art, could say to a friend: “I will tell you something that can explain people's attitude to my work. It can be really understood only by those who have had the same kind of experience as myself, those who have been in a similar situation.” Goethe already possessed this artistic perception. This is apparent poetically in the second part of his Faust, which up to now has met with but little understanding. He was able artistically to perceive that the physical-superphysical is to be sought in the recognition of how each part of nature is striving beyond itself to become a whole, through metamorphosis to become something different; it comprises with this something different, a new product of nature but is then killed by a higher life.

When we thus penetrate into nature we come to true reality in a much higher sense than ordinary consciousness believes. What we here come to is the most conclusive proof that art has no need either to make merely a faithful copy of the physical or to bring to expression the superphysical, the spiritual, alone That would mean erring in two directions, But what art can shape, can express, is the physical in the superphysical, the superphysical in the physical. It is perhaps just this that constitutes man's naturalism in the truest sense of the term—that he recognises the physical-superphysical and can grasp it precisely through his being at the same time a super-naturalist. Thus, real artistic experiences can, I believe, be developed in the soul in such a way that they arouse understanding of art, appreciation of art, and that a man is enabled indeed to train himself to a certain extent to live in art as an artist. In any case a profound study of this kind of the physical-superphysical, and its realisation through art, will make Goethe"s words comprehensible—words arising out of deep perception and wide understanding of the world, words with which I began this lecture and now bring it to a close. These words will give a comprehensive picture of man's relation to art when once we are able to grasp in all its depths the relation of art to what is genuine, superphysical reality. Because human beings can never live without the superphysical, they will through their own needs be brought to realise more and more the truth of what Goethe has said: “The man to whom nature begins to reveal her open secret feels an irresistible longing for her worthiest exponent—art.”

My dear Friends,

This course has a little history attached to it, and it is perhaps good that I should weave this little history into the introductory words that I propose to give today. For that is all we shall attempt in this first lecture—a general introduction to the whole subject. The proper work of the course will begin tomorrow and will be apportioned in the following way. I shall give the lectures; and then as far as demonstration is concerned, that will be taken by Frau Dr. Steiner. The course will thus be given by us both, working together.

The arrangement of the course will be, roughly speaking, as follows. Part I will be devoted to the Forming of Speech, and Part II to the Art of the Theatre—dramatic stagecraft, production and so on. Then, in Part III, we shall consider the art of the drama in relation to what it meets with in the world outside, whether in the way of simple enjoyment or of criticism and the like. We may call this third part: The Stage and the Rest of Mankind. We shall have to discuss together certain demands that our age makes upon the art of the drama, and see how we can enable it to take its right place in the life of man as it is lived today.

I said the course had a little history behind it. It began in the following way. A number of persons closely connected with the stage approached Frau Dr. Steiner and myself independently, in the conviction that anthroposophy, ready as one expects it to be to give new impulses today in every sphere of life—in religion, in art, in science—must also be able to furnish new impulses for the art of the drama. And that is most assuredly so. Several courses on speech have already been given here by Frau Dr. Steiner; and at one of them, where I also was contributing, I added some considerations that bore directly on the work of the stage. These had a stimulating effect on many of those who attended the course, some of whom have since been introducing new features into their work on the stage, that can be traced to suggestions or indications given by us. Groups of actors have made their appearance before the public as actors who acknowledge that, for them at least, the Goetheanum is a place where new impulses can be received.

And then there is also the fact that the art which has been among us since 1912, the art of eurhythmy, comes very near indeed to the art of the stage. This follows from the very conditions eurhythmy requires for its presentation. Dramatic art will, in fact, in future have to consider eurhythmy as something with which it is intimately connected.

This art of eurhythmy, when it was originally given by me, was at first thought of within quite narrow limits. I should perhaps not say ‘thought of’, for it was with eurhythmy as it is with everything within the Anthroposophical Movement that comes about in the right way: one responds to a demand of karma, and gives just so much as opportunity allows. No other way of working is possible in the Anthroposophical Movement. You will not find with us an inclination to plan ‘reforms’ or to put out some great ‘idea’ into the world. No, we take our guidance from karma. And at that time a need had arisen—it was in a quite small circle of people—to provide for some kind of vocation. It all came about in the most natural manner, but in a manner that was in absolute conformity with karma; and to begin with, what I gave went only so far as was necessary to meet this karma.

Then one could again see the working of karma in the fact that about two years later Frau Dr. Steiner, whose own domain was of course very closely affected, began to interest herself in the art of eurhythmy All that eurhythmy has since become is really due to her. Obviously therefore this present course as well, the impulse for which goes right back to the years 1913–14, must take its place in the Section for the Arts of Speech and Music, of which Frau Dr. Steiner is the leader.¹ For now, as a direct culmination of these events, the idea has arisen of doing something here for the development of the arts of speech and drama. Making a beginning, that is; for what we do would naturally only attain its full significance if the audience were limited to professional actors and those who, having the necessary qualifications, are hoping to become such. We should then probably have been a comparatively small circle; and we should have been able, working through the course in its three Parts (as I have explained is my intention), to carry our study far enough to allow of the participants forming themselves afterwards into a working group. They could then have gone out from Dornach as a touring company and proved the value, wherever they went, of the study we had carried through together here. For the deeper meaning of such things as I intend to put before you in this course will obviously only emerge when they are put into practice on the stage. This therefore would have been the normal outcome of a course of lectures on Speech and Drama.

That not all of you assembled here desire a course on this basis is perfectly evident. Nor would it be possible to carry it through with the present audience. Obviously, that is not feasible—although perhaps it would not, after all, be such a terrible disaster for the world if in some of our theatres the present actors could be replaced from here! But I see a few friends sitting in the audience of whom I know very well that they have no such ambition!

And so it turns out that there are two reasons why the course could not take on this orientation towards a practical end. For, in the first place, unfortunately neither those on whom it would have devolved to carry out the plan, nor we who were to give the impulse for it, have any money. Money is the very thing we are perpetually feeling the lack of. In itself the plan would have been perfectly possible, but there is no money for it; and unless it were properly financed, it could naturally not be put into effect. The only possibility would be that some of you who feel stimulated to do so should go ahead and undertake something at your own personal risk.

Secondly, such a keen interest was aroused in the course that one had to begin to consider who else might perhaps be allowed to attend. At first, we were rather strict; but the circle having been once broken into, all control goes to the winds—and that has most emphatically been our experience on this occasion.

Our course, then, will set out to present the art of the stage, with all that pertains to it, and we shall find that the art of the stage has to reach out, as it were, in many directions for whatever can contribute to its right development and orientation. Today, I want to speak in a general introductory way of what I have in mind as the essential content of our work together.

The first thing that calls for attention is that if speech is to come in any way into the service of art, it must itself be regarded as an art. This is not sufficiently realised today. In the matter of speech you will often find people adopting an attitude such as they adopt also, for example, to the writing of poetry. It would hardly occur to anyone who had not mastered the preliminaries of piano-playing to come into a company of people and sit down at the piano and play. There is, however, a tendency to imagine that anyone can write poetry, and that anyone can speak or recite. The fact is, the inadequacy and poverty of stage speaking as it is at present will never be rectified, nor will the general dissatisfaction that is felt on the matter among the performers themselves be dispelled, until we are ready to admit that there are necessary preliminaries to the art of speech just as much as there are to any performance in the sphere of music.

I was once present at an anthroposophical gathering which was arranged in connection with a course of lectures I had to give. It was a sort of ‘afternoon tea’ occasion, and something of an artistic programme was to be included. I do not want to enter here into a description of the whole affair, but there was one item on the programme of which I would like to tell you. (I myself had no share in the arrangements; these were made by a local committee.) The principal person concerned came up to me and I asked him about the programme. He said he was going to recite himself. I had then to call to my aid a technique that is often necessary in such circumstances, a technique that enables one to be absolutely horror-struck and not show it. It is a faculty that has to be learned, but I think on this occasion I succeeded pretty well, to begin with, in the exercise of this little artifice. I asked him then what he was going to recite. He said he would begin with a poem by the tutor of Frederick William IV, a poem about Kepler. I happened to know it—a beautiful poem, but terribly long, covering many pages. I said: ‘But won't it be rather long?’ He merely replied that he intended following it up with Goethe's Fairy Tale of the Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily; and that if all went well, he would then go on to recite Goethe's poem Die Geheimnisse. I can assure you that with all the skill I could muster it was now far from easy to conceal my dismay.

Well, he began. The room was only of moderate size, but there were quite a number of people present. First one went out, then another, then another; and presently a group of people left the room together. Finally, one very kind-hearted lady was left sitting all alone in the middle of the room—his solitary listener! At this point the reciter said: ‘It will perhaps be rather too long.’ So ended the scene.

It is, as you see, not only outside the Anthroposophical Society but even within it that such a point of view in regard to speech may be met with. I have taken a grotesque example, but the same sort of thing is constantly occurring in milder form, and it is imperative that we make an end of it, if our performances in this domain are to find approval with those who understand art and are moved by genuine artistic feeling. There must be no doubt left in our minds that the forming of speech has to be an art, down to each single sound that is uttered, just as music has to be an art, down to each single note that is played.

Only when this is realised will any measure of satisfaction be possible; and, what is still more important, only then will the way open for style to come again into the arts of speech and drama. For the truth is, people have ceased troubling about style altogether in this domain; and no art is possible without style.

But now, if we are to speak together here of these things, the need inevitably arises that I should at the same time draw your attention to the way that speech and drama are related to the occult—the occult that is ever there behind. And that brings us to the question: Whence in man does speech really come? Where does it originate?

Speech proceeds, not directly from the I or ego of man, but from the astral organism. The animal has also its astral organism, but does not normally bring it to speech. How is this? The explanation lies in the fact that the members of the human being, and also of the animal, are not there merely on their own; each single member is interpenetrated by all the others, and its character modified accordingly.

It is never really quite correct to say: Man consists of physical body, etheric body, astral body and I; for the statement may easily give the impression that these members of the human being are quite distinct from one another, and that we are justified in forming a conception of man which places them side by side. Such a conception is, however, quite untrue. In waking consciousness, the several members interpenetrate. We ought rather to say: Man has not just a physical body as such (the physical body would look quite different if it simply followed its own laws), but a physical body that is modified by an etheric body and again by an astral body, and then again by an I or ego. In each single member, the three other members are present. And so, if we are considering the astral body, we must not forget that every other member of man's nature is also present in it. It is the same with the animal: in the astral body of the animal the physical body is present, and the etheric body too. But man has, in addition, the I, which also modifies the astral body; and it is from this astral body, modified by the I, that the impulse for speech proceeds. It is important to recognise this if we want to carry our study of the art of speech right into the single sounds. For, while in ordinary everyday speech the single sounds are formed in entire unconsciousness, the activity of forming them has to be lifted up into consciousness if speech is to be raised to the level of art.

How then did speech begin? Speech did not originate in the speaking we use in ordinary life, any more than writing originated in the writing of today. Compare with the latter the picture-writing of ancient Egypt; that will give you some idea of how writing first came about. And it is just as useless to look for the origin of speech in the ordinary talking of today, which contains all manner of acquired qualities—the conventional, the intellectual, and so on. No, speech has its source in the artistic life. And if we want in our study of speech to find our way through to what is truly artistic, we must at least have begun to perceive that speech originates in the artistic side of man's nature—not in the intellectual, not in man's life of knowledge, as knowledge is understood today.

Time was when men were simply incapable of speaking without rhythm, when they felt a need always, whenever they spoke, to speak in rhythm. And if a man were saying something to which he wanted to give point or emphasis, then he would attain this by the way he formed and shaped his language. Take a simple example. Suppose you wanted to say—speaking right out of the primeval impulses of speech—that someone keeps stumbling as he walks It would suffice to say: He stumbles over sticks. For there were certainly sticks of wood lying about in primeval times. There were also plenty of stones, and you could just as well say: He stumbles over stones. You would not, however, say either. You would say: He stumbles über Stock and Stein (over stick and stone). For, whether or no the words exactly describe what the speaker sees, we have in ‘stick and stone’ an inner artistic forming of speech. Or again, in order to make our statement more telling, we do not merely say that a ship is sinking together with the men in it. We add what is perhaps far from welcome on a ship; we add the mice. If we are really forming our speech out of what was the original impulse behind all speaking, we say: The ship is going down mit Mann and Maus (with man and mouse).²

Today, the original impulse for speech is present in mankind only in the very smallest degree. There is ample reason for the fact. Unhappily, speech as an art has no place now in education.³ Our schools, and the schools of other nations too, have lost touch with art altogether; and that is why in our Waldorf School we have to make such a strong stand for the artistic in education.’ The schools of our time have been founded and established on science and learning—that is, on what counts as such in the present day, and it is inartistic. Yes, that is what has happened; this modern kind of science and learning has for a long time been steadily seeping down into the education given in our schools. Gradually, in the course of the last four or five centuries, these have been changing, until now, for anyone who enters one of them with artistic feeling, these schools of ours give the impression of something quite barbaric.

But if art is absent in our schools—and don't forget that the children have to speak in class; good speaking is part of the instruction given at school—if the artistic side of education is completely absent, it need not surprise us if art is lacking in grown men and women. There is, in fact, among mankind today a sad dearth of artistic feeling; one can therefore hardly expect to find recognition of the need to form speech artistically.

We do not often have it said to us: ‘You didn't say that beautifully’, but very often, ‘You are not speaking correctly’. The pedantic grammarian pulls us up, but it is seldom we are reproved for our speech on artistic grounds. It seems to be generally accepted as a matter of course that speech has no need of art.

Now, the astral body is mainly in the unconscious part of man's nature. But the artist in speech must learn to control what in ordinary speaking takes its course there unconsciously. In recent times people have begun to appreciate this. Hence the various methods that have been put forward—not only for singing, but also for recitation, declamation, etc. These methods, however, generally set to work in a very peculiar way.

Suppose you wanted to teach someone to plough, and never took any trouble to see what the plough was like, or the field, did not even stop to consider what the ploughing is for, but instead began enquiring: ‘If here is the person's arm, at what angle should he hold it at the elbow? What will be its natural position for ploughing?’ (How constantly one hears this word ‘natural’!) ‘And what movement should he be making with his leg while he holds his arm in this position?’ Suppose, that is, you were to take not the slightest interest in what has to be done to the field by the plough, but were merely to ask: ‘What method must I use to bring the pupil into a certain train of movements?’ It sounds absurd, but modern methods of speech training are of this very kind. No regard whatever is paid to the objective comprehension of what speech is.

If you want to teach a man to plough, the first thing will be to make sure that you yourself know how to handle a plough and can plough well and accurately; and then you will have to watch your pupil and see that he does not make mistakes. It is no different with speech. All these modern methods that are constructed in the most dilettante fashion (I mean these methods of breath technique, diaphragm technique, nasal resonance and the rest) omit to take into consideration what is, after all, the heart and core of the matter. They set out to instruct as though speech itself were not there at all! For they take their start, not from speech, but from anatomy.

What is important before all else is a thorough knowledge of the organism of speech, of the living structure of speech as such. This organism of speech has been produced, has come forth, out of man himself in the course of his evolution. Consequently, if rightly understood, it will not be found to contradict, in its inherent nature, the organisation of man as a whole. Where it seems to do so, we must look into the speech itself in detail to see where the fault lies; it will not be possible to put the matter right by means of methods that have as little to do with speech as gymnastics has to do with ploughing—unless a plough should ever be included among the gymnastic equipment, which up to now I have never known to be the case. Not that I should consider it stupid or ridiculous to include a plough in the apparatus of a gymnasium; it might perhaps be a very good idea. It has only, so far as I know, never yet been attempted.

The first thing to do then is to acquire a thorough knowledge of the speech organism, this speech organism of ours that has, in the course of mankind's evolution, broken loose, as it were, from the astral body, come straight forth from the ego-modified configuration of man's astral body. For that is where speech comes from.

We must, however, not omit to take into account that the astral body impinges downwards on the etheric body and upwards on the ego—that is, when man is awake; and in sleep we normally do not speak.

Consider first what happens through the fact that the astral body comes up against the etheric body. It meets there processes of which man knows very little in ordinary life. For what are the functions of the ether-body? The ether-body receives the nourishment which is taken in by the mouth, and gradually transforms it to suit the needs of the human organism—or rather, I should say, to meet its need of the force contained in the nourishment. Then again it is the etheric organism that looks after growth, from childhood upwards until man is full grown. And the ether-body has also a share in the activities of the soul; it takes care, for instance, of memory. Man has, however, very little conscious knowledge of the various functions discharged by the ether- body. He knows their results. He knows, for example, when he is hungry; but he can scarcely be said to know how this condition of hunger is brought about. The activity of the ether-body remains largely unconscious.

Now it is the production of the vowel element in speech that takes place between astral body and ether body. When the impulse of speech passes over from the astral body, where it originates, to the ether body, we have the vowel. The vowel is thus something which comes into operation -deep within the inner being of man; it is formed more unconsciously than is speech in general. In the vowel sounds we are dealing with intensely intimate aspects of speech; what comes to expression in them is something that belongs to the very essence of man's being. This is then the result when the speech impetus impinges on the ether-body: it gives rise to the vowel element in speech.

In the other direction, the astral body impinges on the I, the ego. The I, in the form in which we have it in Earthman, is something everyone knows and recognises. For it is by means of the I that we have our sense perceptions. We owe it also essentially to the I that we are able to think. All conscious activity belongs in the sphere of the I or ego. What goes on in speech, however, since there the astral body is also concerned, cannot be performed entirely consciously, like some fully conscious activity of will. A fragment of consciousness does, nevertheless, definitely enter into the consonantal element in ordinary speech; for the speaking of consonants takes place between astral body and ego.

We have thus traced back to their source the forming of consonants and the forming of vowels. But we can go further. We can ask: What is it in the totality of man's nature that speech brings to revelation? We shall be able to answer this question when we have first dealt with the further question: How was it with the primeval speech of man? What was speech like in its beginnings?

The speech of primitive man was verily a wonderful thing. Apart from the fact that man felt instinctively obliged from the first to speak in rhythm and in measure, even to speak in assonance and alliteration—apart from this, in those early times, man felt in speech and thought in speech.

Looking first into his life of feeling, we find it was not like ours today. In comparison with it, our feelings tend to remain in the abstract. Primeval man, in the very moment of feeling, were it even a feeling of the most intimate kind, would at once express it in speech. He would not have found it possible, for instance, to have a tender feeling for a little child without being prompted in his soul to bring that feeling to expression in the form of his speech. Merely to say: ‘I love him tenderly’, would have had no meaning for him; what would have had meaning would have been to say perhaps: ‘I love this little child so very ei-ei-ei!’[5] There was always the need to permeate one's whole feeling with artistically formed speech.

Neither in those olden times did men have abstract thoughts as we do today. Abstract thoughts without speech were unknown. As soon as man thought something, the thought immediately became in him word and sentence. He spoke it inwardly. It is therefore not surprising that at the beginning of the Gospel of St. John we do not find it said: ‘In the beginning was the Thought’, but : ‘In the beginning was the Word’—the verbum, the Word. today we think within, thinking our abstract thoughts; primeval man spoke within, talked within.

Such then was the character of primeval speech. It contained feeling within it, and thought. It was, so to say, the treasure-casket in man for feeling and thought. Thought has now shifted, it has slipped up more into the ego; speech has remained in the astral body; feeling has slid down into the ether body.

The poetry of primeval times was one, was single; it expressed in speech what man could feel and think about things The original poetry was one. When, later on, speech threw back feeling inwards, into man's inner nature, that gave rise to the lyric mood of speech. The kind of poetry that has remained most of all like the primeval, the kind of poetry that, more than any other, is inherent in speech itself is the epic. It is, in fact, impossible to speak epic poetry without first reviving something of the original primal feeling in regard to speech. Finally, drama drives speech outwards and stands, in so far as Earth-man is concerned, in relation with the external world.

The artist who is taking part in drama, unless of course he is speaking a monologue, confronts another person. And this fact, that he is face to face with another person, enters into his speaking just as surely as what he experiences in himself.

The artist who has to speak a lyric is not confronting another person. He faces himself alone. His speech must accordingly be so formed that it may become the pure expression of his inner being. The lyric of today can therefore not be spoken in any other way than by letting even the consonants lean over a little in the direction of vowels. (We shall go into this in more detail later.) To speak lyrical poetry aright, you need to know that every consonant carries in it a vowel nuance. L, for example, carries in it an i (ee), which you can see for yourselves from the fact that in many languages where at some time in their development an I occurs in a certain word, in other forms of that word we find an i.⁴ As a matter of fact, all consonants have within them something of the quality of a vowel. And for speaking lyrics it is of the first importance that we should learn to perceive the vowel in each single consonant.

The epic requires a different feeling. (All that I am saying in this connection has reference to recitation or declamation before an audience.) The speaker must feel: When I come to a vowel, I am coming near to man himself; but directly I come to a consonant, it is things I am catching at, things that are outside. If the artist once has this feeling, then it will be possible for the epic to be truly present in his speaking. Epic has to do, not with man's inner life alone, but with the inner life and an imagined outer object. For the theme of the epic is not there; it is only imagined. If we are relating something, it must belong to the past, or in any case cannot be there in front of us; otherwise, there would be no occasion to relate it. The speaker of epic is thus concerned with the human being and the object or theme that exists only in thought.

For the speaker of drama, the ‘object’ of his speaking is present in its full reality, the person he addresses is standing there in front of him.

There then you have the distinguishing characteristics of lyric, epic and drama. They need to be well and carefully noted. I have already in past years spoken of them here and there from different points of view, and have sought to evolve a suitable terminology for distinguishing the different ways of speaking them. What I have given on those earlier occasions—I mean it to be experienced, I mean it to be felt. You must have a clear and accurate feeling for what each kind of poetry demands. Thus, you should feel that to speak lyrical poetry means to speak right out of one's inner being.

The inner being of man is here revealing itself. When man's soul within him is so powerfully affected that it ‘must out’—and this is how it is with the lyric—then what was, to begin with, mere feeling, passes over into a calling aloud; and we have, from the point of view of speech, declamation. One domain, then, of the art of speech is declamation, and it is especially adapted for lyrical poetry. The lyrical element is present of course in every form of poetry; while we are speaking epic or drama, we can often find ourselves in the situation of having to make the transition here and there to the lyrical.

With the speaker of epic, the essential point is that he has before him an object that is not seen but thought, and by means of the magic that lies in his speech he is continually ‘citing’ this object. The artist of the epic is pre-eminently a ‘re-citer’. So here we have recitation. The speaker of the lyric expresses himself, reveals himself; he is a declaimer. The speaker who cites his object, making it present to his audience by the magic of his speech—he is a reciter.

And now in this course of lectures we have opportunity to go further and complete our classification. We come then to the speaker who has before him, not his imagined object that he cites, but present before him in bodily form the object to whom he speaks, with whom he is conversing. And so we reach the third form of speech: conversation.

It is through these three kinds of speech-formation that speaking becomes an art. The last is the one that is most misunderstood. Conversation, as we know all too well, has been dragged right away from the realm of art, and today you will find persons looked up to as past masters in conversation who are less at home in art than they are—shall I say—in diplomacy, or perhaps in the ‘afternoon-tea’ attitude to life. The feeling that conversation is a thing capable of highly artistic development has been completely lost.

Sometimes of course acting ceases to be conversation and becomes monologue. When this happens, drama reaches over into the other domains, into declamation and recitation.

To draw distinctions in this way between different forms of poetry may perhaps seem a little pedantic, but it will help to show that we do really have to create for the teaching of speech something similar to what we have, for example, in the teaching of music. When, for instance, a dialogue is to be put on the stage, it will be necessary to form that dialogue in a way that is right and appropriate to it as ‘conversation’.

I would like now to show you how within speech itself, if we see it truly for what it is, the need for artistic forming emerges. We use in our speaking some thirty-two sounds. Suppose you had learned the sounds, but were not yet able to put them together in words. If you were then to take up Goethe's Faust, the whole book would consist for you of just these thirty-two sounds. For it contains nothing more! And yet, in their combination, these thirty-two sounds make Goethe's Faust.

A great deal is implied in this statement. We have simply these thirty-two sounds; and through the forming and shaping of them, sound by sound, the whole measureless wealth of speech is called into being. But the forming is already there within the sounds themselves, within this whole system of sounds. Let us take an example.

We speak the sound a (ah). What is this sound? A is released from the soul, when the soul is overflowing with wonder. That is how it was to begin with. Wonder, astonishment, liberated from the soul the sound a. Every word that has the sound a has originated in a desire to express wonder; take any word you will, you will never be altogether out, nor need you ever be afraid of being dilettante, if you assume this Take, for instance, the word Band (a band or ribbon). In some way it happened that what the man of an earlier time called Band filled him with wonder, and that is why he brought the a sound into the word. (That the same thing has in another language quite a different name is of no consequence. It means only that the people who spoke that language felt differently related to the object.) Whenever man is particularly astonished, then if he has still some understanding of what it is to be thus filled with wonder (as was the case when language began to be formed), he will bring that wonder or astonishment to expression by means of the sound a. One has only to understand where wonder is in place. You can, for instance, marvel at someone's luxurious Haarwuchs (growth of hair) You can also marvel at the Kahlkopf (bald head) of someone who has lost his Haar. Or again, you can be astounded at the effect of a Haarwasser (hair lotion) which makes the hair grow again. In fact, everything connected with hair can evoke profound admiration and astonishment—so much so that we do not simply write Har, we write the a twice—Haar!

Wherever you meet the sound a, look for the starting- point of the word in an experience of wonder, and you will be carried back to the early days of evolution, when man was first shaping and forming his words. And this forming of words was an activity that worked with far greater power than present-day theories would lead us to suppose.

But now, what does this mean? It means that when a man is filled with wonder at some object or event, he gives himself up to that object or event, he lets himself go. For how is the sound a made? What does it consist in? A requires the whole organism of speech to be opened wide, beginning from the mouth. Man lets his astral body flow out. When he says a, he is really on the point of falling asleep. Only, he stops himself in time. But how often will the feeling of fatigue find expression at once in the sound a! Whenever we utter a, we are letting our astral body out, or beginning to do so. The act of opening out wide—that is what you have in a.

The absolute opposite of a is u (oo). When you say u, then beginning from the mouth you contract the speech organs, wherever possible, before you let the sound go through. The whole speech organism is more closed with u than with any other vowel sound. There then you have the two contrasting opposites: a u. Between a and u lies o. O actually includes within it, in rightly formed speech, the processes of a and the processes of u; o holds together in a kind of harmony the processes of opening out and the processes of closing up.

U signifies that we are in process of waking up, that we are becoming continually more awake than we were. When you say u, it shows that you are feeling moved to wake up in respect of some object that you perceive. When the owl makes himself heard at night, you instinctively exclaim: ‘Uhu!’⁵ You could not find stronger expression for the desire to wake up. The owl makes you want to wake up and be alive to the fact of its presence. And if someone were to fling a little sand at you—we don't of course have sand on our desks now, we use blotting paper—but suppose you were being pelted with sand, then, if you were to give way to your feelings without restraint, you would say ‘uff’. For it is the same whether something or other wakes you up, or you yourself are wanting to wake up. In either case u comes out. The astral is here uniting itself more closely with the etheric and physical bodies. The a is thus more consonantal and the u more vocalic

In some of the German dialects, one can often not discern whether people are saying a or r, for the r becomes with them vocalic and the a consonantal. In the Styrian dialect, for example, it is impossible to know whether someone is saying ‘Bur’ or ‘Bua’.

All the other vowels lie between a and u. Roughly speaking, the o is in the middle, but not quite; it occupies the same position between a and u as in music the fourth does in the octave.

Suppose now we want to express what is contained in O. In O we have the confluence of A and U; it is where waking up and falling asleep meet. O is thus the moment either of falling asleep or of awaking. When the Oriental teacher wanted his pupils to be neither asleep nor awake, but to make for that boundary between sleeping and waking where so much can be experienced, he would direct them to speak the syllable OM. In this way he led them to the life that is between waking and sleeping.

For, anyone who keeps repeating continually the syllable OM will experience what it means to be between the condition of being awake and the condition of being asleep. A teaching like this comes from a time when the speech organism was still understood.

And now let us see how it was when a teacher in the Mysteries wanted to take his pupils further. He would say to himself: The O arises through the U wanting to go to the A and the A at the same time wanting to go to the U. So, after I have taught the pupil how to stand between sleeping and waking in the OM, if I want now to lead him on a step further, then instead of getting him to speak the 0 straight out, I must let the 0 arise in him through his speaking AOUM. Instead of OM, he is now to say AOUM. In this way the pupil creates the OM, brings it to being. He has reached a higher stage. OM with the O separated into A and U gives the required stillness to the more advanced pupil. Whereas the less advanced pupil has to be taken straight to the boundary condition between sleep and waking, the more advanced has to pass from A (falling asleep) to U (waking up), building the transition for himself. Being then between the two, he has within him the moment of experience that holds both.

If we are able to feel how such modes of instruction came about, we can have some idea of what it means to say that in olden times it was by way of art that man came to an instinctive apprehension of the nature of speech. For down into the time of the ancient Greeks, men still had knowledge of how every activity and experience had its place in the world, where it intrinsically belonged.

Think of the Greek gymnastics,—those marvellous gymnastics that were really a complete language in themselves! What are they? How did they evolve? To begin with, there was the realisation that the will lives in the limbs. And the very first thing the will does is to bring man into connection with the earth, so that a relationship of force develops between man's limbs and the earth, and you have: Running In running, man is in connection with the earth. If he now goes a little way into himself, and to the dynamics into which running brings him and the mechanics that establishes a balance between him and the earth's gravitation, adds an inner dynamic, then he goes over into: Leaping. For in leaping we have to develop a mechanics in the legs themselves.

And now suppose to this mechanics that has been developed in the legs, man adds a mechanics that is brought about, not this time merely by letting the earth be active and establishing a balance with it, but by coming also to a state of balance in the horizontal,—the balance already established being in the vertical. Then you have: Wrestling.

Running
Leaping
Wrestling.

In Running, you have Man and Earth; in Leaping, Man and Earth, but with a variation in the part played by man; in Wrestling, Man and the other object.

If now you bring the object still more closely to man, if you give it into his hand, then you have: Throwing the Discus. Observe the progression in dynamics And if then to the dynamics of the heavy body (which is what you have in discus-throwing), you add also the dynamics of direction, you have: Throwing the Spear.

Running
Leaping
Wrestling
Discus-throwing
Spear-throwing.

Such then are these five main exercises of Greek gymnastics; and they are perfectly adapted to the conditions of the cosmos. That was the feeling the Greeks had about a gymnastics that revealed the human being in his entirety.

But men had the very same feeling in those earlier times about the revelation of the human being in speech. Mankind has changed since then; consequently, the use and handling of speech has inevitably also changed.

In the Seventh Scene of my first Mystery Play, where Maria appears with Philia, Astrid and Luna, I have made a first attempt to use language entirely and purely in the way that is right for our time and civilisation. Thought, which is generally lifted out of speech, abstracted from it, is there brought down again into speech.

We will accordingly take tomorrow part of this scene for demonstration, and so make a beginning with the practical side of our work. Frau Dr. Steiner will read from the scene; and then, following on today’s introductory remarks, we will proceed with the First Part of the course—the study of the Forming of Speech.

• 1. The courses of study and training given at the Goetheanum were grouped by Dr. Steiner under various `Sections’, each with its Leader.
• 2. English parallels will readily occur to the reader, such as 'might and main', 'safe and sound', etc., and our use of 'stocks and stones' in another connection.
• 3. The Waldorf School in Stuttgart, founded in 1919 by Emil Molt, was the first of the now numerous Rudolf Steiner Schools where the teaching and education are carried on in accordance with his indications. Dr. Steiner was a constant visitor to the school from the beginning, giving help and advice in every detail of management and method up to the time of his last illness in the winter of 1924-5.
• 4. For example, in German-speaking countries, a boy named Hans may be called ' for short ' either Hansi or Hansl.
• 5. The commoner German word for owl is Eule, but Uhu, the specific name for the eagle-owl, is also used.

You will recall the studies in which we have tried to establish a relationship to the different premises and assertions of modern psychoanalysis. What mattered to me in those studies was to bring clarity into the concept of the “unconscious,” to show that the way in which the concept of the “unconscious” is commonly used in psychoanalysis is essentially unfounded. As long as one is unable to go beyond this concept, a purely negative concept, one cannot say more than that psychoanalysis works with insufficient methods of cognition on an especially challenging phenomenon today. Because the psychoanalysts strive to explore the soul and spirit and, as we have observed, even pursue this soul and spirit into a social life, one must admit that we have here a point of departure that is much more significant than what official academic science is able to offer in this realm. Because analytical psychology tries to intervene in life, however, through pedagogy, therapy, and soon, most likely, social and political means, the dangers related to this matter must be regarded with great concern. The question thus arises what it is essentially that the researchers of today cannot and do not wish to reach. They recognize that there exists a soul nature beyond consciousness; they search for a soul beyond consciousness, but they cannot raise themselves to cognition of the spirit itself. Spirit can in no way be grasped through a concept of the unconscious, because an unconscious spirit is like a human being without a head. I have brought to your attention that there are people who under certain hysterical conditions walk about the streets and see in other human beings only their bodies, not their heads. It is a definite form of illness if one is unable to see a person's head. Among contemporary researchers, there are some who believe they are seeing the whole spirit. Since they represent the spirit as unconscious, however, they show immediately that they themselves have fallen prey to illusion, the illusion that there is an unconscious spirit, a spirit without consciousness, if we were to cross the threshold of consciousness, whether in the right way, as we have always described it in our spiritual scientific research, or in an ill, abnormal way, as in the cases that are usually submitted to psychoanalysts.

When one crosses the threshold of consciousness, one always enters a spiritual realm; regardless of whether one enters the subconscious or the super-conscious, one always enters a spiritual realm. This is a realm, however, in which the spirit is conscious in a certain way, is developing some form of consciousness. Where there is spirit there is also consciousness. One must only seek the conditions under which the consciousness in question exists. Through spiritual science it is possible to recognize what type of consciousness a particular spiritual being has.

A week ago the case was presented here of the lady who left a social gathering and ran in front of some horses but then was prevented from jumping into a river and was carried back to the house from which she had fled. There she was brought together with the master of the house, because in some unclear, subconscious way she was in love with this man. In this case it may not be said that the spirit, which did not belong to this lady's consciousness, this spirit that pushed and led her, is an unconscious spirit or that it is an unconscious soul quality. Indeed, it is something extremely conscious. The consciousness of this demonic spirit that led the lady back to her unlawful lover, this demon is indeed much shrewder in its consciousness than the lady is in her muddle-headedness, that is to say her consciousness. When the human being in any way crosses the threshold of his consciousness, these spirits that become active and powerful are not unconscious spirits. Such spirits become consciously active and powerful in their own right. The expression, “unconscious spirit,” as the psychoanalysts use it, has no sense whatsoever. If I were to speak merely from my own viewpoint, I could just as well say that the whole illustrious company sitting here is my unconscious if I were unfamiliar with it. Just as little may we describe as unconscious the spiritual beings that surround us and that take hold of the personality under particular conditions, as was the situation in this case that I related a week ago. They are subconscious; they are not actually grasped by the consciousness that lives directly within us, but in themselves they are fully conscious.

It is exceptionally important to know this—particularly for the task of spiritual science in our time—basically because the knowledge of a spiritual world that lies on the other side of the threshold and the knowledge of truly self-conscious individualities is not merely an achievement of today's spiritual science but is actually an ancient knowledge. In earlier times it was only known through an ancient, atavistic clairvoyance. Today one knows it through other methods; one learns to know it gradually. The knowledge of actual spirits to be found outside of human consciousness—spirits living under different conditions from human beings but standing in continuous relationship to human beings, spirits that can take hold of the human being in his thinking, feeling, and willing—this knowledge was always there. This knowledge was always considered the secret treasure of particular brotherhoods, who treated this knowledge within their circles as strictly esoteric. Why did they treat it in this way? To enlarge on this question would lead at this moment too far afield. It should be said, however, that individual brotherhoods were permeated with the earnest conviction that the majority of humanity was not sufficiently mature for this knowledge. Indeed, this was the case to a large extent. Many other brotherhoods, however, which are called brotherhoods of the left, were striving to retain this knowledge, because such knowledge, when taken possession of by a small group, would give this group power over others who did not possess such knowledge. There have always been endeavors whose aim was to secure power for certain groups over others. This could be achieved by considering a particular kind of knowledge as an esoteric possession but using it in such a way that the power over something quite different was expanded.

In our day it is particularly necessary to have real clarity in these matters. As you know—I have enlarged on this in the last lectures—since 1879 humanity has been living in a very special spiritual situation. Since 1879, extraordinarily powerful spirits of darkness have been shifted from the spiritual world into the human realm, and those people who cling to the mysteries connected with this fact and retain them wrongfully within small groups could cause everything imaginable with these secrets. Today I shall show you exactly how certain mysteries that relate to present-day development can be used in a wrongful way. You must be careful, however, to consider coherently all that I say today, which will be of a more historic nature, with what I will add tomorrow.

You all know that for a long time attention has been drawn within our anthroposophical stream to the fact that this twentieth century is one that should bring about in the evolution of humanity a special relationship to the Christ. This relationship to Christ will come about in the course of the twentieth century, and already in the first half, as you know, will begin the phenomenon that has been suggested in my first Mystery Drama, in which for a large number of people Christ in the etheric will be an actual, existing being.

We know that we actually live in the age of materialism. We know that since the middle of the nineteenth century this materialism has reached its climax. In reality, however, polarities must converge. It is exactly this climax of materialism within the evolution of humanity that must converge with the intensification in human evolution that leads to truly beholding Christ in the etheric. One can grasp that just the announcement of the mystery of beholding Christ, of this new relationship with humanity into which Christ will enter, would arouse ill-will and resistance from some human beings. These would be members of certain brotherhoods who wished to exploit the event of the twentieth century, this event of the appearance of the etheric Christ, who wished to use it for their own purposes and not allow it to become general human knowledge. There are brotherhoods, and brotherhoods always influence public opinion by allowing this or that to be publicized by such means as would be least noticed by people. There are certain occult brotherhoods who spread the message that the age of materialism has almost run its course, that in a certain way it is already past. These poor, pitiable, “clever people”—in quotation marks, of course—spread the doctrine in numerous assemblies, books, and societies that materialism has exhausted itself, that one can already grasp again something of spirit, but they can offer people nothing more than the word spirit and single phrases. These people are more or less in the service of those who have an interest in saying what is not true, that materialism has been “ruined by bad management,” as it were. This is not true; on the contrary, materialistic thinking is in the process of growing. It will thrive most when people deceive themselves by believing that they are no longer materialists. The materialistic way of thinking is in the process of increasing and will continue to increase for about four or five centuries.

It is necessary, as has been frequently emphasized here, to grasp this fact in clear consciousness, to know that it is so. Humanity will come to a true healing when one works so thoroughly in the life of spirit that one knows absolutely that the fifth post-Atlantean epoch is there for the purpose of extirpating materialism from the general evolution of humanity. A more spiritual being, however, must counteract materialism. I have spoken in previous lectures about what people of the fifth post-Atlantean period must learn to meet, that is, the fully conscious struggle against evil rising up in the evolution of humanity. Just as in the fourth post-Atlantean cultural epoch the task lay in the struggle with birth and death, so we are now facing a struggle with evil. What matters now, therefore, is to grasp spiritual teaching in full consciousness, not to cast sand into the eyes of contemporaries as if the devil of materialism did not exist. He will thrive increasingly. Those who deal with these matters in a wrongful way know about the event of the appearance of Christ as well as I do, but they deal with this event in a different way.

In order to understand this one must keep one's eyes on the following. Now that humanity has become what it has in the post-Atlantean time, the phrase that many people expound in their comfortable smugness is completely incorrect: “While we live here between birth and death, it is a matter of surrendering ourselves to life. If later, when we have passed through death, we then enter a spiritual world, that will reveal itself in good time and for that we can wait. Here we will enjoy life as if there were only a material world; if one enters a spiritual world through death, such a world will then reveal itself, if it really exists.” This attitude is about as clever as the pledge that someone makes, saying, “As truly as there is a God in heaven, I am an atheist!” It is just about that intelligent, but it is the attitude of many who say, “It will be revealed after death how things are; meanwhile it is not at all necessary to occupy ourselves with spiritual science.”

This attitude has always been contestable, but in the post-Atlantean period in which we live it becomes especially ominous, because it has been particularly urged upon human beings by the powers of evil. When man under the present conditions of evolution passes through the portal of death, he takes with him the conditions of consciousness that he has created for himself between birth and death. The person who has occupied himself under present circumstances exclusively with materialistic ideas, concepts, and sense impressions of the material, of the sense world, condemns himself after death to live in an environment in which only concepts defined during bodily life have bearing. The human being who has absorbed spiritual ideas enters the spiritual world legitimately, but one who has rejected spiritual ideas is forced to remain in a certain sense within earthly conditions until he—and this may endure for a long time—has learned there to absorb enough spiritual concepts that he can be carried by them into the spiritual world. Whether we absorb spiritual concepts or reject them therefore determines our environment on the other side of the threshold. Many of those souls—and this must be said with compassion—who have rejected or were hindered from absorbing spiritual concepts here in life are still wandering about on earth and, though dead, remain bound to the earthly sphere. The soul of the human being, however, when no longer separated from its environment by the physical body—which can then no longer prevent the human soul from acting destructively—becomes a source of disturbance within the earthly sphere.

Let us study what I would like to characterize as the more normal situation, in which souls under present circumstances pass over into the spiritual world after death, souls who wished to know nothing at all about spiritual concepts and experiences. They become sources of disturbance, because they are retained within the earthly sphere. Only souls who here on earth have already been completely permeated by a certain relationship to the spiritual world pass through the portal of death in such a way that they can be received in the right way in the spiritual world. They will be carried away from the earthly sphere in such a way that they can spin threads to those remaining behind, threads that are continually being spun. We must be clear about this: the spiritual threads between the souls of the dead and those of us who are bound to them are not ruptured by death; they remain, are even closer, after death than they were here on earth. What I have said must be accepted as a serious, significant truth.

I am not the only one who has this knowledge; others are also aware that this is so at present. There are many, however, who exploit this truth in a terrible way. There are misguided materialists today who believe that material life is the only one, but there are also initiates who are materialists and who spread materialistic teaching through brotherhoods. You must not be misled into believing that these initiates are of the foolish opinion that there is no spirit or that the human being does not have a soul that can live independently of the body. You can be confident that one who has been truly initiated in the spiritual world would never surrender himself to the foolishness of believing in mere matter. There are many, however, who have a certain interest in encouraging the dissemination of materialism and who make all sorts of arrangements so that a large proportion of human beings believe only in materialism and are totally under its influence. There are brotherhoods that have at their head initiates who have exactly this interest in cultivating materialism and disseminating it. These materialists are well served when there is constant talk that materialism has already been overcome, for it is possible to further some causes by using words with antithetical meaning. How this is handled is often most complicated.

What is it that such initiates desire, these initiates who know quite well that the human soul is a purely spiritual being, a spiritual being fully independent of corporeality? What do these initiates desire who, in spite of knowing this, shelter and cultivate the materialistic thinking of human beings? These initiates desire that there should be as many souls as possible who here between birth and death absorb only materialistic concepts. Through this, these souls are prepared to remain in the earthly sphere. They become to a certain extent fastened to the earthly sphere. Picture to yourself that brotherhoods are established that clearly know this, that are thoroughly familiar with these circumstances. These brotherhoods prepare certain human souls so that they remain in the realm of the material. If these brotherhoods then arrange—which is quite possible through their infamous power—that these souls come after death into the region of the power-sphere of their brotherhood, then this brotherhood grows to tremendous strength. These materialists, therefore, are not materialists because they do not believe in the spirit—these initiate materialists are not so silly; they know full well the spirit's position. They induce souls to remain with matter even after death, however, in order to make use of such souls for their own purposes. From these brotherhoods, a clientele of souls is thus produced who remain within the realm of the earth. These souls of the dead have within them forces that can be guided in the most diverse ways, with which one can bring about a variety of things and by means of which one can come to special manipulations of power in relation to those who have not been initiated in these things.

This is simply an arrangement of certain brotherhoods. In this matter, one can see clearly only if one does not allow oneself to be deceived by darkness and fog, does not permit oneself to be deceived by the belief that such brotherhoods either do not exist or that their activities are harmless. They are by no means harmless; they are, in fact, extremely harmful. They say that human beings should enter more and more deeply into materialism, that they should believe, according to the thinking of such initiates, that spiritual forces exist, to be sure, but that these spiritual forces are nothing other than certain forces of nature.

Diagram 5 Click image for large view

I would like to characterize for you the ideal that such brotherhoods hold. One must exert a little effort to understand the situation. Picture for yourself, therefore, a harmless world of people who are somewhat led astray by today's prevailing materialistic concepts, who have strayed away a little from the old, established religious ideas. Picture for yourself such a harmless humanity. Perhaps we can picture it for ourselves graphically.

We imagine here the realm of such a harmless humanity (larger circle). As I said, this humanity is not completely clear about the spiritual world; led astray by materialism, they are unsure how they should conduct themselves toward the spiritual world. They are especially unclear how they should act in relation to those who have passed through the portal of death. Let us assume that the realm of such a brotherhood is here (small circle, green). This brotherhood spreads the teachings of materialism; it is concerned that people think purely materialistic thoughts. In this way the brotherhood brings about the procreation of souls who remain in the earthly sphere after death. These would become a spiritual clientele for the lodge (see drawing, orange). This means that dead people have been created who would not leave the earthly sphere but would remain on earth. If the right preparations have been made, they can be retained in the lodges. In this way, therefore, lodges have been created that contain the living as well as the dead, but dead who are related to earthly forces.

The matter is directed so that these people hold sessions in the same way as was the case with the seances held during the course of the second half of the nineteenth century, about which I have often spoken. It may then happen—and I beg you to bear this in mind—that what occurs in these seances is directed by the lodge with the help of the dead. The true intention of the masters of those lodges, however, is that the human beings should not know that they are dealing with the dead but rather should believe that they are dealing with higher forces of nature. People are made to believe that these are higher forces of nature, that psychism and the like are only higher forces of nature. The true concept of soul will be taken from them, and it will be said that, just as there is electricity, just as there is magnetism, so there are also such higher forces. The fact that these forces are derived from souls is concealed by those who are leaders in the lodge. Through this, however, these others, these harmless souls, gradually become completely dependent, dependent in their souls, upon the lodge, without realizing what is subjugating them, without realizing the source of what is actually directing them.

There is no remedy against this situation other than knowledge of it. When one knows about it, one is already protected. When one knows it to the extent that the knowledge has become an inner certainty, a real conviction, then one is protected. One must not, however, be too lazy in striving to gain knowledge of these things. It must be said, though, that it is never entirely too late. I have often brought the following to your attention: these things can become clear only gradually, and I can pull together only gradually the elements to bring you complete clarity. I have often made you aware that, in the course of the second half of the nineteenth century, many brotherhoods of the West introduced spiritism experimentally to convince themselves through this test that they had gone as far with humanity as they had intended. It was a testing to see how far they were with humanity. In these seances they expected that people would say that there are higher forces of nature. Then they were disappointed, these brothers of the left, that people did not say this but rather said that in the seances spirits of the dead appear. That was a bitter disappointment for the initiates; that was exactly what they did not want, because it was just this belief in the dead that these initiates wished to take from man. Not the activity of the dead, not the activity of the forces of the dead, but this thought that the forces derive from the dead, this correct, significant thought, this was to be taken from man. The brothers see that this is a higher materialism; it is a materialism that not only denies the spirit but wishes to force the spirit into matter. They see that materialism has forms in which it can already be denied. One can say that materialism has disappeared—we are speaking already about spirit, but all of them speak about spirit in a vague way. It is very easy to be a materialist when all nature has been made into spirit in such a way that psychism emerges. What is important is that one is able to cast one's glance into the concrete spiritual world, into concrete spirituality.

Here you have the beginning of what will become more and more intense in the next five centuries. These evil brotherhoods now are limiting themselves, but they are bound to continue their activity if they are not prevented, and they can only be prevented if one overcomes laziness toward the spiritual scientific world conception.

Through these seances, therefore, these brotherhoods betray themselves, so to speak. Instead of covering themselves, they have unveiled themselves through these seances. This showed that their scheme was not really quite successful. For this reason, the impulse sprang up within these same brotherhoods to strive to discredit spiritism for a time during the 1890s. In short, you can see how deeply incisive effects can be achieved in this way with the methods of the spiritual world. What we are dealing with here is the enhancement of power, exploiting certain evolutionary conditions that must emerge in the course of humanity's evolution.

This growing materialization of human souls, this imprisonment of human souls within the earthly sphere—lodges are also in the earthly sphere—will be counteracted. If the souls therefore haunt the lodges and are to be effective there, they must be confined to the earthly. This striving, this impulse to work in the earthly sphere through the souls, is counteracted by the significant impulse of the Mystery of Golgotha. This impulse of the Mystery of Golgotha is also the healing of the world against the materialization of the soul. The way taken by Christ Himself is completely outside the will and intentions of human beings. No human being, therefore, no matter how knowledgeable—also no initiate—has influence over what Christ does, which will lead, in the course of the twentieth century, to the appearance about which I have spoken and of which you will find indications in the Mystery Dramas. This depends completely upon Christ Himself. Christ will exist in the earthly sphere as an etheric being. It depends upon the human being how he establishes a relationship to Him. On the appearance of Christ Himself, therefore, no one, no initiate however mighty, has any influence. It will come. I beg that you hold firmly to this. Arrangements can be made, however, for receiving this Christ event in this way or that, for making it effective.

These brotherhoods about which I have just spoken, which wish to confine the souls of human beings to the materialistic sphere, strive for the Christ to pass unnoticed through the twentieth century, for His coming as etheric individuality to be unobserved by human beings. This striving evolves under the influence of a quite definite idea, under a definite impulse of will. These brotherhoods have the urge to conquer the sphere of influence that is to come through Christ in the twentieth century and to continue further, to conquer it for another being, about which we shall speak later in more detail. There are brotherhoods of the West who strive to battle the Christ impulse. They wish to place another individuality who has never yet appeared in the flesh but only as an etheric individuality, who is of a strong Ahrimanic nature, in place of Christ.

All these measures about which I have just spoken regarding the dead and so forth serve in the end the aim of leading human beings away from Christ, Who passed through the Mystery of Golgotha, and of securing the rulership of the earth for another individuality. It is a real struggle, not just something that I know of as abstract concepts or whatever but a real struggle. It is a real struggle that concerns itself with placing another being in place of the Christ being in the course of human evolution for the rest of the fifth post-Atlantean period and for the sixth and seventh. It will be the task of a healthy, honest spiritual development to eradicate such strivings, which are in the true sense of the word anti-Christian, to remove them, to annihilate them. This can be achieved, however, only through clear insight. This other being whom the brotherhood wishes to substitute as ruler they will call “Christ”; they will actually designate him as the “Christ.” What will be important will be to distinguish between the true Christ, Who, when He appears, will not be an individuality incarnated in the flesh, and the being that is distinguished from the true Christ by having never yet incarnated during earthly evolution. This other being is one who has only reached etheric embodiment, and he will be put by the brotherhoods in the place of Christ, Who is to pass by unobserved.

There we have the part of the battle concerned with counterfeiting the appearance of Christ in the twentieth century. He who observes life only on the surface, above all in outer discussions about Christ and the question of Jesus and so forth, does not look into the depths. This is the fog, the fumes with which people are deceived, diverting them from the deeper things, from what is the essential issue. When theologians debate about Christ, there is always in such discussions a spiritual influence from somewhere. These people then encourage quite different aims and purposes from those in which they actually believe consciously.

This is just the danger of the concept of the unconscious, that people are driven into confusion even concerning such circumstances. These evil brotherhoods pursue their aims very consciously, but what the brotherhoods pursue consciously naturally becomes unconscious for those who have all kinds of superficial discussions and plans. One does not reach the heart of the matter, however, when one speaks about the unconscious, for this so-called unconscious is simply on the other side of the threshold of everyday consciousness. It is in that sphere in which the knowing one can unfold his plans. You see that this is essentially one side of the situation, that it is really so that a number of brotherhoods take an opposing stand, brotherhoods who wish to replace the activity of the Christ with the activity of another individuality. These brotherhoods arrange everything so that they can achieve their purpose.

Countering this are brotherhoods of the East, especially Indian brotherhoods, who wish no less significantly to interfere in the evolution of humanity. These Indian brotherhoods pursue yet another goal. They have never developed the type of esotericism through which they could ensnare the dead into their realm, into the realm of the lodges. That is far removed from their purposes; they have no interest in such things. On the other hand, they also do not wish the Mystery of the Golgotha with its impulse to take hold of the evolution of humanity. They also do not wish this. It is not, however, that they do not wish it because the dead are at their disposal, as I indicated is the case with the brotherhoods of the West. They wish to fight against the Christ, Who will enter human evolution as an etheric individuality in the course of the twentieth century, not by substituting another individuality; for that purpose they would need the dead and these they do not have. Instead they wish to divert the interest away from this Christ. They do not wish to allow Christianity to become strong, these brotherhoods of the East, especially the Indian brotherhoods. They do not wish the interest in the true Christ, Who has passed through the Mystery of Golgotha, to flourish, the interest in the Christ Who had only a single incarnation for three years here on earth and Who cannot appear again on earth in a physical incarnation. They do not wish to make use of the dead in their lodges but something other than what were once simply living human beings. In these Indian, Eastern lodges, a different type of being is made use of in place of the dead used by the Western lodges.

When a human being dies, he leaves behind his etheric body; it separates from him soon after death, as you know. Under normal conditions this etheric body is assimilated by the cosmos. This absorption is somewhat complicated, as I have shown you in many different ways. Before the Mystery of Golgotha, however, and even after Golgotha, particularly in the Eastern regions, something quite distinctive was possible. When the human being after death surrenders such an etheric body, certain beings are able to inhabit this etheric body; they then become etheric beings with these etheric bodies that have been laid aside by human beings. In Eastern regions, therefore, it now happens that not dead people but all kinds of demonic spirits are induced to inhabit etheric bodies laid aside by human beings. Such demonic spirits that inhabit the etheric bodies laid aside by human beings are taken into the Eastern lodges. The Western lodges thus have the dead who have been directly confined within matter; the Eastern lodges of the left have demonic spirits, spirits that do not belong to earthly evolution but who creep into earthly evolution by occupying the etheric bodies vacated by human beings.

Exoterically this phenomenon is transformed through veneration. You know that certain brotherhoods possess the art of calling forth illusions. Because people do not know how widespread illusion already is in reality, they can easily be deceived by artificially called forth illusions. It is done in this way: what one wishes to achieve is clothed in the form of veneration. Imagine that I have a tribe of people, a related clan; I have arranged ahead of time as an “evil” brother the possibility that the etheric body of an ancestor is occupied by a demonic being. I say to them that they must venerate this ancestor. The ancestor is simply the one who had laid aside his etheric body, which was then occupied by demons through the machinations of the lodge. The veneration of ancestors is thereby brought about. These ancestors who are being worshipped, however, are simply demonic beings within the etheric body of the respective ancestor.

One can divert the world conception of Eastern people from the Mystery of Golgotha by working in these ways, as they do in the Eastern lodges. Through this their purpose will be achieved, that Christ as individuality, as He is intended to pass over the earth, remains unnoticed by Eastern people and perhaps by people everywhere. They therefore do not wish to substitute a false Christ but to cause the appearance of Christ Jesus to remain unnoticed.

To a certain extent a twofold struggle is thus waged today against the Christ impulse appearing in the etheric in the course of the twentieth century. Humanity is actually inserted within this evolution. What we see happening in individual cases is essentially only a consequence of what is transpiring in the great impulses of humanity's evolution. For that reason it is sad that people will be deceived constantly when the unconscious, the so-called unconscious, is working within them—be it some receding love affair or something similar—when, in fact, impulses of extremely conscious spirituality are passing from all sides through humanity but remaining relatively unconscious if one does not trouble oneself about them in one's consciousness.

To these things you must add much more. Human beings who have been honestly concerned with the evolution of humanity have always taken into consideration such things as we have characterized, and they have undertaken what was right from their point of view. Much more than this the human being cannot or is not permitted to do.

A good sheltered place for spiritual life, an exceptionally good sheltered spot, protected against all possible illusions, was Ireland, the Irish Island during the first Christian centuries. It was truly protected from all possible illusions, more than any other region on earth. This is also the reason that so many disseminators of Christianity in the early Christian centuries originated in Ireland. These disseminators of Christianity, however, had to work with a naive humanity, because European humanity, among whom they were active, was in those days naive. They had to take this humanity in its naiveté into consideration, but as far as they themselves were concerned, they had to know and understand the great impulses of humanity. In the fourth and fifth centuries particularly, Irish initiates were active in Central Europe. They began there, and their activity consisted in preparing what was to take place in the future. To a certain extent they were under the influence of the initiate-knowledge that revealed that in the fifteenth century (1413, as you know) the fifth post-Atlantean era was to begin. They were under this influence. They also knew that they had to prepare for a completely new age, that a naive humanity must be protected for this new period. What was it that was done at that time to protect this naive humanity, to build a fence around it, as it were, to keep certain harmful influences from entering? What was done?

Evolution was guided first by well-instructed and then by honest groups in such a way that gradually all ocean journeys were suppressed, journeys that in past times had been made from Northern lands to America. It was thus arranged that whereas in past times boats would cross from Norway to America for certain purposes (I shall say more about this another time), this knowledge of America would be completely forgotten by the European population, so that the connection with America was gradually obliterated. In the fifteenth century nothing was known of America by European humanity. The development was directed particularly from Rome so that for definite reasons the connection with America was gradually lost, because European humanity had to be sheltered from American influences. Especially involved in this process of protecting European humanity from American influences were just these monks from Ireland who as Irish initiates had spread Christianity over the European continent.

In ancient times quite definite influences were brought from America; in the age when the fifth post-Atlantean epoch began, however, matters were arranged so that European humanity was uninfluenced by America, knew absolutely nothing about it, lived in the belief that America did not exist. Only after the fifth post-Atlantean period had begun was America again discovered, as is familiar history. One of the truths with which you are most likely familiar is that what is learned in schools as history is many times a “fable convenue.” That America was discovered for the first time in 1492 is such a convenient fable. It was only rediscovered. It was merely that for a period the connections were cleverly concealed, as had to occur. It is again important, however, to know what the situation was, to know the true history. True history is that Europe was fenced in for a time and was carefully protected against certain influences that were not to come to Europe.

Such things show you how significant it is not to accept the so-called unconscious as an unconscious but rather as something that is extremely conscious and takes place beyond the threshold of everyday human consciousness. It is indeed important for a larger portion of humanity to learn about certain mysteries. I have therefore done as much as it is possible to do now in public lectures in Zurich. In Zurich, as you may know, I have gone at times as far as to explain to people the extent to which historical life is not grasped by human beings with the ordinary consciousness but is in reality dreamt, how the content of history is in reality dreamt by human beings. Only when people become conscious of this will health come to these concepts.

These are things through which one gradually awakens consciousness. The phenomena, the facts that will come about, will show us the truth of these things. One must only be sure not to overlook them. Human beings go blindly and slumbering through the facts; they also go blindly and slumbering through such tragic catastrophes as the present one. These are things that I would like to impress upon your hearts, today more historically. Tomorrow I shall speak about these things more explicitly.

I would like to add one more picture to these things. First, you have seen from the discussion what a tremendous distinction there is between East and West in the evolution of humanity. Second, I ask you to consider the following. You see, the psychoanalyst speaks about the subconscious, about the subconscious life of the soul, and so on. It is not so important to speak about such an indefinite concept of these things, but it is necessary to grasp what is truly beyond the threshold of consciousness. What is there? Much is certainly to be found down there under the threshold of consciousness. For itself, however, what lies down there is extremely conscious. One must come to understand what kind of conscious spirituality exists beyond the threshold of consciousness. One must speak of conscious spirituality beyond the threshold of consciousness, not unconscious spirituality. We must become clear that man has much about which he knows nothing in his ordinary consciousness. It would put the human being in a terrible position if he had to know in his ordinary consciousness all that goes on within him. Just consider how he would be able to go about eating and drinking if he were to acquaint himself exactly with all the physiological and biological processes that take place from the ingesting of food onward, and so on. All this takes place in the unconscious. There are spiritual forces at work everywhere, even in the purely physiological. Man cannot wait with eating and drinking, however, until he has learned what is really going on within him. So much goes on within man! For man, a large portion, by far the largest portion, of his being is unconscious, or to say it better, subconscious.

The strange thing is that this subconscious that we carry within us is taken hold of by another being under all circumstances. This means that we are not only a fusion of body, soul, and spirit, carrying within us through the world our soul, which is independent of our body; shortly before birth another being takes possession of the subconscious portions of the human being. This being is there, this subconscious being that accompanies man the entire way between birth and death. Somewhat before birth it enters man and accompanies him. One can also characterize this being as one that permeates man in those parts that do not come into his ordinary consciousness: it is a very intelligent being and possessed of a will that is akin to the forces of nature; in its will it is much more closely related to the forces of nature than is man. I must emphasize the peculiarity, however, that this being would suffer extraordinarily if under present conditions it were to experience death with man. Under present conditions this being cannot experience death with man. It thus disappears shortly before death; it must always save itself. It always has the urge, however, to arrange the life of the human being in such a way that it can overcome death. It would be dreadful for the evolution of the human being, however, if this being that has taken such possession of man should also be able to conquer death, if it could die with man and in this way enter the spiritual worlds that man enters after death. It must always take its leave of man before he enters the spiritual world after death. In some cases this is very difficult for this being, and all sorts of complications arise.

This is the situation: this being that holds sway completely in the subconscious is extremely dependent upon the earth as a whole organism. The earth is not at all the being described by geologists, mineralogists, and paleontologists; this earth is a fully living being. Man sees only its skeleton, because the geologist, mineralogist, and paleontologist describe only its mineral nature that is the earth's skeleton. If you knew only this much, you would know about as much as if you were to enter this room and, through some special arrangement of your capacities for sight, could see nothing of this honored company but the bones, the skeletal system. Imagine if one entered through the door and on these chairs sat nothing but skeletons (not that you necessarily would have nothing but bones—that I do not expect of you—but we will assume that man has the capacity to see only bones; he would be fitted out with some kind of X-ray machine). This is just what geology sees of the earth; it sees only the skeleton. This earth, however, not only consists of skeleton but is a living organism, and this earth sends from its center to every point on the surface, to every territory, special forces. Picture for yourself the surface of the earth (see drawing):

Diagram 6 Click image for large view

Here is the Eastern region, there the Western region, to take it only on a large scale. The forces that are transmitted from the earth are something that belong to the life organism of the earth. Depending on whether a human being lives on this or that spot on earth, his soul, this immortal soul, does not come directly in contact with these forces but only indirectly—the immortal soul of man is relatively independent of earthly conditions. The soul is only artificially dependent upon earthly conditions, as was shown today. By the circuitous path through this other being, however, this being that takes possession of man before birth and must leave him again before death, these various forces work particularly strongly. These forces are active in racial types and geographic differentiations in human beings. It is thus this “double,” which man bears within him, upon whom the geographic and other differentiations particularly exert their influences.

This is extremely significant, and we will see tomorrow in which way this double is influenced from various points of the earth and what the resulting consequences are. I have already mentioned that it is necessary for you to consider what I have said today with what will come tomorrow, because the one can hardly be understood without the other. We must now try to absorb into ourselves such concepts as become even more serious when related to the total reality, to that reality in which the human soul lives with its entire being. This reality metamorphoses itself in various ways, but how it is metamorphosed depends greatly upon man. Two significant metamorphoses that are possible become clear when one is aware of how human souls, depending upon whether they absorb materialistic or spiritual concepts between birth and death, imprison themselves on earth or come into the right spheres. In these matters increasing clarity must prevail in our concepts. We will then find increasingly the right relationship to the entire world. This will not occur in an abstract spiritual movement, but rather it must lie within us, in a concretely comprehended spiritual movement that reckons with the spiritual life of a number of individualities.

It is truly satisfying for me that such discussions—discussions that are also particularly significant for those among us who no longer belong to the physical plane but have passed through the portal of death, remaining our faithful members—that such discussions as these are fostered here as a reality, that they bring us ever closer to our departed friends.

[ 1 ] Between birth and death man, at his present evolutionary stage, lives in ordinary life through three soul states: waking, sleeping, and the state between them, dreaming. Dreaming will be briefly considered later on in this book. Here let us first consider life in its two chief alternating states—waking and sleeping. Man acquires a knowledge of higher worlds if he develops a third soul state besides sleep and waking. During its waking state the soul surrenders itself to sense-impressions and thoughts that are aroused by these impressions. During sleep the sense-impressions cease, but the soul also loses its consciousness. The experiences of the day sink into the sea of unconsciousness. Let us now imagine that the soul might be able during sleep to become conscious despite the exclusion of all sense-impressions as is the case in deep sleep, and even though the memories of the day's experiences were lacking. Would the soul, in that case, find itself in a state of nothingness? Would it be unable to have any experiences? An answer to these questions is only possible if a similar state of consciousness can actually be induced, if the soul is able to experience something even though no sense-activities and no memory of them are present in it. The soul, in regard to the ordinary outer world, would then find itself in a state similar to sleep, and yet it would not be asleep, but, as in the waking state, it would confront a real world. Such a state of consciousness can be induced if the human being can bring about the soul experiences made possible by spiritual science; and everything that this science describes concerning the worlds that lie beyond the senses is the result of research in just such a state of consciousness.—In the preceding descriptions some information has been given about higher worlds. In this chapter—as far as it is possible in this book—we shall deal with the means through which the state of consciousness necessary for this method of research is developed.

[ 2 ] This state of consciousness resembles sleep only in a certain respect, namely, through the fact that all outer sense-activities cease with its appearance; also all thoughts are stilled that have been aroused through these sense-activities. Whereas in sleep the soul has no power to experience anything consciously, it is to receive this power from the indicated state of consciousness. Through it a perceptive faculty is awakened in the soul that in ordinary life is only aroused by the activities of the senses. The soul's awakening to such a higher state of consciousness may be called initiation.

[ 3 ] The means of initiation lead from the ordinary state of waking consciousness into a soul activity, through which spiritual organs of observation are employed. These organs are present in the soul in a germinal state; they must be developed.—It may happen that a human being at a certain moment in the course of his life, without special preparation, makes the discovery in his soul that such higher organs have developed in him. This has come about as a sort of involuntary self-awakening. Such a human being will find that through it his entire nature is transformed. A boundless enrichment of his soul experiences occurs. He will find that there is no knowledge of the sense world that gives him such bliss, such soul satisfaction, and such inner warmth as he now experiences through the revelation of knowledge inaccessible to the physical eye. Strength and certainty of life will pour into his will from a spiritual world.—There are such cases of self-initiation. They should, however, not tempt us to believe that this is the one and only way and that we should wait for such self-initiation, doing nothing to bring about initiation through proper training. Nothing need be said here about self-initiation, for it can appear without observing any kind of rules. How the human being may develop through training the organs of perception that lie embryonically in the soul will be described here. People who do not feel the least trace of an especial impulse to do something for the development of themselves may easily say, “Human life is directed by spiritual powers with whose guidance no one should attempt to interfere; we should wait patiently for the moment when such powers consider it proper to open another world to the soul.” It may indeed be felt by such human beings as a sort of insolence or as an unjustified desire to interfere with the wisdom of spiritual guidance. Individuals who think thus will only arrive at a different point of view when a certain thought makes a sufficiently strong impression upon them. When they say to themselves, “Wise spiritual guidance has given me certain faculties; it did not bestow them upon me to be left unused, but to be employed. The wisdom of this guidance consists in the fact that it has placed in me the germinal elements of a higher state of consciousness. I shall understand this guidance only when I feel it obligatory that everything be revealed to the human being that can be revealed through his spiritual powers.” If such a thought has made a sufficiently strong impression on the soul, the above doubts about training for a higher state of consciousness will disappear.

[ 4 ] Other doubts, however, can still arise about such training. We may say, “The development of inner soul capacities penetrates into the most concealed holy of holies of the human being. It involves a certain transformation of his entire nature. The means for such a transformation cannot, by its very nature, be thought out by ourselves. For the way of reaching higher worlds can only be known to him who knows the way into these worlds through his own experience. If we turn to such a personality, we permit him to have an influence over the soul's most concealed holy of holies.”—Whoever thinks thus would not be especially reassured even though the means of bringing about a higher state of consciousness were presented to him in a book. For the point of the matter is not whether we receive this information verbally or whether someone having the knowledge of this means presents it in a book that we then read. There are persons, however, who possess the knowledge of the rules for the development of the spiritual organs of perception and who are of the opinion that these rules ought not to be entrusted to a book. Such people usually do not consider it permissible to publish certain truths relating to the spiritual world. This view, however—considering the present stage of human evolution—must, in a certain sense, be declared outmoded. It is correct, in regard to the publication of the rules in question, that we may do so only to a certain point. Yet the information given leads far enough for those who employ it for soul training to reach a point in the development of their knowledge from which they can then continue on the path. One can only visualize the further direction of this path correctly by what one has experienced previously on it. From all these facts, doubts may arise about the spiritual path of knowledge. These doubts disappear if one holds in mind the nature of the course of development that is indicated by the training appropriate to our age. We shall speak here about this path. Other methods of training will only be briefly touched upon.

[ 5 ] The training to be described here places in the hands of the person who has the will for his higher development the means for undertaking the transformation of his soul. Any dangerous interference with the inner nature of the disciple would only occur were the teacher to undertake this transformation by means that elude the consciousness of the pupil. No proper instruction for spiritual development in our age employs such means. A proper instruction does not make the pupil a blind instrument. It gives him the rules of conduct, and he then carries them out. There is no need to withhold the reason why this or that rule of conduct is given. The acceptance of the rules and their employment by a person who seeks spiritual development need not be a matter of blind faith. Blind faith should be completely excluded from this domain. Whoever considers the nature of the human soul, as far as it is possible through ordinary self-examination without spiritual training, may ask himself after encountering the rules recommended for spiritual training, “How can these rules be effective in the life of the soul?” It is possible to answer this question satisfactorily prior to any training by the unprejudiced employment of common sense. We are able to understand correctly the way of working of these rules prior to their practice. But it can be experienced only during training. The experience, however, will always be accompanied by understanding if we accompany each step with sound judgment, and at the present time a true spiritual science will only indicate rules for training upon which sound judgment may be brought to bear. Anyone who is willing to surrender himself to such training only, and who does not permit himself to be driven to blind faith by prejudice of any kind, will find that all doubts disappear. Objections to a proper training for a higher state of consciousness will not disturb him.

[ 6 ] Even for a person whose inner maturity can lead him sooner or later to self-awakening of the spiritual organs of perception such training is not superfluous, but on the contrary it is quite especially suited to him. For there are but few cases in which such a person, prior to self-initiation, is not compelled to pass through the most varied, crooked and useless byways. Training spares him these deviations. It leads straight forward. If self-initiation takes place for such a soul, it is caused by its having acquired the necessary maturity in the course of previous lives. It may easily happen, however, that just such a soul has a certain dim presentiment of its maturity and through this presentiment is inclined to reject the proper training. This presentiment may produce a certain pride that hinders faith in a true spiritual training. It is possible that a certain stage of soul development may remain concealed up to a certain age in human life and only then appear, but training may be just the right means of bringing forth this stage. If the individual pays no heed to such training, it may happen that his ability remains concealed during his present life and will only reappear in some subsequent life.

[ 7 ] In regard to the training for supersensible knowledge described here, it is important to avoid certain obvious misunderstandings. One of these may arise through thinking that training would transform man into a different being in regard to his entire life-conduct. It cannot, however, be a question of giving man general instructions for his conduct of life, but of telling him about soul-exercises which, properly performed, will give him the possibility of observing the supersensible. These exercises have no direct influence upon the part of his life-functions that lies outside the observation of the supersensible. In addition to these life-functions the human being acquires the gift of supersensible observation. The function of this observation is as much separated from the ordinary functions of life as the state of waking is from that of sleeping. The one cannot disturb the other in the least. Whoever, for example, wishes to permeate the ordinary course of life with impressions of supersensible perception resembles an invalid whose sleep would be continually interrupted by injurious awakenings. It must be possible for the free will of the trained person to induce the state in which supersensible reality is observed. Training, to be sure, is indirectly connected with certain instructions concerning conduct in as far as, without an ethically determined conduct of life, an insight into the supersensible is impossible or injurious. Consequently, much of what leads to the perception of the supersensible is at the same time a means of ennobling the conduct of life. On the other hand, as a result of insight into the supersensible world, higher moral impulses are recognized that are also valid for the sensory-physical world. Certain moral necessities are only recognized from out this world.—A second misunderstanding would arise were it believed that any soul function leading to supersensible knowledge might produce changes in the physical organism. Such functions have nothing whatsoever to do with anything in the realm of physiology or other branches of natural science. They are pure soul-spirit processes, entirely devoid of anything physical, like sound thinking and perception. Nothing happens in the soul through such a function—considering its character—that is different from what takes place when it thinks or judges in a healthy fashion. Just as much or as little as sound thinking has to do with the body, so do the processes of true training for supersensible cognition have to do with the body. Anything that has a different relationship to man is not true spiritual training, but its distortion. What follows is to be taken in the sense of what has been said here. Only because supersensible knowledge is something that proceeds from the entire soul of man will it appear as if things were required for this training that would transform man into something else. In truth it is a question of instruction about functions enabling the soul to bring into its life moments in which the supersensible may be observed.

[ 8 ] The attainment of a supersensible state of consciousness can only proceed from everyday waking consciousness. In this consciousness the soul lives before its elevation. Through the training the soul acquires a means of lifting itself out of everyday consciousness. The training that is under consideration here offers among the first means those that still may be designated as functions of everyday consciousness. The most important means are just those that consist of quiet activities of the soul. They involve the opening of the soul to quite definite thoughts. These thoughts exercise, by their very nature, an awakening power upon certain hidden faculties of the human soul. They are to be distinguished from the visualizations of everyday waking life, which have the task of depicting outer things. The more truly they do this, the truer they are, and it is part of their nature to be true in this sense. The visualizations, however, to which the soul must open itself for the purpose of spiritual training have no such task. They are so constructed that they do not depict anything external but have in themselves the peculiarity of effecting an awakening in the soul. The best visualizations for this purpose are emblematic or symbolical. Nevertheless, other visualizations may also be employed, for it is not a question of what they contain, but solely a question of the soul's directing its powers in such a way that it has nothing else in mind but the visualized image under consideration. While the powers of everyday soul-life are distributed in many directions—the visualized mental representations changing very rapidly—in spiritual training everything depends upon the concentration of the entire soul-life upon one visualization. This visualization must, by means of free will, be placed at the center of consciousness. Symbolic visualized images are, therefore, better than those that represent outer objects or processes, for the latter have a point of attachment to the outer world, making the soul less dependent upon itself than when it employs symbolic visualizations that are formed through the soul's own energy. The essential is not what is visualized; what is essential is the fact that the visualization, through the way it is visualized, liberates the soul from dependence on the physical.

[ 9 ] We understand what it means to immerse ourselves in a visualized image if we consider, first of all, the concept of memory. If, for instance, we look at a tree and then away from it so that we can no longer see it, we are then able to re-awaken the visualization of the tree in the soul by recollecting it. This visualization of the tree, which we have when the eye no longer beholds the latter, is a memory of the tree. Now let us imagine that we preserve this memory in the soul; we permit the soul, as it were, to rest upon the visualized memory picture; and at the same time we endeavor to exclude all other visualizations. Then the soul is immersed in the visualized memory picture of the tree. We then have to do with the soul's immersion in a visualized picture or image; yet this visualization is the image of an object perceived by the senses. But if we undertake this with a visualized image formed in the consciousness by an act of independent will, we shall then be able by degrees to attain the effect upon which everything depends.

[ 10 ] We shall now endeavor to describe an example of inner immersion in a symbolic visualization. Such a visualization must first be fashioned in the soul. This may happen in the following way. We visualize a plant as it roots in the earth, as leaf by leaf sprouts forth, as its blossom unfolds, and now we think of a human being beside this plant. We make the thought alive in the soul of how he has characteristics and faculties which, when compared with those of the plant, may be considered more perfect than the latter. We contemplate how, according to his feelings and his will, he is able to move about hither and thither, while the plant is chained to the earth. Furthermore we say that the human being is indeed more perfect than the plant, but he also shows peculiarities that are not to be found in the plant. Just because of their nonexistence in the plant the latter may appear to me in a certain sense more perfect than the human being who is filled with desire and passion and follows them in his conduct. I may speak of his being led astray by his desires and passions. I see that the plant follows the pure laws of growth from leaf to leaf, that it opens its blossom passionlessly to the chaste rays of the sun. Furthermore, I may say to myself that the human being has a greater perfection than the plant, but he has purchased this perfection at the price of permitting instincts, desires, and passions to enter into his nature besides the forces of the plant, which appear pure to us. I now visualize how the green sap flows through the plant and that it is an expression of the pure, passionless laws of growth. I then visualize how the red blood flows through the human veins and how it is the expression of the instincts, desires, and passions. All this I permit to arise in my soul as vivid thought. Then I visualize further how the human being is capable of evolution; how he may purify and cleanse his instincts and passions through his higher soul powers. I visualize how, as a result of this, something base in these instincts and desires is destroyed and how the latter are reborn upon a higher plane. Then the blood may be conceived of as the expression of the purified and cleansed instincts and passions. In my thoughts I look now, for example, upon the rose and say, In the red rose petal I see the color of the green plant sap transformed into red, and the red rose, like the green leaf, follows the pure, passionless laws of growth. The red of the rose may now become the symbol of a blood that is the expression of purified instincts and passions that have stripped off all that is base, and in their purity resemble the forces active in the red rose. I now seek not merely to imbue my intellect with such thoughts but to bring them to life in my feelings. I may have a feeling of bliss when I think of the purity and passionlessness of the growing plant; I can produce within myself the feeling of how certain higher perfections must be purchased through the acquirement of instincts and desires. This can then transform the feeling of bliss, which I have felt previously, into a grave feeling; and then a feeling of liberating joy may stir in me when I surrender myself to the thought of the red blood which, like the red sap of the rose, may become the bearer of inwardly pure experiences. It is of importance that we do not without feeling confront the thoughts that serve to construct such a symbolic visualization. After we have pondered on such thoughts and feelings for a time, we are to transform them into the following symbolic visualization. We visualize a black cross. Let this be the symbol of the destroyed base elements of instincts and passions, and at the center, where the arms of the cross intersect, let us visualize seven red, radiant roses arranged in a circle. Let these roses be the symbol of a blood that is the expression of purified, cleansed passions and instincts.¹ Such a symbolic visualization should be called forth in the soul in the way illustrated above through a visualized memory image. Such a visualization has a soul-awakening power if we surrender ourselves to it in inward meditation. We must seek to exclude all other thoughts during meditation. Only the characterized symbol is to hover in spirit before the soul as intensely as possible.—It is not without significance that this symbol is not simply given here as an awakening visualized picture, but that it has first been constructed by means of certain thoughts about plant and man. For the effect of such a symbol depends upon the fact of its having been constructed in the way described before it is employed in inner meditation. If we visualize the symbol without first having fashioned it in our own souls, it remains cold and much less effective than when it has received, through preparation, its soul-illuminating power. During meditation, however, we should not call forth in the soul all the preparatory thoughts, but merely let the visualized picture hover vividly before our inner eye, at the same time letting the feeling hold sway that has appeared as a result of the preparatory thoughts. Thus the symbol becomes a token alongside the feeling-experience, and its effectiveness lies in the dwelling of the soul in this inner experience. The longer we are able to dwell in it without the intervention of other, disturbing, thoughts, the more effective is the entire process. It is well, nevertheless, for us, outside the period dedicated to the actual meditation itself, to repeat the construction of the symbol by means of thoughts and feelings of the above described kind, so that the experience may not fade away. The more patience we exercise in this renewal, the more significant is the symbol for the soul. (In my book, Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and Its Attainment, other examples of means for inner meditation are given. Especially effective are the meditations characterized there about the growth and decay of the plant, about the slumbering creative forces in the plant seed, about the forms of crystals, and so forth. In the present book, the nature of meditation was to be described by a single example.)

[ 11 ] Such a symbol, as is described here, portrays no outer thing or being that is brought forth by nature. But just because of this it has an awakening power for certain purely soul faculties. To be sure, someone might raise an objection. He might say, It is true, the symbol as a whole is certainly not produced by nature, but all its details are, nevertheless, borrowed from nature—the black color, the red roses, and the other details. All this is perceived by the senses. Anyone who may be disturbed by such an objection should consider that it is not the pictures of sense-perceptions that lead to the awakening of the higher soul faculties, but that this effect is produced only by the manner of combining these details, and this combination does not picture anything that is present in the sense world.

[ 12 ] The process of effective meditation was illustrated here by a symbol, as an example. In spiritual training the most manifold pictures of this kind can be employed and they can be constructed in the most varied manner. Also certain sentences, formulae, even single words, upon which to meditate may be given. In every case these means to inner meditation have the objective of liberating the soul from sense-perception and of arousing it to an activity in which the impression upon the physical senses is meaningless and the development of the inner slumbering soul faculties becomes the essential. It may also be a matter of meditation upon mere feelings and sensations. This shows itself to be especially effective. Let us take, for example, the feeling of joy. In the normal course of life the soul may experience joy if an outer stimulus for it is present. If a soul with normal feelings perceives how a human being performs an action that is inspired by kindness of heart, this soul will feel pleased and happy about it. But this soul may then meditate on an action of this sort. It may say to itself, an action performed through goodness of heart is one in which the performer does not follow his own interest, but the interest of his fellow-man, and such an action may be designated morally good. The contemplating soul, however, may now free itself from the mental picture of the special case in the outer world that has given it joy or pleasure, and it may form the comprehensive idea of kindness of heart. It may perhaps think how kindness of heart arises by the one soul absorbing, so to speak, the interests of the other soul and making them its own, and it may now feel joy about this moral idea of kindness of heart. This is not the joy in this or that process in the sense world, but the joy in an idea as such. If we attempt to keep alive such joy in the soul for a certain length of time, then this is meditation on inner feeling, on inner sensation. The idea is not then the awakening factor of the inner soul faculties, but the holding sway, for a certain length of time, of the feeling within the soul that is not aroused through a mere single external impression.—Since supersensible knowledge is able to penetrate more deeply into the nature of things than ordinary thinking, it is able through its experiences to indicate feelings that act in a still higher degree upon the unfolding of the soul faculties, when they are employed in inner meditation. Although this is necessary for higher degrees of training, we should remember the fact that energetic meditation on such feelings and sensations, as for example have been characterized in the observation of kindness of heart, is able to lead very far.—Since human beings are varied in character, so are the effective means of training varied for the individual man.—In regard to the duration of meditation we have to consider that the effect is all the stronger, the more tranquilly and deliberately this meditation is carried out. But any excess in this direction should be avoided. A certain inner discretion that results through the exercises themselves may teach the pupil to keep within due bounds.

[ 13 ] Such exercises in inner meditation will in general have to be carried on for a long time before the student himself is able to perceive any results. What belongs unconditionally to spiritual training is patience and perseverance. Whoever does not call up both of these within his soul and does not, in all tranquility, continuously carry out his exercises, so that patience and perseverance form the fundamental mood of the soul, cannot achieve much.

[ 14 ] It will have become evident from the preceding exposition that meditation is a means of acquiring knowledge about higher worlds, but it will also have become evident that not just any content of thought will lead to it, but only a content that has been evolved in the manner described.

[ 15 ] The path that has been indicated here leads, in the first place, to what may be called imaginative cognition. It is the first stage of higher cognition. Knowledge that rests upon sense-perception and upon the working over of the sense-perceptions through the intellect bound to the senses may be called, in the sense of spiritual science, “objective cognition.” Beyond this lie the higher stages of knowledge, the first of which is imaginative cognition. The expression “imaginative” may call forth doubts in those who think “imagination” stands only for unreal imaginings, that is, a visualization of something that has no corresponding reality. In spiritual science, however, “imaginative” cognition is to be conceived as something coming into existence through a supersensible state of consciousness of the soul. What is perceived in this state are spiritual facts and beings to which the senses have no access. Because this state is awakened in the soul by meditating on symbols or “imaginations,” the world of this higher state of consciousness may be named the “imaginative” world, and the knowledge corresponding to it “imaginative” cognition. “Imaginative,” therefore, means something which is “real” in a different sense from the facts and beings of physical sense-perception. The content of the visualizations that fill imaginative experience is of no importance, but of utmost importance is the soul faculty which is developed through this experience.

[ 16 ] An obvious objection to the employment of the characterized symbolic visualizations is that their fashioning corresponds to a dreamlike thinking and to arbitrary imagining and therefore can bring forth only doubtful results. In regard to the symbols that lie at the foundation of true spiritual training, doubts of this character are unjustified. For the symbols are chosen in such a way that their connection with outer sense reality may be entirely disregarded and their value sought merely in the force with which they affect the soul when the latter withdraws all attention from the outer world, when it suppresses all impressions of the senses, and shuts out all thoughts that it may cherish as a result of outer stimuli. The process of meditation is best illustrated by a comparison with the state of sleep. On the one hand it resembles the latter, on the other it is the complete opposite. It is a sleep that represents, in regard to everyday consciousness, a higher waking state. The important point is that through concentration upon the visualization or picture in question the soul is compelled to draw forth much stronger powers from its own depths than it employs in everyday life or in everyday cognition. Its inner activity is thereby enhanced. It liberates itself from the bodily nature just as it does during sleep, but it does not, as in the latter case, pass over into unconsciousness, but becomes conscious of a world that it has not previously experienced. Although this soul state may be compared with sleep in regard to the liberation from the body, yet it may be described as an enhanced waking state when compared with everyday waking consciousness. Through this the soul experiences itself in its true inner, independent nature, while in the everyday waking state it becomes conscious of itself only through the help of the body because of the weaker unfolding of its forces in that state, and does not, therefore, experience itself, but is only aware of the picture that, like a reflection, the body (or properly speaking its processes) sketches for it.

[ 17 ] The symbols that are constructed in the above described manner do, by their very nature, not yet relate to anything real in the spiritual world. They serve the purpose of detaching the human soul from sense-perception and from the brain instrument to which the intellect is bound at the outset. This detachment cannot occur in man prior to his feeling the following: I now visualize something by means of forces in connection with which my senses and my brain do not serve me as instruments. The first thing that the human being experiences on this path is such a liberation from the physical organs. He may then say to himself, “My consciousness is not extinguished when I disregard the sense-perceptions and ordinary intellectual thinking; I can lift myself out of them and then feel myself as a being alongside the one I was previously.” This is the first purely spiritual experience: the observation of a soul-spirit ego being. This, as a new self, has lifted itself out of the self that is only bound to the physical senses and the physical intellect. If without meditation the pupil had released himself from the world of the senses and intellect, he would have sunk into the “nothingness” of unconsciousness. The soul-spirit being, naturally, existed before meditation had taken place, but it did not yet have any organs of observing the spiritual world. It was somewhat similar to a physical body without eyes to see, or ears to hear. The force that was employed in meditation first has fashioned the soul-spirit organs out of the previously unorganized soul-spirit nature. The individual beholds first, therefore, what he has created. Thus, the first experience is, in a certain sense, self-perception. It belongs to the essence of spiritual training that the soul, through the practice of self-education, is at this point of its development fully conscious of the fact that at first it perceives itself in the world of pictures—imaginations—which appear as a result of the exercises described. Although these pictures appear as living in a new world, the soul must recognize that they are, at the outset, nothing but the reflection of its own being, strengthened through the exercises, and it must not only recognize this with proper discretion, but it must also have developed such a power of will that it can extinguish, can eliminate these pictures from consciousness at any time. The soul must be able to act within these pictures completely free and fully aware. This belongs to true spiritual training at this stage. If the soul were not able to do this it would be in the same circumstances, in the sphere of spiritual experience, in which a soul would find itself in the physical world, were its eyes fettered to the object upon which they gaze, powerless to withdraw them. Only one group of inner imaginative experiences constitutes an exception to this possibility of extinction. These experiences are not to be extinguished at this stage of spiritual training. They correspond to the kernel of the soul's own being, and the student of the spiritual recognizes in these pictures what, in himself, passes through repeated earth lives as his fundamental being. At this point the sensing of repeated earth lives becomes a real experience. In regard to everything else the independence of the experiences mentioned must rule, and only after having acquired the ability to bring about this extinction does the student approach the true external spiritual world. In place of what has been extinguished, something else appears that is recognized as spiritual reality. The student feels how he grows in his soul from the undefined into the defined. From the self-perception he then must proceed to an observation of an outer world of soul and spirit. This takes place when the student arranges his inner experiences in the sense that will be further indicated here.

[ 18 ] In the beginning the soul of the student of the spiritual is weak in regard to everything that is to be perceived in the spiritual world. He will have to employ great inner energy in order to hold fast in meditation to the symbols or other visualizations that he has fashioned from the stimuli of the world of the senses. If, however, he wishes besides this to attain real observation in a higher world, he must be able not only to hold fast to these visualizations, but he must also, after he has done this, be able to sojourn in a state in which no stimuli of the sensory world act upon the soul, but in which also the visualized imaginations themselves, characterized above, are extirpated from consciousness. What has been formed through meditation can only then appear in consciousness. It is important now that sufficient inner soul power be present in order really to perceive spiritually what has been formed through meditation, so that it may not elude the attention. This is, however, always the case with but weakly developed inner energy. What is thus constructed in the beginning as a soul-spirit organism and what is to be taken hold of by the student in self-perception is delicate and fleeting, and the disturbances of the outer world of the senses and its after-effects of memory are great, however much we may endeavor to hold them back. Not only the disturbances that we observe come into question here, but much more, indeed, those of which we are not conscious at all in everyday life.—The very nature of the human being, however, makes possible a state of transition in this regard. What the soul at the beginning cannot achieve in the waking state on account of the disturbances of the physical world, is possible in the state of sleep. Whoever surrenders to meditation will, by proper attention, become aware of something in sleep. He will feel that during sleep he does not “fall into a complete slumber,” but that at times his soul is active in a certain way while sleeping. In such states the natural processes hold back the influences of the outer world that the waking soul is not yet able to prevent by means of its own power. If, however, the exercises of meditation have already been effective, the soul frees itself during sleep from unconsciousness and feels the world of soul and spirit. This may happen in a twofold way. It may be clear to the human being during sleep that now he is in another world; or he may have the memory on awaking that he has been in another world. To the first belongs, indeed, greater inner energy than to the second. Therefore the latter will be more frequent for the beginner in spiritual training. By degrees this may go so far that the pupil feels on waking that he has been in another world during the whole sleep period, from which he has emerged on waking, and his memory of the beings and facts of this other world will become ever more definite. Something has taken place for the student of the spiritual in one form or another that may be called the continuity of consciousness. (The continuity of consciousness during sleep.) It is not at all meant by this, however, that man is always conscious during sleep. Much, however, has already been gained in the continuity of consciousness if the human being, who otherwise sleeps like ordinary man, has at certain times during sleep intervals in which he can consciously behold a world of soul and spirit, or if, after waking, he can look back again in memory upon such brief states of consciousness. It should not be forgotten, however, that what is described here may be only understood as a transitional state. It is good to pass through this state in the course of training, but one should certainly not believe that a conclusive perception in regard to the world of soul and spirit should be derived from it. The soul is uncertain in this state and cannot yet depend upon what it perceives. But through such experiences it gathers more and more power in order to succeed, also while awake, in warding off the disturbing influences of the physical outer and inner worlds, and thus to acquire the faculty of soul-spirit observation when impressions no longer come through the senses, when the intellect bound to the physical brain is silent, and when consciousness is freed even from the visualizations of meditation by means of which we have only prepared ourselves for spiritual perception.—Whatever is revealed by spiritual science in this or that form should never originate from any other soul-spirit observation than from one that has been made during the state of complete wakefulness.

[ 19 ] Two soul experiences are important in the process of spiritual training. Through the one, man may say to himself, “Although I now disregard all the impressions the outer physical world may offer, nevertheless, I do not look into myself as though at a being in whom all activity is extinguished, but I look at one who is conscious of himself in a world of which I know nothing as long as I only permit myself to be stimulated by sense impressions and the ordinary impressions of the intellect.” At this moment the soul has the feeling that it has given birth, in the manner described above, to a new being in itself as the kernel of its soul nature, and this being possesses characteristics quite different from those that previously existed in the soul. The other experience consists in now having the old being like a second alongside the new. What, up to the present, the student knew as enclosing him becomes something that now confronts him, in a certain sense. He feels himself at times outside of what he had otherwise called his own being, his ego. It is as though he now lived in full consciousness in two egos. One of these is the being he has known up to the present. The other stands, like a being newly born, above it. The student feels how the first ego attains a certain independence of the second, just as the body of the human being has a certain independence of the first ego.—This experience is of great significance. For through it the human being knows what it means to live in the world that he strives to reach through training.

[ 20 ] The second, the new-born ego, may now be trained to perceive within the spiritual world. There may be developed in this ego what, for the spiritual world, has the same significance the sense organs possess for the sensory-physical world. If this development has advanced to the necessary stage, then the human being will not only feel himself as a new-born ego, but he will now perceive spiritual facts and spiritual beings in his environment, just as he perceives the physical world through the physical senses. This is a third significant experience. In order completely to find his way about at this stage of spiritual training the human being must realize that, with the strengthening of soul powers, self-love and egotism will appear to a degree quite unknown to everyday soul-life. It would be a misunderstanding if someone were to believe that at this point only ordinary self-love is meant. This self-love increases at this stage of development to such a degree that it assumes the appearance of a nature force within the human soul, and in order to vanquish this strong egotism a rigorous strengthening of the will is necessary. This egotism is not produced by spiritual training; it is always present; it only comes to consciousness through spiritual experience. The training of the will must go hand in hand with the other spiritual training. A strong inclination exists to feel enraptured in the world that we have created for ourselves, and we must, in the manner described above, be able to extinguish, as it were, what we have striven to create with such great effort. In the imaginative world that has thus been reached the student must extinguish himself. Against this however, the strongest impulses of egotism wage war.—The belief may easily arise that the exercises of spiritual training are something external, disregarding the moral evolution of the soul. It must be said concerning this that the moral force that is necessary for the indicated victory over egotism cannot be attained unless the moral condition of the soul is brought to a corresponding level. Progress in spiritual training is not thinkable without a corresponding moral progress. Without moral force the described victory over egotism is not possible. All talk about true spiritual training not being at the same time moral training does not conform to facts. Only the person who does not know such an experience can make the following objection by asking, “How are we to know that we are dealing with realities and not with mere visions, hallucinations, and so forth, when we believe we have spiritual perceptions?”—The facts are such, however, that the student who has reached the characterized stage by proper training is just as able to distinguish his own visualization from spiritual reality as a man with a healthy mind is able to distinguish the thought of a hot piece of iron from an actual one that he touches with his hand. Healthy experience, and nothing else, shows the difference. In the spiritual world also, life itself is the touchstone. Just as we know that in the sense world the mental picture of a piece of iron, be it thought ever so hot, will not burn the fingers, the trained spiritual student knows whether or not he experiences a spiritual fact only in his imaginings or whether real facts or beings make an impression upon his awakened spiritual organs of perception. The general rules that we must observe during spiritual training in order not to fall victim to illusions in this regard will be described later.

[ 21 ] It is of greatest importance that the student of the spiritual has acquired a quite definite soul state when he becomes conscious of a new-born ego. For through his ego the human being attains to control of his sensations, feelings, thoughts, instincts, passions, and desires. Perception and thought cannot be left to themselves in the soul. They must be regulated through attentive thinking. It is the ego that employs these laws of thinking and through them brings order into the life of visualization and thought. It is similar with desires, instincts, inclinations, and passions. The ethical principles become guides of these soul powers. Through moral judgment the ego becomes the guide of the soul in this realm. If the human being now draws a higher ego out of his ordinary ego, the latter becomes independent in a certain sense. From this ego just as much of living force is withdrawn as is bestowed upon the higher ego. Let us suppose, however, the case in which the human being has not yet developed a sufficient ability and firmness in the laws of thought and in his power of judgment, and he wishes to give birth to his higher ego at this stage of development. He will be able to leave behind for his everyday ego only so much thought power as he has previously developed. If the measure of regulated thinking is too small, then there will appear a disordered, confused, fantastic thinking and judgment in the ordinary ego that has become independent. Because the new-born ego can only be weak in such a personality, the disturbed lower ego will gain domination over supersensible perception, and man will not show equilibrium in his power of judgment in observing the supersensible world. If he had developed sufficient ability in logical thinking, he would be able, without fear, to permit the ordinary ego to have its independence.—This is also true in the domain of the ethical. If the human being has not attained firmness in moral judgment, if he has not gained sufficient control over his inclinations, instincts, and passions, then he will make his ordinary ego independent in a state in which these soul powers act. It may happen that the human being in describing the knowledge he has experienced in the supersensible is not governed by the same high sense of truth that guides him in what he brings to his consciousness in the physical outer world. With such a demoralized sense of truth, he might believe anything to be spiritual reality that in truth is only his own fantastic imagining. Into this sense of truth there must act firmness of ethical judgment, certainty of character, keenness of conscience, which are developed in the lower, first ego, before the higher, second ego becomes active for the purpose of supersensible cognition.—What is said here must not discourage training, but it must be taken very seriously.

[ 22 ] Anyone who has the strong will to do what brings the first ego to inner certainty in the exercise of its functions need not recoil from the liberation of his second ego, brought about through spiritual training for the sake of supersensible cognition. But he must keep in mind that self-deception has great power over the human being when it is a question of his feeling himself “mature” enough for some step. In the spiritual training described here, man attains such a development of his thought life that it is impossible for him to encounter the dangers of going astray, often presumed to be inevitable. This development of thought acts in such a way that all necessary inner experiences appear, but that they occur in the soul without being accompanied by damaging aberrations of fantasy. Without corresponding thought development the experiences may call forth a profound uncertainty in the soul. The method stressed here causes the experiences to appear in such a way that the student becomes completely familiar with them, just as he becomes familiar with the perceptions of the physical world in a healthy soul state. Through the development of thought life he becomes, as it were, an observer of what he experiences in himself, while, without this thought life, he stands heedless within the experience.

[ 23 ] In a factual training certain qualities are mentioned that the student who wishes to find his way into the higher worlds should acquire through practice. These are, above all, control of the soul over its train of thought, over its will, and its feelings. The way in which this control is to be acquired through practice has a twofold purpose. On the one hand, the soul is to be imbued with firmness, certainty, and equilibrium to such a degree that it preserves these qualities, although from its being a second ego is born. On the other hand, this second ego is to be furnished with strength and inner consistency of character.

[ 24 ] What is necessary for the thinking of man in spiritual training is, above all, objectivity. In the physical-sensory world, life is the human ego's great teacher of objectivity. Were the soul to let thoughts wander about aimlessly, it would be immediately compelled to let itself be corrected by life if it did not wish to come into conflict with it. The soul must think according to the course of the facts of life. If now the human being turns his attention away from the physical-sensory world, he lacks the compulsory correction of the latter. If his thinking is then unable to be its own corrective, it must become irrational. Therefore the thinking of the student of the spiritual must be trained in such a manner that it is able to give to itself direction and goal. Thinking must be its own instructor in inner firmness and the capacity to hold the attention strictly to one object. For this reason, suitable “thought exercises” are not to be undertaken with unfamiliar and complicated objects, but with those that are simple and familiar. Anyone who is able for months at a time to concentrate his thoughts daily at least for five minutes upon an ordinary object (for example a needle, a pencil, or any other simple object), and during this time to exclude all thoughts that have no bearing on the subject, has achieved a great deal in this regard. (We may contemplate a new object daily, or the same one for several days.) Also, the one who considers himself a thinker as a result of scientific training should not disdain to prepare himself for spiritual training in this manner. For if for a certain length of time we fasten our thoughts upon an object that is well known to us, we can be sure that we think in conformity with facts. If we ask ourselves what a pencil is composed of, how its materials are prepared, how they are brought together afterward, when pencils were invented, and so forth, we then conform our thoughts more to reality than if we reflect upon the origin of man, or upon the nature of life. Through simple thought exercises we acquire greater ability for factual thinking concerning the Saturn, Sun, and Moon evolutions than through complicated and learned ideas. For in the first place it is not at all a question of thinking about this or that, but of thinking factually by means of inner force. If we have schooled ourselves in regard to factuality by a physical-sensory process, easily surveyed, then thought becomes accustomed to function in accordance with facts even though it does not feel itself controlled by the physical world of the senses and its laws, and we rid ourselves of the habit of letting our thoughts wander without relation to facts.

[ 25 ] The soul must become a ruler in the sphere of the will as it must be in the world of thought. In the physical-sensory world, it is life itself that appears as the ruler. It emphasizes this or that need of the human being, and the will feels itself impelled to satisfy these needs. In higher training man must become accustomed to obey his own commands strictly. He who becomes accustomed to this will be less and less inclined to desire the non-essential. Dissatisfaction and instability in the life of will rest upon the desire for things the realization of which we cannot conceive clearly. Such dissatisfaction may bring the entire mental life into disorder when a higher ego is about to emerge from the soul. It is a good practice if one gives oneself for months, at a certain time of the day, the following command: Today, at this definite time, I shall perform this or that action. One then gradually becomes able to determine the time for this action and the nature of the thing to be done so as to permit its being carried out with great exactness. Thus one lifts oneself above the damaging attitude of mind found in, “I should like this, I want that,” in which we do not at all consider the possibility of its accomplishment. A great personality—Goethe—lets a seeress say, “Him I love who desires the impossible.”² And Goethe himself says, “To live in the idea means to treat the impossible as though it were possible.”³ Such expressions must not be used as objections to what is presented here. For the demand of Goethe and his seeress, Manto, can only be fulfilled by someone who has trained himself to desire what is possible, in order then to be able, through his strong will, to treat the “impossible” so that it is transformed through his will into the possible.

[ 26 ] In regard to the world of feeling the soul should attain for spiritual training a certain degree of calmness. It is necessary for that purpose that the soul become ruler over expressions of joy and sorrow, of pleasure and pain. It is just in regard to the acquiring of this ability that much prejudice may result. One might imagine that one would become dull and without sympathy in regard to one's fellowmen if one should not feel joy with the joyful and with the painful, pain. Yet this is not the point in question. With the joyful the soul should rejoice, with sadness it should feel pain. But it should acquire the ability to control the expression of joy and sorrow, of pleasure and pain. If one endeavors to do this, one will soon notice that one does not become less sensitive, but on the contrary more receptive to all that is joyous and sorrowful in one's environment than one was previously. To be sure, if one wishes to acquire the ability with which we are concerned here, one must strictly observe oneself for a long period of time. One must see to it that one is able fully to sympathize with joy and sorrow without losing one's self-control so that one gives way to an involuntary expression of one's feelings. It is not the justified pain that one should suppress, but involuntary weeping; not the horror of an evil action, but the blind rage of anger; not attention to danger, but fruitless fear, and so forth.—Only through such practice does the student of the spiritual attain the tranquility of mind that is necessary to prevent the soul at the birth of the higher ego, and, above all, during its activity, from leading a second, abnormal life like a sort of Doppelganger—soul double—along side this higher ego. It is just in regard to these things that one should not surrender oneself to any sort of self-deception. It may appear to many a one that he already possesses a certain equanimity in ordinary life and therefore does not need this exercise. It is just such a person who doubly needs it. It may be quite possible to be calm when confronting the things of ordinary life, but when one ascends into a higher world, the lack of equilibrium that heretofore was only suppressed may assert itself all the more. It must be grasped that for spiritual training what one already appeared to possess previously is of less importance than the need to practice, according to exact rules, what one lacks. Although this sentence appears contradictory, it is, nevertheless, correct. Even though life has taught us this or that, the abilities we have acquired by ourselves serve the cause of spiritual training. If life has brought us excitability, we should break ourselves of the habit; if life has brought us complacency, then we should through self-education arouse ourselves to such a degree that the expression of the soul corresponds to the impression received. Anyone who never laughs about anything has just as little control of his life as someone who, without any control whatever, is continually given to laughter.

[ 27 ] For the control of thought and feeling there is a further means of education in the acquirement of the faculty that we may call positiveness. There is a beautiful legend that tells of how the Christ Jesus, accompanied by some other persons, passed by a dead dog lying on the roadside. While the others turned aside from the hideous spectacle, the Christ Jesus spoke admiringly of the animal's beautiful teeth. One can school oneself in order to attain the attitude of soul toward the world shown by this legend. The erroneous, the bad, the ugly should not prevent the soul from finding the true, the good, and the beautiful wherever it is present. This positiveness should not be confused with non-criticism, with the arbitrary closing of the eyes to the bad, the false, and the inferior. If you admire the “beautiful teeth” of a dead animal, you also see the decaying corpse. But this corpse does not prevent your seeing the beautiful teeth. One cannot consider the bad good and the false true, but it is possible to attain the ability not to be deterred by evil from seeing good, and by error from seeing truth.

[ 28 ] Thought linked with will undergoes a certain maturing if we permit ourselves never to be robbed by previous experiences of the unbiased receptivity for new experiences. For the student of the spiritual the following thought should entirely lose its meaning, “I have never heard that, I do not believe that.” It should be his aim, during specific periods of time, to learn something new on every occasion from everything and everybody. From every breath of air, from every leaf, from the babbling of children one can learn something if one is prepared to bring to one's aid a certain point of view that one has not made use of up to the present. It will, however, be easily possible in regard to such an ability to go wide of the mark. One should not in any way disregard, at any particular stage of life, one's previous experiences. One should judge what one experiences in the present by one's experiences of the past. This is placed upon one scale of the balance; upon the other, however, must be placed the inclination of the student continually to experience the new. Above all, there must be faith in the possibility that new experiences may contradict the old.

[ 29 ] Thus we have named five capacities of the soul that the student must make his own by correct training: Control of the direction of thought; control of the impulses of will; calmness in joy and sorrow; positiveness in judging the world; impartiality in our attitude toward life. Anyone who has employed certain consecutive periods of time for the purpose of acquiring these capacities will still be subject to the necessity of bringing them into harmonious concord in his soul. He will be under the necessity of practicing them simultaneously, in pairs, or three and one, and so forth, in order to bring about harmony.

[ 30 ] The exercises just characterized are indicated by the methods of spiritual training because by being conscientiously carried out they not only effect in the student what has been designated above as a direct result, but indirectly much else follows, which is needed on the path to the spiritual worlds. Whoever carries out these exercises to a sufficient degree will encounter in the process many short comings and defects in his soul-life, and he will find precisely the means required by him for strengthening and safeguarding his intellectual life, his life of feeling, and his character. He will certainly have need of many other exercises, according to his abilities, his temperament, and character; such exercises will follow, however, when those named are sufficiently carried out. The student will indeed notice that the exercises described yield, indirectly and by degrees, what did not in the first place appear to be in them. If, for example, someone has too little self-confidence, he will be able to notice after a certain time that through the exercises the necessary self-confidence has developed. It is the same in regard to other soul characteristics. (Special and more detailed exercises may be found in my book, Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and Its Attainment.)—It is significant that the student of the spiritual be able to increase the indicated abilities to ever higher degrees. He must bring the control of thought and feeling to such a stage that the soul acquires the power of establishing periods of complete inner tranquility, during which the student holds back from his spirit and heart all that everyday outer life brings of joy and sorrow, of satisfaction and affliction, indeed, of duties and demands. During such periods only those things should enter the soul that the soul itself permits to enter during the state of meditation. In regard to this, a prejudice may easily arise. The opinion might develop that the student might become estranged from life and its duties if he withdraws from it in heart and spirit during certain periods of the day. In reality, however, this is not at all the case. Anyone who surrenders himself, in the manner described, to periods of inner tranquility and peace will, during these periods, engender so many and such strong forces for the duties of outer life that as a result he will not, indeed, perform his duties more poorly, but, certainly, in a better fashion.—It is of great benefit if in such periods the student detaches himself completely from the thoughts of his personal affairs, if he is able to elevate himself to what concerns not only himself but mankind in general. If he is able to fill his soul with the communications from the higher spiritual world and if they are able to arouse his interest to just as high a degree as is the case with personal troubles or affairs, then his soul will gather from it fruit of special value.—Whoever, in this way, endeavors to regulate his soul-life will also attain the possibility of self-observation through which he observes his own affairs with the same tranquility as if they were those of others. The ability to behold one's own experiences, one's own joys and sorrows as though they were the joys and sorrows of others is a good preparation for spiritual training. One gradually attains the necessary degree of this quality if, after one has finished one's daily tasks, one permits the panorama of one's daily experiences to pass before the eyes of the spirit. One must see oneself in a picture within one's experiences; that is, one must observe oneself in one's daily life as though from outside. One attains a certain ability in such self-observation if one begins with the visualization of detached portions of this daily life. One then becomes increasingly clever and skillful in such retrospect, so that, after a longer period of practice, one will be able to form a complete picture within a brief span of time. This looking at one's experiences backward has a special value for spiritual training for the reason that it brings the soul to a point where it is able to release itself in thinking from the previous habit of merely following in thought the course of everyday events. In thought-retrospect one visualizes correctly, but one is not held to the sensory course of events. One needs this exercise to familiarize oneself with the spiritual world. Thought strengthens itself in this way in a healthy manner. It is therefore also good not only to review in retrospect one's daily life, but to retrace in reverse order, for instance, the course of a drama, a narrative, or a melody.—More and more it will become the ideal for the student to relate himself to the life events he encounters in such a way that, with inner certainty and soul tranquility, he allows them to approach him and does not judge them according to his soul condition, but according to their inner significance and their inner value. It is just by looking upon this ideal that he will create for himself the soul basis for the surrender of himself to the above described meditations on symbolic and other thoughts and feelings.

[ 31 ] The conditions described here must be fulfilled, because supersensible experience is built upon the foundation on which one stands in everyday soul life before one enters the supersensible world. In a twofold manner all supersensible experience is dependent upon the starting point at which the soul stands before it enters into this world. Anyone who, from the beginning, does not consider making a healthy judgment the foundation of his spiritual training will develop in himself supersensible faculties with which he perceives the spiritual world inexactly and incorrectly. His spiritual organs of perception will, so to speak, unfold incorrectly. Just as one cannot see correctly in the sense world with eyes that are faulty and diseased, one cannot perceive correctly with spiritual organs that have not been constructed upon the foundation of a healthy capacity for judgment.—Whoever makes the start with an immoral soul condition elevates himself to the spiritual world in a way by which his spiritual perception becomes stupefied and clouded. He stands confronting the supersensible worlds like someone observing the sensory world in a stupor. Such a person will, to be sure, make no important statements. The spiritual observer in his state of stupor is, however, more awake than a human being in everyday consciousness. His assertions, therefore, will become errors in regard to the spiritual world.

[ 32 ] The inner excellence of the stage of imaginative cognition is attained through the fact that the soul meditations described are supported by what we may call familiarizing oneself with sense-free thinking. If one forms a thought based upon observation in the physical sense world, this thought is not sense-free. It is, however, not a fact that man is able to form only such thoughts. Human thought does not need to become empty and without content when it refuses to be filled with the results of sense-observations. The safest and most evident way for the student of the spiritual to acquire such sense-free thinking is to make his own, in thinking, the facts of the higher world that are communicated to him by spiritual science. It is not possible to observe these facts by means of the physical senses. Nevertheless, the student will notice that they can be grasped mentally if he has sufficient patience and persistence. We are not able to carry on research in the higher worlds without training, nor can we make observations in that world; yet without higher training we are able to understand the descriptions of spiritual researchers, and if someone asks, “How can I accept in good faith what these researchers say since I am unable to perceive the spiritual world myself?” then this is completely unfounded. For it is entirely possible merely by reflecting on what is given, to attain the certain conviction that what is communicated is true, and if anyone is unable to form this conviction through reflection, it is not because it is impossible to believe something one cannot see, but solely because his reflection has not been sufficiently thorough, comprehensive and unprejudiced. In order to gain clarity in regard to this point we must realize that human thinking, when it arouses itself with inner energy, is able to comprehend more than is usually presumed. For in thought itself an inner entity is already present that is connected with the supersensible world. The soul is usually not conscious of this connection because it is accustomed to developing the thought faculty only by employing it in the sense world. It therefore regards communications from the super-sensible world as something incomprehensible. These communications, however, are not only comprehensible to a mode of thinking taught through spiritual training, but for every sort of thinking that is fully conscious of its own power and that wishes to employ it.—By making what spiritual research offers increasingly one's own, one accustoms oneself to a mode of thinking that does not derive its content from sense-observations. We learn to recognize how, in the inner reaches of the soul, thought weaves into thought, how thought seeks thought, although the thought associations are not effected by the power of sense-observation. The essential in this is the fact that one becomes aware of how the thought world has an inner life, of how one, by really thinking, finds oneself already in the region of a living supersensible world. span class="paragraphMarker">[ 33 ] One says to oneself, “There is something in me that fashions a thought organism; I am, nevertheless, at one with this something.” By surrendering oneself to sense-free thinking one becomes conscious of the existence of something essential flowing into our inner life, just as the characteristics of sense objects flow into us through the medium of our physical organs when we observe by means of our senses. The observer of the sense world says to himself, “Outside in space there is a rose; it is not strange to me, for it makes itself known to me through its color and fragrance.” One needs now only to be sufficiently unprejudiced in order to say to oneself when sense-free thinking acts in one, “Something real proclaims its presence in me that binds thought to thought, fashioning a thought organism.” But the sensations experienced by observing the objects of the outer sense world are different from the sensations experienced when spiritual reality manifests itself in sense-free thinking. The observer of sense objects experiences the rose as something external to himself. The observer who has surrendered himself to sense-free thought feels the spiritual reality announcing itself as though it existed within him, he feels himself one with it. Whoever, more or less consciously, only admits as real what confronts him like an external object, will naturally not be able to have the feeling, “Whatever has the nature of being in itself may also announce itself to me by my being united with it as though I were one with it.” In order in this regard to see correctly, one must be able to have the following inner experience. One must learn to distinguish between the thought associations one creates arbitrarily and those one experiences in oneself when one silences this arbitrary volition. In the latter case one may then say, “I remain quite silent within myself; I produce no thought associations; I surrender myself to what ‘thinks in me.’ ” Then one is fully justified in saying, “Something possessing the nature of being acts within me,” just as one is justified in saying, “A rose acts upon me when I see its red color, when I smell its fragrance.”—In this connection, there lies no contradiction in the fact that the content of one's thoughts is derived from the communications of the spiritual researcher. The thoughts are, indeed, already present when one surrenders to them; but one cannot think them if one does not, in every case, re-create them anew within the soul. What is important is the fact that the spiritual researcher calls up thoughts in his listeners and readers that they must first draw forth out of themselves, while the one who describes sense reality points to something that may be observed by listeners and readers in the sense world.

[ 34 ] (The path is absolutely safe upon which the communications of spiritual science lead us to sense-free thinking. There is, however, still another path that is safer and above all more exact, but it is also more difficult for many human beings. This path is presented in my books, A Theory of Knowledge Based on Goethe's World Conception, and Philosophy of Freedom. These writings offer what human thought can acquire if thinking does not give itself up to the impressions of the physical-sensory world, but only to itself. It is then pure thought, which acts in the human being like a living entity, and not thought that merely indulges in memories of the sensory. In the writings mentioned above nothing is inserted from the communications of spiritual science itself. Yet it is shown that pure thinking, merely active within itself, may throw light on the problems of world, life, and man. These writings stand at an important point intermediate between cognition of the sense world and that of the spiritual world. They offer what thinking can gain when it elevates itself above sense-observation, while still avoiding entering upon spiritual research. Whoever permits these writings to act upon his entire soul nature, stands already within the spiritual world; it presents itself to him, however, as a world of thought. He who feels himself in the position to permit such an intermediate stage to act upon him, travels a safe path, and through it he is able to gain a feeling toward the higher world that will bear for him the most beautiful fruit throughout all future time.)

[ 35 ] The object of meditation on the previously characterized symbolic mental images and feelings is, correctly speaking, the development of the higher organs of perception within the human astral body. They are created from the substance of this astral body. These new organs of observation open up a new world, and in this new world man becomes acquainted with himself as a new ego. The new organs of observation are to be distinguished from the organs of the physical sense world through the fact of their being active organs. Whereas eyes and ears remain passive, permitting light and sound to act upon them, the soul-spirit organs of perception are continually active while perceiving and they seize upon their objects and facts, as it were, in full consciousness. This results in the feeling that soul-spirit cognition is the act of uniting with the corresponding facts, is really a “living within them.”—The soul-spirit organs that are being individually developed may, by way of comparison, be called “lotus flowers,” according to the forms which they present imaginatively to supersensible consciousness. (Granted, it must be clear that such a designation has nothing more to do with the case than the expression “chamber” has to do with the case when we speak of the “chamber of the heart.”) Through quite definite methods of inner meditation the astral body is affected in such a way that one or another of the soul-spirit organs, one or another of the “lotus flowers,” is formed. After all that has been described in this book it ought to be superfluous to accentuate the fact that these “organs of observation” are not to be imagined as something that, in the mental representation of its sense-image, is a picture of its reality. These “organs” are supersensible and consist of a definitely formed soul activity; they exist only as far and as long as this soul activity is practiced. The existence of these organs in the human being produces nothing of a sensory character any more than human thinking produces some sort of a physical “vapor.” Whoever insists on visualizing the supersensory as something sensory becomes involved in misunderstandings. In spite of the superfluity of this remark, it is made here because again and again there are those who accept the supersensory as a fact, but who, in their thoughts, desire only what is sensory, and because again and again there appear opponents of supersensory cognition who believe that the spiritual researcher speaks of “lotus flowers” as though they were delicate, physical structures. Every correct meditation that is made in regard to imaginative cognition has its effect upon one or another organ. (In my book, Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and Its Attainment, certain methods of meditation, and exercises that affect one or another of the organs, are outlined.) Proper training sets up the several exercises of the student of the spiritual and arranges them to follow one another so that the organs are able to develop correspondingly, either singly, in groups, or consecutively. In connection with this development the spiritual student must have great patience and endurance. Anyone having only the measure of patience possessed, as a rule, by most human beings through the ordinary relationships of life will find that this does not suffice. For it takes a long time, often a very long time, before the organs are sufficiently developed to permit their employment by the spiritual student in perceiving the spiritual world. This is the moment when something occurs for him that may be called illumination, in contrast to the preparation or purification consisting of the exercises that develop the organs. (We speak of purification, because the corresponding exercises purify the student in a certain sphere of his inner life of all that springs only from the sensory world of observation.) It may happen that the student, even before his actual illumination occurs, may experience repeatedly “flashes of light” coming from a higher world. He should accept such experiences gratefully. Through them he can already become a witness for the spiritual world. But he should not waver if this does not occur during this period of preparation, which may perhaps seem to him altogether too long. If he exhibits any impatience whatever “because he does not yet see anything,” he has not yet gained the right attitude toward a higher world. This attitude can only be grasped by someone for whom the exercises performed in his training can be, as it were, an end in themselves. These exercises are, in truth, work performed on the soul-spirit nature, that is to say, on the student's own astral body, and although he “sees nothing,” he may “feel” that he is working on his soul-spirit nature. If, however, one forms a definite opinion right at the beginning of what one actually expects to “see,” one will not have this feeling. Then one will consider as nothing what in truth is of immeasurable significance. But one should be subtly observant of everything one experiences during the exercises and that is so fundamentally different from all experiences in the sense world. One will then certainly notice that one's astral body, upon which one is working, is not a neutral substance, but that in it there lives a totally different world of which one knows nothing in one's life of the senses. Higher beings are working upon the astral body, just as the outer physical-sensory world works upon the physical body, and one encounters this higher life in one's own astral body if one does not close oneself to it. If someone repeatedly says to himself, “I perceive nothing!” then, in most cases, he has imagined that spiritual perception must take place in this or that manner, and because he does not perceive what he imagines he should see, he says, “I see nothing!”

[ 36 ] If the student has acquired the right attitude toward the exercises of spiritual training, they will constitute something for him that he loves more and more for its own sake. He then knows that through the practice itself he stands in a world of soul and spirit, and with patience and serenity he awaits what will result. This attitude may arise in the consciousness of the student most favorably in the following words, “I will do everything that is proper in the way of exercises, and I know that just as much will come to me at the proper time as is important for me. I do not demand it impatiently, but I am ever ready to receive it.”

It is not valid to object that “the spiritual student must thus grope about in the dark, perhaps for an immeasurably long time; for he can only know clearly that he is on the right path in his exercises when the results appear.” It is untrue that only results can bring knowledge of the correctness of the exercises. If the student takes the right attitude toward them, he finds that the satisfaction he draws from the practice gives him the assurance that what he is doing is right; he does not have to wait for the results. Correct practice in the sphere of spiritual training calls forth satisfaction that is not mere satisfaction, but knowledge that is to say, the knowledge that he is doing something which convinces him that he is making progress in the right direction. Every spiritual student may have this knowledge at every moment, provided he is subtly attentive to his experiences. If he does not employ this attention then the experiences escape him, as is the case with a pedestrian who, lost in thought, does not see the trees on both sides of the road, although he would see them were he to direct his attention to them.—It is not at all desirable that a result be hastened different from the one that must always occur from correct practice. For this result might easily be only the smallest part of what should actually appear. In regard to spiritual development a partial success is often the reason for a strong retardation of the complete success. The movement among such forms of spiritual life that correspond to the partial success dulls the sensitivity in regard to the influences of the forces that lead to higher stages of evolution, and what we may have gained by having “peered” into the spirit world is only an illusion, for this “peering” cannot furnish the truth, but only a mirage.

[ 37 ] The psycho-spiritual organs, the lotus flowers, are fashioned so as to appear to supersensible consciousness, in the student undergoing training, as though located in the neighborhood of certain organs of the physical body. From among these soul organs the following will be mentioned here. First, the one that is felt between the eyebrows—the so-called two-petalled lotus flower; the one in the neighborhood of the larynx—the sixteen-petalled lotus flower; a third in the heart region—the twelve-petalled lotus flower; a fourth in the region of the solar plexus. Other similar organs appear in the neighborhood of other parts of the physical body. (The names “two-petalled” or “sixteen-petalled” may be used because the corresponding organs may be likened to flowers of a corresponding number of petals.)

[ 38 ] One becomes conscious of the lotus flowers through the astral body. The moment one has developed one or another of these organs, one is aware of its existence. One feels that one can employ it and through its use really enter into a higher world. The impressions that one receives from that world still resemble in many ways those of the physical-sensory world. He who possesses imaginative cognition will be able to speak of the new, higher world in such a way that he designates the impressions as sensations of heat or cold, as perceptions of tones and words, as effects of light and color, for he experiences them as such. But he is aware that these perceptions in the imaginative world express something quite different from sense reality. He recognizes that behind them stand not physical material, but soul-spirit causes. If he experiences something like an impression of heat, he does not, for instance, ascribe it to a piece of hot iron, but he considers it the outflow of a soul process that, up to the present, he has only known in his inner soul-life. He knows that behind imaginative perceptions stand soul and spiritual things and processes just as behind physical perceptions stand material physical beings and facts.—Beside this similarity of the imaginative with the physical world there is, however, a significant difference. Certain phenomena in the physical world appear quite different in the imaginative world. In the former can be observed a continual growth and decay of things, an alternation of birth and death. In the imaginative world a continual transformation of one thing into another takes the place of these phenomena. One sees, for example, the decay of a plant in the physical world. In the imaginative world, in proportion to the withering of the plant the growth of another formation makes its appearance that is not perceptible physically and into which the decaying plant is gradually transformed. When the plant has disappeared, this formation stands completely developed in its place. Birth and death are ideas that lose their significance in the imaginative world. In their place appears the concept of transformation of one thing into another.—Because this is so, the truths about the being of man become accessible to imaginative cognition, truths that have been described in Chapter 2 of this book, entitled “The Essential Nature of Mankind.” To physical-sensory perception only the processes of the physical body are perceptible. They occur in the “region of birth and death.” The other members of human nature—life body, sentient body, and ego—come under the law of transformation, and perception of them is acquired through imaginative cognition. Whoever has advanced to this point perceives the releasing itself from the physical body of what at death continues to live on in another state of existence.

[ 39 ] Development, however, does not stop with the imaginative world. The human being who might wish to stop in this world would perceive the beings undergoing transformation, but he would be unable to explain the processes of transformation; he would be unable to orientate himself in the newly attained world. The imaginative world is an unstable region. In it there exist everywhere constant motion and transformation; nowhere are there points of rest. Such points of rest are attained by man only when he has developed himself beyond the stage of imaginative cognition to the stage that may be called “cognition through inspiration.”—It is not necessary that a person who seeks cognition of the supersensible world develop himself in such a way that he advance first to the possession of a full degree of imaginative cognition, and then only advance to “Inspiration.” His exercises may be so arranged that what may lead to imagination and to inspiration proceeds hand in hand. He will then, after a certain time, enter a higher world in which he not only perceives, but in which he is able to orientate himself, and which he can interpret. To be sure, this progress will, as a rule, be of such a character that first of all some of the phenomena of the imaginative world manifest themselves to him; then after a time he will experience the feeling, “Now I am beginning to orientate myself.”—The world of inspiration is, nevertheless, something quite new in comparison with the world of mere imagination. Through the latter one perceives the transformation of one process into another; through the former one learns to know the inner qualities of beings who transform themselves. Through imagination one learns to know the soul-expression of beings; through inspiration one penetrates into their inner spiritual nature. One recognizes above all a host of spiritual beings and discerns a great number of relationships between one being and another. One has to deal with a multitude of individual beings also in the physical-sensory world; in the world of inspiration, however, this multitude is of a different character. There each being has a quite definite relationship to others, not as in the physical world through external influences, but through its inner constitution. If we perceive a being in the world of inspiration, there is no evidence of an outer influence upon another being, which might be compared with the effect of one physical being upon another, but a relationship exists between two beings through their inner constitution. Let us compare this relationship with a relationship in the physical world, by selecting for comparison the relationship between the separate sounds or letters of a word. Take, for instance, the word “man.” It is produced through the concordance of the sounds m-a-n. There is no impulse or other external influence passing over from the m to the a; both sounds act together within the whole through their inner constitution. Therefore observation in the world of inspiration may only be compared with reading,—and the beings in the world of inspiration act upon the observer like the letters of an alphabet, which he must learn to know and the interrelationships of which must unfold themselves to him like a supersensible script. Spiritual science, therefore, may call cognition through inspiration—speaking figuratively—the reading of secret or occult script.

[ 40 ] How we may read by means of this occult script, and how we may communicate what is read, will now be made clear by means of the preceding chapters of this book itself. How the human being takes shape out of various members was described at the very outset. It was then shown how the cosmic being, within which the human being develops, passes through the various states of Saturn, Sun, Moon, and Earth. The perceptions through which one can, on the one hand, cognize the members of the human being and, on the other, the consecutive states of the Earth and its preceding transformations, disclose themselves to imaginative knowledge. It is, however, also necessary that it be known what relationships exist between the Saturn state and the human physical body, the Sun state and the ether body, and so forth. It must be shown that the germinal human physical body has come already into existence during the Saturn state, and that it has evolved further to its present form during the Sun, Moon, and Earth states. It was necessary to show also, for example, what transformations have taken place within the human being as a result of the separation of the sun from the Earth, and similarly through the separation of the moon. It was necessary also to describe the powers and beings who co-operated in order that such transformations could occur in humanity as are expressed in the transformations during the Atlantean period and also during the successive periods of the ancient Indian, the ancient Persian, the Egyptian cultures, and the subsequent periods of culture. The description of these relationships does not result from imaginative perception, but from cognition through inspiration, by reading the occult script. For this sort of “reading” the perceptions of imagination are like letter symbols or sounds. This “reading,” however, is not only necessary for the purpose of explaining what has just been described, but it would be impossible to understand the life course of the whole human being were it only perceived through imaginative cognition. One would perceive, indeed, how the soul-spiritual members are released at death from what remains in the physical world, but one would not understand the relationships between what happens to the human being after death and the preceding and succeeding states, were one unable to orientate oneself within the imaginatively perceived.. Without cognition through inspiration the imaginative world would remain like writing at which we stare but which we cannot read.

[ 41 ] When the student of the spiritual advances from imagination to inspiration he soon sees how incorrect it would be to relinquish the understanding of the macrocosmic phenomena and to limit himself only to facts that, so to say, touch upon immediate human interests. Someone who is not initiated into these things might well say the following. “It appears to me only necessary to learn about the fate of the human soul after death; if I am told something about that, it will suffice; why does spiritual science wish to demonstrate such distant things as the Saturn or Sun state, and the sun and moon separation, and so forth?” Anyone properly informed about these things learns that real knowledge of what he wishes to know is never acquired without an understanding of what seems to him so unnecessary. A description of the human states after death remains completely unintelligible and worthless if man is unable to connect them with concepts that are derived from such remote matters. Even the simplest observation of the scientist of the supersensible makes his acquaintance with such things necessary. If, for example, a plant makes the transition from blossom to fruit, the human observer of the supersensible sees a transformation taking place in an astral being that during the period of flowering has overshadowed the plant from above and enclosed it like a cloud. Had the fructification not occurred, then this astral being would have made a transition into quite a different shape from the one it has assumed in consequence of fructification. Now one understands the entire process perceived by supersensible observation, if one has learned to understand its nature through the macrocosmic process through which the Earth and all its inhabitants have passed at the time of the sun separation. Before fructification, the plant is in a position similar to the entire Earth prior to the sun separation. After fructification, the plant blossom shows itself in a condition similar to the Earth after the sun had severed itself and the moon forces were still present in it. If one has made one's own the concepts that may be gained by studying the sun separation, one then understands adequately the meaning of the process of plant fructification. One will say that the plant is in a sun state before fructification, in a moon state after it. For it is a fact that even the smallest process in the world may be grasped only if we recognize that it constitutes a copy of macrocosmic processes. Otherwise its very nature remains unintelligible, just as Raphael's Madonna would remain unintelligible if nothing were to be seen but a small blue speck when the rest of the picture were covered up. Everything that occurs in the human being is a copy of macrocosmic processes that have to do with his existence. If one wishes to understand the observations of supersensible consciousness concerning the phenomena occurring between birth and death, and again between death and rebirth, one can do this if one has acquired the faculty of deciphering the imaginative observations through the concepts acquired by the study of the macrocosmic processes.—This study gives us the key to the comprehension of human life. Therefore, in the sense of spiritual science, observation of Saturn, Sun, and Moon is at the same time observation of man.

[ 42 ] Through inspiration one acquires the knowledge of the relationships between the beings of the higher world. It is possible through a higher stage of cognition to understand the inner nature of these beings themselves. This stage of cognition may be designated intuitive cognition. (Intuition is a word misused in everyday life for an obscure, uncertain insight into a fact, that is, for a certain idea which at times agrees with truth but the justification of which is at the time not provable. What is meant here has naturally nothing to do with this sort of intuition. Intuition denotes here a cognition of the highest, most illuminating clarity, and, if one has it, one is conscious in the fullest sense of its justification.)—To have knowledge of a sense-being means to stand outside it and to judge it according to the external impression. To have knowledge of a spiritual being through intuition means to have become completely one with it, to have become united with its inner nature. Step by step the student of the spiritual ascends to such knowledge. Imagination leads him to sense the perceptions no longer as outer characteristics of beings, but to recognize in them the outpouring of something psycho-spiritual; inspiration leads him further into the inner nature of beings. He learns through it to understand what these beings are to each other; with intuition he penetrates into the beings themselves.—The significance of intuition also may be shown by the descriptions given in this book. In the preceding chapters, not only the course of Saturn, Sun, and Moon evolutions was described, but it was told that beings participate in this development in the most varied ways. Thrones or Spirits of Will, Spirits of Wisdom, of Motion, and others were mentioned. In the Earth evolution mention was made of the spirits Lucifer and Ahriman. The construction of the cosmos was traced back to the beings who participate in it. What may be learned about these beings is won through intuitive cognition. This faculty is also necessary if one wishes to have a knowledge of the course of human life. What is released after death from the human bodily nature goes through various states in the subsequent period. The states directly after death might be described in some measure through imaginative cognition.

What, however, takes place when man advances further into the period between death and rebirth would have to remain quite unintelligible to imaginative cognition, if inspiration did not come to the rescue. Only inspiration is able to discover what may be said about the life of man in the land of spirits after purification. Then something appears for which inspiration no longer suffices, where it reaches, so to say, the limits of understanding. There is a period in human evolution between death and rebirth when the being of man is accessible only to intuition. This part of the being of man, however, is always present in him; and if we wish to understand it according to its true inner nature, we must investigate it by means of intuition also in the period between birth and death. Whoever wished to fathom the nature of man by means of imagination and inspiration alone, would miss the innermost processes of his being that take place from incarnation to incarnation. Only intuitive cognition, therefore, makes possible an adequate research into repeated earth lives and into karma. The truth communicated about these processes must originate from research by means of intuitive cognition.—If man himself wishes to have a knowledge of his own inner being, he can only acquire this through intuition. By means of it he perceives what progresses in him from earth life to earth life.

[ 43 ] Man is able to attain knowledge by means of inspiration and intuition only through soul-spirit exercises. They resemble those that have been described as meditation for the attainment of imagination. While, however, those exercises that lead to imagination are linked to the impressions of the sensory-physical world, this link must disappear more and more in the exercises for inspiration. In order to make clear to himself what has to happen there, let a person consider again the symbol of the rose cross. If he ponders upon this symbol he has an image before him, the parts of which have been taken from the impressions of the sense world: the black color of the cross, the roses, and so forth. The combining of these parts into a rose cross has not been taken from the physical sense world. If now the student of the spirit attempts to let the black cross and also the red roses as pictures of sense realities disappear entirely from his consciousness and only to retain in his soul the spiritual activity that has combined these parts, then he has a means for meditation that leads him by degrees to inspiration. One may place the following question before one's soul. What have I done inwardly in order to combine cross and rose into a symbol? What I have done—my own soul process—I wish to hold fast to; I let the picture itself, however, disappear from my consciousness. Then I wish to feel within me all that my soul has done in order to bring the image into existence, but I do not wish to hold the image itself; I wish to live quite inwardly within my own activity, which has created the image. Thus, I do not intend to meditate on an image, but to dwell in my own image-creating soul activity. Such meditation must be carried out in regard to many symbols. This then leads to cognition through inspiration. Another example would be the following. One meditates on the thought of a growing and decaying plant. One allows to arise in the soul the image of a slowly growing plant as it shoots up out of the seed, as it unfolds leaf on leaf, until it develops flower and fruit. Then again, one meditates on how it begins to fade until its complete dissolution. One acquires gradually by meditating on such an image a feeling of growth and decay for which the plant remains a mere symbol. From this feeling, if this exercise is continued with perseverance, there may arise the imagination of the transformation that underlies physical growth and decay. If one wishes, however, to attain the corresponding state of inspiration, one has to carry out the exercise differently. The student must recall his own soul activity that has gained the visualization of growth and decay from the image of the plant. He must now let the plant disappear completely from consciousness and only meditate upon what he has himself done inwardly. Only through such exercises is it possible to ascend to inspiration. In the beginning it will not be entirely easy for the student of the spirit to comprehend completely how he should go about such an exercise. The reason for this is that the human being who is accustomed to have his inner life determined by outer impressions immediately finds himself uncertain and wavering when he has to unfold a soul-life that has discarded all connection with outer impressions. In a still higher degree than in the acquiring of imagination the student must be clear, in regard to these exercises that lead to inspiration, that he ought only to carry them out when he accompanies them with all those precautionary measures that can lead to safeguarding and strengthening of his power of discrimination, his life of feeling, and his character. If he takes these precautions, then he will have a twofold result. In the first place, he will not, through these exercises, lose the equilibrium of his personality during supersensible perception; secondly, he will at the same time gain the faculty of being able actually to carry out what is required in these exercises. He will maintain in regard to them that they are difficult only so long as he has not yet acquired a quite definite soul condition, quite definite feelings and sensations. He will soon gain understanding and also ability for the exercises, if in patience and perseverance he fosters in his soul such inner faculties as favor the unfolding of supersensible knowledge. If he grows accustomed to withdrawing into himself frequently in such a way that he is less concerned with brooding on himself than with quietly arranging and working over his life-experiences, he will gain much. He will see that his thoughts and feelings are enriched if he brings one life-experience into relationship with another. He will become aware to what a high degree he experiences something new not only by having new impressions and new experiences, but also by permitting the old to work in him. If he sets to work in such a way that he lets his experiences, indeed, even his acquired opinions, play back and forth as though he were not at all involved in them with his sympathies and antipathies, with his personal interests and feelings, he will prepare an especially good soil for the forces of supersensible cognition. He will develop, in truth, what may be called a rich inner life. The question of chief importance here, however, is equanimity and equilibrium of the soul qualities. Man is only too easily inclined, if he surrenders himself to a certain soul activity, to fall into one-sidedness. For example, if he becomes aware of the advantage of inner meditation and of dwelling in his own thought world, he may develop such an inclination toward it that he begins to shut himself off from the impressions of the outer world. This, however, leads to the withering and devastation of the inner life. Those go the farthest who preserve, alongside the ability to withdraw inwardly, an open receptivity to all impressions of the outer world. One need not think here merely of the so-called important impressions of life, but every man in every situation—even in the poorest surroundings—may have sufficient experiences if he only keeps his mind sufficiently receptive. One need not seek the experiences; they are present everywhere.—Of special importance also is the way experiences are transformed in the human soul. For example, somebody may discover that a person revered by him or others has this or that quality that may be viewed as a fault of character. Such an experience may cause the human being to meditate in a twofold manner. He may simply say to himself, “Now, that I have recognized this fault, I can no longer revere this person in the same way as formerly.” Or he may pose the following question to himself, “How does it happen that this revered person is afflicted with this fault? Should I not consider that this fault is not merely a fault, but something due to the circumstances of this person's life, perhaps even to his great capacities?” A human being posing this question to himself will perhaps arrive at the result that his reverence is not in the least to be decreased by the discovery of such a fault. He will have learned something every time he goes through such an experience; he will have added something to his understanding of life. It would, however, certainly be disastrous to the human being were he to let himself be misled by the merit of such a view of life to excuse everything he possibly can in people and things for whom he has a preference, or even to form the habit of disregarding all faults because it brings him advantage for his inner development. This will not be the case if he has the subjective impulse not merely to censure faults but to understand them; it will occur when this attitude is demanded by the case in question, regardless of the gain or loss to him who judges. It is entirely correct that one cannot learn through condemning faults, but only through understanding them. If, however, because of understanding, one should entirely exclude disapproval, one would not get very far either. Here also it is not a question of one-sidedness in either direction, but of equanimity and equilibrium of the soul powers.—It is especially so with a soul quality that is of great significance for the development of the human being; this is what is called the feeling of reverence or devotion. Those who have developed this feeling in themselves or possess it from the outset through a fortunate gift of nature have an excellent basis for the forces of supersensible knowledge. The person who in childhood or youth has been able to look up with self-surrendering admiration to personalities as though to high ideals, possesses something at the foundation of his soul in which supersensible cognition thrives especially well. And whoever with mature judgment in later life looks upon the starry heavens and feels with wonder in complete surrender the revelation of exalted powers makes himself thus mature for knowledge of supersensible worlds. Something similar is the case with those who are able to admire the forces ruling in human life, and it is not of little importance if we, even as mature human beings, can have reverence to the highest degree for other men whose worth we divine or believe we know. Only where such reverence is present can the view into the higher world open up. The person who is unable to revere will in no way advance very far in his knowledge. Whoever does not wish to acknowledge anything in the world will find that the essential nature of things is closed to him.—The person, however, who permits himself to be misled, through an unrestrained feeling of reverence and surrender, to deaden in himself a healthy consciousness of self and self-confidence sins against the law of equanimity and equilibrium. The student will continually work on himself in order to make himself more and more mature; he is then justified in having confidence in his own personality and in having faith that its powers will continually increase. If he achieves correct feelings in this direction he may say to himself, “In me there lie hidden forces and I can draw them forth from my inner being. Therefore, when I see something that I must revere because it stands above me, I need not only revere it, but I may hope to develop myself to such a degree that I become similar to what I revere.”

[ 44 ] The greater the capacity of a human being to direct his attention to certain processes of life with which his personal judgment is not, at the outset, familiar, the greater the possibility for him to lay the foundation for a development into the spiritual worlds. An example may make this clear. A man is in a certain situation in life where he may perform a certain deed or leave it undone. His judgment suggests to him: Do this! But there may be a certain inexplicable something in his feelings that holds him back from the deed. Now it may be that he does not pay any attention to this inexplicable something that seeks to restrain him, but simply performs the deed, according to his capacity to judge. Or he may surrender to the urge of this inexplicable something and leave the deed undone. If he then follows up the matter further it may become evident that evil would have been the result had he followed his judgment, but that by non-performance of the deed, a blessing has ensued. Such an experience may lead man's thoughts into a quite definite direction. He may say to himself, “Something lives in me that is a better guide than my present capacity of judgment. I must hold my mind open to this ,something in me that cannot at all be reached by the present degree of my capacity of judgment.” The soul is benefited to the highest degree when it directs its attention toward such occurrences in life. It then becomes aware, as though in a state of healthy premonition, that something exists in man that transcends his present ability to judge. Through such attention the human being directs his efforts toward an extension of soul-life, but here also it is possible that one-sidedness may result that is dangerous. Whoever were to form the habit of disregarding his judgment because his “premonitions” impel him to this or that, would become the plaything of all sorts of uncertain impulses, and from such a habit it is not a great distance to complete lack of judgment and superstition.—Any sort of superstition is fatal to the student of the spiritual. He acquires the possibility of penetrating in a true way into the regions of spiritual life only by guarding himself carefully against superstition, fantastic ideas, and day-dreaming. No one can enter the spirit world in the right way who is happy in experiencing something that “cannot be grasped by the human mind.” A preference for the “inexplicable” certainly makes no one a student of the spirit. He must completely abandon the notion that “a mystic is someone who presumes wherever it suits him something inexplicable and unfathomable in the world.” The student shows the proper feeling by acknowledging this existence of hidden forces and beings everywhere, but also by assuming that the uninvestigated may be investigated if the necessary powers are present.

[ 45 ] There is a certain attitude of soul that is important for the student of the spirit at every stage of his development. This consists in not directing his desire for knowledge in a one-sided way by asking, “How may this or that question be answered?” but by asking, “How do I develop this or that ability in myself?” If then by inner patient work in himself this or that faculty is developed, the answer to certain questions is received. Students of the spirit will always foster this attitude of soul. Through this they are led to work on themselves, to make themselves more and more mature, and to renounce the desire to force answers to certain questions. They will wait until such answers come to them.—If, however, they become one-sided here also, they will not advance properly. The student may also have the feeling at a certain point of his development that he, with the degree of his ability, can himself answer the most sublime questions. Here also equanimity and equilibrium play an important role in the attitude of soul.

[ 46 ] Many more soul faculties could be described, the fostering and development of which are beneficial when the student strives by means of exercises to attain inspiration. In all of them, we should have to emphasize that equanimity and equilibrium are the soul faculties upon which everything depends. They prepare the understanding and the ability to carry out the exercises outlined for the purpose of acquiring inspiration.

[ 47 ] The exercises for the attainment of intuition demand that the student cause not only the images, to which he has surrendered himself in acquiring imagination, to disappear from his consciousness, but also the life within his own soul activity into which he has immersed himself for the acquirement of inspiration. He should then literally retain nothing in his soul of previously known outer or inner experiences. Were there to be, however, nothing left in his consciousness after this discarding of outer and inner experiences, that is to say, were his consciousness then entirely to disappear and he to sink down into unconsciousness, this would then make it clear to him that he had not yet made himself mature enough to undertake exercises for intuition; he would then have to continue the exercises for imagination and inspiration. A time will surely come when the consciousness is not empty after the soul has discarded all inner and outer experiences, but when, after this discarding, something remains in consciousness as an effect, to which we then may surrender in meditation just as we had previously surrendered to what owes its existence to outer or inner impressions. This something is of a quite special character. It is, in contrast to all preceding experiences, something entirely new. When one experiences it one knows, “This I have not known before. It is a perception just as the real tone, heard by the ear, is a perception, but this something can only enter my consciousness through intuition, just as the tone can only enter my consciousness through the ear.” Through intuition man's impressions are stripped of the last trace of the sensory-physical; the spiritual world now begins to open itself to cognition in a form that no longer has anything in common with the qualities of the physical world of the senses.

[ 48 ] Imaginative consciousness is attained through the development of the lotus flowers in the astral body. Through the exercises that are undertaken for acquiring inspiration and intuition, certain definite motions, forms, and currents appear in the human ether or life body that were not present previously. They are in fact the organs through which man adds to the scope of his faculties the “reading of the occult script,” and what lies beyond it. The changes in the ether body of a human being who has attained inspiration and intuition present themselves to supersensible cognition in the following manner. Somewhere in the neighborhood of the physical heart a new center becomes conscious in the ether body, which develops into an etheric organ. From this organ, movements and currents flow to the various members of the human body in the most manifold way. The most important of these currents flow to the lotus flowers, permeating them and their various petals, then proceeding outward, pouring themselves like radiations into external space. The more the human being is developed, the greater the sphere around him within which these radiations are perceptible. The center in the region of the heart does not, however, develop immediately at the start of correct training. It is first prepared. There appears, to begin with, a temporary center in the head; this then moves down into the neighborhood of the larynx and finally settles in the region of the physical heart. Were its development irregular, then the organ of which we have been speaking might immediately be formed in the neighborhood of the heart. In that case there would be danger that the student, instead of attaining quiet and factual supersensible perception, would become a visionary and fantast. As he develops further, the student acquires the ability to free the currents and structures of his ether body from his physical body and to use them independently. In doing this, the lotus flowers serve him as organs through which he brings the ether body into motion. Before this occurs, however, special currents and radiations must have formed in the sphere of the ether body, enclosing it like a fine network and making it into a self-contained being. If that has happened, the movements and currents taking place in the ether body are able to come into unhindered contact with the outer world of soul and spirit and to unite with it, so that outer occurrences in the realm of soul and spirit and inner events in the human ether body flow into one another. If that happens, the moment has arrived when man perceives the world of inspiration consciously. This cognition occurs in a different way from cognition in the sensory-physical world. In the latter we gain perceptions through the senses and form from them mental images and concepts. This is not the case with the knowledge derived from inspiration. What one knows is immediately present in the act; there is no reflection after perception. What sensory-physical cognition gains only afterwards in concepts is, in inspiration, given simultaneously with perception. Man would therefore merge with the environment of soul and spirit and would not be able to distinguish himself from it had he not developed the above characterized network in the ether body.

[ 49 ] If the exercises leading to intuition are carried out, their effect extends not only to the ether body, but right down into the supersensible forces of the physical body. One should not, however, think that in this way effects take place in the physical body that are accessible to everyday sensory observation. These are effects that only supersensory cognition can judge. They have nothing whatever to do with external cognition. They are the results of the maturity of consciousness, when the latter is able to have experiences in intuition, in spite of the fact that it has excluded all previously known outer and inner experiences.—The experiences of intuition are delicate, intimate, and subtle, and the human physical body is, at the present stage of its evolution, coarse in comparison. It offers therefore a strong hindrance to the success of intuition exercises. If these are continued with energy and persistence and with the requisite inner tranquility, the powerful hindrances of the physical body are finally overcome. The student notices this by the fact that gradually certain expressions of the physical body that formerly took place unconsciously now come under his control. He notices it also by the fact that for a short time he feels the need, for example, so to control the breath that it comes into a sort of concord or harmony with what the soul performs in the exercises or otherwise in inner meditation. The ideal of the development is that no exercises be made at all by means of the physical body itself, also no breathing exercises, but that everything that occurs in the physical body in this way should only come about as a consequence of pure intuition exercises.

[ 50 ] If the student of the spirit ascends upon the path into the higher worlds of knowledge, he notices at a certain stage that the cohesion of the forces of his personality assumes a different form from the one in the physical-sensory world, where the ego effects a uniform co-operation of the soul forces, of thinking, feeling, and willing. These three soul forces stand always in a certain relationship to each other in the conditions of ordinary human life. One sees, for example, a certain object in the outer world. It pleases or displeases the soul. That is to say, of necessity the visualizing of a thing will be followed by a feeling of pleasure or displeasure. One may, perhaps, desire the object or have the impulse to alter it in one way or another. That is, the power of desire and will associate with visualizing and feeling. [ 51 ] That this co-ordination takes place is caused by the ego uniting visualizing (thinking), feeling, and willing and in this way bringing order into the forces of the personality. This healthy order would be interrupted if the ego were to prove powerless in this regard; if, for example, desire should elect to go a different way from feeling or thinking. A human being would not be in a healthy soul condition who might think that this or that is right, but who might want something of which he is convinced that it is not right. The case would be similar if someone did not want what pleases him, but rather what displeases him. The human being now notices that on the path to higher knowledge thinking, feeling, and willing do indeed separate and each assumes a certain independence. For example, a certain thought has no longer an inward urge toward a certain feeling and willing. The matter is as follows. In thinking something may be perceived correctly, but in order to have any feeling or to come to a resolution of the will, we need again an independent impulse from ourselves. During supersensible perception thinking, feeling, and willing do not remain three forces that radiate from the common egocenter of the personality, but they become three independent entities, three personalities, as it were; one must now make one's own ego all the stronger, for it is not merely a matter of its bringing three forces into order, but of leading and directing three entities. This separation, however, must only exist during supersensible perception. Here again it becomes clear how important it is that the exercises for higher training be accompanied by those that give certainty and firmness to the power of judgment, and to the life of feeling and willing. For the person who does not bring these qualities with him into the higher world will soon see how the ego proves weak and unable to act as an orderly guide for thinking, feeling, and willing. If this weakness were present, the soul would be as though torn by three personalities in as many directions and its inner unity would cease. If, however, the development of the student proceeds in the right way the described transformation of forces signifies true progress; the ego remains master of the independent entities that now form its soul.—In the further course of this evolution the development continues. Thinking that has become independent stimulates the emergence of a special fourth soul-spirit being that may be described as a direct influx of currents into man, similar to thoughts. The entire cosmos then appears as a thought-structure confronting man as does the plant or animal world in the realm of the physical senses. Likewise, feeling and willing that have become independent stimulate two forces in the soul that act in it like independent beings. Still another seventh power and being appears that is similar to one's own ego itself.

[ 52 ] This entire experience is connected with yet another. Before his entrance into the supersensible world, man knew thinking, feeling, and willing only as inner soul experiences. As soon as he enters the supersensible world he perceives objects that do not express the physical-sensory, but the psycho-spiritual. Behind the characteristics of the new world now perceived by him stand soul-spirit beings. These now stand before him as an outer world, just as in the physical realm stones, plants, and animals stood before his senses. The student of the spiritual can now perceive an important difference between the world of soul and spirit that reveals itself to him, and the world that he was accustomed to perceiving through his physical senses. A plant in the world of the senses remains just as it is, whatever the human soul may feel or think about it. With the images of the world of soul and spirit this is, at the outset, not the case. They alter according to what the human being feels or thinks. In this way he gives them form that depends upon his own nature. Let us imagine that a certain picture appears before man in the world of imagination. If, at first, he remains indifferent to it in his soul, it then shows itself in a certain form. At the moment, however, when pleasure or displeasure is felt in regard to the picture, it changes its form. The pictures therefore, in the first instance, express not only what they are, independent of man, but they reflect what man is himself. They are permeated through and through by his own nature. The latter spreads like a veil over the supersensible beings. Although real beings confront him, he does not see them, but instead, his own creation. Thus he may have something true before him and, nevertheless, see something false. Indeed, this is not only the case in regard to what man notices in himself as his own essential nature, but everything that is in him affects this world. He may have, for example, hidden inclinations that do not come into evidence in life because of his education and character; they affect the world of the soul and spirit, which takes on a peculiar coloring through the whole being of man, no matter whether he himself knows much about this being or not.—In order to be able to advance further from this stage of development it is necessary that man learn to distinguish between himself and the outer spiritual world. It is necessary that he learn to eliminate all the effects of himself upon his soul-spirit environment. This cannot be done otherwise than by acquiring a knowledge of what he himself carries into the new world. It is therefore important that he first possess true, thoroughly developed self-knowledge, in order to be able to have a clear perception of the surrounding world of soul and spirit. Now, certain facts of human development demand that such self-knowledge must take place quite naturally at the time of the entrance into the higher world. Man develops his ego, his self-consciousness in the everyday physical-sensory world. This ego now acts as a center of attraction for everything belonging to man. All his inclinations, sympathies, antipathies, passions, and opinions group themselves, as it were, around his ego, and this ego is also the point of attraction for what may be designated as the karma of man. If this ego were to be seen unconcealed it would show that certain forms of destiny must still be encountered by it in this and in subsequent incarnations, according to the way it has lived in the preceding incarnations and has made this or that its own. Invested with all this, the ego must appear as the first image before the human soul when the latter ascends into the world of soul and spirit. This Doppelganger (double or twin likeness) of man must, according to a law of the spiritual world, emerge prior to everything else as his first impression in that world. One may easily make the law underlying this fact understandable if one considers the following. In the life of the physical senses man only perceives himself in so far as he experiences himself inwardly in his thinking, feeling, and willing. This, however, is an inner perception; it does not present itself to the human being like stones, plants, and animals. Also, man learns to know himself only partially through inner perception. He has something in himself that prevents his having more profound self-knowledge. This is an impulse to transform immediately a trait of character if he, as a result of self-knowledge, must admit to it and does not wish to deceive himself about himself.

[ 53 ] If he does not follow this impulse, if he simply turns his attention away from himself, remaining what he is, then he, naturally, also deprives himself of the possibility of self-knowledge in the point in question. If man, however, penetrates into himself and confronts himself without deception with this or that trait, then he will either be in the position to improve the trait, or he will be incapable of doing so under the present circumstances of his life. In the latter case a feeling will creep over his soul that must be described as a feeling of shame. This is indeed the reaction of healthy human nature: it feels through self-knowledge various kinds of shame. This feeling has even in ordinary life a quite definite effect. The normally thinking human being will take care that what fills him, through himself, with this feeling does not become evident outwardly in effects, does not manifest in outer deeds. Shame is thus a force that impels man to conceal something in his inner being and not allow it to become outwardly perceptible. If we give this due consideration, we shall find it comprehensible that spiritual research ascribes much farther reaching effects to an inner soul experience that is closely related to the feeling of shame. This research finds that there is, concealed in the depths of the soul, a sort of hidden shame of which the human being is not conscious in physical-sensory life. This concealed feeling, however, acts in a similar manner to the feeling of shame in everyday life; it prevents the innermost nature of the human being from appearing before him in a perceptible picture. If this feeling were not present, the human being would perceive before him what he is in truth; his thoughts, feelings, and will would not only be experienced inwardly, but would be perceived outwardly just as stones, animals, and plants are perceived. This feeling is thus the concealer of man from himself, and at the same time it is the concealer of the entire world of soul and spirit. Owing to the fact that his inner nature is concealed from him, he is also not able to perceive that by means of which he should develop inner organs in order to cognize the world of soul and spirit; he is unable so to transform his nature that it may unfold spiritual organs of perception.—If, however, through correct training man strives to acquire these organs of perception, what he himself is appears to him as first impression. He perceives his Doppelganger, his double. This self-perception is not at all to be separated from the perception of the rest of the world of soul and spirit. In everyday life of the physical-sensory world, the feeling characterized acts so as constantly to close the door of the world of soul and spirit to the human being. Even the mere attempt to penetrate into this world causes the feeling of shame—which arises immediately, but of which we do not become conscious—to conceal the part of the world of soul and spirit that strives to appear. The exercises characterized open the door to this world. It is a fact, however, that this concealed feeling acts like a great benefactor of man. For all that man acquires of power of judgment, feeling-life, and character without spiritual-scientific training does not enable him to bear without further preparation the perception of his own being in its true form. He would lose through this perception all self-esteem, self-confidence, and self-consciousness. That this may not happen, we must take the necessary precautions which we do undertake, alongside the exercises for higher knowledge, in the fostering of a healthy power of judgment, feeling-life, and character. Through this regular training man learns to know so much of spiritual science—as though without intention—and, moreover, so many means for the attainment of self-knowledge and self-observation become clear to him as are necessary in order to encounter his Doppelganger bravely. The student then only sees in another form, as a picture of the imaginative world, what he has already learned in the physical world. If he has first comprehended the law of karma properly in the physical world through his intellect, he will not be especially shaken when he now sees the beginnings of his destiny engraved in the image of his Doppelganger. If man has made himself acquainted through his power of judgment with the evolution of the cosmos and mankind and knows how, at a certain point of time of this evolution, the forces of Lucifer have penetrated into the human soul, he will bear it without difficulty when he becomes aware that the Luciferic beings with all their effects are contained within the image of his own nature.—We see from this how necessary it is that man does not demand entrance into the spiritual world before he has understood, through his ordinary power of judgment developed in the physical-sensory world, certain truths about the spiritual world. The knowledge given in this book prior to the discussion about “Cognition of the Higher Worlds” should have been acquired by the student of spiritual science by means of his ordinary power of thought in the regular course of development, before he has the desire himself to enter into supersensible worlds.

[ 54 ] In a training in which no attention is paid to the certainty and firmness of the power of judgment, of the life of feeling and character, it may happen that the student encounters the higher world before he possesses the necessary inner faculties. In that case the encounter with his Doppelganger would depress him and lead to error. If, however, the encounter were entirely avoided—something that might indeed be possible—and man nevertheless were led into the supersensible world, he would then be just as little in the position to recognize that world in its true shape. For it would be quite impossible for him to distinguish between what he carries over as projections of himself into things and what they are in reality. This distinction is only possible if one perceives one's own being as an image in itself, and if, as a result of this distinction, everything that flows from one's own inner nature becomes detached from the environment.—For man's life in the physical-sensory world, the Doppelganger's effect is such that he becomes immediately invisible through the feeling of shame characterized when man approaches the world of soul and spirit. As a result of this, he conceals the entire latter world also. Like a “guardian” he stands there before that world, in order to deny entrance to those who are not truly capable of entering. He may therefore be called the “guardian of the threshold that lies before the world of soul and spirit.”—Besides the described encounter with the guardian at the entrance into the supersensible world, man also encounters him when passing through physical death, and in the course of life between death and a new birth the guardian discloses himself by degrees in the evolution of soul and spirit. There, however, the encounter cannot depress the human being, because he then has knowledge of worlds quite different from those he knows in the life between birth and death. [ 55 ] If, without encountering the “guardian of the threshold,” man were to enter the world of soul and spirit, he might fall prey to deception after deception. For he would never be able to distinguish between what he himself has carried over into that world and what in reality belongs to it. A proper training must lead the student of spiritual science into the realm of truth only, not into the realm of illusion. This training will of itself be of such a nature that the encounter must of necessity take place sometime. For it is one of the precautionary measures, indispensable for the observation of supersensible worlds, against the possibility of falling prey to deception and the fantastic.—It belongs to the most indispensable measures that every student of spiritual science must take, to work carefully on himself in order not to become a fantast, a human being who might succumb to possible deception and self-delusion. Where the advice for spiritual training is correctly followed, the sources that may bring deception are at the same time destroyed. Naturally, we cannot speak at length here of all the numerous details that have to be considered in regard to such precautionary measures. The important points can only be indicated. Deceptions that have to be considered here are derived from two sources. They originate in part from the coloring of reality through one's own soul nature. In ordinary life of the physical-sensory world there is comparatively little danger from this source of deception; for here the outer world continually impresses its own form sharply upon our observation, no matter how the observer wants to color it according to his own wishes and interests. As soon, however, as man enters the imaginative world, its pictures are transformed through such wishes and interests, and he has before him, like a reality, what he himself has formed, or at least has helped in forming. This source of deception is removed by the student's having learned to recognize, through his encounter with the “guardian of the threshold,” his own inner nature, which he might thus carry into the world of soul and spirit. The preparation that the student of spiritual science undergoes before his entrance into the world of soul and spirit acts in such a way that he becomes accustomed to disregarding himself even when observing the physical-sensory world and to permitting the objects and processes to speak to him purely out of their own nature. If the student has thus prepared himself sufficiently, he can calmly await the encounter with the “guardian of the threshold.” This encounter will be the final test to determine whether he feels himself really in a position to disregard his own nature also when he confronts the world of soul and spirit.

[ 56 ] Besides this source of delusion, there is still another. This comes into evidence when one misinterprets an impression made on one. A simple example of this sort of delusion in the physical sense-life is the delusion that arises when a man sits in a railway coach moving in a certain direction and believes the trees and other objects of perception are moving in the opposite direction, while actually it is he himself who is moving with the train. Although there are numerous cases where such delusions In the physical sense-world are more difficult to correct than the simple one quoted, still, it is easy to see that within this world one also finds the means of disposing of such delusions when, with sound judgment, one takes into consideration all that may possibly contribute to an adequate factual explanation. The matter is different, however, as soon as one penetrates into the realms of the supersensible. In the world of the senses facts are not altered as a result of human delusion; therefore it is possible, by means of unprejudiced observation, to rectify the delusion by means of the facts. In the supersensible world this is not immediately possible. If one wants to observe a supersensible process and approaches it with false judgment, one carries this judgment over into the process and it becomes so interwoven with the fact that it is impossible to distinguish the judgment from the fact. The error is then not within the human being and the correct fact outside him, but the error itself is made a component of the outer fact. It cannot, therefore, be rectified simply by an unbiased observation of the fact. We are here pointing to what may be a superabundant source of delusion and the fantastic for those who approach the supersensible world without proper preparation.—The student of the spiritual, besides acquiring the ability to exclude the delusions that arise through the coloring of supersensible world-phenomena with his own nature, must also acquire the ability to make the second indicated source of delusion ineffective. He can exclude what comes from himself if he has first recognized the image of his own Doppelganger. He will be able to exclude the second source of delusion if he acquires the ability to recognize, from the inner quality of a supersensible fact, whether it is reality or delusion. If the delusion were to appear exactly like the actual facts, then a distinction would not be possible. This, however, is not the case. Delusions of the supersensible world have qualities in themselves by which they are to be distinguished from realities, and it is important that the student of the spiritual know by which qualities he can recognize realities. Nothing is more self-evident than the fact that anyone ignorant of spiritual training may ask, “How is it at all possible to protect myself against delusion, when its sources are so numerous?” And he may continue to ask, “Is there any proof for the student of the spiritual against the fact that all his professed higher knowledge is not something based on mere delusion and autosuggestion?” Anyone who asks such questions does not realize that in true spiritual training, through the very manner of its occurrence, the sources of delusion are stopped up. In the first place, in preparing himself the true spiritual science student will acquire sufficient knowledge about what may cause delusion and autosuggestion, and thus be in a position to protect himself from them. He has, in this regard, more opportunity than any other human being to make himself prudent and capable in judgment on the path of life. Everything that he experiences causes him to disregard indefinite premonitions and suggestions. This training makes him as careful as possible.

Besides this, all correct training leads first to concepts about great cosmic events, and thus to things that make necessary the exertion of sound judgment, which becomes, at the same time, more refined and acute. Only someone who might refuse to go into such distant realms and preferred to abide with “revelations” of a world near at hand might lose the strengthening of that sound judgment that gives him certainty in distinguishing between delusion and reality. All of this, however, is not yet the most important. That lies in the exercises themselves that are used in a correct spiritual training. These must be so arranged that the student is always consciously aware of what takes place in the soul during inner meditation. In order to bring about imagination, a symbol is first formed. In this symbol are still contained mental images of outer perceptions. The human being is not alone responsible for the content of these mental images; he does not make it himself. Thus he may delude himself in regard to its origin; he may interpret its origin incorrectly. But the student of spiritual science removes this content from his consciousness when he advances to the exercises of inspiration. Here he contemplates his own soul activity only, which has formed the symbol. Here also error is still possible. Through education, learning, and through other means man has acquired the character of his soul activity. He cannot know everything about its origin. The student of spiritual science now removes even his own soul activity from his consciousness. If now anything remains in his consciousness, nothing is attached to it that cannot be surveyed. Nothing can intermingle with it that is not to be judged in regard to its whole content. In intuition, the student of spiritual science has thus a criterion enabling him to recognize how a clear reality of the world of soul and spirit is constituted. If he now applies the signs of soul and spirit-reality thus recognized to everything that comes under his observation, he is able to distinguish between illusion and reality. He may be certain that by employing this law he will remain protected from illusion in the supersensible world just as it cannot happen to him in the physical-sensory world to mistake an imaginary piece of hot iron for one that really burns. It is taken for granted that one only takes this attitude toward the knowledge one regards as one's own experiences in the supersensible worlds, and not toward what one receives as communications from other persons and that one comprehends with one's physical intellect and sound feeling for truth. The student of the spiritual will take pains to draw an exact line between what he has acquired in the one way and what he has acquired in the other. He will receive willingly, on the one hand, the communications about the higher worlds and seek to understand them by means of his capacity to judge. If on the other hand he states something as his own experience, his own observation, he will have tested whether this has confronted him with precisely the qualities he has learned to perceive by means of unerring intuition.

[ 57 ] After the student of the spiritual has encountered the “guardian of the threshold,” further experiences await him as he ascends into supersensible worlds. First he will notice that an inner relationship exists between this “guardian of the threshold” and the soul-power that, in the above description, has resulted as the seventh, and has shaped itself into an independent principle. Indeed, this seventh principle is in a certain regard nothing else but the Doppelganger, the “guardian of the threshold” himself, and this principle sets the student of the spiritual a special task. He has to direct and lead with his newborn self what he is in his ordinary self and which appears to him in an image. A sort of battle against the Doppelganger will result. The latter will constantly strive for supremacy. To establish the right relationship to this Doppelganger and not permit him to do anything that is not under the influence of the newborn ego strengthens and fortifies man's powers.—In the higher world, self-knowledge is different, in a certain respect, from self-knowledge in the physical-sensory world. Whereas in the physical-sensory world self-knowledge appears only as an inner experience, the newborn self presents itself at once as an outer soul phenomenon. Man beholds his newborn self as another being standing before him, but he cannot perceive it completely. For whatever stage he may have reached upon the way into the supersensible worlds, there are always still higher stages. At these stages he will perceive ever more and more of his “higher self.” This “higher self” can thus only partially reveal itself to the student of the spiritual at any of these stages. The temptation is extremely great which overtakes the human being when he first becomes aware of some aspect of his “higher self,” to observe this “higher self,” so to speak, from the standpoint he has gained in the physical-sensory world. This temptation is even good and it must appear, if development is to proceed in the right way. We must observe what appears in the Doppelganger, the “guardian of the threshold,” and place it before the “higher self” in order to note the contrast between what we are and what we are to become. Through this observation the “guardian of the threshold” begins to take on quite a different form. He presents himself as an image of all the hindrances that the development of the higher self must encounter. The student will perceive what a load he must drag in the form of his ordinary self, and if he is not strong enough through his preparations to say, “I will not remain stationary here, but unceasingly strive to reach my higher self,” he will slacken his efforts and shrink back before what is in store for him. He has plunged into the world of soul and spirit, but now gives up his efforts. He becomes a prisoner of the form that, through the “guardian of the threshold,” now stands before the soul. What is important here is the fact that in this experience he does not have the feeling of being a prisoner. On the contrary, he believes he experiences something quite different. The form that the “guardian of the threshold” calls forth can be of such a nature that it causes the impression in the soul of the observer of having before him, in the pictures that appear at this evolutionary stage, the entire compass of all imaginable worlds, of having attained the pinnacle of knowledge, with no need of striving further. Instead of feeling to be a prisoner he may feel himself as the immeasurably rich possessor of all the world mysteries. The fact that one can have such an experience that depicts the very opposite of the actual facts will, however, not astonish a person who keeps in mind the fact that, when he experiences this, he stands already in the world of soul and spirit and that it is a peculiarity of this world that events may present themselves in reverse order. This fact was pointed out earlier in this book when life after death was discussed.

[ 58 ] The figure that one perceives at this stage of development shows the student of the spiritual something in addition to what appeared to him in the first instance as the “guardian of the threshold.” In this Doppelganger all the peculiarities were perceived that the ordinary self of man has in consequence of the influence of the forces of Lucifer. Now, however, in the course of human evolution another power has entered the human soul through the influence of Lucifer. This is the power that was designated in an earlier section of this book as the power of Ahriman. It is the power that prevents the human being during physical sense-existence from perceiving the soul-spirit beings of the outer world lying behind the veil of the sensory. The form the human soul has assumed under the influence of this power is shown in a picture by the shape that emerges in the experience described.—The person who is adequately prepared for this experience will be able to interpret it correctly; very soon thereafter another form will appear that we may call the “greater guardian of the threshold” in contrast to the already described “lesser guardian.” This greater guardian tells the student of the spiritual that he must not remain stationary at this stage but must energetically work on. He calls forth in the observer the consciousness that the world that is conquered becomes truth, and is not transformed into illusion, only if the work is continued in an adequate manner.—If, because of incorrect spiritual training, a person were to enter upon this experience unprepared, then, in the encounter with the “greater guardian of the threshold,” something would pour into his soul that only can be compared to the “feeling of immeasurable horror,” of “boundless fear.”

[ 59 ] Just as the student of the spiritual in his encounter with the “lesser guardian of the threshold” is afforded the possibility of testing whether or not he is protected against delusions arising from the intermingling of his own being with the supersensible world, so can he also test himself by the experiences that finally lead to the “greater guardian of the threshold” whether he is capable of mastering the delusions described above as coming from the second source. If he is able to withstand the gigantic illusion that has been conjured up before him—that the picture world he has gained is a rich possession, while in reality he is only a prisoner—if he is able to resist this delusion, he is then, during the progressing course of his development, guarded from mistaking illusion for reality.

[ 60 ] The “guardian of the threshold” will assume, to a certain degree, an individual shape for each human being. The encounter with him corresponds indeed to the experience by which the personal character of the supersensible observations is overcome and through which the possibility is given of entering a region of experience that is free from personal coloring and applies to every human being.

[ 61 ] If the student of the spiritual has had the above described experiences he is capable of distinguishing, within the surrounding world of soul and spirit, between himself and what lies outside him. He will then recognize that it is necessary to comprehend the cosmic process described in this book, in order to understand man and his life. Indeed, we understand the physical body only when we recognize how it has been fashioned during the Saturn, Sun, Moon, and Earth evolutions. We understand the ether body when we follow its formations through the Sun, Moon, and Earth evolutions. Moreover, we understand what at present is connected with the Earth evolution when we know how everything has unfolded itself step by step. Through spiritual training the student is placed in the position to recognize the relationship of everything that exists in the human being to corresponding facts and beings of the world outside him. For it is a fact that every member of the human organism stands in a relationship to the whole world surrounding it. In this book it has only been possible to indicate the facts in a sketchy outline. We must, however, consider that the human physical body, for example, was present during the Saturn evolution only in its rudimentary beginnings. Its organs—the heart, the lungs, the brain—developed later out of these beginnings during the Sun, Moon, and Earth evolutions. The heart, lungs, and the other organs are thus related to the Sun, Moon, and Earth evolutions. It is quite the same with the members of the ether and soul body, the sentient soul, and the other principles. Man is fashioned from the entire surrounding world, and every part of him corresponds to a process or being of the outer world. At the corresponding stage of his development the student becomes acquainted with this relationship between his own being and the great world. We may designate this stage of cognition as the becoming aware of the correspondence between the lesser world, the microcosm, which is the human being himself, and the greater world, the macrocosm. If the student has struggled through to such a stage of knowledge, a new experience may occur for him. He begins to feel as though he were intergrown with the entire cosmic structure, in spite of the fact that he feels himself in his complete independence. This feeling is a merging with the entire cosmos, a becoming one with it, but without losing one's own essential being. This stage of development may be designated as the “becoming one with the macrocosm.” It is significant that this becoming one, this union, is not to be thought of as though through it the individual consciousness were to cease and the human being were to flow out into the universe, merging with it. Such a thought would be merely the expression of an opinion springing from the untrained power of judgment.—The stages of higher knowledge, in the sense of the process of initiation that has been described in this book, may now be enumerated as follows:

1. Study of spiritual science, in which one employs one's power of judgment gained in the physical-sensory world.
2. Acquiring imaginative knowledge.
3. Reading the occult script-corresponding to inspiration.
4. Living into the spiritual environment—corresponding to intuition.
5. Knowledge of the relationships between microcosm and macrocosm.
6. Union with the macrocosm.
7. Total experience of all previous experiences as a fundamental mood of the soul.

[ 62 ] These stages need not be thought of as successive experiences. On the contrary, the training may proceed in such a way that, in accordance with the individuality of the student of the spiritual, he may have reached only a certain degree of perfection in a preceding stage when he begins exercises that correspond to a subsequent stage. It may well happen, for example, that the student has only gained a few imaginations with certainty, yet he already performs exercises leading to inspiration, intuition, or the cognition of the relationship between microcosm and macrocosm.

[ 63 ] If the student of the spiritual has experienced intuition, he not only knows the images of the psycho-spiritual world, he cannot merely read their connections in the “occult script,” but he attains to knowledge of the spiritual beings themselves through whose co-operation the world, to which the human being belongs, comes into existence. In this way he learns to know himself in the form he possesses as a spiritual being in the world of soul and spirit. He has struggled through to a perception of his higher ego, and he has become aware of how he has to continue his efforts in order to control his Doppelganger, the “guardian of the threshold.” He has, however, also encountered the “greater guardian of the threshold,” who stands before him as an ever present exhorter to further effort. This “greater guardian” becomes the ideal toward which he strives. If this feeling emerges in the student of the spiritual, he has then acquired the possibility of recognizing who it is that stands there before him as the “greater guardian of the threshold.” To the perception of the student of the spiritual this guardian now transforms himself into the form of the Christ, whose Being and participation in Earth evolution has been made clear in the previous chapters of this book. The student is now initiated into the exalted mystery that is linked with the name of the Christ. The Christ shows Himself to the student as the “great ideal of man on earth.”—If thus through intuition the Christ is recognized in the spiritual world, what occurred historically on earth in the fourth post-Atlantean evolutionary epoch—the Greco-Latin epoch—also becomes comprehensible. The way in which, at that time, the exalted Sun Being, the Christ, has intervened in the Earth evolution and how he continues to work within this evolution becomes the personally experienced knowledge of the student of the spiritual. It is thus a revelation of the meaning and significance of Earth evolution that the student receives through intuition. [ 64 ] The way to knowledge of the supersensible worlds, which is described here, is one that every human being can follow, no matter what the situation in which he may find himself within the present-day conditions of life. When describing such a path we must consider that the goal of knowledge and truth is the same in all ages of Earth evolution, but that the starting points of man have been different in different ages. If the human being wishes to tread the path to the spiritual world he cannot at present begin at the same starting point as, for example, the would-be initiate of ancient Egypt. Therefore, the exercises that were imposed upon the student of the spiritual of ancient Egypt cannot be carried out by the modern man without modification. Since that time, human souls have passed through various incarnations, and this advance from incarnation to incarnation is not without meaning and significance. The faculties and qualities of souls alter from incarnation to incarnation. Whoever considers human historical life, be it only superficially, is able to notice that since the twelfth and thirteenth centuries A.D. all life-conditions have changed when compared with previous centuries; that opinions, feelings, and also abilities of human beings have become different from what they were previously. The path to higher knowledge described here is eminently fit for souls who incarnate in the immediate present. It is one that places the point of departure for spiritual development just where the human being now stands in any situation presented by modern life.—Progressive evolution leads mankind in regard to the path to higher knowledge from period to period to ever changing forms, just as outer life changes its forms, and at all times a perfect harmony must prevail between outer life and initiation.

• 1. The point is not whether this or that idea of natural science finds the above thoughts justified or not. For it is a question of the development of such thoughts by means of plant and man that may be gained, without any theory, through simple, direct perception. Such thoughts have indeed their importance also, besides the theoretical ideas about the things of the outer world, which in other connections are of no less importance. Here thoughts do not have the purpose of representing a fact scientifically, but of constructing a symbol that proves itself effective in the soul, notwithstanding the objections that may occur to this or that individual in fashioning this symbol.
• 2. Goethe: Faust 11.
• 3. Goethe: Verses in Prose.

It is without question that among the teachings of spiritual science least acceptable to many of our contemporaries we may count that of repeated earth lives, and the echoing-on into a man's later earth-life of causes going back to a previous life of his on earth. This is what we call the law of spiritual causation or Karma. It is easy to understand that men of the present day are bound to adopt a suspicious and adverse attitude towards this knowledge; it follows from all the habits of thought in modern life and will doubtless last until a more general recognition is reached of the enlightening nature of these basic truths of spiritual science. But an unprejudiced observation of life, an unbiased outlook on the enigmas with which we meet daily, and which are only explicable on a basis of these truths, will increasingly lead to a change in the habits of thought, and thus to a recognition of the enlightening nature of these great truths.

To the phenomena we may include in this field quite certainly belong those usually comprised under such names as human fortune or misfortune, words with such manifold meanings. It is only necessary to utter these two words and immediately the sensitive judgment of man's heart will respond to the call to observe the boundaries set between his knowledge and the happenings in the outer world. This verdict sounds as clearly as any other in the soul, and leads to a fervent desire to know more of those inexplicable relationships which, though rejected again and again at a certain stage of enlightenment, must nevertheless be acknowledged by a really unprejudiced desire for Knowledge. To realize this, we need only call to mind how enigmatic good fortune or misfortune—especially the latter—may be in a man's life. This element of enigma can certainly not be solved by any theoretical answer; it clearly shows that something more than any theory, more than what may be called abstract science, is needed to answer it. Who can doubt that in man's soul there is a definite urge to be in a certain harmony with his environment, with the world? And what an amount of disharmony may be expressed when sometimes a man must say of himself, or his fellow-men of him, that throughout his life he is pursued by ill-luck! With such an admission is linked a “Why?” of deep significance for all we have to say about the value of human life, about the value too of the forces forming the foundation of human life. Robert Hamerling, yhe important but alas too little appreciated poet of the nineteenth century, has included in his Essays a short article on “Fortune”, beginning with a reminiscence that recurred to him again and again in connection with this problem. He had heard this story related in Venice—whether it was legendary or not is of no consequence. A daughter was born to a married couple. The mother died in child-birth. The same day the father heard that all his property had been lost at sea. The shock brought on a stroke, and he, too, died the day the child was born. Hence the infant met with the misfortune of becoming an orphan on the first day of her earthly existence. She was first of all adopted by a rich relation, who drew up a will bequeathing a large fortune to the child. She died, however, while the child was still young; and when the will was opened it was found to contain a technical error. The will was contested and the child lost the whole of the fortune intended for her. Thus she grew up in want and misery and later had to become a maid-servant. Then a nice, suitable young man whom the girl liked very much fell in love with her. However, after the friendship had lasted some time, and when the poor girl, who had been earning her living under most difficult conditions, was able to think that at last some good fortune was coming her way, it transpired that her lover was of the Jewish persuasion and for this reason the marriage could not take place. She reproached him most bitterly for having deceived her, but she could not give him up. Her life continued its extraordinary, alternating course. The youth was equally unwilling to give up the girl, and he promised that after the death of his father—who had not long to live—he would be baptized, when the marriage could be celebrated. He was in fact very soon called to his father's death-bed. Now, to add to the troubles of this unfortunate girl, she became very ill indeed. In the meantime, the father of her betrothed had died at a distance, and his son was baptized. When he came back to her, however, the girl had already died of the mental suffering she had endured in addition to her physical malady. He found only a lifeless bride. Now he was overcome by most bitter grief, and he felt that he could not do otherwise—he must see his beloved again although she was already buried. Eventually he was successful in having her body exhumed; and behold, she was lying in a position that clearly showed she had been buried alive and had turned in the grave when she woke.

Hamerling says he always remembered this story when talking or thinking of human misfortune, and of how it sometimes actually seemed as if a human being were pursued by misfortune from his birth, not only to his grave but as in this case beyond it. Of course, the story may be a legend, but that is of no consequence, for everyone of us will say: Whether the facts are true or not, they are possible, and might have happened even if they never actually did happen. But the story illustrates very clearly the disquieting question: How can we answer the “why” when considering the value of a life thus pursued by misfortune? This at any rate shows us that it might be quite impossible to speak of fortune or misfortune if a single human life only were taken into account. Ordinary habits of thought may at least be challenged to look beyond a single human life, when we have before us one that is so caught up in the intricacies of the world that no concept of the value of human life can fit in with what this life went through between birth and death. In such a case we seem compelled to look beyond the limits set by birth and death.

When, however, we look more closely at the words fortune or misfortune, we see at once that after all they can only be applied in a particular sphere, that apart from mankind there is much outside in the world that may indeed remind us of man's individual accordance or discordance with it, but that we shall hardly venture to speak of fortune or misfortune in connection with analogous occurrences outside mankind. Suppose that the crystal, which ought to develop regular forms according to definite laws, should be compelled, through the vicinity of other crystals, or through other forces of Nature at work near it, to develop one-sidedly and is prevented from forming its proper angles. There are actually very few crystals in Nature perfectly formed in accordance with their inner laws. Or, if we study the plants, we must say that in them, too, an inner law of development seems to be inborn. We cannot fail to see, however, that very many plants are unable to bring to perfection the whole force of the inner impulse of their development in the struggle against wind and weather and other conditions of their environment. And we can say the same of the animals. Indeed, we may go still further, we need only keep undeniable facts before our eyes—how many germs of living beings perish without reaching any real development, because under existing conditions it is impossible for them to become that for which they were organized. Think of the vast quantity of spawn in the sea alone, spawn that might become inhabitants of the sea, populating this or that ocean, and how few of them actually develop. True, we might say in a certain sense: We see quite clearly that the beings we come across in the different kingdoms of Nature have inner forces and laws of development; but these forces and laws are limited by their environment and the impossibility of bringing themselves into harmony with it. And indeed, we cannot deny that we have something similar when we speak of human fortune or misfortune. There we see that a man's power to live out his life cannot become a reality because of the many hindrances continually obstructing him. Or we may see that a man—like a crystal fortunate enough to develop its angles freely in every direction—may be so fortunate as to be able to say with the crystal: Nothing hinders me; external circumstances and the way of the world are so helpful to me that they set free what is purposed in the inmost core of my being.—And only in this case does a man usually say that he is fortunate; any other circumstances either leave him indifferent or impel him to speak directly of misfortune. But unless we are speaking merely symbolically, we cannot, without falling into a fantastic vein, speak of the ill-fortune of crystals, of plants, or even of the amount of spawn that perishes in the sea before it comes to life. We feel that to be justified in speaking of good or bad fortune, we must rise to the level of human life. And again, even in speaking of human life, we soon notice a limit beyond which we can no longer speak of fortune at all, in spite of the external forces by which man's life may be directly hindered, frustrated, destroyed. We feel that we cannot speak of “misfortune” when we see a great martyr who has something of importance to transmit to the world, condemned to death by hostile authorities. Are we justified in speaking of misfortune in the case of Giordano Bruno, for instance, who perished at the stake? We feel that here there is something in the man himself which makes it impossible to speak of ill-fortune, or if he is successful, of good fortune. So we see good or bad fortune definitely relegated to the human sphere—and within that to a still narrower one.

Now when it comes to man himself, to what he feels with regard to fortune or misfortune in his life, it would seem that when we try to grasp it conceptually, we very seldom succeed. For just think of the story of Diogenes (again this may be based upon a legend, but it may also have happened), when Alexander urged him to ask a favor of him—certainly a piece of good fortune. Diogenes demanded what very few men would have asked for—that Alexander should move out of his light. That then was what he regarded as lacking to his happiness at the moment. How would most men have interpreted their fortune at such a moment? But let us go further. Take the pleasure-seeking man, the man who throughout his life considers himself fortunate only when all the desires arising from his passions and instincts are satisfied—satisfied often by the most banal of pleasures. Is there anyone who would believe that what such a man calls good fortune could also be good fortune for the ascetic, for one who hopes for the perfecting of his being, and considers life worth living only when he is denying himself in every possible way, and even subjecting himself to pain and suffering that would not be inflicted upon him by ordinary fortune or misfortune? How different the conceptions of fortune and misfortune are in an ascetic and a sensualist! But we can go still further and show that any universally accepted conception of good fortune eludes us. We have only to think of how unhappy a man can be who, without reason, without any foundation of true reality, becomes fiercely jealous. Take a man who has no grounds for jealousy at all, but believes that he has every possible ground; he is unhappy in the deepest sense of the word, yet there is no occasion for it at all. The extent, the intensity, of the unhappiness depends not on any external reality but simply on the man's attitude to external reality—in this case, to a complete illusion.

That good luck as well as bad may be in the highest degree subjective, that at every turn it projects us, so to speak, from the outer world into the inner world, is shown by a charming story told by Jean Paul at the beginning of the first volume of his “Flegeljahre”. In this, a man who lived habitually in Central Germany pictures to himself how fortunate it would be for him to be a parson in Sweden. It is a most delightful passage where he imagines that he would sit in his parsonage and the day would come when by two o'clock in the afternoon it would be dark. Then people would go to church each carrying his own light, after which pictures of his childhood would rise before him—his brothers and sisters, each carrying a light. It is a charming description of his delight in the people going to church through the darkness each with his own lantern. Or he dreams himself into other situations, called up simply by the memory of certain natural scenes connected together in his mind; for instance, if he imagined himself in Italy he could almost see the orange trees, and so on. This would throw him into a mood of most wonderful happiness; but there was no reality in any of it, it was all only a dream.

Doubtless Jean Paul, with this dream of being a parson in Sweden, is pointing to a deep connection in questions of good or bad fortune by showing that the whole problem can be diverted from the outer world to man's inner being. Strangely enough, it would seem that since good or bad fortune may be entirely dependent upon the inner being of man, the idea of good fortune as a general idea disappears. Yet again, if we look at what a man generally calls good or bad fortune, we see that in countless cases he refers it, not to his inner being, but to something outside himself, We might even say: The characteristic quality of man's desire for good fortune is deeply rooted in his incessant urge not to be alone with his thoughts, his feelings, his whole inner being, but to be in harmony with all that works and weaves in his environment. In reality a man speaks of good fortune when he is unwilling that some result, some effect, should depend on himself alone; on the contrary, he attaches great importance to its depending, not on himself but on something else. We need only picture the luck of the gambler—here no doubt the small and the great have much in common. However paradoxical it may seem, we can quite well connect a gambler's luck with the satisfaction a man may have in acquiring an item of knowledge. For acquiring knowledge evokes in us the feeling that in our thinking, in our soul-life, we are in harmony with the world. We feel that what is without in picture-form is also within us in our apprehension of it; that we do not stand alone with the world staring us in the face like a riddle, but that the inner corresponds to the outer, that there is living contact between them, the outer mirrored in, and shining forth again from the inner. The satisfaction we have in acquiring knowledge is proof of this harmony. If we analyze the satisfaction of a successful gambler we can only say—even if he has no thought of whence his satisfaction arises—that it could not exist at all if he himself could bring about what happens without his cooperation. His satisfaction is based on the fact that something outside himself is involved, that the world has “taken him into consideration”, that it has contributed something for his benefit. This single shows that he does not stand outside the world, that he has definite contact, definite connection, with it. And the unhappiness a gambler feels when he loses is caused by the sensation of standing alone—bad luck gives him a feeling of being shut out from the world, as if the contact with it were broken.

In short, we see that it is by no means true that, by good or bad fortune, a man means only something that can be locked up within himself; on the contrary, when he speaks of good or bad fortune he means in the deepest sense what establishes contact between him and the world. Hence there is hardly anything about which the man of our enlightened age becomes so easily superstitious, so grotesquely superstitious, as about what is called luck, what he calls his expectation from certain forces or elements outside himself which come to his assistance. When this is in question, a man may become exceedingly superstitious. I once knew a very enlightened German poet. At the time of which I speak he was writing a play. This play would not be finished before the end of a certain month—he knew that beforehand. Yet he had a superstition that the drama could not be successful unless it were sent in to the manager of the theatre concerned before the first day of the next month; if it were later, according to his superstition it could have no success. One day, towards the end of the month, I happened to be walking in the street when I saw him bicycling in hot haste to the post office. Through my friendship with him I knew that his work was far from finished; so I waited for him to come out. “I have sent my play in to the theatre”, he said. “Is it finished then?” I asked; and he replied: “There is still some work to do on the last acts, but I have sent it in now because I believe it can only be successful if it goes in before the end of this month. I have written, though, that if the play is accepted, I should like it returned when I can finish it; but it had to be sent in at this time.”—Here we see how a man expects help from outside, how he expects that what is to happen will not be effected by him alone, by his efficiency or his own powers, but that the outer world will come to his aid, that it has some interest in him so that he does not stand alone by himself.

This only proves that when all is said the idea of fortune in general eludes us when we try to grasp it. It eludes us, too, when we look into any literature that has been written about it; for those who write about such things are usually men whose business it is to write. Now at the outset everyone knows that a man can, indeed, speak correctly only of something with which he has not merely a theoretical but a living relation. The philosophers or psychologists who write about fortune have a living relation to good or bad fortune only as they themselves have experienced it. Now there is one factor that weighs very heavily in the balance, namely, that cognition as such, as it meets us in the world of man outside, that knowledge when it is taken in a certain higher sense, signifies at the very outset a kind of good fortune. This will be admitted by everyone who has ever felt the inner delight that knowledge can give; and this is substantiated by the fact that the most eminent philosophers, from Aristotle down to our own times, have constantly characterized the possession of wisdom, of knowledge, as a piece of particularly good fortune. On the other hand, however, we must ask ourselves: What does such an answer to the question concerning fortune mean to one who works the whole week long with few exceptions in the darkness of the mines, or to one who is buried in a mine and perhaps remains alive for days together under the most horrible conditions? What has such a philosophical interpretation of fortune to do with what dwells in the soul of a man who has to perform some menial, perhaps repulsive, task in life? Life gives a strange answer to the question of fortune, and we have abundant experience to show that the philosophers' answers are often grotesquely remote, in this connection, from our experience in everyday life, provided we consider this life in its true character. Life, however, teaches us something else with regard to fortune. For life appears as a noteworthy contradiction to the commonly accepted conceptions of fortune. One case may serve as an example for many.

Let us suppose that a man with very high ideas, even with the gift of an exceptional imagination, should have to work in some humble position. He had perhaps to spend almost all his life as a common soldier. I am speaking of a case that is indeed no legend, but the life of an exceedingly remarkable man, Josef Emanuel Hilscher, who was born in Austria in 1804 and died in 1837. It was his fate to serve for the greater part of his life as a common soldier; in spite of his brilliant gifts he rose to nothing higher than quartermaster. This man left behind him a great number of poems, not only perfect in form but permeated by a deep life of soul. He left excellent translations into German of Byron's poems. He had a rich inner life. We can picture the complete contrast between what the day brought him in the way of fortune and his inner experiences. The poems are by no means steeped in pessimism; they are full of force and exuberance. They show us that this life—in spite of the many disappointments inherent in it—rose to a certain level of inner happiness. It is a pity that men so easily forget such phenomena. For when we set a figure of this kind before our eyes, we can see—because indeed things are only relatively different from one another—we can see that perhaps it is possible, even when the external life seems to be entirely forsaken by fortune, for a man to create happiness out of his inmost being.

Now anyone can inveigh against fortune, especially from the point of view of spiritual science—indeed, if he clings to misunderstood or primitive conceptions he may be fanatical in his protest against the idea of good fortune or equally fanatical in explaining life one-sidedly from the idea of reincarnation and karma. A man would be fanatical in his protest against fortune were he through misunderstanding the principles of spiritual science to say: All striving after good fortune and contentment is after all only egoism, and spiritual science makes every effort to lead men away from egoism. Even Aristotle considered it ridiculous to maintain that the virtuous man could in any way be content when he was experiencing unaccountable suffering. Good fortune need not be regarded merely as satisfied egoism, but even were this so in the first place it could still be of some value for the whole of mankind. For good fortune can also be regarded as bringing our soul-forces into a certain harmonious mood, thus allowing them to develop in every direction; whereas ill-fortune produces discordant moods in our soul-life, hindering us from making the most of our efficiency and powers. Thus, even if good luck is sought after in the first place only as a satisfaction of egoism, yet we can look upon it as the promoter of inward harmony in the soul-forces, and can hope that those whose soul-forces achieve inner harmony through good fortune may gradually overcome their egoism; whereas they would probably find it hard to do so were they constantly pursued by ill-fortune. On the other hand, it may be said: If a man strives after good fortune and receives it as the satisfaction of his egoism, he can—because his forces are harmonized—work for himself and for others in a beneficial way. So what may be called good fortune must not be assessed one-sidedly.—Again, many a man who thinks he has fathomed spiritual science when he has only perceived something of it from a distance falls into error by saying: Here is a fortunate man, and there one who is unfortunate; when I think of karma, of one life determining another, I can easily understand that an unfortunate man has prepared this bad fortune for himself in a former life, and that in a former life the fortunate man has prepared his own good fortune. Such an assertion has something insidious about it because to a certain extent it is correct. But karma—that is, the law of the determining of one earth-life by another—must not be accepted in the sense of a merely explanatory law; it must be regarded as something that penetrates our will, causing us to live in the sense of this law. And this law is only vindicated in life if it ennobles and enriches this life. As regards fortune, we have seen that a man's quest of happiness springs from a desire not to stand alone, but to be in some way related to the outer world so that it may take an interest in him. On the other hand, we have seen that good fortune may—in contradiction to external facts—be brought about solely by a man's conceptions, by what he experiences from external facts.

Where is there a solution of this apparent contradiction—depending, not on abstractions and theories but on reality itself?

We can find a solution if we turn our minds to what may be called the inmost core of man's being. In former lectures¹ we have shown how this works on the outer man, even shaping his body, and also establishing the man in the place he occupies in the world. If we follow up this conception of the inner core, and ask ourselves how it can be related to the man's good or bad fortune, we most easily find the answer if we consider that some stroke of good fortune may so affect a man that he is bound to say: I intended this, I willed it, I used my good sense, my wisdom, in such a way that it should come about, but now I see that the result far exceeds all that my wisdom planned, all that I determined or was able to see beforehand.—What man is there, in a responsible position in the world, who would not in countless cases say something of this kind—that he had indeed used his powers but that the success that had befallen him far out-weighed the powers exerted? If we comprehend the inner core of man not as what is there just for once but as something in the throes of a whole evolution, in the sense, that is, of spiritual science; if we comprehend it not simply as shaping one life but many, as something therefore that would shape the one life as it is in our immediate present, so that when this inner core of man's being goes through the gate of death and passes into a super-sensible world, returning when the time comes to be active in physical life in a fresh existence—what then can such a man, grasping his central being in this way, understanding himself within a world-conception of this kind—what attitude can he adopt towards a success that flows to him in the way we have pictured? Such a man can never say: This has been my good fortune and I am satisfied; with the powers I set in motion I expected something quite insignificant, but I am glad that my fortune has brought me something greater.—Such a man who seriously believes in karma and repeated earth-lives will never say that, but rather: The success is there but I have shown myself to be weak in face of such a success. I shall not be content with this success, I shall learn by it to enhance my powers; I shall sow seeds in the inmost core of my being which will lead it to higher and higher perfection. My unmerited success, my windfall, shows me where I am lacking; I must learn from it.—No other answer can be given by one to whom fortune has brought success, if he looks upon karma in the right way and believes in it. How will he deal with such a lucky chance? (The word chance is used here in the sense of something that comes upon one unexpectedly, it is not meant in the ordinary way). For him it will be considered not as an end but as a beginning—a beginning from which he will learn and which will cast its beams upon his future evolution.

Now, what is the opposite of the instance we have given? Let us place it clearly before us. Because a man who believes in repeated earth-lives and karma, or spiritual causation, receives a stroke of good fortune as a spur to his growing forces, he regards it as a beginning, as a cause of his further development. And the converse of this would be if, when we were struck by some misfortune, by some misadventure that might happen to us, we were to take it not simply as a blow, as the reverse of the success, but looking beyond the single earthly life, we were to see it as an end, as what comes last, as something the cause of which has to be sought in the past, just as the consequence when appearing as success has to seek its effects in the future—the future of our own evolution. We regard ill-fortune as an effect of our own evolution. How so?

This we can make clear by a comparison showing that we are not always good judges of what has occasioned the course of a life. Let us suppose someone has lived as an idler on his father's money up to his eighteenth year, enjoying from his own point of view a very happy life. Then when he is eighteen years old his father loses his property; and the son can no longer live in idleness but is obliged to train for a proper job. This will at first cause him all sorts of trouble and suffering. “Alas!” he will say, “a great misfortune has overtaken me.” It is a question, however, whether in this case he is the best judge of his destiny. If he learns something useful now, perhaps when he is fifty he will be able to say: Yes, at that time I looked upon it as a great misfortune that my father had lost his wealth; now I can only see it as a misfortune for my father and not for myself; for I might have remained a ne'er-do-well all my life had I not met with this misfortune. As it happens, however, I have become a useful member of society. I have grown into what I now am.

So let us ask ourselves: When was this man a correct judge of his destiny? In his eighteenth year when he met with misfortune, or at fifty when he looked back on this misfortune? Now suppose he thinks still further, and enquires concerning the cause of this misfortune. Then he might say: There was really no need for me to consider myself unfortunate at that time. Externally it seemed at first as if misfortune had befallen me because my father had lost his income. But suppose that from my earliest childhood I had been zealous in my desire for knowledge, suppose that I had already done great things without any external compulsion, so that the loss of my father's money would not have inconvenienced me, then the transition would have been quite a different matter, the misfortune would not have affected me. The cause of my misfortune appeared to lie outside myself, but in reality I can say that the deeper cause lay within me. For it was my nature that brought it upon me that my life at that time was unfortunate and beset with pain and suffering. I attracted the ill-fortune to myself.

When such a man says this, he has already begun to understand that in fact all that approaches us from outside is attracted from within, and that the attraction is caused through our own evolution. Every misfortune can be represented as the result of some imperfection in ourselves; it indicates that something within us is not as well developed as it should be. Here we have misfortune as opposed to success, misfortune regarded as an end, as an effect, of something occasioned by ourselves at an earlier stage of our evolution. Now if, instead of moaning over our ill-luck, and throwing the whole blame upon the outside world, we look at the core of our inner being and seriously believe in karma, that is, the causation working through one earth-life to another, then ill-luck becomes a challenge to regard life as a school in which we learn to make ourselves more and more perfect. If we look at the matter thus, karma and what we call the law of repeated earth- lives will become a force for all that makes life richer and increases its significance.

The question, however, may certainly arise: Can mere knowledge of the law of karma enhance life in a definite way, making it richer and more significant? Can it perhaps bring good fortune out of bad?—However strange it may seem to many people now-a-days, I should like to make a remark that may be significant for a full comprehension of good fortune from the point of view of spiritual science. Let us recall Hamerling's legend of the girl pursued by ill-fortune up to her death, and even beyond the grave since she was buried alive. No doubt anyone not deeply permeated by the forces knowledge can give, will find this strange. But let us suppose that this unfortunate girl had been placed in an environment where the outlook of spiritual science was accepted, where this outlook would prompt the individual to say: In me there dwells a central core of spiritual being transcending birth and death, showing to the outer world the effects of past lives, and preparing the forces for subsequent earth-lives. It is conceivable that this knowledge might become strength of soul in the girl, intensifying belief in such an inner core. It may perhaps be said: As the force issuing from spirit and soul may be consciously felt working into the bodily nature, it might well have worked into the girl's state of health; and the strength of this belief might have sustained her until the man returned after his father's death. This may appear odd to many who are not aware of the power of knowledge based on true reality—knowledge not abstract and merely theoretical but working as a growing force in the soul.

We see, however, that as regards the question of good fortune this belief may offer no consolation to those who are definitely fixed for their whole life in work that can never satisfy them, those whose claims upon life are permanently rejected. Yet we see that firm faith in the central core of man's being, and the knowledge that this single human life is one among many, can certainly give awakening strength. All that in the outer world at first appeared to me as my ill-fortune, as the evil destiny of my life, becomes explicable to my spiritual understanding through my relation to the universal cosmos in which I am placed. No commonplace consolation can help us to overcome what in our own conception is a real misfortune. We can only be helped by the possibility of regarding a direct blow as a link in the chain of destiny. Then we see that to consider the single life by itself, is to look upon the semblance and not the reality. An example of this is the youth who idled away his time until his eighteenth year and then, when misfortune befell him and he was obliged to work, regarded it as sheer ill- luck and not as the occasion of his later happiness. Thus, if we look more deeply into the matter we see clearly that study of a life from one point of view alone can give only an apparent result, and that what strikes us as good or bad fortune appears merely in its semblance if we study it in a circumscribed way. It will only show us its true nature and meaning if we study it in its proper place in the man's whole life. Even so, if we look at this whole human life as exhausted within the boundaries of birth and death, a life that can find no satisfaction in ordinary human relations and the usual work will never seem comprehensible to us. To become comprehensible—comprehensible according to the reality we have often expressed in those terms to which, however, where real human destiny is concerned, only spiritual science can give life-this can become comprehensible only when we know that what we find intelligible no longer has power over us. And to him for whose central being good fortune is only an incentive to higher development, ill-fortune is also a challenge to further evolution. Thus the apparent contradiction is solved for us when, in observing life, we see the conception of good or bad fortune approaching us merely from the outside, converted into the conception of how we transform the experiences within ourselves and what we make of them. If we have learnt from the law of karma not only to derive satisfaction from success but to take it as an incentive to further development, we also arrive at regarding failure and misfortune in the same way. Everything undergoes change in the human soul, and what is a semblance of good or bad fortune becomes reality there. This, however, implies much that is immensely important. For instance, let us think of a man who rejects outright the idea of repeated earth-lives. Suppose, then, that he sees a man suffering from jealousy founded on an entirely imaginary picture created by himself; or another pursuing a visionary happiness; or on the other hand he may see someone who develops a definite inner reality merely out of his imagination, develops something most real for the inner life—that is, out of mere semblance, not out of the world of real facts. Thus he might say to himself—Would it not be the most incredible incongruity as regards the connection of man's inner nature with the outer world, if the matter ended with this one fact occurring in the one earth-life? There is no doubt that, when a man passes through the gate of death, any illusion of fortune or of jealousy which he has looked on as a reality will be wiped out. But what he has united with his soul as pleasure and pain, the effect which has arisen in the stirrings of his feelings, becomes a power living its own life in his soul and connected with his further evolution in the universe. Thus we see, by means of the transformation described, that man is actually called upon to develop a reality out of the semblance.

With this, however, we have also arrived at an explanation of what was said at the beginning. It becomes clear to us now why it is impossible for a man to connect his fortune with his ego, with his individuality. Yet, even if he cannot directly connect it with his ego as external happenings that approach him and raise his existence, he can, nevertheless, so transform it within himself, that what was originally external semblance becomes inner reality. Thereby man becomes the transformer of outward semblance into being, into reality. But when we look around upon the world about us, we see how the crystals, the plants and animals are hindered by external circumstances so that they cannot live out fully the inner laws of their growth; we see how countless seeds must perish without coming into true existence. What is it that fails to happen? Why can we not speak here of good or bad fortune as we have stated it?—The reason is that these are not examples of an outer becoming an inner, so that in fact an outer is mirrored in the inner and a semblance transformed into real being. It is only because man has this central core of being within him that he can free himself from the immediate external reality and experience a new reality. This reality experienced within him lifts his ordinary existence above external life so that he can say: On the one hand, I live in the line of heredity, since I bear within me what I have inherited from my parents, grandparents, and so on; but I also live in what is only a spiritual line of causation, and yet can give me something besides the fortune that may come to me from the outside world.—Through this alone it is clear that man is indeed a member of two worlds, an outer and an inner. You may call it dualism, but the very way that man transforms semblance into reality shows us that this dualism is itself merely semblance, since in man outer semblance is continually being transformed into inner reality. And life shows us, too, that what we experience in imagination when we call an actual fact false becomes reality within us.

Thus we see that what may be called good and bad fortune is closely associated with what is within man. But we see, too, how closely associated it is with the conception of spiritual science, that man stands in a succession of repeated earth-lives. If we look at the matter in this way we may say: Do we not then base our inner happiness on an outer semblance and reckon with this happiness as something permanent in our evolution? All external good fortune that falls to our share is characterized in what, according to legend, Solon said to Croesus: Call no man happy till you know his end.—All good fortune that comes to us from outside may change; good fortune may turn into bad. But what is there in the realm of fortune that can never be taken from us? What we make of the fortune that falls to us whether it comes from success or failure. Fundamentally the following true and excellent folk-saying can be applied to the whole of a man's relation to his fortune: Everyone is the smith of his own fortune.—Simple country people have coined many beautiful and extraordinarily apposite sayings about fortune, and from these we can see what profound philosophy there is in the simplest man's outlook. In this respect those who call themselves the most enlightened could learn very much from them. To be sure these truths are often presented to us in a very crude form. There is even a proverb that says: Against a certain human quality the Gods themselves contend in vain. There is, however, also a noteworthy proverb that connects this particular human quality—against which the Gods are said to contend in vain—with good fortune, saying: Fools have the most luck. We need not conclude from this that the Gods seek to reward such men with good fortune to make up for their stupidity. Nevertheless, this proverb shows us a distinct consciousness of the inner depths and of the necessity for deepening what we must call the interdependence in the world of man and fortune. For as long as our wisdom is applicable to external matters alone, it will help us very little; it can help us only when it is changed into something within ourselves, that is, when it again acquires the quality, originally possessed by primitive man, of building on the strong central core that transcends birth and death, the central core that is explicable only in the light of repeated earth-lives. Thus what a man experiences as the mere semblance of fortune in the outer world is distinguished from what we may call the true essence of fortune. This comes into being the moment a man can make something of the external facts of his life, can transform them and assimilate them with the evolving core of his being which goes on from life to life. And when a sick man—Herder—in the most severe physical pain says to his son: “Give me a sublime and beautiful thought, and I will refresh myself with it”, we see clearly that in an afflicted life Herder awaits the illumination of a beautiful thought as refreshment—that is, as a stroke of good fortune.

Hence it is easy to say that man with his inner being must be the smith of his own fortune. But let us fix our minds on the powerful influence of that world-conception of spiritual science that we have been able to touch upon to-day, where it is not merely theoretical knowledge but knowledge that stirs the core of our souls, since it is filled with what transcends good or bad fortune. If we grasp this world-outlook thus, it will furnish us with more sublime thoughts than almost any other, thoughts that make it possible for a man—even at the moment when he must succumb to misfortune—to say: “But this is only a part of the whole of life.”

This question of fortune has been raised to-day to show how everyday existence is ennobled and enriched by the real thoughts concerning life's totality which spiritual science can give us, thoughts that do not merely touch upon life as theories but that bring with them the forces of life. And this is the essential. We must not only have external grounds of consolation for one who is to learn to bear misfortune through the awakening of those inner forces, rather must we be able to give him the real inner forces that lead beyond the sphere of misfortune to a sphere to which—although life seems to contradict this—he actually belongs. This, however, can only be given by a science which shows that human life extends beyond birth and death, and yet is linked with the whole beneficent foundation of our world-order. If we can count upon this in a world-conception, then we may say that this conception fulfills the hopes of even the best of men; we may say that with such a conviction a man can look at life as one who though his ship is tossed to and fro by surging waves yet finds courage to rely on nothing in the outer world, but on his own inner strength and character. And perhaps the observations of to-day may serve to set before men an ideal that Goethe in a certain way sketched for us, but that we may interpret beyond Goethe's hopes as an ideal for every man. True, it does not stand as something to be immediately achieved in the single human life, but as an ideal for man's life as a totality—if a man, tossed to and fro in his life between good and bad fortune, feels like a sailor buffeted by stormy waves, who can rely on his own inner power. This must lead to a point of view which, with a slight adaptation of Goethe's words, we may describe thus:

Man stands with courage at the helm
By wind and waves the ship is driven—
The wind and waves do not affect him.
Controlling them he looks in the green depths
And trusts, no matter wrecked or safe in port,
The forces of his inner being.

• 1. The Hidden Depths of Soul Life. Berlin, 23rd November, 1911.

[Dear attendees:] During their beautiful friendship, so significant for the newer intellectual life, Goethe and Schiller exchanged the works they were working on during the time of their friendship, and when Schiller received some parts of the “Wilhelm Meister” from Goethe, he wrote him strange, one might say, at first, peculiar words. Overwhelmed by the impression of the chapter he received at the time, he wrote:

The poet is the only true human being, and the best
philosopher is only a caricature compared to him.

These words may seem strange, but they will no longer seem so strange once we have delved a little into Schiller's soul and examined how he actually meant this saying. We will gain insight by comparing these words with the content of that famous letter that Schiller wrote to Goethe shortly after the two had formed their friendship, the letter that I have mentioned many times before. There Schiller wrote:

For a long time now, [although from a considerable distance, I have observed the course of your mind and noted the path you have mapped out with ever-renewed admiration. ...]

And now he is spreading it across the way in which Goethe views the world. He says that Goethe directs his gaze freely and openly and objectively over the things of the world and that he tries to gain an insight not by speculative means, but by seeking what is necessary in the totality of the world's phenomena. A “heroic” undertaking, as Schiller calls it. And then he explains in his own way why he finds this undertaking so heroic, and then he says: All your powers, your powers of mind, work together harmoniously and ultimately align themselves with the unifier of all powers of mind in your soul, with imagination.

So we see from this that Schiller sees something in Goethe's way of looking at the world, and indeed in the soul activity of Goethe, from which his artistic works have flowed, that it can lead people very deeply into the secrets of existence. Schiller therefore sees something special in the way Goethe developed his imagination, his fantasy, and if one examines what thoughts and opinions were actually exchanged between Goethe and Schiller, one finds that Schiller absorbed a meaningful concept of fantasy in the contemplation of the highest spiritual, and that is what one could call the “inner truth of fantasy”.

Schiller strove, and this can be seen again from his letters, to recognize how man, through development, can become a complete human being. In every human nature, he saw a higher human being, a representative human being, whom the ordinary everyday human being must increasingly approach. In Goethe's way of letting the powers of the mind work together in the imagination, of letting the imagination radiate what assigns each other soul power its place — in this kind of soul activity Schiller found something that makes man a complete human being, that best brings him to unite with the very foundations of the world from which man and things have flowed.

When we hear our great minds talk about imagination, it looks a little different than when, not only in everyday life, but also in many circles close to or even devoted to science today, imagination is talked about. Today, imagination is contrasted with the objective pursuit of truth as if it were directly opposed to the mental faculties that lead to the investigation of truth, as if it only served to combine things in an arbitrary way. If we can bring ourselves to understand Goethe and are convinced that Goethe was an expert in these matters, then perhaps a Goethean saying will be enlightening for us:

Man strives to fathom the secrets of nature and longs for its most worthy interpreter, art.

Yes, Goethe addresses the beautiful, that is, the creations of the imagination, the content of artistic creation, in such a way that he says: art, the beautiful, and thus the children of the imagination, are a manifestation of secret laws of nature that could never be fathomed without their activity.

Now, however, we have to agree with common sense, which describes imagination as a capacity for association that works according to the desires of the soul, that is, out of pleasure and other impulses that have nothing to do with objective knowledge. We have to admit that imagination often leads people away from the truth. Where would it lead us if we were to admit that imagination plays a role in external scientific research? Admittedly, no one will deny that imagination may play a preliminary role in scientific research. Those who are able to work with combining imagination are able to recognize hidden connections that others do not see, who work in the laboratory or in the physics cabinet and structure experience upon experience. But of course it must be fully admitted that for certain areas of research, of life, it is absolutely necessary that when someone makes such combinations through their imagination, they prove what they have combined in strict external evidence through experience. Thus imagination can be a guide to this or that connection, but it must be verified by the means of external, objective research; we are willing to concede that.

Nevertheless, a word such as Goethe's – or a position on the matter such as Schiller's – indicates that Goethe sees something in the works of imagination, in the creative activity of imagination, that also contains a truth, in contrast to the arbitrary, unfettered play that we might better call a fantastic play of ideas. But anyone who speaks of fantasy in such a way that it contains something of truth, you will readily admit, cannot speak of being forced by the external world to recognize this truth.

When we string fact after fact and seek to fathom the laws, then the results of our observations force us to our judgment. When we let our imagination speak, then there is no such external compulsion. That which underlies imagination, that which imagination brings forth, would therefore be something that, as truth, permeates imagination. Accordingly, an inner lawfulness would have to prevail in such a way that certain thoughts, brought together by imagination, appear before a higher forum as real, that certain conclusions of imagination, through an inner necessity, present an expression of truth.

Therefore, if creative imaginative activity is to have true justification, there must be something at work that acts as an inner guide to direct a person in their imaginative work, that does not allow him to fertilize his thoughts at random, according to his desires and pleasures, but rather what guides him to stringing thought to thought with a sure inner direction and thereby obtains something that is, in a certain sense, an expression of truth.

When we hear a true and great poet speak of imagination as a means of unraveling inner truths, then it is certainly permissible to measure this creative soul activity, this imagination, against that soul activity, that soul capacity, which, in the sense of spiritual science or theosophy, is suitable for leading into the foundations of existence.

Over the years, we have spoken at length about this spiritual world that underlies the material world. The methods that lead to the results we have so often discussed are – as terrible as the word may sound to some modern people – the so-called clairvoyant methods. Spiritual science offers information about facts and beings of the spiritual world, and these facts and beings are found through clairvoyance. It will not be my task here to discuss certain lower forms of clairvoyance – they can only be touched on – because these lower forms can never lead to any real results of spiritual science. On the other hand, it will be my task, in accordance with the time allotted to us, to discuss the method and scope of so-called higher clairvoyance, that is, clairvoyance achieved through genuine, truly appropriate training.

Many people today only know clairvoyance in the form of so-called lower clairvoyance, where it occurs to us as an accidental gift or disease, in somnambulism and other forms. There are conditions in human nature through which a person does not relate to his environment in the usual way, but in which he has filled his soul life, we might say, with images from another world. For the outside world, the somnambulist is in a kind of sleep. This sleep may be present to such a slight degree that the layman will always reply: Yes, he is indeed completely awake, he just sees differently than the ordinary person in his waking state. And such a person who sees differently is called a clairvoyant. When he perceives images in this more or less sleep-like state, these images sometimes form strange content, sometimes quite meaningful content. He can communicate these images and amaze those around him with the things he sees. In this somnambulistic state, he himself knows certain things through prediction, which then come true despite all objections. Such a person, who has tuned down his external daytime consciousness, can make statements about certain conditions that lie ahead of him, which appear astonishing. Such a patient can indicate exactly what can help him and how he is to be treated. In such states, the human soul does indeed penetrate through the shell of the external sense world and has another world before it. This cannot be denied, and anyone who denies it has simply not done any research in this field.

But all these forms are not what really interest us. That which is gained through such lower clairvoyance cannot be the subject of the spiritual science we are talking about here. The subject of this spiritual science is only that which is gained through the path of trained clairvoyance, the clairvoyance that man has acquired through the fully conscious application of the methods given to him by the corresponding schools. The aspiring clairvoyant performs each step with strict self-control, in complete awareness, just as other people behave in relation to the external world that they perceive with their senses. The only question now is this: how do we visualize the process of becoming such a clairvoyant?

If we want to define its nature, we can say: In terms of scientific methodology, it can be compared to what we call external research in the modern sense of the word. The researcher makes use of all kinds of instruments and tools to explore what is within the sensory world. He invents scientific methods by which he can systematically see things in such a way that they reveal their secrets to him, so to speak. Thus the scientific researcher surrounds himself with instruments, he equips himself with methods that enable him to arrange things in such a way that they tell him something. The spiritual researcher also works with his instrument, with a very complicated one at that, and he cannot explore anything without this instrument. What is this instrument?

It is himself. But he is not himself in the state in which the soul is in everyday life. Man only becomes this instrument when he has so transformed his entire capacity for knowledge, his soul constitution, through the methods that can be given to him, that he has acquired other, indeed now spiritual organs. He must have experienced the moment when he can say from his own experience: Now, every reasonable person says to himself, it cannot be that what surrounds us is exhausted by the tools of our five senses, because if someone does not have one of these senses, he lacks the possibility to see with seeing eyes, so the world of light is not there [for him]. It is there when the organ is there. With each new organ, a new content of the external world presents itself, so we must not limit reality. There must therefore be or be able to be hidden, invisible supersensible worlds around us, and insofar as one expresses this in this cautious way, 'they can be there', logically there is no objection to it.

Someone who becomes clairvoyant in the sense just described reeducates themselves in such a way that this hidden world becomes as perceptible to them as the world of light and color is to ordinary eyes. And just as a new world, the world of light and color, opens up for the one born blind, so a new world streams in from the surroundings of the thus awakened clairvoyant, which then becomes their world of observation. But one must not believe that this is achieved by any means that could be described as superstitious or prejudiced. It is accomplished by a strict transformation of the human cognitive faculty into an instrument of higher perception. Of course, I can only hint in general terms at how this happens. But we also want to go to such, so to speak, higher chapters, also in public lectures, and at least sketch out how research is done.

Man, when he perceives the surrounding world, will be most true to that surrounding world if he lets it tell him what it has to say to him, as far as possible without the interference of arbitrariness. Therefore, we see that the scientist is rightly endeavoring, and carefully endeavoring, to ensure that nothing of subjective arbitrariness of any kind is mixed into what he strives for as a result, that everything is dictated by the things themselves, that man, through his methods, only gives nature the opportunity to express itself. The less arbitrariness we apply in doing so, the better it is. But man cannot help reflecting on the things of the external world, and a little consideration will show you that you gain your perception, your sense impressions, from the external world, from observation; that you let the individual things of external life flow in; but you will also understand that what is called the concept does not flow into us from the external world. Even an external fact can provide you with the proof that, where man investigates the external world, he actually brings the concepts from his inner being; and modern thinking in particular will have to admit this. If this thinking looks back a few millennia and considers the concepts about the structure of our solar system, it must say to itself: When the eye looked up, external perception saw the same as Copernicus and Galileo saw; but the laws that govern it, the concepts and ideas about the structure of the world, have only been acquired over time. How did Copernicus, for example, come to his view of the starry sky? By combining the same observational material that his ancestors had in a different way, by applying the mind, the world of concepts that ruled in him, in a different way than his ancestors. Through what he added to the observation, he saw the essential for our century.

We could show this for all fields. The most orthodox Darwinian must admit: people looked at the facts of the world before Haeckel, too. That they came to their theory does not depend on Haeckel experiencing the environment in a different way, but on his approaching things in a different way. So it is essential what the person brings to it.

And there is another example that shows how concepts and ideas are not something that flows into the human being from the outside, but something that he himself must bring into the world. Try to think about it when you go out to sea to a point where you only have sea, sea, on which the vault of heaven seems to rest all around you. You will then say to yourself: the vault of heaven seems to rest on the surface of the sea in the form of a circle; but you will not understand the circle through such observations. You will only understand it when you disregard the external observation and are able to construct the circle in your own mind, independently of the observation, when you are able to draw the picture mentally, in which all points are the same distance from the center. To have this image in your mind, to understand the [circle], you do not need chalk, no external observation. You can construct it in your mind and realize all the laws in your mind. And when you step out into reality and see arrangements that are in a circle, then it must correspond to what you have thought up in your study as the laws of the circle. The great Kepler would never have been able to discover the laws governing the movement of the planets if the orbit of the planets had not first appeared to him in his mind and he had then realized that when he looked out, the stars moved in the lines that he had first constructed in his mind.

Thus we carry the world of concepts and ideas within us in the higher sense of the word. We bring them to the external things, and these tell us: What you have thought, we carry out. The star says, as it were: You have conceived a line in your soul; but I move in the sense of this line. And so you come to realize that what lives in your soul, without you taking in an external sensory observation, that this underlies the spiritual basis and laws of this sensory world; but you have to get the confirmation from this sensory world. You can only make a statement about this sensory world when it offers you phenomena that correspond to what you have thought.

Now imagine that a person — and in this case I am indeed quoting the simplest things from the so-called school of esoteric science — tries to hold on to a thought that is constructed in his own soul, such as a circle, without going out into the world of observation with the image in his soul. If a person can now manage to refrain from all external observation for a while and is able to hold the attention to such an inner image, if he makes himself blind and deaf to his surroundings and remains attached to such an image, if he concentrates his soul on this image, then he is practising the first elementary activity on the way to clairvoyance – that which is called concentration.

Everything assumes that the human soul initially clings to something that lives within itself alone, for which it is initially unimportant whether or not there is something external to which it corresponds. What matters is the activity of the soul, to hold fast in strict inner direction such activity that is directed towards a soul image. That is what matters. Now, of course, a single such activity is not enough; it must be repeated often; and even if it is repeated over and over again, what is actually effective is not what the person can gain in terms of mental images, when he is actually still completely dependent on the stimulation of the external sense world.

There are thousands of years of experience in relation to clairvoyance, experiences of people who know and give their advice to develop inner soul forces. Above all, I just want to point out that there are certain truths, core statements. One need not be convinced of the truth of such sentences, which in a certain sense are the possessions of researchers in this field. Suppose someone says: I cannot be convinced from the outset of the truth of such sentences, which perhaps relate to an eternal. That is not necessary; that is not the beginning. The greater the impartiality, the better. When the teacher gives the student something and says, “Fill your soul so that during the time it lives in your soul, you perceive nothing around you and give yourself entirely to this soul content,” then you do not need to believe in this soul content. The teacher can even say, “Don't believe in it, but let it work in you.” That is what matters. Focus on that and you will see that such a resting of the soul on that content has an effect. Not that you gain a conviction, but that this content works in your soul, that is what matters. — If someone says that the teacher gives his student something that is not true at all, it can be calmly retorted: It may be that it is not true, that the external truth is not applicable to such a sentence; but that is not the point, but rather that it becomes a working force in the soul, that out of the soul comes forth what was hidden and of which the soul was not previously aware. One will see that with constant repetition of such instruction one can have inner experiences.

Certain symbols and symbolic representations are particularly effective for bringing hidden soul abilities to the fore. And a symbolum will be used to characterize how something like this actually works. I would like to speak of the symbolum that I have often referred to, the black cross surrounded by red roses. Let us first consider the abstract meaning, which is not of great importance for the training of clairvoyance. It will be best if we recall Goethe's words:

He who does not have
this dying and becoming,
is only a gloomy guest
on this dark earth.

Die and become – what does that mean? It means nothing other than that in the development of our soul we must rise above the things of our sensory world, that these things must first disappear around us, so to speak, so that we find ourselves in a state in which we are unconscious of the sensory world, which can be compared to the process of battle and death. The sensory world must first die. But whoever remains without content, whose soul remains empty when the content dies, is a dull guest. This is more or less what Goethe means: when you succeed in diverting your attention from all external things, when you are certain that nothing from the external world is flowing in, when you can then draw something out of the hidden depths of your soul that fills the field of vision of your soul, that is different from the external, then you have risen anew in another world, then you have “become”. Die and become – the dying of the lower nature, of outer sense perception, is characterized by the black cross. The dawning of a new world out of this death of the sense world is characterized by the red roses on the cross. And if we then interpret this rose cross in a comprehensive cosmic sense, we must say: in the mineral kingdom, in the plant kingdom, in what is called unconscious nature, there is a spiritual element. This underlies everything. The human being directs his gaze to his environment, he perceives it. To those who have an inkling of the spiritual, this environment appears only as an external expression of the underlying spiritual. They say to themselves: The whole unconscious nature is based on a divine-spiritual; but it is as if it were in a grave, it is as if it were dead. The human soul is like steel on flint; when it strikes it in recognition, what lies hidden within it shines forth. In the human soul, divine spiritual content arises; it comes to life. Thus, the spirit must first pass through the death of the unconscious world in order to come to new life.

And I could tell of all possible areas of spiritual life. I could cite what could serve as a first intellectual explanation of this symbol. But that is not the point at all. The only point is that we do not entertain the thought that it was invented arbitrarily. For the budding clairvoyant, it is not a matter of what it might mean. Someone might say: Well, you may talk about the Rose Cross all you like, but to the objective researcher it makes no difference, because he gains nothing about the secrets of nature by imagining a black cross; that tells him nothing. When we carry out experiments with the falling-body machine or other apparatus, we discover a law. This, expressed in words, means something to us; it corresponds to an objective truth; a rose cross means nothing to me. That is how the person concerned can say. He who has undergone clairvoyant training may reply: That does not matter, it is not the point. The images in question are not meant to depict anything in external reality, so they are most effective when they are symbols that are open to multiple interpretations. What matters is not that one wants to express in such a symbolum the things of the outer world as they are, but that one forms such a symbolum in purely inner soul activity, initially in dependence on the outer expressions, that one contemplates such a symbolum in the soul in a way that is as concentrated as possible and excludes outer things. What this symbolum brings about in the soul is what matters.

When a person allows something like this symbol to live in his soul with ever-increasing inner concentration – and many other things as well – then these are the means to awaken the forces slumbering within him. Something very special happens to the person. He can experience – and these are real experiences – that the proofs, the real guarantees of this matter arise within him. In the end, the human being will experience the following feelings, which I ask you to observe carefully. He will say to himself: What I imagined was really only a kind of bridge; this rose cross is a bridge. Now I have received something that is not connected with it, to which the rose cross has only helped me, which rises in my soul and which is first of all an experience that cannot be obtained through external stimulation. At first, the student does not know whether what is arising within him is a bubble, a mirage, a fantastic construct, or whether it corresponds to some kind of reality. He does not know, but what matters is that he acquires the ability to experience and see such things within himself. For even that is still a detour for higher clairvoyance. What occurs at first are images.

But now, when the student continues to do such exercises, a further feeling arises for him that can be proven by nothing more than by the experience, the feeling that tells him: It now also does not depend on the images, but on what is expressed in these images. And now he knows that it is with these images, which he experiences in his innermost being, something like this: If you press on your eye or let an electric current pass through it, then any light impulse can pass through the eye, a light can shine within you. In this case, you have a light impression that is caused by the constitution of the eye. It is the same when the images first appear, which are evoked by following the appropriate advice. Then, like spiritual flashes, things flash through the soul that are indeed new, but they really appear the same as the light that you generate in the eye through a blow or an electric current. But you know very well when you are confronted with an external object that although the nature of the eye enables you to perceive light, you can say to yourself through experience, through a certainty gained in the experience: that which has been evoked only by my eyes is nothing, the real thing is the object. I stand facing the object, it communicates itself to me through my eye as an object.

This moment occurs for the clairvoyant person. These images ultimately become a means by which a new reality is expressed. Just as surely as the person who faces an external object with his eye knows that the object is expressing itself, so the clairvoyant knows that although it depends on his nature whether such images arise, he also knows quite precisely: in the way these images are now experienced by him, objective entities and facts of the spiritual world are expressed.

This can only be attained through strict inner schooling in a completely natural way. Just as one can distinguish fantasy from reality in outer experiences, so it is necessary for the pupil to maintain a sound judgment and a sound mind in this area, for here it is much easier to mistake illusion for reality than in outer life. Therefore, in such schooling for real higher clairvoyance, something else must go along with it.

If the student were to allow only what has been described to approach him, then he would be exposed to the danger of becoming a madman in a sense, and that is because in this realm of changing images of the higher spiritual life, he can conjure up appearances for reality through his subjective feelings, through his personality. This training must go hand in hand with the fact that the person, through certain instructions given to him, learns to renounce everything in this higher spiritual world that is connected with his desires, that is connected with his personality.

Here we come to a chapter where it is very difficult to be understood. For what do all contemporary psychologists say? They are not familiar with what has just been described and what is experienced as reality by hundreds. They therefore say: When a person is confronted with the external world, the sensory world corrects him by giving him realities; but when a person abandons himself to his inner activity, then, of course, feeling and subjective inclination are involved, and then feeling is transformed into such images; this can never claim to be objective. In the area where these gentlemen think they are right, they are right, because they have no concept of what must take place in terms of the actual eradication and obliteration of subjectivity, subjective opinions and inclinations. These must be completely eliminated. One must learn to renounce any preference or sympathy.

There are again very special exercises for this, so that what our popular psychologists rightly describe for ordinary human life does not occur, namely, that the arbitrary interferes. Man must have thrown out everything that could conjure up appearance for him as reality. But then he can keep the objective spiritual in its true form.

Something else needs to be said. Where clairvoyance is prepared in this way of training, where expertise prevails in this field and not dilettantism — the latter of which is terribly rife in the world — great importance is attached to not starting the path without certain prerequisites. For there is a great difference between setting out on this difficult path as an ignorant person, equipped only with the ordinary concepts of the world, and setting out after having absorbed higher concepts about certain secrets of existence, which can be explored and tested. There is a great difference whether one advances in this or that way. One can also go through this path with a small amount of outer experience. But then the soul's content is poor, and everything that can be seen is compressed into a few images. And then the incorrectly trained clairvoyants come into being, whom you will find again and again, who present in their writings: Now I have come so far that I have united with God through concentration, through the expression of my soul; and then they express God as a diamond illuminated by light or something like that. This is a mistaken idea, an idea that is basically no different from the usual description of an external thing of the senses, except that the person concerned calls it God.

When such “clairvoyants” repeatedly discuss their higher world and express all the glories of the higher world through nothing but such trivial descriptions, it is because they have not approached this training properly prepared. But when someone approaches these things with a proven teacher, then what he achieves, what flows into the images he has prepared, is a diverse world view, and everything that the surrounding external nature can offer people, with all its beauties and glories and secrets, is only a small part of the whole world that surrounds them. Much more magnificent and glorious is that which lies as the unknown world behind the known and which shines forth as the primal source of all that is visible. But it is also the case that the person who experiences this knows that he is not deceiving himself, that he is not, for example, projecting external impressions into this realm; he knows full well that what he experiences there, he can never experience in the external sense world.

This is the path of calm development by which man comes to truly see into the spiritual worlds. This is trained clairvoyance.

Now, what objectively happens to a person when he applies such methods? We remember that for spiritual science, the human being is not limited to what the senses can perceive, but that this external, this physical body, is merely one part of the whole human nature. For spiritual science, this physical body is permeated by supersensible parts, first of all by the etheric body, and the astral body is incorporated into the physical and etheric bodies. In the astral body we have the carrier of pleasure and suffering, joy and pain, of drives, instincts, desires, of all inner experiences. Integrated into this is the fourth link of the human being, the carrier of self-awareness.

What sleep actually is in the sense of spiritual science has already been characterized here before you. What happens then when, in the evening, for the human being's subjective perception, all the impressions of the day sink down into the sea of forgetting, when, so to speak, forgetting or unconsciousness spreads around the person? What has happened to this person? The physical body and ether body remain in bed; but the astral body, together with the ego, has moved out and now acts on the physical and ether bodies from the outside. Our inner worlds sink into oblivion because the astral body does not make use of the external sense organs during the night. In the morning, the astral body with the ego then descends again into the physical and etheric bodies; it makes use of the senses again, and the world of the senses emerges for the human consciousness. How can a person perceive the external world of the senses? Because he has eyes and ears and the other sense organs. If these organs did not exist, the environment would be silent and lightless for the human being. When the astral body is externalized at night, it is also in a world, a spiritual world. But it has no organs to perceive it. In its fine substantiality, it has no organs like those that the human being has today in the coarse physical substance. Only through organs can a world around the human being be perceived. If the astral body had organs, then it would be able to perceive its environment just as well when it is outside the physical and etheric bodies as it can perceive what surrounds a person in the physical world with the help of the physical senses.

Now the question is: if a person is to perceive the spiritual world, then his astral body must be given organs, spiritual ears and spiritual eyes. How does this happen? This happens through the methods that have been mentioned, through concentration, through living in certain ideas and images. When such a person's astral body goes out at night, this astral body is quite different. This is known by those who have attained clairvoyant consciousness. It is as if you were to imagine that in the physical body the organs begin to differentiate and perceive the environment. What was a disorderly mass is divided into organs. It takes a long time for the organs to form in the astral body, until what was once like an undifferentiated mist begins to emerge in beautifully formed organs. But then what was possible for man before, to have these images in his soul, which were characterized earlier, occurs. This world of images arises from the fact that the human being integrates such organs.

Since ancient times, the process that occurs for the human being has been called purification, cleansing, catharsis, for the reason that the human being thereby learns not only to sense the spiritual world through the veil of external sensuality but because he then looks into this spiritual world in such a way that his vision is purified from the outer sensual world, that the outer sensual world is blurred and yet unconsciousness does not occur. Catharsis, purification, cleansing has always been correctly described as the first stage of trained clairvoyance.

Then a later stage occurs for the clairvoyant. At first, when the person returns to the physical and etheric body in the morning, the external organs are working again and have more power. He cannot, so to speak, handle the internal, still fine and mobile organs; the external impression of the eye and ear drowns out what the internal astral organs can see. It is always present, because the spiritual world is within the sense world — but as long as the human being still has these organs weakly developed, as long as they are only in the astral body, they are drowned out by the sensory organs and the powers of the etheric body. By working diligently in this way, the human being develops organs so strong and capable of being controlled internally that when he enters his physical and etheric bodies in the morning, he can see through these organs not only sensory perceptions but also the spiritual. At that moment, the person has attained what has always been called enlightenment or photism within the schools that work in this field.

These are all very real processes that can be experienced, and they do not arise from something happening to the person that is beyond his control. Step by step, the person applies the methods used in the corresponding schools to transform himself into the instrument through which he can perceive the spiritual world. What is it that enables a person to become clairvoyant? It is the organization of his inner invisible being, the transformation of the chaotic structure of this inner being, which otherwise only has an experience when the outer world is affected, into an organization that is just as regular as the outer physical body has become through outer nature.

Exactly the same path of development that nature has taken with man, to transform him from a lower stage to today's being with perfect organs, the same path of development is taken up by man himself, is continued by him. Where nature leaves man, he himself continues to work. Whoever reflects on this will not find the slightest illogicality in the fact that the one who sets out on the path can have real experiences.

When man gains insight into the spiritual worlds in this way, he owes it to the fact that he has made his inner man so strong that he is an independent being in relation to the external organs. Man has become his own master. This is a principle that is expressed in all such schools as an abstract characteristic of this matter. If man has come to this stage, he owes it first of all to the control over his etheric body. In the undeveloped human being, the life body is, so to speak, somewhat inelastic, following only the forces of nature. In the clairvoyant, it is something that the astral body adapts to its forms. It has become elastic because the stronger power is at work in it.

If we now touch on the kind of clairvoyance that is evoked by lower states, which we generally characterize – and this is of course speaking in a laymanly way – as human states of weakness, then we have to say: this comes from something quite different and can never be controlled, but it is based on the same laws. Whenever a person becomes somnambulant of their own accord, or when a person is influenced by unlawful means, or when a person is going through this or that illness, it may happen that their etheric body is dissolved in the physical body, so that the compact connection between the physical body and the etheric body does not exist, as it does in the normal state. This can actually happen as a result of disease processes, and basically most of what is seen in the field of low-level clairvoyance can be traced back to pathological conditions. Then the person has an etheric body that is not so firmly bound. While in the trained clairvoyant the loosening occurs because the astral body strengthens and gains control of the etheric body, in the case of low-level clairvoyance it occurs because an organ becomes diseased. Through the illness, it is released from the etheric body to a certain extent; the etheric body becomes free for such people.

As long as the physical brain is still in a normal, intimate connection with the etheric, the astral body cannot do anything with the etheric; the physical brain holds the etheric body. If an abnormality occurs, a larger or smaller piece of the etheric body will separate from the physical body; it can be handled more easily, and it is handled by the astral body so that a kind of natural enlightenment occurs, but which in its content cannot offer any higher world, cannot lead to higher results, because all control, all certainty, all conscious pursuit of things is excluded. People who have become clairvoyant in this way can, because their condition is based on the same principle as that of the trained clairvoyant, namely, on the control of the etheric body by the astral body, can have unordered insights into the higher worlds; what they relate may be fact, but a real result of spiritual science can never arise from it. What has been said here is not a denial of the reality of what such people see, but an alerting to the fact that the strict results of spiritual science can only be achieved through the path of trained clairvoyance.

I would just like to touch on one possible objection. Someone might say: So lower clairvoyance is always based on pathological conditions; how can a disease process produce real insight? — That is a shortsighted view. Health and insight do not go hand in hand. A person can become ill, and precisely through this process of illness the supersensible world can be opened up for influences from the higher world; there is nothing contradictory about this. Nor does it imply that a person should be made ill in order to become clairvoyant.

Thus we see what it is that brings the facts and beings of a higher world into the field of consciousness in the same way that the world around us is brought into this consciousness through sensory observation. It is exactly the same thing, only in a different field of vision. And just as we perceive plants and minerals in the world of the senses, so in the spiritual world we have around us that which makes this world of the senses explicable to us in the first place, because it has emerged from the spiritual world. And when the clairvoyant makes statements about what he has seen, he does so in order to tell. He does not want to prove anything, he wants to tell what he experiences by applying strict methods to his own soul development. And by telling, he imparts a world that can be logically understood, that can be grasped by the ordinary mind.

If we express the experiences of the clairvoyant in a different way, we have to say: our inner world, our soul world, is determined in ordinary life by what is going on outside. That I, for example, imagine a green stem with leaves on it, that I assert this image, comes from the fact that I am organized in a certain way. The rose out there determines me, its forces stream into me, by conveying to me the idea of its outer being.

It is the same in the spiritual realm. These spiritual entities reveal themselves to the developed person, they are reflected in his inner soul life, just as external sense perceptions are reflected in ordinary thinking. Thus the clairvoyant experiences the spiritual external world in his soul life and says to himself: When I look at the sense world, I know that this sense world is created, ordered and determined by the beings whose activity and rule is revealed to me when I direct my clairvoyant gaze to the sense world. He says to himself: The fact that the sensory world appears to me in an organized way is because it has been shaped by the beings I see. The flower before me, a crystal, a mountain range, it is all worked out of the spirit. I see the spiritual foundations. I would see nothing of them if I left it to my own discretion. I must, so to speak, sacrifice my soul life and let the world of the higher spiritual self flow into my soul; it must have an effect on me, it is the determining factor.

And now imagine something: Imagine that this world is there, that it is at work, that it is always at work on people, even if not on their consciousness. Imagine that a person is standing in the world; around him is the world that the clairvoyant sees; it has an effect on every person. On the merely sensual observer it has an effect in that it presents an external face; on the clairvoyant it has an effect in such a way that he does not see this spiritual world at first, but that it works as a determining force, that he cannot look up to a world of spiritual forces, but that the forces of these entities flow to him in an unconscious way. He does not see them, but they send forces, order his life of ideas, determine what his soul experiences. A person sees another person; if he saw nothing more, he would only receive a picture of the external world. Now the spiritual world works by sending him its forces. Now he is not satisfied with the ideas of the external, sensual world. He is transforming himself, in order to gradually make himself into the sublime image that the Greeks, for example, represented in the statue of Zeus. The same power and essence that the clairvoyant sees works, as it were, on the person endowed with true imagination, so that it stands by his side, guiding and leading him, combining the images.

And so imagination works like a soul force that is fertilized by the worlds into which the clairvoyant looks, a soul force into which the higher worlds send their laws, so that the person gifted with imagination transforms the external things so that the truths of the spiritual worlds live in them. There we have the real basis of imagination, and there we understand that Schiller could say of Goethe, how with him understanding and reason and feeling and all the soul powers work together harmoniously and are fertilized by imagination. We understand that he could say: What is created in this way characterizes the human being as the only true human being, because he does not work only through a single soul power, but takes everything together, and everything works towards the imagination — which does not have to agree with external truth —, towards the imagination. And so we can also understand that Goethe can be the view: There is a form of imagination that does not need to agree with external truth, but which has its own certainty. We have seen this. There is a form of imagination that does not yet lead to clairvoyance, but which is fertilized by the forces that the clairvoyant sees. It is understandable that Schiller finds all other human activities one-sided, but in the contemplation of Goethe it dawns on him: the artist who takes the individual soul forces together in order to allow the spiritual worlds to fertilize what he receives as an external new formation in the sense world; such an artist is the only true human being.

Of course, Schiller knew nothing of spiritual science, but he sensed what it was about. Likewise, what Goethe says about imagination is absolutely right. It is true when Goethe says that genuine art, that is, art that creates out of imagination, is the revelation of secret laws of nature that could never be discovered without imagination. While external observation may provide us with purely external sensory facts and truths, inner truth is something that the imagination, fertilized from above, is much closer to than the powers of reason.

And so we see how things are distributed in the world, so to speak. Man is predisposed to ascend into the higher worlds. The higher abilities lie dormant in every soul. Those who have the patience and endurance — perhaps through many lives — may hope to glimpse into the worlds that make the outer sense world understandable in the first place. But until then, until man achieves this, something is given him as a forerunner, a representative for insight into the higher worlds. He can allow himself to be inspired by these higher worlds and then, in the work of the artist, for example, transform the external world in such a way that it offers a reflection of the spiritual worlds.

And so, in art, we do not merely see the world of the senses as nature creates the world of the senses, but in great works of art we see the Creator Himself, Who has passed through the medium of the human spirit and human imagination. We see in the surroundings of the work of art an external reflection of that which, although not an immediate sensory reality, is an expression of spiritual worlds, insofar as spiritual worlds can find expression through the sensual-material. And so we see that in the spiritual life of humanity, imagination lights the way to the great goal of clairvoyance, of looking into the spiritual worlds. Individual people have already achieved this goal by using the means mentioned. This spiritual world appears to us as the ruler of all lower existence and clairvoyance as that through which the human being gains a share in the spiritual world; it calls the human being up into the spheres of a higher world. And imagination is the representative of clairvoyance in the world of the senses, so that a person can already have a reflection of the spiritual world, for example through art. And the deeper we look into this context, the more we recognize: Clairvoyance is the ruler of the human mind in the broadest sense of world knowledge and understanding; and imagination is the deputy of clairvoyance within the sensual world.

Accompanying words by Marie Steiner on the publication of Rudolf Steiner's report in “Was in der Anthroposophischen Gesellschaft vorgeht” (What is happening in the Anthroposophical Society) No. 1922/1944:

It may be of historical interest to include here the report that Dr. Steiner himself gave orally about the congress. The reproduction of this report that appeared in the “Mitteilungen” of 1909 is quite accurate. It takes us back to the time when the dispute with the leaders of the Theosophical Society began. These leaders were trying to push back the Christian esoteric current of Western occultism by founding the “Star of the East” soon after and proclaiming Krishnamurti as the reincarnated savior. Instead of another report, the lecture that Dr. Rudolf Steiner gave at the Berlin branch about the Budapest Congress will be presented here. Dr. Steiner said something along the following lines:

Rudolf Steiner's report:

Since the Munich Congress, there has been a change in the way these meetings are held. Previously, the convention was held every year. Since the Munich Congress, after a discussion that had already taken place following the Congress in Paris, a change has occurred. Since that time, these congresses have been held every two years. Accordingly, a period of two years has also elapsed between the Munich and the Budapest Congresses. The next congress will be in Turin in 1911 and will be organized by our Italian Section.

Above all, with regard to the last Budapest Congress, it must be mentioned that we were able to experience the enthusiasm and strong theosophical idealism of our Hungarian friends and Society members. The Hungarian Section is one of the youngest sections to have been founded within Europe. We were able to experience the effort and dedication with which our Hungarian friends had approached this event. Within the Theosophical Society, there was truly a sense of what one might call an image, a reflection of what is known by someone who is somewhat familiar with Hungarian conditions. The Hungarian nation is rightly considered hospitable, and it was this quality, in an eminently national view, that particularly struck us at this congress.

In Budapest, a start was made on what was sought in Munich and what, to a certain extent, can be called the “harmonization” of the external environment and what takes place in the theosophical heart. We began to do this at the time – and a further implementation of this idea is shown by our Berlin lodge room – to express symbolically in the surrounding space what moves our hearts. For it does matter what thought forms are stimulated from outside, namely from the space from which Theosophical thoughts are to be experienced and moved from within.

The Hungarians, however, found a substitute by decorating the hall with symbolic works of art. Those members who are not officials of the Society – the latter are occupied with administrative work during the congress – were able to admire the most diverse symbolic pictures on the walls, especially those by Hungarian artists, during their leisure moments. I would like to emphasize in particular that this decoration of the hall showed how this nation is inwardly disposed to combine a certain primeval element of feeling and imagination with a sensuality that has emerged from a deep merging with European conditions, and how interesting things come to light as a result, especially in symbolic painting. A cycle of pictures, such as the one by Alexander Nagy, which symbolically represented the search for happiness and tried to show how the person born into the world first desires everything around him, namely the happiness of the human heart; then further, how the human heart, in search of happiness, goes through the most diverse experiences that the outside world can offer, how it experiences what is going on in the world of wealth and poverty, how it comes to see that happiness cannot be achieved on a journey through life if it is not sought in love for the other beings who live with us; and finally, how happiness can never be found for the single heart that only wants to live for itself. Similarly, in a symbolic way, many ideas are expressed in images that fill the soul with tragedy. This is especially true in the serious, thoughtful pictures by [Belé Takéch].

Of particular importance was the photographic reproduction of a large-scale work of art by one of our members from the Scandinavian Section: Frank [Heyman]. He has a curious way of creating art. I had already encountered this way of creating under much more favorable circumstances; at the time when I was able to visit the creative artist in his studio. On one of my journeys, which I had to make in the interest of theosophy, I also came through Gothenburg, got to know Heyman personally and was led by him to his studio near Gothenburg. This is located on a hill. On all sides, you have a wonderful panorama in front of you. You can hardly imagine a more inspiring landscape than the one that is visible in the round.

There are basically quite a few, but enormous, colossal works of art by Frank Heyman. There are figures that may make an impression on the realistic sense of our time, which could perhaps be characterized with the following words: “What kind of crazy painter is this?” You see some colossal figures in which the head looks like a prismatic, but not regularly shaped figure. Hands, gestures, in short, the whole figure is shaped in the most diverse ways, angular, angular.

This figure makes a different impression on the occultist. He immediately has the impression: this is something that has been sensed from a higher world. If one knows the actual secrets of the human etheric body, if one knows how this etheric body stands as a force body behind the physical body, and knows how is expressed in the physical body, a very definite movement takes place in the etheric body, and one has the impression that the artist created out of the forces of the etheric body and expressed his supersensible experiences in these forms.

In this way he attempted to show how the human soul develops and, one might say, how the etheric body functions in this development. The basic feeling one has when confronted with his works of art is as if he were asking himself the question: “What am I?” And when this question trembles through the whole human being, then the etheric body enters into a regularity that Frank Heyman has beautifully expressed in his works. What he thus represents are the simple geometric forms of the, as it were, crystallized etheric body.

A second picture embodies the question of the human being immersed in himself: “What am I?”. One feels the emanation of the feeling of 'peace' in the form. Here, too, the ether currents are expressed in the sculpture. So we are not dealing with representations of the physical body in the sculptures of our friend Heyman, but with the fact that he crystallizes what is going on in the etheric body into the plastic substance. In this way, the whole inner life of the human being is depicted, right up to the moment when he looks up to the divine. It is fair to say what I suggested in Budapest in a short address about these works of art: the Theosophical movement will flourish and thrive all the more, not only on the part of the teachers, but from all sides, the currents of life flow from their impulses. Much is done when currents of life flow from Theosophy to art in this way.

Not only would a railway carriage have been needed to transport these not very numerous but colossal works of art from Gothenburg in Sweden to Budapest. This transport could not be arranged, and so visitors had to make do with smaller photographs of the works of art.

But it is my hope that as the Theosophical movement grows stronger and stronger and the culture of the time becomes more and more receptive to it, our friend Frank Heyman will once again become of the greatest importance to it as an artist. That is just to point out the type of decoration of the spacious hall that was available to us.

It was particularly noteworthy that the European sections had all come to this congress, which could also be seen from the fact that a wide variety of European languages could be heard from the podium during the welcoming address by the General Secretaries.

One could feel satisfaction at how, although perhaps only a very few could physically understand the speaker at the moment when the most diverse languages were being spoken, the Theosophical movement is an element that will gradually develop a language that goes from heart to heart, from soul to soul, creating understanding between different nations.

In addition to the older sections – Scandinavian, French, Dutch, English, Italian, German, Finnish (the latter represented by our friend Selander, who we are pleased to have with us today) – we now have two new sections in Europe: Russian and Czech. There was also a representative from Bulgaria. So there was no lack of languages when the General Secretaries gave their welcoming addresses.

It was significant that Mrs. Besant, President of the Theosophical Society, was able to preside over the Congress in person and thus be with us once again. On the evening of May 28, the Congress members had gathered for a casual welcome.

In her first address on Sunday, May 29, Mrs. Besant spoke in particular about the place of the Theosophical movement in the intellectual life of the present time. She showed how the Theosophical movement fits into our present intellectual life. She gave a broad overview of the development of humanity, especially in the last three cultural epochs up to our own era. She showed how man has gradually developed out of the past cultural epochs, the third, the fourth of the post-Atlantic period and out of our fifth epoch, and how then in our time the theosophical movement in particular must be placed in the whole of this spiritual life, how through the theosophical movement in our time this spiritual life must take on a special impetus, a special impact. It was a significant speech, because it was able to show how the theosophical knowledge of human history is indeed not just there to satisfy the curiosity of this or that person, but to point out our place in the spiritual development of humanity. It is not a matter of learning theory: the individual races and sub-races develop in this or that way – but rather, it is a matter of recognizing our own place in the present time.

Just as new impulses have come in earlier epochs to give new impetus, so we live entirely in a time in which the great ideas of the theosophical movement – brotherhood, reincarnation and karma – are to take hold in the hearts and minds of those people who gather within the Theosophical Society to truly help bring about a kind of future culture.

It was of particular importance that Mrs. Besant emphasized the necessity of grasping our place in the spiritual development of humanity, given the many different opinions within the Theosophical movement. She emphasized that it is truly not important whether we belong to this or that direction or current, but that these different currents within the Theosophical Society, so that they flow together into humanity in a common stream of spirit, which is essentially characterized by the fact that those who belong to it are aware that the correct grasp and feeling of the ideas of brotherhood, reincarnation and karma is what the realization of a corresponding future depends on.

It would be going much too far if I were to expand on the individual ideas here, in the way that Mrs. Besant has done. How we should think about these ideas was something I myself hinted at in the last meeting that was held here before our departure for the Budapest Congress.

It may be useful, instead of dwelling mainly on words, to write a few notes in our soul, so to speak, about the spirit that has been consciously sought in this, our last congress. It is good to touch on these things from time to time. There has been much talk of the diversity of teachings and opinions and the different ways of presenting knowledge in our and other circles of the Theosophical Society. One often hears here and there in Europe: What should one adhere to? Mrs. Besant teaches this, Dr. Steiner that, and so on. If one only considers the externals, then it cannot be denied that there may be some semblance of justification for this claim here or there. Now, however, the view should actually gain more and more ground within the Theosophical movement that it is truly much better if the rich, varied, occult life of the higher worlds is presented from as many sides as possible. Can anyone wish that the wisdom be contained in the two volumes of H. P. Blavatsky's “Secret Doctrine” and that in all places of the world where there is Theosophy, work be done only on the basis of this Secret Doctrine, and only photographs of what is contained therein be given? The Theosophical movement is something that should be present in people as a living life. We are right to say that Theosophy did not come into the world through this or that book, nor through this or that sum of dogmas. Theosophy comes from those high individualities whom we call the “Masters of Wisdom and Harmony of Feelings,” because they have opened the sources of spiritual life that can flow into people from there. It is natural that what flows in is written in books from time to time, and an enormous amount of such wisdom has been written in “Secret Doctrine.” For example, the Dzyan stanzas and the letters of the masters are parts that are far from being fully understood, parts that will be long to be drawn upon, parts that are among the greatest revelations in human development. But we must be clear that it is not even that which matters, but rather that this living spiritual life has been flowing into the theosophical movement ever since that time.

And now I ask you: if someone wants to paint a tree, how do they do it? They sit down, paint it from a certain side and then show you the picture. Indeed, only someone who shows what is going on in the spiritual world in a book or through spoken words can do that. In “Secret Doctrine” you have also shown nothing more than a certain amount of wisdom, from a certain point of view. Just as you can now sit on a different side and paint the tree from a different perspective, so too can the spiritual image be illuminated from a different side. Take a picture of the tree that is painted from a certain side. What would you say if another painter showed the tree in his picture, shaped and illuminated somewhat differently, and said, “This is this same tree, only seen from the other side”? Would you say, “That is not the tree, because otherwise it would have to have the same shape and lighting as that one?” It is more or less the same with “Secret Doctrine”, and it is not at all necessary to merely photograph the wisdom as it is written in “Secret Doctrine”. Get to know the tree by having it painted from different sides, if you do not yet know it yourself. The possibility of speaking about the spiritual world from the most diverse aspects is given by the fact that the “Masters of Wisdom and of the Harmony of Sensations” have allowed their power to flow into our movement, and that these inflows continue.

But why is one picture more painted from one side and the other more from the other side? This does not depend on chance or arbitrariness, but on necessity. It depends on the fact that from the most diverse places in the world, from the most diverse cultural currents and movements, other needs for the spiritual world exist. This must be taken into account. The form of the presentation depends not only on the one who presents, but also on what his task, his mission is. The right thing must be done in terms of the presentation; that is what matters.

Although, on superficial examination, one could say that Misses Besant says this and Dr. Steiner says that with regard to the form of presentation, it was good that it was emphasized at this congress that it does not matter whether everyone speaks exactly like the other, but that the different occult sources in the Theosophical Society can be found and that they can flow together.

We can use another image to characterize the spirit that was sought: the spirit of harmony. You may know that tunnels are dug from both sides, and that if they are dug in the right way, they meet in the middle. This can and should also be the case in the work of the Theosophical Society. It will therefore be good if that which has more of an oriental character, that is, more of the character of the early days of our movement and the “Secret Doctrine” as its basis, works towards this union, just as Western occultism, whose sources were not yet open at the time, is doing today.

Of course, when speaking of Blavatsky's Theosophy, one should not speak of Indian Theosophy. It will be my task in Munich, on the occasion of my next lecture cycle there, to show what the real form of what can be called Indian Theosophy is. In Blavatsky's teaching, there is very little that could be called Indian teaching. Those who are familiar with Blavatsky's doctrine will know that it contains much from Egyptian, Babylonian, and Chaldean teachings, and that it is not at all specifically Indian theosophy. It is an abuse to speak of Indian theosophy as opposed to what is being done here. It is merely a matter of the fact that at the time when H. P. Blavatsky had to work, the Western sources had not yet been opened, and that these have more to say about some things than the Eastern sources. We do not hold it against the Eastern sources if they cannot provide satisfactory information about certain things. One must understand that. The question arises again and again: “Why do you say something different from oriental theosophy?” If one were to see what this other thing is like, one would no longer be able to ask this question. Just see how it is. For example, we give that deep interpretation of H. P. Blavatsky about the legend of Buddha, which tells us that he perished because of the consumption of pork. The interpretation is namely that he revealed too much of his teaching and consequently ended karmically tragically. We admit what is positive and - this must be emphasized - that nothing is missing in the Western teaching that is positive in the Eastern teaching. Nothing is denied, everything is said “Yes”. But when the oriental occultists say, “Which occultist has ever heard that an initiatic writing like the Apocalypse was given under thunder and lightning?” the western occultists answer: every western occultist knows what is meant by that. And we have to say that we, as Western occultists, have a mission of addition, of expansion, with regard to the Oriental teachings. One has to distinguish between what has been so far and what the expansion and the addition mean. Then one will already understand how two such directions relate to each other, which have recently been presented as antagonistic.

It is particularly important here in the West to emphasize what is called the principle of development, the principle of development in our physical world, the principle of development in the higher world.

Mrs. Besant gave a very beautiful lecture, I say it openly, of great intuition and deep feeling, entitled: “The Christ - who is he?” In this lecture one can see that there is not disharmony but harmony between Eastern and Western life, if one only wants to look at the matter in the right way. This lecture on the second day of the congress was preceded by one of mine: “From Buddha to Christ”. You all know the details of this lecture, except for one thing that may not have been mentioned here and that refers to the three great names that are mentioned within Rose-Cross Theosophy as particularly worthy of veneration. There were three great names throughout the Middle Ages. These three names were also known to those who represented a dogmatic church. They often demanded of their orthodox followers the formula, which was a formula of curse: “I curse Scythianos, I curse Zaratas, I curse the Boddha.” These three individualities were loaded with curse in medieval culture when one wanted to document that one was a Christian.

Christian Rosicrucianism recognizes these three figures as exalted luminaries. We will talk more about Scythianos later. Zaratas is a great teacher of the Western initiation. He was none other than Zarathustra, who reappeared in various disciples, in Hermes and Moses, and finally in the sixth century BC as Nazaratos. He was one of the great inspirers of the Rosicrucian wisdom. Buddha was also counted among the great individuals. The individual contributions they had to give were then combined into an overall contribution for the development of humanity, and thus the great impulse could be given, which we call the Rosicrucian impulse. Now, in my lecture “From Buddha to Christ,” I had to emphasize, to stress, that what I said here before my departure for Budapest, about the connection between Zarathustra and Christ, about the seven Rishis who came over from the Atlantean period, etc., was not to be included in the lecture. In her lecture “The Christ - Who is He?” Miss Besant also said something that applies to the presentation of such insights as I have hinted at. She emphasized that when approaching such questions, one must be clear that there is agreement among all occultists with regard to the basic principle, but that it is natural and an obvious truth that every occultist is obliged to present things as they present themselves to him, that he is obliged to show what he can show through his level of development. Miss Besant emphasized that the appropriate inner development is achieved through the mystical path, through the path that has been characterized here in the most diverse ways, that has the most diverse stages, and so on.

When one considers what is experienced by the personality of the occultist, the various stages of the ascent, then there can be no other difference between one occultist and another than that one is somewhat more or less developed than the other. But in what is right, there can be no difference, just as when climbing a mountain, if two people together reach the same peak, there may be a difference in the view. The same applies to occultists if their lives are true to life. Mrs. Besant started from that and showed that the occultist who wants to be serious and work in the world has to cross a certain boundary, a boundary that is very easily resented by our ordinary public. For example, there are many people who believe in reincarnation, believe that human individuality can be re-embodied. But if you then come and point out to them that this or that individuality appeared at this time in this personality, at that time in that one, and so on, then people take offense at it, even though they believe in re-embodiment. For such specific details as I had to give about the re-embodiments of Zarathustra, a certain limit must be exceeded, and it is questionable how many people are still willing to go along with it.

There is indeed - and this was also emphasized by Mrs. Besant - only one true story and that is the one written in the Akasha Chronicle. He who is able to read the Akasha Chronicle - which, however, only a higher, spiritual eye is able to decipher - can state the true story. But then we must also allow the one who is to describe reality to cross this boundary.

Mrs. Besant then continued: Now it is quite natural and self-evident that each of us can only decipher this difficult-to-decipher chronicle of the Akasha world according to our own level of development. But nevertheless, it is true that in the essential features, everything definitely strives towards a great unity. Every occultist will recognize what we call the “Great Lodge of the Masters of Wisdom and of the Harmony of Sensations”. These Masters of the Wisdom are available to those who are knowledgeable in the occult. It is true that the Masters of the Wisdom live outside in the world and have the opportunity to reach that strange place called Shamballa, which also plays an important role in the Orientalist doctrine. Miss Besant emphasized that those whom we call the “Masters of the Wisdom and of the Harmony of Feelings” can communicate through their relationship to this mysterious place called Shamballa.

But then we must again be clear that anyone who engages with occult teachings should not be offended by names, that they should not confuse the name with the thing. Confusing the name with the thing can easily occur when certain names are associated with particular sensations and feelings in certain areas. Therefore, Mrs. Besant emphasized that such a confusion of name and thing should not occur when speaking on the one hand of Buddha and Bodhisattva, on the other hand of Christ. Above all, we must bear in mind that when we speak of Bodhisattva, we do not mean an individuality, but an office. There are names for offices and names for individuals. Every human being has a name for himself. But then there are also names like emperor and king. However, we must not confuse the name given to an individuality with that individuality itself.

I would ask you to bear in mind that I am not giving a lecture in the strict sense about Misses Besant's lecture, but that I am freely linking my own ideas to Misses Besant's arguments.

You will remember that in the many lectures I have given here this winter, it was emphasized how the “spirits of personality” have a completely different role on Saturn and grow into a completely different office on Earth. It is the same with what is called a Bodhisattva. This is an office that the individuality enters when it is ready for it. So we can fully understand when Mrs. Besant said that the individuality that appeared as Buddha had previously passed through the most diverse stages of development, that it had matured and matured and at a certain point in its development had become a bodhisattva. Just as in a worldly career one can become a member of the government council and so on over time, so the various individualities pass through these offices.

Now, I have always emphasized that, for example, the entity about which the “Seven Holy Rishis” say that it is beyond their sphere is basically the same as the Christ. This entity is also the same one that has outshone the various bodhisattvas, has worked in them and through them. What I have to teach is that this entity, which was beyond the sphere of the rishis, which inspired Zarathustra, which poured its truths into the beings we call bodhisattva, embodied itself in a very specific and much more appropriate way than before in the Jesus of Nazareth for the last three years of his life, so that we can definitely say: Christ was also connected with humanity before the Palestinian event; he is progressing in development. The earlier epochs were necessary for him to become what he is in our epoch. One can also say that the essence was already present in the cosmos in the past and has worked through various messengers. One can also emphasize that the same essence has always been there.

Oriental teaching, the whole spirit of the Orient is analytical. From the various embodiments of man, rising to the whole, to unity, that is the way of the Orient. The Occident's task is to develop the synthetic mind. What is the nature of the being that has developed as Ahura Mazdao? What are the various factors that it has developed? How has revelation always come to us differently? Understanding these questions, the goals of development, the great moments in development, that is what matters in the Occident. But if someone comes and says, “Here is a plant,” Goethean thoughts can be particularly well developed here. “When the leaves change, they become flowers; the petals are transformed stem leaves...” is not enough; one must also show how a green stem leaf can become a red petal. Thus, the Occidental does not deny anything of the Oriental, but adds something by characterizing the factors whereby stem leaves become petals. It is the same with Christ if one simply says that He was there before. The combination of the synthetic method with the analytical method is desired in all science, and it can also be had in full harmony within the theosophical spiritual current. There is absolutely nothing that could disturb the harmony of the Theosophical Society if the oriental analytical spirit is added to what must be added: the occidental synthetic spirit. Because the Theosophical Society is living life and not the reproduction of dogmas, I myself cannot find what could be called a contradiction between any of its directions, disharmony. This harmony must be based on some deep foundation that creates a stream that can absorb the waters of various sources. It must be based on this foundation, not on parrot-like repetition of dogmas. We will still learn many things in this direction as the Theosophical movement grows into its mission. The Theosophical Society will always bring something new. We have the certainty that the Masters of Wisdom watch over the Theosophical movement. If one were to be surprised and immediately speak of heresy when something new comes, then the Theosophical movement would be worse than earlier similar ones. And yet, unfortunately, the search for heresy in our time is actually more common than in any other time. Mrs. Besant regards the Christ as the Entity that revealed Itself in Jesus of Nazareth (more about this later) and as the Entity that is destined to show the way for what is now forming as a new cultural germ. In this lecture, she also pointed out that this Entity will continue to work in a more intimate context when humanity has reached a certain point in its development. There may be contradictions in the external indications, but one can fully agree that the Christ will come again, and that He will be recognized by those who are prepared for it. But one should emphasize being prepared rather than the Second Coming. It could easily be the case that people have the Christ but do not recognize him, even if he were among them for more than three years. It depends on developing the ability of recognition more and more. Wait and patiently develop the ability to recognize him. Pointing to a specific time is basically a disservice to humanity. Therefore, it is better to emphasize the means that lead to the recognition of Christ.

I wanted to give a few notes to show what the spirit was that was sought at this Budapest Congress. Therefore, the unity of work should be emphasized, even though the occult sources are of the most diverse kinds. It will be all the better the longer this unity and harmony of work is maintained within the Theosophical Society. We must be quite clear about this. The Budapest Congress has only given the participants the opportunity to be able to say, when they leave this congress, that there really is the best will and the best prospect of working in full harmony; and one should not fall into the trap of wanting to state differences. 'Those who prefer the name Bodhisattva – to which Miss Besant professes to adhere – will present the matter differently from those who consider the name Christ to be more appropriate. We therefore want to be in harmony among ourselves and in harmony with the Theosophical movement.

We can describe this harmony as a gratifying fact. As a symptom of the fact that the will to work together, to work in harmony, currently outweighs all other divergent tendencies, I would like to mention the following fact: Some of my books have been translated into different languages, and Mrs. Besant, in her character as president of the Theosophical Society and as chair of the Society's General Council, felt moved to award me the Subba Row Medal, once donated by our dear president Olcott, for the best writing recently published in the theosophical movement. As Mrs. Besant emphasized, this medal has been awarded to H. P. Blavatsky, then to Mr. Mead, and finally to Mrs. Besant herself. The first time Mrs. Besant, as president of the Theosophical Society, had the opportunity to award it, she gave it to me. I mention this fact not for my own sake, but as a symptom of the will to work together in harmony in the Theosophical Society. I may say that I particularly look at the name when it comes to the Subba Row Medal, which I also emphasized at the Budapest Congress. Those who know me will know that I have long regarded Subba Row as a spirit working from direct spiritual realization. It is very nice that this special medal has been donated in his honor. Please consider what I have said not in relation to me, but in relation to the entire German Section. What belongs to me belongs to the German Section.

Now I would like to characterize the course of the congress further. Perhaps one or the other will say that I am a poor reporter who wants pedantic details. To this I would like to say that I do not want to give a report, as the newspapers tend to deliver, but the intellectual facts. I would like to mention that our Hungarian friends have also ensured that the necessity of that school of thought, which is cultivated in the ranks of the Theosophical movement, has been brought into a bright light. They could not have done this better than by presenting us with a significant work of Hungarian drama, “The Tragedy of Man” by Emerich Madách, in a special theater performance. This work is something that had to be presented to the Theosophists at some point. We can learn an enormous amount from this tragedy by Madách. If I were to digress further from what some people call reporting, I would have to tell you something about what is called the Hungarian spirit, which is characteristically expressed in this “tragedy of man”. But I don't want to go that far; I just want to make a few comments about the work and its relation to the Theosophical movement. This Madách is indeed an interesting personality. He lived his life in a time when Hungary went through a lot. He was born in 1823 as the scion of an old Hungarian noble family and died in 1864. He lived through the times when Magyars tried to become independent through the revolution of 1848. He lived through the entire repercussion of this revolution, the defeat of Hungary by Austria, until the great Hungarian statesman Deak found a way to create a configuration in the Austrian state that resulted in the coexistence of the Austrian and Hungarian countries in their present form. This formation of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy is quite complicated and a further explanation would be too far-fetched here. Madách participated with all his soul in this Hungarian development and died in 1864, shortly after another attempt had been made to establish centralization, which failed, whereupon - albeit after Madách's death - the Austro-Hungarian dualism was created.

Madách began writing political articles early on, and from this you can see that he was involved in the affairs of his nation. He was one of those Magyars who stood up for the development of Magyar independence, for conditions that were only partially achieved under Ferenc Deák. He felt it deeply as a disgrace done to his nation that under the so-called Bach regime, Germanization was carried out and Magyar identity in Hungary was completely ignored. Madách personally had an unpleasant encounter with Austrian reaction. He did not personally take part in the 1848 revolution, but out of a big and beautiful heart he took in a refugee who had been involved and had sought shelter on Madách's estate.

At the beginning of the 1850s, Madách married in a way that can only be described as eminently happy. Then, in Hungary, a persecution of those who had participated in the revolution began. When it was discovered that Madách had sheltered a refugee – the refugee was no longer found – he was put on trial and thrown into prison. In prison, he wrote wonderfully tender poems. He knew nothing of his homeland, no news reached him. But there is a note of hope in his poems, that he would find again those from whom he had been snatched, and especially the one he loved so much, his wife. It was a great disappointment for him that his wife of all people had been unfaithful to him during the time of his imprisonment, so that he had to separate from her afterwards. Thus Madách had to endure external and internal pain. That is why he so severely criticized the conditions of his time; and one might say that he expressed everything that had been deposited in Madách's soul in the form of terrible, quite painful living conditions in his “Tragedy of Man”. Thus we see how this tragedy is imbued with the feeling one has when traveling across the wide plains of the Great Hungarian Plain, where one senses infinity but finds no real point of rest. The way he portrays the “tragedy of man” is very characteristic of a personality who was born in our time, and indeed from an elemental people. We see how creation is presented to us, how it is released from the hand of the Father-God. After the Father-God has been praised by his serving spirits for the glory he has put into the work, Lucifer confronts him and emphasizes: “I am as old as you; you could not have created in your way without the negative principle, which always opposed and shaped that which is in development into fixed forms. Without this you could not have created. We then see how man appears within Paradise as Adam and Eve; we see how God gives Lucifer two trees, especially the tree of knowledge. It is beautifully illustrated how Adam and Eve partake of the tree of knowledge, how they are then expelled from Paradise and are now cast out into the world, where they must fend for themselves. Adam and Eve are faced with the necessity of creating and working with their own hands and thus making their way in the world. Then Lucifer reappears. Adam, who has the urge to know what will actually become of this world in which he is placed, is lulled by Lucifer into a dream in which he is shown in images of overwhelming grandeur what man has gone through in the past and still has to go through in the future. First, ancient Egypt appears; Adam as Pharaoh, with slaves all around him. The wife of one of the slaves is Eve. The full tragedy of this epoch of humanity appears before Adam's soul. He senses the terrible destiny expressed in the words: millions for one, one for millions. His soul rushes away from this image and sees itself transported to a later epoch. Adam is embodied again in Miltiades in ancient Athens. Miltiades has just accomplished a great and glorious deed; in his wife he finds the reincarnated Eve, who teaches her son the virtues of the father. Around him a demagogic mass. He is accused of treason, condemned and dragged to death. Further on, Adam encounters in a dream a later period of Roman emperorship. There he is presented to us as he lived in the Roman imperial era. A scene of a terrible kind. Adam had sought power as a pharaoh; as Miltiades he had seen how insubstantial everything is, had gone through the great disappointments that a people's benefactor can go through as a result of betraying his people. Now he wants to live a life of debauchery, to have evil in all its possible forms. He is presented to us in a revelling company, Eve as a prostitute. Outside, a man who has died of the plague is carried past; a prostitute presses a kiss on his lips. All life and activity is a terrible presumptuousness. And it is at this time that the apostle Peter's speech takes place. We see ourselves at the beginning of the spread of Christianity. Among those who had seen the prostitute kiss the body was Peter. He stepped forward and said: “You are breathing the plague, you insolent one.” Then Peter spoke further words that illuminate the matter like lightning:

"You cowardly generation, you wretched brood!
As long as luck and joy smile on you, like
Flies in the sun, you are insolent,
Brazenly trampling on God and virtue;
But when danger knocks at your door,
God's mighty finger touches you,
you cower in cowardice and despair, do you not feel how heavily heaven's punishment already weighs upon you? Just look around you, the city is deserted, rough strangers tread the golden crops, all order is dissolved, no one commands and no one Obey. With heads held high, Through silent places of peace, robbery and murder, Horror, pale worry behind them. And heaven, earth, the whole world fails you In these hardships, compassion, help you. Isn't it true that you, with a ravenous rush of mind, Can't lull that solemn voice, That stirs all the depths of your soul
And urges you in vain to a better goal? Not true, you feel no satisfaction,
Only disgust does lust awaken in your heart?
You look around anxiously, your lips stammer...
In vain, you lack faith in your old gods
faith in your old gods, they have turned to stone.
(At this moment, the statues of the gods crumble into dust).
Their image crumbles into dust, and never
will you find a new deity that
would rise from the ashes, purifying you.
Just look around you, what is raging in the city
more devastating than the plague? Innumerable rise from their soft pillow, to populate the deserts of Thebais with wild anchorites, seeking what could still arouse their dull senses, might lift them up. You will, O degenerate generation, disappear without a trace from the scene of this world.“

”The image crumbles into dust,” that is the flash of lightning that Peter's speech brings to this period.

Adam also turns away from this image, to the Crusades. Here he sees how Christianity is embodied in external forms. Then he sees himself as Kepler, surrounded by the vanity of the court. Then he comes to us in the French Revolution as Danton; Eve as the sister of the Marquis.

He rushes away from this image, comes to London and sees himself in the time when materialism is emerging, the idea of freedom is gaining ground and people want to redeem the world through it. He also turns away from this picture and comes to a different situation, where people live only for utility, where they stand next to each other only as numbers, so to speak, where everything that has warmth has fled, and only thought chimeras remain. Finally, at the last picture, at the end of the earth's time, the remaining people are like Eskimos, half-wild. This is how the advanced, their becoming, their power present themselves to him; as such, he sees them as “monstrous creatures” walking through the worlds in the future.

When he wakes up, he wants to kill himself. Now comes the point to which I actually want to draw attention, because it shows the necessity of theosophical development in our time. After the dream, Eve confesses to Adam that she feels [like] a mother. He is completely overjoyed and now hears himself say: I will not continue to research what lies before us, in the natural-law becoming; I will be satisfied with living on in the species. And in fact, what is given to man here as a kind of teaching is: Do not search, man, trust in what is given to you... It is contained in the words spoken by the Lord:

"Do not search for the secret that your
longing eyes, the benevolent hand of God
has favorably veiled with a wise mind.
For if you saw that your soul
is only temporarily sheltered on earth,
And eternal life awaits you in the beyond,
it would no longer be a virtue to suffer there.
And when you see again, your soul When the burden of your existence weighs you down,
You are carried by the elation of infinity
. And should this feeling of pride ever lead you astray,
Set limits to the span of your life span
And greatness of soul and virtue will be preserved.

In “The Tragedy of Man” we have a work of real greatness. But there is also a sense of sadness that is only possible for a personality who has experienced such deep pain as Madách, and who was thus predestined to create the work in this way. What would be possible if man could solve the riddles of the world to a certain extent, could answer the question: “What will become of evolution?” The best minds have come to pessimism because they have not found an answer. And now I ask: in the face of such a question, as it arises from the beautiful, magnificent, powerful, but unsatisfying poetry, has not the most beautiful answer become: theosophy? Does not the poet Madách prove the necessity of theosophy in our time when he says: “What would it be, if we were to look at the aimlessness and lack of value of existence?” And now, with the theosophical worldview, we not only look into the depths that go down to the Eskimos, but we also see how humanity will rise to ever higher levels of development, to higher spiritual spheres.

Imagine the significance that would have been accorded to Madách if, at a time when he was able to grasp it, his poetic soul had been confronted with what had been given to humanity in the last third of the nineteenth century. It would have been something for which he would have bled, and he wrote his play with his heart's blood.

I would like to mention a few more points regarding the congress.

If we compare this Budapest Congress with previous ones, we notice that there has been a tremendous shift in thinking and perception regarding the relationship between theosophy and science. In particular, this shift has become apparent through our seven years of German work and the help of our scientific collaborators, who have contributed significantly to this transformation of the relationship between theosophy and science.

Dr. Unger gave a lecture on “Theosophy as a Life Force,” in which he showed how, if one thinks in a scientific spirit, one will find the same attitude towards the recognition of experience in Theosophy as in the other sciences. He showed how much faith and authority must be placed in the other, even the natural sciences, just as much as, for example, when a theosophical community listens to someone who can research the occult world and professes what he has to communicate from his research. Our friend Dr. Unger gave a beautiful discussion of theosophy and science in his lecture.

Then our friend Dr. Peipers showed in two lectures, accompanied by slides, how what is taught by the theosophical movement proves to be practical in science. He explained how occult anatomy and occult medicine are the corresponding sciences of our time that must first be put back on a sound footing. I would have to say a lot if I wanted to share more details about the work of our very hard-working colleague, Dr. Peipers.

Finally, I would like to say that not much has come of the various discussions that have been initiated. There was little interest in discussing the issues raised, in particular:

1. whether a journal should be established in the most important languages spoken within the Theosophical movement and in Esperanto, and

2. whether schools should be founded in which suitable Theosophical speakers can be trained.

I probably do not need to say that I did not participate in these discussions, since you all know that I do not expect much from discussions.

Then Mrs. Wolfram – Leipzig – spoke about the occult reasons for the saga of “Tristan and Isolde”.

The Congress was followed by two public lectures, one by Mrs. Besant on “Ways into the Spiritual World” and one by me on “The Western Ways of Initiation”. These public lectures were exceptionally well attended.

On the whole, I was only able to characterize the spirit of our gathering in Budapest. It was satisfying for us that the Theosophists of Europe met again, even if only a small number of them.

Our task to-day will be to bring the knowledge gained in these lectures on the Gospel of St. Luke to the culminating point indicated by spiritual investigation—the culminating point we know as the Mystery of Golgotha.

Yesterday's lecture endeavoured to convey an idea of what actually took place at the time when for three years Christ was on Earth, and the preceding lectures indicated how the convergence of streams of spiritual life made this event possible. The writer of the Gospel of St. Luke gives a wonderful account of the mission of Christ Jesus on the Earth, as we shall realize if the light of knowledge derived from the Akashic Chronicle can be brought to bear upon what he describes.

The following question might be asked: As the stream of Buddhism is organically woven into Christian teachings, how is it that in the latter there is no indication of the great Law of Karma, of the adjustment effected in the course of the incarnations of an individual human being? It would, however, be sheer misapprehension to imagine that what the Law of Karma enables us to understand is not also implicit in the words of the Gospel of St. Luke. It is indeed there, only we must realize that the needs of the human soul differ in different epochs and that it is not always the task of the great emissaries in world-evolution to impart the absolute truth in abstract form, because men at different stages of maturity simply would not understand it; the great pioneers and missionaries must speak in such a way that men receive what is right and suitable in a particular epoch. The teaching received by humanity through the great Buddha contains, in the form of wisdom, everything that in conjunction with the teaching of compassion and love and the synthesis of this in the Eightfold Path, can enable the doctrine of Karma to be understood. Failure to achieve this understanding only means that no effort has been made to use faculties in the soul leading to knowledge of the teaching of Karma and Reincarnation.

In the lecture yesterday it was said that in about three thousand years from now, large numbers of human beings will have progressed sufficiently to unfold from their own souls the teaching of the Eightfold Path and—we may now add—that of Karma and Reincarnation. But this must inevitably be a gradual process. Just as a plant cannot unfold its blossom immediately the seed has been sown but leaf after leaf must develop according to definite laws, so too the spiritual development of humanity must progress stage by stage and the right knowledge be brought to light at the right time.

Anyone possessed of faculties that can be kindled by spiritual science will realize from the voice of his own soul that the teaching of Karma and Reincarnation is indispensable. It must be remembered however that evolution is not fortuitous and in point of fact it is only now, in our own time, that human souls have become sufficiently mature to discover these truths through their own insight. It would not have been a good thing to give out the teaching of Karma and Reincarnation exoterically a few centuries ago; and it would have been detrimental to evolution if the present content of spiritual science—for which human souls are longing and with which research into the foundations of the Gospels is connected—had been imparted openly to mankind a few hundred years earlier. It was necessary that human souls should be yearning for it and should have developed faculties able to accept such teaching; it was essential that these souls should have passed through earlier incarnations, even in the Christian era, and have undergone the available experiences before reaching a degree of maturity capable of assimilating the teaching of Karma and Reincarnation. Had this teaching been proclaimed in the early centuries of Christendom in the form in which it is proclaimed to-day, this would have meant demanding of human evolution the equivalent of demanding a plant to produce the blossom before the green leaves.

Humanity has only now become sufficiently mature to assimilate the spiritual content of the teaching of Karma and Reincarnation. It is therefore not surprising that in what has been imparted to humanity for centuries from the Gospels, there is much that gives a quite erroneous picture of Christianity. In a certain respect the Gospel message was entrusted prematurely to men and it is only to-day that they are becoming mature enough to develop all the faculties that could lead to an understanding of the actual content of the Gospel records. It was absolutely necessary that what was proclaimed by Christ Jesus should take account of the conditions and the attitude of soul prevailing in those days. Therefore Karma and Reincarnation were not taught as abstract doctrines, but feelings were cultivated through which human souls would gradually become ready to receive this teaching. What was needed at that time was to speak in a way that could lead by degrees to an understanding of Karma and Reincarnation rather than any enunciation of the teaching itself.

Did Christ Jesus and those who were around Him speak in this way? In order to understand this we must study the Gospel of St. Luke and interpret it rightly. If we do so we shall realize in what form the Law of Karma could be made known to men at that time.

“Blessed be ye poor; for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are ye that hunger now; for ye shall be filled. Blessed are ye that weep now; for ye shall laugh. Blessed are ye when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate you from their company, and shall reproach you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of Man's sake. Rejoice ye in that day and leap for joy; for behold your reward is great in heaven”—i.e. in the spiritual worlds. (Luke VI, 20–23.)

Here we have the teaching of ‘compensation’. Without going into the subject of Karma and Reincarnation in an abstract way, the aim is to let the feeling of assurance flow into the souls of men that one who for a time is still hungering will eventually experience the due compensation. It was necessary that these feelings should flow into the souls of men. The souls then living, to whom the teaching was given in this form, were not, until they were again incarnated, ready to receive, as wisdom, the teaching of Karma and Reincarnation.

What was to ripen in human souls had to flow into these at that time. For a completely new epoch had begun, an epoch when men were preparing to develop their Ego, their self-consciousness, to maturity. Whereas revelations had hitherto been received and the effects made manifest in the astral, etheric and physical bodies of men, the Ego was now to become fully conscious but be filled only gradually with the forces it was eventually to acquire. Only the one Ego¹ which came to the Earth as the Nathan Jesus and into whose bodily constitution, when this had been duly prepared, the Individuality of Zarathustra passed this Ego-Being alone could bring to fulfilment within itself the all-embracing Christ-principle.

The rest of humanity must now, in imitation of Christ, gradually develop what was present for three years on the Earth in the one single Personality. It was only the impulse, as it were the seed, that Christ Jesus was able to implant into humanity at that time and the seed must now unfold and grow. To this end provision was made that at the right times there shall always appear on Earth individuals able to bring the truth that humanity will not be ready to assimilate until a later period. The Being who appeared on Earth as Christ had to take care that His message would be accessible to men immediately after His appearance, in a form that they could understand. He had also to make provision for Individualities to appear later on and care for the spiritual needs of human souls at the stage of maturity reached in the course of time.

In what manner Christ made such provision for the ages following the Event of Golgotha is related by the writer of the Gospel of St. John. He shows us how, in Lazarus, Christ Himself ‘raised’, ‘awakened’, that Individuality who continued to work as ‘John’, from whom the teaching proceeded in the form described in the lectures on the Gospel of St. John.² But Christ had also to provide for the appearance, in later times, of an Individuality who would bring to humanity in a form compatible with subsequent evolution, that for which men would by then be ready. How an Individuality was ‘awakened’ by Christ for this purpose is faithfully described by the writer of the Gospel of St. Luke. Having declared that he would describe what ‘seers’ endowed with the vision of Imagination and Inspiration could say about the Event of Palestine, he also points to what would one day be taught by another—but only in the future. In order to describe this mysterious process the writer of St. Luke's Gospel has also included an ‘awakening’, a ‘raising’, in his account (Luke VII, 11–17.) In what we read concerning the ‘awakening’ of the young man of Nain lies the mystery of the progress of Christianity. Whereas in the case of the healing of the daughter of Jairus, to which brief reference was made in a previous lecture, the mysteries connected with it were so profound that Christ admitted only a few to witness the act and charged them not to speak of it, this other ‘raising’ was accomplished in such a way that it might immediately be related. The former healing was an act presupposing in the healer a profound insight into the processes of physical life; the latter healing was an ‘awakening’, an Initiation. The Individuality in the body of the young man of Nain was to undergo an Initiation of a very special kind.

There are various kinds of Initiation. In one kind, immediately after the process has been completed, knowledge of the higher worlds flashes up in the aspirant and the laws and happenings of the spiritual world are revealed to him. In another kind of Initiation it is only a seed that is implanted into the soul, and the individual has to wait until the next incarnation for the seed to bear fruit; only then does he become an Initiate in the real sense.

The Initiation of the young man of Nain was of this kind. His soul was transformed by the event in Palestine but he was not yet conscious of having risen into the higher worlds. It was not until his next incarnation that the forces laid in his soul at that earlier time came to fruition. In an exoteric lecture names cannot now be given; all that is possible is an indication to the effect that the Individuality awakened by Christ in the young man of Nain subsequently appeared as a great teacher of religion; in later time a new teacher of Christianity arose, equipped with the powers implanted into his soul in a previous incarnation.

Thus Christ provided for the subsequent appearance of an Individuality able to bring Christianity to a further stage of development. Moreover the mission of the Individuality who had been awakened in the young man of Nain is destined to permeate Christianity later on, and to an ever-increasing extent, with the teachings of Karma and Reincarnation—teachings which when Christ was on Earth could not be proclaimed explicitly as wisdom, because the human soul had first to receive them into the life of feeling.

Christ indicates clearly enough (according to the Gospel of St. Luke too) that an entirely new factor had now entered into the evolution of humanity, namely, Ego-consciousness. He shows—it is only a matter of being able to read the meaning—that in earlier times the spiritual world did not flow into the self-conscious Ego, for men received this spiritual stream through the physical, etheric and astral bodies; a certain degree of unconsciousness was always present when, as in previous epochs, divine-spiritual forces flowed into men. In the stream in which Christ Jesus was actually working, men had had formerly to receive the Law of Sinai, which could be addressed only to the astral body. The Law was imparted to man in such a way that it did indeed work in him, but not directly through the forces of his Ego. These forces could not operate until the time of Christ Jesus because it was not until then that man became conscious of the Ego in the real sense. This is indicated by Christ in the Gospel of St. Luke when He says that men must first be made ready to receive an entirely new principle into their souls. He indicates this when speaking of His forerunner, John the Baptist. (Luke VII, 18–35.)

How did Christ Himself regard this Individuality? He said that before His own coming the mission of John was to present in its purest and noblest form the old teaching of the Prophets that had been handed down, unadulterated, from bygone times. He regarded John as being the last to transmit, in its pure form, the teaching belonging to past ages. The ‘Law and the Prophets’ held good until the coming of John. His mission was to set before men once again what the old teaching and the old constitution of soul had been able to impart. How did this old constitution of soul function in the times preceding the advent of the Christ-principle?

Here we come to a subject—incomprehensible as it may seem at the present time—that will some day become a teaching of natural science as well, when it allows itself to be inspired to some extent by spiritual science. I must now refer to a matter of which I can touch only the very fringe but which will show you what depths spiritual science is destined to illumine in the domain of natural science. If you survey the branches of natural science to-day and perceive the efforts that are made to penetrate the mysteries of man's existence with the limited faculties of human thought, you will find it stated that the whole human being comes into existence through the intermingling of the male and female seeds. One of the basic endeavours of modern natural science is to establish this theory. Searching microscopical examination of substances is made in order to ascertain which particular attributes proceed from the male or from the female seed, and the researchers are satisfied when they believe, it can he proved that the whole human being is thus produced. But natural science itself will eventually be compelled to recognize that only one part of the human being is determined by the intermingling of the male and female seeds and that however precisely the product of the one or the other may be known, the whole nature of man in the present cycle of evolution cannot be explained by this intermingling.

There is in every human being something that does not arise from the seed but is, so to speak, a ‘virgin birth’, something that flows into the process of germination from a quite different source. Something unites with the seed of the human being that is not derived from father and mother, yet belongs to and is destined for him—something that is poured into his Ego and can be ennobled through the Christ-principle. That in the human being which unites with the Christ-principle in the course of evolution is ‘virgin-born’ and—as natural science will one day come to recognize through its own methods—this is connected with the momentous transition accomplished at the time of Christ Jesus. Before the Christ Event there could be nothing that did not enter into man's inner being by way of the seed. Something has actually happened in the course of the ages to bring about a change in the development of the Ego. Humanity has not been the same since the Christ Event; but the element that has been added since then to what is produced by the seeds must be gradually developed and ennobled by assimilating the Christ-principle.

We are here approaching a very subtle truth. To anyone conversant with modern natural science it is extremely interesting that already to-day there are domains where investigators are faced with the fact that there is something in man not derived from the seed. The preliminary conditions for realizing this are already there, only the investigators are not yet intellectually capable of recognizing what is present in their own experiments and observations. More is at work in the experiments than is known to modern natural science and little progress would be made if it were entirely dependent upon the ability of the investigators. While one or another is working in a laboratory, in a clinic, or perhaps in his own study, there stand behind him the Powers which direct and guide the world, and these Powers allow that to come to light which the researcher himself does not understand and for which he is merely the instrument. It is therefore also true that even objective investigation is guided by the ‘Masters’, that is, by higher Individualities. The facts now indicated are not usually observed; but they certainly will be when the conscious faculties of researchers are permeated by the spiritual teachings of Anthroposophy.

As a result of the fact of which I have just spoken, a great change has taken place in connection with the faculties of the human being since Christ came to the Earth. Previously, the only faculties available to man were those derived from the paternal and maternal seeds, for these faculties alone were able to develop in him. Between birth and death we develop through our physical, etheric and astral bodies such faculties as we possess. Before the time of Christ Jesus the instruments employed by man for his own life could be developed only from the seed. After the appearance of Christ Jesus that element was added which is of ‘virgin birth’ and does not in any sense arise from the seed. This element can of course be gravely impaired if a man is entirely given over to materialistic thought; but it can be sublimated if he lets his being be suffused by the warmth issuing from the Christ-principle and he then brings it into his following incarnations in an ever higher and higher form.

What has now been said necessarily implies that in all the proclamations made to humanity prior to that of Christ, there was an element bound up with faculties originating from the line of descent and from the seed; and it also imparts the conviction that Christ Jesus addressed himself to faculties that have nothing to do with the seed arising from the Earth but from out of the divine worlds unite with the seed. Teachers before Christ Jesus could speak to men only by using the faculties transmitted to their earthly nature through the seed. All the prophets and forerunners, however exalted, even when they descended as Bodhisattvas, were obliged to use faculties transmitted by way of the seed. Christ Jesus, however, spoke to that in man which does not pass through the seed but comes from the realm of the Divine. He indicates this when He speaks to His disciples of John the Baptist (Luke VII, 28): "For I say unto you, among those that are born of women there is not a greater prophet than John the Baptist"—that is to say, among those who, as they stand before us, can be explained as having come into existence through physical birth from male and female seeds. But then Christ adds words to the effect that the smallest part of that which is not born of women and which unites with the man from the kingdom of God is greater than John. Such are the depths hidden beneath these words! Some day, when study of the Bible is illumined by spiritual science, it will be found to contain physiological truths of far greater significance than any finding of the blundering thinking applied in modern physiology. Words such as those just quoted can lead to recognition of one of the very deepest physiological truths. Profound indeed is the Bible when it is truly understood!

Christ Jesus exemplifies in manifold ways, and also in a different form, what I have now told you. His purpose is to indicate that the element which is to come into the world through Him is something altogether new, a truth differing from any hitherto proclaimed, because it is connected with faculties derived from the kingdoms of Heaven—faculties that have not been inherited. He points out how difficult it is for men to learn to understand such a teaching, and that they will demand to be convinced in the same way as formerly. He tells them that they cannot be convinced in the old way of the new truth that has now come; for what could be proof of truth in the old form could not bring conviction of the new. The old truth was presented in comprehensible form when symbolized by the ‘Sign of Jonah’. This symbolized the old way in which man gradually attained knowledge and penetrated into the spiritual world, or how—to use biblical terms—he became a ‘Prophet’.

The old way of attaining Initiation was this: first the soul was brought to maturity and every necessary preparation made; then a condition lasting for three-and-a-half days was induced in the candidate, a condition in which he was completely withdrawn from the outer world and from the organs through which that world is perceived. Those who were to be led into the spiritual world were carefully prepared and their souls trained in knowledge of the spiritual life; then they were withdrawn from the world for three-and-a-half days, being taken to a place where they could perceive nothing through their external senses and where their bodies lay in a deathlike condition; after three-and-a-half days their souls were summoned back again into the body and they were awakened. Such men were then able to remember their vision of the spiritual worlds and to testify of those worlds. The great secret of Initiation was that the soul, prepared by long training, was led out of the body for three-and-a-half days into an entirely different world, was shut off from the environment and penetrated into the spiritual world. Men who could bear witness to the realities of the spiritual world were always to be found among the peoples; they were men who had undergone the experience referred to in the Bible in the story of Jonah's sojourn in the whale. Such a man was made ready to undergo this experience and then, when he appeared before the people as an Initiate of the old order, he bore upon him the ‘sign of Jonah’ the sign of those who were able themselves to testify of the spiritual world.

This was the one form of Initiation. Christ said, in effect: ‘In the old sense there is no other sign save the sign of Jonah.’ (Luke XI, 29.) And He expressed Himself even more clearly according to the meaning of words in the Gospel of St. Matthew. ‘As a heritage from olden times there remains the possibility that without effort of his own, without Initiation, a man can develop a dim, shadowy kind of clairvoyance and through revelation from above be led into the spiritual world.’ The indication here is that there were also Initiates of a second kind—men who went about among their fellows and who, as a result of their particular lineage, were able to receive revelations from above in a kind of sublimated trance condition, without having undergone any special Initiation. Christ indicated that this twofold manner of being transported into the spiritual world had come down from ancient times. He bade the people to remember King Solomon—thereby pointing to an Individuality to whom, without effort on his own part, the spiritual world was revealed from above. The ‘Queen of Sheba’ who came to King Solomon was also the bearer of wisdom from above; she was the representative of those predestined to possess, by inheritance, the dim, shadowy clairvoyance with which all men were endowed in the Atlantean epoch. (See Luke XI, 31.)

Thus there were two kinds of Initiates: the one kind typified by King Solomon and the symbolic visit paid to him by the Queen of Sheba, the Queen from the South; the other kind typified by those who bore upon them the ‘sign of Jonah’, meaning the old Initiation in which the candidate, entirely cut off from the outer world, passed through the spiritual world for a period lasting three-and-a-half days. Christ now added: ‘A greater than Solomon, a greater than Jonah is here’—indicating thereby that something new had come into the world. The message was not to be conveyed to the etheric bodies of men from outside, through revelations, as in the case of Solomon, nor was it to be conveyed to etheric bodies from within through revelations imparted by the duly prepared astral body to the etheric body, as in the case of those symbolized by the sign of Jonah. ‘Here is something which enables a man who has made himself ready for it in his Ego, to unite his being with what belongs to the kingdoms of Heaven.’ The forces and powers from those kingdoms unite with the virginal part in the human soul, the part that belongs to the kingdoms of Heaven and that men can destroy if they turn away from the Christ-principle, but can cultivate and nurture if they receive into themselves what streams from the Christ-principle.

As indicated in the Gospel of St. Luke, Christ's teaching is imbued with the new element which came to the Earth at that time, and we see how all the old ways of proclaiming the kingdom of God were changed through the Event of Palestine. Christ says to those from whom, because of their preparation, He could expect some measure of understanding: ‘Of a truth there are some among you who are able to see the kingdom of God, not only in the manner of Solomon, through revelation, or through the Initiation symbolized by the sign of Jonah; if any among you had attained nothing further than that they would never see the kingdom of God in this incarnation before their death.’ The meaning is that before their death they would not have seen the kingdom of God unless they had attained Initiation in some form; but then they would also have had to pass through a condition similar to death. Christ wished to show that because of the new element now present in the world there can also be men who, even before they die are able to behold the kingdom of Heaven. The disciples did not at first understand what this meant. Christ wanted to convey to them that they were to be the ones who would come to know the mysteries of the kingdoms of Heaven before natural death or the death experienced in the old form of Initiation. The wonderful passage in the Gospel of St. Luke where Christ is speaking of a higher revelation, is as follows: "But I tell you of a truth, there be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the kingdom of God." (Luke IX, 27.) The disciples did not understand that it was they themselves who, being closely around Him, were chosen to experience the tremendous power of the Christ principle which would enable them to penetrate directly into the spiritual world. The spiritual world was to become visible to them without the sign of Solomon, and without the sign of Jonah. Did this actually happen?

Immediately after these words in the Gospel comes the scene of the Transfiguration, when three disciples—Peter, James and John—are led up into the spiritual world. The figures of Moses and Elijah appear before them in that world and, simultaneously, Christ Jesus in Glory. (Luke IX, 28–36.) The disciples gaze for a brief moment into the spiritual world—a testimony that insight into that world is possible without the faculties designated by the sign of Solomon and the sign of Jonah. But it is evident that they are still novices, for they fall asleep immediately after being torn out of their physical and etheric bodies by the stupendous power of what was happening. Christ finds them asleep. This account was meant to indicate the third way of entering the spiritual world, apart from the ways denoted by the signs of Solomon and of Jonah. Anyone capable in those days of interpreting the signs of the times would have known that the Ego itself must develop, that it must now be directly inspired, that the Divine Powers must work directly into the Ego.

It was also to be made evident that the men of that time, even the very best among them, were not capable of taking the Christ-principle into themselves. The event of the Transfiguration was to be a beginning but it was also to be shown that the disciples were not able, at the time, to receive the Christ-principle in the fullest sense. Hence their powers fail them immediately afterwards, when they want to apply the Christ-power to heal one who is possessed by an evil spirit but are unable to do so. Christ indicates that they are still only at the beginning, by saying: I shall have to stay a long time with you before your forces are able also to stream into other men. (See Luke IX, 41.) Thereupon He heals the one whom the disciples could not heal. But then He says, again hinting at the mystery behind these happenings, that the time has come when “the Son of Man shall be delivered into the hands of men”. This means: the time has come when the Ego, which is to be developed by men themselves in the course of their Earth-mission, is gradually to stream into them, to be given over to them. This Ego is to be recognized in its highest form in Christ. “Let these sayings sink down into your ears; for the Son of Man shall be delivered into the hands of men. But they understood not this saying; it was hid from them, that they perceived it not.” (Luke IX, 44–45.)

How many have understood this saying? Greater and greater numbers will, however, eventually understand that the Ego, the ‘Son of Man’, was to be given over to men at that time. And the explanation that was possible in those days, was added by Christ Jesus. He spoke to the following effect: As he stands before us, man is a product of the old forces that were active before the Luciferic beings had laid hold of human nature; but the Luciferic forces drew man down to a lower level. The results of all these processes have passed into the faculties possessed by him to-day. Everything that comes from the seed, as well as all human consciousness, is permeated by the influence that dragged man to a lower sphere.

Man is a twofold being. Whatever consciousness he has developed hitherto is permeated by the Luciferic forces. It is only the unconscious part of man's being, the last remnant of his evolution through the Saturn, Sun and Moon periods when no Luciferic forces were at work—it is only this that streams into him to-day as a virginal element of his nature; but it cannot unite with him without the qualities and forces he is able to develop in himself through the Christ-principle. As he stands before us, man is primarily a product of heredity, a confluence of what derives from the male and female seeds. From the beginning he develops as a duality—a duality already permeated by Luciferic forces. As long as a man is not illumined by self-consciousness, as long as out of his own Ego he cannot fully distinguish between good and evil, he reveals to us his earlier, original nature through the veil of his later nature. Only the part of man that is ‘childlike’ still retains a last remnant of the nature that was his before he succumbed to the influence of the Luciferic beings.

Hence there is a ‘childlike’ part and also a ‘grown’ part in man. It is the latter part of his being that is permeated by the Luciferic forces but its influence asserts itself from the very earliest embryonic stage onwards. The Luciferic forces also permeate the child, so that in ordinary life what was already implanted in the human being before the Luciferic influence, cannot make itself manifest. The Christ-power must re-awaken this, must unite with the best forces of the child-nature in man. The Christ-power may not link itself with the faculties that man has corrupted, with what derives merely from the intellect; the link must be with that which has remained from the child-nature of primeval times. That is what must be reinvigorated and must thereafter fructify the other part (of man's nature).

“But there arose a reasoning among them, which of them should be the greatest,” that is, which of them was most fitted to receive the Christ-principle into his own being. "But Jesus, perceiving the thought of their heart, took a child and set it by them and said unto them. Whosoever shall receive this child in my name"—that is, whosoever is united in Christ's name with what has remained from the times before the onset of the Luciferic influence “receiveth me; and whosoever shall receive me receiveth him that sent me” (Luke IX, 46–48)—that is, He who sent this (childlike) part of the human being to the Earth. Emphasis is there laid upon the great significance of what has remained ‘childlike’ in man and should be fostered and nurtured in human nature.

We may say of a human being standing before us that he has the rudiments of very good qualities. We may try our hardest to develop those qualities of his so that he makes real progress, but the methods usually adopted to-day take no account of what is present in the foundations of man's being. It is essential to pay heed to what has remained ‘childlike’ in man, for it is by way of this childlike nature that warmth can be imparted to the other faculties through the Christ-principle. The childlike nature must be developed in order that the other faculties may follow suit. Everyone has the childlike nature within him and this, when wakened to life, will also be responsive to union with the Christ-principle. But forces—of however lofty a kind—that are dominated by the Luciferic influence will, if they alone work in a man to-day, repudiate and scoff at what can live on Earth as the Christ power—as Christ Himself foretold.

The Gospel of St. Luke, brings home very clearly the purport and meaning of the new proclamation. When a man who bore on his forehead the sign of Jonah went about the world as an Initiate of the old order, he was recognized—but only by those who were knowers—as one who had come to testify of the spiritual worlds. Special preparation was needed before the sign of Jonah could be understood. But a new kind of preparation was now necessary in order to understand what was greater than anything indicated by the signs of Solomon and of Jonah—a new preparation which was to pave the way for a new understanding, a new way of maturing the soul. The contemporaries of Christ Jesus could at first understand only the old way, and the way preached by John the Baptist was the one known to most of them. That Christ was now bringing an entirely new impulse, that he was seeking for souls among those who did not in the least resemble men who would formerly have been considered suitable, was utterly incomprehensible to them. They had assumed that He would associate with those who practised the old kind of disciplinary exercises and would impart His teaching to such men. Hence they could not understand why He sat among those whom they regarded as ‘sinners’. But He said to them: If I were to impart in the old way the entirely new impulse I have come to give to mankind, if a new form of teaching were not to replace the old, it would be as if I were to sew a piece of new cloth on an old garment or pour new wine into old wine-skins. What is now to be given to humanity and is greater than anything indicated by the sign of Solomon or the sign of Jonah, this must be poured into new wine-skins, into new forms. And you must rouse yourselves sufficiently to understand the new teaching in a new form! (See Luke V, 36–37.)

Those who were to understand must now do so through the powerful influence of the Ego—not through what they had learnt but through what had poured into them from the spiritual Christ-Being Himself. Hence the chosen ones were not men who according to the old doctrines were properly prepared but men who in spite of having passed through many incarnations, proved to be simple human beings, able to understand through the power of Faith what had streamed into them. A ‘sign’ was to be placed before them as well, a sign now to be enacted before the eyes of all mankind. The ‘mystical death’ that had been a ceremonial act in the Mystery Temples for hundreds and thousands of years was now to be presented on the great arena of world-history. Everything that had taken place in the secrecy of the Temples of Initiation was brought into the open as a single event on Golgotha. A process hitherto witnessed only by the Initiates during the three-and-a-half days of an old Initiation was now enacted before mankind in concrete reality. Hence those to whom the facts were known could only describe the Event of Golgotha as being what in very truth it was: the old Initiation transformed into historical fact and enacted on the arena of world-history.

That is what took place on Golgotha! In former times the three-and-a-half days spent in deathlike sleep had brought to the few Initiates who witnessed it, the conviction that the spiritual will at all times be victorious over the bodily nature and that man's soul and spirit belong to a spiritual world. This was now to be a reality enacted before the eyes of the world. An Initiation transferred to the outer plane of world-history such was the Event of Golgotha. Hence this Initiation was not consummated only for those who witnessed the actual Event, but for all mankind. What issued from the death on the Cross streamed into the whole of humanity. A stream of spiritual life flowed into mankind from the drops of blood which fell from the wounds of Christ Jesus on Golgotha. For what had been imparted by other Teachers as ‘wisdom’ was now to pass into humanity as inner strength, inner power. That is the essential difference between the Event of Golgotha and the teachings given by the other Founders of religion.

Deeper understanding than exists to-day is necessary before there can be any true conception of what came to pass on Golgotha. When Earth evolution began, the human Ego was connected physically with the blood. The blood is the outer expression of the human Ego. Men would have made the Ego stronger and stronger, and if Christ had not appeared they would have been entirely engrossed in the development of egoism. They were protected from this by the Event of Golgotha. What was it that had to flow? The blood that is the surplus substantiality of the Ego! The process that began on the Mount of Olives when the drops of sweat fell from the Redeemer like drops of blood, was carried further when the blood flowed from the wounds of Christ Jesus on Golgotha. The blood flowing from the Cross was the sign of the surplus egoism in man's nature which had to be sacrificed. The spiritual significance of the sacrifice on Golgotha requires deep and penetrating study. The result of what happened there would not be apparent to a chemist—that is to say to one with the power of intellectual perception only. If the blood that flowed on Golgotha had been chemically analysed it would have been found to contain the same substances as the blood of other human beings; but occult investigation would discover it to have been quite different blood. Through the surplus blood in humanity men would have been engulfed in egoism if infinite Love had not enabled this blood to flow. As occult investigation finds, infinite Love is intermingled with the blood that flowed on Golgotha. The writer of the Gospel of St. Luke adhered to his purpose, which was to describe how, through Christ, there came into the world the infinite Love that would gradually drive out egoism. Each of the Evangelists describes what it was his particular function to describe.

If these things could be explained in still greater depth we should find that all contradictions alleged by materialistic research would be invalidated, as they are in the case of the antecedents of Jesus of Nazareth when the true facts of his early childhood are known. Each Evangelist describes what concerned him most closely from his own standpoint. St. Luke describes what his informants, who were ‘seers’ and ‘servants of the Word’ were able to perceive as the result of their special preparation. The other Evangelists are concerned with different aspects—the writer of the Gospel of St. Luke perceives the out-streaming Love which forgives the most terrible of all wrongs the physical world can inflict. Words expressing this ideal of Love, words of forgiveness even when the most terrible of wrongs has been committed, resound from the Cross on Golgotha: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do!” (Luke XXIII, 34.) Out of His infinite Love, He who on the Cross on Golgotha accomplishes the Deed of untold significance, implores forgiveness for those who have crucified Him.

And now we turn once again to the doctrine of the power of Faith. Emphasis was to be laid upon the fact that there is something in human nature that can stream from it and liberate man from the material world, no matter how firmly he may he bound to that world. Let us think of a man embroiled in the material world through every imaginable crime, so that the forum of that world itself inflicts the punishment; let us conceive, however, that he has saved for himself something that the power of Faith can cause to germinate within him. Such a man will differ from another who has no Faith, just as the one malefactor differed from the other. The one has no Faith, and the judgment is fulfilled. In the other, however, Faith is like a faint light shining into the spiritual world; hence he cannot lose the link with the spiritual. Therefore to him it is said: ‘To-day’—since you know that you are connected with the spiritual world—‘you shall be with me in Paradise!’ (See Luke XXIII, 43.)

Thus do the truths of Faith and Hope, as well as the truth of Love, resound from the Cross in the account given in the Gospel of St. Luke.

There is still something else, belonging to the same realm of the soul's life, upon which the writer of this Gospel wishes to lay emphasis.

When a man's whole being is pervaded with the Love that streamed from the Cross on Golgotha he can turn his eyes to the future and say: Evolution on the Earth must make it possible for the spirit living within me gradually to transform the whole of physical existence. We shall in time give back again to the Father-principle which existed before the onset of the Luciferic influence, the spirit we have received; we shall let our whole being be permeated by the Christ-principle and our hands will bring to expression what is living in our souls as a faithful picture of that principle. Our hands were not created by ourselves but by the Father-principle, and the Christ-principle will stream through them. As men pass through incarnation after incarnation, the spiritual power flowing from the Mystery of Golgotha will stream into what they achieve in their bodies—which are the creations of the Father-principle—so that the outer world will eventually be imbued with the Christ-principle. Men will be filled with the confidence that resounded from the Cross on Golgotha and leads to the highest Hope for the future, leads to the ideal that can be expressed by saying: I let Faith germinate within me, I let Love germinate within me and I know that when they grow strong enough they will pervade all external life. I know too that they will pervade everything within me that is the creation of the Father-principle. Thus Hope for humanity's future will be added to Faith and Love, and men will understand that in regard to the future they must acquire firm confidence, saying: If only I have Faith, if only I have Love I may entertain the Hope that what has come into me from Christ Jesus will gradually find its way into the outer world. And then the words resounding from the Cross as a sublime ideal will be understood: “Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit!” (Luke XXIII, 46.)

Words of Love, of Faith and of Hope ring out from the Cross according to the Gospel which indicates how spiritual streams that had previously been separate united in the soul of Jesus of Nazareth. What had formerly been received in the form of wisdom, streamed into men as an actual power of the soul, exemplified by the sublime ideal of Christ. It is incumbent upon human beings to acquire deeper and deeper understanding of what is communicated in a record such as the Gospel of St. Luke, in order that the three words resounding from the Cross may become active forces in the soul. When with the faculties that the truths of spiritual science can develop in them men come to feel that what streams down to them from the Cross is not lifeless exhortation but vital, active force, they will begin to realize that a truly living message is contained in the Gospel of St. Luke. It is the mission of spiritual science gradually to unveil what is enshrined in such records.

In this course of lectures we have tried to penetrate as deeply as possible into the content of St. Luke's Gospel. In the case of this Gospel too, one course of lectures cannot possibly unveil everything and you will realise at once that a very great deal has inevitably remained unexplained. But if you pursue the path indicated by lectures such as have been given here you will be able to penetrate more and more deeply into these truths and your souls will be better and better fitted to receive and assimilate the living Word hidden beneath the outer words.

Spiritual science is not a body of new teaching. It is an instrument for comprehending what has been given to humanity. Thus for us it is an instrument for understanding the Christian revelation. If you have this conception of spiritual science you will no longer say: ‘It is Christian theosophy or just another form of theosophy!’ There is only one spiritual science and we apply it as an instrument for proclaiming the truth, for bringing to light the treasures of the spiritual life of mankind. It is the same spiritual science that we apply in order to explain the Bhagavad Gita on one occasion and on another the Gospel of St. Luke. The greatness of spiritual science lies in the fact that it is able to penetrate into every treasure given to humanity in the realm of spiritual life; but we should have a false conception of it if we were to close our ears to any of the proclamations made to humanity.

It is with this attitude of mind that you should listen to the proclamation made in the Gospel of St. Luke, realizing that it is pervaded through and through by the inspiration of Love. And then the increasing knowledge that can be acquired from this Gospel with the help of spiritual science will contribute not only to insight into the mysteries of the surrounding Universe and of the spiritual ground of existence but to an understanding of the momentous words in the Gospel of St. Luke: ‘And peace be in the souls of men in whom there is good will.’ When thoroughly understood, the Gospel of St. Luke is able, more than any other religious text, to pour into the human soul that warmth-giving Love through which peace reigns on Earth—and that is the most beautiful mirror-image of divine mysteries revealed on Earth. What can be revealed must be mirrored on Earth and, as mirror-image, rise up again to the spiritual Heights. If we learn to understand spiritual science in this sense it will be able to reveal to us the mysteries of the divine-spiritual Beings and of spiritual existence, and the mirror-image of these revelations will live in our souls. Love and Peace—here is the most beautiful mirror-image on Earth of what streams down from the Heights.

In this way we can receive and assimilate the words of the Gospel of St. Luke which resounded when the forces of the Nirmanakaya of Buddha streamed down upon the Nathan Jesus-child. The revelations pour down from the spiritual worlds upon the Earth and are reflected from human hearts as Love and Peace to the extent to which men unfold the power, the ‘good will’, which the Christ-principle enables to flow from the centre of man's being, from his Ego. The proclamation rings out clearly and with the glow of warmth when we truly understand the meaning of these words in the Gospel of St. Luke:

The revelation of the spiritual worlds from the Heights and its answering reflection from the hearts of men brings peace to all whose purpose upon the evolving Earth is to unfold good will.

• 1. See references to the nature of this Ego in Lectures Four, Five and Seven.
• 2. See the lecture-courses given at Hamburg, in May 1908, and at Cassel, in July 1909;
  also the book Christianity as Mystical Fact, Ch. VIII.

In the last lecture we pointed out the significance of the fact that the Gospel of St. Mark begins by introducing the grand figure of John the Baptist, who is contrasted in a marked manner with that of Christ Jesus Himself. If we allow Mark's Gospel to influence us in all its simplicity, we receive a significant impression of John the Baptist; but only when we consider the Baptist against the background of spiritual science does he appear, so to speak, in his full greatness. I have often pointed out that we must interpret the Baptist in the light of the Gospel itself, for we know that he is clearly described in it as a reincarnation of the prophet Elijah (cf. Matt. 11:14). According to spiritual science, if we wish to investigate the deeper causes of the founding of Christianity and of the Mystery of Golgotha, we must look for the figure of the Baptist against the background of the prophet Elijah. I shall only allude briefly here to the topic of the prophet Elijah since I took advantage of the opportunity provided by the last general meeting of the German section of the Theosophical Society in Berlin to speak more fully on this subject (Turning Points in Spiritual History, London, 1934, Lecture 5). All that spiritual science and occult research have to relate concerning the prophet Elijah is fully confirmed by what is contained in the Bible itself. But many passages will undoubtedly remain inexplicable if we read the chapters relating to him in the ordinary way. I will draw your attention only to one point.

We read in the Bible that Elijah challenged all the followers and peoples of King Ahab among whom he lived, and how he pitted himself against his opponents, the priests of Baal, setting up two altars and causing them to lay their sacrifice on one of them while he laid his own sacrifice on the other. He then showed the triviality of what his opponents had said about the priests of Baal because no spiritual greatness was manifested by the god Baal, whereas the greatness and significance of Yahweh or Jehovah appears at once in the case of the sacrifice of Elijah. This was a victory won by Elijah over the followers of Ahab. Then in a remarkable way we are told that Ahab had a neighbor called Naboth who was the owner of a vineyard. Ahab coveted this vineyard, but Naboth would not sell it to him because he regarded it as sacred since it was an inheritance from his father. The Bible then tells us of two facts. On the one side Jezebel, the Queen, was an enemy of Elijah and proclaims that she will have him put to death in the same way as his opponents, the priests of Baal, were put to death because of his victory at the altar. But according to the biblical account, Elijah's death was not brought about through Jezebel. Something else took place. Naboth, the king's neighbor, was summoned to a kind of penitential feast, to which other important persons of the state were also called, and on the occasion of this feast of penitence, he was murdered at the instigation of Jezebel (I Kings 21).

Now we might say that the Bible seems to relate that Naboth was murdered at the urging of Jezebel. Yet Jezebel does not announce that she intends to murder Naboth but rather Elijah. There is an evident discrepancy in the story. Now occult research begins and shows us the real facts in the case, that Elijah was a great spirit who roamed invisibly through the land of Ahab. But at times he entered into and penetrated the soul of Naboth. So Naboth is the physical personality of Elijah; when we speak of the personage of Naboth, we are speaking of the physical personage of Elijah. In the biblical sense, Elijah is the invisible figure, and Naboth his visible image in the physical world. All this I have shown in detail in my lecture entitled, “The Prophet Elijah in the Light of Spiritual Science.”¹

But if we wish to consider the whole spirit of Elijah's work, and the whole spirit of Elijah as it is presented in the Bible, and allow it to influence our souls, we may say that in Elijah we are confronted by the spirit of the whole ancient Hebrew people. All that lives and is interwoven in this people is encompassed within the spirit of Elijah. We may refer to him as the folk spirit of the ancient Hebrew folk. Spiritual science shows him to have been too great to dwell altogether in the soul of his earthly form, in the soul of Naboth. He hovered over him like a cloud; and he not only lived in Naboth but went around the whole country like an element of nature, active in rain and sunshine. This is revealed ever more clearly the more we go into the whole narrative, which begins by saying that drought and barrenness prevailed, but that through Elijah's relationship to the divine spiritual worlds the drought was ended and the needs of the land at that time were fulfilled. He worked as an element of nature, a law of nature itself. We could say that the best way to learn to recognize what worked in the soul of Elijah is to let the 104th Psalm influence us, with its description of how Yahweh or Jehovah works in all things as a nature-divinity. Of course Elijah is not to be identified with this divinity itself; he is the earthly image of that divinity, an earthly image which is at the same time the folk soul of the Hebrew people. Elijah was a kind of differentiation of Jehovah, an earthly Jehovah, or, as he is described in the Old Testament, the “countenance” of Jehovah.

If we look at it in this way, the fact becomes especially clear that the same spirit that lived in Elijah-Naboth now reappears as John the Baptist. How does he work in John?

According to the Bible, and especially as is shown in the Gospel of St. Mark, he works through what is called baptism. What in reality is baptism? Why was it administered by John the Baptist to those who allowed themselves to be baptized? Here we must examine what was the actual effect of baptism on those who were baptized. The candidates were immersed in water. Then there always followed what has often been described as happening when a man receives the shock of being threatened by death, for example by falling into the water and nearly drowning, or by nearly falling over a precipice. A loosening of the etheric body takes place; it partly leaves the physical body. As a consequence, something happens that always happens immediately after death, i.e., a kind of retrospect of the past life. That is a well known fact and has often been described even by the materialistic thinkers of the present time. Something similar took place during the baptism by John in the Jordan. The people were plunged into the water. This baptism was not like the usual baptism of today. The baptism of John caused the etheric bodies of the candidates to be loosened and they saw more than they could comprehend with their ordinary powers of understanding. They saw their life in the spirit and the influence of the spirit on this life. They saw also what the Baptist taught, that the old age was fulfilled and that a new age must begin. In the clairvoyant observation that was possible for them for a few seconds during the baptismal immersion they saw that mankind had come to a turning point in evolution, and that what humanity had possessed in former times when it was in a group-soul condition was now in the process of completely dying out; quite new conditions had to come in, and they saw this while in their liberated etheric body. A new impulse, new capacities, must come to humanity. The baptism of John was therefore a question of knowledge. “Transform your minds, but don't merely turn your gaze backwards as would still be possible. Turn your gaze now to something else, to the God who manifests in the human `I.' The kingdoms of the divine have approached you.” The Baptist did not only preach that; he made it manifest to them by bestowing the baptism on them in the Jordan. Those who had been baptized knew then as a result of their own clairvoyant observation, even though it lasted but a short time, that the words of the Baptist expressed a world-historical fact.

Only when we consider this connection does the spirit of Elijah, which also worked in John the Baptist, appear to us in the right light. Then we see that Elijah was the spirit of the old Jewish people. What kind of spirit was this? In a certain respect it was already the spirit of the “I.” However, it does not appear as the spirit of the individual human being but as the collective folk spirit of the whole people. That which later was to live in each individual man was, so to speak, still in Elijah the group soul of the ancient Hebrew people. That which was to descend as the individual soul into every individual human breast was at the beginning of the Johannine age still in the super-sensible world. It was not yet in every human breast, and it could not yet live in this way in Elijah. So it entered into the individual personality of Naboth but only by hovering over it. Yet in Elijah-Naboth it manifested itself more distinctly than it did in the individual members of the ancient Hebrew people. This spirit, hovering, as it were, over man and man's history, was now about to enter more and more into every bosom. This was the great fact now proclaimed by Elijah-John himself when he said, as he baptized the people, something like the following, “What until now was in the super-sensible worlds and worked from these worlds you must now take into your souls as impulses that have come from the kingdom of heaven right into the hearts of men.” The spirit of Elijah itself shows how in multiplied form it must enter human hearts, so that in the further course of world history they may gradually take up ever more and more of the Christ Impulse. The meaning of the baptism by John was that Elijah was ready to prepare the way for the Christ. This was contained in the deed of the baptism by John in the Jordan, “I will make a place for Him; I will prepare the way for Him into the hearts of men. I will no longer merely hover over men, but will enter into human hearts, so that He also can enter in.”

If this is so, what may we then expect? If it is so, there is nothing more natural than to expect something to come to light in John the Baptist that we have already observed in Elijah. It becomes clear how in this grand figure of the Baptist there is not only his individual personality at work, but something more than a personality, which hovers over the individuality like an aura but has an efficacy that transcends it, something alive like an atmosphere among those within whom the Baptist is working. Just as Elijah was active like an atmosphere, so we may expect that as John the Baptist he would again be active like an atmosphere. Indeed, we may expect something further, that this spiritual being of Elijah, now united with John the Baptist, would continue to work on spiritually even if the Baptist were no longer there, if he were away. What does this spiritual being desire? It wishes to prepare the way for the Christ! We can also say that the physical personality of the Baptist may perhaps have left, but his spiritual being like a spiritual atmosphere may remain in the region where he was formerly active, and this spiritual atmosphere actually prepares the very ground on which the Christ could now perform His deed. This is what indeed we might expect. It could perhaps be best expressed if we were to say, “John the Baptist has gone away but what he is as the Elijah-spirit remains, and in this Christ can work best. Here He can best pour forth His words, and in that atmosphere that has remained behind, the Elijah-atmosphere, He can best perform His deeds.” That we can expect. And what does Mark's Gospel tell us?

It is very characteristic that twice allusion is made in the Mark Gospel to what I have just indicated. The first time it is said that “immediately after the arrest of John, Jesus came to Galilee and there proclaimed the teaching of the kingdoms of the heavens.” (Mark 1:14.) John therefore was arrested, that is to say, his physical personality was then prevented from working actively. But the figure of Christ Jesus entered into the atmosphere created by him. And it is significant that the same thing occurs a second time in the Mark Gospel, and it is a grandiose fact that it should occur a second time. We must only read the Gospel in the right way. If we pass on to the sixth chapter we hear fully described how King Herod had John the Baptist beheaded. But it is strange how many assumptions were made, not only after the physical personality of John had been arrested, but when he had been removed through death. To some it seemed that the miraculous forces through which Christ Jesus Himself worked were due to the fact that Christ Jesus Himself was Elijah, or one of the prophets. But the tortured conscience of Herod arouses a strange foreboding in him. When he hears all that has occurred through Christ Jesus he says, “John, whom I beheaded, has been restored to life!” Herod feels that, though the physical personality of John had gone away, he is now all the more present! He feels that his atmosphere, his spirituality—which was none other than the spirituality of Elijah, is still there. His tormented conscience causes him to be aware that John the Baptist, that is, Elijah, is still there.

But then something strange happens. We are shown how, after John the Baptist had met his physical death, Christ Jesus came to the very neighborhood where John had worked. I want you to take particular notice of a remarkable passage and not to skim over it lightly, for the words of the Gospels are not written for rhetorical effect, nor journalistically. Something very significant is said here. Jesus Christ appears among the throng of followers and disciples of John the Baptist, and this fact is expressed in a sentence to which we must give careful attention: “And as Jesus came out He saw a great crowd,” by which could be meant only the disciples of John, “and He had compassion on them ...” (Mark 6:34.) Why compassion? Because they had lost their master, they were there without John, whose headless corpse we are told had been carried to his grave. But even more precisely is it said, “for they were like sheep who had lost their shepherd. And He began to teach them many things.” It cannot be indicated any more clearly how He teaches John's disciples. He teaches them because the spirit of Elijah, which is at the same time the spirit of John the Baptist, is still active among them. Thus it is again indicated with dramatic power in these significant passages of the Mark Gospel how the spirit of Christ Jesus entered into what had been prepared by the spirit of Elijah-John. Even so this is only one of the main points, around which many other significant things are grouped.

I will now call your attention to one thing more. I have several times pointed out how this spirit of Elijah or John continued to act in such a way as to impress its impulses into world history. And since we are all anthroposophists assembled together here, and able to enter into occult facts, it is permissible to discuss this subject here. I have often mentioned that the soul of Elijah-John appeared again in the painter Raphael.² This is one of those facts that call attention to the metamorphoses of souls that take place under the impetus given by the Mystery of Golgotha. Because it was also necessary that in the post-Christian era such a soul should work in Raphael through the medium of a single personality; what in ancient times was so comprehensive and world encompassing now appears in such a different personality as that of Raphael. Can we not feel that the aura that hovered round Elijah-John is also present in Raphael? That in Raphael there were such similarities to these two others that we could even say that this element was too great to be able to enter into a single personality but hovered round it, so that the revelations received by this personality seemed like an illumination? Such was indeed the case with Raphael!

I could also say that there exists a proof of this fact, though it is a somewhat personal one, to which I already alluded in Munich.³ I should like to refer to it again here, not for the purpose of bringing out the personality of John the Baptist, but the full being of Elijah-John. For this purpose I will venture to speak of the further progress of the soul of Elijah-John in Raphael. Anyone who wishes honestly and sincerely to investigate what Raphael really was is likely to have his feelings aroused in a very remarkable way.

I have drawn attention to the modern art historian Hermann Grimm,⁴ and have mentioned that he was able to produce a biography of Michelangelo with comparative facility, but that on three separate occasions he tried to prepare a kind of life of Raphael. And because Hermann Grimm was not a so-called “learned man”—such a man of course can do anything he sets out to do—but a universal man who threw his whole heart sincerely into whatever he wanted to investigate and understand, he was forced to admit that when he had finished what he had intended to be a life of Raphael it did not turn out to be a life of Raphael at all. So he had to begin to do it again and again, but he was never satisfied with his work. Shortly before his death he made one more attempt, which is included in his posthumous works. In this he tried to approach Raphael and understand him in the way his heart wished to understand him, and the title his new work was to bear was indeed characteristic of him. He proposed to call the book Raphael as World-Power. For it seemed to him that if one approaches Raphael honestly, he cannot be described in any way other than as a world-power, unless one fails to see through to what is actively at work in world history. It is very natural that a modern author should experience some discomfort in choosing his words if he is to write as freely and frankly as did the evangelists. Even the best writers of modern times are embarrassed if they set to work in this way, but the figures that have to be described often force them to use the appropriate words. So it is very remarkable how Hermann Grimm wrote about Raphael shortly before his death in the first chapters of his book. It is really as if one can sense in the heart of Hermann Grimm something of the circumstances surrounding such a figure as that of Elijah-John, when he said, “If by some miracle Michelangelo were called back from the dead to live among us, and I were to meet him, I would respectfully stand aside to let him pass by. But if Raphael were to come my way I would go up behind him to see if by chance I might hear a few words from his lips. In the case of Leonardo and Michelangelo we can confine ourselves to relating what they once were in their own time; but with Raphael one must begin with what he is to us today. A slight veil has been cast over the others, but not over Raphael. He belongs among those whose growth will continue for a long time yet. We may imagine that Raphael will present ever new riddles to future generations of humanity.” (Fragments, Vol. II, page 170.)

Hermann Grimm describes Raphael as a world-power, as a spirit striding on through centuries and millennia, as a spirit who could not be encompassed within one individual man. And we may read yet other words by Hermann Grimm, wrung from the honesty and sincerity of his soul. It seems as if he wanted to express that there is something about Raphael like a great aura enveloping him, just as the spirit of Elijah enveloped Naboth. Could this be expressed in any other way than in these words of Hermann Grimm, “Raphael is a citizen of world-history; he is like one of the four rivers which, according to the belief of the ancient world, flowed out of Paradise.” (Fragments, Vol. II, page 153.)

That might also have been written by an evangelist, and it might almost have been written of Elijah! Thus even a modern historian of art, if his feelings are honest and sincere, is able to feel something of the great cosmic impulses that live through the ages. Truly nothing further is required to understand spiritual science than to come close to the soul and spiritual needs of those men who strive longingly to discover the truth about the evolution of humanity.

So does John the Baptist stand before us, and it is good if we can feel him in this way when we read the opening words of the Mark Gospel, and again later in the sixth chapter. The Bible is unlike a book of modern scholarship in which it is clearly emphasized what people ought to read. The Bible conceals beneath the grandiose artistic and occult style many of the mysterious facts it wishes to proclaim. And it is precisely in relation to the facts in the story of John the Baptist that the artistic and occult style does indeed conceal such things. Here I want to draw your attention to something that you can perhaps experience as truth only through your life of feeling. If you admit that there can be truths other than rational ones you may be able to see that the Bible tells us how the spirit or soul of Elijah is related to the spirit or soul of John the Baptist. Let us as briefly as we can see how far this is the case by allowing ourselves to be affected by the description of Elijah as it appears in the Old Testament:

So Elijah arose and went toward Zaraphta. And when he came to the gate of the city, there was a widow woman gathering wood. And he called to her and said “Bring me, I pray thee, a little water in a pitcher that I may drink.” And as she was going to fetch it, he called out to her and said “Bring me also a mouthful of bread.”

And the woman said, “As sure as the Lord your God liveth I have no bread, only a handful of flour in a bin and a little oil in a cruse. And see, I have gathered a few pieces of wood, and I am about to go inside and I want to make them ready for me and my son that we may eat and then die.”

Elijah said to her, “Fear not, go in and do as you have said. But first make a small cake and bring it out for me. Then afterwards you can make something for you and your son. For thus says the Lord, ‘The flour in the bin shall not be consumed nor the oil cruse run dry until the day when the Lord makes it rain upon the earth.’ ”

So she went in and did as Elijah had said. And he ate, and so did her household for a time. The flour in the bin was not eaten up, and the oil cruse did not run dry, according to the word he had spoken through Elijah. (I Kings 17:10-16.)

What do we read in the story of Elijah? We read of the coming of Elijah to a widow, and of a marvellous increase of bread. Because the spirit of Elijah was there it came about that there was no want in spite of the shortage of bread. The bread increased—so we read—the moment Elijah came into the presence of the widow. What is described here as an increase in bread, as the giving of bread as a gift, comes about through the spirit of Elijah. We can say therefore that the fact shines out from the Old Testament that the increase of bread is effected through the appearance of Elijah.

Now let us turn to the sixth chapter of the Mark Gospel. Here we are told how Herod caused John to be beheaded, and how Christ Jesus then came to the group of John's followers.

And when He came out He saw a great crowd, and had compassion on them, for they were like sheep without a shepherd. And He began to teach them many things. And as it had become quite late His disciples came to Him and said, “This is a desolate place and it is already late. Let them go so that they may go to the farms and villages and buy themselves something to eat.” But He answered them, “You give them something to eat.” And they said to Him, “Should we go there and buy bread for two hundred denarii and give them something to eat?” He answered them, “How many loaves do you have? Go and look.” And after they had obtained the information they said, “Five loaves and two fishes.”

And he ordered them all to sit down on the green grass as if it had been a table. And they lay down as if for bed, by hundreds and by fifties. And he took the five loaves and the two fishes, looked up to heaven, blessed and broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples to set before them; in the same way he divided the two fishes among them. And they all ate and were satisfied. (Mark 6:34-42.)

You know the story; again there was an increase in bread brought about by the spirit of Elijah-John. The Bible does not actually speak “clearly” as we understand the word today, but it expresses what it has to say through its composition. Whoever understands how to value the truths of feeling will wish to let his feeling dwell on the passage where it is related how Elijah came to the widow and increased the bread, and where the reincarnated Elijah leaves his physical body and Christ Jesus brings about in a new form what is described as an increase of bread. Such are the inner developments, the inner correspondences in the Bible. They demonstrate how fundamentally empty the scholarship is that talks about a “compilation of biblical fragments,” but also how it is possible for us to recognize the one single spirit composing it throughout, irrespective of who this single spirit is. That is how the Baptist is presented to us.

Now it is very remarkable how the Baptist himself is again introduced into the work of Christ Jesus. On two occasions it is indicated to us that Christ Jesus really entered the aura of the Baptist just when the physical personage was withdrawing more and more into the background, finally leaving the physical plane altogether. But it is shown in very clear words precisely through the very simplicity of the Mark Gospel how through the entry of Christ Jesus into the element of Elijah-John a wholly new impulse enters the world. In order to understand this we must envisage the whole description given in the Gospel from the moment when Christ Jesus appears after the arrest of John the Baptist and speaks of the divine kingdom, to the passage where the murder of John by Herod is related, and continue on with the subsequent chapters. If we take all these stories down to the story of Herod and consider them in their true character we find that the intention of all of them is to reveal in a correct manner the qualities that are characteristic of Christ Jesus. Yesterday we spoke of His characteristic way of acting so that He is recognized also by the spirits which live in those possessed by demons. In other words, He is recognized by super-sensible beings and this is presented to us in a sharply accentuated manner. And then we are faced with the fact that that which lives in Christ Jesus is something in reality quite different from what dwelt in ElijahNaboth for the reason that the spirit of Elijah could not wholly enter into Naboth.

The purpose of the Gospel of St. Mark is to show us that the being of Christ entered fully into Jesus of Nazareth and entirely filled his earthly personality. What we recognize as the universal human ego was working in Him. What then is so terrible to the demons who were in possession of human beings when they were confronted by Christ Jesus? The devils are compelled to say to Him, “You are He who bears the God within You.” They recognize Him as a divine power in the human personality, thus compelling the demons to allow themselves to be recognized and to come forth from the human beings who were possessed through the power of what lives in the individual personality of man (Mark 1:24; 3:11; 5:7). This is why in the early chapters of the Mark Gospel the figure of Christ is worked out so carefully, making Him in a certain way a contrast to ElijahNaboth, and also to Elijah-John. For whereas that which was active in them could not wholly live in them, this activating quality was wholly contained within Christ Jesus. For this reason, although a cosmic principle lives in Him, Christ Jesus as an individual personality confronts other human beings quite individually, including those whom He heals.

It is true that at the present time people generally take descriptions that come from the past in a peculiar way. In particular many of the modern learned students of nature—monists, as they also call themselves—take these descriptions in a very peculiar way when they wish to present their conceptions of the world. We could characterize this attitude by saying that these learned savants and excellent natural philosophers are secretly of the opinion, though they might be too embarrassed to say so, that it would have been better if the Lord God had left the organizing of the world to them, for they would really have established it better.

Take, for example, the case of such a learned student of natural philosophy of our time who maintains that wisdom has come to mankind only in the last twenty years, while others believe it has only been during the last five years, and regard earlier ideas as mere superstition. Such a man would profoundly regret that at the time of Christ there was no modern school of scientific medicine with its various remedies. According to their notions it would have been much more clever if all these people, for example Simon Peter's mother-in-law and others, had been cured with the aid of modern medical remedies. To their minds he would have been a really perfect God if he had created the world in accordance with the conceptions of a modern knowledge of nature. He would not have allowed humanity to have been deprived so long of the knowledge of nature possessed by modern savants. The world as established by God is indeed bungled by comparison with what a modern natural scientist would have created. They are embarrassed to say it so openly, but it is possible to read between the lines. These things that whirr around in the minds of materialistic natural scientists should be called by their right names. If we could for once talk confidentially with one of these gentlemen we might hear him voice the opinion that it is hard to avoid being an atheist when one sees how little success God had at the time of Christ in curing human beings by the methods of modern natural science.

But one thing is not considered: that the word “evolution,” about which people speak so often, ought to be taken seriously and honestly. Everything about evolution must be understood if the world is to reach its goal, and it is pointless to go looking for a plan such as modern natural scientists would produce if they were able to create a world. Because they think in this way, men do not correctly realize that the whole constitution of man, the unity of the finer bodies of man, were formerly quite different. In earlier times nothing at all could have been achieved with the human personality through the methods of natural science. For then the etheric body was much more active, much stronger than it is today; hence the physical body could be worked on indirectly through the etheric body in a very different manner. To express it quite dryly, at that time there was quite a different effect when one healed by means of “feeling” from what it would be today. At that time feeling was poured out from one person into another. When the etheric body was really much stronger and still governed the physical body, psychospiritual methods of healing acted quite differently. Human beings were constitutionally different, so there had to be a different method for healing. If a natural scientist does not know this he will say, “We no longer believe in miracles, and what is said here about healing is really a question of miracles, and these we must leave out of consideration.” And if one is a modern enlightened theologian one is faced by a very special dilemma. He would like to be able to retain these ideas, but at the same time he is filled with the modern prejudice that there is no such thing as healing of this kind, and that such cures are necessarily miracles. Which leads on to the effort to make all kinds of explanations as to the possibility or impossibility of miracles. But one thing he does not know. Nothing described up to the sixth chapter of the Mark Gospel was at that time regarded as a miracle, any more than when today some function of the human organization is affected by one medicament or another. No one at that time would have thought of it as a miracle if someone stretched out his hand and said to a leper, “I will it, become clean.” The whole natural being of Christ Jesus that was poured forth here, was in itself the cure. It would no longer work today because the union between the physical and etheric body is quite different. In those days physicians usually healed in that way, so it was not something that should be particularly emphasized that Christ Jesus cured lepers through compassion and the laying on of hands. Such a thing was then a matter of course. What is worthy of note in this chapter is something quite different, and this we must picture to ourselves correctly.

Let us then first glance at the manner in which the great physicians and even the lesser ones were trained. They were trained in schools that were part of the mystery schools, and they were able to attain to powers that worked down through them from the super-sensible world. Such physicians were thus in a sense mediums for the transmission of super-sensible powers. Through their own mediumship these men transmitted super-sensible powers, and they had been trained for this in the medical mystery schools. When in this way a physician laid his hands on a person it was not his own powers that streamed down but powers from the super-sensible world. It was through his initiation in the mystery schools that he could become a channel for the working of super-sensible powers. It would not have seemed especially remarkable to a person of that time if he heard that a leper or someone suffering from a fever had been cured through such psychical processes. The significant aspect was not that someone appeared capable of curing in this way but that someone who had not been trained in a mystery school could heal in this manner, and that in the heart and soul of this man the power which earlier flowed from the higher worlds was present, and such powers had now become personal individual powers. The truth was to be made clear that the time was fulfilled, and that from now onward men were no longer to be channels for super-sensible forces, that this had come to an end. This had also become clear to those who had been baptized by John in the Jordan, that the old time was coming to an end and everything in the future must be done through the human “I,” through that which is to enter into the divine inner center of the human being. They recognized that now among the people there stands one who does out of His own self what others before had done with the help of beings who live in the super-sensible world and whose powers worked down on them.

So we by no means grasp the meaning of the Bible if we picture to ourselves the curative process as being something special. In the fading light of the era that was passing away, when such cures were possible, it is said that Christ performed cures during this era of the fading light, but that He healed with new forces which would be present from that time onward. Thus it is very clearly shown, with a clarity that cannot be obscured, that Christ Jesus works entirely from man to man. This is everywhere emphasized. It could scarcely be more clearly expressed than when Jesus comes in contact with a woman described in the fifth chapter of the Mark Gospel. He heals her because she approaches Him and touches His garment, and He feels that a current of force has gone out from Him. The whole story is related in such a way as to show that the woman draws near to Christ Jesus and takes hold of His garment. At first He does nothing else Himself, but she does something; she takes hold of His garment, whereupon a current of force leaves Him. How? Not in this instance because He has released it, but because she draws it forth, and He notices it only later. This is very clearly shown. And when He does notice it what does He say? “Daughter, your faith has aided you. Go in peace and be healed from your plague.”

He only then became aware Himself, as He stood there, how the divine kingdom was streaming into Him, and streamed out from Him again. He does not stand there before those who are to be cured as the healers of earlier times stood before those from whom they were to drive out their demons. Whether the sick person believed or did not believe, the power that streamed from the super-sensible worlds through the medium of the healer streamed into him. But now, when it depended on the ego, this ego had to participate in the process; everything now became individualized. The main point of this description was not that one could influence the body through the soul—in that epoch that would have been a matter of course—but that insofar as the new age was just beginning, one ego must henceforth be in direct relationship with another ego. In earlier times the spiritual lived in the higher worlds, and it hovered over the human being. Now the kingdoms of heaven came near and were to enter into the hearts of men, were to live within the hearts of men as in a center. That is the point. In a world view such as this the outer physical and the inner moral flowed together in a new way, in such a way that from the time of the founding of Christianity until today there could only be faith, which from now onward can become knowledge.

Let us take the case of a sick person in ancient times as he stood facing his physician who was to heal him in the way I have just described. Magical forces were brought down from the spiritual worlds through the medium of the physician who had been prepared for this in the mystery schools, and these forces streamed through the body of the physician into that of the patient. There was at that time no link with the moral element, for the whole process did not affect the ego. Morality had nothing to do with it, for the forces flowed down magically from the higher worlds. Now a new era begins, and the moral and the physical aspects of the healing worked together in a new way. Knowledge of this fact will enable us to understand another story.

Some days had passed when He came again to Capernaum. When it was reported that He was in the house many people gathered there, so that there was no longer any room for them, even in front of the door, and He preached the word to them. Then they came to Him with a paralytic carried by four men. And when they were unable to come close to Him because of the crowd, they removed the roof of the house where He was and let down the litter on which the paralytic was lying through the gap. And when Jesus saw their faith, He said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven you.” (Mark 2:1-5.)

What would a physician have said in earlier times? What would the scribes and Pharisees have expected when a healing was to take place? They would have expected such a healer to have said, “The forces now pouring into you and into your paralyzed limbs will enable you to move.” But what did Christ say? “Your sins are forgiven you.” That is the moral element in which the ego participates. It was a language the Pharisees were incapable of understanding. They could not understand it; for someone to speak like this was a blasphemy to the Pharisees. Why? Because to their minds God could be spoken of only as living in the super-sensible worlds, and He works down from there; and sins could be forgiven only from the super-sensible worlds. They could not understand that forgiveness of sins had something to do with the person who healed. Therefore Christ went on further to say: “Which is it easier to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or ‘Stand up, take up your litter and walk?’ But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority to forgive sins on earth” (turning to the paralytic) “I tell you to stand up, take up your litter and go home.” And at once he stood up, took his litter and went out in full view of everyone. (Mark 2:9-12.)

Christ combines the moral and magical elements in His healing, and in this way made the transition from the ego-less to the ego-filled condition, and this can be found in every single description. This is how these matters must be understood, for this is the way they are told. Now compare what spiritual science has to say with all that biblical commentaries have to say about the “forgiveness of sins.” You will find there the strangest explanations, but nowhere anything satisfying because it was not known what the Mystery of Golgotha actually was.

I said that it had to be taken on faith. Why on faith? Because the expression of the moral in the physical element is not developed in one incarnation. When we meet someone today we must not look upon a physical defect as the bringing together of the physical and moral elements within one incarnation. Only when we go beyond one individual incarnation do we find the connection between the moral and physical elements in his karma. Because karma was very little emphasized up to the present time or not at all we can now say, “Until now the connection between the moral and physical elements could be discerned only through faith.” But now, when we are approaching the Gospels in a spiritual scientific way, faith is replaced by knowledge. Christ Jesus stands here beside us as an enlightened one, telling us about karma, when He makes known, “This person I may cure, for I perceived from his personality that his karma is such that he may stand up and walk.”

In such a passage as this you can see how the Bible is to be understood only if it is provided with the means given by modern spiritual science. It is our task to show that in this book, this cosmic book, the profoundest wisdom concerning the evolution of man is truly embodied. Once we are able to grasp what cosmic processes unfold on the earth—and this we shall emphasize increasingly in the course of these particular lectures since the Mark Gospel especially points to them—then we shall discover that what can be said in connection with this Gospel in the future can in no way be offensive to any other of the world's creeds. True knowledge of the Bible will, because of its own inner strength, stand firmly on the ground of spiritual science, attaching equal value to all the religious creeds of the world. This is because true knowledge of the Bible, for the reasons given at the end of our last lecture, cannot be truthfully confined within one denomination or another, but must be universal. In this way the religions will be reconciled. What I was able to tell you in my first lecture about the Indian who gave the lecture, “Christ and Christianity,” seems like the beginning of such a reconciliation. This Indian, no doubt subject to all the prejudices of his nation, nevertheless looked up to Christ in an interdenominational sense. It will be the task of spiritual scientific activity within the different religious confessions to try to understand this figure of Christ. For it seems to me that the task of our spiritual movement must be to deepen the religious creeds so that the inner nature of the different religions can be understood and deepened.

I should like in this connection to indicate something I have often pictured for you in the past, e.g., how a Buddhist who is an anthroposophist would conduct himself in relation to an anthroposophist who is a Christian. The Buddhist would say, “Gautama Buddha, who after first being a Boddhisattva then became a Buddha, after his death reached such a height that he no longer needs to return to earth.” The Christian who is an anthroposophist would reply, “I understand, for if I find my way into your heart and believe what you believe, I myself believe that about your Buddha.” This is what it means to understand the religion of the other person, to bring oneself to the other's religion. The Christian who has become an anthroposophist can understand everything that the other man says.

And what would the Buddhist who has become an anthroposophist say in reply? He would say, “I am trying to grasp what the innermost core of Christianity is. That with Christ we do not have to do with a founder of religion but with something different. In the case of the Mystery of Golgotha we have to do with an impersonal fact. Jesus of Nazareth did not stand there as the founder of a new religion, but the Christ entered into him, and He died on the Cross, thus accomplishing the Mystery of Golgotha. What is really the issue is that the Mystery of Golgotha is a cosmic fact.” And the Buddhist will say, “In future I shall no longer misunderstand, now that I have grasped the essence of your religion, as you have grasped mine, which was the issue between us. I will never picture the Christ as someone who will be reincarnated. For you the central question is what happened there. And I should be speaking in a very odd manner if I were to say that Christianity could be improved upon in any respect—that if Christ Jesus had been better understood He would not have been crucified after three years, that a religious founder should have been treated differently, and the like. The point is precisely that Christ was crucified, and the crucial consequences of that death on the Cross. There is no point in thinking that an injustice occurred at that time and that Christianity today could be improved upon.” No Buddhist who is an anthroposophist could say anything else than, “As you truly strive to understand the essence of my religion, so will I truly strive to understand the essence of yours.”

And what would be the result if people of different religions were to understand each other in such a way that the Christian were to say to the Buddhist, “I believe in your Buddha just as you do,” and if the Buddhist were to say to the Christian, “I understand the Mystery of Golgotha in the same way you do?” If something like this were to become general among human beings, what would be the consequence? There would be peace, and mutual acceptance of all religions among men. And this must come. The anthroposophical movement must consist of a true mutual understanding of all religions. It would be contrary to the spirit of anthroposophy if a Christian who became an anthroposophist were to say to a Buddhist, “It is untrue that Gautama after he became a Buddha will no longer reincarnate. He must appear in the twentieth century again as a physical human being.” Whereupon the Buddhist would say, “Can your anthroposophy lead you only to deride my religion?” And as a result instead of peace discord would arise among the religions. In the same way a Christian would have to tell a Buddhist who insisted on speaking about the possible improvements in Christianity, “If you can maintain that the Mystery of Golgotha was a mistake, and that Christ could return in a physical body so that He could succeed better than before, then you are making no effort to understand my religion, you are deriding it.” It is no task of anthroposophy to deride any religion, old or new, that is worthy of respect. If this were the task of anthroposophy it would be founding a society on mutual derision, not on the understanding of the equality of all religions!

In order to understand the spirit and the occult core of anthroposophy we must write this in our souls. And we can do this in no better way than by extending the strength and love that are working in the Gospels to the understanding of all religions. The later lectures in this cycle will show us how this can be achieved most particularly in connection with the Gospel of St. Mark.

• 1. Berlin, December 14th, 1911. English translation in Turning Points in Spiritual History (London: Rudolf Steiner Publishing Co., 1934).
• 2. Raphael. Raffaello Santi, 1483–1520, Italian painter, famous especially for his Madonnas and for his paintings in the Stanza della Segnatura in the Vatican, especially The School of Athens and the Disputä.
• 3. ... proof to which I already alluded in Munich. In a lecture of August 31, 1912, not translated, entitled, “Theosophy and the Spiritual Life of the Present.”
• 4. Hermann Grimm, 1828–1901. The books on Raphael written by him appeared under the title Das Leben Raphael (The Life of Raphael) 1872, 1885 and 1896. Raphael als Weltmacht (Raphael as World Power) appears in his posthumously published Fragments, Vol. II.