The Rudolf Steiner Archive

The Etheric Body

[ 1 ] When higher members of man's nature are observed by supersensible perception, the perception is never exactly similar to one that is given by the outer senses. When by the touch of an object we have a sensation of heat or warmth, a distinction must surely be made between what comes from the object—streaming from it, so to speak—and what our soul experiences. The inner experience of the sensation of heat is not the same thing as the heat emitted by the object. Now think of this actual experience in the soul, without the object; think of the soul's experience of the sensation of warmth, without any outer physical object being there to cause it. If such an experience arose without any cause, it would be mere fancy. The student of spiritual science has such inner perceptions for which there is no physical cause, above all no cause attributable to his own body. But at a certain stage of development, from the way in which these perceptions appear, he can know by the very nature of the experience (as was explained in an earlier chapter) that the inner perception is no mere fancy but is due to a being of soul and spirit belonging to a supersensible outer world, just as the ordinary sensation of heat, for example, is due to some physical object.

It is the same with a perception of color. A distinction must be made between the color of the object and the soul's inner experience of the color. Now think of what the soul experiences when perceiving a red object in the physical world. Let us picture to ourselves that we retain a vivid memory of the impression but look away from the object. The memory-picture of the color is an inner experience; we can distinguish between the inner experience evoked by the color and the external color as such. These inner experiences are substantially different from the immediate outer sense-impressions. They bear much more the stamp of feelings of pain or joy than do our normal and immediate sensations. We have to picture an inner experience of this kind arising in the soul without being caused either by an outer, physical object, or by the memory of such an object. Such an experience may come to someone who is on the way to attaining supersensible knowledge. Moreover he will be able to know in a given case that it is no mere figment of the mind, but that a real being of soul and spirit finds expression in it. And if evoking the same impression as a red object of the physical world, the being may be said to be “red.” With a physical object, however, the outer impression will always come first and be followed by the inner experience. In true supersensible vision, for a human being of the present epoch, the process must be the reverse; first the inner experience—shadowy, like a mere memory of color—and then a living picture, growing ever more vivid. Unless it is realized that such must be the sequence, it will be hard to distinguish between genuine spiritual perception and the delusions of fancy (hallucinations, and the like.)

Whether in a spiritual perception of this kind, the picture becomes truly vivid and alive—whether it remains shadowy, like a dim inkling, or its effect grows as intensely real as that of an outer object—depends upon the stage of development which the aspirant has reached.

The general impression which the seer has of the ether-body of man may now be described as follows. If the aspirant for supersensible knowledge has developed such strength of will that even when a physical man is standing in front of him he can turn his attention right away from what is seen by the physical eyes, he will be able to look with supersensible consciousness into the space occupied by the physical man. Naturally, will-power must e greatly enhanced before it is possible to divert attention not only from what is in one's own mind but from something with which one is actually confronted, so that the physical impression is entirely obliterated. But such enhancement of the will is possible and is achieved by means of the exercises for the attainment of supersensible cognition. It is then possible for the student to have, to begin with, a general impression of the ether-body. There arises in his soul the same inner experience which he has at the sight, let us say, of the color of a peach-blossom; this experience then becomes vividly alive, and he can say: the ether-body has a “peach-blossom” color. Then he perceives the several organs and currents of the ether-body. But the ether-body can also be described in terms of other experiences of the soul—experiences which correspond to sensations of warmth, impressions of sound, and so on, for it is not only a color-phenomenon. Moreover the astral body and other members of man's being can be described in like manner. Bearing in mind what has here been said, it will be realized how the descriptions of spiritual science are to be understood. (Compare Chapter II.)

The Astral World

[ 2 ] As long as the physical world alone is being observed, the Earth—man's dwelling place—appears as a separate heavenly body. When supersensible cognition rises to other spheres, there is no longer this separation. Hence it was possible to say that together with the Earth, Imaginative consciousness perceives the Old Moon condition, such as it has become up to the present time. The world thus entered is one to which not only the supersensible nature of the Earth belongs; other heavenly bodies, physically separated from the Earth, are part of it as well. In that realm the knower of supersensible worlds observes the supersensible nature not only of the Earth but of other heavenly bodies too. (It is, once more, the supersensible nature of other heavenly bodies which he observes to begin with. This should be borne in mind by those who feel impelled to ask why the seer does not tell us what it looks like on Mars, and so on. In putting questions of this kind they think of physical and sense-perceptible conditions.) Hence in the course of this book it was also possible to speak of relationships obtaining between the evolution taking place on Earth and simultaneous evolutions on Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, and so on. When man's astral body is drawn away in sleep it belongs not only to the Earth and earthly conditions, but to worlds in which other cosmic realms—stellar worlds—participate. Moreover, these worlds permeate into man's astral body even in the waking state. Therefore the term “astral body” appears justified.

Man's Life After Death

[ 3 ] Reference has been made in the course of this book to the period of time during which the astral body remains united with the ether-body after a man's death. A gradually fading memory of the whole of the life just ended is present throughout this time (see Chapter III.) It varies in duration with different individuals, depending upon the tenacity with which the astral body holds the ether-body to itself—in other words, the power which the astral body has over the etheric. Supersensible cognition can get an impression of this power by observing a human being who, by the state of his soul and body, ought really to be sleeping but keeps himself awake by sheer inner strength. It becomes evident that different people can, if need be, remain awake without being overcome by sleep for different periods of time. The memory of the life just ended—which means that the connection with the etheric body is still maintained—lasts for about as long after death as the extreme length of time for which, if compelled to do so, the individual would have been able to stay awake.

When the ether-body is detached from the human being after death (see Chapter III,) something that may be described as a kind of extract or quintessence of it remains for the whole of his future evolution. This extract contains the fruits of the past life. It is the bearer of the “seed” of his coming life—the seed which is developing throughout man's spiritual evolution between death and a new birth.

[ 4 ] The length of time between death and a new birth is determined by the fact that as a rule the I of man returns into the physical world only when this world has been so transformed as to give opportunity for new experiences. While the Ego is in the spiritual worlds, man's earthly dwelling-place is changing. In one respect this change is connected with the changes that are taking place in the great Universe—changes for example, in the relative position of the Earth to the Sun. Periodic changes involving cosmic repetitions are connected with the development of new conditions on the Earth. They find expression, for example, in the fact that the region of the heavens where the Sun rises at the vernal equinox makes an entire circuit in about 26,000 years. Throughout this period of the vernal point has therefore been moving from one region of the heavens to another, and in a twelfth of this period of time—that is to say, in about 2,100 years—conditions on the Earth will have altered sufficiently for the soul to be able to have essentially new experiences upon Earth. Moreover as these experiences differ according to whether one is incarnating as a woman or as a man, two incarnations will as a rule take place during this time—one as a man, one as a woman. However, these things also depend upon the forces gathered during earthly life—forces the individual takes with him through the gate of death. Therefore all such indications as have been given here are only valid in the most general sense; there will be many and manifold individual variations.

Thus it is only in one respect that the length of the human Ego's sojourn in the spiritual world between death and new birth depends upon the above-mentioned cosmic data. In another respect it will depend upon the stages of the evolution through which the human being passes in the spiritual world. After a time this very evolution brings the I of man into a spiritual condition where he no longer finds sufficiency in the inner experiences of the Spirit. He beings to long for that altered consciousness which is reflected in physical experience and derives satisfaction from this reflection. The re-entry of the human being into earthly life is an outcome of these two factors: the inner thirst of the soul for incarnation, and the cosmically given possibility of finding a suitable bodily nature. Two factors therefore have to work in conjunction. Hence in one instance incarnation may result even before the “thirst” has reached its full intensity, a well-adapted incarnation being within reach; while in another it may have to wait till the thirst has outlived its normal culmination, since at the proper time no opportunity to incarnate was given. In so far as it is due to the whole character and quality of his bodily constitution, a man's prevailing mood and attunement to life will also be the outcome of these conditions.

The Stages of Man's Life

[ 5 ] Fully to understand the life of man and its successive stages between birth and death, it is not enough to consider only the physical body as seen by the outer senses. It is essential also to take into account the changes undergone by the supersensible members of man's nature. They are as follows. At physical birth man is released from the physical integument of the maternal womb. Forces hitherto shared by the human embryo with the mother's body must from now on be functioning independently in the body of the little child. Now the fact is that for supersensible perception other events of this kind are undergone in the further course of life—supersensible events, analogous to that of physical birth as seen by the outer senses. For his etheric body man is enveloped by an ethereal sheath—an etheric integument—until about the change of teeth, the sixth or seventh year, when the etheric integument falls away. This event represents the “birth” of the etheric body. After it man is still enveloped by an astral sheath, which falls away at the age of puberty—between the 12^th and 16^th year. The astral body in its turn is “born.” Then at an even later point of time the I is born. (The very helpful educational points of view arising from these supersensible realities are set forth in my booklet The Education of the Child in the Light of Spiritual Science, where the facts briefly indicated here are described in greater detail.)

With the birth of the I, man's adult life begins. With the three members of the soul (Sentient Soul, Intellectual or Mind-Soul and Spiritual Soul) progressively awakened and activated by the I, he finds his proper place in life amid the prevailing world-conditions, to which he makes his own active contribution. At length however there comes a time when the etheric body begins to decline, reversing the development it enjoyed from the seventh year onward. There is a change in the functioning of the astral body. To start with it unfolded the potentialities brought with it from the spiritual world at birth. After the birth of the Ego it was enriched by all the experiences coming to it from the outer world. But now the moment comes when in a spiritual sense the astral body begins to feed on its own etheric body. It draws on the etheric body and consumes it. And in the further course of life the etheric body in its turn begins to draw upon the physical body and consume it. There facts are closely related to the physical body's degeneration in old age.

The life of man is thereby naturally divided into three epochs. First is the time during which the physical and etheric bodies grow and develop. In the middle period the astral body and the I come into their own. The third and last is the period of bodily decline when the youthful development of the etheric and physical bodies is in a sense reversed. Now in all these events—from birth until death—the astral body is concerned. Moreover inasmuch as it is not spiritually born until the 12^th to 16^th year, and in the final epoch is obliged to draw upon the forces of the etheric and physical bodies, what the astral body has to achieve by virtue of its own faculties and forces unfolds at a slower rate than it would do if it were not inhabiting a physical and etheric body. Hence after death (as explained in Chapter III,) when the physical and etheric bodies have been cast off, the evolution of the astral body through the “time of purification” takes about a third as long as the past life between birth and death.

Higher Regions of the Spiritual World

[ 6 ] Through Imagination, Inspiration and Intuition supersensible cognition gradually reaches up into the regions of the spiritual world where it can apprehend the Beings who participate in the evolution of the World and Man. There too it can perceive and, in perceiving, find intelligible the life of man between death and a new birth. Now there are even higher regions of existence, though we can do no more than briefly allude to them here.

>Having once risen to the stage of Intuition, supersensible cognition lives and moves amid a world of spiritual Beings. But the spiritual Beings too are evolving. The concerns of present-day mankind reach up, as it were, into the spiritual realm accessible to Intuition. True, in the course of his development between death and a new birth man receives influences from yet higher worlds, but he does not experience them directly; the Beings of the spiritual world convey them to him. In the Intuitive contemplation of these Beings we perceive all that they are doing in and on behalf of man. Their own concerns however—what they require for themselves to enable them to guide human evolution—can only be apprehended by forms of cognition higher than Intuition.

In saying this we refer to worlds among those lower functions are the highest that are known to us on Earth. Reasoned resolves for example are among the highest things on Earth; the actions and reactions of the mineral kingdom among the lowest. For the sublime worlds to which we are now referring, reasoned resolves have approximately the same value as have the mineral reactions on Earth. Beyond the realm of Intuition is the region where the great cosmic plan is being woven out of purely spiritual causes.

The Members of Man's Being

[ 7 ] Toward the end of Chapter II it was described how the I or Ego works upon the members of man's being to transform them—the astral body into Spirit-Self, the etheric body into Life-Spirit, the physical body into Spirit-Man. This was in reference to the working of the Go on man's nature by virtue of the highest faculties—faculties, the development of which has only been beginning during the successive stages of Earthly evolution. Now there is also a preliminary transformation on a lower level, whereby the Sentient Soul, the Intellectual or Mind-Soul and the Spiritual Soul are developed. AS in the course of man's evolution the Sentient Soul comes into being, far-reaching changes are going on in the astral body. So too the development of the Intellectual Soul and of the Spiritual Soul involves a transmutation of the ether-body and of the physical body respectively. Much of this was incidentally described in the chapter on the evolution of the Earth.

Thus in a sense it is true to day that the Sentient Soul is due to a transmuted astral body, the Intellectual Soul to a transmuted ether-body, and the Spiritual Soul to a transmuted physical body. But it may equally well be said that all three members of the soul are part and parcel of the astral body. The Spiritual Soul, for example, can only come into being as an astral entity in an appropriate physical body. It lives an astral life in a physical body molded and worked upon to be its proper habitation.

The State of Consciousness In Dreaming

[ 8 ] In some respects the dream has been described in the third chapter of this book. Dream-consciousness is on the one hand a relic of the picture-consciousness which man enjoyed on the Old Moon, and -for a long time too—in former periods of Earth evolution. Earlier conditions generally go on working even while evolution is advancing to fresh stages. Dreaming is thus a relic of the normal state of consciousness of former times. And yet the dream-condition of today differs essentially from the old picture-consciousness, for the Ego, which has since developed, influences what goes on in the astral body during sleep while we are dreaming. It is therefore a picture-consciousness transmuted by the presence of the Ego. Yet inasmuch as the Ego's influence on the dreaming astral body is unconscious, nothing deriving from the dream-life can be a direct source of spiritual-scientific knowledge of higher worlds. The same applied to what is often spoken of as visions, premonitions and second sight. In all of these the Ego is more or less eliminated, in consequence of which, relics of earlier states of consciousness can supervene. They have no direct spiritual-scientific application; what man perceives in such conditions cannot be included among the valid researches of true spiritual science.

The Way to Supersensible Cognition

[ 9 ] The way to the attainment of knowledge of higher worlds, of which a fairly detailed account has been given in this book, may be described as the “direct path” of knowledge. There is also another way, known as “the path of feeling.” Not that the former way leaves feeling undeveloped; quite on the contrary, it leads to an immeasurable deepening of the life of feeling. But the other path—the “path of feeling”—appeals to the feeling-life directly, seeking to rise from thence to detailed spiritual knowledge. The fact is that a feeling to which a man unreservedly devotes his inner life for a sufficient length of time becomes transformed of its own accord into cognition—into Imaginative vision. If, for example, the soul is deliberately steeped for weeks and months or even longer in feelings of humility, the feeling-content is transformed into spiritual perception. A gradual ascent through this and other feelings of this kind can thus become a pathway into the supersensible. But it is very difficult to carry out in ordinary present-day surroundings. Seclusion—withdrawal from the prevailing conditions especially of modern life—is well-nigh indispensable for this spiritual pathway. For above all in the initial stages, the impressions one is constantly receiving from everyday life in our time disturb and interfere with what the soul would otherwise achieve by dwelling on deliberately chosen feelings. The path of knowledge here described is different; it can be carried through no matter what one's situation is amid the typical conditions of our time.

The Observation of Particular Events and Beings

[ 10 ] It may be asked whether by meditation, contemplation and kindred methods of attaining supersensible cognition described in this book, we arrive at the general realities—say, of the life between death and rebirth, and other spiritual facts—or whether we are also enabled to perceive particular events and beings, for example an individual human soul after death. The answer is that one who has thus acquired the ability to see into the spiritual world also becomes able to perceive in detail what is going on there. He does indeed become capable of communication with individuals living in the spiritual world between death and new birth. But in accordance with true spiritual science it can only be done after a regular and proper training has been undergone, for this alone makes it possible to distinguish truth from illusion as to the several beings and events. Those who would claim to recognize the spiritual details, without have undergone a proper training are liable to countless illusions. Even the most elementary requirement, namely the true interpretation of the impressions one receives, presupposes spiritual training—training the more advanced where the impressions relate to detailed facts and individual beings.

Thus the same training which enables one to see the facts of higher worlds described in this work on Occult Science, also enables one to perceive an individual human soul during his life after death, or severally to observe and understand the diverse spiritual beings who influence the manifest from hidden worlds. Yet the reliable observation of the particular is only possible against the background of a more universal knowledge—namely a spiritual knowledge of the great facts of the Universe and Man, facts which relate to all mankind in common. Craving the former without the latter, one will go astray. In observation of the spiritual world it is an unavoidable experience. Into the very regions for which a man is most apt to long, entry is only granted when he has gone along the stern and exacting path of knowledge, where interest is focused upon universal questions and he gains insight into the deeper meaning of all life.

When he has walked along these paths in the sincere and unselfish quest of knowledge, then and then only is a man fit to observe the details, the premature exploration of which would but have satisfied in him a hidden egoism. For in the longing to see into the spiritual world it is only too easy to persuade oneself that one is actuated by pure love—such as the love of an individual friend who has died. Unalloyed insight into the single facts and beings is only possible for those whose sincere interest in the universal truths of spiritual science enables them to receive the detailed revelations too in a scientific spirit and without selfish longing.

[ 1 ] In publishing a work of this kind at the present time one must be resigned from the outset to every kind of criticism. A reader, for example, versed in the accepted theories, can be heard commenting on the way scientific themes have here been treated: ‘It is amazing that such absurdities can be put forward in our time. The author betrays utter ignorance of the most elementary notions. He writes of ‘heat’ and ‘warmth’ as though untouched by the whole trend of modern Physics. Such vagaries do not even deserve to be called amateurish.’ Or in this vein can be imagined: ‘One need only read a few pages to discard the book—according to one's temperament, with a smile or with indignation—shelving it with other literary curiosities such as turn up from time to time.’

What then will the author say to these damning criticisms? Will he not, from his own standpoint, have to regard his critics as without discernment or even lacking the good will for an intelligent judgment? The answer is, No—not necessarily. He is well aware that those who condemn his work will often be men of high intelligence, competent scientists and anxious to judge fairly. Knowing well the reasons for these adverse judgments, he can put himself in the critic's place. He must here be permitted a few personal observations which would be out of place save in so far as they relate to his resolve to write the book at all. For it would have no raison d'etre if merely personal and subjective. The contents of this book must be accessible to every human mind; also the manner of presentation should as far as possible be free of personal coloring. The following remarks on the author's life and work are therefore only meant to show how he could come to write this book while understanding only too well the apparent grounds of adverse judgment. Even these remarks would be superfluous if it were possible to show in detail that the contents are after all in harmony with the known facts of science. But this would need several volumes, far more than can be done under present circumstances.

The author would certainly never have ventured to publish what is here said about ‘heat’ or ‘warmth,’ for example, if he were not conversant with the commonly accepted view. In this student days, some thirty years ago, he made a thorough study of Physics. Concerning the phenomena of heat, the so-called ‘Mechanical Theory of Heat’ was in the forefront at that time, and this engaged his keen attention he studied the historical development of all such explanations and lines of thought associated with such names as J. R. Mayer, Helmholtz, Clausius and Joule. This has enabled him also to keep abreast of subsequent developments. If he were not in this position, he would not have felt justified in writing about warmth or heat as in this book. For he has made it his principle only to speak or write of any subject from the aspect of spiritual science where he would also be qualified to give an adequate account of the accepted scientific knowledge. He does not mean that every writer should be subject to the same restriction. A man may naturally feel impelled to communicate what he arrives at by his own judgment and feeling for the truth, even if ignorant of what contemporary science has to say. But for his own part the author is resolved to adhere to the principle above-mentioned. Thus he would never have written the few sentences this book contains about the human glandular and nervous systems were he not also in a position to describe them in contemporary scientific terms.

Therefore however plausible the verdict that to speak of heat or warmth as in this book argues an utter ignorance of Physics, the fact is that the author feels justified in writing as he has done precisely because he has kept abreast of present-day research and would refrain from writing if he had not. No doubt this too may be mistaken for lack of scientific modesty. Yet it must be avowed, if only to forestall even worse misunderstandings.

[ 2 ] Equally devastating criticisms might easily be voiced from a philosophic standpoint. One can imagine such a reader's question: ‘Has the author been asleep to all the work that has been and is still being done in fundamental theory of knowledge? Has he never even heard of Kant, who proved how inadmissible it is to make such statements as are here contained? … To a trained mind this uncritical and amateurish stuff is quite intolerable—a sheer waste of time.’

Here once again and at the risk of fresh misunderstanding, the author has to introduce a more personal note. He began studying Kant at the age of sixteen, and believes himself to be up-to-date also in this respect—qualified to judge from a Kantian standpoint what is put forward in this volume. Here too, he would have had good reason to leave the book unwritten were he not fully aware that the Kantian boundaries of knowledge are here overstepped. One can be equally well aware that Herbart would have found in it a ‘naïve realism’ of which the concepts had not been properly worked-over; or that the pragmatic school of William James, Schiller and others would judge it to be trespassing beyond the bounds of those genuine conceptions which man is really able to assimilate, to make effective and to verify in action.¹

In spite of all this—nay even because of it—one could feel justified in writing the book. The author himself has written critically and historically of these and other trends of thought in his philosophic work: The Theory of Knowledge implicit in Goethe's World-Conception, Truth and Science, The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity, Goethe's Conception of the World, Nineteenth-Century Philosophic Views of Life and of the World, Riddles of Philosophy.

[ 3 ] Other criticisms are imaginable. A reader of the author's earlier writings—for example his work on nineteenth century philosophies or his short essay on Haeckel and his Opponents—might well be saying: ‘How can one and the same man be the author of these works and of the book Theosophy (published in 1904) or of the present volume? How can he take up the cudgels for Haeckel and then offend so grossly against the straightforward monism, the philosophic outcome of Haeckel's researches? One could well understand the writer of this Occult Science attacking all that Haeckel stood for; that he defended him and even dedicated to him one of his main works² appears preposterously inconsistent. Haeckel would have declined the dedication in no uncertain terms, had he known that the same author would one day produce the unwieldy dualism of the present work.’

Yet in the author's view one can appreciate Haeckel without having to stigmatize as nonsense whatever is not the direct outcome of his range of thought and his assumptions. We do justice to Haeckel by entering into the spirit of his scientific work, not by attacking him—as has been done—with every weapon that comes to hand. Least of all does the author hold any brief for those of Haeckel's adversaries against whom he defended the great naturalist in his essay on Haeckel and his Opponents. If then he goes beyond Haeckel's assumptions and placed the spiritual view side by side with Haeckel's purely naturalistic view of the Universe, this surely does not rank him with Haeckel's opponents. Anyone who takes sufficient trouble will perceive that there is no insuperable contradiction between the author's present work and his former writings.

[ 4 ] The author can also put himself in the place of the kind of critic who without more ado will discard the whole book as an outpouring of wild fancy. This attitude is answered in the book itself, where it is pointed out that reasoned thinking can and must be the touchstone of all that is here presented. Only those who will apply to the contents of this book the test of reason—even as they would to a description of natural-scientific facts—will be in a position to decide.

[ 5 ] A word may also be addressed to those already predisposed to give the book a sympathetic hearing. (They will find most of what is relevant in the introductory chapter.) Although the book concerns researches beyond the reach of the sense-bound intellect, nothing is here presented which cannot be grasped with open-minded thought and with the healthy feeling for the truth possessed by everyone who will apply these gifts of human nature. The author frankly confesses: he would like readers who will not accept what is here presented on blind faith, but rather put it to the test of their own insight and experience of life.³ He desires careful readers—readers who will allow only what is sound and reasonable. This book would not be valid if relying on blind faith; it is of value only inasmuch as it can pass the test of open-minded thinking. Credulity too easily mistakes folly and superstition for the truth. People who are content with vague belief in the supersensible may criticize this book for its excessive appeal to the lift of thought. But in these matters the scrupulous and conscientious form of presentation is no less essential than the substance. In the field of Occult Science irresponsible charlatanism and the highest truths, genuine knowledge and mere superstition are often separated by a thin dividing line, and it is all too easy to mistake the one for the other.

[ 6 ] Readers already conversant with supersensible realities will no doubt recognize the author's care to keep within the bounds of what can and should be communicated at the present time. They will be well aware that there are aspects of supersensible knowledge for which a different form of communication is required, if not a later period of time should be awaited.

Rudolf Steiner
December, 1909

• 1. Even in the more recent schools—Bergson, the ‘As If’ philosophy, and the ‘Critique of Language’—have been studied and appraised in this connection.
• 2. Nineteenth-century Philosophic Views of Life and of the World (published in 1900)
• 3. This does not only refer to the spiritual test of supersensible research, but to the test—unquestionably valid—of open-minded thought, the test of healthy human intelligence and reflection.

[ 1 ] One who sets out to present results of spiritual science such as this book contains must reckon with the certain fact that in wide circles they will be held to be impossible. For in these pages many things are put forward which in our time—supposedly on good philosophic and scientific grounds—are pronounced inaccessible to man's intelligence.

The author can appreciate the weighty reasons leading so many serious thinkers to this conclusion. Therefore again and again he would renew the attempt to show up the misunderstandings underlying the all-too categorical belief that human cognition can never reach into the supersensible worlds.

[ 2 ] Two things come into question here. The first is this: On deeper reflection no human soul can lastingly ignore the fact that the most vital questions about the purpose and meaning of life must be for ever unanswered if there is really no way of access to supersensible worlds. Theoretically we may deceive ourselves about it, but in our heart of hearts we do not share the deception. Those who refuse to listen to the voice of their inmost soul will naturally reject teachings about the supersensible worlds. But there are people—and not a few—who can no longer turn a deaf ear in this direction. They will forever be knocking at the doors which—as the others say—must remain barred and bolted, denying access to things “beyond human comprehension.”

[ 3 ] But there is also the second aspect. The “good philosophic and scientific grounds” above-mentioned are in no way to be underrated, and those who hold to them in earnest deserve to be taken seriously. The writer would not like to be counted among those who lightly disregard the stupendous mental efforts that have been made to define the boundaries to which the human intellect is subject. These efforts cannot be dismissed with a few derogatory phrases. Seen at their best, they have their source in a real striving for knowledge and are worked out with genuine discernment. Nay, more than this. The reasons which have been adduced to show that the kind of knowledge, accepted nowadays as scientific, cannot reach into the supersensible are genuine and in a sense irrefutable.

[ 4 ] People may think it strange that the author should admit all this and yet venture to put forward statements concerning supersensible worlds. It seems almost absurd that one should make however qualified an admission that there are valid reasons for asserting that supersensible worlds are beyond our ken, and yet go on to speak and write about these worlds.

[ 5 ] Yet it is possible to do this, while understanding full well how contradictory it may appear. Not everyone can realize the experiences one undergoes when drawing near the realm of the supersensible with intellectual reflection. For it emerges then that intellectual proofs however cogent, however irrefutable, are not necessarily decisive as to what is real and what is not. In place of theoretical explanations we may here use a comparison. Comparisons, admittedly, have not the force of proof, but they are helpful in explaining.

[ 6 ] In the form in which it works in everyday life, also in ordinary science, human cognition cannot penetrate into the supersensible worlds. This can be cogently proved, and yet there is a level of experience for which the proof has no more real value than if one set out to prove that the unaided eye cannot see the microscopic cells of living organisms or the detailed appearance of far-off heavenly bodies. That our unaided vision cannot reach to the living cells is true and demonstrable, and so it is that our ordinary faculties of cognition cannot reach into the supersensible worlds. Yet the proof that man's unaided sight falls short of the microscopic cells does not preclude their scientific investigation. Must then the proof that his ordinary faculties of cognition cannot reach into the supersensible worlds of necessity preclude the investigation of these worlds?

[ 7 ] We can imagine the feelings this comparison will arouse in many people. Nay, we can sympathize if doubt is felt, whether the one who has recourse to it has any inkling of all the painstaking and searching thought that has gone into these questions. And yet the present author not only realizes it to the full but counts it among the noblest achievements of mankind. To demonstrate that human vision, unaided by optical instruments, cannot see the microscopic cells would be superfluous; to become aware of the nature and scope of human thought by dint of thought itself is an essential task. It is only too understandable if men who have given their lives to this task fail to perceive that the real facts may yet be contrary to their findings. Whereas this preface is certainly not the place to deal with would-be “refutations” of the first edition by most people void of sympathy or understanding—people who even direct their unfounded attacks against the author personally—it must be emphasized all the more strongly that serious philosophic thought, whatever its conclusions, is nowhere belittled in these pages. Any such tendency can only be imputed by those deliberately blind to the spirit in which the book is written.

[ 8 ] Human cognition can be strengthened and enhanced, just as the range of vision of the eye can be. But the ways and means of strengthening the power of cognition are purely spiritual. Inner activities, entirely within the soul—they are described in this book as Meditation and Concentration, or Contemplation. Man's ordinary life of mind and soul is tied to the bodily organs; when duly strengthened and enhanced it becomes free of them. There are prevailing schools of thought to which the very claim will seem nonsensical—a mere outcome of delusion. From their own point of view, they will prove without difficulty that all our mental and psychological life is bound up with the nervous system. The author from his standpoint can appreciate these proofs. He knows how plausible it is to maintain that it is utterly superficial to speak of any life of soul being independent of the body. Those who maintain this will no doubt be convinced that in the inner experiences, alleged to be free of the body, there is still a connection with the nervous system—a hidden connection which the would-be occultist with his “amateurish” science only fails to discern.

[ 9 ] Such are the prevalent habits of thought for which due allowance must be made. They are so diametrically opposed in the main contents of this book that there is generally little prospect of any mutual understanding. In this respect one cannot help wishing for a change of heart in the intellectual and spiritual life of our time. People are far too ready to stigmatize a scientific quest or school of thought as visionary and fantastic merely because they find it radically different from their own. On the other hand, there are undoubtedly many who in our time appreciate the kind of supersensible research presented in this book. They realize that the deeper meaning of life will be revealed not by vague references to the soul, to the “true self,” or the like, but by a study of the genuine results of supersensible research. With due humility, the author is profoundly glad to find a new edition called for after a relatively short interval of time. [ 10 ] He realizes only too clearly how far this edition, too, will fall short of the essential aim—to be the outline of the a world-conception founded on supersensible knowledge. For this edition the entire contents have been worked through again; further elucidations have been attempted and supplementary passages inserted at important points. Often, however the author has been painfully aware of the inadequacy, the excessive rigidity of the only available means of presenting the revelations of supersensible research. Thus it was hardly possible to do more than suggest a way of reaching some idea, some mental picture of what this book has to relate concerning Saturn Sun and Moon evolutions. One aspect of this chapter has been briefly re-cast in the new edition. The real experience of cosmic evolution differs so widely from all our experiences in the realm of sense-perceptible Nature that the description involves a constant struggle to find passably adequate forms of expression. A sympathetic study of this chapter may reveal that the effort has been made to convey by the quality and style of the description what is impossible to express in mere prosaic words. A different style has been used for the Saturn evolution, a different style for Sun evolution, and so on.

[ 11 ] Amplifications and additions to which the author attaches some importance will be found in the second part, dealing with “Knowledge of Higher Worlds”—the way to its attainment. As clear as possible an account has been attempted of what the human soul must do and undergo so as to liberate the powers of cognition from the confines of the sense-world and fit them or the experience of supersensible worlds.

Acquired though it is and must be by inner ways and means—by the inner activity of each one who gains it—the experience has a more than subjective significance. In our descriptions we have tried to make this clear. He who eliminates in his own soul the personal peculiarities which separate him from the World reaches a common realm of experience—a realm which other men are reaching when they too transform their subjective inner life in the true pathway of spiritual development. Only if thus conceived is the real knowledge of supersensible worlds distinguishable from subjective mysticism and the like. The latter might to some extent be said to be the mystic's merely personal concern. The inner spiritual-scientific training here intended aims at objective experiences, the truth of which has to be recognized, no doubt, in an intimate and inner way by every one who has them; yet in this very process they are seen to be universally valid. Here once again, it is admittedly difficult to come to terms with habits of thought widely prevalent in our time.

[ 12 ] In conclusion, the author ventures to express the wish that friendly readers too should take what is here set forth on its own merits. There is a frequent tendency to give a school of thought some venerable name, failing which, its value is somehow depreciated. But it may surely be asked: As to the real contents of this book, what do they gain by being called “Rosicrucian” or given any other label? The essential thing is that with the means that are possible and proper to the human soul in the present epoch, insight be gained into the spiritual worlds, and that the riddles of man's destiny and of his life beyond the frontiers of birth and death be thereby penetrated. What matters is the quest of truth, rather than a quest that claims some ancient title.

[ 13 ] On the other hand, the world-conception presented in this book has been given names and labels by opponents, and with unfriendly intention. Apart from the fact that some of these descriptions—meant to discredit the author—are manifestly absurd and untrue, surely an independent quest of truth deserves to be judged on its merits. It is unworthy to insinuate that it be set aside for its alleged dependence on whatsoever cult or school of thought. Nor does it matter much whether this dependence is the critic's own surmise or he is carelessly repeating an unfounded rumor. Necessary as these few words were, the author has no wish—in the present context—to answer sundry charges and attacks in detail.

Rudolf Steiner
Written in June, 1913

[ 1 ] Fifteen years having now elapsed since the first publication of this book, it may be suitable for me to say something more about the spiritual circumstances and my own state of mind when it originated. [ 2 ] It had been my intention that its main content should form part of a new and enlarged version of my Theosophy, published several years before. But this did not prove possible. At the time when Theosophy was written the subject-matter of the present volume could not be brought into an equally finished form. In my Imaginative perceptions I beheld the spiritual life and being of individual Man and was able to describe this clearly. The facts of cosmic evolution were not present to me to the same extent. I was indeed aware of them in many details, but the picture as a whole was lacking.

[ 3 ] I therefore resolved to make no appreciable change in the main content of the earlier volume. In the new edition as in the first, the book Theosophy should describe the essential features of the life of individual Man, as I had seen it in the spirit. Meanwhile I would quietly be working at a new and independent publication, Occult Science—An Outline.

[ 4 ] My feeling at that time was that the contents of this book must be presented in scientific thought-forms—that is, in forms of thought akin to those of Natural Science, duly developed and adapted to the description of what is spiritual. How strongly I felt this “scientific” obligation in all that I wrote at that time in the field of spiritual knowledge, will be evident from the Preface to the First Edition (1909), here reproduced. [ 5 ] But the world of the spirit as revealed to spiritual sight can only partly be described in thought-forms of this kind. What is revealed cannot be fully contained in mere forms of thought. This will be known to anyone who has had experience of such revelation. Adapted as they are to the exposition of what is seen by the outer senses, the thoughts of our every-day consciousness are inadequate, fully to expound what is seen and experienced in the spirit. [ 6 ] The latter can only be conveyed in picture-form, that is, in Imaginations, through which Inspirations speak, which in their turn proceed from spiritual reality of Being, experienced in Intuition. (Concerning “Imagination, Inspiration and Intuition,” the necessary explanations will be found both in the present volume and in my book Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and Its Attainment.)

[ 7 ] Today, however, one who sets out to tell of the spiritual world in Imaginations cannot rest content with such pictorial descriptions. He would be foisting on to the civilization of our time the outcome of a state of consciousness quite unrelated to existing forms of knowledge. It is to the normal consequences of the present age that he must bring home the truths which can indeed only be discovered by a higher consciousness of the present age that he must bring home the truths which can indeed only be discovered by a higher consciousness—one that sees into the spiritual world. The subject-matter of his exposition, namely the realities of the world of spirit, will then be cast into forms of thought which the prevailing consciousness of our time—scientifically thoughtful and wide-awake, though unable yet to see into the spiritual world—can understand.

[ 8 ] An inability to understand will at most be due to hindrances that are self-imposed. The reader may have fixed in his mind some definition of the inherent limitations of human knowledge, due to a mistaken generalization of the limits of Natural Science. [ 9 ] Spiritual cognition is a delicate and tender process in the human soul, and this is true not only of the actual “seeing” in the spirit, but of the active understanding with which the normal “non-seeing” consciousness of our time can come to meet the results of seership. [ 10 ] People with half-formed notions who allege auto-suggestion in this regard have little idea of the real depth and intimacy of such understanding. For the scientific understanding of the physical world there may be truth or error in our theories and concepts. [ 11 ] For the spiritual world, it is no longer a merely theoretic issue; it is a matter of living experience. [ 12 ] When a man's judgment is tinged however slightly by the dogmatic assertion that the ordinary (not yet clairvoyant) consciousness—through its inherent limitations—cannot really understand what is experienced by the seer, this mistaken judgment becomes a cloud of darkness in his feeling-life and does in fact obscure his understanding.

[ 13 ] To an open mind however, though not yet “seeing” in the spirit, what is experienced by the seer is comprehensible to a very full extent, if once the seer has cast it into forms of thought. It is no less intelligible than is a finished work of art to the non-artist. Nor is this understanding confined to the realm of aesthetic feeling as in the latter instance; it lives in full clarity of thought, even as in the scientific understanding of Nature.

[ 14 ] To make such understanding possible, however, the seer must have contrived to express what he has seen, in genuine forms of thought, without thereby depriving it of its “Imaginative” character.

[ 15 ] Such were my reflections while working at the subject-matter of my Occult Science, [ 16 ] and, with these premises in mind, by 1909 I felt able to achieve a book, bringing the outcome of my spiritual researches, up to a point into adequate forms of thought—a book moreover which should be intelligible to any thoughtful reader who did not himself impose unnecessary hindrances to understanding.

[ 17 ] While saying this retrospectively today I must however admit that in the year 1909 the publication of this book appeared to me a venture of some temerity. For I was only too well aware that the professional scientists above all, and the vast number of others who in their judgment follow the “scientific” authority, would be incapable of the necessary openness of mind. [ 18 ] Yet I was equally aware that at the very time when the prevailing consciousness of mankind was farthest remote from the world of spirit, communications from that world would be answering to an urgent need. [ 19 ] I counted on there also being many people feeling so weighted down by the prevailing estrangement from the living spirit that with sincere longing they would welcome true communications from the spiritual world. This expectation was amply confirmed during the years that followed. [ 20 ] The books Theosophy and Occult Science have been widely read, though they count not a little on the reader's good will. For it must be admitted, they are not written in an easy style. [ 21 ] I purposely refrained from writing a “popular” account, so-called. I wrote in such a way as to make it necessary to exert one's thinking while entering into the content of these books. In so doing, I gave them a specific character. The very reading of them is an initial step in spiritual training, inasmuch as the necessary effort of quiet thought and contemplation strengthens the powers of the soul, making them capable of drawing nearer to the spiritual world.

[ 22 ] Misunderstandings were soon evoked by the chosen title, Occult Science. A would-be science, people said, cannot in the nature of the case be “occult” or “secret”. Surely a rather thoughtless objection, for no man will deliberately publish what he desires to be secretive about or to keep obscure. The entire book is evidence that far from being claimed as a special “secret,” what is here presented is to be made accessible to human understanding like any other science. Speaking of “Natural Science” we mean the science of Nature. “Occult Science” is the science of what takes its course in realms which are “occult” inasmuch as they are discerned, not in external Nature—Nature as seen by the outer senses—but in directions to which the soul of man becomes attentive when he turns his inner life towards the spirit. [ 23 ] It is “Occult Science” as against “Natural Science.”

[ 24 ] Of my clairvoyant researches into the world of spirit it has often been alleged that they are a re-hash, howsoever modified, of ideas about the spiritual world which have prevailed from time to time, above all in earlier epochs of human history. In the course of my reading I was said to have absorbed these things into the sub-conscious mind and then reproduced them in the fond belief that they were the outcome of my own independent seership. Gnostic doctrines, oriental fables, and wisdom-teachings were alleged to be the real source of my descriptions. [ 25 ] But these surmises, too, were the outcome of no very deeply penetrating thought. [ 26 ] My knowledge of the spiritual—of this I am fully conscious—springs from my own spiritual vision. At every stage—both in the details and in synthesis and broad review—I have subjected myself to stringent tests, making sure that wide-awake control accompanies each further step in spiritual vision and research. Just as a mathematician proceeds from thought to thought—where the unconscious mind, auto-suggestion and the like can play no part at all—so must the consciousness of the seer move on from one objective Imagination to another. Nothing affects the soul in this process save the objective spiritual content, experienced in full awareness.

[ 27 ] It is by healthy inner experience that one knows a spiritual “Imagination” to be no mere subjective picture but the expression of a spiritual reality in picture-form. Just as in sensory perception anyone sound in mind and body can discriminate between mere fancies and the perception of real facts, so a like power of discernment can be attained by spiritual means.

[ 28 ] So then I had before me the results of conscious spiritual vision. They were things “seen,” living in my consciousness, to begin with, without any names. [ 29 ] To communicate them, some terminology was needed, and it was only then—so as to put into words what had been wordless to begin with—that I looked for suitable expressions in the traditional literature. These too I used quite freely. In the way I apply them, scarcely one of them coincides exactly with its connotation in the source from which I took it. Only after the spiritual content was known to me from my own researches did I thus look for the way to express it. [ 30 ] As to whatever I might formerly have read—with the clear consciousness and control above referred-to, [ 31 ] I was able to eliminate such things completely while engaged in supersensible research.

[ 32 ] But the critics then found echoes of traditional ideas in the terms I used. Paying little heed to the real trend and content of my descriptions, they focused their attention on the words. If I spoke of “lotus flowers,” in the human astral body, they took it as proof that I was reproducing Indian doctrines in which this term occurs. Nay, the term “astral body” itself only showed that I had been dipping into medieval writings. And if I used the terms Angeloi, Archangeloi and so on, I was merely reviving the ideas of Christian Gnosticism. [ 33 ] Time and again I found myself confronted with comments of this kind.

[ 34 ] I take the present opportunity of mentioning this too. Occult Science—an Outline, now to be published in a new edition, is after all an epitome of anthroposophical Spiritual Science as a whole, and is pre-eminently exposed to the same kinds of misunderstanding.

[ 35 ] Since the Imaginations described in this book first grew into a total picture in my mind and spirit, I have unceasingly developed the researches of conscious seership into the being of individual Man, the history of Mankind, the nature and evolution of the Cosmos. The outline as presented fifteen years ago has in no way been shaken. Inserted in its proper place and context, everything that I have since been able to adduce becomes a further elaboration of the original picture.

Scene: same as in the Prelude. The day after the play to which Estella, in the Prelude, invited her friend to accompany her.

Sophia: Forgive me, dear Estelle, for keeping you waiting. I had to attend to something for the children.

Estella: Here I am back again with you already. I long for your sympathy whenever anything stirs me deeply.

Sophia: Well, you know that I shall always sympathize most warmly with you in your interests.

Estella: This play, of which I spoke to you, Outcasts from Body and from Soul touched me so deeply. Does it seem to you odd when I say that there were moments when all I had ever known of human sorrow stood before me? With highest artistic force the work not only gives the outer mischances happening to so many people, but also points out with wonderful penetration he deepest agonies of the soul.

Sophia: One cannot, I fear, form a proper conception a work of art by simply hearing of its contents. But would like you to tell me what stirred you so.

Estella: The construction of the play was admirable. The artist wished to show how a young painter loses all his creative desire, because he begins to doubt his love for a woman. She had endowed him with the power to develop his promising talents. Pure enthusiasm for his art had produced in her the most beautiful love of sacrifice. To her he owed the fullest development of his abilities in his chosen field. He blossomed, as it were, in the sunshine of his benefactress. Constant association with this woman developed his gratitude into passionate love. This caused him to neglect, more and more, a poor creature who was faithfully devoted to him, and who finally died of grief, because she had to confess to herself that she had lost the heart of the man she loved. When he heard of her death, the news did not seriously disturb him, for his heart belonged entirely to his benefactress. Yet he grew ever more and more certain that her noble feeling of friendship for him would never turn to passionate love. This conviction drove all creative joy from his soul, and his inner life grew constantly more desolate. In this condition of life the poor girl, whom he had forsaken, came again into his mind, and a wrecked life was all that resulted from a hopeful and promising man. Without prospect of a single ray of light he pined away. All this is portrayed with intense dramatic vividness.

Sophia: I can easily see how the play must have worked upon your feelings. As a girl you always suffered intensely at the destiny of such people, who had been driven to bitterness by heavy misfortunes in their life.

Estella: My dear Sophy; you misunderstand me. I can easily distinguish between what is real and what is merely artistic. And criticism fails, I know, if one carries into it the feelings one had in life. What stirred me here so deeply was the really perfect representation of a deep problem of life. I was once again able to realize clearly how art can only mount to such heights, when it keeps close to the fulness of life. As soon as it departs therefrom, its works are untrue.

Sophia: I understand you perfectly when you speak like that. I have always admired the artists who could represent what you call the reality of life. And I believe a great many have that power,—especially nowadays. Nevertheless even the very highest attainments leave behind them in my soul a certain discomfort For a long time I was unable to explain this to myself, but one day the light came that brought the answer.

Estella: You mean to tell me, that your conception of the world has dispelled your appreciation of so-called realistic art.

Sophia: Dear Estelle, let us not speak of my conception of the world to-day. You know quite well, that the feeling I have just described was entirely familiar to me long before I knew anything at all about what you call my ‘conception of the world.’ And these feelings are not only aroused in me with reference to so-called realistic art: but other things also create a similar feeling in me. It grows especially marked when I become aware of what I might call, in a higher sense, the want of truth in certain works of art.

Estella: There I really cannot follow you.

Sophia: A vivid grasp of real truth must needs create in the heart a sense of a certain poverty in works of art. For of course the greatest artist is always a novice compared with nature in her perfection. The most accomplished artist fails to give me what I can get from the revelation of a landscape or a human countenance.

Estella: But that is in the nature of the case and cannot be altered.

Sophia: But it could be altered, if men would only become clear on one point. They could say that it is irrational for the soul to reproduce what higher powers have already set before us as the highest works of art. These same powers have implanted in man an impulse to continue the great work of creation, in order to give the world what they themselves have not yet placed before the senses. In all that man can create, the original powers of creation have left nature incomplete. Why should he reproduce nature's perfections in an imperfect form, when he has the ability to change the imperfect into perfection? If you think of this assertion as changed into an elemental feeling you will understand why I feel a sense of distress towards much that you call art. It is distressing to see an external sense-reality imperfectly, portrayed in realistic art. On the other hand, the least perfect representation of what is concealed behind the outwardly observed phenomenon may prove a revelation.

Estella: You are really talking. of something that nowhere exists. No true artist really tries to give a bare reproduction of nature.

Sophia: That is just why so many works of art are imperfect; for the creative function leads of itself beyond nature, and the artist does not know the appearance of what is outside his senses.

Estella: I see no possibility of our coming to any understanding with one another on this point. It is indeed sad that, in these most important problems of the soul, my best friend follows views so different from my own. I hope our friendship may yet fall on better days.

Sophia: On such a point we shall surely be able to accept whatever life may bring us.

Estella: Au revoir, dear Sophy.

Sophia: Good-bye, dear Estelle.

Curtain

Sophia's room. The colour scheme is a yellow red. Sophia, with her two children, a boy and a girl; later, Estella.

Children (singing, whilst Sophia accompanies them on the piano):

The light of the sun is flooding
The breadths of space;
The song of the birds is filling
The heights of air;
The tender plants are shooting
From the kind earth;
And human souls in reverent gratitude,
Rise to the spirits of the world.

Sophia: Now, children, go to your rooms and think over the words we have just practised.

(Sophia leads the children out.)

(Enter Estella.)

Estella: How do you do, Sophy? I hope I'm not intruding?

Sophia: Oh no, Estelle. I am very glad to see you.

(Asks Estella to be seated and seats herself.)

Estella: Have you good news from your husband?

Sophia: Very good. He writes to me saying that he is interested in the Congress of Psychologists; though the manner in which they treat many great questions there does not appeal to him. However, as a student of souls, he is interested in just those methods of spiritual shortsightedness which makes it impossible for men to obtain a clear view of essential mysteries.

Estella: Does he not intend speaking on an important subject, himself?

Sophia: Yes, on a subject that seems important both to him and to me. But the scientific views of those present at the Congress prevent his expecting any results from his arguments.

Estella: I really came in, dear Sophy, to ask whether you would come with me this evening to a new play called Outcasts from Body and from Soul. I should so like to hear it with you.

Sophia: I'm sorry, my dear Estelle, but to-night is the date set for the performance of the play, which our society has been rehearsing for a long time.

Estella: Oh yes, I had forgotten. But it would have been such a pleasure to have spent this evening with my old friend. I had set my heart on having you beside me, and gazing with you into the hidden depths of our present-day life. ... I only hope that this world of ideas, in which you move, and which is so strange to me, will not finally destroy that bond of sympathy, which has united our hearts since we were at school together.

Sophia: You have often said that before; and yet you have always had to admit that our divergent opinions need not erect barriers between those feelings which have existed between us in our companionship from our youth upwards.

Estella: True, I have said so. Yet it always arouses a sense of bitterness in me, when, as the years roll on, I see how your affections are estranged from those things in life that seem to me worth while.

Sophia: Still, we may be of much mutual help to one another if we recognize and realize the various points of view which we reach through our different inclinations.

Estella: Yes! My reason tells me that you are right. And yet there is something in me that rebels against your view of life.

Sophia: Why not candidly admit that what you require of me is the renunciation of my inmost soul-life?

Estella: But for one thing, I should admit even that. And that is, that you always claim that your view is the more profound. I can readily understand that people whose conceptions differ radically may still meet in sympathy of feeling. But the nature of your ideas actually forces upon you an inner assumption of a certain superiority. Others can compare views and realize that they do indeed diverge towards different standpoints, but they nevertheless stand related by an equality of values. You, however, seem unable to do this. You regard all other views as proceeding from a lower degree of human development.

Sophia: But you realize, I hope, from our previous discussions, that those who think as I do, do not finally measure the character of man by his opinions or by his knowledge. And while we consider our ideas such, that without vital realization of them life has no valid foundations, we nevertheless try most earnestly not to over-estimate the value of the individual, who has been permitted to become an instrument for the manifestation of this view of life.

Estella: All that sounds very well, but it does not remove my one suspicion. I cannot close my eyes to the fact, that a world-view which ascribes to itself illimitable depth must needs lead through the mere appearance of such depth to a certain superficiality. I rate our friendship too high to point out to you those among your companions who, whilst they swear allegiance to your ideas, yet display spiritual arrogance of the most unmitigated sort, despite the fact that the barrenness and banality of their soul speaks in their every word and in all their conduct. Nor do I wish to call your attention to the callousness and lack of sympathy shown by so many of your adherents towards their fellow men. The greatness of your own soul has never permitted you to stand aloof from that which daily life requires at the hands of the man whom we call good. And yet the fact that you leave me alone on this occasion, when true and artistic life comes to be voiced, shows me that your ideas too with reference to this life are to a certain extent superficial—if you will forgive my saying so.

Sophia: And wherein lies this superficiality?

Estella: You ought to know. You have known me long enough to understand how I have wrenched myself away from that manner of life, which, day in and day out, only struggles to follow tradition and convention.

I have sought to understand why so many people suffer, as it seems, undeservedly. I have tried to approach the heights and depths of life. I have consulted the sciences, so far as I could, to learn what they disclose.

But let me hold fast to the one point which this moment presents to us. I am aware of the nature of true art; I believe I understand how it seizes upon the essentials of life and presents to our souls the true and higher reality. I seem to feel the beating of the pulse of time, when I permit such art to influence me, and I am horrified when I have to think what it is that you, Sophy, prefer to this interest in living art. You turn to what seem to me the obsolete, dogmatically allegorical themes, to gaze on a show of puppets, instead of on living beings, and to wonder at symbolical happenings which stand far away from all that appeals to our pity and to our active sympathies in daily life.

Sophia: My dear Estelle, that is exactly the fact that you will not grasp—that the richest life is to be found just there where you only see a fantastic web of thoughts: and that there may be, and are, people who are compelled to call your living reality mere poverty—if it be not measured by the spiritual source from whence it comes. Possibly my words sound harsh to you. But our friendship demands absolute frankness. Spirit itself is as unknown to you as it is to the multitude. In its place you know only the bearer of knowledge. It is only the thought side of spirit of which you are aware. You have no conception of the living, the creative spirit, which endows men with elemental power, even as the germinal power of nature shapes living entities. Like many another, for instance, you call things in art which deny the spirit, as I conceive it, naive and original. Our conception of the world unites a full and conscious freedom with the power of spontaneous creation. We consciously absorb this power, and do not thereby rob. it of its' freshness, its fullness, and its originality. You believe that the character of man shapes itself, and that we can merely form thoughts and considerations about it. You will not see that thought itself actually merges into-creative spirit; reaching the very fountain of Being; and developing thence into an actual creative germ.

Our ideas do not teach, any more than the seed-power within a plant teaches it how to grow. It is the actual growth itself, and in like manner do our ideas flow into our very being, kindling and dispensing life. To the ideas that have come to me, I am indebted for all that makes life worth while; not only for the courage, but also for the insight and power that make me hopeful of so training my children, that they shall not only be capable and useful in ordinary everyday life, in the old traditional sense, but that they shall at the same time carry inward peace and contentment within their souls. I have no wish to stray from the point, but I will say just one thing. I believe—nay I know—that the dreams which you share with so many can only be realized when men succeed in uniting what they call the realities of life with those deeper experiences, which you have so often termed dreams and fantasies. You may be astonished if I confess it to you: but much that seems true art to you is to me a mere fruitless critique of life. No hunger is stilled, no tears are dried, no source of degeneracy is discovered, when merely the outer show of hunger, or tear-stained faces, or degenerates are shown upon the stage. And the customary method of that presentation is unspeakably distant from the true depths of life, and the true relation-ship between beings.

Estella: I understand your words indeed, but they merely show me that you do prefer to indulge in fancies, rather than to look upon the realities of life. Our ways, indeed, part.—I see that my friend is denied me to-night. (Rises.) I must leave you now. But we remain friends, as of old, do we not?

Sophia: We must indeed remain friends. (While these last words are spoken, Sophia conducts her friend to the door.)

Room. Dominant note rose-red. Large rose-red chairs are arranged in a semicircle. To the left of the stage a door leads to the auditorium. One after the other, the speakers introduced enter by this door; each stopping in the room for a time. While they do so, they discuss the discourse they have just heard in the auditorium, and what it suggests to them.

Enter first Maria and Johannes, then others. The speeches which follow are continuations of discussions already begun in the auditorium.

Maria:
My friend, I am indeed distressed to see
Thy spirit and thy soul in sadness droop,
And powerless to help the bond that binds
And that has bound us both for ten blest years.
E'en this same hour, filled with a portent deep
In which we both have heard and learned so much
That lightens all the darkest depths of soul,
Brought naught but shade and shadow unto thee.
Aye, after many of the speakers' words,
My listening heart could feel the very dart
That deeply wounded thine. Once did I gaze
Into thine eyes and saw but happiness
And joy in all the essence of the world.
In pictures beauty-steeped thy soul held fast
Each fleeting moment, bathed by sunshine's glow—
Flooding with air and light the forms of men
Unsealing all the depths and doubts of Life.
Unskilled as yet thine hand to body forth
In concrete colour-schemes, those living forms
That hovered in thy soul; but in the hearts
Of both of us there throbbed the joyous faith
And certain hope that future days would teach
Thine hand this art—to pour forth happiness
Into the very fundaments of Being;
That all the wonders of thy spirit's search
Unfolding visibly Creation's powers
Through every creature of thine art would pour
Soul rapture deep into the hearts of men.
Such were our dreams through all those days of yore
That to thy skill, mirrored in beauty's guise,
The weal of future men would trace its source.
So dreamed mine own soul of the goal of thine.
Yet now the vital spark of fashioning fire
That burned within thee seems extinct and dead.
Dead thy creative joy: and well-nigh maimed
The hand, which once with fresh and youthful strength
Guided thy steadfast brush from year to year.

Johannes:
Alas, 'tis true; I feel as if the fires
That erstwhile quickened in my soul are quenched.
Mine eye, grown dull, doth no more catch the gleam
Shed by the flickering sunlight o'er the earth.
No feeling stirs my heart, when changing moods
Of light and shade flow o'er the scenes around;
Still lies my hand, seeking no more to chain
Into a lasting present fleeting charms,
Shown forth by magic elemental powers
From utmost depths of Life before mine eyes.
No new creative fire thrills me with joy.
For me dull monotone obscures all life.

Maria:
My heart is deeply grieved to hear that thou
Dost find such emptiness in everything
Which thrives as highest good and very source
Of sacred life itself within my heart.
All, friend, behind the changing scenes of life
That men call ‘Being,’ true life lies concealed
Spiritual, everlasting, infinite;
And in that life each soul doth weave its thread.
I feel afloat in spirit potencies,
That work, as in an ocean's unseen depths,
And see revealed all the life of men,
As wavelets on the ocean's upturned face.
I am at one with all the sense of Life
For which men restless strive, and which to me
Is but the inner self that stands revealed.
I see, how oftentimes it binds itself
Unto the very kernel of man's soul,
And lifts him to the highest that his heart
Can ever crave. Yet as it lives in me
It turns to bitter fruitage, when mine own
Touches another's being. Even so
Hath this, my destiny, worked out in all
I willed to give thee, when thou cam'st in love.
Thy wish it was to travel at my side
Unhesitating all the way, that soon
Should lead thee to a full and perfect art.
Yet what hath happened? All, that in mine eyes
Stood forth revealed in its own naked Truth
As purest life, brought death, my friend, to thee
And slew thy spirit.

Johannes:
Aye. 'Tis so indeed.
What lifts thy soul to Heaven's sun-kissed heights
When through thy life it comes into mine own
Thrusts my soul down, to death's abysmal gloom.
When in our friendship's rosy-fingered dawn
To this revealment thou didst lead me on,
Which sheds its light into the darkened realms,
Where human souls do enter every night,
Bereft of conscious life, and where full oft
Man's being wanders erring: whilst the night
Of Death makes mock at Life's reality.
And when thou didst reveal to me the truth
Of life's return, then did I know full well
That I should grow to perfect spirit-man.
Surely, it seemed, the artist's clear keen eye,
And certain touch of a creator's hand,
Would blossom for me through thy spirit's fire
And noble might. Full deep I breathed this fire
Into my being; when—behold—it robbed
The ebb and flow of all my spirit's power.
Remorselessly it drove out from my heart
All faith in this our world. And now I reach
A point where I no longer clearly see,
Whether to doubt or whether to believe
The revelation of the spirit-worlds.
Nay more, I even lack the power to love
That which in thee the spirit's beauty shows.

Maria:
Alas! The years that pass have taught me this
That mine own way to live the spirit-life
Doth change into its opposite, whene'er
It penetrates another's character.
And I must also see how spirit-power
Grows rich in blessing when, by other paths,
It pours itself into the souls of men.
(Enter Philia, Astrid, and Luna.)
It floweth forth in speech, and in these words
Lies power to raise to realms celestial
Man's common mode of thinking; and create
A world of joy, where erstwhile brooded gloom.
Aye, it can change the spirit's shallowness
To depths of earnest feeling; and can cast
Man's character in sure and noble mould.
And I—yes, I am altogether filled
By just this spirit-power, and must behold
The pain and desolation that it brings
To other hearts, when from mine own it pours.

Philia:
It seemed as though the voices of some choir
(Enter Prof. Capesius and Dr. Strader.)
Mingled together, uttering manifold
Conceptions and opinions, each his own,
Of these who formed our recent gathering.
Full many harmonies there were indeed,
But also many a harsh-toned dissonance.

Maria:
Ah, when the words and speech of many men
Present themselves in such wise to the soul,
It seems as though man's very prototype
Stood centred there in secret mystery:
Became through many souls articulate,
As in the rainbow's arch pure Light itself
Grows visible in many-coloured rays.

Capesius:
Through changing scenes of many centuries
We wandered year on year in earnest search;
Striving to fathom deep the living force
That dwelt within the souls of those who sought
To probe and scan the fundaments of being,
And set before man's soul the goals of life.
We thought that in the depths of our own souls
We lived the higher powers of thought itself;
And thus could solve the riddles set by fate.
We felt we had, or seemed at least to feel,
Sure basis in the logic of our mind
When new experiences crossed our path
Questioning there the judgment of our soul.
Yet now such basis wavers, when amazed
I hear to-day, as I have heard before,
The mode of thought taught by these people here.
And more and more uncertain do I grow,
When I perceive, how powerfully in life
This mode of thought doth work. Full many a day
Have I spent thus, thinking how I might shape
Time's riddles as they solved themselves to me
In words, that hearts might grasp and trembling feel.
Happy indeed was I, if I could fill
Only the smallest corner of some soul
Amongst my audience with the warmth of life.
And oftentimes it seemed success was mine,
Nor would I make complaint of fruitless days.
Yet all results of teaching thus could lead
Only to recognition of this truth
So loved and emphasized by men of deeds,
That in the clash of life's realities,
Thoughts are dim shadows, nothing more nor less:
They may indeed wing life's creative powers
To due fruition, but they cannot shape
And mould our life themselves. So have I judged
And with this modest comment was content:
Where pale thoughts only work, all life is lamed
And likewise all that joins itself to life.
More potent than the ripest form of words,
However art might weave therein her spell,
Seemed nature's gift, man's talents—and more strong
The hand of destiny to mould his life.
Tradition's mountainweight, and prejudice
With dull oppressive hand will always quench
The strength of e'en the very best of words.
But that which here reveals itself in speech
Gives men, who think as I do, food for thought.
Clearly we saw the kind of consequence
That comes when sects, in superheated speech,
Blind souls of men with dogma's seething stream.
But nought here of such spirit do we find;
Here only reason greets the soul, and yet
These words create the actual powers of life,
Speaking unto the spirit's inmost depths.
Nay even to the kingdom of the Will
This strange and mystic Something penetrates;
This Something, which to such as I, who still
Wander in ancient ways, seems but pale thought.
Impossible, it seems, to disavow
Its consequences; none the less, myself
I cannot quite surrender to it yet.
But it all speaks with such peculiar charm
And not as though it really meant for me
The contradiction of experience.
It almost seems as if this Something found
The kind of man I am, insufferable.

Strader:
I would associate myself in fullest sense
With every one of thy last spoken words:
And still more sharply would I emphasize
That all results in our soul-life, which seem
To spring forth from the influence of ideas,
Cannot in any wise decide for us
What actual worth of knowledge they conceal.
Whether there lives within our mode of thought,
Error or truth—'tis certain this alone
The verdict of true science can decide.
And no one would with honesty deny
That words, which are, in seeming only, clear,
Yet claim to solve life's deepest mysteries,
Are quite unfit for such a scrutiny.
They fascinate the spirit of mankind,
And only tempt the heart's credulity;
Seeming to open door into that realm
Before which, humble and perplexed, now stands
The strict and cautious search of modern minds.
And he who truly follows such research
Is bound in honour to confess that none
Can know whence streams the wellspring of his thought,
Nor fathom where the depths of Being lie.
And though confession such as this is hard
For souls who all too willingly would gauge
What lies beyond the ken of mortal mind,
Yet every glance of every thinker's soul
Whether directed to the outer side,
Or turned towards the inner depths of life,
Scans but that boundary and naught beside.
If we deny our rational intellect
Or set aside experience, we sink
In depths unfathomable, bottomless.
And who can fail to see how utterly
What passeth here for revelation new,
Fails to fit in with modern modes of thought.
Indeed it needs but little thought to see,
How totally devoid this method is
Of that, which gives all thought its sure support
And guarantees a sense of certainty.
Such revelations may warm listening hearts,
But thinkers see in them mere mystic dreams.

Philia:
Aye, thus would always speak the science, won
By stern sobriety and intellect.
But that suffices not unto the soul,
That needs a steadfast faith in its own self.
She ever will give heed to words that speak
To her of spirit. All she dimly sensed
In former days, she striveth now to grasp.
To speak of the Unknown may well entice
The thinker, but no more the hearts of men.

Strader:
I too can realize how much there lies
In that objection; how it seems to strike
The idle dreamer, who would only spin
The threads of thought, and seek the consequence
Of this or that premise, which he himself
Hath formed beforehand. Me—it touches not—
No outer motive guided me to thought.
In childhood I grew up 'mid pious folk
And, following their custom, steeped my soul
In sense-intoxicating images
Of future sojourn in celestial realms,
Wherewith they seek to comfort and beguile
Man's ignorance and man's simplicity.
Within my boyish soul I sensed the throb
Of utmost ecstasy, when reverently
I raised my thoughts to highest spirit-worlds;
And prayer was then my heart's necessity.
Thereafter in a cloister was I trained;
Monks were my teachers, and in mine own heart
The deepest longing was to be a monk,—
An echo of my parent's ardent wish.
For consecration did I stand prepared
When chance did drive me from the cloistered cell;
And to this chance I owe deep gratitude.
For, many days before chance saved my soul
It had been robbed of inward peace and quiet;
For I had read and learned of many things,
That have no place within the cloister-gate.
Knowledge of nature's working came to me
From books that were forbidden to mine eyes;
And thus I learned new scientific thought.
Hard was the struggle as I sought the path
Wandering through many a way to find mine own;
Nor did I ever gain by cunning thought
Whate'er of truth revealed itself to me.
In fierce-fought battles have I torn the roots
From out my spirit's soil of all that brought
Peace and contentment to me when a child.
I understand indeed the heart that fain
Would soar up to the heights—but for myself,
When once I recognized that all I learned
From spirit-teaching was an empty dream,
I was compelled to find the surer soil
That science and discovery create.

Luna:
We may surmise, each after his own kind,
Where sense and goal of life doth lie for each.
I altogether lack the power to prove
According to the science of to-day,
What spirit-teaching I have here received:
But clear within my heart I feel and know
My soul would die without this spirit-lore,
As would my body, if deprived of blood.
And thou, dear doctor, 'gainst our cause dost fight
With many words, and what thou now hast told
Of thy life's conflict lends them weight indeed
Even with those who do not understand
Thy learned argument. Yet would I ask
(Enter Theodora.)
Exactly why it is that hearts of men
Receive the word of Spirit readily,
As though self-understood: yet when man seeks
Food for his spirit in such learned words
As thou didst use his heart grows chill and cold.

Theodora:
Although I am at home 'mid just such men
As circle round me here, yet strangely sounds
This speech I have just heard.

Capesius:
What strangeness there?

Theodora:
I may not say. Do thou, Maria, tell.

Maria:
Our friend has oftentimes explained to us
What strange experiences come to her.
One day she felt herself completely changed,
And none could understand her altered state.
Estrangement met her wheresoe'er she turned
Until she came into our circle here.
Not that we fully understand ourselves
What she possesses and what no one shares.
Yet we are trained by this our mode of thought
The unaccustomed to appreciate,
And feel with every mood of humankind.
One moment in her life, our friend perceived,
All that seemed hers aforetime, disappear;
The past was all extinguished in her soul.
And since these wondrous changes came to her,
This mood of soul hath oft renewed itself;
It doth not long endure; and other times
She lives her life as ordinary folk.
Yet whensoe'er she falls into this state,
The gift of memory doth fade away.
She loseth from her eyes the power to see
And senseth her surroundings, seeing not.
With a peculiar light her eyes then glow,
And pictured forms appear to her. At first
They seemed like dreams; anon they grew so clear,
That we could recognize without a doubt
Some prophecy of distant future days.
Full many a time have we seen this occur.

Capesius:
It is just this that little pleaseth me
Amongst these men; who mingle with good sense
And logic, superstition's fallacies.
'Twas ever thus where men have walked this path.

Maria:
If thou canst still speak so, thou dost not yet
Perceive our attitude towards these things.

Strader:
Well, as for me, I freely must confess,
That I would sooner revelations hear
Than speak of questionable spirit-themes.
For even if I fail to read aright
The riddle of such dreams, yet those at least
I count as facts; and would 'twere possible
To see one instance of the mystery
Of this strange spirit-mood before mine eyes.

Maria:
Perchance it is for look, she comes again.
And it doth seem to me as though e'en now
This mystic spirit-mood would show itself.

Theodora:
I am compelled to speak. Before my soul
A pictured form stands wrapped in robes of light;
From which strange words are sounding in mine ears.
I feel myself in future centuries,
And men do I behold as yet unborn:—
They also see the pictured form; they too
Can hear the words it speaks, which thus resound—
'O ye, who lived in faith's security,
Take comfort now in sight, and look on Me.
Receive new life through Me. For I am He
Who lived within the souls of those who sought
To find Me in themselves, by following
The gospel-words My messengers did bring
And by their own devotion's inward power.
The light of sense ye saw—believe ye now
In the creative spirit-world beyond.
For now indeed ye have yourselves achieved
One atom of divine prophetic sight.
Oh, breathe it deep, and feel it in your souls.'
A human form steps from that sphere of light.
And speaks to me: ‘Thou shalt make known to all
Who will give ear to thee, that thou hast seen
What all mankind shall soon experience:
Once, long ago, Christ lived upon the earth,
And from this life ensued the consequence
That in soul-substance clad He hovers o'er
The evolution of humanity,
In union with the earth's own spirit-sphere;
And though as yet invisible to men,
When in such form He manifests Himself,
Since now their being lacks that spirit sight,
Which first will show itself in future times;
Yet even now this future draweth nigh
When that new sight shall come to men on earth.
What once the senses saw, when Christ did live
Upon the earth; this shall be seen by souls
When soon the time shall reach its fullness due.’
(Exit.)

Maria:
This is the first time we have heard her speak
In such a manner to so many folk.
At other times she felt constrained to speech,
Only when two or three were gathered round.

Capesius:
To me indeed it seems most curious,
That she, as though commanded or required,
Should find herself to revelation urged.

Maria:
It may so seem; but we know well her ways
If at this moment she desired to send
Her inward soul-voice deep into your souls,
The only reason was, that unto you
The source, whence came her voice, desired to speak.

Capesius:
Concerning this strange future gift of sight;
Whereof she spake, as dreaming, we have heard
That he, who of this circle is the soul,
Hath oft already given full report.
Is it not possible that from his words
The content of her speech hath origin,
The mode of utterance coming from herself?

Maria:
If matters thus did stand, we should not deem
Her words of any consequence or weight:
But we have tested this condition well.
Before she came into our circle here,
Our friend had never heard in any way
Of that same leader's speeches, nor had we
Heard aught of her before she came to us.

Capesius:
Then what we have to deal with is a state,
Such as so often happens, contrary
To all the laws of nature; and which we
Must merely estimate as some disease.
And only healthy thought, securely based
On fully conscious sense-impressions, can
Pass judgment on the riddles set by life.

Strader:
Yet even here one fact presents itself;
And what we now have heard must have some worth—
For, even if we set aside all else
It doth compel the thought that spirit-power
Can cause thought-transference from soul to soul.

Astrid:
Ah me, if ye would only dare to tread
The ground your mode of thought doth choose to shun:
As snow before the sunlight's piercing glare
Your vain delusion needs must melt away,
Which makes the moods revealed, in such minds
Appear diseased, abnormal, wonderful.
They are suggestive, but they are not strange.
And small this wonder doth appear to me
When I compare it with the myriad
Of wonders that make up my daily life.

Capesius:
Nay, nay, one thing it is to recognize
What lies before our eyes on every side,
But quite another, what is shown us here.

Strader:
Of spirit 'tis not necessary to speak
Until there are things shown to us which lie
Outside the strictly circled boundary
Set by the laws of scientific thought.

Astrid:
The clear shaft of the sunlight on the dew
Which glistens in the morning's golden light,
(Enter Felix Balde.)
The hurling stream that riseth 'neath the rock,
The thunder rumbling in the cloud-wrapped sky,
All these do speak to me a spirit tongue:
I strove to understand it and I know
That of this speech's meaning and its might,
Only a faint reflection can be glimpsed
Through your investigations, as they are.
And when that kind of speech sank deep within
My heart, I found my soul's true joy at last.
Nor could aught else, but human words alone
And spirit teaching grant this gift to me.

Felix Balde:
Those words rang true indeed

Maria:
I must essay
To tell what joy fills all my heart to see
(Enter Felicia Balde.)
For the first time here with us yonder man,
Of whom we oft have heard; and joy doth cause,
The wish to see him here full many times.

Felix Balde:
It is not usual for me that I should
Associate with such a crowd of men:
And not alone unusual—

Felicia:
Aye, 'tis so.
His nature drives us into solitude
Away from all; year in, year out, we hear
Scarce any other converse save our own.
And if this good man here from time to time
(Pointing to Capesius.)
Came not to linger in our cottage home,
We scarce should realize that other men,
Besides ourselves, live on the earth at all.
And if the man, who spake such wondrous words
But recently in yonder lecture-hall,
And who affected us so potently,
Did not full many a time my Felix meet,
When he is gone about his daily tasks,
Ye would know nought of our forgotten life.

Maria:
So the professor often visits you?

Capesius:
Assuredly. And I may tell you all,
The very deep indebtedness I feel
To this good woman, who doth give to me
In rich abundance, what none other can.

Maria:
And of what nature are these gifts of hers?

Capesius:
If I would tell the tale, then must I touch
A thing that verily doth seem to me
More wonderful than much that here I've heard,
In that it speaks more nearly to my soul.
But were I in some other place, these words
Would hardly pass the barrier of my lips;
Yet here they seem to flow therefrom with ease.
In my soul-life there often comes a time
When it doth feel itself pumped out and dry.
It seems as though the very fountain-head
Of knowledge had run dry within my heart.
Then can I find no word of any kind
Worthy to speak or worthy to be heard.
And when I feel such spirit barrenness
I flee to these good people, and seek rest
In their reviving, peaceful solitude;
Then Mistress Felix tells me many a tale
Set forth in wondrous pictures, manifold,
Of beings, dwelling in the land of dreams,
Who lead a joyous life in fairy realms.
When thus she speaks, her tone and speech recall
Some oft-told legend of the ancient days.
I ask no question whence she finds these words
But this one thing alone I clearly know:
That new life flows therefrom into my soul,
And sweeps away its dull paralysis.

Maria:
To hear such splendid witness to the skill
Of Dame Felicia doth, in wondrous wise,
Harmoniously blend in every way
With all that Benedictus told to us
About his friend's deep hidden knowledge-founts.

Felix Balde:
He who spake words to us just now, which showed
(Benedictus appears at the door.)
How in the realm of universal space,
And vast eternities his spirit dwelt,
Hath surely little need to speak o'er much
Of simple men.

Benedictus:
Thou errest friend. For me
Infinite value hath each word of thine.

Felix Balde:
It was presumption only, and the bent
Of idle talk, when thou didst honour me
To wander at thy side our mountain paths.
Only because thou didst conceal from me
How much thyself dost know, I dared to speak.
But now our time is up, and we must go—
A long way hence doth lie our quiet home.

Felicia:
It hath been most refreshing once again
To come amongst mankind: and yet I fear
It will not happen very soon again:
There is no other life which Felix deems
Better than living in his mountain heights.
(Exeunt Felix and his wife.)

Benedictus:
Indeed I well believe his wife is right,
Nor will he come again for many days.
It needed much to bring him here to-day.
And yet the reason lies not in himself
Why no one knoweth aught of him or his.

Capesius:
He only seemed to me eccentric, strange;
And many an hour I found him talkative
When I was with him; but his mystic speech
And strange discourse remained obscure to me,
When he revealed all that he claims to know.
He spoke of solar beings housed in rocks;
Of lunar demons, who disturb their work;
And of the sense of number hid in plants;
And he who listens to him cannot long
Keep clear the thread of meaning in his words.

Benedictus:
And yet 'tis also possible to feel
As if the powers of Nature, through these words,
Sought to reveal themselves in their true state.
(Exit.)

Strader:
Already do I feel forebodings strange
That now dark hours are coming in my life.
For since the days of cloistered solitude,
Where I was taught such knowledge, and thereby
Struck to the very darkest depth of soul,
Not one experience has stirred me so,
As this weird vision of the seeress here.

Capesius:
Indeed I cannot see that aught of that
Should prove unnerving. And I fear, my friend,
That if thou once dost lose thy certainty,
Dark doubt will soon envelop all thy thought.

Strader:
Too true! And 'tis the fear of just this doubt
That causeth me full many an anxious hour.
From my experience I know nought else
Of this strange gift of seership, save that when
Life's vexing problems sorely trouble me,
Then, ghostlike, riseth from dark spirit-depth,
Before my spirit's eyes, some phantom form
Like some dream-being, grim and terrible,
Pressing with fearful weight upon my soul,
And clutching horribly around my heart.
It seems to speak right through me words like these:
‘If thou dost fail to gain the victory
O'er me with those blunt weapons of thy thought,
Thou art a fleeting phantom, nothing more,
Formed by thine own deluded imagery.’

Theodosius:
That is the destiny of all such men,
As do approach the world by thought alone.
The spirit's voice dwells deep in every soul.
Nor have we strength to pierce the covering
That spreads itself before our faculties.
Thought doth bring knowledge of things temporal,
Of things that vanish in the course of time:
The everlasting and all spirit-truth
Are found but in the inner depths of man.

Strader:
If, then, the fruitage of a pious faith
Is able to give rest to weary souls,
Such souls may wander safely in that path,
And find sufficiency within themselves.
And yet the power of knowledge, pure and true,
Doth never bloom on such a. path as this.

Theodosius:
Yet there can be no other way to light
True spirit-knowledge in the hearts of men.
Pride may seduce and change to fantasies
The soul's true depths of feeling, and may see
A vision only where faith's beauty lies.
One thing alone of all we here have heard
From spirit-teaching of the higher worlds,
Strikes clear upon our honest human sense:
That only in the spirit-world itself
The soul can feel itself in its true home.

The Other Maria:
So long as man feels need of speech alone,
And nought besides, so long such words as these
May satisfy bim: but the fuller life
With all its strife, its yearnings after joy,
And all its sorrow, needeth other food
To nourish and sustain the fainting soul.
For me, an inner voice did drive me on
To spend all the remaining days of life
Which were allotted me, in helping those
Whom stress of destiny had smitten down
And plunged in deepest poverty and need.
And far more oft I found it necessary
To soothe the anguish of the soul of man
Than heal his body's pain and suffering.
But I have felt indeed in many ways
My will's weak impotence to comfort men.
So that I am compelled to seek fresh strength
From out the treasured store which floweth forth
Abundantly from spirit-sources here.
The quickening warmth of words which greet my sense,
Flows forth with magic force into my hands;
And thence, like healing balsam, forth again,
When those hands touch some sorrow-laden soul.
It changeth on my lips to strengthening words
Which carry comfort unto pain-racked hearts.
The source of words like these I do not ask;
I feel their truth—they give me living life.
And every day more clearly do I see,
That they derive their strength not from my will
In all its weakness, but create anew
Myself each day unto myself again.

Capesius:
Yet surely there are men enough on earth
Who, though they lack such revelation's aid,
Perform innumerable deeds of good?

Maria:
In sooth there is no lack of men like these
In many places; but my friend doth mean
A different thing; and if thou didst but know
The life she led, thou wouldst speak otherwise.
Where unused powers in full abundance dwell
There love will cause the seed to germinate
In rich abundance in the heart's good soil.
But our friend here exhausted life's best powers
In never-ending toil beyond her strength;
And all her will to live lay crushed and dead
Beneath the cruel weight of destiny,
Which fell upon her. All her strength she gave
To careful guidance of her children's weal:
And low already had her courage ebbed
When early death took her loved husband home.
In such a state as this, days dull and drear
Seemed all fate had in store whilst life remained.
But then the powers of destiny prevailed
To bring her 'neath the spell of spirit-lore;
And soon with us she felt the vital force
Of life break forth in her a second time.
Fresh aims in life she found, and with them came
Fresh courage once again to fight and strive.
And thus in her the spirit hath achieved
In very truth to fashion from decay
A new and living personality.
And when the spirit in such fruit as this
Shows its creative potency, we learn
It s nature, and the way it speaks to us.
And, if no pride lies hidden in our speech,
And highest moral aims live in our hearts;
If we believe that in no way at all
Our teaching is our own;—but that alone
The spirit shows itself within our souls—
Then may we surely venture to assert
That in thy mode of thinking may be found
But feeble shadows waving to and fro
Athwart the real true source of human life:
And that the spirit, which ensouls our work
Is linked in inward harmony with all
That weaves the web of destiny for man
Deep in the very fundaments of life.
I have been privileged for many years
To give myself to vital work in life:
And during all this time more bleeding hearts
And yearning souls have come before mine eyes,
Than many would conceive were possible.
I do esteem thy high ideal flight,—
The proud assurance of thy sciences:
I like to see the student-audience,
Respectful, sit and listen at thy feet:
And that to many souls thy work doth bring
Ennobling clarity of thought, I know.
But yet regarding thought like this, it seems,
Trustworthiness can only dwell therein
So long as thought lives in itself alone.
Whereas the realm of which I am a part
Sends into deep realities of life
The fruitage of its words, since it desires
To plant in deep realities its roots.
Far, far away from all thy thought doth lie
The written word upon the spirit-heaven
Which with momentous tokens doth announce
New growth upon the tree of humankind.
Thought on the old lines clear and sure may seem,
Yet can it only touch the tree's coarse bark,
And never reach the living sap within.

Romanus:
For my part I do seek in vain the bridge
That truly leadeth from ideas to deeds.

Capesius:
'Tis true our friends do over-estimate
The power that can be wielded by ideas,
But thou dost in another way mistake
The actual course of true reality:
For it is certain that ideas must form
The germ of all the actual deeds of men.

Romanus:
If this friend doth so many deeds of good,
The impulse thereunto lies in herself
And her warm-hearted nature, not in thought.
Most certainly 'tis needful for man's soul,
After the busy day of toil and work,
With noble thought to edify the mind.
But yet 'tis only schooling of man's will
In harmony with all his skill and power
To undertake some real work in life
Which will help forward all the human race.
When whirr of busy wheels sounds in mine ears,
Or when I see some creaking windlass drawn
By strong stout hands of men content to work,
Then do I sense indeed the powers of Life.

Germanus:
Often in careless speech have I maintained
That I preferred things droll and humorous
And held these only full of wit and charm,
Deeming that for my brain at any rate,
They always would provide material
Best fitted to fill up the time that lies
Between my recreation and my work.
But now quite tasteless to me seem such things;
The Power Invisible hath conquered me;
And I have learned to feel that there may be
More powerful forces in humanity,
Than all our wit's frail castles in the air.

Capesius:
And did it seem that nowhere else but here
'Twas possible to find such spirit-powers?

Germanus:
Indeed the life I used to live did offer me
Full many a type of spiritual work:
Yet cared I not to pluck or taste its fruit.
But this strange mode of thought which blossoms here
Seems to attract and draw me to itself
However little I desired to come.

Capesius:
Most pleasant hath this hour of converse been,
And we are debtors to our hostess here.
(Exeunt all, except Maria and Johannes.)

Johannes:
Oh, stay a little while yet by my side,
I am afraid:—so desperately afraid:—

Maria:
Tell me; what is it aileth thee, my friend?

Johannes:
The first cause was our leader's speech; and then
The chequered converse of these people here.
It all hath moved and stirred me through and through.

Maria:
But how could simple speeches such as these
Seize on thine heart with such intensity?

Johannes:
Each word seemed in that moment unto me
A dreadful symbol of our nothingness.

Maria:
Indeed it was significant to see
Pour forth in such short time so many kinds
Of life and man's conflicting tendencies,
In all the speeches that we lately heard.
Yet 'tis indeed a most peculiar trait
Of life, as it is lived amongst us here,
To bring to speech the inner mind of man;
And much that otherwise comes slowly forth,
Stands here revealed in little space of time.

Johannes:
A mirrored picture 'twas of fullest life
That showed me to myself in clearest lines:
This spirit-revelation makes me feel
That most of us protect and train one trait
And one alone in all our character,
Which thus persuades itself it is the whole.
I sought to unify these many traits
In mine own self and boldly trod the path
Which here is shown, to lead unto that goal;
And it hath made of me a nothingness.
Keenly I feel what all these others lack,
And yet I sense as keenly that they all
Have actual part in life itself, whilst I
Stand but on unsubstantial nothingness.
It seemed whole lines of life ran into one
Significant in those brief speeches here.
But then mine own life's portrait also rose
And stood forth vividly within my soul.
The days of childhood first were painted there,
With all its fullness and its joy in life:
Then came the picture of my youthful prime
With that proud hopefulness in parent-hearts
Awakened by the talents of their son.
Then dreams concerning my career in art,
Which formed life's all in those old happy days,
Surged up from out my spirit's inmost depths
Exhorting to fulfil my cherished hopes;
And then those dreams in which thyself didst see
How I translated into coloured form
The spirit-life that liveth in thy soul.

Then saw I tongues of fire spring up and lick
Around my youthful dreams and artist hopes,
Reducing all to dust and nothingness.
Thereafter rose another pictured form
From out that drear and dreadful nothingness—
A human form, which once had linked its fate
In faithful love with mine in days long past.
She sought to hold me by her when I turned
Long years ago unto my home again,
Called to attend my mother's funeral rites.
I heeded not, but tore myself away;
For mighty was the power that drew me here
To this thy circle and the goals of life
Which here are set before our eager gaze.
In those dark days I felt no sense of guilt
When I did rend in twain the bond of love,
That was unto another soul its life.
Nor later when the message came to me
How that her life did slowly pine away,
And finally was altogether quenched
Did I feel aught of guilt until to-day;
But full of meaning were those recent words
In yonder chamber which our leader spake;
How that we may destroy by power misused
And perverse thought the destiny of those
Whom bonds of loving trust link to our souls.
Ah, hideously these words again resound
Out of the picture, thence re-echoing
With ghastly repetition from all sides:
‘Her murderer thou art! her hast thou slain!’
Thus whilst this weighty speech hath been for all
The motive to probe deep within themselves,
Within my heart it hath brought forth alone
The consciousness of this most grievous guilt.
By this new means of sight I can perceive
How far astray my striving footsteps erred.

Maria:
And at this moment, friend, in dark domains
Thou walkest, and none else can help thee there,
Save he, in whom we all do put out trust.
(Maria is called away; re-enter Helena.)

Helena:
I feel constrained to linger by thy side
A little while; since now for many weeks
Thy gaze hath held so much of grief and care.
How can the light, which streams so radiantly
Bring gloom unto thy soul, which only strives
With utmost strength to seek and know the truth?

Johannes:
Hath then this light brought naught but joy to thee?

Helena:
Not the same joy as that which once I knew,
But that new joy which springeth from those words,
Through which the spirit doth reveal itself.

Johannes:
Natheless I tell thee that the self-same power,
Which doth in thee create, can also crush.

Helena:
Some error must have crept into thy soul
With cunning tread, if this be possible;
And if dull care instead of happiness,
And moods of sorrow flow forth from the source
Of truth itself instead of spirit-bliss
In free abundance: seek then in thyself
The stumbling-blocks that thus impede thy way.
How often are we told that only health
Is the true fruitage of our teaching here,
Which makes to blossom forth the powers of life.
Shall it then show the contrary in thee?
I see its fruitage in so many lives,
Which gather trustingly around me here.
Their former mode of life grows day by day
Strange and still stranger to such souls as these;
As well-springs are fresh opened in their hearts,
Thenceforth renewing life within themselves.
To gaze into the primal depths of being
Doth not create those passionate desires
Which torture and torment the souls of men.
(Exit.)

Johannes:
It took me many years to understand
And know the vanity of things of sense
When spirit-knowledge is not joined with them
In close and intimate companionship.
But that the words of highest wisdom's light
Uttered by thee, are empty vanity
One single moment hath sufficed to prove.

A room for meditation. The background is a great purple curtain. The scene is purple in colour with a large yellow pentagonal lamp suspended from the ceiling. No other furniture or ornaments are in the room except the lamp and one chair. Benedictus, Johannes, Maria, and a child.

Maria:
I bring to thee this child who needs some word
From out thy mouth.

Benedictus:
My child, henceforth each eve
Thou shalt come unto me to hear the word
That shall fill full thy soul ere thou dost tread
The realm of souls in sleep. Wilt thou do this?

Child:
Most gladly will I come.

Benedictus:
This very eve
Fill thy soul full ere sleep embraceth thee,
With strength from these few words: ‘The powers of light
Bear me aloft unto the spirit's home.’
(Maria, having taken the child away, returns.)

Maria:
And now, that this child's destiny doth flow
Harmoniously through future days beneath
The shadow of thy gracious fatherhood,
I too may claim my leader's kind advice,
Who am its mother, not by bond of blood
But through the mighty power of destiny.
For thou hast shown to me the way wherein
I had to guide its footsteps from that day,
When I discovered it before my door
Left by its unknown mother desolate.
And wonder-working proved themselves those rules
Whereby thou madest me train my foster-child.
All powers, that deep in body and in soul
Lay hidden, issued forth to light and life:
Clear proof it was that all thy counselling
Sprang from the realm which sheltered this child's soul
Before it built its body's covering.
We saw its early promise blossom forth
And radiate more brightly each new day;
Thou dost know well how hard it was for me
To gain the child's affection, at the first.
It grew up 'neath my care, and yet nought else
Save habit chained its soul at first to mine.
It only realized and felt that I
Gave it the nurture and the food that served
The needs of body and the growth of soul.
Then came the time when in the child-like heart
There dawned the love for her who fostered it.
An outer incident brought forth this change—
The visit of the seeress to our group.
Gladly the child did go about with her
And soon did learn full many a beauteous word
Steeped in the mystic charm that graced her speech.
Then came the moment when her ecstasy
Descended on our friend with magic power.
The child could see her eyes, strange smouldering light,
And, terrified unto the vital core,
The young soul found itself.

In her dismay she fled unto mine arms;
And from that hour did grow her love for me.
Since that same time she doth accept from me
The gifts of life with her full consciousness
Not with blind instinct: aye, and since that day
When this young heart first quivered into warmth,
Whene'er her gaze met mine with loving glance,
Thy wisdom's treasures of their fruitage failed,
And much already ripe hath withered up.
I saw appear in her those tokens strange
That proved so terrible unto my friend.

A dark enigma am I to myself,
And grow still darker. Thou wilt not deny
To solve for me life's fearful questionings
I Why do I mar the life of friend and child,
When I in love attempt to work on them
According to the dictates of my heart
By spirit-lore instructed and inspired?
Oft hast thou taught me this exalted truth—
Illusion's veil o'erspreads life's surfaces—
Yet must I see with greater clarity
Why I must bear this heavy destiny,
That seems so cruel and that works such harm.

Benedictus:
Within our circle there is formed a knot
Of threads that Karma spins world-fashioning.
Thy sufferings, my friend, are links in chains,
Forged by the hand of destiny, whereby
The deeds of Gods unite with human lives.—

When in life's pilgrimage I had attained
That rank which granted me the dignity
To serve with counsel in the spirit-spheres,
A godlike Being did draw nigh to me,
Who would descend into the realms of earth,
And dwell there, veiled in form of flesh, as man.
For just at this one turning-point of time
The Karma of mankind made this demand.
For each great step in world-development
Is only possible when Gods do stoop
To link themselves with human destiny.
And this new spirit-sight that needs must grow
And germinate henceforth in souls of men
Can only be unfolded when a God
Doth plant the seed within some human heart.
My task it was to find that human soul
Which worthy seemed to take within itself
The powerful Seed of God. I had to join
The deed of heaven to some human lot.
My spirit's eye then sought, and fell on thee.
Thy course of life had fitted thee to be
The mediator in salvation's work.
Through many former lives thou hadst acquired
Receptiveness for all the greatest things
That human hearts can e'er experience.
Within thy tender soul thou didst bring forth,
As spirit heritage, the noble gift
Of beauty, joined to virtue's loftiest claim:
And that which thine eternal Self had formed
And brought to being through thy birth on earth
Did reach ripe fruitage when thy years were few.—
Thou didst not scale steep spirit-heights too soon,
Nor grew thy yearning for the spirit-land
Before thou hadst the full enjoyment known
Of harmless pleasures in the world of sense.
Anger and love thy soul did learn to know
When thy thoughts dwelt yet far from spirit-life.
Nature in all her beauty to enjoy,
And pluck the fruits of art,—these didst thou strive
To make thy life's sole content and its wealth.
Merry thy laughter, as a child can laugh
Who hath not known as yet life's shadowed fears.
Thus thou didst learn to understand life's joy,
And mourn in sadness, each in its own time,
Before thy dawning conscience grew to seek
Of sorrow and of happiness the cause.
A ripened fruit of many lives that soul,
That enters earth's domains, and shows such moods.
Its childlike nature is the blossoming
And not the ground-root of its character.
And such a soul alone was I to choose
As mediator for the God, who sought
The power to work within our human world.
And now thou learnest that thy nature must
Transform itself into its opposite,
When it flows forth to other human souls.
The spirit in thee ripens whatsoe'er
In human nature can attain the realm
Of vast eternity; and much it slays
That is but part of transitory realms.
And yet the sacrifices of such deaths
Are but the seeds of immortality;
All that which blossoms forth from death below
Must grow unto the higher life above.

Maria:
E'en so it is with me. Thou giv'st me light:
But light that doth deprive me of my sight,
And sunder me from mine own self in twain.
Then do I seem some spirit's instrument—
No longer master of myself. No more
Do I endure that erstwhile form of mine
Which only is a mask and not the truth.

Johannes:
O friend, what ails thee? Vanished is the light
That filled thine eye: as marble is thy frame.
I grasp thine hand and find it cold as death.

Benedictus:
My son, full many trials have come to thee;
And now thou stand'st before life's hardest test.
Thou seest the carnal covering of thy friend;
But her true self doth float in spirit-spheres
Before mine eyes.

Johannes:
See! Her lips move; she speaks.

Maria:
Thou gav'st me clearness yet this clearness throws
A veil of darkness round on every side.
I curse thy clearness; and I curse thee too,
Who didst make tool of me for weird wild arts
Whereby thou willedst to deceive mankind.
No doubt at any moment hitherto
Had crossed my mind of heights thy spirit reached;
But now one single moment doth suffice
To tear all faith in thee from out my heart.
Those spirit-beings thou art subject to,
I now must recognize as hellish fiends.
Others I had to mislead and deceive
Because at first I was deceived by thee.—
But I will flee unto dim distances,
Where not a sound of thee shall reach mine ears;
Yet near enough that thy soul may be reached
By bitter curses framed by these my lips.
For thou didst rob my blood of all its fire,
That thou mightst sacrifice to thy false god
That which was rightly mine and mine alone.
But now this same blood's fire shall thee consume.
Thou madest me trust in vain imaginings;
And that this might be so, thou first didst make
A pictured falsehood of my very self.
Often had I to mark how from my soul
Each deed and thought turned to its opposite;
So now doth turn what once was love for thee,
Into the fire of wild and bitter hate.
Through all worlds will I seek to find that fire
Which can consume thee—I curse—Ah, woe!

Johannes:
Who speaketh here? I do not see my friend.
I hear instead some gruesome being speak.

Benedictus:
Thy friend's soul hovers in the heights above.
Only her mortal image hath she left
Here with us: and where'er a human form
Is found bereft of soul, there is the room
Sought by the enemy, the foe of good,
To enter into realms perceptible,
And find some carnal form through which to speak.
Just such an adversary spake e'en now,
Who would destroy the work imposed on me
For thee, my son, and millions yet unborn.
Were I to deem these wild anathemas,
Which our friend's shell did utter here and now,
Aught else but some grim tempter's cunning skill,
Thou durst not follow more my leadership.
The enemy of Good stood by my side,
And thou hast seen into the darkness plunged
All that is temporal of that dear form,
For whom, my son, thy whole love burns and glows.
Since through her mouth spirits spake oft to thee,
The Karma of the world could not restrain
Hell's princes also speaking thus through her.
Now only mayst thou seek her very soul
And learn her nature's inmost verity;
For she shall form for thee the prototype
Of that new higher life of humankind
To which thou dost aspire to raise thyself.
Her soul hath soared aloft to spirit-heights,
Where every man may find his being's source
Which springs to life and fullness in himself.
Thou too shalt follow her to spirit-realms,
And see her in the Temple of the Sun.—
Within this circle there is formed a knot
Of threads which Karma spins, world fashioning.
My son, since thou hast now attained thus far,
Thou shalt still further pierce beyond the veil.
I see thy star in fullest splendour shine.
There is no place within the realm of sense
For strife, such as men wage when they do strive
And struggle after consecration's gift.
Whate'er the outer world of sense begets
Of riddles soluble by intellect,
Whate'er this world engenders in man's heart
Born tho' it be of love or bitter hate
And howsoever direful its results:
The spirit-seeker must attain the power
In all these things to stand unmoved, serene,
Casting his gaze all unperturbed and calm
Upon the scene where such contentions rage.
For him must other powers unfold themselves
Which are not found upon this field of strife.
So didst thou need to fight to prove thy soul
In combat such as comes to him alone,
Who finds himself accoutred for such powers
As do belong unto the spirit-worlds.
And had these powers found thee not ripe enough
To tread the path of knowledge, they needs must
Have maimed thy powers of feeling, ere thou daredst
To know all that which now is known to thee.
The Beings, who can gaze into world-depths,
Lead on those men, who would attain the heights,
First to that summit whence it may be shown
Whether there lies in them the power to reach
To conscious sight within the spirit-realms.
And those in whom such powers are found to lie
Are straightway from the world of sense set free.
The others all must wait their season due.
But thou, thou hast preserved thy Self, my son,
When Powers on high stirred to its depths thy soul,
And potent spirits shrouded thee with fear.
Right powerfully thy Self hath fought its way
E'en though thy very heart was torn by doubts,
That willed to thrust thee into darksome depths.
True pupil of my teaching hast thou been,
First since that hour, so fraught with fate for thee,
When thou didst learn to doubt thy very self,
And gavest up thyself as wholly lost,
But yet the strength within thee held thee fast.
Then might I give thee of my treasured store
Of wisdom, whence to draw the strength to stand
Assured, e'en when mistrusting thine own self.
Such was the wisdom which thou didst attain
More steadfast than the faith once given to thee.
Ripe wast thou found, and thou may'st be set free.
Thy friend hath gone before and waits for thee
In spirit-worlds, and thou shalt find her there.
I can but add this guidance for thee now:
Kindle the full power of thy soul with words
Which through my lips shall grant to thee the key
To spirit-heights, and they will lead thee on
When naught else leads, that eyes of sense can see.
Receive them in the fulness of thy heart:
‘The weaving essence of the light streams forth
Through depths of space to fill the world with life;
Love's grace doth warm the centuries of time
To call forth revelation of all worlds.
And spirit-messengers come forth to wed
The weaving essence of creative light
With revelation of the souls of men:
And that man, who can wed to both of these
His very Self, he lives in spirit-heights.’
O spirits, who are visible to man,
Quicken with life the soul of this our son:
From inmost depths may there stream forth for him
That which can fill his soul with spirit-light.
From inmost depths may there resound for him
That which can wholly wake in him his Self
To the creative joy of spirit-life.

A Spirit-Voice behind the stage:
To founts of worlds primeval
His surging thoughts do mount;—
What as shadow he hath thought
What as fancy he hath lived
Soars up beyond the world of form and shape;
On whose fulness pondering
Mankind in shadow dreams,
O'er whose fulness gazing forth
Mankind in fancy lives.

Curtain

A subterranean rock-temple: a hidden site of the Mysteries of the Hierophants.

At the right of the stage, Johannes is seen in deep meditation.

Benedictus (in the East):
Ye, who have been companions unto me
In the domain of everlasting life,
Here in your midst I stand to-day to ask
The help of which I stand in need from you
To weave the thread of destiny for one,
Who from our midst must now receive the light.
Through bitter trials and sorrows hath he passed,
And hath in deepest agony of soul
Prepared the way to consecrate his life
And thus attain to knowledge of the truth.
Accomplished now the task assigned to me,
As spirit-messenger, to bring to men
The treasured wisdom of this temple's shrine.
And now, ye brethren, 'tis your sacred task
To bring my work to full accomplishment.
I showed to him the light that proved the guide
To his first vision of the spirit-world,
But that this vision may be turned to truth
Your work must needs be added unto mine.
My words proceed from mine own mouth alone,
But through your lips world-spirits do sound forth.

Theodosius (in the South):
Thus speaks the power of love, which bindeth worlds
And filleth beings with the breath of life:—
Let warmth flow in his heart that he may grasp
How by the sacrificing of that vain
Illusion of his personality
He doth draw near the spirit of the world.
His sight from sleep of sense thou hast set free;
Love's warmth will wake the spirit in his soul;
His Self from carnal covering thou hast drawn;
And love itself will crystallize his soul
That it may be a mirror to reflect
All that doth happen in the spirit-world.
Love too will give him strength to feel himself
A spirit, and will fashion thus his ear
That it can hear and know the spirit-speech.

Romanus (in the West):
Nor are my words the revelation
Of mine own self. Through me the world-will speaks.
And since thou hast thus raised unto the power
To live in spirit-realms the man to thee
Entrusted, now this power shall lead him forth
Beyond the bounds of space and ends of time.
To those realms shall he pass wherein do work
Creative spirits, who shall there reveal
Themselves to him; demanding from him deeds;
And willingly will he perform their work.
The purposes of those who mould the worlds
Shall fill his soul with life; there too the earth's
Primeval sources shall enspirit him;
World potencies shall there empower him;
The mights of spheres shall there enlighten him,
And rulers of the worlds fill him with fire.

Retardus (in the North):
From the foundation of the world ye have
Been forced to suffer me within your midst.
So must ye also to my words give ear
In your deliberations here to-day.
Some little time must surely yet elapse
Before ye can fulfil and bring to pass
What ye have set forth in such beauteous words.
No sign as yet hath come to us from earth
That she doth long for new initiates.
So long as this spot, where we council hold,
Hath not been trodden by the feet of those
Who, uninitiated, yet have power
The spirits to release from things of sense,
So long the task is mine to check your zeal.
First must they bring us message that the earth
Doth seem in need of revelations new.
For this cause hold I back your spirit-light
Within this temple, lest it may bring harm
Instead of health to souls that are not ripe.
Out of myself I give to man on earth
That faculty which lets the truths of sense
Appear to him the highest, just so long
As spirit wisdom would but blind his eyes.
Therefore let simple faith be still his guide
In matters of the spirit: let his will
Its hidden inspiration still receive
From dim desires which feel their way through life.

Romanus:
From the foundation of the world we have
Been forced to suffer thee within our midst.
But now at length the time hath run its course
That was allotted to such work as thine.
The world-will in me feels that they approach—

(Felix Balde appears in his earthly shape: the Other Maria as a soul form from out of the rock.)

—Who, unitiated, can release
The spirit from the outward show of sense.
No more 'tis granted thee to check our steps.
They near our temple of their own free will
And bring to thee this message, that they wish
To help our spirit labours, joined with us.
They found themselves till now not yet prepared
For union, since they clung to the belief
That seership must stand from intellect aloof.
Now have they learned whither mankind is led
By reason, which, when severed from true sight,
Doth err and wander in the depths of worlds.
They now will speak to thee of fruits which needs
Must ripen through thy power in human souls.

Retardus:
Ye, who unconsciously have forwarded
My work till now, ye shall still further help—
If ye will distant keep from all that doth
Belong unto my realm and that alone;
Then shall ye surely find a place reserved
For you to work as hitherto ye worked.

Felix Balde:
A power, which speaks from very depths of earth
Unto my spirit, hath commanded me
To come unto this consecrated place;
Since it desires to speak to you through me
Of all its bitter sorrow and its need.

Benedictus:
My friend, then tell us now how thou hast learned
The woe of world-depths in thine own soul's core.

Felix Balde:
The light that shines in men as learning's fruit
Must needs give nourishment to all the powers
Which serve world-cycles in the earth's dark depths.
Already now a long time have they starved
Well-nigh entirely reft of sustenance.
For that which grows to-day in human brains
Doth only serve the surface of the earth,
And doth not penetrate unto its depths.
Some strange new superstition now doth haunt
These clever human heads: they turn their gaze
Unto primeval origins of earth
And will but spectres see in spirit spheres,
Thought out by vain illusion of the sense.
A merchant surely would consider mad
A purchaser, who would speak thus to him:
‘The mists and fog, that hover in the vale,
Can certainly condense to solid gold;
And with such gold thou shalt be paid thy debt.’
The merchant will not willingly await
To have his ducats made from fog and mist;
And yet whene'er his soul doth thirst to find
Solution of the riddles set by life,
Should science offer him such payments then
For spirit needs and debts, right willingly
Will he accept whole solar systems built
Out of primeval world-containing fog.
The teacher who discovers some unknown
And luckless layman, who would fain presume
To heights of science or of scholarship
Without examinations duly passed
Will surely threaten him with his contempt.
Yet science doth not doubt that without proof
And without spirit earth's primeval beasts
Could change themselves to men by their own power.

Theodosius:
Why dost thou not thyself reveal to men
The sources of this light of thine, which streams
Forth from thy soul with such resplendent ray?

Felix Balde:
A fancy-monger and a man of dreams
They call me, who are well-disposed to me:
But others think of me as some dull fool
Who, all untaught of them, doth follow out
His own peculiar bent of foolishness:

Retardus:
Thou show'st already how untaught thou art
By the simplicity of this thy speech:
Thou dost not know that men of science have
Sufficient shrewdness to make just the same
Objection to themselves;—
And if they make it not they well know why.

Felix Balde:
I know full well that they are shrewd enough
To understand the objections I have voiced,
But not so shrewd as to believe in them.

Theodosius:
What must we do that we may forthwith give
The powers of earth what they do need so much?

Felix Balde:
So long as on the earth men only heed
Such men as these, who wish not to recall
Their spirit's primal source, so long will starve
The mineral forces buried in earth's depths.

The Other Maria:
I gather, brother Felix, from thy words,
That thou dost think the time hath now expired
When we did serve earth's purposes the best
By showing forth from depths of our own life
Though uninitiate, by wisdom's light
The living way of spirit and of love.
In thee the spirits of the earth arose
To give thee light without the lore of books:
In me did love hold sway, the love that dwells
And works within the life of men on earth.
And now we wish to join our brethren here,—
Who, consecrate, within this temple serve,—
And bring forth fruitful work in human souls.

Benedictus:
If ye unite your labour now with us,
Then must the consecrated work succeed.
The wisdom which I gave unto my son
Will surely blossom forth in him as power.

Theodosius:
If ye unite your labour now with us,
Then must the thirst for sacrifice arise.
And through the soul life of whoever seeks
The spirit-path, will breathe the warmth of love.

Romanus:
If ye unite your labour now with us,
Then must the fruits of spirit ripen fast.
Deeds will spring up, which through the spirit's work
Will blossom from the soul's discipleship.

Retardus:
If they unite their labour now with you
What shall become of me? My deeds will prove
Fruitless to those who would the spirit seek.

Benedictus:
Then wilt thou change to other forms of being:
Since now thou hast accomplished all thy work.

Theodosius:
Henceforth thou wilt live on in sacrifice
If thou dost freely sacrifice thyself.

Romanus:
Thou wilt bear fruit on earth in human deeds
If I myself may tend the fruits for thee.

Johannes (speaking out of his meditation, as in the previous scene):
The brethren in the temple showed themselves
To my soul-sight, in feature like
To men who in the world of sense I know.
Benedictus alone, was like himself in Spirit.
He who stood on his left seemed like that man
Who through the feelings only would draw nigh
The spirit-realms. The third resembled him,
Who doth but recognize the powers of life
When they show forth through wheels and outward works.
The fourth I do not know. The wife who saw
The spirit's light after her husband's death,
I recognized in her own inmost being.
And Felix Balde came just as in life.

The curtain falls slowly

Same room as for Scene 1. Johannes at an easel, before which Capesius, Maria, and Strader are also seated.

Johannes:
I think those are the final touches now,
And feel that I may call my work complete.
Especial pleasure hath it given me
Thy nature to interpret through mine art.

Capesius:
This picture is a marvel unto me,
But its creator still more wonderful.
For naught, which men like me have up till now
Considered possible, can be compared
With this change that hath taken place in thee.
One only can believe, when actual sight
Compels belief. We met three years ago;
And I was then allowed to count myself
A visitor in that community,
In which thou didst attain thine excellence.
A man of sad demeanour wast thou then,
Witness each glance and aspect of thy face.
Once did I hear a lecture in thy group,
And at the end felt urged to add thereto
Words that were wrenched with pain from out my soul.
I spake in such a mood wherein one doth
Think almost always of oneself alone;
And none the less my gaze did ever rest
Upon that painter, whelmed 'neath sorrow's load,
Who sat and kept still silence, far apart.
Silent he pondered in a fashion strange,
And one might well believe that he heard not
A single word of all those spoken near.
The sorrow unto which he gave himself
Seemed of itself to have a separate life;
It seemed as though the man himself heard not,
But rather that his very grief had ears:
It is perhaps not inappropriate
To say he was by sorrow quite obsessed.
Soon after that day did we meet again,
And even then there was a change in thee;
For happiness did beam forth from thine eyes;
Within thy nature power did dwell again,
And noble fire did ring in all thy words.
Thou, didst express a wish to me that day
Which seemed to me most strange and curious—
To be my pupil didst thou then desire.
of a truth thou hast throughout these years
With utmost diligence absorbed thyself
In all I had to say on world events.
And, as we grew more intimate, I then
Did know the riddle of thine artist life,
And each new picture proved a fresh surprise.
My thought in former days was ill-inclined
To soar to worlds beyond the life of sense—
Not that I doubted them—but yet it seemed
Presumptuous to draw near with eager mind.
But now I must admit that thou hast changed
My point of view. I hear thee oft repeat
That thine artistic skill depends alone
Upon the gift to function consciously
In other worlds; and that thou canst implant
Naught in thy works but what thou hast first seen
In spirit worlds: indeed thy works do show
How spirit stands revealed in actual life.

Strader:
Never so little have I understood
Thy speech; for surely in all artists' work
The living spirit is thus manifest.
How therefore doth thy friend, Thomasius,
Differ from other masters in his art?

Capesius:
Ne'er have I doubted that the spirit shows
Itself in man, who none the less remains
Unconscious of its nature. He creates
Through this same spirit, but perceives it not.
Thomasius however doth create
In worlds of sense what he in spirit-realms
Can consciously behold; and many times
Hath he assured me, that, for men like him,
No other method of creation serves.

Strader:
Thomasius is a marvel unto me,
And freely I admit this picture here
Hath first revealed to me in his true self
Capesius, whom I thought I knew full well.
In thought I knew him; but this work doth show
How little of him I had really known.

Maria:
How comes it, doctor, that thou canst admire
The greatness of this work so much, and yet
Canst still deny the greatness of its source?

Strader:
What hath my wonder at the artist's work
In common with my faith in spirit-sight?

Maria:
One can indeed admire a work, e'en when
One hath no faith in that which is its source;
Yet in this case there would be naught to rouse
Our admiration, had this artist not
Trodden the path that led to spirit-life.

Strader:
Yet still we must not say that whoso'er
Doth to the spirit wholly give himself
Will consciously be guided by its power.
The spirit power creates in artists' souls,
E'en as it works within the trees and stones:
Yet is the tree not conscious of itself.
And only he, who sees it from without,
Can recognize the spirit's work therein.
So too each artist lives within his work
And not in spiritual experience.
But when mine eyes now on this picture fall,
I do forget all that allures to thought;
The very soul-force of my friend doth gleam
From out those eyes, and yet—they are but paint!
The seeker's thoughtfulness dwells on that brow;
And e'en his noble warmth of words doth stream
From all the colour-tones with which thy brush
Hath solved the mystery of portraiture.
Ah, these same colours, surely they are flat!
And yet they are not; they seem visible
Only to vanish straightway from my sight.
The moulding too doth seem like colour's work
And yet it tells of spirit intertwined
In every line, and many things besides,
That are not of itself.—Where then is that
Whereof it speaks? Not on the canvas there,
Where only spirit-barren colours lie.
Is it then in Capesius himself?
But why can I perceive it not in him?
Thomasius, thou hast so painted here
That what is painted doth destroy itself,
The moment that the eye would fathom it.
I cannot grasp whereto it urgeth me.
What must I grasp from it? What should I seek?
I fain would pierce this canvas through and through
To find what I must seek within its depths;
To find where I may grasp all that which streams
From this same picture into my soul's core.
I must attain it.—Oh—deluded fool!
It seems as though some ghost were haunting me,
A ghost I cannot see, nor have I power
Which doth enable me to focus it.
Thou dost paint ghostly things, Thomasius,
Ensnaring them by magic in thy work.
They do allure us on to seek for them,
And yet they never let themselves be found.
Oh—how I suffer from your pictures!

Capesius:
My friend, in this same moment hast thou lost
The thinker's peace of mind. Consider now,
If from this picture some ghost speaks to thee
Then I myself must surely ghostly be.

Strader:
Forgive me, friend, 'twas weakness on my part.

Capesius:
Ah, speak but good, not evil, of this hour!
For though thou seemed'st to have lost thyself,
Yet in reality thou wast upraised
Far, far above thyself; and thou didst feel,
Even as I myself full oft have felt.
At such times, howsoe'er one feels oneself
Strong-armoured at all points with logic's might,
One can but be convinced that one is seized
By some strange power that can have origin
Not in sense-knowledge or sense-reasoning.
Who hath endowed this picture with such power?
To me it seems the symbol in sense-life
Of soul-experiences gained thereby.
It hath taught me to recognize my soul,
As never heretofore seemed possible;
And most convincing this self-knowledge proved.
Thomasius did search me through and through:
For unto him was given power to pierce
Through sense-appearance unto spirit-self.
With his developed sight he penetrates
To spirit verity; and thus for me
Those ancient words of wisdom: ‘Know thyself,’
In new light do appear. To know ourselves
E'en as we are, we must first find that power
Within ourselves, which, as true spirit, doth
Conceal itself from us in our own selves.

Maria:
We must, to find ourselves, that power unfold
Which can pierce through into our very souls:
And truly do these words of wisdom speak—
Unfold thyself and thou shalt find thyself.

Strader:
If we admit now, that Thomasius
Hath through the unfolding of his spirit power,
Attained to knowledge of that entity,
That dwells, invisible, within thy soul,
Then must we say that on each plane of life
Knowledge doth differ.

Capesius:
So would I maintain.

Strader:
If matters thus do stand, then is all thought
Nothing all learning but illusory;
And every moment I must lose myself.
Oh, do leave me alone. ...
(Exit.)

Capesius:
I'll go with him.
(Exit.)

Maria:
Capesius is nearer far to-day
To spirit lore, then he himself doth think;
And Strader suffers deeply. What his soul
So hotly craves, his spirit cannot find.

Johannes:
The inner nature of these two did stand
Already then before my spirit's eye
When first I dared to tread the realm of souls.
As a young man I saw Capesius,
And Strader in the years he hath not reached
By some long span as yet. Capesius
Did show a youthful promise which conceals
Much that this life will not allow to come
To due fruition in the realms of sense.
I was attracted to his inner self:
In his soul's essence I could first behold
What is the essential kernel of a man;
And how a man's peculiarities
In earthly life do manifest themselves
As consequences of some former life.
Saw the struggles that he overcame,
Which in his other lives had origin,
And which have shaped his present mode of life.
I could not see his death-discarding being
With my soul's vision, yet I did perceive
Within his nature that which could not rise
From his surroundings as they are to-day.
Thus in the picture I could reproduce,
What dwells within the basis of his soul.
My brush was guided by the powers, which he
Unfolded in his former lives on earth.
If thus I have revealed his inmost self,
My picture will have served the aim, which I
Did purpose for it in my thought: for as
A work of art I do not rate it high.

Maria:
It will confirm its work within that soul
To whom it showed the path to spirit-realms.

Curtain falls whilst Maria and Johannes are still in the room