The Rudolf Steiner Archive

As we may have gathered from yesterday's reflections, it is important for today's human being to orient themselves in the developmental process of humanity in order to imbue themselves with an awareness of what the present state of the soul must be so that the human being can be human in the true sense of the word.

The day before yesterday I used a comparison to point out the importance of the sense of time. I said that the insect has the task of always undergoing certain transformations within itself, coinciding with the course of the year. The insect undergoes the course of the year in its own transformation. It has very specific bodily functions in spring, summer, autumn and winter, and it completes the cycle of its life in connection with this course of the year. Thus, I said, the human being must find a way to consciously place himself in the present moment, not in a short period of time, but in the whole course of the earth, in the historical course of the earth. He should know how his soul experiences had to be shaped in ancient times, how they had to be shaped in medieval times, and how they have to be shaped today.

When we look back to the early days of human development and see how humanity drew its strength from the Mysteries, the strength to know, the strength to live, we find that those who were to be initiated into the Mysteries were always, as it were, given a very definite indication of the goal of their initiation. The initiates must realize that they will have to undergo exercises that ultimately lead to the experience of death; within their earthly existence, the human being must pass through death in order to gain the other knowledge of his own immortal, eternal being from this experience of knowing death. This, I would like to say, was the secret of the ancient mysteries: to gain the conviction of the human immortal being from the experience of knowing death.

Now we have seen in these days where this comes from. It comes from the fact that in those older times, man could not have come to his human self-knowledge otherwise than by realizing what happened to him immediately after death. Man of those ancient times only became the thinking, free being that he knows himself to be today in his earthly existence after death. Only after death could man in the early days of human development say: I am truly a being on my own, an individuality on my own. - Look beyond death, the ancient sages might say to their disciples, and you will know what a human being is.

That is why man in the mysteries should undergo dying in the image, so that he may receive from dying the conviction of eternal life and being. So essentially, the search for the mysteries was a search for death in order to find life.

Now things are different for people today, and therein lies the most important impulse in the development of humanity. What people went through in the old days after death, that they became a thinking being for themselves, that they became a free being for themselves, that is what people today must find in the time that lies between birth and death. But how do they find it there? He finds his thoughts first of all when he practises self-knowledge. But now we have found that throughout the time in which we have been dealing with the nature of man from a certain point of view, these thoughts, namely the thoughts that man has developed since the first third of the 15th century, since the time of Nicholas Cusanus, are actually dead as thoughts, they are corpses. That which lived lived in the pre-earthly existence. Before man descended to earth as a soul-spiritual being, he was in a spiritual life. This spiritual life died with the beginning of life on earth, and he experiences what is dead in him as his thinking. The first thing that man must recognize is that although in more recent times he can come to real self-knowledge, to a knowledge of himself as a spiritual-soul being, but that what surrenders to this self-knowledge is dead, spiritually corpse-like, and that it is precisely into this dead, into this spiritual corpse that what comes from the will must flow, from that will of which I said yesterday that it is actually in the nothing from the moment of falling asleep to the moment of waking up, anchored in the astral body and in the I. The I must shoot into the dead thoughts and must revive them.

Therefore, in the old days, all the care during the initiation was basically directed towards dampening something in the person. Actually, the old initiation was a kind of calming of the inner human abilities and powers. If you follow the course of the old initiation, you will find that in essence, the human being underwent an initiation training that led him to calm his inner excitement, to dampen the inner emotionality that would otherwise be present in ordinary life, so that what the human being had in ordinary life, the filling of his entire being with the divine-spiritual powers that permeate and animate the cosmos, would be subdued and he would consciously sink into a kind of sleep, so that he could then awaken in this subdued consciousness to a kind of sleep, which he otherwise only experiences after death: calm thinking, feeling himself as an individuality. The old system of initiation was thus a kind of system of quieting.

In the present time, this longing for reassurance has remained with man in many ways, and he feels comfortable when old initiation principles are warmed up and he is led to them again. But this no longer corresponds to the essence of the modern human being. The modern human being can only approach initiation by asking himself with all depth and intensity: When I look into myself, I find my thinking. But this thinking is dead. I no longer need to seek death. I carry it within me in my spiritual-soul nature. While the old initiate had to be led to the point where he experienced death, the modern initiate must realize more and more: I have death in my soul-spiritual life. I carry it within me. I do not have to look for it. On the contrary, I have to enliven dead thoughts out of an inner, willed, creative principle. And everything I have presented in 'How to Know Higher Worlds' is aimed at this enlivening of dead thoughts, at this engagement of the will in the inner life of the soul, so that the human being may awaken. For whereas the old initiation had to be a kind of lulling to sleep, the new initiation must be a kind of waking up. What the human being unconsciously experiences during sleep must be brought into the most intimate soul life. Through activity, the human being must awaken inwardly.

To do this, it is necessary to grasp the concept of sleeping in all its relativity. One must be clear about what anthroposophical knowledge is actually present with regard to this idea of sleep. If we place side by side two people, one of whom knows nothing of the things presented in anthroposophical knowledge, and we place next to him a person who has really taken in the anthroposophical with inner interest, with inner interest, not just with passive listening or passive reading, but with inner interest, the anthroposophical ophorophical has been presented, and we place beside it a person who has really taken in the anthroposophical with inner participation, with inner interest, not just with passive listening or passive reading, but with inner interest: then the person who has not taken in the anthroposophical is like a sleeper compared to the one who has taken in the anthroposophical and is awakened in the anthroposophical, as a person is awakened in the morning when he enters his physical body from unconsciousness. And we can only find the right place for ourselves within anthroposophy, we can only find the right orientation for the anthroposophical movement if we look at it in such a way that it gives us something like waking up in the morning, if we compare approaching anthroposophy in the right way with what we feel when we pass from the unconsciousness of sleep into the perception of an external world. If we can also have this in our feelings: just as immersing ourselves in the physical body when we wake up gives us a world, not just knowledge, but a world, so immersing ourselves in anthroposophical knowledge gives us a world, a knowledge that is not just knowledge, but a world, a world into which we wake up. As long as we regard anthroposophy as just another world view, we do not have the right feeling towards anthroposophy. We only have the right feeling about anthroposophy when the person who becomes an anthroposophist feels that he is awakening in anthroposophy. And he awakens when he says to himself: the concepts and ideas that the world has given me before are conceptual and ideological corpses, they are dead. Anthroposophy awakens this corpse for me.

If you understand this in the right sense, then you will come out on top in the face of all the things that are often said against anthroposophy and the understanding of anthroposophy. People say: Yes, a person who is not an anthroposophist is learning something in the world today. That is being proven to him. He can understand that because it is being proven to him. In anthroposophy, mere assertions are made that remain unproven - so the world says very often. But the world does not know what the reality is of what it considers to be proven. The world should realize that all the laws of nature, all the thoughts that man forms out of the world, that when he experiences them correctly, they are something dead. So what is being proved to him is something dead. He cannot understand it. Only when one begins to perceive what is today the ordinary world view as something dead, then one says to oneself: I do not understand what is being proved to me, just as I do not understand a corpse, because it is what is left over from a living being. I understand a corpse only when I know to what extent it was permeated by life.

And so we have to say to ourselves: what is considered proven today cannot in fact be understood if we look at it more deeply. And it is only when we allow the spark of anthroposophy to strike that which is otherwise offered by civilization today that we can truly understand it. — Those who, let us say, say to a mere natural scientist of today who comes to them and says, “I can prove my case, you cannot prove it,” are right. They then reply, “Of course you can prove anything in your way, but the very thing you have proved to me will only become intelligible to me when I allow the spark of anthroposophy to strike it.” That should be the information that an anthroposophist, speaking from a heart full of living spiritual life, can give to a non-anthroposophist. The Anthroposophist would have to say: You are falling asleep with your knowledge of nature; you are falling asleep to such an extent that you say: I have limits to my knowledge of nature, I cannot wake up at all, I can only state that with my knowledge of nature I do not approach the spiritual at all. You still have a theory for your sleep, for the justification of your sleep. But I want to refute precisely this theory of the justification of your sleep by bringing what is there sleep to wakefulness.

I pointed this out in the first chapter of my book 'Von Seelenrätseln'. There I expressed what has been repeated in lectures over and over again, namely that a person who remains with the present civilization simply says that there are all kinds of limits to knowledge that cannot be crossed. So he calms down. But this calming down means nothing other than that he does not want to wake up, he wants to remain asleep. The one who now wants to enter the spiritual world in the modern sense must begin to wrestle with the inner soul tasks precisely where the other person sets the limits of knowledge. And by beginning the struggle with these ideas, which are set at the boundary, the view of the spiritual world gradually opens up to him step by step. One must take what is presented in anthroposophy as it is intended.

Take this first chapter of 'Mysteries of the Soul'. It may be imperfectly written, but you can at least find out the intention with which it was written. It is written with the intention that you say to yourself: If I stop at present civilization, then the world is actually boarded up for me. Knowledge of nature: you move on, then the boards come, the world is boarded up for me. What is written in this first chapter, 'On Soul Mysteries', is an attempt to knock away these boards with a spade. If you have this feeling that you are doing a job, to knock away with a spade the boards with which the world has been boarded up for centuries, if you see the words as a spade, then you come to the soul-spiritual.

Most people have the unconscious feeling that a chapter like the first, 'On Soul Riddles', is written with a pen that flows with ink. It is not written with a pen, but with the spades of the soul, which would like to tear down the boards that cover the world, that is, eliminate the boundaries of knowledge of nature, but eliminate them through inner soul work. So, when reading such a chapter, one must work with it through soul activity.

The ideas that arise from anthroposophical books are quite remarkable. I understand these ideas, often do not contradict them, because they have their value for the individual; but take for example the “Geheimwissenschaft”. People have come to me who think they can do something for this 'Occult Science' of mine if they paint the whole 'Occult Science' so that it would stand before people in pictures. This longing has arisen. There have even been samples of it. I have nothing against it; if these samples are good, then one can even admire them, it is indeed quite beautiful to do such things. But what longing does it arise from? They arise out of the longing to take away the most important thing that is developed in “occult science” and to put images in front of people that are just boards again. Because what matters is - the way our language and the awful writing has become, this terrible writing or even the way it is printed - to take it as it is, not to rebel against what civilization and to take it in such a way that the reader can also overcome it immediately, that he can immediately get out and make all the images himself that have flowed into the awful ink, thus creating them himself. The more each person individually creates these images for themselves, the better it is. If someone else anticipates this, they are in turn walling up the world for him. I do not want to deliver a diatribe against the pictorial elaboration of what is presented in the Imaginationen of “Geheimwissenschaft”, of course not, but I would just like to point out what is fundamentally necessary for everyone as a living assimilation of this matter.

These things must be understood in the right way today. One must come to the point where one does not just take anthroposophy as something that one delves into in the same way that one delves into something else, but one must take it as something that requires a change in thinking and feeling, that requires one to become different from what one was before. So if, for example, an astronomical chapter is presented from the perspective of anthroposophy, one cannot take this astronomical chapter and compare it with ordinary astronomy and then start to prove and refute back and forth. That makes no sense at all. Instead, we must be clear about one thing: the astronomical chapter drawn from anthroposophy can only be understood when the rethinking and re-sensing is in place. So if a refutation of some anthroposophical chapter appears somewhere today and then a written defense appears that has been written with the same means as the refutation, then nothing has been done, really nothing at all, because one talks back and forth with the same way of thinking. That is not what is important, but that Anthroposophy be carried by a new life. And that is absolutely necessary today.

It is quite remarkable what ideas arise from reading anthroposophical books. I understand these ideas, often do not contradict them, because they have value for the individual; but take for example “Geheimwissenschaft” (Occult Science). People have come to me who think they can do something for this Secret Science by painting the whole work so that it would stand before people in pictures. This longing has arisen. They have even delivered samples. I have nothing against it; if these samples are good, one can even admire them, it is indeed quite beautiful to do such things. But what longing does it arise from? It arises from the longing to take away the most important thing that is developed in “occult science” and to put images in front of people that are just boards again. Because what matters is - the way our language and the awful writing has become, this terrible writing or even the way it is printed - to take it as it is, not to rebel against what civilization has brought, and to take it in such a way that the reader can also overcome it immediately, that he can immediately get out and make all the images that have flowed into the hideous ink himself. The more individually each person creates these images, the better it is. If someone else anticipates this for him, he in turn wallows the world. I do not want to deliver a diatribe against the pictorial expression of what is presented in the “occult science” in imaginations, of course not, but I would just like to point out what is fundamentally necessary for everyone as an active assimilation of this matter.

These things must be understood in the right way today. We must come to the point where we do not take anthroposophy as something we delve into in the same way we delve into anything else, but we must take it as something that requires a change in thinking and feeling, that requires us to become different people than we were before. So if, for example, an astronomical chapter is presented from the perspective of anthroposophy, one cannot take this astronomical chapter and compare it with ordinary astronomy and then start to prove and refute back and forth. That makes no sense at all. Rather, we must be clear about one thing: the astronomical chapter drawn from anthroposophy can only be understood when the rethinking and re-sensing is there. So if a refutation of some anthroposophical chapter appears somewhere today and then a written defense appears that has been written with the same means as the refutation, then nothing has been done, really nothing at all, because one is talking back and forth with the same way of thinking. That is not what is important, but that Anthroposophy be carried by a new life. And that is absolutely necessary today.

It is urgently necessary to talk about these things in this phase of the Anthroposophical Society, because these things are beginning to be misunderstood in the most fundamental way. To this end, let me today look back a little at the way in which the Anthroposophical Society has developed. You see, it came into being not through seeking it, but through arising out of the circumstances of life; it came into being by being in a certain loose, external connection with the Theosophical Society at the beginning of our century. This Theosophical Society has always endeavored to bring old principles of initiation into the present. Fate decreed that it was precisely within theosophical circles that anthroposophy could first be spoken of. I have often discussed the reasons for this, and I will not repeat them today. I did hint at them in the first essay I wrote in the series 'The Goetheanum in its first ten years' (in GA 36).

But at that time anthroposophy had to struggle out of the modern conception of the spiritual, which, I might say, tended more towards theosophy in the broadest sense: towards the reintroduction of old methods of initiation. The grotesque way in which these old methods of initiation do not correspond to the demands of modern civilization was shown very clearly when, around the years 1907, 1908, 1909, 1910, this spiritual movement, which had a theosophical character, approached the Christ problem. Then the theosophical movement produced the absurdity of an incarnated Christ Jesus in a present-day human being. And all the other absurdities that the theosophical movement produced were based on that. From the very beginning, anthroposophy, in contrast to theosophy, had to lead to a correct understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha. Therefore, in the first period of anthroposophical life, the explanation of the Gospels was given preference, the guidance to a correct understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha. And at a time when the other spiritual movement, with regard to the Mystery of Golgotha, fell into the worst absurdities, the anthroposophical movement approached more and more a real, real conception of the Mystery of Golgotha and went its way with this conception of the Mystery of Golgotha, while the theosophical movement could no longer be connected to it.

That was the first phase of anthroposophical endeavor. There was the significant cohesive impulse to connect the anthroposophical movement in the right way with the Mystery of Golgotha. And it can be said that at the moment when it was possible to write my Mysteries, this phase had come to a kind of preliminary conclusion. It was a general conviction among anthroposophists at the time that the anthroposophical movement had to be connected with a correct understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha. And the momentum that the anthroposophical movement had up until around 1908, 1909 and so on, came from the fact that a correct understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha was gained in a new spiritual way, everything was oriented so that the Mystery of Golgotha could be at the center of understanding. That is how the Anthroposophical Society acquired its character at that time.

But the things that are part of real life outside are going through a period, and something that should be full of inner life, like the Anthroposophical Society, goes through a period at a faster “pace than others.

An important phase in the anthroposophical movement, for example, when anthroposophy had already become completely independent of theosophy, was when I gave the lecture cycle on “Occult Physiology” in Prague and more and more, I would say, also the knowledge of the world could be conquered through anthroposophical knowledge. In this way it could be shown to the world: this Anthroposophy is not something in cloud-high altitudes, only mystically hovering, but it really takes hold of modern consciousness. It takes into account the emergence of the development of consciousness souls. It ventures into areas that can only be grasped with spirituality, but which are the areas of the human world around us.

And so, after the Mystery of Golgotha was, so to speak, established within the anthroposophical movement, a scientific movement that was only possible if the Mystery of Golgotha was taken completely seriously took its first steps.

This was difficult to maintain during the period when everything in Europe was going haywire and the world war broke out. We were in the second phase of the anthroposophical movement. We had, so to speak, left behind us the fact that we had borne witness to the fact that we wanted to be firmly connected to the Mystery of Golgotha. We had just begun to work on expanding the anthroposophical impulse across the various fields of world civilization. And now came the time when people in Europe became so deeply divided from one another, the time when mistrust and hatred ran rampant. A time came when everything that was not allowed to live within an anthroposophical community came to life if it was to develop its true life impulse. And in a way, we really did succeed, despite the difficulties that existed at the time, in continuing the Anthroposophical Society.

Let us consider the difficulties that existed. One major difficulty was that the original foundation of anthroposophy had started from central Europe, that we had our Goetheanum here in a neutral area, and that, I would say, any collaboration between people from the most diverse European regions was viewed with enormous mistrust from many sides. Every interaction and every journey between different sides was, of course, an enormous difficulty at that time. But the difficulties were overcome at the time because they were treated – my dear friends, it must be said – because they were treated from an anthroposophical spirit. I know that many who were part of the anthroposophical movement at the time also criticized some things, even resented them, because it was not always immediately apparent what had to be done in the face of the divisive judgments that had been made about the world in order to ensure the cohesion that can only exist in an anthroposophical spirit! And so we were able to guide the anthroposophical movement through the difficulties that arose during the European crisis, and in a sense keep it pure. Those people who were downright mistrustful during that time could in many cases be brought to trust, to the point where they said to themselves as complete outsiders: Anthroposophy, however one may feel about it, is something that cannot be dismissed as a thing to be mistrusted, even if it works with the most diverse nations.

Even as the war was drawing near, and despite the fact that it was misunderstood by many, and that some people got involved in this or that issue that began to divide people in Europe at the time, and despite the fact that some people criticized much of what was done in the spirit of anthroposophy out of some national furor, it was still possible, if I may say so, the anthroposophical ship could be steered through the great difficulties that existed, and it was possible to continue working on our Goetheanum.

One would like to say: This second phase, in which Anthroposophy was no longer an embryo, as it was until 1908 or 1909, this second phase lasted until about 1915 or 1916. Of course, its after-effects remained in many ways.

But then a time began when the child naturally had to mature: the third phase of the anthroposophical movement, starting around 1916. Yes, my dear friends, what kind of time was that? It is the time when all kinds of personalities in the anthroposophical movement, which had grown significantly by then, had ideas, ideas that then grew particularly badly in the post-war period.

It is in the nature of such a movement that the individuals in it must have ideas, because such a movement must mature within itself. As it grows, leading personalities must gradually emerge within it. And then it was indeed right that individual personalities should have such ideas. But what was necessary was that these personalities should cling with iron will to these ideas, so that they should not be adopted merely as a program and then abandoned, but should be held fast by these personalities with an iron will.

The ideas that have sought to be realized to this day have all been good. What has not been good and what must change is the behavior of the personalities in relation to them: it is precisely a matter of gaining perseverance in the pursuit of ideas. A new element necessarily emerged.

Take the first phase of the anthroposophical movement. When anthroposophy was still in its infancy, people could approach it by simply absorbing what was offered. In the first phase, all that was required was to absorb, to join the movement, to take in what was offered.

In the second phase, it became necessary for the assimilation to be mixed with an understanding; for example, people from the world came who really knew this outside world, knew it as scientists, knew it as practitioners; who could therefore judge that what was offered to them by anthroposophy also had value for science and life practice. But you didn't have to be active yourself, you just had to take in the anthroposophical with a healthy judgment of the outside world. In the first phase of anthroposophy, one only needed to be a person with a warm heart and a healthy understanding to be able to say yes to anthroposophy. Of course, this must be the case throughout all phases of the anthroposophical movement, that such people with a warm heart and a healthy understanding take up anthroposophy. But there must always be some people who know the other world thoroughly and can judge from the point of view of the other world, whether scientifically or as practitioners, what is carried down from the spiritual worlds into anthroposophy.

Now, when the third phase came, people were needed who could act, people who would work with their will, but with a persistent will, on the things that had arisen in them as ideas. Just as one cannot succumb to the illusion that a child who has turned 16 is still twelve years old, one should not succumb to the illusion that the Anthroposophical Society in 1919 could still be the same as it was in about 1907. It was in the nature of things that every intention was met. But it was also always emphasized that such volition is only justified if one perseveres, if one remains steadfast in one's will. Now, this has often been lacking. I say this not as a criticism, but as something that points to what must come. But I have often pointed out what must come to pass in individual cases. Only in one instance was my attention paid to by the leadership! That was when I realized that it was necessary to intervene in a certain field, and then our friend Leinhas took over this intervention. Only in this one case has what I have repeatedly and repeatedly described as a necessity in one area or another actually been observed in recent times – I now expressly say: described as a necessity of the third phase of the anthroposophical movement. Because basically I did not need to make a special effort to explain what the impulses of the first phase and the second phase were. They were ongoing. They could be safely left to spiritual karma. It was different with what had emerged through the ideas of individual personalities as a good thing in itself, but which can only continue to be good if the persevering will of the individual personalities really intervenes in the matter. But they must not be allowed to develop in the way they have in many cases in recent times.

Let me give you an example. Among the many things that arose from ideas, let us assume that there was also the so-called Hochschulbund. Yes, my dear friends, this Hochschulbund either had to contain within it a serious will that did not weaken, or it was a stillborn child. This is something that I already said explicitly when it was founded.

What is the meaning of such a statement, my dear friends? It means only that people should be made aware: you must know that if you slacken your will, the matter will go wrong. What has become of the University Federation? In Germany it has become something that only annoys the representatives of the old ways and makes enemies of them, because the will was not behind it. In Switzerland, the Hochschulbund was never really born at all; therefore, a far-reaching will could not flash through something like that which gave the first events within our perished Goetheanum their character: the college lectures. They have basically remained quite ineffective because there was no driving force behind them. But they made enemies. And a large part of the third phase of our anthroposophical movement consisted of this: the arousal of enmity and opposition that is not necessary when there is a strong will behind the cause. Of course, enmity arises; but it is ineffective if it is not justified in a certain way. And it must always be the case that it can be said: however many enmities arise, they must not even have the appearance of justification, however vehemently they arise.

I have repeatedly pointed this out, including here, but let us see how it has come about. It is only natural that young people should approach the movement that arises from the burgeoning of the development of the consciousness soul. We should be glad that young people are approaching it. But what do young people think today about what the Anthroposophical Society is? Young people today think that it cannot be taken seriously. I don't want to talk about whether this judgment is justified or not, but it is there, and you have to deal with the facts in life.

I would like to give you just one external, factual testimony to this fact. Some time ago, a group of young people came together in Stuttgart to truly surrender themselves to the anthroposophical movement with all their hearts. These people had the best intention of devoting themselves to the anthroposophical movement. I was busy here and couldn't be there on the first day after they had gathered in Stuttgart, and so I expressed to one of the members of the central Council the wish that he should represent me by giving a lecture to the young people on the first evening. He went there and proposed the motion to them. They said: We thank you very much, we do not want a lecture from you.

Now, my dear friends, you may say: That was rude. — For my sake, say that; but it has no validity if you say it. The fact was that the people were convinced from the outset: No understanding is possible; he does not tell us something that strikes at our hearts. And I found in Stuttgart that the youth had gathered and that the previous anthroposophical leadership was actually completely out of touch with them. The people were left to their own devices, and they really approached the anthroposophical movement with warm hearts.

This way of relating to others was perfectly possible in the first and second phases of the anthroposophical movement; in the third phase it was no longer possible because in the third phase it began to depend on the individual person in the anthroposophical movement. And as I said, all this is not said to criticize anyone, all this is not said to criticize; all this is said because it caused me endless suffering, because I saw that the personalities who wanted to take the helm here or there in the Anthroposophical Society did not want to rule entirely out of the anthroposophical spirit. And I have always assured them that it is unspeakable what I had to suffer from the fact that it could be stated: This third phase of the anthroposophical movement does not want to progress as it should, because there are too many mere ideas and the energetic will behind them is lacking.

It is indeed a certain fateful connection that when we were struck by the great misfortune here at the Goetheanum, it became particularly clear that the real damage to anthroposophy lies in inaction, in not wanting to take action. And so we have been driven into the very conflicts that now exist in the bosom of the Anthroposophical Society, and which should lead to nothing other than an all the more powerful recovery. But for that to happen, it must first be truly and honestly recognized what is necessary. Above all, it is necessary not to harbor illusions about the facts that have gradually driven us into a kind of cul-de-sac. It would certainly be an illusion if we were to see the damage as lying in anything other than the failure of certain personalities to take a stand. But the Anthroposophical Society can no longer tolerate illusions today. It cannot tolerate the mere unfruitful criticism of the past, but only the actual pointing out of what is necessary. And that is to recognize that desire is not will, that one must not say, 'I have the best will', when in three weeks' time this best will proves to be nothing but will at all, but that one then sat down on one's chair and was, in title, what one is on this chair, but had only passive good will. But passive good will is a contradiction in terms. The will is only good will when it is active. The anthroposophical movement in its third phase cannot tolerate resolutions such as: We make ourselves available. It is the worst misunderstanding to pass such resolutions, the worst misunderstanding of the actual tasks.

What is at stake is for each of us to intervene where we stand, and not to stop at desire, but to develop the will. It might seem, my dear friends, as if I wanted to paint a gloomy picture of what is in the bosom of the anthroposophical movement today. I do not want to do that. But on the other hand, I must not create any illusions, or contribute to the creation of any illusions. Because the point is that we can only move forward if we grasp such an awareness as has been characterized.

But, my dear friends, I am only saying that the second phase of the anthroposophical movement has brought with it the necessity to spread the word about the outer world. I also said that those who have learned from the world in science or practice must come forward as judges. In the third phase, numerous such personalities then found themselves saying, “Yes, now we have to do something, now we have to start doing something!” They also made resolutions. But action is not part of it.

In the third phase, well, I don't want to say how many researchers in the most diverse scientific fields are among us. I don't want to say how many! If I told you the total, you would be amazed. These researchers are, in their opinion, motivated by the best will. In my opinion, they are extremely capable. Here, too, I believe that there is no lack of ability. On the contrary, in recent years we have even managed to bring together the most capable people through a wonderful selection process, here and in Stuttgart. The excuse that abilities are lacking does not hold water. What is lacking is the will. And as soon as one talks about this will, the strangest things happen.

We experienced it at the local science course when a lecture by one of our researchers was announced. He didn't come! But as if in mockery, he arrived a few hours later. Yes, my dear friends, if there is no sense of obligation within the Anthroposophical Society, then it just won't work. And if you want to tackle things, then, oddly enough, they slip out of your hands; they really do slip out of your hands. For example, I wanted to tackle this 'problem', as I would call it, that one of our researchers simply absents himself, skips his lecture – I wanted to deal with this in the appropriate way; I got the answer that he doesn't even really know how he came to be on the program in Dornach! Yes, my dear friends, when problems slip out of our hands like that, then there is truly no longer any concerted, energetic will.

But that is precisely what we need. We do not need a disintegration of all kinds of wishes and all kinds of what is often called goodwill; we need a dutiful will. All things can flourish if people approach them in the right way. Because what does not have the possibility of flourishing within it will not be undertaken, even within the anthroposophical movement. But we need the will, the truly good will, that is, the strong will of the personalities involved. We cannot tolerate curule chairs, but we need active personalities.

My dear friends, I did not bring about the situation that I have to express this, but rather it is the personalities themselves who have made themselves available to do everything possible. It has grown out of something else. Therefore, the issue today is that responsibilities should also be defined as broadly as possible, that they should really be nurtured and cherished, and that they should also be demanded.

That is what I wanted to tell you, because we are still not finished with the current trips to Stuttgart. I have to go back there tomorrow. The next lecture will be next Friday. This afternoon there will be a eurythmy performance here at 5 o'clock. I ask once again not to shy away from the second route; the preparations for the trip made it necessary for this lecture not to follow the eurythmy performance, but to be held in the morning.

A soul who sees the things that our outer movement is going through and that tend to make one criticize can ask: How is this criticism compatible with the development of the positivity that we're supposed to develop as a basic exercise?

In earlier times they didn't have as many pupils cultivating the esoteric life as we do now. Various forces are combating our kind of esoteric life. Pupils must take esoteric life seriously and worthily. We should realize how tremendously important the step from the exoteric life into the esoteric one is. An esoteric must gradually see exoteric life in an entirely different light.

For example, we can all remember that we played as kids and that we took this play seriously. Let's ask ourselves: If we adults wanted to play with kids how would we do it? Of course we could play with kids and maybe even better than they, because we can use our intellect for this. But we would have to put ourselves in a different soul state to really be in the playing activity.

An esoteric has a relation to outer life that's quite similar to the one that an adult has to the play of children. When he returns to outer exoteric life from esoteric exercises he'll gradually look upon the former as if he wanted to play with children as an adult. And just as an adult must put himself in another soul state, so an esoteric feels that he's put into another soul state when he goes over to exoteric life. An esoteric won't be less capable in everyday life, but will stand in it in a more capable and vigorous way than he did before he got into esotericism. Thus the transition from exoteric to esoteric life is a unique incision into human life, and esoteric life can't be taken seriously and worthily enough.

Let's take a closer look at esoteric life. We know that various changes take place in our soul life through the exercises we received. For instance, the passions that a man had before get stronger. Old inclinations, drives and passions one thought one had overcome and put aside reemerge from the dark shafts of soul life and assert themselves vehemently. Or an esoteric often thoughtlessly does something which he would have been ashamed of before the start of his esoteric training or wouldn't have done at all. His antipathies and sympathies for people become stronger than before; his whole soul life becomes stirred up. In short, a man gets to know what he's really like in his soul depths so that he has real self-knowledge. Therefore strict and strong self-control is indispensable for an esoteric pupil.

If the exercises are continued energetically and patiently the changes in an esoteric's soul life can be about as follows. At first he may be that nothing special results from the exercises in concentration and meditation. But one should realize that the first experiences can be so fine and subtle that they can only be noticed by the use of a certain attentiveness. For instance, it could be that an esoteric in the midst of his everyday life suddenly has a thought that seems to spring out of his other thought life, that obviously doesn't belong to this everyday life—a thought that's about his own being. Such a thought flits by unnoticed if there isn't enough attentiveness there. The important and necessary thing is to become attentive enough to notice thoughts that seem to fall out of one's ordinary thought life, and that we become aware that possibly grotesque thoughts rise in our soul without our ordinary waking ego-consciousness being involved. Thereby we become aware that something lives behind our ordinary ego that we hadn't known previously, that something is active behind this ego which weaves thoughts. If we direct more and more attentiveness towards these thoughts that fall out of everyday life, they'll appear with increasing frequency, and eventually we'll be able to experience them at will. Then a pupil sees as through a door that this weaving on what one what one is used to calling the thought body, is going on continuously. Every pupil will someday experience this is he works on patiently and energetically. But he won't arrive at such experiences if he stops doing exercises. Hindrances of the outer and inner life may induce a pupil to stop doing his exercises. Difficulties that oppose esoteric life can arise outwardly, and resistance to it can also arise from weakness and laziness. If a pupil succumbs to these and doesn't continue on the path, the fruit of his previous esoteric striving remain for him, but he can't get any further. Such weakness can't develop if esoteric life is cultivated rightly, for firmness and perseverance are enveloped therein which prevent one from giving up on one's original resolve.

So if a pupil does the exercises that were given him energetically and patiently and then creates the quiet in which his consciousness is quite empty, this will eventually lead to experiences from the spiritual world. The attitude of soul with which a pupil receives revelations is also quite important. He should be thankful to the divine, spiritual hierarchies for every thought and experience form the super-sensible realm. He should develop such thankful feelings ever more intensely; an honest cultivation of them may give him more revelations and it brings him forward. A pupil must put himself into a prayerful mood that prepares him to receive revelations rightly. If an experience presents itself from the spiritual world he should realize that something was given through grace.

In the last ten years the masters' grace has brought a great many spiritual truths into exoteric and esoteric theosophical life. An enormous spiritual treasure has been entrusted to us during this time, so that for instance, it may be hard for some souls to assimilate everything that's been said about the four Gospels. Some souls even have a negative attitude to this treasure, and they express their dislike for it. Such an attitude is understandable, for one has to admit that it's hard to master the given teachings. But after all, it's our task to work our way through to an ever more comprehensive understanding of Christ and to penetrate ever deeper into the Mystery of Golgotha. All statement of Krishna or Elijah and all wisdom of past times flowed into this. Therefore we shouldn't slacken but should pull ourselves together, work willingly, learn and learn again. We must master page after page of a lecture cycle and we should never let up.

However, the earth is a battlefield for Luciferic and Ahrimanic powers who can take over human beings. What do these powers tell each other? They say: There are lazy souls who don't want to go along with what flowed down from spiritual worlds. We can work on them and capture them.

And so these beings take possession of such souls and draw them away from the path by leading them into illusions and errors and making them into agents for their adversarial work. Whereas, if we work hard and steadily, our path is the straight line from Krishna—if we don't want to go further back—to Buddha, Elijah, John and Christ. If we strive seriously and apply thought power, effort and time to understand everything that was and is being said about Christ and the Mystery of Golgotha, we'll be equal to the attacks of the adversarial forces that are trying to stop esoterics' development. But all those who slacken and don't want to keep up succumb to the attacks of the adversarial powers. They're the ones who become opponents of our movement and who create the increasing number of hindrances that we've noted over the years.

Another thing that esoterics should especially cultivate is a feeling for truth. Nothing should ever hinder us from saying the truth freely and openly. Every attempt to deviate from the truth must be paid for at some point … But there's one thing we can do, and this shall be the answer to the question we asked at the beginning: Even if we must condemn a man's deeds, we shouldn't criticize the man himself, but love him. Whether or not we really love him will become evident in the moments of our meditation. Take none of the sympathies and antipathies and the little worries and so on into the spiritual worlds—this will open them for us and let us get into them in the right way.

The example of playing children showed us how an esoteric pupil is related to exoteric life, and that he can play better than kids because he connects himself with the latter, rather than with the toys. The important thing is his soul attitude and his connection with the children, and not the toys. That's the way things are on the esoteric path also. There, the pupil gets into a different relation to his surroundings. He looks at the latter differently than before. In a way, he's outgrown them and yet he understands them better. We shouldn't lose interest in things in the outer world, although an esoteric training tends to make one lose interest in what formerly interested one.

A man out in life likes some men more than others. He, of course, tends to either ignore the defects of someone he likes or to excuse them much more easily than in someone he doesn't like. This attitude must be changed in an esoteric. His relation to his fellow men must become more impersonal. This shouldn't happen overnight; that wouldn't even be right, for karmic connections could be torn thereby. But he must gradually get to the point where he also wants to help people he doesn't like. This makes him see others' defects—also those of loved ones—more clearly than before, but that doesn't do any harm; it gets evened out again through esoteric training.

Our soul mood really becomes different. Taking another look at what happens to us in the moments when we end our meditations it's not indifferent whether this playing in of the spiritual world happens right after the meditation or only later on in daily life, and also whether this is the result of meditation or whether it's only atavistic clairvoyance, clairaudience or a reflection of visions.

It's best for our soul life if these transitions only play in fleetingly and are easily forgotten. The main thing for an esoteric is to learn to pay attention to this brief lighting up of the spiritual world. Through esoteric training our thinking becomes finer, more spiritual and more independent of the brain. Look at how important the concepts of time and space are for human feelings. And yet time and space are maya in the spiritual world. An esoteric pupil in the midst of exoteric life may suddenly get the feeling that it's not he who's thinking at this moment but that he's perceiving his thought body and the thoughts that are weaving and working in it. He'll have the intense feeling: Something is thinking in me. This weaving and working of thoughts is always present in our subconsciousness, but we only become aware of it at special moments. The feeling that something spiritual wants to think, feel and will in us must increasingly awaken. Someone could ask: Isn't that a contradiction when we're told to receive everything with full consciousness, and now we hear that the I and thoughts work in our subconsciousness? Such questions arise from today's brutal logical thinking—not only brutal with respect to men, but also brutal with respect to thinking. However an esoteric must learn to think subtly and he must be aware that everything becomes transformed in esoteric life.

In sensory life a man is aware of his three soul forces—thinking, feeling and willing—through which the soul works; sentient, intellectual, and consciousness souls. These three soul members seem to mingle when one goes into higher worlds, and yet they're separate. This seems contradictory. But one should know that the three soul members are never completely separate, although each seems to exist by itself.

All of a man's desires, passions and drives surge in his sentient soul. But a man had to have something as a counterpole for his egoity. The powers who led human evolution saw this, and so they placed fear in man's sentient soul. A man had to have fear, otherwise he would have grabbed everything in sight and his egoity would have become too strong. Ancient pedagogues were well aware of this, and the telling of fairy tales and ghost stories were part of the education. Children aren't told ghost stories in school today, but this is necessary for a child's soul to a certain extent so that amazement is aroused in it, because reverence for something unknown develops from this. A child who was never told about something unknown and great can never feel devotion in later life. An esoteric must consciously transform fear into reverence, piety, devotion and an ability to sacrifice. When one goes into spiritual worlds, fear must be transformed into reverence; that's why it's good to cultivate it on the physical plane. But if the feeling of fear in man is exaggerated and the ego isn't strong enough to keep the fear from taking hold of not only the soul but also of the physical body, violent rages can arise, among other things. This can always be ascribed to a weak ego. People who have these are afraid of water and other things that don't hang together. This is a wrong working in of spiritual forces upon the soul and body.

The basic condition for the intellectual soul is cleverness, which is often crossed through by sympathy. It is odd that these poles confront each other in the intellectual soul. The intellect is often crossed through and influenced by sympathy. A placing of oneself into other beings, a feeling of sorrow and joy as if it were our own, is something that should be attained through conscious meditations. We must arrive at the feeling that we're all a unity, and we must learn to feel that time and space become something separate. For instance, a mother will have different attitudes towards her child's pains at the ages of one, three, and twenty. She also feels differently about her own child than about someone else's. A mother feels differently because she's connected with her child, is a unity with him or her, just as we're a piece of the unity of spiritual worlds. One also sees that maya changes through time and space and that thereby one's soul sympathy changes.

We'll find that with such sympathy we often feel a tremendous bliss. But we shouldn't give in to this mood. This should just be the main feeling when we become free of the body, that is, that we don't feel in the physical body but in meditation; and then enjoy the tremendous bliss of working creatively in the world.

This blissful feeling creates the greatest egoity, and that's why it's only beneficial through meditation. In physical existence we should bear everything that destiny places on us with equanimity, and we should learn to feel as if all of this didn't concern us at all, and take it as calmly as if our body was foreign to us. We must always awaken the feeling in us that we can be just as glad about the progress of others as about our own, and that it's not as if we were specially chosen to make progress. It's immaterial for world evolution who make the progress, but for us the combating and transformation of egoism is the important thing.

The one pole of the consciousness soul is the feeling of being able to exclude oneself, and the other pole that projects in from the spiritual world is conscience. This keeps us from doing things that disagree with moral laws. We must let ourselves be guided by our conscience, and not act according to the principle of the statesman of whom one says that although he seemed to let himself be led by his horses, he nevertheless directed these horses where he wanted them to go.

We must see to it that we develop conscience in the right way on the physical plane; it's only what one has acquired that one can take into spiritual worlds. Conscience changes through our meditations. The hardest stage for an occultist is the one where he's bereft of conscience. A man must have advanced a great deal here, must have cleared ambition and vanity out of his soul—those worst of all soul forces that can always drag him down again; he must have transformed them completely.

Being “without conscience” is a feeling of being completely free of one's body in the sense of higher self-knowledge, in order only then to be able to feel like a center for the reception of truths from the spiritual world. We must learn to lead a double life, to have the feeling that we're carrying our physical body around like a piece of wood. An esoteric must learn to feel that his whole body is an organ for thinking, feeling and willing.

He must get to the point where he is not only thinking with his brain that's encased in a hard skull, but with all parts of his body; for instance, hands are better organs for thinking than the brain. He must gradually spiritualize the physical to such an extent that everything becomes a mere instrument for him. He must get to the point where he looks at his etheric or physical hands without seeing them, just as he now sees neither his eyes nor his brain. Just as we feel that an ax that we take in our hand is something external, so the hand must also be felt as something that does not belong to us. We must be the driving factor that directs the hand as an instrument with which we work.

We must develop everything in us beyond the corporeal and spiritualize ourselves so much that we become like our archetype.

In the spirit lay the germ of my body.
And the spirit has imprinted in my body
The eyes of sense,
That through them I may see
The lights of bodies.
And the spirit has imprinted in my body
Reason and sensation
And feeling and will,
That through them I may perceive bodies
And act upon them.
In the spirit lay the germ of my body.
In my body lies the germ of the spirit.
And I will incorporate into my spirit
The super-sensible eyes
That through them I may behold the light of spirits.
And I will imprint in my spirit
Wisdom and power and love,
So that through me the spirits may act
And I become a self-conscious organ
Of their deeds.
In my body lies the germ of the spirit.

After much exercising a man may have the feeling that he hasn't gotten further in his experience of the spiritual world. But this may be based on an error. It may be that one notices nothing during or after meditation, but then it can happen that when one goes back to one's customary duties and doesn't become entirely absorbed by outer work, one suddenly has the feeling: Something is thinking in me now.

It also often happens that a meditator goes to sleep while he's doing his retrospect, but when he reawakens and tries to follow up what happened in him in the meantime he'll often be able to find that the retrospect was continued. It's important to feel that. It doesn't contradict what was always said to the effect that we mustn't give any value to what happens without the ego. For when we recall it, we incorporate it into the ego.

One who has had such experiences can be permeated by the consciousness in special moments: It thinks—it's not me who thinks, but it thinks, and namely: It thinks me. Esoterically this is the same thing that was expressed exoterically in the words: In your thinking, world thoughts live.

At any spare moment in daily life one can permeate oneself with the thought, It thinks me, even if it's only for a few seconds: the thought that what otherwise appears to me as “I” was created by world thoughts through their thinking—that also my ego-feeling is a thought that thinks me. But this thought should never arise without being accompanied by a particular feeling. A man standing in the outer world thinks it's all right to think anything, but esoterics know that there are certain thoughts that shouldn't be thought if they're not accompanied by the appropriate feelings. The feeling that should accompany “It thinks me” is piety. We only think this thought in the right way if we connect it with this feeling. An esoteric should consider it to be his greatest sin if he can have the thought, It thinks me, without the feeling of piety.

An esoteric can get another awareness in connection with the words: In your will world beings are working. This can be transformed in him into the thought: It works me. The way that all forces stream together to work a human being, the way that a man is composted of past and future—all of this is in, It works me. Here, too, this must never be thought without being accompanied by a certain feeling, the feeling of reverence for the beings who create men.

What we've made out of ourself through our karma bumps into what higher beings have brought about in us. A man should never forget that no matter what may hit him, it's brought about by himself, just as he is the one who closes a door.

These are mighty mantras: It thinks me, It works me—and those who are the furthest ahead on the esoteric path are those who could permeate themselves the most at every moment of their lives with It thinks me, It works me, and always let these two be accompanied by the corresponding feelings.

Someone who has practiced It works me like this for years will get something like a present for it, as for instance when someone says: “It's raining,” where one feels the spiritual forces that are connected with the rain and work in rain.

Another feeling can come to someone who develops himself like this, a feeling that's connected with the third mantra: In your feeling world, forces are weaving. This is the feeling: It weaves me—and namely one feels that just as world thoughts think the thoughts of our ego, so world forces weave our higher I. Therefore, the feeling that should always be connected with this is that of thankfulness.

It's possible that meditation on the words: It thinks me, It weaves me, It works me, in succession, connected with the feelings of piety, thankfulness, and reverence, will replace all other meditations and will by themselves lead one into the spiritual world.

However, great help is given by what we receive from theosophy, when we study what is said there about the Saturn, Sun and Moon conditions, for then we can understand what the “it' is in: It thinks me. It's theosophy; that's what this it is. Theosophy is the world thoughts that thought me as an I. This also sheds light on our verse and on the feelings that we should cultivate there. We're not always able to have these feelings of piety, thankfulness or trust, and reverence that should accompany the Ex Deo nascimur, In Christo morimur, Per Spiritum Sanctum reviviscimus—but it's only when we connect these feelings with the verse that we're using it in the right way.

One who begins an esoteric training will, of course, try to get into higher worlds, but most people anticipate something different from what often happens there. Many think that the visionary life that must also begin is the most desirable thing, but an experience of this isn't the main thing; the important thing is a certain soul attitude. As soon as an esoteric training has begun, the soul changes under the influence of exercise that are given to an esoteric in accordance with his individuality. And then the main thing is to pay attention to such a soul attitude in the finest and subtlest way.

After the meditation, a meditator must let complete quiet enter his soul. At first the meditation still plays into his soul like a tone that slowly subsides. Then this too must disappear from the soul. The latter must become entirely empty for the reception of spiritual worlds. Practice this with patience and perseverance. One must remain quiet even if one experiences nothing for a long time. One must be glad that one succeeds in being quiet.

Without knowing it at first, one can experience something in such moments that are the most productive for development One can have the feeling: I just experienced something. It can appear as a mere dream, but experiences can also approach an esoteric in another way. On getting up in the morn and beginning our daily tasks it may happen that we suddenly have the feeling: I experienced something now. We should pay greater attention to these moments, for after awhile, another feeling will be added; we feel: You didn't think this thought yourself. It seemed to flit by and it was forgotten right away again, but it was there, we experienced it. Such an experience is very important. We should direct our attention to it ever more. For at this moment, our ordinary ego didn't think—what thought was the divine thinking that passes through all ages and eternities. It thinks me—the great world thinking, thinks me. This is expressed exoterically as: Within your thinking, cosmic thoughts hold sway. Esoterically one says: It thinks me. So when you let this mantric verse pass through your soul often, it has a very strengthening effect on it; this can happen right after meditation or at any spare moment while you're walking or standing One must fill the soul completely with thee words and feel the greatest piety. An esoteric should make it his business never to say, “It thinks me” as a mere sentence. There's another sentence we can use in the same way. Here we first have to look back at ourself. Most people don't understand why blows of destiny hit them. An esoteric should always keep the karma idea in mind. It's really so that we are to blame for everything that hit us. If we let this thought live in us, we gradually get to the point where we grasp karma, that we become aware of the connections that exist between the divine spiritual world and us, and of how our destiny, our karma is wrought out of these sub-depths. For this we have the second mantric sentence that should live in our soul in the same way as the first one: It works me; exoterically expressed: World beings work in your will. As we let the words of this second sentence pass through our soul, we should feel the holiest awe and reverence, the deepest devotion. There's also a third sentence. If we let this work on us, we can gradually get to the point where we feel the weaving of the divine hierarchies of higher worlds on our soul body. It weaves me. That's the content of the third mantric sentence, which we should let work upon our soul in the same way as the first two. With this sentence, we should feel the greatest thankfulness towards great, sublime spiritual powers. The exoteric expression of this sentence is: World forces weave in your feeling.

For instance, in the exercise: I rest in the Godhead of the world , we should feel the divine I and not the personal one. Of course, we can't exclude the word “I,” but it's the higher, expanded I that should be felt here. The personal ego with which we live in the physical body must cease at death and pass over into the higher I. It dies into the world ego: I C M.

Another feeling we must have is one of powerlessness with respect to divine, spiritual worlds. We can't preserve our physical body overnight during sleep, can't keep it from deteriorating. Divine, spiritual beings do this for us. On awakening, we come back into the physical body from the spiritual worlds from which we arose; spiritual forces maintain and form us: E D N. To experience E D N in the right way, we must fill ourselves with the thought that everything that we are in thinking, feeling and willing is given to us by the Godhead: it thinks us, it weaves us, it works us—we are born from it: Ex Deo nascimur.

We have darkened this divine soul nature in us during our life through the incarnations. We've surrounded ourselves with a world of visions that come from our being and not from primal, divine beings. Through esoteric life we must press through to the point where when we get into the spiritual world through death's portal, we've freed ourselves of this darkening that has enveloped our whole being like a visionary cloud.

If we've been successful in this, then after death we'll become united with the spirituality, the Christ, that flows through our cosmos. We die into the Christ, I C M—and thereby we're enabled to suck up pure cosmic forces to build up a purer corporeality for the next incarnation.

Our body is given to us from nature's forces; we suck these Father forces into our being; we come to the Father through the Christ: “I and the Father are One. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

We're helped to go on this path through the connection with the spiritual worlds that we can already find in physical life through esoteric life and thereby take the spiritual stream that flows towards us out of spiritual worlds into our intellect and our morality—and that is the Holy Spirit. P S S R.

It thinks me: the descent of the spiritual archetype from the Father forces behind the Zodiac.

It works me: die into Christ's etheric body that embraces the zodiac and in

It weaves me: receive the new thing that's given to us by Christ from the Father forces.

The battle against occult endeavors is greater today than ever before. It's true that people always fought against them with blood and fire, but never as much as today. You brothers and sisters can help to mitigate this battle that's only brought about by envy You can do a lot by not referring to me as a leader, as so often happens. You can be certain in your hearts and know where you stand, but you shouldn't speak about this publicly.

One can observe a certain periodicity in human life, just as one perceives a periodicity in the outer world. Say that we have an event in our life. This event passes. Things go on for a while, and then there's a repetition of the event. On the schema one sees that the circles get bigger each time. In ordinary human life one can observe that one tries to discard ambition and vanity, also love of ease and laziness. One may have won a certain victory over these defects in ordinary life. When one has gone through an esoteric development for awhile, these defects suddenly stand before us again, and as one can see from the schema, they're much worse than the first time. Now one can try to overcome this vanity, ambition, etc., again, until they approach us again in ever worse forms. But one can also stand still, not overcome, and then one will bring this vanity, etc., into one's esoteric life as poison. The following threefold force will be a good way to overcome these defects.

When our ego and astral body slip into our etheric and physical bodies again in the morning, consciousness arises through the shock of this slipping-in process. There would be no consciousness in this world without the etheric and physical bodies. These two parts that we need for consciousness don't belong to us—we inherited them from our ancestors. It might occur to us on waking that these parts that we got for nothing could also be taken way from us someday then we can understand what sages always said in the morn: “I thank you God that you enabled me to wake up again,” and so on. It's the Father God who enables us to dive down into the physical body again in the morn. When we say the words: It weaves me, we have force that enables us to feel thankfulness for this submersion in the physical body. We have a very powerful mantra in these words. A great feeling of thankfulness must go through us with these words: It weaves me. We have a great source of strength every time we say them. One who can't generate a great feeling of thankfulness shouldn't say them. Our first thought on awakening in the morn will be a prayer of thanks to the Father God who enables us to return to this physical body.

When a man has a life behind him, something will meet him in the spiritual world. What met him in BC times was different from what meets him now. A shock is experienced when one slips into the physical body, which awakens consciousness. After death, we have no physical body, and without this, an I has no consciousness today. What preserves consciousness for the I is the power of the Son, whom we can meet in the spiritual world after death. Here, too, we have a powerful mantra And that is: It works me. We should say it with devotion and reverence and thereby get a preservation of consciousness between death and a new life.

What must also come about is that we go over into spiritual worlds, that we wake up through the Holy spirit, who leads us over there. Here we have the mantra: It thinks me. This must be said with piety. And so we have hope, love and faith. Then threefold love will awaken in man—love of truth, life and creativity. We often run into love of truth, but love of life not so often. Love of life will put every man in the right position to other men. For how can one love life rightly without loving other men? Giving in to someone in everything out of passion isn't a love of life. It's only love of life if one does not excuse all wrongs out of kindness; sometimes it's love if one doesn't give in. The third love, of creativity, is hard to find. We should love all creativity and work. But look at how men turn against anything creative.

Vanity hinders us in the love of truth. And who can still be vain if he cultivates the love of truth. We must increasingly cultivate the love of truth.

Through the love of life we develop sympathy for all life. Egoism is melted by this love. One who has the right love of all life can't remain in egoism.

The love of creativity eliminates all laziness and love of ease.

And so we can say: I love the truth through the Holy Spirit who thinks in me. I love life through the Son who works in me. I love creativity through the Father who weaves in me. Or we can say: We're born in the Father God. We die in Christ, and we'll be resurrected through the Holy Spirit. E D N, I C M, P S S R. We were born in this physical body through the Father Sprit, we die through the Son, and the Holy Spirit gives us the certainty of a resurrection.

And so we'll say the words that were us out of the truth:

In the spirit lay the germ of my body.
And the spirit has imprinted in my body
The eyes of sense,
That through them I may see
The lights of bodies.
And the spirit has imprinted in my body
Reason and sensation
And feeling and will,
That through them I may perceive bodies
And act upon them.
In the spirit lay the germ of my body.
In my body lies the germ of the spirit.
And I will incorporate into my spirit
The super-sensible eyes
That through them I may behold the light of spirits.
And I will imprint in my spirit
Wisdom and power and love,
So that through me the spirits may act
And I become a self-conscious organ
Of their deeds.
In my body lies the germ of the spirit.

Before we begin our actual esoteric study we should say that we in our esoteric stream must separate ourselves completely from the other one that goes through the world and that's promoted by Ms. Besant. For reasons of truthfulness we can separate ourselves from the deeds of a personality, but we must not change our love for the personality and should direct even more sympathy towards her, precisely because we must reject her deeds. As Ms. Besant wrote in 1906: “Judge has fallen on this perilous path of occultism, Leadbeater has fallen on it, very likely I too shall fall ... If the day of my fall should come I ask those who love me not to shrink from condemning my fault, not to attenuate it, or say that black is white; but rather let them lighten my heavy karma as I am trying to lighten that of my friend and brother ...” For occultism is indeed a perilous path, and everyone should consider that forces can slumber in the depths of the human soul that may not appear in ordinary life, but that come to light if one treads the perilous path. That's why one should constantly watch one's own soul and remember the words: “Watch and pray.”

Anyone who wants to enter spiritual worlds must practice strict self-knowledge. The Essene order, whose teachers also taught the Jesus of the Luke Gospel, had two rules that can show us how far away moderns are from spiritual things. One rule said that no Essene should speak about worldly things before the sun rose or after it set. And for those who had gone up to higher grades this rule was reinforced by one that forbade one to even think profane things at the indicated times. Another rule said that before the sun comes up every Essene should ask that this might happen and that the sun's power might shine over mankind every day ... These rules show us how important the connection of our being is with the events in the spiritual world from which we emerge in the morn, and in which we submerge when we go to sleep in the eve.

How little moderns live in accordance with these laws of outer and inner cycles is no doubt shown by an outer cycle like the transition of New Year's Eve into the new year. Everything that people do there and undertake before going to sleep seems to be designed to connect oneself particularly deeply with material things, whereas people should be doing a retrospect at this moment. Corresponding to this outer cycle is an inner one in man: that of waking and sleeping. In the eve a man draws his astral body and ego out of the physical and etheric bodies and lives in a purely spiritual world. Let's take a look at the moment of going to sleep, until unconsciousness gradually sets in. An ordinary man has no consciousness in the spiritual world at night. It may happen that clairvoyant moments occur and he then sees pictures of what he's left lying behind. What he sees will depend on his temperament and character. A man who feels that his stay in his bodies is like living in a house will see the physical and etheric bodies as a house with a portal through which he has to go when he wakes up. A melancholic who experiences the perishable side of earthly existence will see the image of a coffin in which a dead man lies. One who has a strong feeling that Gods built the house of his body during the old Saturn and Sun periods may see an angel or light form that hands him a chalice, representing an ancient, primal word of mankind: We're born from God.

What the Essenes did in the morn before sunrise can't be done any more today, so when a modern esoteric comes back into his physical and etheric bodies he should permeate himself with the holy feeling that sublime Gods prepared and built up these bodies during Saturn and Sun evolution so that we can develop consciousness in them. With this consciousness an esoteric will ask the God—the spiritual sun that the physical sun represents—to maintain and leave him this physical and etheric body each morn when he steps out of the spiritual world, to develop consciousness in the physical world. For where would we be if someone would take away this physical and etheric body overnight? We would then be overpowered by a feeling of unconsciousness. If we permeate ourselves with the fact that the Gods have built us this physical and etheric body we'll then have the experience that our brain, or any other organ, is not just bound to our physical body, but that it expands to a hollow sphere in which stars are imbedded that run in their orbits, and that these stars that are travelling in orbit are our thoughts. Thereby the microcosm becomes the macrocosm. The mighty forces of the whole cosmos are compressed in our brain, and we feel their connection with us. We can describe everything that led us through Saturn, Sun and through the hereditary line to our present birth with the saying: We are born from the Gods.

Just as we would have to remain unconscious if we couldn't dive down into our physical and etheric body in the morning, so passage through the portal of death extinguishes all conscious life. Before the Mystery of Golgotha a man received a consciousness after death from reserve forces that were given to men on their way that gave him consciousness in the spiritual world. But this gift of the Gods had gradually been used up, and a Greek knew that it was his lot to live in the realm of the shades after death. This was in accordance with the will of the Gods. Consciousness was shadowy and dim, and that's why Greeks had one of their greatest men say: Better to be a beggar in the upper world than a king in the realm of the shades.

A new substance was created through the Mystery of Golgotha that could give consciousness to men when they were in the spiritual world after death. This substance flowed out of the Mystery of Golgotha. A man can develop consciousness in the spiritual world after death through an immersion in this Christ substance. That's why every evening when we go to sleep and into the spiritual world we should remind ourselves of this and permeate ourselves with the feeling: We die in Christ.—For only the Christ impulse can keep us conscious in the spiritual world after death through its death-overcoming vital force. But there's nothing in the physical world that's great and holy enough to enable one to understand this Mystery that was given through Christ Jesus, so one shouldn't use anything that belongs to the world, not even the words of language in order to refer to this Mystery, the great unfathomable secret that's contained in what flows out from the Mystery of Golgotha. That's why an esoteric is silent in word and thought at the place where the sacred, unspeakable name would have to be said. He just feels the sacredness of this moment: In ... morimur.

But even if a man has consciousness after death, he doesn't have self-consciousness yet, that through which he recognizes himself as an individual being in the spiritual world and finds himself together again with the brothers and sisters he was with in the physical world. The only thing that can help us to find our being again and to awaken with self-consciousness after we were immersed in Christ substance is our experience of our higher I that's given to us by the Holy Spirit, through whom we have to hope: We'll be resurrected in the Holy Spirit and will awaken to self-conscious life.

My dear sisters and brothers! If we heed and do everything that's been given till now in the Mystery dramas and esoteric lessons, if we really do all of this in complete devotion, then we can already get very, very far into high spiritual worlds. Moderns don't need anything more to get into very high spiritual worlds. We must live entirely in meditation, concentration and contemplation, and leave everything else outside. One can only attain something by sticking strictly to the prescribed rules. Meditation time must be looked upon as something beautiful and elevated in our esoteric life. During meditation one should first immerse oneself completely in the content of the exercises. So one must empty the soul of all everyday thoughts and feelings and must live in the content of the given exercises. And then make the consciousness devoid of content—also of the meditation material – and listen while one is awake. It's true that this is quite difficult. Some say that they hear their blood pulsing, and that this disturbs them. That's all right—let them hear the blood pulse. Then they'll sense the life in blood and thereby become aware of a piece of inner life.

Exoteric life takes place in the world of cognition. We know something because we confront an object, look at it and make mental images of it. This changes the moment we meditate. Through meditation we enter another world where we have our ideas, thoughts and concepts before us, outside us: we know that we're connected with them. But we can't get rid of them, we run after them. Thoughts ascend from the soul's depths. We see beings like carnivorous animals that devour them. We connect ourselves completely with the thoughts, etc. So we experience things here, whereas in exoteric life we know them. In meditation we're in a world of experience. We shouldn't immediately make ideas about what approaches us in this world. We should just open ourselves, listen and feel what wants to stream into our soul. This develops the lotus flowers so that they can become active. Further on we arrive at the world of bliss or shapes. But only one who has prepared himself for this world experiences it as a world of bliss. For an immature person it's full of terrifying things and it tears him apart. For him love turns into hate there, beautiful into ugly and he now likes what was disgusting to him before, and so on. Everything is in reverse. One only becomes really mature enough for a correct experience of this world of shapes if one goes through a training in self-discipline. What did the Gods do to protect us from an experience of this world of shapes before we're mature? They gave us pleasure, the enjoyment of creative activity here in the physical world. The beauty that we feel in a work of art, in a Raphael, in a Leonardo, such as were shown in scene three of Guardian of the Threshold isn't the permanent thing, also not the art work itself, but what's eternal is the spiritual part—what went on in the artist's soul as he worked, from which the work of art was created.

What is God in maya? What has to be said now must sound rather paradoxical. God is not what we experience in the spring in up-building forces, in shooting, sprouting things, in all beautiful and luminous things—God is real and active where we see destructive powers of nature; God is in autumn storms, in all shattering, disintegrating and crushing things. It sounds horrible and shocking, but it's a fact: God is most active in all destructive and disintegrating things. We're given pleasure from work with physical things to protect us from entering the world of shapes, of bliss too soon. In waking day consciousness we're separated from it as by a thin layer of ice. While we're in esoteric training we shouldn't bring these esoteric teachings into exoteric life or want to regulate exoteric life in accordance with these teachings. That could only lead to folly. Our education in exoteric life must result from exoteric pedagogical principles. One could set it up as an ideal that esoteric life should run completely independently. We must preserve absolute equanimity with respect to spiritual experiences, just as we should remain calm in everyday life with respect to all events, ideas, etc., so that we don't get excited or upset. One attains this equanimity by reverently thinking, feeling and living oneself into the three mantras, It thinks me—It works me—It weaves me, by letting these 3 sentences go through one's soul over and over again. And then we'll also understand our rosicrucian verse in the right way:

Ex Deo nascimur
In Christo morimur
Per Spiritum Sanctum reviviscimus.

The way we say “I think,” “I feel,” “I will” in ordinary life is really maya. It's only with “I am” that we're saying something that's true. Regarding our thoughts we can often notice that they press in from all sides when we would really like to exclude them. This shows that we don't think ourselves, but that beings are thinking in us. If only the progressive, good Gods had worked in us we would never have been under the illusion that it's we who think. Instead of falling into a deep, dreamless sleep at night we would have seen a big Imagination of our thoughts and ideas around us, permeated completely by the life and substance of higher beings. We would then have remembered this during the day and we'd always know that higher beings' life is in our thoughts. But Lucifer worked and wove himself completely into our thought life. If this imagination would appear it would show us that almost all of our thought life has become luciferic. And during the day we would constantly feel how terrible it is that Lucifer thinks in me. To protect us from this unconscious sleep comes over us at night, and we live in the maya idea that we think ourselves. But we esoterics must learn to face the truth. We get the strength to bear the thought that Lucifer thinks in us if we often meditate on the mantric statement, It thinks me, while we're completely permeated by piety.

It's easier to see that we're not masters of our feeling life. Feelings storm up in us, and we often can't control them very much. If our development had remained connected with progressive powers only here, then nocturnal Imaginations would have shown us that our feelings are of the same substance as the life that weaves through nature's great life realm. We would see plants' etheric archetypes, that are quite different from physical plants, and we would know that what pulses through the etheric life realm is also in our feelings. We would then remember this during the day as we looked at outer nature. But Ahriman has worked into all of this, and so we can say that in favourable cases he lives in maybe two thirds of our feelings, but most often it's more like three quarters of them, and the good Gods only live in a very small part of them. And we would see this in an Imagination at night because we would remain conscious, and during the day when we looked at nature outside we would know that Ahriman lives in our feelings that are related to weaving in the life realm. And we would think that it's terrible that Ahriman feels in us. To get the strength to bear this truth we must meditate on the sentence: It weaves me—with intense thankfulness to the good Gods who haven't left us completely yet. As far as our will impulses go it's very clear that our will is almost always determined by causes outside us, that the outer world's attractions and stimulations drive us to our actions. Here too, if Lucifer and Ahriman hadn't intervened we would have seen the working of spiritual beings at night, and we would have felt that they were united with this. And during the day we would have known nothing else than a working in agreement with what is willed by the good Gods. Our will would be the will of the spiritual world. But Ahriman's influence has also worked into this, and we should also see and know this during the day and we get the strength to bear this by meditating: It works me—with deep reverence for high spiritual beings.

So we see that the above mentioned “I think,” “I feel,” “I will” is really given to us in ordinary life as maya, since we can't bear the truth. Meditation on the mantra: It thinks me—It weaves me—It works me—can give a man a mighty push forwards into the spiritual world all by itself without other meditations.

The following about the letters in these mantras is also of importance.

It thinks me, Es denkt mich = e e i is getting close to another being with shyness and reverence; i is the union with this being whom we're approaching. But the d t indicates a feeling of still being reverentially separated. In It weaves me, Es webt michwe have the same e e i but w instead of d, a much more intimate approach. One weaves and waves completely into the other being; the waviness of the w carries us over all by itself. Everything is completely reversed in It works me, Es wirkt mich: e i i. One is entirely in the other being and works from there; one has united with it completely.

The ten words of the rosicrucian verse are arranged in such a way that the letters are also of importance. In Ex Deo nascimur we have the mood that we can feel on awaking with respect to our body, e e o a i u. In e we have a shyness to approach our physical and etheric bodies that the Gods built up during long world periods, o is a wanting to embrace, a is a stepping back with tremendous reverence, i is a wanting to unite, and u holds all of this together. In ... morimur—the statement in which we have this unspeakable word. We can call this a post-mortem mood, dying in Christ, i i o o i u: being one, embracing, becoming completely united, all of this summarized. Per Spiritum Sanctum reviviscimus. This expresses the attainment of self-consciousness in the spheres we enter after death. Here the consonants are more important; p r = feeling that one is placed in something, i stands for the I-feeling, the realizing oneself as an I, self-consciousness in the post-mortem state, s is the spinal column's form. Thus the masters have placed the secrets of the creative word in here, and ever more secrets can be found in it. Ten words: the ten-fold being of man, of which the fifth is the unspeakable name.

Our study today will be devoted to how a soul can raise itself into spiritual worlds. One who does his exercises regularly with patience and enthusiasm must also make progress; it's just a matter of him becoming aware of his progress.

After the meditation it's good to begin a rest period, to make the soul quite empty, to just wait and see what Imaginations come to us from higher worlds. Much also depends on the mood or attitude of our soul; we should always approach our exercises with the greatest devotion. The experiences that set in depend upon the meditator's individuality and karma. I'd like to pick out two of them from a large number. One is of being lifted out into space, into endlessness. One feels as if one were expanded and lifted up; of course a leaving of one's body is connected with this. This experience gives rise to a feeling of bliss and happiness. While one is raised one sees a reddening; yellowish red clouds come towards us from which Shapes gradually crystallize. Then there's a second experience of diving down, of sinking into the depths, accompanied by a feeling of constriction and choking. The spiritual beings one feels in this immersion appear to one in blue-violet gleams. They give a man a feeling of reverent, shuddering fear and induce him to take a look at himself. They show a man what he's really like, all of his defects and mistakes and moral weaknesses in their whole magnitude and abominable nature. It's true that we're already pointed in this direction by the retrospect that we do every evening, but a man can't see things as clearly with his physical consciousness. These beings who emerge from the depths get us to see plainly what habitual mistakes and wrong thinking produce in us. The beings who appear to us in a bluish violet light and show us our errors belong to the angels, whereas the upper, reddish yellow light figures that pronounce their judgment like punishing justice belong to the archangels. These experiences can also approach a man in a different way, namely through sounds. When his judgment is pronounced by an archangel with a thunderous voice it's much more scary, much harder to bear. But when a man has come to this hour that sets in after he's experienced the Guardian of the Threshold then he must have gotten rid of the habit of being afraid.

Just to be understood, let's mention an example, though the Imagination could just as easily take on another form. A man can see the figures that ascend from the depths in blue-violet colour tones with sorrowful, pain-filled faces. These high beings feel sad about us and our mistakes; this arouses a feeling of boundless shame in us. If a man sees his errors and regrets his mistakes he will see that these beings' faces radiate joyfully. A man must feel this connection between the microcosm and the macrocosm. The beings who sink down on man as punishing justice and sometimes surround him evoke fear in him. But a feeling of joy can be added to this if these beings show him the possibilities that are in him and that he can develop. We can arrive at these experiences if we meditate it thinks me in the right way. But when a man sees how these figures out of balled-together reddish clouds try to join the bluish violet figures that are striving up from the depths, something like a conflict arises in him. He distinctly hears a voice that says: Don't believe that, believe what comes out of your own soul. That has the same value as what you see out in the cosmos.

That's Lucifer's voice, and this is the greatest temptation that a man can have, since Lucifer outshines all other beings in beauty, cunning and seduction. Like the blue-violet beings he climbs out of the depths. We should also realize that form is no longer of importance in these regions. The Spirits of Form who are called Elohim in the Bible are of importance on the earth. In spiritual worlds we find that we lift ourselves above them and can approach the Spirits of Movement.

One thing we should never forget: a feeling of deepest thankfulness towards higher beings and spiritual worlds. Just as an Essene saw the day-star approaching every morning full of thankfulness and prayed that it might appear, so we should return to the temple of our physical body every morning with reverent thanks to the spiritual beings who built it up so cleverly during the Saturn, Sun, Moon and earth periods, and in which alone we can acquire earth consciousness: Ex Deo nascimur. And then with this feeling of reverence and thankfulness that we've gained we become familiar with the spiritual, Godly element, with what frees us from the fetters of corporeality, brings us into the spiritual, super-sensible world and gets us into a blissfulness that's so great and tremendous that an esoteric doesn't dare to say the name of the very highest being: In ... morimur. And what's expressed in the last part of our rosicrucian verse: Per Spiritum Sanctum reviviscimus is the self-consciousness that brings a man over into a new incarnation. But a living in the vowels and consonants of this wonderful verse will bring us much further than meditation on the three parts that consist of 2x3 and 1x4 words.