The Rudolf Steiner Archive

In today's lecture I would first like to speak about what we can know within occult research about the Christ Being, and then link an examination of the progress we have made in our knowledge of the Christ since the Mystery of Golgotha.

Within our spiritual movement, the great significance of the Mystery of Golgotha for the entire evolution of the earth has been repeatedly pointed out. By pursuing this significance within occult research, we were able to arrive at three preliminary stages of the Mystery of Golgotha, which took place within and in connection with the evolution of the earth. Three preliminary stages precede the Mystery of Golgotha, preparing it, but they do not take place on the physical plane; they take place in the higher worlds.

The first of these events occurred during the Lemurian evolution of the Earth. The second and third events occurred during the Atlantean evolution of the Earth. The fourth event is the Mystery of Golgotha, which took place on the physical plane during the post-Atlantean period, at the beginning of our era.

In the Lemurian period, the same Being that we know as the Christ Being unites with another Being from the higher worlds, a Being from the higher worlds that did not embody itself on the physical plane but belonged to the world of the higher hierarchies. And just as we speak of the mystery of Golgotha as the Christ entering into the body of Jesus of Nazareth, so we can speak of the Christ entering into an archangelic being of the higher worlds in the ancient Lemurian times. One could speak of the fact that a similar event, translated into the spiritual, took place during the Lemurian evolution, as later took place on the physical plane the baptism of John in the Jordan. Thus, in those ancient times, we meet the Christ-being in the soul body of an archangel. And through this sacrifice of the Christ-Being, through entering into the soul body of an archangel, a very definite effect is radiated from the spiritual worlds into the evolution on earth.

In order to understand the significance of this event, we must speak of a danger that threatened the entire human evolution in the Lemurian period through the forces of Lucifer. If humanity had not averted this danger, all that we call the human being's sensory perception would have been disrupted. Under the influence of Lucifer, the sensory powers would not have been able to develop as they have done, but would have become much more sensitive, much more capable of arousal in relation to the outside world. For example, we would have had to go through the world like this: If we had seen a blue color, it would have been as if it had been sucked into our eyes and we would have felt something like a sucking power, and if we had seen a red color, we would have felt something like a stinging in the eyes. We only have to imagine what we humans would have become if we had been thrown back and forth at every turn in life by the sensory perceptions in nothing but arousing impressions. This danger was averted by the fact that the Christ, I must now say, did not embody himself, but rather ensouled himself in an archangelic being, and the powers that radiated from the spiritual worlds as a result poured into the evolution of mankind, and the powers of the senses were harmonized so that the danger just discussed was averted from people and they received the necessary balance. Today, when we consider the moderation of our sensory perceptions, we can look back to the ancient Lemurian time and say: It was then that the Christ sacrificed Himself, ensouled Himself in an archangelic being, and took from us the danger of hypersensitivity of our sensory system.

The second danger threatened human evolution, and that now through Ahriman and Lucifer together, in the first period of Atlantean evolution. During this time, an abnormal development threatened the life forces. The life forces should have developed in such a way that, for example, when man felt hunger and had food before him, he would have pounced on the food with animal greed. And on the other hand, for example, if he had had any food before him that was not beneficial to him, he would have felt terrible disgust and fled from the food. At that time man was threatened by the hyper-sensitivity of the life forces. The Christ once more embodied Himself in an archangel-like being of the higher hierarchies, and through this sacrifice of the Christ the danger just described was averted from humanity, and the life forces were so harmonized that we can now use them in moderation and balance.

The third danger threatened human development towards the end of the Atlantean period. Through the influence of Lucifer and Ahriman, the three soul powers, thinking, feeling and willing, were to become disorderly, so that they would have worked in a disorderly, chaotic manner if this danger had not been averted.

If we want to understand how this matter actually stands, we must realize that the earth is not only what geologists think, a mineral body, but that the earth is a whole organism. What rises from the earth's surface, what rises from the earth's surface as misty vapors, is not only physical haze, but also the embodiment of passions that can unite with the passions and drives of human beings and that are permeated by Luciferic and Ahrimanic forces. In the human soul, they would have caused chaotic thinking, feeling and willing during the period of time indicated. And if this danger had not been averted, the whole human race would have had to fall into a kind of delirium as a result of the chaotic thinking, feeling and willing. The human race would have developed into a madness that would have become the normal state of the earth. Then the Christ-Being ensouled itself for the third time in an archangel-like Being and averted this danger through the radiations that could be exerted through this newly-characterized sacrifice on the development of mankind. The effect of this third ensoulment of the Christ-Being is the harmonization of thinking, feeling and willing in the nature of the human soul.

The Greeks, who sensed something like an afterimage of the events during the Atlantean period in their mythology, also expressed this supersensible fact in their mythology. And the image, the afterimage under which the Greeks imagined the third inspiration of Christ in an archangel-like being, is Apollo, the sun god. Apollo, as protector of the oracles of Pythia, appears as the entity that harmonizes the dragon that rises from the earth in the form of vapors. If Apollo did not harmonize this vapor, it would flow into the passion of Pythia, and thinking, feeling and willing would be expressed as madness. Through the impregnation with the powers of Apollo, what the Pythia has to say sometimes becomes the wisest advice given to the Greeks.

If one could have asked an initiate of the ancient mysteries for his true opinion of who Apollo is, he would most certainly have given the answer: He is the forerunner of the Christ Jesus, who has only not yet descended to the physical plane.

Humanity has preserved a wonderful image of this third Christ event in the picture of St. George slaying the dragon, or Archangel Michael slaying the dragon. It is wonderful to be able to pay attention to how, in fact, this image of St. George slaying the dragon is an echo of the third supersensible Christ event.

And the fourth event occurred in the post-Atlantean period, when humanity was again exposed to the danger of becoming disorderly in the course of development with the soul forces. Now the human ego itself was to become disorderly.

The first danger was that the sense powers would have come into disorder. The second danger was that the life forces would have come into disorder. The third danger was that the soul forces, thinking, feeling and willing, would have come into disorder. The fourth danger was that the powers of the I would have come into disorder.

The same Being, the Christ Being, which had previously divided Itself three times, now embodied Itself in the Mystery of Golgotha in Jesus of Nazareth, in order to avert this fourth danger from humanity through Its radiance into the earth aura.

One can truly see in the development of humanity over the centuries that preceded the Mystery of Golgotha, and the centuries that followed, how the danger existed that would bring disorder to the I and its power. We see how, with the blossoming of the power of the I, which we can observe in Greek philosophy in Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, beginning with Thales and Heraclitus, we see how, alongside the blossoming of the power of the I through Greek philosophy, something else is taking place. As the powers of human thought are blossoming in Thales, Heraclitus, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, we see, from about the same time, the powers of the so-called Sibyls spreading throughout the whole of the then civilized part of the earth, showing themselves here and there. These Sibyls, which appear alongside the emergence of philosophy, represent how chaos is to penetrate into the forces of the I. We see how, on the one hand, what such Sibyls proclaim can give rise to truth, to good prophecy, and, on the other hand, misunderstandings, deceptive, disorderly ego-forces that speak out of the Sibyls. How the chaotic-earthly speaks out of the Sibyls was wonderfully portrayed by Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel, out of tradition. It can be seen in the gestures of the individual Sibyls how the disorder of the ego-forces worked through them, expressing itself in the most diverse ways.

And Michelangelo has placed, as a polar opposite to the Sibyls, those who have tried to seek the I, to find the I in human nature and to make it fruitful for the historical development of humanity: they are the prophets. What appears to us in Michelangelo's Sibyls and Prophets represents the two poles: On the one hand, the tendency of the ego to fall into disorder, on the other hand, the Jewish prophetic search to bring the ego forces into order. Human nature was seething around the actual awareness of the ego, which was to occur at that time. If the danger had not been averted, dark prophetic and Sibylline forces would today be chaotically mixed up in our ego. A real clarity of the ego could not have existed in the development of the following centuries. Then the incarnation of Christ in Jesus of Nazareth fell into this ferment and brought about the harmonization of human nature for the fourth time. This could only happen because the Christ-being embodied itself in a human being who, in the highest sense, had brought all the abilities that came to man at that time to development within himself.

Just as today's occult research enables us to throw light on the four stages of the Mystery of Golgotha, it also enables us to spread light on the nature of Jesus of Nazareth, in whom the Christ-being, through the Mystery of Golgotha, the last stage, has embodied itself. On earlier occasions I was able to point out that two Jesus children were born at the beginning of our era. I was able to show that in the twelfth year of the one Jesus child, who descended from the Nathanic line of the House of David, the soul of the other Jesus child, who descended from the Solomonic line, entered, so that the two Jesus children became one being. If we ask ourselves who this twelve-year-old Jesus of Nazareth was, occult research answers today: It is the soul of Zarathustra in a very special human being, who descended from the Nathanic line of the House of David. And if we now turn our spiritual gaze to the being of Zarathustra in the Nathanic Jesus, we see how this Jesus of Nazareth developed until his thirtieth year.

We can distinguish three epochs in the development of this Jesus of Nazareth. The first from the age of twelve to eighteen. The second from the age of eighteen to twenty-four. The third from about the age of twenty-four to thirty. The young Jesus of Nazareth lived in the house of his real father and the mother of the Solomon-like boy Jesus. The other two had died in the meantime. The young Jesus of Nazareth was introduced to his father's trade, a kind of carpentry or joinery. But strangely enough, he developed with infinite perfection of spiritual life in his soul. We must note that basically no one in his family understood the deeply significant development of the young Jesus of Nazareth. He was alone with it even as a boy from twelve to eighteen years old; completely alone with it. What made this inner development, which took place in the solitude of the soul, so remarkable was that Jesus of Nazareth was able to draw from the depths of his soul all the great revelations that had come to the Jewish people over time. In the time when Jesus of Nazareth lived, the Israelite people hardly had anything else but written traditions of what the ancient prophets had once received in direct revelations from the spiritual worlds. They knew from the scriptures what the ancients had received in revelation, but they no longer had the opportunity to reach up to the revelation itself, which had once come to the ancient prophets through that voice called the great Bath-Kol. In a retrogressive development, Jesus of Nazareth went through everything again that the Jewish people had gone through, and he worked his way up to the point where his soul sensed: “The great Bath-Kol speaks to me again. Directly from the spiritual world I hear the voice once received by the prophets. And as is the case with such inner development, so it was also with Jesus of Nazareth: this inner development was connected with the deepest mental pain and suffering. The highest realizations are not attained without pain and suffering. In particular, there was one that settled like a terrible pain in the soul of Jesus of Nazareth, who was about seventeen to eighteen years old, when he said to himself: “Once the great Bath-Kol spoke the most wonderful revelations to the Jewish people. Today the Jewish people are here, but if the great Bath-Kol were to speak to them today, there would be no one to hear her. They understand the scriptures, but they no longer understand the living scripture. He was lonely within himself; an immense sadness came over his soul, over what had become of his people in the downward development of humanity. Then the time came when Jesus of Nazareth was to be sent out into the world. He wandered around, practicing his trade here and there, in the most diverse areas, both in Palestine and outside of Palestine, in pagan areas. These wanderings were particularly remarkable in their impression on the people Jesus of Nazareth came to. What the pain in his soul had done had been transformed into something like love, which one felt radiating from him directly in his presence. When he sat with the people he visited in the evening after he had finished his work, they felt an atmosphere of love surrounding them with his words, but also through his mere presence. The love-imbued words he spoke to them made the deepest impression on the people, and when he had gone away to work elsewhere, something like the most vivid memory of him remained with the people he had left. It often happened that Jesus of Nazareth had been gone for three or four weeks when the people he had left three to four weeks earlier had a shared vision that he entered their house again and spoke to them – the vision spoke to them. So deep was the impression that, in essence, he had remained with them, this Jesus of Nazareth. Thus, what Jesus of Nazareth was, found expression in hundreds and hundreds of souls as he wandered around in his eighteenth to twenty-fourth year.

During these wanderings, Jesus of Nazareth also came to gentile areas. One day he came to a gentile place where the population was neglected. The place was abandoned by its priests. In this place was a place of sacrifice, but it was deserted. The priests had fled because an evil disease had broken out among the people of the place. Such places of sacrifice and the cultic practices at these places of sacrifice were derived from the mysteries. What had been revealed in the mysteries passed into the ceremonial acts at these places of sacrifice. To understand such a thing, one must be a little aware of the significance of ceremonial sacrifice. Through the way the sacrificial rites are performed and the prayers that permeate them, spiritual forces do indeed flow down onto the altars, so to speak. But Jesus of Nazareth, when he came to the place of worship in the place I have mentioned, no longer found the good powers that had once flowed down on the altars during the ancient sacrifices. He found the places of worship, abandoned by their priests, populated by demonic forces that were around the altar. Even the neglected, sickly, and downtrodden people of this pagan place were deeply impressed when they saw Jesus of Nazareth, whom they did not know, but who radiated an atmosphere of love. At first they thought that one of their old priests, who had abandoned them, had returned and wanted to offer them their pagan sacrifices. Of course, Jesus of Nazareth did not want to offer the pagan sacrifice, but he went among the people. There he was seized by the power of the demons that were around the altar, and he fell as if dead. When the people saw this, they fled, and in his stupor, Jesus of Nazareth still saw the people being pursued by the demonic forces. Then he lost his usual consciousness and was transported into spiritual worlds. And now he could perceive what had once been revealed to the ancient mystery priests in purity and truth; he could perceive the ancient pagan revelations, just as he had perceived the Jewish revelations in the voice of the great Bath-Kol. And now he could hear the ancient pagan revelation, which can be repeated in today's language in the following way:

Amen
Evil reigns
Witnesses of dissolving unity
Of self-guilt incurred by others
Experienced in daily bread
in which heaven's will does not prevail
because man has separated himself from your kingdom
and forgotten your name
you fathers in the heavens.

And Jesus of Nazareth knew in his altered state of consciousness that this revelation had passed through the ancient sacred teachings of the mysteries. He awakened and had retained the memory of that which had once been the ancient sacred teachings of the pagan religions. He then turned what he had received in this revelation around for the further progress of humanity, and the “Our Father” came from it.

What is learned about the higher worlds is not learned merely through teaching, but rather through facts that are experienced in the higher worlds. But the full significance of such a revelation is then experienced in an infinitely deeper way than one can ever experience something through teachings or theories. A new great sorrow settled in the soul of Jesus of Nazareth. He had before him in a particularly clear case the whole misery that pagan revelations had become, and could now contrast it with what they had once been. Just as he could say in the midst of the Jewish people: And even if the voice of the great Bath-Kol were to resound today, there are no longer any people here who could understand it ; one is alone with it, – so he could now say in relation to the pagan people: And even if the voices of the old pagan mysteries were to resound again everywhere, there would no longer be any people here who could understand them.

Thus, Jesus of Nazareth was to learn of the declining development of humanity in the deepest pain.

The story just told took place around the twenty-fourth year of Jesus of Nazareth. Shortly after that happened, he returned home. It was around the time his father died in Nazareth.

During the time between his twenty-fourth and thirtieth year, now that he was back home in Nazareth, he came into contact with the Essenes, who had one or two colonies in the area. He did not actually become an Essene, but because of the depth of his inner life and the two great sorrows that had settled in his soul and been transformed into love, the Essenes accepted him and often talked to him about their deepest secrets, which they had otherwise only spoken about among their own kind, among initiates. Only to him did they speak of their deepest secrets. And in the Essenes he came to know people who, in those days, through a special inner development, sought to ascend again to that from which humanity had developed downward. He eagerly absorbed what he could learn from the Essenes about the human development of such an ascent. But one day, as he left the Essene house and passed through the gate, he had a particularly remarkable vision: on either side of the gate he saw two figures whom he later, through his later experiences, knew to be Lucifer and Ahriman. They fled from the gates of the Essenes into the rest of the world. And through what he had gone through in his own inner development, he was now so far that he could, so to speak, read in the occult writing the meaning of this flight of Lucifer and Ahriman from the gates of the Essenes. He now knew: Yes, it is also possible in this present time for individual

people, through a special development of soul, can ascend to spiritual heights, but only at the expense of other people. For only a few chosen ones could undergo the Essene development, and they could only do so because others remained at lower levels. He knew that the Essenes, through their mystical development, freed themselves from the influence of Lucifer and Ahriman, but that Lucifer and Ahriman, because they had to flee from the Essenes, fled precisely to the other people and seized the rest of humanity all the more. And from this occult experience came the third great pain for him, in that he could say to himself: Yes, it is possible for a few specially chosen people to ascend to what was formerly revealed to people, but they can only ascend at the expense of the other people. That almost broke his heart, for he was full of love for all people. And now, as a result of the third great sorrow, he could say to himself: Just as individuals in our time ascend to higher spiritual knowledge, it must be withheld from the rest of humanity. No matter how high a soul may rise, or what it may know, to experience this with the Essenes, the other people in the wide world are far too miserable for that.

When Jesus of Nazareth experienced such things, he was able to see how his stepmother or foster mother increasingly gained more and more understanding for his inner life. This was especially the case since the death of his father. And while in earlier years Jesus of Nazareth was quite alone and lonely in the family, during this time many a conversation developed with his mother in which Jesus of Nazareth was able to speak of what he experienced in his lonely soul. And there came a great and decisive conversation between Jesus of Nazareth and the mother in the thirtieth year of his life. All the insights that had been deposited in his soul since the age of twelve – through hearing the voice of the great Bath-Kol, through the cosmic Lord's Prayer, through the experience with the Essenes – all this he spoke to his mother one day. And he spoke to his mother in such a way that this conversation is deeply moving, even if it is deciphered afterwards from the Akasha Chronicle by occult research. The words went over to his mother not just as words, but as living forces that carried the essence of the soul of Jesus of Nazareth into the essence of his mother's soul as if on wings. So deeply connected was Jesus of Nazareth with what he had to clothe in his words that his suffering and his insights passed into the words and flowed over into the heart and soul of his mother. And it was as if the mother had been imbued with a new life; she lived anew, rejuvenated.

But Jesus of Nazareth entered into a completely different state of mind. With his words, he had poured out what was so intimately connected with them, his own ego. Zarathustra's ego had left the three bodies, the physical, etheric and astral bodies of Jesus of Nazareth, and the cosmic forces were working in the three bodies. Without ego consciousness, as in a higher dream life, Jesus of Nazareth was driven onto the path to John the Baptist: Jesus of Nazareth, who had breathed out his Zarathustra ego in conversation with his mother.

Thus prepared, after having surrendered his Zarathustra ego, he received the Christ essence as his new ego. The Mystery of Golgotha, the fourth stage of the Christ events we have been speaking of, was thus prepared. It took place during the three years that the Christ lived in the body of Jesus of Nazareth, up to the Mystery of Golgotha. And it was only at the event, the memory of which we celebrate in the event of Pentecost, that the disciples, as if from a different state of consciousness, came to realize what had happened to Christ Jesus.

When we survey what has now been revealed about the Christ-Being as a result of occult research in the present day, can we say that our hearts and minds would be less shaken by these revelations for our time than by those revelations that became known to an earlier time

about Jesus and Christ? The occult science of our day really does enable us to know more and deeper about the Christ Jesus than past centuries have known. And we may say that the figure of the Christ grows to cosmic greatness as we try to recognize it with the means that modern occultism puts at our disposal.

Let us look back at what was given to an earlier humanity about the Christ Jesus, for example in the four Gospels. From the occult point of view, we are clear that those who wrote the Gospels wrote them according to the inspirations of ancient mysteries, from an atavistic clairvoyance. I have pointed this out in my book “Christianity as a Mystical Fact”. The first person to have an impression of the cosmic significance of the Christ was Paul; Paul, who was able to perceive how the power of the Christ-Being had flowed into the earth aura. What had emerged for Paul at a certain point in his knowledge of the Christ can, if we deepen our knowledge of occultism today, emerge for people in further fields of knowledge of the Christ. For by extending Paul's vision from the Mystery of Golgotha to its three preliminary stages, by extending it from what for Paul is almost exclusively the perception of Jesus of Nazareth to the life of Christ Jesus, then, in a sense, Paul's method is spread from a single center over the whole great phenomenon of the Christ Jesus life. In that today, through dedicated occult research, we are able to generalize the Pauline method for the realization of the Christ, real progress in the realization of the Christ has been made.

I did not want to speak in the abstract about the development of progress in the knowledge of Christ, but rather to illustrate concretely what knowledge of Christ can be gained in the present day through occult science. Thus, it may have become apparent to us from our reflection today that spiritual science, as we understand it, can be an instrument for an ever deeper knowledge of Christ. It is to be hoped that, even if humanity has come so far in the rejection of the old religious conceptions about the Christ through materialistic influences, the newer spiritual science will give the Christ to humanity again. For this spiritual science does not speak about the Christ out of theory, but in remembrance of the Christ-Word itself: “I am with you until the end of the days on earth!” For the Christ has been poured into the aura of the earth, in which we ourselves are embedded. He lives in it! And we can associate with him as a spiritual being in the aura of the earth if we acquire the ability to do so as the disciples once lived with Christ Jesus on the physical plane. We must only get used to really seeing through the living presence of Christ in the earth aura and not just identifying Christianity with a mere teaching, a mere doctrine. Since the Mystery of Golgotha, Christ has been there, is around us. We can find him in the same world in which we are, in which he is, only not in a physical form, but as a spiritual being.

And we can follow how He is active as a Being, independently of what human beings have been able to think about Him. Have we not experienced that in councils and other places of dispute, opinions and teachings about the Christ have gone back and forth, that people have not been able to come to terms with their thoughts about the Christ? How many opinions have been expressed about the Christ! But if the further development of the Christ impulse had depended on the opinions of men about it, then this further development of the Christ impulse would truly be in a sorry state. This Christ impulse is a living reality in the evolution of the earth, and it works in it as a reality, quite apart from what men have thought about it.

To visualize this, let us consider the date October 28, 312. At that time, Constantine, son of Constantius Chlorus, stood at the gates of Rome, which was ruled by Maxentius. Constantine, with his relatively smaller army, approached Rome, where Maxentius commanded a significantly larger army. Maxentius was safe within the walls of Rome. Constantine approached in an open field. The battle that was fought then decided the map of Europe. Those who study history in its depths will always have to admit: it was not the ideas of the generals, not the rational arguments of men that decided what happened in the battle, but something quite different! Maxentius consulted the Sibylline books and received the answer: If you attack Constantine outside the gates of Rome, you will destroy the greatest enemy of Rome. — A true oracle! And in the night before the battle, Maxentius had a dream that urged him to leave the safety of the walls of Rome and go out to meet Constantine. But Constantine, with his much smaller army, had a dream that night that instructed him to let his army carry the symbol of Christ and to win in this sign. No rational arguments, no strategic reasons, no knowledge of warfare had played a role at that time, because it came down to the decision, but subconscious forces faced each other in Maxentius and Constantine. One may think of the value or worthlessness of Constantine as one wants, in the victory, which Constantine achieved at that time, the impulse of Christ lived as a real, actual force, which worked through the subconscious of humans since the Mystery of Golgotha, completely apart from what humans thought about the Christ.

This is only one of the events, of which many could be cited, that testify to how the Christ impulse first entered into the subconscious soul forces, which would otherwise have passed over into the Sibylline, and worked its way up. And while the superconscious soul forces increasingly tended to no longer understand the Christ impulse through the materialistic current, the Christ continues to work in the subconscious soul forces of people, just as He worked in Constantine and Maxentius.

Today, however, we are faced with the necessity of bringing up what has been working in the subconscious soul forces and consciously presenting it to the soul. We must consciously recognize the Being that has been working in the aura of the Earth, in the souls of human beings, since the Mystery of Golgotha, and that has determined the fate of the evolution of the Earth and of humanity from this aura of the Earth since the Mystery of Golgotha.

When we bear this in mind, we understand the progress that human knowledge has made in relation to Christ, and we understand our own task in relation to the progress in the knowledge of Christ.

Christian initiation has existed since the founding of Christianity. Through the Middle Ages and in our own time it has remained the same among a number of religious Orders as well as among the Rosicrucians. It consists of a spiritual training which culminates in certain identical and invariable symptoms. The Brotherhoods where, in profound secrecy, this training used to be given, are the home of all spiritual life and religious progress.

In certain respects the Christian initiation is more difficult of attainment than the initiation of ancient times. It is bound up with the essence and mission of Christianity which came into the world at a time when man had descended most deeply into matter. This descent was to imbue him with a new consciousness, but the struggle involved in rising from the depths of materialism demands greater effort and renders initiation more difficult. That is why the Christian masters demand intense humility and devotion of their pupils.

The Christian initiation has always consisted of seven stages, four of which correspond to four of the Stations of Calvary. The stages are:—

1. The Washing of the Feet
2. The Scourging
3. The Crowning with Thorns
4. The Bearing of the Cross
5. The Mystic Death
6. The Entombment
7. The Resurrection

The Washing of the Feet is a preparatory exercise of a moral character, relating to the scene where Christ washes the feet of the disciples before the Easter Festival (St. John 13): “Verity, verily I say unto you, the servant is not greater than his Lord; neither he that is sent greater than he that sent him.” Theology gives a purely moral interpretation to this act and looks upon it merely as an example of the profound humility and devotion of the Master to His disciples and His work. The Rosicrucians also held this view but in a deeper sense, relating the story to the evolution of all beings in Nature. The scene is really an allusion to the law that the higher is a product of the lower. The plant might say to the mineral: I am above you since I have a life which you have not; yet without you I could not exist, for the substances which nourish me are drawn from you. The animal again might say to the plant: I am above you, for I have feeling, desires, the capacity for voluntary movement which you have not; but without the food which you provide, without your leaves and fruits I could not live. And man should say to the plants: I am above you, but to you I owe the oxygen which I breathe. To the animals he should say: I have a soul and you have not; yet we are brothers and companions, involved in the great process of evolution. The esoteric meaning of the Washing of the Feet is that Jesus the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of God, could not exist without the Apostles.

The neophyte who meditates on this theme for months and years has a vision of the Washing of the Feet in the astral world during sleep. Then he is ready to pass to the second stage of the Christian initiation.

The Scourging,—At this stage man learns to resist the scourgings of life. Life brings sufferings of all kinds—physical, moral, intellectual, spiritual. Life is felt to be a dreadful and incessant torture. The disciple must endure it with perfect equanimity of soul and heroic courage. He must cease to know physical or moral fear. When he has become fearless, he sees, in dream, the scene of the Scourging. In another vision he sees himself in the Christ Who is scourged. Certain symptoms in physical life accompany this event. There is an intensification of the life of feeling, a wider sense of life and of love. We have an example of heightened sensibility transferred to the world of intelligence, in the life of Goethe. After lengthy osteological studies of the skeleton of man and of the animals, as well as comparative embryological research, Goethe came to the conclusion that the intermaxillary bone must exist in man. Before his time, science denied the existence of this bone in the upper jaw of man. Goethe himself says that he was overcome with joy and a kind of ecstasy when he actually discovered the intermaxillary bone in the human jaw, adding that it was one of the most wonderful experiences of his life. During his Italian journey he again had the same experience. He was looking at a fragment of a sheep's skull, and another idea came to him—an idea still more significant in regard to human evolution—that the human brain, the seat of intelligence, the centre of voluntary movements, is a development and a metamorphosis of the spinal marrow, just as the flower is a culmination and synthesis of root and stem. What faculty was it that enabled Goethe to make these marvelous discoveries which by themselves deserve to make his name immortal? It was his sublime intelligence on the one hand, but also his intense sympathy with all living beings and the whole of Nature. Such sensitiveness is a refinement and an extension of the forces of life and love. It corresponds to the second stage of Christian initiation and is the recompense for the trial of the Scourging. Man acquires a feeling of love for all beings and this gives him a sense of living in the heart of Nature herself.

The Crowning with Thorns,—At this stage man must learn to brave the world morally and intellectually, to desist from anger when all that is most dear to him is being attacked. The capacity to remain aloof when everything is tumbling about our ears, to say “Yea” when the rest of the world says “Nay”—that is what must be acquired before the next step can be taken. This gives rise to a new symptom, namely a dissociation, or rather the power of a momentary dissociation of three faculties which, in man, are united: the faculties of willing, feeling and thinking. We must learn to separate and to re-unite them at will. So long, for example, as some outer event carries us away with uncontrolled enthusiasm, we are immature, for such enthusiasm comes from the event, not from ourselves, and we may even exercise a shattering influence of which we are not master.

The enthusiasm of the disciple must have its well-spring in the depths of his inner life. He must therefore be able to remain impassive in the face of any event, no matter how catastrophic. That is the only way to reach freedom. The dissociation of feeling, thinking and willing produces in the brain a change that is symbolised by the Crown of Thorns. If this test is to be passed without danger, the powers inherent in the personality must be sufficiently intense and in perfect equilibrium. If the disciple has not reached this stage, or if he receives wrong guidance, the change in the brain may lead to insanity. Insanity is nothing but an involuntary separation of these faculties without the possibility of their re-union by dint of the inner will. The disciple brings about the separation by an act of conscious volition. A flash of his will re-establishes the link between the organs and the activities of soul. In the lunatic, the cleft may be incurable and produce a physical lesion in the nerve-centres.

In the course of the stage in the Christian initiation known as the Crowning with Thorns, there arises the phenomenon known as the Guardian of the Threshold—the appearance of the lower double of man. The spiritual being of man, composed of his impulses of will, his desires and his thoughts, appears to the Initiate in visible form. It is a form that is sometimes repugnant and terrible, for it is the offspring of his good and bad desires and of his karma—it is their personification in the astral world, the Evil Pilot of the Egyptian Book of the Dead. This form must be conquered by man before he can find the higher Self. The Guardian of the Threshold which has been a phenomenon of astral vision from times immemorial, is the origin of all the myths concerning the struggles of Heroes with monsters, of Perseus and Hercules with the Hydra, of St. George and Siegfried with the dragon.

The premature appearance of the astral world and the sudden apparition of the Double or Guardian of the Threshold may lead a man who is not fully prepared or who has not taken all the precautions necessary for the disciple, to madness and insanity.

The Bearing of the Cross refers, symbolically, to a virtue of the soul. This virtue which consists in a sense of having ‘the world on one's conscience’ as Atlas bore the world on his shoulders, may be called a feeling of indentification with the whole Earth, or in the words of oriental occultism the cessation of the feeling of separateness.

In general, and above all in modern times, men identify themselves with the body. (In his Ethics, Spinoza says that the basic and fundamental idea of man is the idea of the body in action.) The disciple must cultivate the idea that in the sum-total of things, his body in itself is of no more importance than any other body, whether it be the body of an animal, a table or a piece of marble. The self is not bounded by the skin; it is united with the great organism of the universe as the hand is united with the rest of the body. The hand alone would be as dust and ashes. What would the body of man be without the soil on which he rests, without the air he breathes? It would die, for it is but a tiny organ of the Earth and the air. That is why the disciple must sink himself in every other being and identify himself with the Spirit of the Earth.

Goethe has given a marvelous description of this stage at the beginning of Faust. The Spirit of the Earth to whom Faust aspires, appears before him and speaks these words:

“In the tides of life, in Action's storm,
A fluctuant wave,
A shuttle free,
Birth and the Grave,
An eternal sea,
A weaving, flowing
Life, all-glowing;

Thus at Time's humming loom 'tis my hand prepares
The garments of Life which the Divinity weaves.”

To identify oneself with all beings does not mean that the body is to be despised. It must be borne as some exterior object, even as Christ bore His Cross. The Spirit must wield the body as the hand wields the hammer. At this stage the disciple is conscious of the occult powers lying latent in his body. In the course of his meditations, the stigmata may even appear on his skin. This is the sign that he is ripe for the fifth stage, where, in sudden illumination, the Mystic Death is revealed to him.

The Mystic Death,—In the grip of the greatest of all suffering the disciple recognises that the world of the senses is illusion. He is actually aware of death and of descending into the world of shades, but then the darkness breaks and a new light—the astral light—shines out. The veil of the temple is ‘rent in twain.’ This light has nothing in common with the physical light of the sun. It rays forth from the inner being of man. The impression it makes is wholly unlike that made by outer light. The following comparison will give us some idea of what is meant. We imagine that we are leaving a turbulent city behind us and entering a dense forest. The noises gradually cease and the silence becomes complete. We finally begin to be aware of what lies beyond the silence, to pass the zero point at which all external sound has ceased. And now sound arises again for the inner ear from the other side of existence. Such is the experience of the soul of one who enters the astral world. He is then in contact with the inverse quality of the things with which he was familiar, just as in arithmetic, beneath the zero point, we enter into the growing series of negative numbers.

Thus do we need to lose all in order to regain all, and this applies to our own existence. In the moment of losing all we appear to die to ourselves and it is in the world around us that we begin to live again.

Such is the Mystic Death. When a man has passed this stage, the time has come for the next:

The Entombment,—Man feels that he is freed from his own body and is one with the planet. He is one with the Earth and finds himself again within the planetary life.

The Resurrection,—This is a sublime experience, impossible of description unless it be within the walls of the sanctuary. The last stage of Christian initiation transcends all words and all analogy fails. At this stage man acquires the power of healing. Yet it must be realised that he who possesses it, possesses at the same time the inverse power to bring about disease. The negative invariably goes in hand with the positive. Hence the tremendous responsibility attaching to this power which may be characterised by the saying: The creative word issues from the soul aflame.

When we speak of human development in Christian mysticism, we have to consider that the way to higher development in the spirit was always strictly laid down in advance. For gnostic Christian development, the individual had to withdraw from outer civilization. The whole was so strict that it could not be done by someone who was involved in the outside working world. But anyone can achieve a great deal by even approximately taking this way. The Christian way demands a considerable level of development. It differs from all other ways in that those who follow it cannot gain insight into reincarnation and karma on their own.

Reincarnation was accepted belief in esoteric Christianity, but did not form part of exoteric Christianity. There was a particular reason why it was not part of Christian teaching in the past.

You only need to go back a few thousand years to come to a time when the teaching of reincarnation and karma was more or less world-wide. It was only somewhat less well known among peoples of Semitic origin. Apart from this it would be found everywhere in those times. People oppressed by their destiny would say to themselves: ‘This is one of many lives. In this life I am preparing things that will have their reward in a later life.’ People were always looking up to higher worlds in those days. This was the same everywhere, and thus also among Chaldean wise men who were priests. The stars were to them a reflection of a soul and a spirit, they were the bodies of spirits. The whole of cosmic space was filled with living spiritual entities for them. They would speak of the laws that governed the movements of the stars as the will of the spirits embodied in the sun and the planets. Life in those days was a matter of continually turning to the spirit in your inner life. The work people did on earth then was primitive, but their penetration of the universe in the spirit had reached a high level. So one would see sublime spiritual views side by side with a primitive material civilization.

The age which followed was to pay increasingly more attention to outer material civilization, conquering the globe for material civilization, as it were. Human beings were meant to concentrate on physical life. The thinking of the Chaldean priests, the followers of Hermes and those of the holy Rishis was directed to the life of the spirit. Repeated earth lives were a factual reality to them. Then humanity had to let this go of this for a while. All human beings were meant to go through one incarnation when they did not know about repeated earth lives. This was in preparation as early as 800 years before Christianity came, and it is gradually dying down again now in our time. Today, those familiar with occult streams know that Christianity, too, must return to the teaching of reincarnation and karma.

This is evident from the Mount Tabor Mystery,¹ an event that took place ‘on the mountain’. ‘On the mountain’ is a key phrase signifying that the master was taking his disciples into the innermost sphere to teach them the most occult things. It says ‘the disciples were taken out of themselves’, which means that they were taken into higher worlds. Elijah, Moses and Jesus appeared to them. This means that space and time had been overcome. Moses and Elijah, who were no longer on earth, appeared to them in their devachanic condition. The name Elijah means ‘the way of God’, the goal. The word el, meaning ‘god’ is found in elohim, Gabriel, Michael, Raphael, and also in Bel.² The name Moses signifies truth. Moses is the occult term for truth. Jesus means ‘life’ The Christ himself, standing in the middle, is life. This was written in the mental plan in letters of brass, as it were: ‘The way, the truth and the life’. The disciples said: ‘Let us put up tabernacles here.’ This means they were chelas of the second degree. The Lord also said: ‘Elijah is come already, and they knew him not. Tell this to no man until I am returned again.’ He was speaking of reincarnation. John the Baptist was Elijah. The return refers to the return of Christ Jesus.³ Understanding of this event can be prepared for with the anthroposophical view of the world.

When all human beings have been through an incarnation where they knew nothing of reincarnation and karma, reincarnation will be taught again. In the innermost circles of Christianity reincarnation was, however, always accepted as a truth. This can be seen wherever initiates taught by doing things. An example is the Trappist Order.⁴ Keeping an absolute vow of silence in one life they become excellent speakers in later incarnations. The opposite of what happens in one incarnation thus prepares for a very special gift in the next. Ardent speakers were to be created by withholding speech.

The external teaching in one age thus was that human beings should hold on to the feeling that life on earth was exhausted with this one life. They were to say to themselves: ‘A whole eternity will depend on what happens in this one life’. A radical form of this was the dogma of eternal punishment in hell. The earth would not have been conquered if the teachers of Christianity had not given this to humanity. The great teachers have never presented absolute truth but only what was right for humanity at the time. They never teach the ultimate truths but only what is right for a particular age. It would not have been right to teach reincarnation in that age. What the science of the spirit teaches is also not the ultimate truth. The anthroposophical view of the world must be taught now because it is right for this time. The people who now hear the teaching of spiritual science will hear the truth in a very different way in a later incarnation. Within three thousand years we shall learn something that belongs to a higher realm because we have previously gone through anthroposophy. This is the spiritual side of it. But all things of the spirit must also have a counter image in the physical world. The spirit who appeared in the Christ prepared the way for this several centuries beforehand.

To have people think one incarnation was the one and only one, it was necessary that something cut off the brain from the higher principles in man, from atma, buddhi, manas and from knowing about reincarnation. Humanity was given wine for this purpose. In earlier time, all temple rituals used water only. Then the use of wine was introduced, and a divine spirit—Bacchus, Dionysus—became the representative of wine. John, the most deeply initiated disciple, showed the significance of wine for inner development in his gospel. At the Wedding at Cana,⁵ water was changed into wine. Wine prepared human beings so that they no longer knew anything of reincarnation. At that time, the water for the offering was changed into wine and we are now again in the process of changing the wine into water. Anyone wishing to reach higher regions of existence must refrain from taking even a drop of alcohol now.

Every line in the gospel of John reflects a profound experience in the single individual and in the whole of humanity. Jesus said: ‘I have come to initiate this period in evolution.’ Paul, an initiate, called the Christ the inverse Adam.⁶ Adam was the first human being to appear in this form, and with this the spiritual human being was put into incarnation on earth. Two ways were open to him. He could take what the gods gave or gain something new for himself. That is the story of Cain and Abel.⁷ Abel took the animals that were there. Cain worked to produce his offering. Bread was produced through the work of Cain. Bread has always been something man has worked for himself. Working to produce bread, man has fallen into sin. Cain slew his brother. Doing his own work man fell into sin, he fell into matter.

The inverse Adam is Christ Jesus who ascends again. He has to pay for this with his blood. This had to be done once by a person. The bread and the wine have their representative in the person of the Christ, in his body and blood. The Lord had to take Cain's deed on himself: This is my body, this is my blood.⁸ Redemption has to be brought about by hallowing that which is on earth. The wine represented this at the last supper, and through this the blood was related to the wine.

The gospels exist not only to teach, they are also books of life. The stories told in them are not just external events but inner human experiences. Christian yoga consists in entering wholly into the gospels in a living way, making this the whole life of one's own soul.

Four things are absolutely necessary for Christian yoga to be at all possible. The first is simplicity. This is a Christian virtue. You have to understand that we have many experiences in life that make us lose our lack of bias. Almost every human being is biased. The only unbiased answers to questions come from children. But they are childish, because the children lack knowledge. We must learn to be wise and unbiased in the life of experience, as unbiased as children. This is called simplicity in Christian terms.

The second virtue we have to acquire is that as a Christian mystic we have to rid ourselves of something many people have, and that is inner satisfaction in religious exercises. We must devote ourselves to those exercises not for personal satisfaction but because the training we follow demands it. All pleasure in religious exercises must cease.

The third virtue is even more difficult. It calls for absolute refusal to ascribe anything whatsoever to our own skills and efficiency. Instead we must learn to ascribe it all to the divine power, the merit of God who works through us. Without this you cannot be a Christian mystic.

The fourth virtue to be achieved is patient acceptance of whatever may come upon us. All cares, all fear must be put aside, and we must be prepared to meet what comes, be it good or ill.

If we do not develop these virtues up to a certain level we cannot hope to be Christian mystics. This preparation then enables us to go through the seven stages on the road of the Christian mystic.⁹

The first stage is the washing of the feet. It is putting the words ‘to be lord you must be the servant of all’¹⁰ into practice. We must understand that we do not owe anything we are to our own self. We have to take account of everything other people and the world around us have made of us and reflect on this deeply. We are then able to see that we are connected with the whole of our environment. Having gained strength through the four virtues—simplicity, refusal to feel satisfaction at religious exercises, refusal to ascribe skills to ourselves and patient acceptance of whatever comes—we also gain strength to do the ‘washing of the feet’, as it is called, which is to look in gratitude on everything given to us from outside, everything that has raised us higher, and bow down before it. We must transform everything we feel into nothing but gratitude to those who have given it all to us. And so we must kneel before those because of whom we are, what we are. Christ Jesus knelt before his disciples for without them he could not have been what he had become. Christ Jesus had the disciples as a precondition just as a plant has the mineral world and an animal the plant world as a precondition. He, the Lord, became the servant of all. If we thus learn to lower ourselves and develop a feeling of profound gratitude, then much that exists by way of outer social form drops away and we can go through the next stage.

To do without strength from outside we must have strength inside. When we have come to be the last, we go to the father. This is called ‘the way to the father’, and we are then intimately bound up with this original strength and power. It can only be found through personal experience. We must learn to bear all pain. That is the second stage, the scourging, the second stage in Christian mysticism. The self then is sustained by itself.

To bear contempt is a yet higher stage, the third stage. One must learn to bear finding no regard among people at all. All the strength one needs must be found in the higher life. That is to wear the crown of thorns. We must learn to stand erect when the world despises us and casts derision on us. When a person has got to this point his own body has become alien to him. He has lowered himself has learned to bear pain, to bear contempt. Now the body is something he no longer lives in; his soul floats around it. This is the crucifixion, the fourth stage. It is followed by the stage where one's own body has become wholly object, as if one were tied to an alien piece of wood. Then being apart has ceased for us. It is the mystic death on the cross—the fifth stage.

The sixth stage is reached when the human being has become one with all that exists on earth, embracing it all with his feeling, experiencing the whole earth as his body. That is the entombment. The individual has then reached the point known as ‘being at one with the planet’ in initiation science. He then feels himself to be no longer apart. Man can only exist on this earth. A few hundred miles away from it and he must die, shrivel up as a hand shrivels up when it is cut off the body. The earth is then the body of the human being. We must be entombed in it. Through this condition man gains the conscious awareness of the earth. There follows the seventh stage, the resurrection. The individual has become one who is raised from the dead. This condition can only be understood by someone whose thinking no longer depends on the physical brain as its instrument.

Human beings can go through these seven stages by bringing the gospel of John, from the 13th chapter onwards, to life in themselves again and again—the washing of the feet, the path of wanting to serve, bowing down in humility before all; second stage the scourging; third stage the crown of thorns; fourth stage the crucifixion; fifth stage the mystic death on the cross; sixth stage the entombment; seventh stage the resurrection. These are the seven stages of the inner Christian mystery that have been outwardly presented on the plan of world history.

Christian monks lived through these experiences over and over again in the gospel of John, for the whole of their lives. This was the source of the strength they needed.

• 1. Tradition going back to Origines, and probably also 2 Peter 1,18, makes Mt Tabor the place where the transfiguration took place. See Rudolf Steiner's lectures given in Bern on 10 Sept. 1910 (The Gospel of St Matthew, GA 123, tr. D. Osmond, M. Kirkcaldy. New York: Anthroposophic Press 1985) and in Basel on 22 Sept. 1912 (The Gospel of St Mark, GA 139, tr. C. Mainzer, S. C. Easton. New York: Anthroposophic Press 1986). See also Matthew 17, 1-9; Mark 9, 2-9; Luke 9, 28-36.
• 2. Bel was another name for Marduk, the chief Babylonian god, meaning ‘god’, or simply ‘lord’.
• 3. See also Steiner R. Das Ereignis der Christuserscheinung in der ätherischen Welt. GA 118. Some of the lectures appear in The Reappearance of Christ in the Etheric, tr. B. Betteridge, D. Tatum, R. Pusch, M. de Ris, A. Wulsin. New York: Anthroposophic Press 1983.
• 4. Cistercian monks with strict observance of the rule which requires absolute silence, hard work in the fields, a vegetarian diet. Established in 1664 at La Trappe Monastery in northwest France
• 5. John 2,1-11. See R. Steiner's lecture in Kassel on 2 July 1909 in The Gospel of St John in Relation to the Other Gospels (GA 112). Tr. S. & L. Lockwood. New York & London: Anthroposophic Press & Rudolf Steiner Press 1948. 2nd edition rev. by M. St Goar New York: Anthroposophic Press 1982.
• 6. 1 Cor 15, 5. See R. Steiner's lecture given in Karlsruhe on 19 Oct. 1911 From Jesus to Christ (GA 131). Tr. H. Collison and D. Davy. London: Rudolf Steiner Press 1973.
• 7. See lectures given in Berlin on 10 June 1904, 22 May and 23 Oct, 1905 in The Temple Legend (GA 93). Tr. J. Wood. London: Rudolf Steiner Press 1985. Also the lecture given in The Hague on 27 March 1913 in The Effects of Esoteric Development (GA 145), tr. A. H. Parker. London: Rudolf Steiner Press 1978.
• 8. Matthew 26, 26 & 28.
• 9. See lectures given in Paris by Rudolf Steiner on 1 June 1906 (An Esoteric Cosmology, GA 94, Spring Valley: St George Publications 1978) and in Kassel on 7 July 1909 in The Gospel of St John in Relation to the Other Gospels (see Note 5).
• 10. John 13,16.

Hilary's office. Fittings not very modern. He is a manufacturer of sawn woodwork.

Secretary:
And e'en our good friends in St. George's Town
Declare that they too are dissatisfied.

Manager:
What? even they; it is deplorable.
The self-same reasons too; 'tis plain to see
With what regret and pain our friends announce
That they can deal no more with Hilary.

Secretary:
Complaints of our unpunctuality
And of the value of our goods compared
With those produced by our competitors
Reach us by post; and on my business trips
Our clients meet me with the same old tale.
The good name of this house is vanishing,
By Hilary's forefathers handed down
To us intact that we might heighten it.
And men begin to think that Hilary
Is swayed by dreamers and strange fantasies,
And, thus obsessed, no longer can bestow
The earnest care which he was wont to give
To all the operations of the firm,
Whose products were world-famous and unique.
So many as were our admirers then,
So great is now the tale of those who blame.

Manager:
It is notorious that Hilary
Long since hath let himself be led astray
By seekers after some strange spirit gifts.
To such pursuits he ever was inclined
But formerly he kept them separate
From business and its workaday routine.

(Enter Hilary.)

(To the Secretary):
It seems advisable for me to speak
Alone with our employer for a while.

(Exit Secretary.)

Anxiety it is that bids me seek
An interview and earnest speech with thee.

Hilary:
Why then does my adviser feel concerned?

Manager:
Things happen constantly which bring to light
A serious diminution in demand
For what we manufacture; nor do we
Produce as large an output as we should.
There is besides an increase of complaints
About the lower standard of our work,
And other houses step in front of us.
So too our well-known promptness kath declined
As many clients truthfully attest.
Ere long the best friends that remain to us
No more will be content with Hilary.

Hilary:
Long have I been full well aware of this
And yet indeed it leaves me unconcerned.
But none the less I feel an urgent need
To talk things over with thee; thou hast helped
Not only as the servant of my house,
But also as my dear and trusted friend.
And so I shall speak plainly to thee now
Of matters at which hitherto I've hinted.
Whoever wills to introduce new things
Must be content to let the old things die.
Henceforth the business will be carried on
In different ways from those it knew before.
Production, that but stays in straitest bounds
And without care doth offer up its fruits
Upon the market of our earthly life
Regardless of the uses they may find,
Doth seem so trivial and of little worth,
Since I have come to know the noble form
Work can assume when shaped by spirit-men.
From this time forth Thomasius shall be
Directing artist in the workshops here,
Which I shall build for him close to our works.
So will the product made by our machines
Be moulded by his will in artist-forms
And thus supply for daily human need
The useful with the exquisite combined;
Art and production shall become one whole,
And daily life by taste be beautified.
So will I add to these dead forms of sense,—
For thus do I regard our output now,—
A soul, whereby they may be justified.

Manager (after long reflection):
The plan to fabricate such wonder-wares
Suits not the spirit of our present age.
The aim of all production now must be
Complete perfection in some narrow groove.
The powers which work impersonally, and pour
The part into the whole in active streams,
Confer unthinkingly upon each link
A worth that is by wisdom not bestowed.
And were this obstacle not in thy path
Yet would thy purpose none the less be vain.
That thou shouldst find a man to realize
The plan thou hast so charmingly conceived
Passeth belief, at least it passeth mine.

Hilary:
Thou knowest, friend, I do not dream vain dreams.
How should I aim at such a lofty goal
Had not kind fate already brought to me
The man to realize what I propose?
I am amazed that thine eyes cannot see
That Strader is, in fact, this very man.
And I who, knowing this man's inner self,
And my own duty to humanity,
Conceive one of my duties to be this;
To find a field of work for such a man,—
A dreamer is no proper name for him.

Manager (surprised):
Am I to look on Strader as this man?
In his case hath it not been manifest
How easily deluded mortals are
Who lack the power to know realities?
That his contrivance owes to spirit-light
Its origin doth not admit of doubt.
And if it can sometime be perfected
Those benefits will doubtless pour therefrom
Which Strader thought he had already won.
But a mere model it will long remain
Seeing those forces are still undisclosed
Whose power alone will give reality.
I am distressed to find that thou dost hope
Good will result from giving up thy plant
Unto a man who came to grief himself
With his own carefully contrived machine.
'Tis true it led his spirit up to heights
Which ever will entice the souls of men,
But which will only then be scaled by him
When he hath made the rightful powers his own.

Hilary:
That thou must praise the spirit of this man
And yet seek'st cause to overthrow his work
Doth prove most clearly that his worth is great.
The fault, thou sayest, did not lie in him,
That failure rather than success was his.
Among us therefore he will surely find
His proper place; for here there will not be
External hindrances to thwart his plans.

Manager:
And if, despite what I have just now said,
I were to strive within myself and try
To tune my reason to thy mode of thought,
Still one more point compels me to object.
Who will in future value this thy work?
Or show such comprehension of thine aims
As to make use of what thou mayst have made?
Thy property will all be swallowed up
Before thy business hath been well begun,
And then it can no more be carried on.

Hilary:
I willingly admit my plans would show
Themselves imperfect, if amongst mankind
True comprehension were not first aroused
For this new kind and style of handicraft.
What Strader and Thomasius create
Must be perfected in the Sanctuary
Which I shall build for spirit knowledge here.
What Benedictus, what Capesius
And what Maria yonder shall impart
Will show to man the path that he should tread
And make him feel the need to penetrate
His human senses with the spirit's light.

Manager:
And so thou wouldst endow a little clique
To live self-centred, from the world apart,
And shut thyself from all true human life.
Thou fain wouldst banish selfishness on earth
Yet wilt thou cherish it in thy retreat.

Hilary:
A dreamer, it would seem, thou thinkest me,
Who thoughtlessly denies experience
That life hath brought him. Thus should I appear
Unto myself if, for one moment's space,
I held this view thou hast about success.
The cause that I hold dear may fail indeed,
Yet even if, despised by all mankind
It crumbles into dust and disappears,
Yet was it once conceived by human souls
And set up as a pattern on this earth.
In spirit it will work its way in life
Although it stay not in the world of sense.
It will contribute part of that great power
Which in the end will make it come to pass
That earthly deeds are wed to spirit aims;
This in the spirit-wisdom is foretold.

Manager:
I am thy servant and have had my say
As duty and conviction bade me speak;
Yet now the attitude thou hast assumed
Gives me the right to speak as friend to friend.
In work together with thee I have felt
Myself impelled for many a year to seek
A personal knowledge of the things to which
Thou giv'st thyself with such self-sacrifice;
My only guides have been the written words
Wherein the spirit-wisdom is revealed.—
And though the worlds are hidden from my gaze
To which those writings had directed me,
Yet in imagination I can feel
The mental state of men whose simple trust
Leads them to seek such spirit-verities.
I have found confirmation in myself
Of what the experts in this lore describe,
As being the possession of such souls
As feel themselves at home in spirit realms.
The all-important thing, it seems to me,
Is that such souls, despite their utmost care,
Cannot divide illusions from the Truth
When they come down from out the spirit heights
As come they must, back into earthly life.
Then from the spirit world, so newly won,
Visions descend upon them which prevent
Their seeing clearly in the world of sense,
And, thus misled, their judgment goes astray
In things pertaining to this life on earth.

Hilary:
What thou wouldst raise as hindrance to my work
Doth but confirm my purpose; thou hast proved
That in thyself I now have one friend more
To stand beside me in my search for truth.
How could I have conjectured up till now
Thy knowledge of the nature of those souls
Who fain would come and join me in my task?
Thou know'st. the perils ever threat'ning them,
So will their actions make it clear to thee
That they know paths where they are kept from harm.
Soon thou wilt doubtless know that this is so,
And I shall find henceforth as in the past
In thee a counsellor, who doth not fail.

Manager:
I cannot lend my strength to fashion deeds
Whose processes I do not understand.
Those men whom thou didst trust still seem to me
Misled by the illusion I have named:
And others too, who listen to their words,
Will victims to that same illusion fall
Which doth o'erpower all thought that knows its goal.
My help and counsel evermore shall be
Thine to command as long as thou dost need
Acts based upon experience on earth;
But this new work of thine is not for me.

Hilary:
By thy refusal thou dost jeopardize
A work designed to further spirit-aims.
For I am hampered lacking thine advice.
Consider how imperious is the call
Of duty when fate designs to make a sign,
And such a sign I cannot but behold
In these men being here at our behest.

Manager:
The longer thou dost speak in such a strain
More clearly dost thou prove thyself to me,
The unconscious victim of illusion's spell.
Thy purpose is to serve humanity,
But in reality thou wilt but serve
The group which, backed by thee, will have the means
To carry on awhile its spirit-dream.
Soon shall we here behold activities
Ordained no doubt by spirit for these souls,
But which will prove a mirage to ourselves
And must destroy the harvest of our work.

Hilary:
If thou wilt not befriend me with thine aid
Drear doth the future stretch before my soul.

(Enter Strader, left.)

Dear Strader, I have long expected thee.
As things are now it seems advisable
To spend the present time in serious talk
And later on, decide what we shall do.
My dear old friend kath just confessed to me
That he can not approve what we have planned.
So let us now hear counsel from the man
Who promises his spirit to our work.
Much now depends upon how at this time
Men recognize each other in their souls,
Who each to each seem like a separate world
And yet united could accomplish much.

Strader:
And so the loyal friend of Hilary
Will not join with us in the hopeful work
Which our friend's wisdom hath made possible?
Yet can our plan alone be carried out
If his proved skill in life be wisely joined
In compact with the aims of future days.

Manager:
Not only will I hold myself aloof,
But I would also make clear to my friend,
That this design kath neither aim nor sense.

Strader:
I do not wonder thou should'st hold that view
Of any plan in which I am concerned.
I saw a great inception come to grief
Because to realise this true discovery
The fuller forces still are hid to-day.
'Tis known I drew from spirit-light the thought,
Which, though proved true, yet had no life on earth.
This fact doth witness 'gainst my power to judge
And also kills belief that spirit hides
The source of true creation on the earth.
And 'twill be very difficult to prove
That such experience hath giv'n me power
Not to fall victim for the second time.
I had to err this once that now I might
With greater safety reach the land of truth.
Yet 'tis but natural men should doubt my word.
Thy spirit outlook most especially
Must find our wisdom promise little gain.
I hear thee praised for that keen sympathy
Which goes out from thee to all spirit-life,
And for the time and strength thou givest it.
But it is also said that thou wouldst keep
Thy work on earth severely separate
From spirit-striving, which with its own powers
Would work creatively in thy soul-life.
To this pursuit thou wouldst devote alone
Those hours which earthly labour doth not claim.
The aim, however, of the spirit-tide
Where I see clear life's evolution writ,
Is to join spirit-work for spirit-ends
To earthly labours in the world of sense.

Manager:
So long as spirit but to spirit gives
All it can do in free creative might,
It raiseth souls in human dignity
And gives them reason in their life on earth.
But when it seeks to live out its own self
And over others' selves to domineer
It straightway Both draw nigh the realm in which
Illusion often can endanger truth.
This knowledge unto which I have attained
By personal effort in the spirit lore
Doth make me act as I do act to-day;
It is not personal preference, as thou
Misled by what is said of me, wouldst think.

Strader:
An error 'tis in spirit-knowledge then
That makes thee hostile to the views I hold.
Through this will difficulties multiply.
No doubt 'tis easy for the spirit-seer
To work in partnership with other men
Who have already let themselves be taught
By life and nature what existence means.
But when ideas which claim that they do spring
From spirit sources join reluctantly
With others flowing from the self-same source,
One can but seldom hope for harmony.

(After a period of quiet meditation.)

Yet that which must will surely come to pass.
Renewed examination of my plans ...
Perhaps may make thee change the views, to which
On first consideration thou dost cling.

Curtain whilst all three are sunk in reflection

Today the only connection many people still have to Christmas is to light the candles on the Christmas tree. The Christmas tree is, however, the most recent symbol of Christmas.⁸¹ Even in the regions where it first appeared, people have only known it for about a hundred years. It is not the ancient pagan tradition many people believe it to be. But whilst the Christmas tree is a recent development, the great festival for humanity that is about to come is old, indeed ancient. For as long as people on earth felt, had a sense of what it means to be human, and also knew of the principle that takes us beyond being human to being divinely human, taking us beyond ourselves, they have known this sublime Christmas festival. In John's gospel we find words that may be a leitmotiv for the idea of Christmas. ‘He must wax, but I must wane.’⁸² This points to the relationship between two important annual festivals. John bears witness that he himself must wane, whilst the other one, the Christ, waxes. When the length of day is greatest, it is St John's tide. But behind the external material and ephemeral phenomenon something arises which John put most beautifully into words: ‘And the light shone into the darkness’⁸³ into the days which at St John's tide begin to get shorter. Within the darkness lives the light that is more luminous, more alive than all physical light phenomena—the light of the spirit. And the content of the Christian Christmas is the life of the great light in the darkness. When the festival was celebrated in all religions in ancient times, it pointed prophetically to Christ Jesus, the great spirit and Sun hero.

Today the science of the spirit helps us to understand Christmas, which for two millennia has been felt to be the feast of great idealism. When the service begins in that holy night, in the midnight darkness, and the candles are lit, they shine out into the darkness. It means that when the time comes and everything on earth is destined to die—everything that is purely human, too, will be subject to death—the soul triumphant lives in the body, as made to come true by the Christ, and rises from the shell of the body to live in the light, even if the earth, being physical matter, will shatter into countless atoms. Out of this darkness, this death of the earth, the soul of the whole earth will rise with all the human souls that will have been received into this earth soul. And Christ Jesus was the example, the ideal, to show that not only will the earth soul achieve this but all human beings on earth shall have the same certainty.

And so it is not only the physical sun which is a reflection of the Christ spirit but indeed the waxing sun of the spirit. When all energies will be transformed and love is aglow everywhere in the earth's body, the Christ principle will flow through every part of the earth. The light of Christmas is the symbol of this.

The three kings are symbols, as are their gifts, with gold the symbol of wisdom and kingly power, myrrh the symbol for overcoming death, incense the symbol for ether substances made spiritual in which the god enters into reality who has overcome death. With the three symbols we have Christ the king, the vanquisher of death, the fulfilment of all earthly evolution. That was the experience of the birth of the God child for every esoteric initiate, foreseen in the mysteries even before the Christ came and also experienced afterwards. The mysteries were not church establishments or schools in the ordinary sense but places of training where rites were also observed, where people learned wisdom, surrender and a faith that is both knowledge and insight. There were greater and lesser mysteries. In the lesser mysteries, people admitted after going through many trials would see dramatic presentations of the eternal truths which higher initiates experience in their own hearts. The greatest elements of human evolution may be compared, on a small scale, with the experiences someone who was born blind has after an operation. A completely new world opens up. An initiate has the eyes of the spirit opened. A world of the spirit opens up in light and colour, completely new and much wider than the physical world with all its spirits and inhabitants. All things seem full of life to him. This is the moment when initiates experience the birth of their higher self. It was known as the inner Christ festival. The experiences of those chosen people, experiences that can still be had by initiates today, were an ideal for those in the lesser mysteries, something they might hope to achieve, some sooner and some later. Anyone who knows that everyone has to go through many lives may be certain that for him, too, this awakening, this initiation will be reality one day; that the awakening of the Christ will be achieved in him, the holy night when the light will shine within him. Then the words of John will be reversed: ‘And the light shall be comprehended in the darkness.’

This was also presented in the mysteries. The great Christian event was a physical recapitulation of events every initiate had known in the mysteries, as images presented in the lesser mysteries and inside the human being in the greater mysteries. In the lesser mysteries the important experience of the inner Christ was shown at a particular time of the year, when the sun gives least light to the earth, in the longest night of winter—as is still done today at Christmas. Let us consider the image which symbolized the meaning of human inner development in the lesser mysteries. The people who were about to see it would be in a solemn mood, gathering in holy night, in the utter darkness of the midnight hour. Then a strangely booming, thundering sound would be heard, gradually changing into a wonderful rhythmic harmony—the music of the spheres. A faintly illumined body, a sphere shining dimly in the darkness would appear. This was meant to symbolize the earth. Gradually rainbow-coloured rings, one merging into the other, would arise from the dimly lit earth disk, spreading in all directions—the divine iris. That is how the sun would be seen to shine in ancient Atlantis, in the Niflheim of Norse mythology. The colours would gradually grow brighter, with the seven colours slowly turning into a faint gold and a faint violet. And the form would shine more and more brightly, with the light getting stronger, until it was transformed into the most luminous of the heavenly bodies, into the sun. In the middle of this sun the name of Christ would appear, written in the language of the people who were there. It was then true to say of those who had been present that they had seen the sun at midnight. This means that a symbol of spiritual vision had appeared to them. When their spiritual eyes had been opened they found that all matter became transparent, they saw through the earth, truly seeing the sun at midnight, having overcome matter. The sun at midnight would appear in reversed colour, a violet, reddish colour. For Christians, translated into human terms, the great cosmic symbol thus seen is Christ Jesus coming to the earth. We shall all of us see the sun at midnight. This also does not contradict the New Testament.

Christ is thus the spirit who will transfigure the elements that are still connected with the lower aspect, deify anything which is still connected with worldly aspects. He is the Sun in the realm of the spirit. That is how the Christian esoteric or theosophical Christian inwardly knows him to be. Spiritual awakening comes at the time when cold and darkness are greatest on earth because initiates know that it is the time when certain powers are present in cosmic space and the constellation is most favourable for the awakening. The pupils were taught that they should not be satisfied with ordinary human knowledge but must gain an overview over the whole of humanity, the whole of earth history. Consider the time—they would be told—when the earth was still united with sun and moon. Humanity then lived in the light of the Sun. The body that was later to become the earth was filled with a power of the spirit that also shone forth in every entity. Then the time would come when the sun separated from the earth, when the light shone down on the earth from outside and human beings were in inner darkness. This marked the beginning of their evolution towards a far distant future when they would have the light of the Sun in them again. The higher human being, Sun man, would then develop in them who bears light in him and has power to illumine.

The earth thus arose out of the light, is going through darkness and will come to have the light of the Sun again. Just as the power of the sun's rays decreases as autumn comes and in winter, so does the spiritual principle recede completely during the time when human beings must learn to perceive the external things on earth, perceive matter. But the power of the spirit waxes again, and at Christmas something happens which Paul described by using the parable of the grain of wheat. If the seed that is sown does not perish there can be no new fruit.⁸⁴

At Christmas time the old life passes away, with new life arising in its womb. The sap rises in the trees from this day on, new life wells up, light begins to wax again in the darkness that has been increasing until then. A Christian thinks of this translated into terms of the spirit. Everything that draws us down in the material world must perish to make room for new growth. The Christ came into the world so that from the depths of lowness the principle could be born that will take us to the highest. The stable in the gospel tale is a transformation, a variant of what most ancient wisdom knew as a cave. The feast would be celebrated in hollowed out rock, in different ways, depending on the nation. On the next day there would be a second feast, when it would be shown how sprouting life comes from the rock. This, too, was to show how the spiritual arises from the earthly when it dies.

In all the inner sanctuaries of Egypt, in the Eleusinian mysteries and in the Orphic cult of ancient Greece, in Asia minor, among the Babylonians and Chaldeans, in the Mythraic cult of the Persians and in the mysteries of the Indians—in all of these Christmas would be celebrated in the same way. Those who took part in the lesser mysteries would have presented to them in visible form what the initiates lived through inwardly. They would be shown a prophetic vision of the birth of the Christ in man. Initiates who had already reached that level were said to have reached the sixth stage. There were seven such stages. Stage one was the raven who mediated between the spiritual and the outside world. In the Bible we read of the raven of Elijah,⁸⁵ legend tells of Wotan's raven or the ravens of Barbarossa.⁸⁶

At the second stage the initiate would be an occult individual. He would be admitted to the sanctuary and be present within it.

The third grade was that of the warrior or fighter. Those who had reached this stage were permitted to stand up for spiritual truths before the outside world.

Someone who had reached the fourth grade would be called a lion. His conscious awareness had expanded beyond his own person and become awareness of the whole tribe. Think of the lion of the house of Judah, for instance.

An initiate of the fifth grade not only had awareness for the tribe but had taken in conscious awareness of the spirit of the nation. He would therefore be given the name of his nation, being called a ‘Persian’, for instance, among the Persians. Jesus called Nathanael ‘a true Israelite’,⁸⁷ recognizing him for an initiate of the fifth grade.

The name given to someone who had reached the sixth stage refers to an important quality. Looking at the world of nature around us, we see life forms develop from the lowest ones up to the human being, and from the average human being up to the one who let the Christ be born in him. Among the lower life forms we always see rhythm in life, a rhythm imposed by the sun. Plants always flower at the same time of the year, depending on the species, and open their flowers at the same time of day, depending on the species. Animals, too, show an annual rhythm in their most important vital functions. Only man is gradually losing this regularity. He is coming free of a rhythm that originally was also imposed on him. Yet when love for everything that is awakens in him, flows through him, a new rhythm is born that is his own. This is as regular as the sun's rhythm, which never deviates even the least bit from its orbit—one can hardly imagine what the consequences would be otherwise. An initiate of the sixth degree would be seen to reflect the movement of the sun as it pours its blessings into cosmic space, an image of the Christ in man and in the world of the spirit. The sixth degree initiate would therefore be called the sun hero.

Shivers would pass through the soul of a pupil when he saw such a sun hero in whom the Christ had been inwardly born. This was an event that was felt to be a birth on a physical plane. Initiates of the early centuries put the birth of the historical Jesus at the darkest time of the year, for the soul of the spirit had then risen. It is also why the midnight mass was introduced among the early Christians, a rite held at the dark midnight hour during which a sea of lights would be lit on the altar. The highest degree would then be that of father.⁸⁸

These things, which had happened so often in the individual mysteries, far removed from the affairs of the world, took place in the open, in world history, with Christ Jesus. There can be no more sublime experience for the human soul than the events that happened in the outer, physical world with the conqueror of death who brought the pledge of life everlasting for the soul. The new life fruit that grew from a dying world the initiates of old felt to be the birth of the Christ child in the world of the spirit. Anyone who does not think of the spiritual as separate from the physical world feels a deep connection between the sun at holy night and the life of the spirit that develops out of the world's life. In that holy night we have the birth of the greatest ideal that exists for this world and will come to realization when the earth reaches its goal. Now told in prophesy, it will one day be reality. Love conquering death shines in the lights on the Christmas tree, and in future it will come alive in all of humanity. Now it is the prospect before us.

We can thus sense that the meaning of Christmas is something that comes to us from far ahead but has also been celebrated in earliest times. Seen in the right way, the feast will again have much higher significance for us. The tree, too, will become more important to us as a symbol of that tree in paradise which you all know from the Book of Genesis. Paradise is a picture of man's higher nature, with no evil attached to it. Insight could only be gained at the price of life. A legend can show us how those who had the knowledge saw it.⁸⁹ When Seth wanted to return to paradise, the cherub with the fiery sword allowed him to enter. He found that the tree of life and the tree of knowledge had intertwined. The cherub told him to take three seeds from this united tree. The tree shows what man will be one day, something which only initiates have so far achieved. When Adam died, Seth took the three seeds and put them in Adam's mouth. A flaming bush grew out of them, with the words ejeh asher ejeh appearing in it—I am he who is, was and shall be. The legend goes on to tell that Moses made his staff with magic powers of its wood. Later the gate to Solomon's temple is said to have been made of it. A piece of it is reputed to have dropped into the pool at Bethesda and given it special powers. Finally, it is said, the cross of Christ was made of it. It is an image for life that is dying, passing away in death, and has the power in it to produce new life.

A great symbol stands before us—life that has overcome death, the wood from the seed taken from paradise. This life, dying and rising again, is the Rose Cross. It was not without reason that Goethe, that great man, said:

So long as you don't have it,
this word: ‘Die and become!’
you're but a miserable guest
here on this earth.⁵¹

It is a wonderful thing to see the relationship between the tree of paradise, the wood of the cross and the new life that grows from it. To gain an inner feeling for the birth of the eternal human being in temporal life—let that be our Christ idea, our Christmas. Man must apply it to himself even now: ‘The light shines into the darkness’, and the darkness must gradually come to comprehend the light. All the souls in whom Christmas ignites the right spark will be alive to the principle that comes to birth in them at Christmas, the ability that will become a power in them to see, to feel and to will it that the gospel words are turned around to become: ‘The light shines into the darkness, and the darkness has gradually come to grasp the light.’

• 81. See also the lectures given in Berlin on 19 Dec. 1904 (GA 92) in The Supersensible in Man and World, tr. p. M. Allen, and 21 Dec. 1909 (GA 117) in Festivals of the Seasons
• 82. John 3: 30.
• 83. John 1: 5.
• 84. 1 Cor. 15:35-44.
• 85. 1 Kings 17: 4-6.
• 86. Frederick Barbarossa (redbeard) or Frederick I, Holy Roman emperor (1152–1190), king of Germany and Italy. Led the Third Crusade, during which he drowned. Legend has it that he sleeps in the Kyffhäuser mountain until the ravens come to wake him because he is needed again. Translator.
• 87. John 1:47.
• 88. See also Steiner R. An Esoteric Cosmology (in GA 94), lecture of 30 May 1906. Tr. R. Querido. St George 1978.
• 89. See also Steiner R. The Temple Legend (GA93), especially the lecture given in Berlin on 29 May 1905. Tr. J. Wood. London: Rudolf Steiner Press 1985.
• 51. Goethe, West-östlicher Diwan, poem ‘Selige Sehnsuch’

Everything that enters into our work eventually crystallizes around the one point: to find union with the spiritual powers that advance humanity. From this point of view, the importance of the Christ-Being in the world has been spoken of here again and again. Today I would like to speak to you a few words that are intended to shape our ideas about this Christ-Impulse and its relationship to us humans ever more important. If we want to grasp the truth of this Christ impulse, we must be willing to reflect on many things. Nowadays, one hears the idea expressed here and there that everything schoolmasterly, pedantic, and didactic should be suppressed and that one should grasp the living life in art and world view. So many minds of the present express their fatigue towards everything didactic. It is only strange that as soon as matters of world-view are brought up, one always falls back into a longing for the didactic.

We have had to hear how Christ is spoken of as a world teacher; I once used the expression: “superhuman world schoolmaster”. Many feel comfortable when they can think that someone who had taught something had come into the world with Christ. In contrast to this, we have repeatedly emphasized the life character, the power character of the Christ impulse. Through what happened at the baptism in the Jordan, an entity found its way into earthly life by sharing the destiny of humanity for three years. Then it poured out into the earth aura and has been working there ever since.

When we look at this Christ event, we have to say that the event of Golgotha is a unique experience in the evolution of the earth. This has taken place once in relation to the evolution of the earth, but the Christ event was prepared in the spiritual world.

Although it is thoroughly wrong to think of the Christ-being as present in another body, one must nevertheless point to a preparatory event in the development of the world, namely to three preparatory events, preliminary stages of the event of Golgotha. They took place in supermundane, purely spiritual worlds.

I spoke of the two Jesus Children, the Solomon and the Nathan Jesus Child. The former bore within him the ego of Zarathustra. It passed over into the other Child and lived there from the twelfth to the thirtieth year. Then the shell was filled by the Christ-being. This Nathanic Jesus, he too is, this must be expressly mentioned, as he was born at the beginning of our era, in a human body for the first time properly embodied in the world. For the preliminary stages of his existence he lived in spiritual worlds. He was never properly embodied in a human body before. The relationship with Krishna was not a true embodiment, but a representative embodiment. When we visualize the being of this later Nathanian Jesus, we must look up to the angelic beings and can say: Before the Christ appeared on earth, he was not embodied, but three times present in the spiritual world, but in each of these three stages of existence, something similar to the event of Golgotha occurred again and again. We must therefore seek the preannouncement stages of Golgotha in the spiritual worlds. Each of these events has a deep significance for the whole life of people on earth. What we experience there is influenced not only by what happens within the physical earth, but also from the spiritual worlds. What was effected by the three preliminary stages was effected from the outside.

When humanity lived in the Lemurian epoch, the luciferic influence had already descended upon it. It sent its rays of power into human nature, as it were. The effect was inherent in this. Man had to develop differently then than if no luciferic influence had come. Man was, so to speak, infected with the luciferic impulse. We can say, on the basis of spiritual science, what this Luciferic influence has brought about. If it had remained as strong as in Lemuria, something would have happened to our human nature that would have placed it in great danger. What might be characterized as follows would have happened: the twelve sensory powers of the human being (for there are twelve) would have developed in such a way that the human being would have become supersensitive. While we now look at the red of the rose in such a way that it has an objective effect on us when we look at it, the red would then penetrate our eyes as if with pricks, and blue would suck at our vision. We would be supersensitive. It would be the same with hearing and all sensory perceptions of a human being. We would not be able to perceive anything without feeling pain or lust. Humanity was heading towards this through Lucifer. The beings of the higher hierarchies saw this. The Nathanic Jesus, as he later lived, was present in the spiritual world in the Lemurian period in an angelic being, and it was set before him to permeate himself with the Christ-being. While the sheaths were later permeated with the Christ-being, at that time the soul element of this angelic being was spiritualized by the Christ impulse. At that time the Christ Impulse already descended into the soul of the later Nathanian Jesus. This happened in the spiritual world, but the rays that proceeded from it spread over the earth and calmed the overly sensitive human senses, so that the danger was removed that people could only have beheld the sensual under pain and degrading lust. Thus we look at the first harbinger of the event of Golgotha and say to ourselves: We have become so with regard to our twelve senses because the Christ descended into the soul of the later Nathanic Jesus and appeased the human being of sense.

Then in Atlantean times, a danger came into human life again through the Ahrimanic influence gradually combining with the Luciferic influence. While in Lemuria the senses were in danger, now in the early days of Atlantia it was the vital organs and the etheric body of man that were in danger. These organs of an etheric body permeated by the influence of Lucifer and Ahriman would have developed in such a way that man would have taken on a form unworthy of a human being. Everything would have had to be done in such a way that man would have greedily pursued what was useful to him and could only have looked at what was not beneficial to him with disgust. Human life would have been a constant battle between greed and disgust. All the organs would have been so formed that man would have pounced in a degrading manner, like a wild animal, on what he had to absorb, and would have felt deeply degraded by disgust at what was not beneficial to him. That this did not happen is due to the second preliminary stage of the event of Golgotha. The danger was such that even in breathing, man would have drawn in the air with greed and would have expressed every flash of something unsuitable for him in a terrible way, with terrible outbursts of disgust. So it was the second time that this angelic being was imbued with the Christ impulse and thereby rays of strength entered the earth aura and calmed man's life.

Towards the end of the Atlantean period, the third preliminary stage developed. Once again, humanity was facing a great danger. Now, thinking, feeling and willing were to be brought into conflict with each other. The soul's expressions were to be made disharmonious, so that man could not have developed thinking, feeling and willing in an orderly way, but rather that these would have been in conflict with each other as if in madness. This was averted by the third preliminary stage. Once again the entity that later became Jesus of Nazareth imbued itself with the Christ impulse, and order and harmony were brought into the harmony of thinking, feeling and willing. This was still felt long after the Atlantean period. In the times that preceded our development of thought, the harbingers of an image that extends into our time but is not yet properly understood began to take shape. At the end of the Atlantean era, this soul, which later became Jesus of Nazareth, came into existence. This soul brought about an entity that always became master of the wildly storming affects, and triumphed over thinking, feeling and willing, which became a dense entity. Mankind pictured this in the image of St. George or St. Michael, the slayer of the dragon. This is the direct imaginative expression of the third forerunner of the event of Golgotha.

The Greeks, who in their imaginations brought to life what shone through from the mysteries of Atlantis, created an image of the being that was active in Atlantis. They worshipped in Apollo the spirit of which they imagined: this is He who is imbued with the spirit of the sun. They did not call it Christ, but the name is not important. In their sun worship they revered the third preliminary stage of the event of Golgotha and expressed this outwardly by seeking advice from the priests of Apollo in the most important matters. They knew, these Greeks, that what weaves in the earth aura is also woven into the secrets of existence, and how it has brought order to thinking, feeling and willing. They felt so connected to the earth that they said: What would have brought disorder to thinking and feeling and willing, if it had not been defeated by Apollo, rose up out of the earth in dense form. But Apollo brings order into it, so that instead of disharmony and madness in thinking, feeling and willing, wisdom emerges from the earth aura.

They looked towards the area where steam was rising from the earth, which they captured and stored in their sanctuary, and placed the priestess of Apollo over the opening through which he himself spoke in such a way that his wisdom was transformed into oracles, into advice for the concerns of those seeking this wisdom. Just as George and Michael appear in the picture, so Apollo appears in his sanctuary, pouring the prophecies of those who speak through him into the soul.

Oh, Christianity is ancient! It is not the name of Christ that matters. The service of Apollo honored Christ, the spirit of the sun, so that in this worship lies the consciousness of the third preliminary stage of the event of Golgotha. Then the time came when humanity faced a fourth great danger. In Lemuria, the physical body was in danger, then in Atlantia the etheric and astral organs. Now it was the I that was to come into disorder. This is preparing itself in such a way that at the time when the I was to take hold of man in Greek thought, it shows itself in a very peculiar phenomenon, that all conditions are present to bring disorder into the I. Only gradually will one understand how that which was to bring forth this I develops in Greek philosophy and so on. I have already tried to show how the I awakens. It can be seen from the study of philosophy, which culminates in the thought of Plato and Aristotle, how the I gradually comes into being. When Thales, Pherekydes of Syros, Anaxagoras first brought great thoughts into being, there was a parallel phenomenon that spread from Greece throughout the Greek world: there was the coming of the Sibyls parallel to the coming of the I. The Sibyls asserted themselves everywhere. Sometimes they spoke great wisdom for the future, but sometimes also madness. Everything that can throw the I into confusion, as the I must be thrown into confusion without the Christ Impulse, found expression in their prophecies. Two things were in preparation: Prophets, forerunners of the Christ Impulse, who, in the purity of their soul-searching, seek to absorb the young power of the Christ, and who, in their ordered life of thought, pass through what is weaving itself through the evolution of mankind. On the other hand, there are the Sibyls, who are at the mercy of the outer influences of the earth aura. In Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel in Rome, we are confronted with this contrast between sibyls and prophets. Michelangelo shows how the wind and other things work with the Sibyls, which are fundamentally connected with the earth, and shows that there was danger for the ego to become disordered with the Sibyls, and how the prophets work to calm this ego. Studying the prophets next to the sibyls in Michelangelo's paintings can lead us deep into many secrets. The forces that were at work through the Sibyls show how the human ego is inclined to fall into disorder on a fourth level. The order that the teaching of the prophets announces was established through the Mystery of Golgotha, the order of the ego forces in such a way that the human being's ego learned to feel more and more deeply: Not I, but the Christ in me. What would have contributed to the disorder of the ego in the Sibyls comes to the fore in an orderly way through the Christ impulse. Because the human ego must develop on earth, the event of Golgotha had to take place on earth; Christ had to permeate the body of Jesus, the real physical body, whereas in the preliminary stages an angel was inspired.

Thus Golgotha drew nearer to the evolution on earth. What Augustine says is deeply true: Christianity has always existed, only that now it is called Christianity. — In the time of Augustine there was a feeling that Apollo's servants were Christians, even if not in name. It was a veneration of the third, purely spiritual event. Thus Christ gradually approached the earth. In the devachan world was the first and second preliminary stage, in the astral world the third, and in the physical world the event of Golgotha.

But not as a teacher, but through his power did Christ penetrate into the earth aura. This must be emphasized again and again. If Christ had wanted to work only through what people could have understood of him, he would have been able to work little.

He entered evolution as a living entity. Human understanding must struggle to reach Him. In this way we see how the dogmatic disputes take place. Human judgment is still far from penetrating the Christ Impulse. The Christ Impulse works in the depths through the souls as a living power. We can trace this power. Let us look at an event that took place on October 28, 312. At that time, Constantine delivered a battle to Maxentius near Rome. Maxentius' army was four times as strong as Constantine's. Constantine won. Anyone who looks at history correctly says: The life of all of Europe would have been different if Constantine had not won. — It was a strange battle. It was not external strength that won, nor judgment. The battle was not fought with the help of the power of judgment. It was fought by each side according to subconscious impulses, into which the Christ impulse played. Maxentius consulted the Sibylline books. They told him: If you do not remain where you are, if you leave Rome, you will subjugate the great enemy of Rome. A dream also told him to leave Rome and fight outside the gates. He was securely entrenched in Rome. Human judgment did not decide what took place in this battle. The subconscious worked in the souls of Maxentius and Constantine. A dream revealed to Constantine that he should carry the symbol of Christianity before the army. Dreams decided the outcome of this battle, which decided the fate of Europe. Human judgment was not suited to bring about what was to be brought about, but the Christ impulse worked and confronted the four times weaker army of Constantine outside Rome with Maxentius. Through that which human beings cannot judge, the guidance of human affairs happened. This is significant for the whole guidance of human history.

The Christ Impulse worked in the subconscious of souls as a spiritual impulse. It worked in the same way later, when the map of Europe was once again given a completely different form. If at the decisive moment the Maid of Orleans had not stepped forward to the side of her king, the destiny of all Europe would have been changed. Again it was not the power of judgment, but the Christ impulse, which availed itself of a human instrument. It does not depend on our judgment whether one finds this good or bad.

I can show by another example how the Christ impulse works below the threshold of consciousness. It makes use of strange forms of revelation, strange to the materialist. When modern spiritual life approached, there was something in its development that would have caused materialism to stretch its arms much further over European life. If certain events had not occurred, it would have been possible that even in those souls that still felt spiritually, purely material conceptions would have arisen. The understanding for the Christ Impulse would have sunk so low in the preceding centuries that one would have doubted one's physical existence. Then it would have been much easier for Arthur Drews and others. It spread to the most distant regions of Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries, when there was a danger that people would no longer have any connection with the Christ Impulse. The mood was: Why should one believe that Christ lived? And so the same thing happened simultaneously in the most diverse places. In almost all parts of Europe, everywhere it was seen that through the most diverse human places, through villages and towns, not always the same, but always a different physical, human personality walked. The opinion spread that this human personality, which appeared in a particularly strange guise, was Ahasver, the eternal Jew, who had wandered the world since he rejected Christ. The rumor spread that there lived a man who could say from his own experience: I have seen Christ, he really lived. - In the most diverse places, this personality went through the villages, attended church services in a terrible state of mind, in very outdated clothing, and recounted the event of which he could bear witness. Bishops and abbots invited such personalities to banquets and organized festivities. These personalities always told them: We can strengthen your awareness that Christ walked the earth, because he passed me by, and because of how I treated him, I must now go through the world like this.

From what we learn in history, we have no idea how deeply what Ahasver told affected human minds a few centuries ago. There were always other personalities, but they saw, as in a retrospective of Ahasver, Christ passing by, so that they were believed. From them came the realization: Yes! He has lived, for he can

can tell about him. — Superficial people today may say: Should that have had such a great influence that it averted the danger that Christ would have been completely forgotten as an historical Christ? They do not know that such events went through the world that history has not recorded. That we are not completely mired in materialism today is a consequence of what emanated from these personalities. Today, “it could not happen.” In some places, Ahasver had thick calluses, peculiar clothing, long hair, yellowed skin, was tall and gaunt; in other places he was small, had a hump, but was always imbued with the consciousness of what the soul believed it had experienced at the moment when Christ passed before it.

This consciousness, this ability to look back into the Akashic Records and to identify with them to such an extent that they truly believed it, was instilled in numerous personalities. Today, all these Ahasueruses would end up in an asylum; at that time, they were instruments for strengthening spiritual life. Bishops and abbots were strengthened by them in the power of the Christian faith. The seed was sown in psychically inclined natures from spiritual worlds, to be able to look back to the event of Golgotha. The narrators then saw themselves in the picture through the peculiarity of their consciousness. That was a true, living contemplation of the event at Golgotha. Much more than in the human being's conscious mind, in which the power of judgment asserts itself, took place in the subconscious regions of the soul, which emanated from the Christ impulse. Today's materialistic man can easily scoff at such things. He will consider it a psychic epidemic and say: What can one give that comes from diseased souls? One would like to ask these materialists what they would say if someone became so mentally ill that psychiatrists locked him up in an asylum, but there, out of his enlightenment, he began to devise the air engine that people really have in mind as an idea? They would accept it from such a soul and not ask whether it comes from a diseased soul. Whether a soul is diseased is not a criterion, not an objection. The point is to examine the content of what comes from the soul. The worst thing about our material mind is that one appeals to secondary considerations, not to the power of truth.

If we survey the development of humanity, it will become clear to us that we have to understand the Christ impulse as a living force that works much more in the depths of the soul and makes use of physical means, more than what people understand. If it had remained limited to this, its influence would not have come far. But in our time, things are beginning to change, to the point that, little by little, what was the thought for the Greeks, with which at the same time the consciousness of the human ego was actually born, must have an effect in us. How does this thought assert itself today? One does not need to prove this with spiritual science, but with philosophy. In the centuries before the establishment of Christianity, beginning with Pherekydes and ending with Aristotle, thought begins to play a role in the evolution of the world. Thinking in images only begins in Greek life. This prepares the way for the actual consciousness of self. Then comes the Christ impulse. It works together with what has emerged as ego power. In our time, we see it in Hegelianism, which is indeed little noticed, but is a significant phenomenon of humanity, as Fege struggles with the thought that wants to grasp the whole world. Man develops in the world; he crowns development by filling the world with thought. He recognizes his environment through this. But thought can do two things: it can develop properly, which can be compared to the development of the germ into a flower, or the germ can be used for human food. Then it is torn out of its continuous flow. If it remains in its continuous flow, a new plant develops, and it is likely to give rise to life in the future. It is the same with human thought. It is said that we use it to create images of our environment. But to use it for such knowledge is as if we used germs for food. We drive the thought away from its current. But if it persists in its current, we do not use it for food, so to speak, then we let it live its own germ life, let it arise in meditation and inspiration, let it develop into a new, fruitful existence. That is the straight current for the thought. In the future, people will recognize that what has been regarded as knowledge of the world behaves like grain that does not develop into new grain but is driven out into a completely different current; but what we learn to know through knowledge of the higher world is thought that is philosophically grasped in freedom, that leads directly into spiritual life through meditation and concentration.

We have reached the point where it will be recognized that ordinary knowledge relates to supersensible knowledge in the same way that a grain of wheat used for food relates to a grain of wheat that is transformed into new grain. Inner knowledge of thoughts is what the future must bring. Philosophy in its old form has been overcome, has played out its role. It will be recognized that such knowledge must always be there, but must lead to a by-product of development. It will be recognized that the living thought, which is transformed into meditation and concentration, leads to spiritual knowledge of human nature and to knowledge of the spiritual world.

When we consider various phenomena in our spiritual life, many things may be noticed. Here we may say and discuss what would be misunderstood in the outside world. A man is regarded today as a great philosophical spirit who, in essence, limits his wisdom to repeatedly saying: Man must not stop at external knowledge, he must grasp the spirit. One could say that he repeatedly says, in different versions: Man cannot stop at mere external knowledge, he must grasp the spiritual within himself, must experience it within himself, it must not be grasped merely in concepts, it must become alive. He does not say what the spirit is, nothing is recognized. This is the hallmark of Eucken's philosophy. It does not lead to real spiritual knowledge. When thinking forms itself out of itself, it does not become an indeterminate spiritual experience, but it is rounded off in itself, and what we have come to know as the etheric body resonates with thinking. When thinking transforms itself into meditation, this thought will form and out of the human etheric body there is - the spiritual human being. Humanity is on the way out of philosophy and into a living spiritual knowledge.

We are on the right path. Those who understand this recognize their time, but real insight into these things cannot be gained without developing a holy awe of the knowledge that holds one back from applying the power of judgment one has everywhere. One must always want to prepare oneself for new knowledge, because the way the soul is, it is only good for a side current of knowledge. Only when it develops itself higher is it good for really entering the spiritual world. Only then do we understand our task within our community correctly when we feel, with all humility, how we are called to know something of this great re-evaluation of all concepts of knowledge that want to lead into the spiritual life. We want to remain very modest, but we can call some of those who are considered great minds today shallow talkers, because that is not derogatory criticism. What we need to do is to combine clear, strong and forceful judgment of what we are striving for with humility; to recognize that, in the grand scheme of things, we are only at the beginning, but our hearts can swell, our hearts can glow with joy at the thought of what we want to achieve, to which we want to devote our most intimate soul powers. I would like to appeal not only to your imagination, but also to the deepest powers of your heart, to that in your soul where your deepest feeling for the pulse of the times can be found. Then you will understand what is meant by the fact that such a speech is only intended to hint at what the leading powers of our time, the spiritual individuals, of whom we know that they are going through our time, are saying to us. We do not advance only by acquiring more and more concepts about what the spiritual world is. We must acquire them. But we only really advance by connecting something with each new idea that comes from the deepest part of our soul, so that this ever-increasing understanding can be proven to the leading powers of the time. We can feel them speaking to us from the most intimate depths of our souls. Long before we perceive this speaking as a warning, we can feel how our movement is supported by these spiritual guiding powers, of which we are the true heralds within our movement. This awareness should pour out like a true spiritual current over what we do.

The lecture yesterday brought our study of the evolution of our planet to the stage known as Old Moon. We heard that the first embodiment of our planet was that of Old Saturn, the second that of Old Sun and the third that of Old Moon. We came to the point in yesterday's lecture where it was made clear that if everything had progressed exactly as hitherto, man would not have been able to keep pace with the tempo of the cosmic evolution of other beings. Hence a kind of severance took place at a certain point during the Old Moon embodiment. The Sun, progressing as it was within the cosmic expanse, separated from the planetary body together with the finest substances and higher beings. The less progressed part of the planetary body, namely, Old Moon itself, still containing all that constitutes our present earth and present moon, remained as a kind of cloud-body. Certain conditions brought about a densification or hardening on Old Moon and the same happened to the beings inhabiting it.

When the Sun had separated, its forces worked upon Old Moon from outside. The subsequent human-animal-plant kingdom that came into existence on Old Moon now received the forces of the Sun from outside. After the separation, the three kingdoms on Old Moon came into existence. As yet there was no mineral kingdom but what took shape, after the hardening process, as the lowest kingdom was a kind of mineral-plant kingdom—mineral substance that was plantlike in character, or, if you prefer, plant substance that was mineral in character. This formed the ground of Old Moon; it was a kind of semi-solid, semi-fluid foundation. On the earth today we walk about on a mineral ground, on Old Moon it was semi-solid, semi-fluid ground, a kind of plant-mineral soil. Think of a mass of spongy, plantlike substance on which human beings walked. This was the character of the lowest kingdom on Old Moon, a kingdom that was at the same time half-living. The ground of our earth today has become comparatively static; volcanic activity is the only reminder of a certain inner life. On Old Moon there were no such conditions. We may perhaps speak later on about what an occultist has to say on the subject of earthquakes and volcanic activity. Just as organs in a plant grow and subsequently die, so did this half-living substance on Old Moon. The Old Moon was like a great organism, living and mobile, on which the beings living might have felt like parasites of today. These Old Moon plants were composed of mineral substance, had life in them and were mobile; they were plant-mineral in character. Nothing would have been found resembling our rocks of today; instead, there were horny or woody formations. In the environment of Old Moon, like a kind of atmosphere, were a few cloud-masses composed of a half-watery, half-living substance in which the beings of the next kingdom, half animal, half plant in character, were embedded. If you were to crush a tree, causing something akin to the feeling experienced by an animal, that would be remotely comparable with what was experienced by this animal-plant kingdom, which could not exist as such on the earth today.

As has often been said, not only are there pupils in school who make no progress but in the whole process of evolution there are always beings who remain at a standstill and who, together with the forms that belong to them and express what they are, become retarded. Thus, on the earth itself there were still certain moon beings who were not sufficiently advanced to keep abreast of evolution on the earth. These beings were obliged to create in their outer expressions the condition that had been essential to their life on Old Moon. As you know, plants on Old Moon were not rooted in mineral soil as they are today but in the half-living ground of the planet. Mistletoe, for example, is a descendant, a straggler, of an Old Moon form; it is obliged to take root in plant-soil. In folk myths there are many indications of this, for example, in the legend of Baldur and Loki. The latter is a being belonging to Old Moon, whereas Baldur is a being inwardly connected with earth and sun evolution. To interpret a legend or myth it is necessary to know in which sphere of occult investigation the connections can be discovered. External science could be so enriched by the fruits of clairvoyance that it would recognize in a legend much more than folk fantasy. Spiritual science must teach one to investigate with the whole soul instead of with the intellect only.

There was still a third kingdom on Old Moon, between the animal and human kingdoms; it was the animal-human kingdom. The forms of those animal-men were quite different from what is pictured by materialistic science today. They were animal-men although certain important members of their constitution were not yet actually within them. While he is asleep today, man's physical and etheric bodies remain in the bed and his astral body is outside. Fundamentally speaking, during sleep he is therefore in the physical world with only the lesser half of his constitution. Man's physical and etheric bodies belong to an earlier, cosmic stage of consciousness. Clairvoyant vision reveals this condition to have been permanent on Old Moon. The astral body then was never entirely within the physical and etheric bodies but was nevertheless connected more fundamentally and definitely with the human being than is the case during sleep today. The head of the man of Old Moon was not self-enclosed as is the case today. A residue of what the organs in the head were at that time is the place at the top of a baby's head that stays soft and open for a long time. On Old Moon the head of the human being was still open. Were you to draw a line vertically downward from this soft area, you would meet the pineal gland. Today it is stunted and withered but it was an important organ during the Old Moon embodiment. It was a kind of sense organ that connected man's physical and etheric bodies with his astral body. Through this organ, which was a delicate, luminous body, man's astral body radiated into the other bodies. His consciousness was neither that of sleep nor of waking life. He did not perceive outer objects. His consciousness might be compared with that of the dream to-day. The pineal gland at that time was a kind of warmth organ, emitting powerful, luminous rays of warmth. When on Old Moon man was moving about, the function of this organ was to show him the direction he must take. Man's perception on Old Moon consisted in something like a dream picture rising up within him. There was as yet no seeing or perceiving objects but man felt an inner up-and-down surge of living pictures of which the dream pictures of today are only a feeble shadow. Everything a man set out to do on Old Moon, how he searched for his food and so forth, was always activated by these pictures that were connected with the outer world. He could allow himself to be directed and led by them. When he was looking for food he was guided by certain pictures that rose up before him, and he was warned of danger also by them. The astral body extended far beyond the physical and the etheric bodies; the form of the physical body alone could be called human.

On Old Moon man's inner warmth was not yet constant. Today, on the earth, this has been achieved. On Old Moon man absorbed warmth from the warmth around him and emitted it again, just as he inhales and exhales air today. The process became visible in his organ of warmth. It gleamed and was luminous when he was absorbing warmth and darkened when he was exhaling it. If you could have seen what was happening, the process would have suggested the image of a fire-breathing dragon. All these happenings have a deep significance. Figures such as the Archangel Michael with the fire-breathing dragon under his feet, or St. George. fighting with the dragon, are pictures reminiscent of those conditions. The fire breather of Old Moon, the ancient Dragon, is a figure that once actually existed. It portrays a stage that would have to be surmounted.

This is the explanation of such matters that is derived from occult knowledge. Later on, when spiritual science is more widely known, there will be a different view of truths that have been preserved in imagery and pictures of this kind. This animal-man form was quite different from that of man today because the astral body did not sink into the physical body as deeply as it did later on the earth. Man is the figure he is today because the astral body eventually sank right down into him. It could be said that what did not, during the Old Moon period of evolution, allow itself to descend into the depths of the physical world, now resolved to do so during the earth period. But if this process in the cosmos had taken place at an earlier time, man would have remained at a much lower evolutionary stage. During the period of earth evolution, he succeeded, with the help of the spirit, in acquiring for himself the noble, godlike form that is now his. If the possibility of developing this stature had already existed on Old Moon, the descent of the astral body would have taken place prematurely. The divine Guides have always chosen the right moment. The essential achievement of Old Moon evolution was that time was left for the evolution of the physical body, and on the earth man was to be permeated by the astral body after having evolved physically on Old Moon at a lower stage. Then again there took place a certain recession of the Moon into the Sun, which had previously separated; the Old Moon globe was again absorbed by the Sun and everything passed into a cosmic sleep, a pralaya. This began at the time when the Moon returned again into the Sun.

Hence the evolution of Old Moon proceeded by the following stages: firstly, a kind of preparation; secondly, separation into Sun and Moon; thirdly, formation of three kingdoms on Old Moon; fourthly, return into the Sun; fifthly, ebb; sixthly, the cosmic sleep.

The fourth metamorphosis of our earth, our own planet earth itself, then came forth from the cosmic sleep. This first configuration of the earth was, of course, quite different from its configuration today. When the earth emerged from the cosmic night, from the darkness of twilight, it was gigantic in size, for again sun and moon were contained within it; the separations took place later on. So enormous was the size of the earth that it reached as far as the Saturn of today. Differentiation in the solar system did not take place until a much later time. As far as is possible in terms of philosophical thinking, the Kant-Laplace theory is an entirely intelligible exposition of this first form of our earth. It speaks of a kind of archetypal nebula in which everything was dissolved and out of which the whole solar system came forth. Through the rotation of this nebula, rings took shape; they densified and then, still as the result of rotation, the planets were formed. In schools this process is often illustrated by means of an experiment. A globule of oil in liquid of equal density is made to rotate by a simple mechanical device. It can then be observed that this globule flattens, that drops separate from it and form themselves again into globules that circle round the central globule. In this way one can see in miniature a kind of planetary system coming into being through rotation. This has an immensely suggestive effect. Why should we not picture the process in this ways This experiment shows how a planetary system comes into existence through rotation; it is there before our very eyes.

But one thing is forgotten. One of us, or the teacher, actually causes the rotation! Nothing is really explained by this external illustration. No cosmic system comes into existence out of nothingness. It does not arise of itself from the nebula, but it comes into existence because many spiritual beings have been working on it and at a certain point in their evolution have drawn out the finest substances from the chaotic root substance and cast out the coarser substances, namely, the moon.

During the first period after pralaya, the earth, in which all the substances and beings were again united, recapitulated the Saturn condition. At the beginning of this phase of evolution the earth was not a globe of gas as has often been falsely assumed, but a globe of warmth. For it (the earth) was re-capitulating the condition of the Saturn embodiment and extended to the sphere of the present Saturn. At a certain stage the spiritual beings involved take their substances with them. Spirit is the foundation of everything, both when the Sun separates and during the evolution of Old Moon. No external factor was responsible here; it was an inner necessity for one section of the beings. The higher beings separate what they need from the chaotic substance. Everywhere it is the spirit that directs the external reality. When the earth first came into existence everything was contained in it; the spiritual beings indwelling it were at different stages of their evolution. We shall bear this in mind during the following studies.

Thus after pralaya the earth first of all recapitulated the Saturn condition; it was a condition of warmth. Then this gigantic globe of warmth condensed to the gaseous state and only when a definite point had been reached was it possible for the globe to form the fluid element and recapitulate the Old Moon condition. At this point on the earth there was a repetition of what had previously happened on Old Moon: the sun separated from the earth and earth-plus-moon became one independent body, containing the substances and beings of earth and moon, as they are still present today. Thus for a time earth and moon, and sun were one united whole. The earth-plus-moon was ejected because man could no longer keep pace with the tempo of the sun. Had the sun remained in the earth man would have been old practically at birth. The beings of the cosmos are at entirely different stages of evolution. It will only be possible to indicate the most important features of this evolution during the fourth period, that of the earth. Even the more mature beings belonged to grades at every possible level. There were some who could neither profit by the rapid tempo of the sun nor by the slow tempo of the earth. These beings departed already before the separation, when sun, earth and moon were still united. They created special arenas for their activity and these were the domains suitable for their rulership. It was thus that the outer planets, Saturn, Jupiter and Mars, were formed.

During the recapitulation of the Saturn embodiment, Uranus, Vulcan and Saturn separated from the earth. During the recapitulation of the sun embodiment, Jupiter and Mars separated. After the sun had left the earth, Mercury and Venus separated from it. After the separation of the sun, the earth cast out the moon. The dispersal of Old Moon was brought about by the forces of the progressed beings who drew out the solar body, while the normal and retarded beings produced the moon circling around it. In all the mysteries these happenings were called the strife in heaven. The detached planetoids are the ruins of that battlefield. It is here that the primal secret of the origin of evil must be sought.

The planetary spirits involved could not have waited until the sun separated from the earth because they would not have found the right soil for their activity; evolution at this time was turning into different channels. The planetary conditions of space and movement are all the expression and effect of the activity of their beings; these conditions indicate the evolutionary rank of the spiritual beings inhabiting the planets. Beings who had believed that they, too, could accompany the sun because this had formerly been possible but who could not now do so, separated from the sun, but only after it had itself separated from the earth. These beings separated from the sun after this event and are at a far higher stage of evolution than men. Venus and Mercury are the two bodies that, having separated from the sun after the latter's separation from the earth, formed the inner planets of our solar system.

After the severance from the sun a difficult, sombre period now began for the earth, in a certain respect its darkest, hardest era. While still united with the moon, the earth drew into itself all the forces that were retarding evolution. To obstruct life is characteristic of the forces principally active in the moon. During this period, these obstructive forces were working far too strongly in the earth. If the earth had remained connected with them, life would not have taken its course in the right tempo. Man would have hardened to the stage of mummification. The earth would have become a veritable cemetery, one vast graveyard containing statues of mummified human bodies. No procreation would have been possible. When the sun had left the earth, fearful desolation and hardening of all life took place. So already at that time there were periods when the human physical body was abandoned by its spiritual members, just as today the physical body is abandoned by its spiritual members at death.

In that past era, withdrawal and emergence of the being of spirit and soul from the physical already took place and a new search for the physical body began, as happens today when incarnations are to take place. But more and more frequently it happened that when the being of soul and spirit desired, while the moon was still united with the earth, to find a human body again, none was to be found, because bodies were no longer fit to receive the being of spirit and soul. Just imagine that great masses of human beings were to have died today and because of the character of the physical substance these bodies had become so decadent that the souls would have said: We cannot make use of these bodies, they are too decadent for us, they offer no possibility of further evolution. Suppose that because of an extensive spread of alcoholism, for example, successive generations had gradually become so degenerate that the bodies were simply useless for the descending souls. This is more or less a picture of the state of the earth at that time, before the exit of the moon. Everything that should have been habitable down below was often hardened, crusted, withered, mummified. There was actually a period when souls were seeking in vain for bodies for their own evolution on earth. The consequence was that certain beings simply could not at that time have returned to the physical plane as men. They could not have incarnated again on the earth. These beings then went to other cosmic bodies that had separated from the sun, namely, to Venus, Jupiter, Saturn and Mars. There was a time when the majority of these beings who should normally have incarnated on the earth according to their nature and their stage of evolution, placed themselves under the protection of the beings of Mars, Jupiter, Venus or Saturn, having ascended to and populated these cosmic bodies. Only the strongest souls found it possible to cope with the stubborn bodies and keep them flexible. Please understand me well. It was only the best soul material that then came again to the earth, because its power to master the stubborn bodies was the greatest. But under such conditions evolution could not have progressed.

The beings of the highest rank belonging to our solar system now adopted a new procedure. The most impermeable substances were extracted and separated from the earth; the severance of the moon was brought about. The result of this was that the forces that had remained behind were no longer frustrated in their evolution. But it was not until later that this moon became what it is today. The time had now come when the physical and etheric evolution of man could find the tempo befitting its stage. The forces both of the sun and the moon now worked upon the earth from outside, maintaining the balance. Gradually, while the moon was emerging, a kind of softening, an amelioration of the bodies of men, again took place. The period just described is called in occultism the Lemurian epoch, the epoch of the separation of the moon during the physical embodiment of the earth. The epoch when the sun left the earth is called the Hyperborean age, and the epoch when the sun, moon and earth were still united is called the Polarian age.

During the whole period when the sun was separated from the earth and the moon produced a hardening process on the earth to begin with and then left the earth during the whole of that period, sublime beings were influencing the differentiation. Their most important servants were the Spirits of Form, called the Exusiai in Christian esotericism, also Spirits of Revelation, Powers.

On Saturn it was the Thrones, the Spirits of Will who made the sacrifice of pouring out from their own substance the material for man's physical body. On Old Sun it was the Dominions or Spirits of Wisdom who provided the substance for the etheric body, and on Old Moon it was the Spirits of Movement or Mights who made possible the formation of the astral body. On the earth the Spirits of Form or Powers instill the ego, bringing it about that in this phase of evolution the ego enters gradually into what had come into existence, namely, man's physical body, etheric body and astral body. This is the work of the Spirits of Form. In order that an ego-man could come into existence at all as the expression of ego consciousness, and that this coordination of the physical, etheric and astral bodies could take place, everything that has now been described was essential. The separation of sun and moon from the earth was necessary; it was also necessary for man to undergo a process of hardening followed by a certain softening. This could take place because the wise beings who guided and directed these happenings undertook it all as probationary measures for the good of evolution. A great deal in the evolutionary process of the earth is still done today by the sublime beings concerned, as probationary measures.

What, then, is the anthroposophical movement? It came into the world because the lofty beings we call the Masters, who live in human physical bodies but have reached the far higher stage of evolution than the average man of today, poured out a certain amount of wisdom from the last third of the nineteenth century onwards. The living influx of this wisdom from higher realms into our culture is the actual basis of our anthroposophical movement. Do not imagine that there was no possibility of the attempted influx of wisdom falling upon deaf ears in humanity. Even if there had been deaf ears, the Masters would have said that an attempt must be made later on, when human beings would be ready to receive the wisdom. In occultism this is known as the test of maturity in men. The fact that wisdom pours into humanity from higher beings such as these is not in itself sufficient; what matters is how it is received; the success of the test depends upon that. Such tests have already been made several times but have not always succeeded. It was often within narrow limits that humanity proved to be ripe for the tests; receptive souls and hearts were not always to be found. When the ego of humanity was to be instilled, the test consisted in gradual attempts to permate what had formerly been astral body only, with the ego. Then it turned out that the astral body, permeated by the ego, was incapable of penetrating the physical body. Adjustment was therefore necessary and this was made possible by the separation of the moon. It was in the middle of the Lemurian epoch that the entry of the ego, the Christ principle, was first achieved.

But the following was connected with this. During and after the separation of the moon, the earth was depopulated. We have heard that the bodies had become so contaminated that they could no longer provide habitations for the souls. Cosmic happenings such as these have been preserved in legend and saga, but occult investigation reveals their true origin and teaches us that while the separation of the moon was taking place, when the earth was depopulated, many souls were searching for suitable embodiment in cosmic space; they departed from the earth and assumed bodies on other planets. But when the moon had finally left, it became apparent that the earth was capable again of providing suitable bodies. Now, the souls, who during the latest Lemurian epoch and thereafter in the Atlantean period had gone to the planets, presented them-selves again on the earth and incarnated in the bodies there. Groups of human beings now formed on the earth. Some provided bodies for souls coming from Jupiter incarnations, or from Mars, Venus or Saturn. These souls now found bodies that were appropriate for them. This grouping of souls gave rise to the birth of races. Hence there is a certain connection between the races and cosmic bodies and thus it was possible to speak of Saturn men, Jupiter men and so on. What can be called the concept of race had now, for the first time, its justification.

On Old Moon, and also on the earth while it was still united with the moon, there were human beings at different stages of evolution. This can be perceived right on into the Lemurian epoch, when owing to the exodus of the moon, differentiation took place in humanity. Thereafter the concept of race arose and from then on began to have a certain meaning, a certain significance. Race is something that comes into being and subsequently passes away again. The epoch of the formation of the races is that embraced by Lemuria and Atlantis. Today only stragglers of the races are present.

Yesterday we spoke of how preparation was made for that which had to come about for the evolution of humanity through the Mystery of Golgotha. We spoke of the three permeations of a Being of the higher Hierarchies by the Christ, and in the wonderful emergence of the Greek Apollo we found an echo of what had taken place at the end of the Atlantean time, as a far distant prefiguring of the Mystery of Golgotha. Now we have to inquire how the effects of this are manifest in the evolution of mankind. It will first be necessary to say something about the basic characteristics of the world pictures which appeared in post-Atlantean times as the echoes, or after effects, of the threefold Christ-event, for this, as we have seen, reached a certain conclusion at the end of the Atlantean Age.

Let us try to look more deeply into the fundamental characteristics of these world pictures. They arose as after effects in human souls of all that I described yesterday. These post-Atlantean world-pictures are indeed the reflections of the threefold Christ-event in the souls of post-Atlantean mankind. From this point of view we need say only a few words about the first post-Atlantean epoch. We know that in terms of spirituality it was the highest post-Atlantean epoch up to now, but that what the souls of the holy Rishis and their disciples received from it was less penetrated by the Mysteries of which I spoke yesterday.

The first post-Atlantean world-picture to show a direct effect of the threefold Christ-event was that which arose from the Zarathustrian impulse. Now I must here remark in parenthesis that I shall have to introduce words which—because of the way they are used today—have a dry, abstract, even pedantic sound; but, search as one may through the language; there are no other words available. And so I shall want to appeal to your souls to understand by these words something far more spiritual than anything they can signify for the and scholarship of the present time.

From the point of view relevant here I should like to associate the Zarathustrian world-picture with “Chronology”. It looks beyond the two Beings, Ahura Mazdao and Ahriman, to the workings of Time—Zervan Akarana. Not, however, the abstract Time we think of today, but Time viewed as a living, super-personal Being. From this Being proceed the rulers of Time; first of all the Amshaspands, the spiritual Beings who are symbolised in cosmic space by the signs of the Zodiac. Through the number six—or twelve if we reckon in their antipodes—they rule over the Izeds, who rank below them and are 28–31 in number. The Izeds are spirits of a lower kind, servants of the high Time Beings; they regulate the days of the month.

The Zarathustrian consciousness looked at the wonderful harmony which works through forces and is symbolised numerically by all the relations and combinations which result from the interweaving of 28 to 31 with 12. It looked into all that streams into the world and resounds through it, because in the great world-orchestra the instruments sound harmoniously together in these numerical relationships. For the Zarathustrian world-picture this appears as the ordering and harmonising principle in the cosmic order. I want to give only a hint of these relationships. And because in that which creates, and nourishes itself in creating, in that which takes the world-pictures into itself, absorbing them spiritually and carrying them over to higher stages—because the Zarathustrian outlook sees in “Time” something living and super-personal—so, while spiritualising the term, we may call this world-picture “Chronology”, whereby we are led to think at once of the god Kronos, the Regent of Time.

Then we come to the third post-Atlantean epoch. Yesterday I described it as the epoch in which knowledge was kindled in human souls by the forces which shone out from the stars; when the secrets of the world were no longer discerned only through the relations between the Rulers of Time in the super-sensible, for these were becoming manifest in the realm of sense existence. In the courses of the stars, in the signature of their movements in cosmic space, men could now perceive how harmony and melody in cosmic happenings are brought about. This picture of the world I would like to call Astrology. So Chronology is followed by Astrology. And everything that was disclosed by the true, authentic Chronology of Zarathustrianism, and by the true, authentic Astrology of the Egyptian and Chaldean Mysteries—all this was activated by the secret influence which had come into the world though the threefold Christ-event before the Atlantean catastrophe.

And what followed in Greece or in the Graeco-Latin epoch? What I am now going to say applies not only to the Greek and Roman cultures, but also to all the other regions of Europe. Yesterday I tried to illustrate it through a single example, but it holds good, one might say, for all the West. Let us recall how the Greeks reverenced Apollo, the reflection of the Nathan Jesus-child as he had been at the end of the Atlantean time. It was out of the Hyperborean land, from the North, that Apollo came to the Oracle at Delphi. Through the Pythia, in summer, he spoke the most important things that the Greeks wished to hear. In the autumn he returned to his Hyperborean land. We connected this journey of Apollo with the journeys of the sun; but it is the spiritual sun that speaks through Apollo, and the spiritual sun goes away to the north, while the physical sun goes to the south. The myths are seen to be endlessly full of wisdom if they are considered in the light of true occultism. But in revering Apollo the Greeks did not look on the sun as his visible sign in the heavens; Apollo was not a sun god in this sense. For a god symbolised by the external sun the Greeks had Helios; it was he who regulated the course of the sun in the sky. Even if we take only the physical sun into account, we find that its influence on earth-life is not confined to the direct effects of its rays. The sun works in the first place through air and water and water-vapour, and so through the vapours which (as we have seen) rise from the site of the Castalian spring and coil round the neighbouring hillsides like a dragon—the dragon killed by the Greek St. George. The sun works in all the elements, and after it has worked into them, inoculated them, its activity plays out from them on to human beings, through the servants whom we call elemental spirits. In the elements the Sun-Spirit is actively alive, and this is the activity the Greeks saw in their Apollo.

Thus for the Greeks Apollo was a sun god, but not the Helios who drove the chariot of the sun across the heavens and to some extent regulated the times of the day. In Apollo the Greeks saw the sun's activity in the atmosphere, and this activity they addressed as Apollo when they addressed it spiritually. And so it was with many gods and spiritual beings whom we find in the West. I could mention many, but we need point only to Wotan with his wild host, rushing through the storm. What form then did the world-picture—still echoing the threefold Christ-event—take in the fourth post-Atlantean epoch? Again I must make use of a pedantic, dried out word. Astrology was followed by Meteorology. Chronology, Astrology, Meteorology! We have only to bring the “logy” into relation with the Logos.

But while all this was breaking in over the Western world, something else streamed into the whole post-Atlantean civilisation. This too was an after-echo of the threefold Christ-event, but it came from quite another side. And this fourth element, running as though parallel to the Meteorology of the fourth post-Atlantean epoch, is something I must again designate with a dry, pedantic word: Geology—but I beg you once more to relate the “logy” to the Logos. Geology, then—where do we encounter it?

The development of the ancient Hebrew civilisation will never reveal its particular secrets unless it is studied as Geology, in our sense of the term. How do we first come upon the ranks of the Elohim, or upon the Jahve-god?¹ We meet him first when he wishes to form into man something taken from the Earth itself. He wishes to clothe with a new covering, an Earth-vesture, the part of man that has come down from earlier times, from Saturn, Sun, Moon. Jahve is precisely the god who forms man out of the Earth—that is, out of the forces and elements of the Earth. Therefore the ancient Hebrew wisdom, since it professed the Jahve-god, had to become Geology. And this teaching about man, that he is formed out of the forces of the Earth, is Geology. Is not the geological character of the ancient Hebrew teaching shown to us at once in the name of the first man, Adam—he who was formed out of earth! That is the significant point that we must keep before us: among other peoples—the peoples with a meteorological world-picture, let us say—the creation of man is spoken of quite differently, with the emphasis on his soul. In the Greek tradition, for example, we see Prometheus engaged in the forming of man. Athene lends her aid and causes a spark from spiritual heights to be united with man. Prometheus forms the soul in the symbolic likeness of a butterfly. The Jahve-god forms man out of earth; and he, the Jahve-god, having become in the course of his evolution the Ruler of Earth, breathes out of his own substance a living soul into man. So Jahve unites himself through his breath with what he has formed out of earth. And he wishes to dwell in his offspring, in his living breath, in Adam and his descendants; those beings whom Jahve considered it his task to clothe in earth. And now to carry this further, let us try to call up before our souls everything we find handed down by the Bible from Hebrew antiquity itself.

We know, and have emphasised, that the Earth develops certain forces. Goethe and Giordano Bruno, among others, compare these forces to those of in-breathing and out-breathing in human beings. The Earth does have forces of in-breathing and out-breathing which bring about ebb and flow, the swelling and sinking of the waters; they are inner Earth-forces, but the same as those which guide the Moon round the Earth. In water-effects we encounter a manifestation of these Earth-forces. In this realm the Bible shows us the Deluge as another important event after the creation of Adam, the ‘man of earth’. And now let us pass on to the time of Moses!

If we look at the doings of Moses in the right light, we find them constantly related to activities of the Earth. Moses goes to the rocks with his rod and makes water gush out. Moses goes up the mountain. Above and below, the mountain is connected with Earth activity. For we must think of this mountain as a volcano, or at least as volcanic. It is not the Sinai generally imagined; the Earth is active in it. The column of fire in which Moses stands is akin to what happens when we bum a piece of paper in the sulphur hills of Italy and smoke comes out. So does fiery smoke, telluric activity, come out of the mountain. And in telluric activity the Jews always saw symbols. In front of them went the pillar of cloud or of fire—telluric activity! We could go deeply into details and everywhere we should find that the spirit of Earth prevails in all that Moses gives out as a revelation of the Jahve-god. What Moses proclaims is Geology!

The profound difference between the Greek and the Hebrew conceptions of the world will never be understood unless it is recognised that the Greek conception belongs to Meteorology, and the Hebrew conception to Geology. The Greeks felt that they were living in the midst of forces pouring in on the Earth from the surrounding Cosmos; pouring into the air and pervading the atmosphere. The Hebrews felt themselves in close relationship to forces rising from the Earth below and bound up with the Earth. Yes, even the sufferings of the Hebrew people come from the desert, where the Earth-forces prevail. Geology dominates the destiny of the Hebrews. Geology, expressed now in the fruitfulness of the Earth, is what draws them, through the reports of their spies, to the Promised Land.²

Paul knew well that this consciousness of a connection with the Earth-spirit is a result of the pre-earthly Christ-event, for he indicates that it was the Christ who led the Jews through the desert and caused water to flow from the rock. And if we were to go on from the Bible to some of the significant Hebrew legends, we should find them permeated with Geology, in the sense meant here. Thus we are told how Jahve, when he was forming man out of earth, sent forth an angel to gather earths of different colours from all parts of the Earth, so that everything belonging to the Earth should be mingled in Adam's bodily vesture. Today we should say that Jahve took great care to place man on the Earth so that in his true being he would be the highest flower, the crown, of earthly creation.

For the Chaldeans, the Egyptians, the Zoroastrians, the Greeks, the Romans and the European peoples of central and northern Europe, the most important part of man was the part that came from the spiritual world. For the Jews, the most important element in man was connected with the Earth and its forces. Jahve felt himself as the god whose spiritual rulership prevailed throughout the Earth.

Thus we can regard as the most important event in the fourth post-Atlantean epoch the emergence of Geology side by side with Meteorology. And a wonderful spiritual reflection of this comes to expression in ancient Hebrew prophecy.

What were these prophets really striving for? Let us try to look into the prophetic souls of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Hezekiah, Daniel, Joel, Jonah and Zechariah. If we do this quite impartially, without any preconceptions, we find that they were endeavouring, fundamentally, to bring a particular soul-force into the forefront of the soul and to drive another soul-force down, as it were, into the depths. I have already asked you to notice how, in the paintings by Michelangelo which I described, the prophets are always depicted sitting there as if wrapped in deep thought, inwardly at rest, so that one sees how in the devotion of their souls they are connected through sub-earthly depths with the Eternal. In contrast with them Michelangelo places the Sibyls, who are open to the elemental powers of the Earth. Thus the hair of one Sibyl is blown about by the wind; even her blue mantle billows in the wind, and under the influence of the wind she utters her prophecies. We see another Sibyl seized by inner fire; in the typically assertive gesture of her hand we see the fire, the earthly element. We could look again at these Sibyls one by one and we should find that they live in the midst of the forces which play into their souls from the elemental surroundings of the Earth. These Sibylline forces, which so to speak draw into their souls the spirit of the elements and bring it to expression—these are the forces that the old Jewish Prophets wanted to repress. If you read impartially the whole history of the Jewish Prophets, you will find that the prophet sets himself—and that is the aim of his training—to suppress in himself the Sibylline urge and to prevent it from ever breaking out.

Apollo changed the Sibylline impulse of the Pythia by sinking himself into it and speaking through her. The Prophets wanted to suppress everything Pythian in their souls and to cultivate solely that which works in the clear force of the Ego; the Ego which is bound up with the Earth and belongs to it; the Ego which is the spiritual counterpart of the geological element. How the Eternal reveals itself in the Ego through calm repose, when the Sibylline elements are silent, when all inner turmoil ceases, when only calm prevails and gazes into the grounds of the Eternal—that is what the Jewish Prophets wished to manifest, so that their proclamations could spring from a temper of soul which corresponds in the highest degree with Geology.

Thus the stirring message that sounds forth to us from the Prophets is like an out flowing of the geological element, and even when things turn out quite differently from what has been prophesied, this very fact shows us how closely bound are the Prophets to the element of Geology. A future kingdom which will redeem the existing kingdom while remaining in all appearance an earthly kingdom, a heaven on Earth—that is first of all what the Prophets announce, so closely are they united with Geology.

This geological element in the Prophets flowed on even into the early days of Christianity, since people expected not only the return of the Messiah, but that he would come down from the clouds and found his kingdom on Earth. The distinctive inner character of Jewish culture will be understood only if it is taken in this sense as Geology. This was what the Prophets longed for and inculcated in their pupils—to suppress the Sibylline element, together with everything that leads the soul into unconscious depths, and to make manifest that which lives in the Ego.

The relations of all other peoples to their gods were different from those of the Jews to their Jahve. The other relations were predetermined: they reflected the outcome of the relations of men to the spirits of the higher Hierarchies during the Saturn, Sun and Moon periods. The Jewish people had the task of developing a relationship which belonged specially to the Earth period. But when the Ego wishes to establish a relationship with its god, how does this find expression? Not as inspiration, so that morality springs from the operation of divine forces within the soul, but as commandment. The form of commandment found in the Decalogue is encountered first among the Jews—whatever nonsense learned men may talk about earlier commandments, Hammurabi, and so forth. I cannot go now into the follies of modern scholarship. The commandments that arise when the Ego stands directly over against God and receives from God the rule, the precept, that the Ego must follow out of its own inner will—this kind of commandment is met with first among the Jewish people. And it is here, too, that we first find God entering into a covenant with his people.

The other gods worked with forces which are always connected with subconscious realms of the soul. Let us recall how Apollo worked through the Pythia, and how a person on his way to the Pythia had to prepare himself, so that the god might be able to speak to him. Apollo spoke through the unconscious soul-life of the Pythia. In contrast with this we have the Jahve-god uttering his commandments, making a covenant with his people, speaking directly to the Ego in the soul. And the Prophets immediately wax wrath if something happens which did often happen to the Jewish people—if the influence of heathen peoples gains sway over the Jews. No subconscious forces were to be allowed to influence the Jews; everything had to rest on the alliance with God and the principle of the Law. That was the especial concern of the Prophets. And now let us look back a little, with the aid of occult knowledge, over what we have already tried to illustrate.

Yesterday we came to know about the threefold Christ-event which took place in Lemurian and Atlantean times. We saw how on three occasions the Being who appeared later as the Nathan Jesus-child was permeated by the Christ, but in such a way that he did not incarnate on Earth but remained in spiritual worlds. And when we look back over what happened then, we must say that what was accomplished in Atlantean times flowed over into the East.

For example, Elijah was one of the Prophets—but in what sense is he a Prophet?³ He is a servant of the God Jahve, but in his soul an echo of the threefold Christ-event lives on. In his soul is the knowledge: “As a prophet of Jahve I must above all things proclaim that in Jahve there lives the Christ who will later on fulfil the Mystery of Golgotha; the Christ who poured His enduring influence into the cosmos through His third experience at the end of the Atlantean time.” Elijah proclaimed the Christ-filled Jahve. For the Christ was indeed living in Jahve, the Jahve-god, but as a reflection of Himself. As the moon reflects the sunlight, so did Jahve reflect the Being who then lived as Christ. Christ caused his Being to be reflected from Jahve or the Jahve-god. But a messenger such as Elijah worked in the after-effects of the threefold Christ-event; we might say that Elijah went ahead of the Nathan Jesus-being, who was passing spiritually from West to East in order to find his way into the course of civilisation and then to be born as one of the Jesus-children.

The overflow, as it were, of Meteorology, especially when this came into touch with Geology, was felt by all peoples as a heralding of things to come. And we meet with the remarkable fact that in the region which afterwards became so important for Christianity one of these prefiguring signs occurred. We see how in the most varied places of Asia Minor, and also in Europe, festivals were held which were like foreshadowings of the Mystery of Golgotha. The cults of Attis and Adonis have been correctly noted as having this character. But if we look at these festivals in their true light, we see that the event they prefigure is on the meteorological level. The god who was slain as Adonis, and who rose again, was not thought of as embodied in the flesh. What his worshippers had for a god was primarily an image, a picture; and in fact it was a picture of the angelic Being who in spiritual heights was permeated by the Christ at the close of the Atlantean time and was later born as the Nathan Jesus-child. It was the destiny of the Nathan Jesus-child that was celebrated in the worship of Adonis and Attis.

We can now say that it was part of the karma of world history—you will perhaps look for something more behind these words—that in the place where the Bible with a certain truth locates the birth of the Jesus-child—in Bethlehem—there was a centre of the Adonis cult. Bethlehem was one of the places where Adonis had been worshipped. The Adonis who died and rose, again was often celebrated there, and so was an aura prepared by the calling up of a memory: Once in the spiritual heights there was a Being who then belonged still to the Hierarchy of Angels and was later to come to Earth as the Nathan Jesus-child; a Being who at the end of the Atlantean time had been permeated by the Christ. What had formerly been done for the harmonising of thinking, feeling and willing—this was celebrated at the Adonis festivals. And in Bethlehem, where Adonis festivals had been held, we have also the birthplace of the Nathan Jesus-child. In conjunction, these words sound strange. But when we have sought out the threefold Christ-event, the super-earthly event which on three occasions preceded the Mystery of Golgotha, do we not see the Christ pass over from West to East, to the place where the Mystery of Golgotha was to be fulfilled? Do we not see how He had sent His messenger in Elijah, and do we not know how in his next incarnation the messenger reappeared as John the Baptist? And are we not expressly told of this in a wonderful harmony of words: “He sent his angel before him, to herald his coming?”⁴ That can be said as well of John as of Elijah. Or even better of Elijah, as will be understood by those who remember my saying that Elijah remained in spiritual heights and worked through a representative, so that he himself never went about on Earth. If you reflect on that, the expression, “He sent his angel before him”, is even more appropriate to Elijah than to John. Such messengers were always messengers of the Christ, who was passing from West to East.

And now the Geology of the Jews was to be permeated by the spiritual Being whom we have learnt to see as having a particular activity in relation to the Earth. Geology was to be Christened (durchchristet). The spirit of the Earth was to be experienced in a new way by men; they had to be enabled to free this spirit, in a certain sense, from the Earth. But this was possible only if there came a power which could free the spirit of the Earth from the forces of the Earth. This happened when the Earth's aura was permeated by the power of the Christ and in consequence a change came over the Earth itself. The Christ entered into the forces which the Jahve-god had released and gave them a different character.

From all this, if we look back over it, we can understand why the laurel became a visible symbol of Apollo. For those who bring something of Spiritual Science to the study of the plant kingdom, the laurel has a strong connection with meteorological conditions. It is shaped and built out of Meteorology. Another plant is much more closely bound up with the Earth; is so to speak an expression of Geology. If one really feels how the oil penetrates the olive tree, so that in one's own soul the elemental forces are stirred by the way in which the tree allows a new sprout to be grafted on to it and to flourish there—then one can feel how the olive tree is inwardly penetrated with the oil of Earth. One can feel the earthly element pulsing through the oil.

And now you will remember something I touched on in the second lecture—that Paul was called to build a bridge between Hebrew antiquity and Christianity, between Geology and Christology. As we said, Paul's activity extends through the realm of the olive tree. And if we understand Apollo in the vapours rising from the mountain chasms, and how through the vapours he inspires the Pythia and speaks oracular words concerning human fate, then we can also feel how the elemental forces stream from the olive tree into its environment, and these are forces familiar to the soul of Paul. We can feel it in his words. He immerses himself, as it were, in Geology in order to feel the elemental forces in the aura of the olive tree and to let its aura inspire him in that geographical realm where his work lay.

Nowadays people read these things far too abstractly. They imagine that things said by writers in the past were as abstract, as dependent only on the brain, as are the things often said by modern authors. People do not reflect how not only understanding and reason, but all the forces of the soul, can be connected in a primordial earthly sense with all that gives a certain region its particular stamp. It was the olive tree that gave its stamp to the Pauline region. And when Paul sought to raise the Jewish Geology up to himself, then it was that—inspired by the olive tree—he spoke the most important things concerning the relationship of the Christ-filled man to men who are far from Christ. Let us hear the strange words Paul uses when he wishes to bring the Gentile Christians into relation with the Jews. They are not to be taken abstractly, but as words that rise new-minted from the elemental depths of his soul: Romans XI. 13–24. (From the New English Bible):

“But I have something to say to you Gentiles. I am a missionary to the Gentiles, and as such I give all honour to that ministry when I try to stir emulation in the men of my own race, and so to save some of them. For if their rejection has meant the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance mean? Nothing less than life from the dead! If the first portion of dough is consecrated, so is the whole lump. If the root is consecrated, so are the branches. But if some of the branches have been lopped off, and you, a wild olive, have been grafted in among them, and have come to share the same root and sap as the olive, do not make yourself superior to the branches. If you do so, remember that it is not you who sustain the root: the root sustains you.

“You will say, ‘Branches were lopped off so that I might be grafted in.’ Very well: they were lopped off for lack of faith, and by faith you hold your place. Put away your pride, and be on your guard; for if God did not spare the native branches, no more will he spare you. Observe the kindness and the severity of God—severity to those who fell away, divine kindness to you, if only you remain within its scope; otherwise you too will be cut off, whereas they, if they do not continue faithless, will be grafted in; for it is in God's power to graft them in again. For if you were cut from your native wild olive and against all nature grafted into the cultivated olive, how much more readily will they, the natural olive-branches, be grafted into their native stock!”

Thus wrote he of whom tomorrow we will speak further, showing how he took what he had to say from Jewish Geology and drew a superb picture of the elemental forces which rise up from the Earth and reign in the olive tree.

• 1. On the subject of the creative work performed by Jahve together with the other six Elohim, see Genesis. Secrets of the Bible Story of Creation. Lecture-course given by Dr. Steiner in Munich, August, 1910.
• 2. See Numbers, XIII. 16.
• 3. On the subject of the Prophet Elijah, see the following lecture-courses by Dr. Steiner: The Gospel of St. Mark (lectures III and VI) and The Gospel of St. Luke (lecture VI).
• 4. “Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me.” Malachi, III. 1. “For this is he of whom it is written, Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee.” Matthew, XI. 10.

Today—since Dr. Trapesnikoff has ordered them—we will show you some pictures arranged from a different point of view than in our former lectures; more from the point of view of subject-matter. The pictures today will relate especially to the birth of Christ Jesus, the Adoration by the Shepherds and by the Three Wise Men, and finally the Flight into Egypt. Comprising an evolution through several centuries, they will bring before our souls, from another aspect, that which is living in the Old Christmas Plays of which we have been speaking in the last lectures. We shall thus be concerned today, not in the first place with the artistic elements, as such, but with the treatment of a certain theme in the history of Art, and I will therefore speak not so much of the evolution of artistic principles, but draw your attention to some other points of view which may be of interest in relation to these pictures. You will, however, bear in mind the general lines of development of Christian Art, which we have described in the past lectures of this series. You will observe the same great trend of evolution, as we pass from the artistic representations of the early Christian centuries into the times of the Renaissance. First you will see the more typical representations of an early time. These, as we have seen, were still under the influence of Revelations from the Spiritual World. Less concerned with naturalistic expressions of form and color, they try to reproduce the spiritual Imaginations, revealed out of the Spiritual World. Thenceforward you will see this Christian Art evolve towards Naturalism, that is, towards a certain reproduction of that which may be called reality from the point of view of the physical plane. As we follow the evolution of this Art, the sacred personalities stand before us in a more and more human form.

We shall first show some pictures relating more especially to the Birth of Christ. Then we shall show the Adoration of the Child by the Shepherds; indeed, these two, to some extent, will go together. The next series of pictures will deal mainly with the story of the Three Wise Men of the East—the Magi. Here I beg you to observe how the two streams evolve: the stream of St. Luke's Gospel, as we may call it, and that of the Gospel of St. Matthew. They are the streams which take their start from the two Jesus Children. Artistically, too, we can recognise the difference. The Adoration by the Shepherds—all that is more or less related to this theme—could best be understood (understood, that is to say, by the inner feelings) under the influence of what remained from those Northern Mysteries whose center, as I told you, was in Denmark. This stream is connected with all that related to the Birth of Jesus—springing forth, as it were, with Jesus, out of the earthly evolution, out of the spiritual beings that are bound up with the life of Nature.

In the Adoration by the Magi, on the other hand—the mission of the Three Wise Men from the East—we always find a direct expression of the “Gnostic” stream. Under the influence of the “Star”—which means, something that is made known out of the Cosmos—the Wise Men draw near to the Christ Who heralds His approach and develops in the Zarathustra Jesus. In all that is connected with the Adoration by the Three Wise Men, we have, therefore the Gnostic stream: the consciousness that the Christ-Event was a cosmic one; that a fertilisation of the Earth had taken place out of the Cosmos.

Our friends have been kind enough to put up here a drawing of the Three Wise Men. The picture is taken from an old Gospel Book. We see them looking up in adoration, that is, in quest of spiritual knowledge, by striving upward with all their inner being, and looking up to the Star wherein the Spirit Who shall liberate the Earth draws near.

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1. Three Wise Men.

It may truly be said that this stream, which finds expression in St. Matthew's Gospel, was less and less understood in the further course of centuries. True, it also came to life, as you know, in the Old Christmas Plays. But the appearance of the Three Wise Men of the East cannot really be understood with the same understanding, as the appearance of Jesus to the Shepherds according to St. Luke's Gospel. For the latter is a simple understanding of the heart, of inner feeling; while the understanding which we must bring to bear on all that is connected with the Wise Men from the East must needs be of a “Gnostic” character. All that is signified by the Wise Men “following the Star” will only come into the consciousness of humanity again when—not the Gnosis this time, it is true—but anthroposophical Spiritual Science gains acceptance.

Finally, we shall show some pictures of the Flight into Egypt. This, too, is connected with the “Gnostic” Revelation concerning Jesus Christ. We cannot speak of it at great length today; we may return to it another time.

To begin with, it is important here, again, to realise that there is a certain underlying composition in all that the Gospels contain. The composition is always important. We need only faithfully follow the Gospel narrative. The Flight into Egypt appears in direct connection with the Mission of the Three Wise Men. It happens, as it were, on the basis of what was first undertaken by the Three Wise Men. This bears witness to the fact that the Gospel is taking into account the connection with all that was related about Egypt in the Old Testament. Moses was learned in the Wisdom of the Egyptians. Now we are told in the Gospel that the Three Wise Men of the East came to the birthplace of Christ Jesus, led by the Star which is really the Star of Christ. But it goes on to relate that something now had to take place which did not entirely accord, as it were, with the course of the Star; something which was not in the consciousness of the Wise Men themselves—for so the Gospel explicitly tells us. Here we are shown one of those cases where the astrological determination, as it were, of certain great events has to be broken through. How precisely the astrological determination corresponds to what is known of the historic facts—you could see this from the instance which we spoke of recently. Our friends drew up the Horoscope for that point in the course of Time which was indicated as the day of Christ Jesus's Death.

But we see that the Jesus Child, in whom the Zarathustra Soul was living, had to be taken out of the domain of this Star. He was taken into Egypt, and from Egypt He was then led back again into the realm of the Star. In this is contained the whole Mystery of the ebbing away of that ancient stream of evolution which had grown atavistic in the Egyptian Gnosis. The new Revelation had to enter once more into a certain union with the Old in order that it might free itself consciously.

These are the underlying Mysteries, and though they are little recognised, none the less they lie inherent in the composition. I may take this opportunity to point out once more, how important it is to pay attention to the composition when we read the Gospels. For the text is frequently corrupt and can only be read in its true form by those who are able to read with the help, if I may say so, of the Occult Text. Notably in the translations, naturally enough, the text is often quite unintelligible. But in the composition (compare my Lecture Cycle held in Cassel on the Gospel of St. John)—in the composition there is something which will strike any reader immediately, if he reads the Gospel carefully.

One more remark I would like to make, before we go on to show the pictures. The materialistic consciousness of our age has altogether lost the point of view which would indicate such inner connections as underlie the revelation to the Three Wise Men. Whatever goes by the name of Astrology today has fallen into the hands of utter dilettanti, who carry on all kinds of nonsense and abuses with it. Few people nowadays are in true earnest when they speak of that relation of the Earth to the Cosmos which finds expression in actual physical relationships—in the constellations of the Stars. On the other hand, for the official Science of today Astrology of whatever kind is a mere antiquated superstition.

Nevertheless, the knowledge of these things did not decay or die out absolutely until the 18th century. Even as late as the 18th century people still spoke of something which is of extreme importance if we wish to understand the deep, deep truths that underlie the appearance of the Three Wise Men. In the 18th century, those who had still preserved some knowledge of the old Initiations spoke of the significance of the physical constellations. But not only so: they also spoke of the significance of invisible constellations. Even in the 18th century it was expressly stated in certain circles who possessed Initiation Knowledge. “There are also Stars which only the Initiate can see.” This is a true statement, and this, above all, must be taken into account if we wish to understand why it was that “Imaginations” appeared to the Shepherds, while “Stars” appeared to the Three Wise Men. Such is the indication: The Revelation came to the Shepherds inasmuch as they still had dreamlike clairvoyance in the old atavistic sense. But the Wise Men of the East had their knowledge through the ancient Science that had been handed down. Through this they knew of the relation between the Cosmos, the Heavens and the Earth. Through this they knew—could calculate, as it were—what was drawing near.

Hence we can see in the evolution of these pictures—and you will now have opportunity to observe it for yourselves—we see, with all the transition to Naturalism, the pictorial representations growing less and less adequate to the theme of the Wise Men. For the Wise Men or Magi, the most ancient and typical representations are the most fitting. For the real truth that is intended in this story is lifted right out of the earthly domain. On the other hand, the representations of Jesus grow the more intimate and tender, the more naturalistic they become. For in this case the naturalistic quality is fitting. All that goes out to meet the approaching Christ from the physical plane—all that is connected, therefore, with the life of Nature—is naturally best portrayed by such means.

We will now go on to the pictures, first of the Nativity itself and of the Adoration by the Shepherds, and then of the Three Wise Men or Kings.

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2. The Nativity. (mosaic) (Palermo, Chiesa della Martorana.)

In these old compositions, as you see, everything is conceived in typical form—based on the typical representations of the ancient Myths which came over largely from the East. In a most natural way the typical representations of the Myth grew into the representations of the Christian theme. The Orpheus type, for instance, the type of the Good Shepherd, was handed down from earlier representations of Myth or Cult or Ritual, and taken to represent the new impulse, the Christ event; and so it was with many another theme and composition.

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3. A Page of the Biblia Pauperum. 1st Edition. (15th century) The Nativity, etc. (German Woodcuts.)

These early Bibles generally showed parallel representations from the Old and New Testaments. They bore in mind that the New Testament is the fulfilment of the Old; this idea is brought out again and again in these “Bibles of the Poor.” The Nativity, which interests us mainly now, is shown in the middle of the page.

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4. The Nativity, 11th Century. (Limburg Monestary.)

This is at Cologne. Beneath is the Flight into Egypt; the two are together in this slide. Apart from this one, we shall show the Flight into Egypt at the end of the lecture. Here you have a beautifully naive conception of the Nativity. You will feel the connection of it with what is given in the old Christmas Plays with which we are familiar. Though the latter belong, of course, to a later time, nevertheless they are from earlier Christmas Plays which are no longer extant.

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5. The Flight into Egypt. (Evangeliar of the 12th century. Cathedral of Cologne.)

It is interesting to see, all around the picture, representations of what was cosmically connected with the Event, showing how they were still aware of the spiritual relationships. And now we will take the same motif as it appears in the work of Niccola Pisano.

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6. Niccola Pisano. The Nativity. (Baptistery at Pisa.)

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7. Giotto. The Nativity. (San Francesco. Assisi.)

You see how the representations of the theme are gradually passing into Naturalism.

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8. della Robbia. The Nativity. (Hamburg. Altarpiece.) (National Museum. Florence.)

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9. Meister Francke. The Nativity. (Hamburg.)

This picture is at Hamburg; I remember having seen it there myself not long ago.

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10. Philippo Lippi. The Nativity. (Cathedral at Spoleto.)

You really see how in the course of time Naturalism takes hold of it more and more.

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11. Piero della Francesca. The Nativity. (National Gallery. London.)

Here we are in the fifteenth century once more; and we now go on to Correggio.

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12. Correggio. Holy Night. (Dresden.)

We pass again to the more Northern Masters, whose names you know. First we have a work of Schongauer' s.

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13. Martin Schongauer. The Nativity. (Alto Pinakothek. Munich.)

Most interesting to see the Italian and the Northern Masters one after the other. In the former you still find a stronger adherence to ideal types, while here there is more individualisation—creation out of inwardness of soul, as we have seen before. Down to the tiny feet, all is pervaded with feeling, albeit the artistic perfection is not so great as in the Southern Masters.

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14. Herlin. Nativity from the Altar of St. George. (Museum at Nordlingen.)

We come now to the turn of the 15th and 16th centuries, to Albrecht Dürer.

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15. Dürer. The Nativity. (Alto Pinakothek. Munich.)

See how the Art is taken hold of here by all that I described to you—the working out of the element of light. It is most interesting to study this in Dürer.

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16. Altdorfer. The Holy Night. (Berlin.)

Altdorfer was Dürer's successor in Nuremberg.

We shall now give a series of pictures relating mainly to the Adoration by the Shepherds. First, some older Miniatures from Bible and Gospel Manuscripts.

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17. Nativity and Annunciation to the Shepherds. (Codex Egberti. Trier. 10th century.)

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18. Nativity and Annunciation to the Shepherds, from Menologion of Basil II (Vatican. Rome. 11th Century.)

We go on to the Italian representations of the Adoration of the Child by the Shepherds.

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19. Cimabue. Adoration by the Shepherds. (Assisi.)

With Cimabue, as you know, we find ourselves in the 13th century. We go on into the 15th and come to Ghirlandajo, the Master of whom we lately spoke.

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20. Ghirlandajo. Adoration by the Shepherds. (Akademia. Florence.)

Another Master of the 15th century is Piero di Cosimo.

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21. Piero di Cosimo. Adoration by the Shepherds. (Berlin.)

And now we come to the Art of the Netherlands, with which we are familiar.

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22. Hugo van der Goes. Adoration of the Child. (Uffizi. Florence.)

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23. Hugo van der Goes. Adoration of the Child. (detail.)

Finally we give two works by Rembrandt.

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24. Rembrandt. Adoration by the Shepherds. (In the Lantern Light. Etching, about 1652.)

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25. Rembrandt. Adoration by the Shepherds. (Alte Pinakothek. Munich.)

We now go on to the pictures representing the Adoration by the Three Wise Men. To begin with, an old Mosaic, of the 6th century.

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26. Mosaic. Chiesa della Martotana. Palermo. Three Wise Men.

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27. Mosaic. Sant Apollinare Nuovo. Ravenna.

In these older pictures the events are shown thoroughly in connection with the Spiritual World—remote from all Naturalism, lifted into a higher sphere.

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28. Nativity and Adoration by the Wise Men. (Menologium Basilius. Vatican. 11th century)

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29. Niccola Pisano. Adoration by the Wise Men. (Baptistery at Pisa.)

This is the famous Golden Gate at Freiberg, second half of the 12th century:

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30. Adoration by the Three Wise Men. (Cathedral of Freiberg. The Golden Gate.)

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31. Domenico Veneziano. Adoration by the Wise Men. (Berlin.) Formerly attributed to Pisanello (Vittore Pisano).

We go on to the 15th, to Stephen Lochner:

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32. Stephen Lochner. Adoration by the Three Wise Men. (Cathedral of Cologne.)

The next is by Gentile da Fabriano, also of the 15th century.

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33. Gentile da Fabriano. Adoration of the Child. (Florence.)

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34. Fra Angelico. Adoration of the Kings. (St. Marco. Florence.)

Fra Angelico is as tender and lovely in this as in all other subjects.

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35. Filippo Lippi. Adoration by the Wise Men.

Whichever subject it is, you see how Naturalism progresses. This is especially interesting when one follows the treatment of one and the same subject through the centuries.

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36. Sandro Botticelli. Adoration by the Wise Men. (Uffizi. Florence.)

Now we come to the second half of the 15th century.

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37. Ghirlandajo. Adoration by the Wise Men. (Spedale degli Innodenti. Florence.)

End of the 15th century:

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38. Mantegna. Adoration by the Wise Men. (Uffizi. Florence.)

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39. Giorgione. The Wise Men of the East. (Vienna.)

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40. Giorgione. Adoration by the Wise Men. (National Gallery. London.)

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41. Giovanni Bellini. Adoration by the Kings. (Layard Gallery. London.)

And now I ask you to call to mind once more the various Dutch and Flemish Masters of whom we have spoken in a former lecture. For we now have the same subject by

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42. Rogier van der Weyden. Adoration by the Kings. (Alte Pinakothek.Munich)

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43. Dieric Bouts. Adoration by the Wise Men. (Alte Piankothek. Munich.)

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44. Adoration by the Wise Men, 15th centry, from the Brevarium Grimani.

We have spoken of the characte of these painters. The next is by the artist who worked in Bruges and died about 1523.

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45. Gerard David. Adoration by the Wise Men. (Alte Pinakothek. Munich.)

And now the same theme treated by Leonardo.

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46. Leonardo da Vinci. Adoration by the Three Wise Men. (Uffizi.Florence) And by his pupil,

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47. Luini Bernadino. Adoration by the Wise Men. (Saronno.)

Going North again:

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48. Dürer. Adoration by the Wise Men. (Uffizi. Florence.)

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49. Brueghel. Adoration by the Wise Men. (Vienna.)

And finally, Rembrandt.

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50. Rembrandt. Adoration by the Three Wise Men. (Buckingham Palace.)

And now we come to our last theme: the Flight into Egypt. First we have a painter of the late 15th and early 16th century.

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51. Herrad von Lanndsberg. The Flight into Egypt.

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52. Joachim de Patinir. Rest in the Flight. (Prado. Madrid.)

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53. Correggio. Madonna della Scodella. (Parma)

The next, a little later.

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54. Bernhard Strigel. The Flight into Egypt. (Stuttgart.)

Strigel painted also in Vienna, and died in 1528.

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55. Albrecht Dürer. Resting on the Flight into Egypt.

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56. Workshop of Albrecht Dürer. Resting on the Flight into Egypt.

Next is Hans Baldung or Hans Grun, going on into the 16th century.

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57. Hans Balding (Baldung). Rest in the Flight. (Germanisches Museum. Nuremberg.)

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58. Lucas Cranach. Rest in the Flight. (Berlin.)

Finally, Rembrandt:

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59. Rembrandt. Rest in the Flight. (Etching.)

So much for today. Perhaps you will now take the opportunity to see at close quarters this impressive picture of the Wise Men which indicates so clearly the worship of the Star with the incoming of the Christ Jesus Soul.

The musical element

When speaking of the arts, Rudolf Steiner (1861–1925) emphasizes that the musical element increasingly belongs to the future of humanity.¹ In the following words he points to the mission of music:

Fundamentally speaking, music is the human being, and indeed it is from music that we rightly learn how to free ourselves from matter. For if music were to become materialistic, it would actually be false: it is not ‘there’! Every other form of matter is present in the world and is insistent. But musical sounds are not to be found in the material world in their original form. We have to devise a means of producing them; they must first be made. The soul element that lives in the human being lies between the notes. But today, because the world has become so unmusical, people are scarcely aware of it.²

This passage also witnesses to Steiner's own particular mission at the beginning of the twentieth century: to sow seeds in the cultural life which could enable humanity to find its way from estrangement to cooperation with the world of spirit. This concept is of immense practical importance in a century which has allowed the forces of technology and finance to encroach into the realm rightly belonging to the free human spirit. About the time of these lectures, Steiner was responding to requests from many professional quarters for advice which would provide creative stimuli. Lecture courses were given to experts seeking renewal in their particular fields: science, medicine, agriculture, religion, the arts, education and therapeutic education. ‘The development of anthroposophical activity into the realm of art resulted out of the nature of anthroposophy.’ The art of eurythmy, however, occupies a unique position as the newly-born daughter of anthroposophy itself.³

For Steiner, it is not only music; all the arts are to become more musical. Steiner is concerned with living, creative activity. He communicated this vision most succinctly in a far-reaching lecture in Torquay. (See Note 1) Like J. M. Hauer (1883–1959), whose theoretical writings were known to him, Steiner uses the Greek Melos (‘tune’) for pure pitch (Melodie—‘melody’, of course, includes rhythm and beat. See also Steiner's own lecture notes, p. 10). Both Hauer and Steiner use Melos to indicate the actual creative principle in music. ‘Melos is the musical element,’ Steiner claims (Lecture 4). In this translation I have retained Melos where it is employed.

In speech, Melos only ‘peeps through’. But it ‘poured into’ oriental architecture, which ‘really did transpose music into movement’. ‘Oriental architecture has within it a great deal of eurythmy,’ we read in Lecture 5. The word ‘rhythm’ comes from the Greek rhuthmos (measured motion, time rhythm), from rhe-ein (to flow). The word ‘eurhythmy’ is an architectural term: ‘beautiful proportion, hence beautiful, harmonious movement’ (Oxford English Dictionary). Laurens van der Post mentions the ‘eurhythmic grace’ of certain beautiful animal movements in his African writings. ‘Eurythmy’ and Melos, accordingly, have existed and do still exist both in nature and in human culture. Both worlds unite in the art of eurythmy, which cultivates Melos, and was brought to birth through Rudolf Steiner. (Otto Fränkl-Lundborg claims the spelling of ‘eurythmy’ without the ‘h’ is philologically correct; rho as suffix loses its aspirate. See Das Goetheanum, 49. Jg., Nr. 30, 26.7.70, p. 246).

Steiner, like Hauer, uses the expression das Musikalische (‘the musical’) more often than die Musik (‘music’), and in this way emphasizes the inner activity before the technicalities of the craft come into consideration. This is a supremely important detail. In English we have to extend this to phrases like ‘the musical element’, or ‘the realm of music’, which may be clumsy, but they are accurate. What Steiner has in mind and continuously refers to is the musical essence. This is not only the concern of musicians but it is the underlying creative, transforming force of life itself, present in all vital human expression. Moreover, it bears a direct relationship to the path of mankind's inner development. This development can be prepared and assisted by the inner activity of individuals on the path of initiation, which is described by Steiner as a process of development through God's grace, involving Imagination, Inspiration and Intuition (spiritual vision, inner hearing and a higher life).⁴

Long, long before the human being enters consciously into the stages of initiation, he is able to express these individual experiences in images, and this is done through music! In the last analysis genuine music is essentially a developing drama of life taking its course in musical sounds, which are an external picture of what the soul consciously experiences in the life of initiation.⁵

We may sense that Steiner channelled his own musicality into his work as a teacher of humanity, and this he confirmed more than once:

It gave me particular pleasure to be told one day by one of our artistically-gifted friends that some of the lecture cycles I have given could be transcribed into symphonies purely on the basis of their inner structure. Some of the courses are indeed based in their structure on something very like this. Take for instance the lecture course given in Vienna on life between death and a new birth: you will see that you could make a symphony of it.⁶

The art of eurythmy has been given to us as a gift from the future. Its evolution depends upon each individual eurythmist, musician and speaker developing an inner listening with his or her artistic feeling. This must be developed, not in an ecstatic way, but as a spiritual path the individual undertakes while within the body. This inner activity, Steiner insists (in answer to Hauer), can be revealed in art by raising sensory experience.⁷ The present lecture course may prove to be the best companion on such a path, which is akin to the practising of a musician. This is a demanding exercise, but however small the progress, it forms the substance of true art, and can be offered as nourishment to a world in need.⁸

One of the questions today concerns recorded sound (see Appendix 6). After following the arguments concerning recordings, it can be refreshing to return to the present course of lectures. Though modestly described as ‘only a beginning’, Steiner begins where many of the great musicians of his time, and the ensuing decades, leave off.⁹

Music's turning point

Steiner characterizes music as the art which ‘contains the laws of our ego’.¹⁰ If we could consciously dive down into our astral body, the musician in us, we could perceive the cosmic music that has formed us: ‘... with the help of the astral body, the cosmos is playing our own being ... The ancients felt that earthly music could only be a mirroring of the heavenly music which began with the creation of mankind.’ Modern humanity has been led into the muddy, materialistic swamp of darkness and desire, which obscures this music. But there is a path of purification leading to perception of the music of the spheres once again. When we hear a symphony we dive with soul and spirit into the will, which is usually asleep in daytime consciousness. Art—‘even the nature of major and minor melodies’ - can bring life to the connection between man and cosmos (in other words, anthroposophy); to what might appear as dead form. Steiner warns ‘that these things are not a skeleton of ideas!’ hinting that his Theosophy was written musically, not schematically.

The present lectures on eurythmy represent Steiner's greatest contribution to musical studies. When he gave them in 1924, he advised the eurythmists to study Hauer's theoretical writings. Hauer was a musician who discovered atonal melody, or twelve-note music, at the same time (or even just before) as Schönberg did by a different route. Both composers endeavoured to get beyond the materialistic swamp through spiritual striving.¹¹ By 1924 Hauer had published his own attempt at a Goethean theory of music,¹² and his Deutung des Melos (Interpretation of Melos, questions to the artists and thinkers of our time) includes an appreciation of Goethe's Theory of Colour.¹³ In these eurythmy lectures, Steiner appears to agree with Hauer's diagnosis of the modern situation as ‘noise’; Wagner's music, for example, is ‘unmusical music’, though it has its justification. Steiner seems to agree with Hauer's spiritual principle of Melos, ‘the actual musical element’ (to Hauer ‘movement itself’, or the ‘TAO’, the interpretation of which is ‘the only true spiritual science’). He reproduces Hauer's correspondence of vowels and intervals, writing in his notebook Hauer's list of examples (Notebook, p. 10), and he retells the story of the Arab listening to a contrapuntal piece, who asks for it to be played ‘one tune at a time’. But Steiner certainly does not agree with Hauer's answer to the challenge of materialism. ‘Those who deride materialism are bad artists, bad scientists,’ Steiner declares.¹⁴ Instead of criticism, he offers help.

In his profound study on Bach, Erich Schwebsch suggests that eurythmy arrived just at the right time in the evolution of mankind.¹⁵ His justification of music eurythmy is unlikely to be supplanted. With the founding of music eurythmy, a new beginning opens up for the art of music too. This thought was also expressed by the musician and eurythmist Ralph Kux.¹⁶ It remains for me to draw attention to the counter-phenomenon accompanying this new beginning.

The counter-tendency, so strongly marked in Hauer's thought and life, artificially separates itself from the human roots of music. Steiner's answer to Hauer's dissatisfaction with western culture was to give a further impetus to music eurythmy (already born but still in its infancy) by tracing the origin of music back to the human being. Through a conscious ‘turning inside out’ within the organism, at the point of departure in the collar-bone, the cosmic music that formed us (flowing in between the shoulder-blades) is released and made available for artistic ends.¹⁷ Music today, he implies, is not a purely spiritual, meditative affair, leading (as later in Hauer's career) a reclusive life. The music of the spheres sought along the old paths ‘out there’ in the cosmos leads to an abstract caricature today. The living connection is to be found on earth, in the human being.¹⁸ Steiner was in all things concerned with living, creative activity. The arts are the means whereby inner activity and experience become outer expression: ‘to present the soul and spirit in fullest concentration ... is basically the highest ideal of all art.’¹⁹ The arts remind us of the meaning in our earthly destiny. Steiner's meditative verse, written for Marie Steiner at Christmas 1922, begins: ‘The stars once spake to man’—but what leads to the future is ‘what man speaks to the stars’.²⁰

Albert Steffen expresses it clearly: there is a splitting of the way ‘concerning the life or death of music as such ... The whole of humanity stands before this alternative. There is no way back. Every individual has to go through it or come to grief.’²¹ In one of his most inspired articles, H. Pfrogner (a musicologist and authority on twentieth-century developments) characterizes the one path of experience as the way of ‘universal concord’, and the other as ‘ego concord’.²² The former path leads to universal spirituality, to a dissolving of the self. The latter path leads to a maturing of the self. Pfrogner accociates the former spirituality with the impulse emanating from the conspiracy of Gondishapur (seventh century AD - further details can be found in Ruland).²³ which echoes on in Islamic culture; the maturing spirituality he associates with the Christian west. All inclination to ‘dissolve the ego’, whose new richness of content was brought by Christ, spiritually subscribes to Arabism, whereas all steps toward strengthened responsibility follow the latter path. But this latter path leads to an extension of the diatonic system, ‘that resounding image of the human being pure and simple’ (Pfrogner).

The path to overcome materialism, further elucidated by Pfrogner,²⁴ will not be reached by avoiding the swamp of man's egotism and hastily ‘reaching for the stars’ (the arrangement of twelve) to the exclusion of the diatonic system (based on the number seven). Lurking in such a counter-reaction to romanticism (which, like Viennese classicism, arose in the age of materialism as a protest) is an implied denial of the Christ-event. ‘Christ Jesus inaugurated an evolution in human nature, based on the retention of the ego's full consciousness. He inaugurated the initiation of the ego,’ Steiner explains.²⁵ ‘With Christ,’ F. Rittelmeyer reminds us in his last book, ‘the whole orientation of humanity is changed. And from now on we no longer look back with longing to the past, to a "golden age" of the primal beginning, but look forward toward fulfilment, creating the future ...’²⁶ There is a path through the swamp which has been trodden by composers such as Bartok, Hindemith, Messiaen, Martinu, Sibelius, Vaughan Williams, Shostakovich, Britten, Tippett, Hartmann, Henze, Schnittke, Gubaidulina, Pärt and many others (following in their own ways the example of the modern ‘Prometheus’, Beethoven).²⁷

Musical art of the future

On more than one occasion, Steiner, speaking of the future of music, pointed to ‘finding a melody in the single note’.²⁸ In the eurythmy lectures he points out that this does not mean listening to the acoustic ‘chord of overtones’ in a single note—on which Hauer and Hindemith base their theoretical work. It is a supersensible experience. One of the climaxes of the investigations of Pfrogner and H. Ruland (one of the former's successors), is the working out of Steiner's hints of a development of our tonal system.²⁹

Here mention should be made of two other pioneers in musical studies whose work is acknowledged by Ruland in his Expanding Tonal Awareness. Ernst Bindel developed the relationship between mathematics and music.³⁰ (Without some mathematics there can be no responsible step towards a musical future.) The other pioneer is H. E. Lauer,³¹ whose account of the evolution of tonal systems has subsequently been considerably developed by Ruland.

We conclude with a suggestion regarding ‘artistic longing’, made by Steiner some months before the lectures translated here:

‘If someone feels that here on earth he does not fulfil what lies in his archetype, with its abode in the heavens, there arises in him an artistic longing for some outer image of that archetype. Whereupon he can gain the power to become an instrument for expressing the true relation of man to the world by becoming a eurythmist. The eurythmist says: All the movements which I ordinarily carry out here on earth do less than justice to the mobile archetype of man. To present the ideal human archetype I must begin by finding a way to unite with its movements.’ These movements, through which the human being endeavours to imitate in space the movements of his heavenly archetype, constitute eurythmy.³²

Steiner wrote in his Notebook (see p. 131 below) for the present eurythmy course:

In the musical element the spatial human being is transformed into the non-spatial human being—the spiritual human being is the inner origin of the musical element.

Artistic people often think more naturally in evocative images, rather than with philosophical or technical concepts about ‘the spiritual human being’ or ‘the heavenly archetype’. And ultimately the inner life cannot express itself other than in images. Artistic readers looking for direction to surmount materialism may be able to grasp the necessity for decisive action more directly in the form of a picture. It may be appropriate to recall a passage from one of Selma Lagerlöf's novels to show the precision of Steiner's statement. An image of the Christ-child is kept in a basilica run by Franciscan monks. An Englishwoman plans to steal this image and replace it with a cheap imitation.

When the copy was ready she took a needle and scratched into the crown: ‘My kingdom is only of this world.’ It was as if she was afraid that she herself would not be able to distinguish one image from the other. And it was as if she wished to appease her own conscience. ‘I have not wished to make a false Christ-image. I have written in his crown: “My kingdom is only of this world”.’³³

Stourbridge, Michaelmas 1993
Alan Stott

• 1. R. Steiner, True and False Paths in Spiritual Investigation, GA243, (RSP 1975). An accurate translation of the section on music (last part of the final lecture of 24.8.22) appears in Lea van der Pals, op. cit., p. 71ff. Compare: ‘The basic mood of the new world-conception [since the Mystery of Golgotha] is musical, whereas the basic mood of the old world was sculptural. The basic mood of the new age is really musical, and the world will become ever more musical. In order to continue rightly on the path of human evolution, we must know the importance of striving towards a musical element and not repeating the old sculptural one’ (R. Steiner, Der Baum des Lebens and der Baum der Erkenntnis des Guten and Bosen [‘The tree of life and the tree of knowledge of good and evil’], lecture Dornach 31.7.15, GA162 [translation A. S.]; see also Appendix 4, ‘R. Steiner, Torquay, 22.8.24’, in Vol. 2).
• 2. R. Steiner, Eurythmy as Visible Singing, GA278, Lecture 3.
• 3. The name ‘anthroposophy’ (‘wisdom of the human being’) is not used in any of Steiner's basic books. It appeared before the world for the first time one year after the founding of the Anthroposophical Society (1913), in the final chapter of R. Steiner, Riddles of Philosophy [original edition 1914, English translation AP 1973], ‘A brief outline of an approach to anthroposophy’. In this chapter, reference is made to the author's Truth and Science (1882), The Philosphy of Freedom (1894), and the lecture ‘The psychological foundations and epistemological position of spiritual science’, delivered before the Philosophical Congress, Bologna, 18.4.11.
  
  ‘Eurythmy has grown out of the soil of the anthroposophical movement, [originating] like a gift of destiny’ (R. Steiner, ‘Eurythmy, what it is and how it originated’, lecture Penmaenmawr 26.8.23 in Eurythmy as Visible Song [London and New York 1932], p. 1). ‘The artistic element will be an elixir of life of the anthroposophical movement’ (R. Steiner, introduction to a eurythmy performance on the occasion of the founding of the General Anthroposophical Society, Dornach 5.1.24, in GA277, p. 423). See also R. Steiner, Das Goetheanum in seinen zehn Jahren’ (‘The Goetheanum, ten years in retrospect’), essay of 14.1.24 in GA36, and Tb635 p. 131. For a detailed account, see R. Steiner, Die Entstehung and Entwicklung der Eurythmie (‘The origin and development of eurythmy’, translation in progress) GA277a (Dornach 1965), and R. Steiner, Eurythmie—die Offenbarung der Sprechende Seele (‘Eurythmy—revelation of the speaking soul’) GA277 (Dornach 1972), a collection of introductions to performances, and so on; a paperback mainly consisting of selections is published: Eurythmie, Tb642 (Dornach 1986). Some introductions are translated in R. Steiner, Eurythmy, an Introduction (AP 1984); the lecture 14.2.20 is translated in The Inner Nature of Music, op. cit.
• 4. Rational thinking is not jettisoned in favour of ‘mysticism’ or something else. The spiritual activity within thinking itself can be strengthened for investigating and creating within the realm of the spirit. The spiritual activity of pure thinking, the higher union of science and religion demonstrated by Steiner, was prophesied, for example, by Emerson: ‘No man ever prayed heartily without learning something. But when a faithful thinker, resolute to detach every object from personal relations and see it in the light of thought, shall, at the same time, kindle science with the fire of the holiest affections, then will God go forth anew into the creation’ (R. W. Emerson, tract on ‘Nature’, Chapter VIII, [1836]. See also a recent study on Emerson, Richard G. Geldard, The Esoteric Emerson [The Lindisfarne Press, West Stockbridge, Mass., 1993]).
• 5. R. Steiner, Art as seen in the Light of Mystery Wisdom, GA275, Lecture 30.12.14 (RSP 1984).
• 6. R. Steiner, Practical Advice to Teachers (RSP 1976), GA294. The lecture course referred to is R. Steiner, The Inner Nature of Man and the Life Between Death and a New Birth, Vienna 9-14.4.14, GA153 (RSP 1959). Steiner aimed at a marriage of form and content in his work, which is the lofty artistic ideal. After the Christmas Foundation of 1923/4, he reached a new level in this respect. In connection with the subject matter of GA153, compare: ‘Contrary to the works of architects, sculptors and painters, musical works must be repeatedly generated anew; they flow onwards in the surge and swell of their melodies, a picture of the soul, which in its incarnations always has to experience itself afresh in the progressive stream of time. The soul flows down from its spiritual homeland and returns thither—likewise its shadow-images: notes and harmonies. Hence the intimate effect of music on the soul’ (R. Steiner, lecture Berlin 12.11.06, The Inner Nature of Music [AP 1983]).
  
  Steiner confirmed that: ‘For anyone who would read my Occult Science as today one would read a novel or any other book, passively giving oneself to it, it is really only a thicket of words—and so are my other books. It is only someone who knows in every moment of reading that he must create out of his own soul's depths, and through his most intimate will—which the books should stimulate—only this person is able to regard these books as musical scores from which he can experience the true music. This active experience of the individual soul, moreover, is what we need’ (R. Steiner, Heilfaktoren fir den sozialen Organismus, lecture Dornach 2.7.20, GA198). See also R. Steiner, The Gospel of St John, Lecture XI, Hamburg 30.5.08, GA103 (RSP 1978); GA278, Lecture 6, Endnote 39 in Vol. 2.
  
  The implications for the musician are discussed by Erich Schwebsch in his pioneer study on anthroposophy and music. He concludes: ‘The cosmology of Occult Science contains in its thoughts the best exercises for a meditative musician who is searching for new forms today’ (E. Schwebsch, J. S. Bach and Die Kunst der Fuge [Stuttgart 1988], Chapter 4 ‘Musik als Offenbarung des Geistes. Aphoristische Betrachtungen’, p. 193 [J. S. Bach and ‘The Art of Fugue’; translation of Chapter 4 in manuscript, ‘Music as revelation of the spirit. Aphoristic observations’]).
• 7. In his first lecture, before the Goethe Society, Vienna 1888, Steiner said: ‘Beauty is not the divine in a cloak of physical reality; no, it is physical reality in a cloak that is divine. The artist does not bring the divine on to the earth by letting it flow into the world; he raises the world into the sphere of the divine’ (R. Steiner, Goethe as Founder ofa new Science of Aesthetics [Rudolf Steiner Pub., Co., London c.1927]). Steiner claims that this lecture, already in 1888, contains ‘a sound foundation for anthroposophy and the anthroposophical way of thinking’ (Preface to the second edition, 1919). The lecture suggests an acid test for what is truly new. Movements exist today which bear the adjective ‘spiritual’ but do not attempt any transformation. Indeed, it is often stated that ‘no musical knowledge is necessary’! Is not the call for courage against despondency and inadequacy met right here with every individual?
• 8. See Schwebsch, Endnote 6. Pfrogner, in the chapter ‘und was nun? (‘and what now?’) in his extensive study on The living world of music’, presents a clear vision of tasks for the future: ‘No longer l'art pour l'art, but simply and solely: l’art pour l’homme will be the saying of the hour. This “art for human beings”, however, will have to be an art totally “from human beings”, an art in the above-mentioned sense “raised” from the human being, if it should be true “nourishment for life” ’ (H. Pfrogner, Lebendige Tonwelt [Langen Müller, München/Wien 1981], p. 474, trans. A.S.).
• 9. For example: Bruno Walter, Theme and Variations (Hamish Hamilton, London 1947), and On Music and Music-Making (Faber, London 1957); W. Furtwängler, Concerning Music (Boosey and Hawkes, London 1953); Artur Schnabel, My Life and Music (C. Smythe, New York and Gerrards Cross 1988), and Music and the Line of Most Resistance (Princeton 1942); Edwin Fischer, Reflections on Music (Williams & Norgate, London 1951); R. Vaughan Williams, National Music and other Essays (OUP 1987); J. Ma. Corredor, Conversations with Casals (Duddon, New York 1956).
• 10. R. Steiner, Art as seen in the Light of Mystery Wisdom, lecture 29.12.24, GA275 (RSP 1984).
• 11. For the best introduction to this perspective, see H. Pfrogner Zwölfordnung der Töne (Zürich/Leipzig/Wien 1953), reprinted in H. Pfrogner, Zeitwende der Musik (Langen Müller, München/Wien 1986), translation in manuscript, ‘Music's turning point of time’.
• 12. J. M. Hauer, Vom Wesen des Musikalischen (1920, later editions Robert Lienau, Berlin-Lichterfelde), translation in progress, ‘The essence of music’.
• 13. J. M. Hauer, Deutung des Melos (Tal & Co. Verlag, Leipzig/Wien/Zürich 1923), translation in manuscript ‘The interpretation of Melds’.
• 14. R. Steiner, The Arts and Their Mission, lecture Oslo, 18.5.23, GA276 (AP 1964), p. 111.
• 15. Schwebsch presented his eloquent conclusion already in 1930: ‘But all inner experience of the soul when it is ripe to that end, wishes to become visible, perceptible. The soul world desires to become objective. The first beginning for this becoming visible of vitally filled musical movement, from the All rising up behind the Nothing [an echo from Goethe's Faust, Part 2, 6256. Translator's note.] of the vanishing past, at the exact nadir of time, is the art of music eurythmy: visible singing, newly created by Rudolf Steiner’ (E. Schwebsch, op. cit., p. 211). Chapter 4 is more than the title suggests. It is an anthroposophical musician's ‘credo’, which applies to Steffen's essay (see Endnote 21 below), too.
• 16. R. Kux and W. Kux, Erinnerungen an Rudolf Steiner and R. Kux, Eurythmie and Musik (Mellinger Verlag, Stuttgart 1976), translation in manuscript ‘Recollections of R. Steiner, and eurythmy and music’.
• 17. See R. Steiner, The Essentials of Education, lecture 10.4.24 a.m. (RSP 1982), p. 58. The physiology is explained in A. Husemann, The Harmony of the Human Body (Floris Books, Edinburgh 1994; German edition, Der musikalische Bau des Menschen [Verlag Freies Geistesleben, Stuttgart 1989]). Note, for example, with what careful scholarship Dr Husemann explores what ‘beim Aufireten’ (‘by stepping’, or ‘with the first step’) from Lecture 7 must mean (Section 31, p. 189ff.). See also Endnote 43 on Ansatz, in Vol. 2.
• 18. Compare Steiner: ‘Since the Mystery of Golgotha we cannot speak of the music of the spheres as did Pythagoras, but we can speak of it in another way. An initiate might even today speak as Pythagoras did, but the ordinary inhabitant of the earth in his physical body can speak of the music of the spheres and of the cosmic life only when he experiences in his soul, "Not I, but Christ in me", for the Christ within him has lived in the music of the spheres and in the cosmic life. But we must go through this experience in ourselves; we really must receive Christ into our souls’ (R. Steiner, lecture Norrköping, 16.7.14, in Christ and the Human Soul GA155 [RSP 1984], pp. 69-70). The harmony of the spheres is heard ‘in deep sleep’ by the initiate ‘as if they were the notes of trumpets and the rolling of thunder’ (R. Steiner, An Esoteric Cosmology GA93a [St George Publications, Spring Valley, New York 1978], lecture Paris 30.5.1906, reported by E. Schure, p. 45. Steiner's proclamation of Christ rests on knowledge. By the turn of the century, he could say: ‘The unfolding of my soul rested upon the fact that I had stood in spirit before the Mystery of Golgotha in most inward, most earnest solemnity of knowledge’ (R. Steiner, The Course of my Life [New York, 1951], closing sentence of Chapter XXVI, p. 276). ‘Spiritual science is concerned not merely to talk about the Christ, but to declare what the Christ wishes to say to people in our time, through the medium of human thoughts.’ R. Steiner, lecture Zürich 4.2.19., in The Inner Aspect of the Social Question GA193, (RSP 1950), p. 16.
  
  Steiner indicates what amounts to 84 (= 7 x 12) meditations for musicians: ‘You have in the fixed stars a wonderful cosmic instrument, and the players of this instrument of the zodiac and fixed stars are the gods of the planets beyond’ (lecture Dornach, 2.12.22, in The Inner Nature of Music GA283 [AP 1983], pp. 42-3); see also R. Steiner, The Gospel of St Matthew (especially lectures Berne, 3,4, 10 and 12.10.10), GAl23 (RSP 1965); R. Steiner, Universe, Earth and Man, lecture Stuttgart 12.8.08 [RSP 1987], p. 118ff. See also Appendices 3 and 5 in Vol. 2.
• 19. R. Steiner, GA277, op. cit., p. 320.
• 20. R. Steiner, Verses and Meditations (RSP 1961), pp. 96-97 In this connection, compare Beckh's definition of ‘cosmic’: ‘the revelation of the spirit within the earthly realm’ (H. Beckh, Die Sprache der Tonart [Urachhaus, Stuttgart 1977], p. 20, English translation ‘The language of tonality’, in manuscript).
• 21. Albert Steffen, ‘Musik’ in Der Künstler and die Erfiillung der Mysterien (Dornach 1964), translation in the British Newsletter, forthcoming. An artist could base his life on this astonishing essay. 21
• 22. H. Pfrogner, Chapter 17 in Zeitwende..., op. cit.
• 23. Compare: ‘Absolute objectivity ultimately demands the sacrifice of the personality’ (Hauer, Vom Wesen des Musikalischen [Leipzig/Wien 1922], p. 40), with: ‘When the human being became a personality, God also had to become a personality in order to save him, to give him the possibility of rising again’ (R. Steiner, Egyptian Myths and Mysteries [AP 1971], p. 139). Another twentieth- century scientist, comparing his life to that of Goethe's, declared that his goal was ‘to penetrate into the secret of the personality’; the ‘central concept’ of his psychology is ‘the principle of individuation’ (C. G. Jung, Memories, Dreams and Reflections [Fontana, London 1967], pp. 232 and 235, italics original). Sir Julian Huxley summarizes Teilhard de Chardin, the scientist-seer: ‘persons are individuals who transcend their merely organic individuality in conscious participation’ (Introduction to Teilhard, The Phenomenon of Man [Collins 1959/Fontana 1965], p. 20/21). A vague pantheism is avoided: ‘Union differentiates’, and ‘the more "other" [grains of consciousness] become in conjunction, the more they find themselves as "self" as they make for the ‘Omega point’ of evolution (op. cit., p. 261/288). See Endnote 20 in Vol. 2.
• 24. See H. Pfrogner, Zeitwende..., op. cit., and Lebendige Tonwelt, op. cit., for informed views on musical development right up to the twentieth century.
• 25. R. Steiner, The Gospel of St Matthew, lecture Berne 9.10.10 (RSP 1965). Steiner explains the meaning of the atonement: ‘The One sufferred for all, so that through the world-historic initiation a substitute has been created for the old form of initiation ... Through inner vision, through true mysticism, community with Christ is possible’ (R. Steiner, Foundations of Esotericism, lecture Berlin, 27.9.05 [RSP 1983], p. 14)
• 26. F. Rittelmeyer, Christus (Urachhaus, Stuttgart 1936), p. 38 (translation in MS). Rittelmeyer's mature relationship to John's Gospel, with its hidden music, informs his major works. For Rittelmeyer on music, see A. Stott: ‘Friedrich Rittelmeyer and the "Song of the earth's perfecting"’ in The Threshing Floor, May/June 1988 (Floris Books, Edinburgh). Another study on the Christ- Impulse is C. E. Raven, Jesus and the Gospel of Love (Hodder & Stoughton, London 1931/49), see especially Chapter XV, ‘Christ in the Twentieth Century’.
• 27. The following reference to Beethoven's entelechy is the only one that has come to my notice: ‘I was deeply impressed when a while ago I heard from a famous musician that in a personal conversation Rudolf Steiner said "Beethoven is Prometheus"’ (E. Kolisko, ‘Beethoven’, from a series of articles under the title ‘Reincarnation’ in The Modern Mystic, September 1938).
• 28. See Endnote 17 in Vol. 2.
• 29. See H. Ruland, Expanding Tonal Awareness (RSP 1992).
• 30. Ernst Bindel, Die Zahlgrundlagen der Musik im Wandel der Zeiten (Stuttgart 1985); translation in progress ‘The numerical basis of music in its development’.
• 31. H. E. Lauer, ‘The Evolution of Music through Changes in Tone-Systems’ in Cosmic Music, edited by J. Godwin (Inner Traditions, Rochester, Vermont 1989). Lauer also wrote Musik and Musiker (Selbstverlag, undated).
• 32. R. Steiner, The Arts and Their Mission, lecture Dornach 27.5.23, GA276 (AP 1964).
• 33. Selma Lagerlöf, The Miracles of Antichrist (Gay & Bird, London 1899), p. 14.