The Rudolf Steiner Archive

We have been endeavouring in these lectures to understand something of the course of mankind's evolution; we have sought to follow up the deeper foundations of such Myths as the Osiris-Isis Myth; we have further sought to find our way again, from a certain aspect, in the world of the Greek Gods. We have lightly touched upon the inner meaning of the concepts which perhaps do not come to clear expression, but which underlie the poetic myths of Egypt and Greece, and have sought to study, at any rate to indicate, the connection between the basis of these myths and the Old Testament doctrines. These Old Testament doctrines have sprung from a different spirit from that of the mythology of the Egyptians and the Greeks. We have seen that the Egyptian and Grecian mythologies in the manner of their structure, are derived from certain ancient experiences of mankind. They are based on a certain consciousness that humanity once possessed atavistic clairvoyance, and through the atavistic clairvoyance had stood in the same inner relation to the spirit pervading Nature, as later on man is related between birth and death to the things of the senses. We have seen that for this old atavistic knowledge the far-reaching world-conception, which was an inner experience, signified more than the mere sense-perception knowledge of the transitional humanity to which we still belong.

All that had arisen as pictures in the Egyptian and the Greek mythology, or better to say, contemplation of the Gods, is to be found in the Old Testament as actual doctrine, with the key-note of morality. In fact, the day before yesterday, as I spoke of the important difference between the mythology of Egypt and Greece and the Old Testament, I told you that the divine spiritual Beings who stand at the beginning of the Old Testament, the Elohim, Jahve, can only be thought of as together creating mankind. We can only think of them as producing through their deeds what we call earthly humanity. In fact the whole evolution of earthly man is only accomplished according to the fundamental deed of the Elohim, of Jahve. I said that that is not the case in Egyptian or Greek mythology. There men looked back into ancient times and said to themselves: the Gods Osiris, Isis, Zeus, Apollo, Mars, Pallas, who are now connected with the guidance of human destiny, they have arisen from other generations of Gods, but men were already in existence. The Egyptian and the Greek mythology traced man back to older times in which those Gods were not yet creating and ruling who were recognized in their own times. Thus men in Egypt and Greece ascribed to themselves a greater antiquity than that of the Gods then in power.

This is so fundamental and significant a difference that one must bear it well in mind. In the course of these studies we shall see to what an infinitely important and significant fact this conception points. In the Old Testament doctrine the Gods who were revered were at the same time the Gods who created the human race. Only because the Old Testament doctrine makes the Divine the creator of man, only through this was it possible for the Old Testament doctrine to insert at the same time the moral element, moral impulse, into the divine order and hence into the whole ordering of mankind, into Providence, one might say.

This is important for an understanding of the present-day world conception. For the world concepts of today are not derived in any very definite way from a uniform source; they have very different origins, and we bear much within us in which we believe, which we profess as modern men, that is directly rooted in Greek ideas. We bear much within us, especially the immediate present bears much in it, that points back to the Old Testament. The search of many human beings to find their right way among these often contradictory concepts and ideas, comes through the impulse that proceeds from the Mystery of Golgotha. This all lies as yet in our programme and we shall have to build it up in the time we are still vouchsafed to be together.

It is above all important that we can lay one thing as a foundation; I have already referred to it yesterday. We have often related that we are living, since the 15th century, in the fifth Post-Atlantean epoch, and in a certain connection, I said, certain impulses of the third Post-Atlantean epoch, the Egypto-Chaldean must reappear in the fifth, just as in the sixth Post-Atlantean epoch, certain impulses of the second, the Zarathustra, the Old Persian epoch will light up, and as in the last Post-Atlantean epoch, the seventh, certain impulses of the original Indian epoch will light up again. That is a law in the course of human evolution which points in a significant manner to the essentials standing spiritually before mankind up to the new catastrophe that is to come—like a catastrophe of nature.

Now we have seen in part what immense depth of human consciousness in ancient times is expressed in the fact that these ancient ages evolved the Osiris-myth. We have seen that this early age meant to say: there once lived a perception among men through which man could still directly experience the spiritual in his natural surroundings in his atavistic imaginations. That was the age in which Osiris ruled. But the new perceptions, the Typhon perceptions, those perceptions that have made the letter-script from the picture-script, those perceptions which from the primeval sacred language which men used to speak in common have formed the individually sounding languages, these perceptions of Typhon, they have slain what lived in humanity as the Osiris-impulse. So that since then Osiris is a Being at the side of men only when they are between death and a new birth.

We have then followed the Osiris-Isis Legend in its essentials, have seen how Osiris was regarded as a primeval ruler of Egypt who brought the Egyptians the most important of their arts, who ruled in Egypt throughout long ages, who also traveled from Egypt into other lands, and not by the sword but by persuasion brought them the benefits of the arts taught in Egypt. During his absence upon journeys, as he conferred on other lands the benefits with which he had instructed the Egyptians, Typhon, his wicked brother, introduced innovations into his own land of Egypt. And then as Osiris returned he was slain by Typhon despite the watchfulness of his consort Isis. Then Isis sought everywhere for Osiris. Through boys—so says the legend—it was revealed to her that the coffin had been carried away by the sea; she discovered it then in Byblos in Phoenicia and brought it back to Egypt. Typhon cut up the corpse into fourteen pieces. Isis collected the pieces; with the use of spices and by other means she was able to give each piece the appearance of Osiris again. She then induced the priests to accept a third of the land from her, and by being in possession of a third of the land, on the one hand they should keep the grave of Osiris secret, on the other hand institute the Osiris cult—that is to say, a memorial service of the ancient Osiris-time, to keep in memory that there had once been a different perception in humanity. This remembrance was thenceforward to be preserved and all sorts of secrets surrounded it. The time in which Typhon had slain Osiris was indicated to be the time in the November days of autumn when the sun sets in the seventeenth degree of Scorpio, and opposite in Taurus the moon appears in the Pleiades as full-moon.

Then it was related that Osiris once more betook himself from the Underworld, where he rules over the dead and judges them, to the Upperworld in order to instruct his son Horus, whom he had had by Isis. It is further related by the legend that Isis let herself be induced to set free Typhon, whom she had held imprisoned. Her son Horus, instructed by Osiris, grew so angry at this that he came in conflict with Isis his mother and seized the crown from her. Then it is related that either he himself, or, in other versions, Hermes, set cow-horns upon her head in place of the crown, and since then she has been portrayed with these.

Now you see Isis in ancient Egyptian myths standing there at the side of Osiris. And for the feeling of the old Egyptians she was not only a mysterious deity, a mysterious spirit-being who stood in inner relation with the ordering of the world, but one could say that Isis was the epitome of all the deepest thoughts the Egyptians were able to form about the archetypal forces working in nature and in man. If the Egyptian was to look up to the great mysteries in his surroundings, then he must look up to Isis who had a statue in the temple at Sais which has become famous. Beneath this statue, as is well known, stood the inscription that should express the being of Isis: ‘I am the All, I am the Past, the Present and the Future; no mortal has yet lifted my veil.’

Especially in the later period of the Egyptian civilization that was a central thought. And in gazing at the mysteries of Isis, one remembered the other mysteries of the ancient Osiris age. And in connection with Isis, with the Isis at the sight of whom the pious Egyptian trembled when he let the words work upon him: ‘I am the All, I am the Past, the Present and the Future, no mortal has yet lifted my veil;’ when these words worked upon him the Egyptian remembered at the same time that Isis was once united with Osiris, when Osiris still wandered upon earth. The laity looked at it as legendary. In the mysteries the Priests explained that the ancient Osiris time was that in which the old clairvoyance united man with the spirit of nature all about him.

For an understanding of the Osiris-Isis legend or myth at the present day, one must view it with the sensations and feelings which were in the soul, in the heart, of the Egyptian. We have done so in a few characteristic features to begin with. And through these characteristic features there is to stand before our soul's gaze that which once sounded over from ancient times into newer times, which lost its meaning through the Mystery of Golgotha, but must be again unriddled today—precisely for the better understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha. There must stand before our soul's gaze all the mystery that at first could only be divined when the Egyptian felt the words that gave the description of Isis: ‘I am the All, I am the Past, the Present and the Future; no mortal has yet lifted my veil.’ For, my dear friends, we will set opposite this Osiris-Isis myth another Osiris-Isis myth, quite another one. And in the relation of this other Osiris-Isis myth I must count upon your freedom from prejudice, your impartiality in the highest degree, in order that you do not misunderstand it. This other Osiris-Isis myth is in no way born out of foolish arrogance, it is born in humility; it is also of such a nature that perhaps it can only be related today in a most imperfect way. But I will try to characterize its features in a few words.

It is in the first place left to each one—though that can only be provisionally—to fix the time when this Osiris-Isis myth was related in a way that I can only relate today approximately, superficially, even banally. But, as I said, I will try to relate this other Osiris-Isis myth disregarding as much as possible many prejudices and calling upon your unbiased understanding. This other Osiris-Isis myth then has somewhat—I say ‘somewhat’—the following contents. ‘It was in the age of scientific profundity, in the midst of the land of Philisterium. Upon a hill in spiritual seclusion was erected a Building which was considered to be very remarkable in the land of Philisterium.’

(I should just like to say that the future commentator here adds a remark that by ‘the land of Philisterium’ not merely the very nearest environment is meant.)

If one wanted to use the language of Goethe one could say that the Building represented an ‘open secret’. For the Building was closed to none, it was open to all, and in fact everyone could see it at convenient times. But far the greater number of people saw nothing at all. Far the greater number of people saw neither what was built nor what this represented. Far the greater number of people stood—to use Goethe's words again—before an ‘open secret’, a completely open secret.

A statue was intended to be the central point of the Building. This statue presented a Group of beings: the Representative of Man, then—Luciferic and Ahrimanic figures. People looked at the statue and did not know in the age of scientific profundity in the land Philisterium that the Statue, in fact, was only the veil for an invisible statue. But the invisible statue was not noticed by people, for it was the new Isis, the Isis of a new age.

Some few persons of the land of scientific profundity had once heard of this remarkable connection between what was visible and what, as Isis-image, was concealed behind what was open and evident. And then in their profound allegorical-symbolical manner of speech they had put forward the assertion that this combination of the Representative of Man with Lucifer and Ahriman signified Isis. With this word ‘signified’, however, they not only ruined the artistic intention from which the whole thing was supposed to proceed—for an artistic creation does not merely signify something, but is something—but they completely misunderstood all that underlay it. For it was not in the least the point that the figures signified something, but that they already were what they appeared to be. And behind the figures was not an abstract new Isis, but an actual, real new Isis. The figures ‘signified’ nothing at all, but they were in fact, in themselves, that which they made themselves out to be. But they possessed the peculiarity that behind them there was the real being, the new Isis.

Some few who in special circumstances, in special moments, had nevertheless seen this new Isis, found that she is asleep. And so one can say: the real deeper-lying statue that conceals itself behind the external statue is the sleeping new Isis, a sleeping figure—visible—but seen by few. Many persons then turned in special moments to the inscription, which is plainly there at the spot where the statue stands in preparation, but which also has been read by few. And yet the inscription stands clearly there, just as clearly as the inscription once stood on the veiled form at Sais. In fact the inscription stands there: ‘I am Man, I am the Past, the Present and the Future. Every mortal should lift my veil.’

Another figure, as a visitor, once approached the sleeping figure of the new Isis, and then again and again. And the sleeping Isis considered this visitor her special benefactor and loved him. And one day she believed in a particular illusion, just as the visitor believed one day in a particular illusion: the new Isis had an offspring—and she considered the visitor whom she looked on as her benefactor, to be the father. He regarded himself as the father, but he was not. The spirit-visitor, who was none other than the new Typhon, believed that he could acquire a special increase of his power in the world if he took possession of this new Isis. So the new Isis had an offspring, but she did not know its nature, she knew nothing of the being of this new offspring. And she moved it about, she dragged it far off into other lands, because she believed that she must do so. She trailed the new offspring about, and since she had trailed and dragged it through various regions of the world it fell to pieces into fourteen parts through the very power of the world.

Thus the new Isis had carried her offspring into the world and the world had dismembered it in fourteen pieces. When the spirit-visitor, the new Typhon, had come to know of this, he gathered together the fourteen pieces, and with all the knowledge of natural scientific profundity he again made a being, a single whole, out of the fourteen pieces. But in this being there were only mechanical laws, the law of the machine. Thus a being had arisen with the appearance of life, but with the laws of the machine. And since this being had arisen out of fourteen pieces, it could reproduce itself again, fourteen-fold. And Typhon could give a reflection of his own being to each piece, so that each of the fourteen offspring of the new Isis had a countenance that resembled the new Typhon.

And Isis had to follow all this strange affair, half-divining it; half-divining she could see the whole miraculous change that had come to her offspring. She knew that she had herself dragged it about, that she had herself brought all this to pass. But there came a day when in its true, its genuine form she could accept it again from a group of spirits who were elemental spirits of nature, could receive it from nature elementals.

As she received her true offspring which only through an illusion had been stamped into the offspring of Typhon, there dawned upon her a remarkable clairvoyant vision: she suddenly noticed that she still had the cow-horns of ancient Egypt, in spite of having become a new Isis.

And lo and behold, when she had thus become clairvoyant, the power of her clairvoyance summoned—some say Typhon himself, some say, Mercury. And he was obliged through the power of the clairvoyance of the new Isis to set a crown on her head in the place where once the old Isis had had the crown which Horus had seized from her, that is to say, on the spot where she developed the cow-horns. But this crown was merely of paper—covered with all sorts of writings of a profoundly scientific nature—still it was of paper. And she now had two crowns on her head, the cow-horns and the paper crown embellished with all the wisdom of scientific profundity.

Through the strength of her clairvoyance there one day arose in her the deep meaning, as far as the age could reach, of that which is described in St. John's Gospel as the Logos. There arose in her the Johannine significance of the Mystery of Golgotha. Through this strength the power of the cow-horns grasped the paper crown and changed it into an actual golden crown of genuine substance.

These then are the main features, my dear friends, that can be given of the new Osiris-Isis Legend. I will not of course make myself the commentator who explains this Osiris-Isis Legend. It is the other Osiris-Isis Legend. But it must set one thing definitely before our souls: Even though the power of action which is bound up with the new Isis statue is at first only weak, exploring and attempting, it is to be the starting point of something that is deeply justified in the impulses of the modern age, deeply justified in what this age is meant to become and must become.

In recent days we have spoken of how the Word has withdrawn, as it were, from the direct soul-experience from which it originally gushed forth as from a spring. We have seen how we live in the age of abstractions, where men's words and concepts have only an abstract meaning, where man stands far away from reality. The power of the Word, the power of the Logos, however, must be laid hold of again. The cow-horns of the ancient Isis must take on quite a different form.

It is difficult to say such things with the modern abstract words. For such things it is better if you try to bring them before the eye of your soul in such Imaginations as have been brought before you, and to work over these Imaginations as Imaginations. It is very important for the new Isis, through the power of the Word which is to be regained through spiritual science, to transform the cow-horns, so that even the paper crown which is written upon in the new deeply profound scientific method, that even the paper crown will become a genuine golden crown.

‘So one day someone came before the provisional form of the statue of the new Isis, and up above at the left was placed a figure of humorous deportment, which in its world-mood had something between seriousness, a serious idea of the world and, one might say, even a chuckling about the world. And lo and behold! as once upon a time someone stood opposite this figure in a specially favourable moment, the figure became alive and said quite facetiously: Humanity has only forgotten the matter, but centuries ago something was placed before the new humanity about the nature of the new humanity, in so far as this new humanity is still only master of the abstract word, the abstract concept, the abstract idea and is far removed from the reality. This new humanity keeps well to words and always asks: Is it a pumpkin or is it a flask? ... when it happens that a flask has been made from a pumpkin ... always clings to definitions, always stops short at words! In the 15th, 16th, 17th centuries—so said the chuckling being—mankind still had self-knowledge about this peculiar situation of taking words in a false sense, not relating them to their true reality, but taking them in their most superficial sense. Today, however, men themselves have already forgotten what was put before them for the benefit of their self-knowledge, in the 15th, 16th, 17th centuries.’

And the being went on chuckling and said: ‘What modern humanity should take as a real recipe for its abstract spirit is depicted on a tombstone in Mölln in the Lauenburg district. Because a tombstone stands there and on this tombstone is drawn an owl (Eule) which holds before itself a looking-glass (Spiegel). And it is related that Till Eulenspiegel, after he had wandered through the world with all sorts of buffoonery and pranks, was buried there. It is related that this Till Eulenspiegel existed, that he was born in the year 1300, went to Poland, even reached Rome and in Rome even had a wager with the Court-jesters over all sorts of odds and ends of wisdom, and committed all the other Till Eulenspiegelisms, which indeed are to be read in the literature about Till Eulenspiegel himself.’

Learned men—and the men who are scholars, are indeed very learned today and take everything with extraordinary gravity and significance—these have naturally discovered—they have discovered various things: for example, that there was no Homer, etc.—the scholars have naturally also discovered that there never was a Till Eulenspiegel. One of the chief reasons why the actual bones of the actual Till Eulenspiegel, who was only the representative of his age, are not supposed to lie beneath the tombstone in Lauenburg, on which is depicted the owl with the looking-glass, was because another tombstone had been found in Belgium upon which there was likewise an Owl with a mirror. Now the learned men naturally have said—for that is logical is it not, and logical are they all—how does it go in Shakespeare—for they are all honourable men—all, all, all!—logical are they all! They have said: if the same sign is found in Lauenburg and Belgium then naturally no Eulenspiegel existed at all.

Generally in life if one finds a second time what one has found a first time, one takes this as a reinforcement—but it is logical, is it not, in these things to take matters so. Well, we say, if I have one franc, then I have one franc. I believe it. So long as I only know that I have a franc, I believe it! But then I get another and I now have two. Now I believe that I have not one at all!—that is the same logic. This is the logic in fact that is to be found in our science—if I were to recount to you how everywhere it is to be found wry frequently! But what is the essential point of the Eulenspiegel-buffoonery? Read it up in the book: the essential thing of the Till Eulenspiegel-buffoonery always consists in the fact that Eulenspiegel is given some sort of commission, and that he takes it purely literally and naturally carries it out in the wrong way. For obviously if, for instance—to exaggerate somewhat—one were to say to Eulenspiegel (whom I now take as a representative figure) ‘Bring me a doctor,’ he would take the word literally and would bring a man who had graduated as doctor from a University. But he would perhaps bring a man who was—excuse the strong language—a perfect fool, he only went by the sound of the word. All the fooleries of Till Eulenspiegel are like this, he only goes by the wording. But this makes Till Eulenspiegel precisely the representative of the present age. Eulenspiegelism is a keynote in our modern times. Words today are far removed from their original source, ideas are often still farther removed, and people do not notice it, but behave in an Eulenspiegel way to what civilization happens to serve up. It was therefore possible for Fritz Mauthner in a philosophical dictionary to take all the philosophical concepts that he could find and convince one that all these philosophical concepts are actually merely words, that they no longer have a connection with any kind of actuality. People have no notion how far they are removed from reality in what today they call ideas, and even ‘ideals’. In other words: mankind does not know at all how it has made Eulenspiegel into its patron saint, how Eulenspiegel is still wandering through the different lands.

One of the fundamental evils indeed, of our time, rests on the fact that modern humanity flees from Pallas Athene, that is, from the Goddess of Wisdom, and clings to the symbol, the owl (Eule). And mankind no longer has the least idea of it—but it is true, as I have often shown, that the foundation of external knowledge is only a reflection—but, my dear friends, in a mirror one sees that which one is! And so the owl ... I mean the modern scientific profundity, sees in the glass, in the world-maya illusion just simply its own face.

Over such matters as these the being at the left above the modern Isis Statue chuckles and sniggers, and over many other matters which, out of a certain courtesy towards mankind, shall not be mentioned at the moment.

But, a feeling should be called forth that with the peculiarity of this presentation of human mysteries through the real existence of the Luciferic, Ahrimanic, in connection with the Representative of humanity itself, a state of consciousness is to be roused in mankind which wakes those very impulses in the soul which are necessary for the coming age.

‘In the Primal Beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was a God.’ But the word has become phrase, it has withdrawn from its beginning. The word sounds and resounds, but its connection with reality is not sought for; there is no endeavour among men to investigate the primary forces of what goes on around them. And one can only investigate these fundamental forces, in the sense of the present age, if one realizes that the essentiality which we call Luciferic and Ahrimanic, is really bound up with the microcosmic forces of man. And one can only understand reality today for the man living between birth and death, if one can form a few ideas of the other reality, which indeed we have often studied, that lies for man between death and a new birth. For the one reality is only the pole of the other reality, the inverted pole of the other reality.

We have spoken of how in ancient times, when human beings entered on the age of maturity, they not only experienced a change such as still occurs today in the change of voice or some other part of the bodily organism, but they also underwent an alteration of the soul. We have indicated how the ancient Osiris-Isis myth was in fact connected with the vanishing of the alteration of the soul. What then arose in humanity through those essences and forces of which we spoke yesterday, must come again differently, inasmuch as men experience the force of the word, the force of the thought, the force of the idea in a new form. It must not now be as if something arises through the forces of nature from the depths of the bodily organization—as in the change of voice in the boy—something which embellishes man with the power of the animal organization and functions invisibly upon his head as cow-horns. No, there must be a conscious grasping by man of what is meant by the Mystery of Golgotha, by the true power of the Word. A new element must draw into the human consciousness. This new element is radically different from the elements which people still enjoy describing today. This new element, however, has its significance for the social life, for the pedagogy of humanity, when pedagogy, or the theory of Education, comes out of the tragic state in which it exists today.

What does the deeply profound Eulenspiegelism—I should say ‘natural scientific profundity’—speak of principally when it speaks of man? Of what does even a great part of modern fiction speak? It speaks of the physical origin of man in connection with physical beings of the line of descent. Fundamentally the so-called modern, the much renowned modern theory of evolution is nothing but a conception placing the doctrine of physical descent in the centre. For the idea of heredity plays far the greatest role in the theory of evolution. It is a onesidedness. Men are thoroughly satisfied with such onesidedness, for people think nowadays that in this way one can be very learned. So one can, with quite arbitrary explanations of things, drawn apparently from deep logic, but in reality from misty vagueness.

Yesterday we saw an example of how whole literatures are written because men have lost the connection of a concept with the original experience from which the concept proceeded: the Cross-symbol. A whole literature has been written about it, the cross has been related to everything imaginable. We saw yesterday to what it must be related. The same has been done in regard to many other things and people think themselves very profound when they do it.

I will remind you of one case, my dear friends. Just think how infinitely important many men think themselves nowadays when they believe that they are speaking as we have spoken here today! There are a fair number of people who say—in fact they very frequently use the words—Oh, one can read it any moment in the papers (with respect be it spoken)—‘the Letter kills, but the Spirit gives life’. And with this, one thinks one has said something most profound. But one should inquire about the origin of such a saying. It goes back to those times when one had living concepts which indeed still had a connection with what had been undergone and experienced. When one talks today there is little connection—especially between the word and its place of origin. If you want to have a right connection between words and sentences and their origins, then I advise you to read the little book in which ‘Swiss-German Proverbs’ have now been collected. For one still finds in these popular proverbs an original harmonizing of what is said with the direct experience. The letter ... by this is meant, as you know, the letter-script in contradistinction to the ancient kind which the Imaginative life drew out of the spirit, as we described yesterday. This ancient spirit gave life, and the livingness in that epoch of human evolution resulted in the Imaginative atavistic clairvoyance. But there was a consciousness that this epoch must in turn be succeeded by another, that the letter must come which kills the ancient livingness.

And now bring that into connection with all that I have said about the actual nature of consciousness in connection with death. For it is the letter that kills but that also brings the consciousness which must be overcome again through another consciousness. The sort of disdainful rejection that modern journalistic folly attaches to the proverb ‘the letter kills but the spirit gives life’ is not what is meant, but the sentence is connected with impulses of man's evolution. It implies approximately: In ancient times, Imaginative times, Osiris times, the spirit kept the human soul in a state of dulled livingness, in later times the letter called forth consciousness. That is the interpretation of the sentence, that is what it originally meant. And in many instances, Just as in this one, men today are very ready with opinions, with arbitrary explanations, because they do not connect anything with them.

This does not prove that it is false what the modern profound scientific method has to say about the idea of heredity, it is only that the other pole must be added when one speaks of heredity. If man points to his childhood, and back from childhood to birth, if he asks himself ‘What do I carry within me?’—then the answer is: what parents and ancestors have carried within them and transmitted to me! There is, however, another way of looking at the human being which present-day man does not as yet practise, which the man of the future must practise, and which must be put in the centre of pedagogy, the art of Education. This is not the looking back at having been younger, but the right consideration of the fact that with every day in life one becomes older. As a matter of fact modern mankind only understands that one has once been young. It does not really understand how to grasp realistically that one gets older with every day. For they do not know the word that must be added to the word heredity when one sets the becoming-older opposite the having-been-young. If one looks to one's childhood one speaks of what one has inherited; in the same way, when one looks towards the getting-older one can speak of the other pole; as of the Gate of Birth, so one can speak of the Gate of Death. There arises the one question: What have we gained through our forefathers by entering this life through the Gate of Birth? There arises the other question: What perhaps do we lose, what becomes different in us through the fact that we are approaching coming times, that we get older with every day? What is it like when we consciously experience the becoming-older-with-every day?

That, however, is a demand on our age. Humanity must learn to become older consciously with every day. For if man learns consciously to become older with every day, then this really means a meeting with spiritual beings, just as it means a descent from physical beings, that one is born and possesses inherited qualities.

I will speak next of how these things are connected: of that important inner impulse which must draw near the human soul, if the soul is to find what is so necessary for the future, what alone can round out and complete the one-sided teachings of Natural Science.

Then you will see why the new Isis Myth can stand beside the old Osiris-Isis Myth, why both together are necessary for the men of today; why other words must be combined with the words which resound from the Statue of Isis at Sais in ancient Egypt: ‘I am the All; I am the Past, the Present, the Future; no mortal has lifted my veil’ ... Other words must sound into these; they may no longer echo one-sidedly into the human soul today but in addition must resound the words: ‘I am Man, I am the Past, the Present and the Future. Every mortal should lift my veil.’

Today I have set before you more riddles than solutions. We will, however, speak of them further and the riddles will then be solved in manifold ways.

We will try to go more fundamentally into those matters connected with the question which has just been raised. The question was: What impulses of human life must enter especially into the consciousness of man today so that a counterweight may be created to the principle of heredity that prevails almost exclusively—whether in science or in general life? This extraordinarily important question, however, can only be approached slowly and gradually. It is, in fact, most deeply connected with the contrast that I wished to bring before your spiritual eyes in showing how one can look towards the old Egyptian inscription of Isis: ‘I am the All. I am the Past, the Present, the Future; no mortal has yet lifted my veil’—and how on the other hand one can take into one's consciousness the words which from the present on into the future must be the complementary saying: ‘I am Man. I am the Past, I am the Present, I am the Future. Every mortal should lift my veil.’

Now above all one must realize that in the age when that saying arose in the Egyptian culture, it was still plain and clear that when one spoke of ‘immortal’ one spoke actually of man himself. In the Egyptian culture, however, the mystery as a principle of the Mysteries, was a deeply rooted principle. The Egyptian who was acquainted with his civilization knew that what lives as ‘immortal’ within the soul, must be awakened. Yes, contrary to our custom of today, the Egyptian, as too the Greek, at least the Greek thinking in the sense of Plato, really only considered a man to be a partaker of immortality, who had consciously grasped the spiritual world. You can read the proof of this in my ‘Christianity as Mystical Fact’ where I quoted the often harsh-sounding expressions of Plato for the difference between men who seek to grasp in the soul the impulse of the immortal, the spiritual impulse, and those men who disdain this, who neglect to do so. If you think this over, you will easily see that the saying on the Statue at Sais actually meant: He who will never seek to grasp the spiritual life of the soul cannot lift the veil of Isis; he however can lift it, who grasps the spiritual life, who therefore (in the Egyptian sense, today it sounds rather different) as ‘mortal’ makes himself ‘immortal’. There was no intention of saying that the human being as such cannot lift the veil of Isis, but only that one who binds himself exclusively to the mortal element, one who will not approach the immortal element, cannot lift the veil. Later on when the Egyptian culture fell more into decadence the saying drifted into quite a wrong interpretation. As the priests transformed the Mystery-principle into a power-principle, they actually sought to instill into the laity—not the priesthood—that they, the priests, were the ‘immortals’ and those who were not priests were the ‘mortals’. That is to say, all those standing outside the priesthood cannot raise the veil of Isis. One might say that in the decadent age of Egyptian culture this was the interpretation: ‘I am the All; I am the Past, the Present, the Future; only a priest can lift my veil.’ And the priests moreover called themselves the ‘immortals’ in that age of decadence.

The use of this expression then came to an end for men living on the physical plane; it is only still in use in the French Academy where, following the Egyptian priest principle, specially important persons are made ‘immortals’. (One is reminded of it at this time because Bergson, the Schelling and Schopenhauer plagiarist, is about to be raised to the rank of Immortal by the French Academy. Such things are left over from ages in which they were understood, and flow into times where the words, concepts and ideas are far removed from their source.)

There are many things that must be said in the course of these observations and it might easily be thought that their purpose is merely to blame our times. I have often emphasized that that is not the case. What is said here is said to characterize the times not to criticize them. Where, however, truth is to be spoken it cannot be expected that no mention will be made of things that have simply got to be seen through, whether for their emptiness or for their harmfulness. In fact one is fully justified in saying: ought it then to deserve censure if one follows a certain example—naturally at a great distance—an example that cannot be sufficiently followed? It is not related in the Gospel that Christ-Jesus went into the Temple and flattered the merchants; it is something else that we are told—that he overthrew the tables and so on! In order really to promote what must be promoted it is essential to indicate what, in accordance with the facts, must be censured if the age is to progress. The sentimentality of painting everything in glowing colours must not find entry into the human soul, nor even be blazoned forth as universal human love.

If one takes this properly into consideration, it can be said on the one hand that we are now living in the materialistic age, to which is added abstraction in the sense we have come to know it, namely estrangement from reality; furthermore, all that must break into our age catastrophically is connected with this divorce from reality. On the other hand, however, it may also be said that compared with the various periods of post-Atlantean times—if we keep to these—our fifth period is in a certain respect and from certain aspects the greatest age, one that brings most of all to humanity, one that harbours within it immense possibilities for the evolution and existence of mankind. And precisely through what man develops very specially in this age as shadow-side of the spiritual life, he takes the way, and can, if he proceeds rightly, find the way into the spiritual world. In particular he can find the way to his true, his highest human goal. Evolutionary possibilities are in our time very great, greater from a certain aspect than they were in former phases of post-Atlantean evolution. In point of fact, something of immense significance occurred with the entry of this fifth post-Atlantean-period. We must transplant ourselves in a new way, my dear friends, into the connection of man with the whole universe, if we wish to give the right colouring, the right nuance of feeling to something we have often brought forward from various viewpoints. The clever ones in Philisterium, to be sure, call it ‘superstition’ if one speaks of a certain connection of man with concrete constellations of the cosmos. One must only understand this connection rightly. Superstition—what is superstition? The belief that the physical human being must in a certain way take his direction from the universe? We go by the clock, which we regulate from the position of the sun; every time we look at the clock we practise astrology. We have subconscious members of our human nature which take their direction from other constellations than those we go by when in physical life we set our clock by them. If things are understood rightly, talking of superstition has not the slightest sense, and so by way of illustration a portion of this World-Clock shall now be set before your soul. We will use it as a means of further studying the riddle that was first propounded.

Now when the time of the flooding of Atlantis, the submergence of Atlantis, which separates our post-Atlantean culture from the Atlantean culture, had passed by, the first post-Atlantean culture-epoch arose. This was a time which received its macrocosmic influence in such a way that the force which flowed through earthly life was the one which corresponds to the rising of the sun at the vernal equinox in the sign of Cancer. Thus we can say: when the sun entered the sign of Cancer at the vernal equinox the first post-Atlantean civilization began. We can actually call it the ‘Cancer-civilization’—if the expression is not misunderstood. If we grasp things in their true light then we can say: when the sun rose in the Spring it stood in the sign of Cancer.

We have spoken in these observations of how there is always something in man which corresponds to what is out in the macrocosm. Cancer, the Crab, corresponds in man to the thorax. So that, speaking macrocosmically one can characterize this first, ancient Indian culture by saying that it took its course while the vernal equinox of the Sun was in Cancer. If one would characterize it microcosmically one can say: it took its course when man for his knowledge, perception and view of the world stood under the influence of those forces which are connected with what comes to expression in the Crab, in the envelopment of his chest, in his chest-cuirass. As physical human beings today we are not able to enter into a perceptive and sensitive relation with the world through the forces that are in our ‘crab’. We have no possibilities of this today. If man can develop the forces that have an intimate relationship to his thorax, if, as regards the forces of his thorax he is sensitive to all that goes on in nature and in human life, then it is as if he came into direct touch with the outer world, with all that approaches him as elemental world. If we only take the relation of man to man—in this we touch upon what underlay the original Indian culture—in that early time a man who met another felt through the sensitivity of his thorax, as it were, what was the nature of the other. He felt how the other man could be sympathetic to him, or more or less antipathetic. He met the other man and learnt to know him. As he breathed the air in his neighbourhood, he learnt to know him. Yes, indeed, my dear friends, in many respects to its advantage, modern mankind knows nothing of this! But in the neighbourhood of every human being man naturally breathes differently. For in every man's neighbourhood one shares the air out-breathed by the other. Modern men have become very insusceptible to these things. During the first post-Atlantean culture, the Cancer-culture, this insensitivity did not exist. A human being could be sympathetic, antipathetic through his breathing. The thorax moved differently when the person was sympathetic or antipathetic. And the thorax was sensitive enough to be aware of its own movements.

Think, my dear friends, how one then actually perceived! One was aware of the others, but one was aware of them through something that took place in oneself. One perceived the inner nature through a process that one experienced inwardly as something bodily. That was during the ‘Cancer-culture’; I have used the illustration of one human being meeting with another. But the whole world was regarded in the same way. Thus arose the world-conception of this first post-Atlantean culture-epoch. A man breathed differently when he beheld the sun, when he beheld the dawn, the spring, the autumn, and he formed his concepts accordingly. And as modern humanity forms its abstract, its straw-like abstract, not even straw, but paper-abstract concepts of sun, moon and stars, growth and thriving, of everything imaginable, so, in the first post-Atlantean period, the Cancer-culture, mankind formed concepts which were felt in this direct way, as a co-vibrating of one's own ‘Cancer’, one's own thorax.

One can therefore say: if this represents the path of the sun and here the sun in spring stands in Cancer, then this is the

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time when the human being too is in the Cancer-culture. In a special way every such Zodiacal constellation is related to a particular planet, is to be regarded as belonging to it. (This arises from reasons which we can perhaps mention presently but which are indeed known to most of you.) Cancer is to be regarded as belonging particularly to the moon. Since the forces of the moon work in quite a special way when it stands in Cancer, one says: the moon has its home, its house, in Cancer, its forces are there, and there they come to development very particularly.

Now just as in the human being the thorax corresponds to Cancer, so does the sexual sphere correspond to the planetary moon. In fact one can say that whereas on the one hand man was so susceptible, so receptive and sensitive in the first post-Atlantean epoch, all intimate concepts of the post-Atlantean world-conception which have come to light are concerned, precisely in the first post-Atlantean epoch, with the sexual sphere. At that time this was right, for a naïveté then existed which in later, corrupt ages was no longer there.

Then the sun entered the Sign of Gemini, the Twins, at the Vernal Equinox. And then as long as the Vernal Equinox continued to be in Gemini, we have to do with the second post-Atlantean culture-epoch, the original Persian. A relation with the macrocosmic Gemini is shown microcosmically in all that concerns man's symmetry, especially the symmetric relationship of the right hand and the left. There are of course other instances of our being symmetrical, for instance we see things only singly, with our two eyes. This state of symmetry, this co-operation of the left and the right, which is shown in particular in the two hands and arms, this corresponds in the macrocosm to the Twins, to Gemini.

Now, that which man takes into his life through the forces of the Gemini-sphere, the forces of his symmetry, to make into his world-conception—just as what I earlier characterized was taken in through the thorax in the first post-Atlantean time—is less closely connected with the immediate surroundings. The fact of being symmetrical connects man more with what lies distant from the earth, with what is not terrestrial, but celestial, cosmic. Hence in this second post-Atlantean age the close connection with the direct elemental surroundings of earth withdraws, there appears the Zarathustra culture. This Zarathustra culture turned towards the cosmos and what is to be found there of the Gemini nature—on the one hand to the Light-nature, on the other hand to the Darkness nature; the Twins-nature, this is connected with the forces which man expresses through his symmetry.

Just as the Moon has its house in Cancer, so has Mercury its house in Gemini (see Diagram 2). And just as in the first post-Atlantean epoch the force of the sex-sphere helped man, as it were, to reach that intimate relation with the surrounding world of which we have spoken, so in this second post-Atlantean epoch help was given from the Mercury-sphere, the sphere connected with the forces of the lower body. On the one hand man's forces pass away from the earth into the outer universe, but in this, as it were, man is helped by something still much tinged with atavistic forces, namely, by what is connected with the forces of his vascular, his digestive system. Man has not really a digestive system just for digesting, it is at the same time an instrument of knowledge. These things have only been forgotten. And real judgment—not the sagacity I have discussed lately—real discernment, the really deeper gift of combination which stands in connection with the objects, this does not proceed from the head, but from the lower body, and was of service to this second post-Atlantean period.

Then came the third; this was the age when the sun at the Vernal Equinox entered Taurus, the Bull. The forces which descend from the universe when the Sun at the Spring equinox stands in Taurus are connected microcosmically in man with all that concerns the region of the larynx, the forces of the larynx. Hence in this third post-Atlantean epoch the Egypto-Chaldean, the human being developed, as his special organ of knowledge, all that concerned the forces of the larynx. The feeling of relationship between the word and the object, particularly the things out in the universe, was an especially strong one in the third post-Atlantean time. Today in the age of abstractions one cannot form much idea of the intimate relation of what men knew of the cosmos through his larynx.

Again, the force which corresponds to Taurus was assisted through Venus, which has its house in the Bull (see Diagram 2). This corresponds in the microcosm, in man, to forces which lie between the regions of the heart and the stomach. In this way, however, what the third post-Atlantean epoch knew as the Cosmic-word, was intimately linked with man, inasmuch as he understood it through the Venus-forces which were in his own being.

Then came the Greco-Latin time, the fourth post-Atlantean epoch. The sun entered Aries, the Ram, at the Vernal Equinox. This corresponds to the head-region in man, the region of the brow, the upper head, the actual head-region. The time began in which man mainly sought to grasp the world through understanding and this relationship to the world brought him thoughts. Head-knowing is quite different from the earlier forms of knowing. In this epoch head-knowledge came to especial prominence. But in spite of the fact that the human head is a true copy of the macrocosm, precisely because in a physical sense it is this true copy, in a spiritual sense it is really of very little value. Forgive the remark—as physical head, the human head is not of very much value. And when man depends upon his head, he can really arrive at nothing else than a Thought-Culture. And so the Greco-Latin time, which as we have seen from other aspects laid special stress on the head, and brought man thus into a special relation with the universe, gradually evolved into an actual Head- and Thought-Civilization which ran its course and came to its end. So that from the 15th century onwards, as I pointed out yesterday, people no longer knew how to connect thinking with reality. This head-civilization, this Aries-culture, however, meant that observation of the universe was taken into the human being. And as regards the physical world it was the most perfected and complete. It is only what developed from it as a decadent condition that became materialistic. Man in this Aries-civilization formed a special relation to the surrounding world precisely through his head. It is particularly difficult today to understand the Greek culture—that of the Romans became more philistine and commonplace—when one does not realize, for instance, that the Greek had a different perception of concepts and ideas. I have dealt with this in my >The Riddles of Philosophy.

It was full of significance for this age that Mars has its house in Aries. The forces of Mars are those again, but in a different way, that are connected with man's head-nature. So that Mars, who at the same time gives man aggressive forces, particularly offered support to all that he developed as a relation to the surrounding world through his head-nature. In the fourth post-Atlantean epoch, which begins in the 8th century B.C. and ends in the 15th century A.D., those conditions were developed which one can describe as a Mars-civilization. The configuration of the different social structures spread over the earth arose in this age essentially through a Mars-culture, a warlike culture. Wars nowadays are behind the times. Although they may be more terrible than formerly, yet they are stragglers, out of date. We shall be speaking of this immediately.

Now the head of man with all its forces, purely as physical thinking-instrument, as instrument for physical thoughts, is an image of the starry heavens. Therefore thoughts in this fourth post-Atlantean time had still something macrocosmic in them, thoughts were not yet bound up with the earth. But think of the great revolution that now comes with the 15th century when the Aries-culture passes over to the Pisces (the Fishes) Culture. What the Pisces forces have become in the macrocosm are the forces in man that are connected with the feet. There is a transition from head to feet; the swing-over is an immense one. I was therefore able to say that if you went back with understanding into the time before the 14th century and read the alchemical and other writings so much despised today, you would see what deep, what vast insight there then existed into cosmic mysteries. But the whole human culture—human forces too—made a complete revolution. What man had formerly received from the heavens, he now received from the earth. This is what is shown us from the celestial constellations as the great swing-over that had been accomplished for man. And this is connected with the beginning of the material, the materialistic age. Thoughts lose their power, thoughts can easily become empty phrase in these times.

But now consider something else that is remarkable. As Venus has her house in Taurus, Mars his house in Aries, so in Pisces Jupiter has his house. And Jupiter is connected with the development of the human brow, forehead. Man can become great with this earth-culture in this fifth post-Atlantean epoch, precisely because in an independent human manner he can ennoble and grasp through the forces of his head that which was brought to him from the opposite side in earlier post-Atlantean periods. Hence Jupiter has to perform the same service to man in the fifth epoch as Mars had to perform in the fourth. And one could say that in a certain respect Mars was the rightful King of this world in the fourth post-Atlantean age. In the fifth he is not the rightful king of this world because nothing can really be attained through his forces in the fifth post-Atlantean epoch—in the sense of this fifth epoch. On the other hand what can make this epoch great must be brought about from the forces of the spiritual life, world-knowledge, world-conception. Man is shut off from the heavenly forces, he is confined in the materialistic period. But in this fifth post-Atlantean age he has the greatest possibility of making himself spiritual. No age has been so favourable to spirituality as this fifth epoch. Courage must only be found to drive the money-changers out of the Temple. Courage must be found to confront with the real, abstractions and things estranged from reality, to set against them full reality and therewith the spiritual reality.

Those who have read the constellations of the stars have also always known that certain help comes from particular planets for the various sections in the path of the sun. With a certain justification to each of these constellations—Moon-Cancer, Mercury-Gemini, Venus-Taurus, Mars-Aries, Jupiter-Pisces—have been assigned three decanates, as they are called. These three decanates represent those planets which have the mission, during a particular constellation, of very especially intervening in destiny, while the others are less active. Thus the decanates of the first post-Atlantean age, the Cancer-age, are Venus, Mercury, Moon; the decanates during the Gemini-age: Jupiter, Mars, Sun; the decanates during the Taurus-age: Mercury, Moon, Saturn; the decanates during the Aries-age: Mars, Sun, Venus. And the decanates during our age, the Pisces epoch, are very characteristically those forces which can serve us most, according to the celestial-clock: Saturn, Jupiter, Mars. Mars—here not in the same service as he had when he was in his house, when he went through Aries, but Mars now as representative power for human strength. But in the outer planets, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars you see what is connected with the human head, the human countenance, the human word-formation. Thus all that is connected with spirituality for this life between birth and death—we will speak next time of the other life between death and a new birth—is especially serviceable in this epoch. This epoch therefore is the one containing the greatest spiritual possibilities. In no age was it granted to men to do so much wrong as in this, since in none could one sin more deeply against the inner mission of the time. For if one lives with the age, then through the Jupiter force one transforms the force coming from the earth into a spiritually free humanity. And at one's disposal are the best, the finest powers of man which he develops between birth and death: the Saturn- Jupiter- and Mars-forces.

The World-Clock, my dear friends, stands favourably for this epoch, but this must give no occasion for fatalism.

This must not cause people to say: Well let's leave ourselves to World-destiny, everything is sure to be all right... rather is it to be the cause, if a man will—but he must will—of his finding endless possibilities just in our age. Only, meanwhile, men do not as yet will.

But it is always unfounded to say: Well, what can I do by myself? The world takes its course ... Certainly, my dear friends, such as we are now, the world does not pay much attention

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to us today. But something else is the point. The point is that we are not to say, as the men of thirty-three years ago said—that they wouldn't bother themselves about anything! That is why things have become what they now are. The question in our time is that each for himself should begin to wish to escape from abstraction, to lay aside what is foreign to reality and so on, and to seek, each for himself, to approach the real and get beyond abstractions.

One must approach from such far-lying concepts, my dear friends, if one is to develop the important subject that is to occupy us—discussion of, so to speak, the becoming older of man, the going-towards-death, just as much as the originating-from birth, the coming-from-birth. Whereas today, pedagogy, practical education of children, proceeds entirely from recognizing that the child is born and develops as child, the time must come in which the child learns what it means to become older. But these things cannot be so simply elucidated, and so one must bring the ideas from far away. For one can say:

In order to overcome that estrangement from reality which today is the signature of the time, above all it is necessary for men to develop the will to attentiveness, the will to set Jupiter in motion. Jupiter is precisely the force that makes a perpetual call on our attentiveness. Men are so happy today if they need not be attentive, if they can resemble the sleeping Isis—I have purposely spoken of the sleeping Isis! The greatest part of mankind is sleeping through this present time and feels itself very, very well in so doing, for men hammer out concepts and stop short at these, and will not develop attention. The important thing to do is to examine the relationships of life. And the difficult years in which we are living must above all get us away from what has weakened human civilization for so long—inattentiveness, absence of will—and make us look into world conditions. It is not enough, my dear friends, merely to skim lightly over things.

It might easily seem, for instance, that I have spoken again and again from all possible aspects of the harmfulness of Wilsonianism from some subjective urge. It is from no subjective urging, but it is actually necessary today to point the way from countless illusionary ideas into the direction in which attention must be unfolded. We learn by the events of the time; if we sharpen our attentiveness we learn precisely from the events of today an immense amount of what we need in order to understand the great impulses which solely and alone can lead mankind out of the calamities into which it has brought itself. One must put certain questions to oneself if one is to be attentive to things. It is not the point to have some general view of something, but how one sees it, how one is able to put questions regarding the outer world. Spiritual Science has also this practical significance, that it gives us the impulse of questioning, of putting questions.

You see, my dear friends, that one reads nowadays of the so-called Peace negotiations of Brest-Litowsk. You know that various people are taking part in them. The chief people from Russia taking part—to single that out—are Lenin, Trotsky, a certain Herr Joffe and a certain Herr Kameneff, whose real name is Rosenfeld. Trotsky's name is Bronstein; Joffe is a rich trader from Cherson. Those are the principal negotiators. It is not uninteresting—but even important perhaps—to turn one's attention to the fact that for Herr Rosenfeld-Kameneff, it is only what the outer exoteric world calls pure chance that his head is still upon his shoulders. His head could long since have been sundered from his shoulders. For in November 1914, all sorts of delegates were arrested in Russia. One read about it at the time and knew of it in other ways. These delegates were imprisoned because they were accused of friendship with Lenin, who was abroad in a place not far from here. They believed at that time in Russia that Lenin had said ‘Of all evils that can happen to Russia in this war the fall of Czardom is the least.’ And so a number of delegates who were known to have communications with Lenin through letters and so on, were indicted. But at that time it was impossible to get hold of them. To be sure, all sorts of patriotic, Russian patriotic, words were spoken. Words like these were spoken: ‘Over the heads and mangled bodies of our fighters, there are traitors who are in connection with the shameful Lenin in Switzerland’—and so on. Then further proceedings took place in February 1915. Again a number of persons were accused, among them a certain Petrowski, among them also a certain Kameneff, alias Rosenfeld. Kameneff, in especial, counted among the accused at that time as the real Russian traitor-type, as a very particularly abominable fellow. And as the proceedings started, there was a general belief that it would not be long before his head ... would be off his shoulders. But Kameneff-Rosenfeld could bring forward proofs at that time that in all questions of the war, he had always taken a different stand from Lenin; so too, Petrowski; that they had no really serious friendship with Lenin. Kameneff-Rosenfeld could prove in particular that he had never wished for the victory of Germany, that a German victory could only be desired by un-Russian crafty comrades like Lenin with foreign interests, who, while they feel themselves too weak or too lazy, await the triumph of freedom from the sword of German generals. Those are the words that were spoken at these proceedings. And a certain Kerenski, who later played another role, was assigned to Messrs. Petrowski and Kameneff as counsel, advocate. He was the defender of Kameneff in that lawsuit, and he got him off. The charge against both Petrowski and Kameneff-Rosenfeld was of high-treason and treason against the country, but Kerenski could get them off and in his speech are to be found the fine words ‘The accused were very far from the plan to stab in the back those who are ready to die for the Fatherland, they resisted no other intrigue so strongly as the one proceeding from Lenin's secret confederacy.’ Owing to the fact that Kerenski's oratory and the other things that could be brought forward supplied proof that Petrowski and Kameneff had nothing in common with Lenin's views, they came out of it all with fairly sound skins. Petrowski is now the Minister of the Interior in the Government of Lenin and Kameneff is together with Herr Joffe the most important negotiator at Brest-Litowsk.

I am quoting these particular stories, my dear friends, and could relate hundreds and hundreds of similar ones! But it is very important to look at actualities; that is what I wished to say. And in order to get to know actualities one must observe the men who have to do with them—if indeed these things men are taking part in are actualities. It is vastly convenient to stand back and say: Yes, negotiations are going on at Brest-Litowsk between Russia and the Central Powers! That is abstraction, that is no actuality. One only approaches the real when one has the will to pay attention, to look really into the concrete. I wanted to bring the matter forward merely as an example to show that it is also necessary to study present-day history. Everyone today talks about current events, but how little is really known of the events of today, how little people actually know of what is going on, how little people even guess at what takes place; This is really astounding, and can only be understood through the unbelievable way in which our intelligence is trained. In fact our intelligence is trained in such a way that science misleads it on every hand to form judgments in the way I have described: If I have one coin, then I have one coin; if I have two coins, then I have none, I have nothing! If there is one tombstone of Till Eulenspiegel, then he can have lived; if, however, there are two tombstones with an owl and a looking-glass, then Till Eulenspiegel did not live! If I want to make an electricity experiment in the Physics classroom, I must carefully dry all the machines with warmed cloths so that nothing may be damp, for otherwise neither the ordinary electrical machine nor the inductive machine would obey me, nor anything else. But then immediately afterwards I relate: there out of the cloud—which in any case is thoroughly wet and which no Professor can have wiped with dry cloths—issues the lightning—and so could one go on. Have I not again and again given examples of how one person repeats what another says; no one examines it! Thus, for instance, one can very well hear: the fundamental principle of modern Physics is the conservation of energy, of force. That is to be traced back to Julius Robert Mayer. Although physicists and nature-researchers and other learned men proclaim him today a great hero, Julius Robert Mayer was once put in a lunatic asylum because he had published ‘absurd trash’, had claimed to have discovered a new principle. He was indeed really incarcerated in a lunatic asylum! The great credit due to Julius Robert Mayer has gone in particular to a University Rector, but I will not stress this further; it often comes up, as you know. What I will stress is this: again and again one sees ‘The Conservation of Energy—Julius Robert Mayer discovered it’. No one re-reads, but each one re-says what has been said. In Julius Robert Mayer's work nothing at all is stated in the form, in the definite form, in which the energy-principle is represented today, but it exists there in quite a different formulation, in fact in a reasonable formulation!

Another example may be considered which lies near our subject—Dr. Schmiedel has given me a magazine in which they support Goethe's ‘Farbenlehre’. Two learned gentlemen assert that Goethe knew nothing of the Fraunhofer lines: Dr. Schmiedel has put together four columns, purely of passages from Goethe in which he speaks of the Fraunhofer lines! But the learned gentry talk, pass judgment on the range of Goethe's optical knowledge, and let flow into such judgments—‘he knew nothing of the Fraunhofer Lines.’ They tell people impudent falsehoods, for naturally today in this ‘authority-free’ time, what a ‘learned’ man says is just as much a gospel for a large number of people as for many, many politicians what Mr. Woodrow Wilson says is a gospel. Thus in our present time it means a good deal if someone simply states: Goethe did not know of the Fraunhofer lines! Nor does it help much to prove it to people; for soon a third person says it and then a fourth. For the inattention, the thoughtlessness with which people live today is indeed great, while the will to look at the concrete truth is not forthcoming. Mankind moreover is much too much inclined to take a lively interest in abstractions, to become enthusiastic through abstractions.

With this I have only introduced what is yet to occupy us—the important principle which must enter into the culture of our time, and our pedagogy, the principle of man's becoming old, the becoming old of his physical body, which is linked with the becoming young of his etheric body. Of this then we will speak next time in all detail.

It is our aim in these lectures to speak of important questions of mankind's evolution, and you have already seen that all sorts of preparatory facts drawn from distant sources are necessary to our purpose. In order that we may have a foundation as broad as possible, I shall remind you today of various things that have been said from one or another standpoint during my present stay here, but which are essential for a right understanding of the two coming lectures.

I have pointed out to you that in that evolutionary course of mankind which can be regarded as first interesting us after the great Atlantean catastrophe, significant changes took place in humanity. I have already some months ago indicated how changes in humanity as a whole differ from changes taking place in a single individual. The individual as the years go on becomes older. In a certain respect one can say that for humanity as such, the reverse is the case. A man is first child, then grows up and attains the age known to us as the average age of life. In so doing the man's physical forces undergo manifold changes and transformations. Now we have already described in what sense I a reverse path is to be attributed to mankind. During the 2,160 years that followed the great Atlantean catastrophe mankind can be said to have been capable of development in a way quite different from what was possible later. This is that ancient time which followed immediately upon the great flooding of the earth—called in geology the Ice Age, in religious tradition, the Flood—from which there actually proceeded a kind of glacial state.

We know that at our present time we are capable of development up to a certain age independently of our own action; we are capable of development through our nature, our physical forces. We have stated that in the first epoch after the great Atlantean catastrophe man remained capable of development for a much longer time. He remained so into the fifth decade of his life, and he always knew that the process of growing older was connected with a transformation of the soul and spirit nature. If today we wish to have a development of the soul and spirit nature after our twenties, we must seek for this development by our power of will. We become physically different in our twenties and in this becoming different physically there lives at the same time something that determines our progress of soul and spirit. Then the physical ceases to let us be dependent on it; then, so to speak, our physical nature hands over nothing more, and through our own willpower we must make any further advance. This is how it seems, externally considered—we shall see immediately how matters stand inwardly.

There was in fact a great difference in the first 2,160 years after the great Atlantean catastrophe. Then indeed man was still dependent on his physical element far into old age, but he had also the joy of this dependence. He had the joy of not only progressing during his growth, and increasing, but of experiencing, even in the decline of life-forces, the fruit of these declining life-forces as a kind of blooming of soul qualities, which man can feel no longer. Yes, external physical cosmic conditions of human existence alter in relatively not such a very long time.

Then again came a time in which man no more remained capable of development to such a great age, into the fifties. In the second epoch after the great Atlantean catastrophe, which again lasted for approximately 2,160 years, and which we call the Old Persian, man remained still capable of development up to the end of his forties. Then in the next epoch, the Egypto-Chaldean, he could develop up to the time of his forty-second year. We are now living—since the 15th Century—in the period where man carries his development only into his twenties. This is all something of which external history tells us nothing, which moreover is not believed by external historical science, but with which infinitely many secrets of mankind's evolution are connected. So that one can say: Mankind as a whole drew in, became younger and younger—if we call this change in development a becoming-younger! And we have seen what consequence must be drawn from it. This consequence was not so pressing in the Greco-Latin age; a man then remained capable of development up to his thirty-fifth year through his natural forces. It becomes more and more pressing, and from our time onward quite specially significant. For as regards humanity as a whole we are living, so to say, in the twenty-seventh year, are entering the twenty-sixth and so on. So that men are condemned to carry right through life the development they acquired in early youth through natural forces, if they do nothing of their own freewill to take their further development in hand. And the future of mankind will consist in their receding more and more, receding further, so that I, if no spiritual impulse grips mankind, times can come in which only the views and opinions of youth prevail.

This becoming younger of humanity is shown in external symptoms—and one who regards historical development with more sharpened senses can see it—it is shown by the fact that in Greece, let us say, a man had still to be of a definite age before he could take any part in public affairs. Today we see the claim made by great circles of mankind to reduce this age as much as possible, since people think that they already know in the twenties everything that is to be attained. More and more demands will be made in this direction, and unless an insight arises to paralyse them there will be demands that not only in the beginning of his twenties a man is clever enough to take part in any kind of parliamentary business in the world, but the nineteen-year-olds and eighteen-year-olds will believe that they contain in themselves all that a man can compass.

This kind of growing younger is at the same time a challenge to mankind to draw for themselves from the spirit what is no longer given by nature. I called your attention last time to the immense incision in the evolutionary history of mankind which lies in the 15th Century. This is again something of which external history gives no tidings, for external history, as I have often said, is a fable convenue. There must come an entirely new knowledge of the being of man. For only when an entirely new knowledge of man's being is reached, will the impulse really be found which mankind needs if it is to take in hand of its own freewill what nature no longer provides. We dare not believe that, the future of humanity will come through with the thoughts and ideas which the modern age has brought and of which it is so proud. One cannot do enough to make oneself clear how necessary it is to seek for fresh and different impulses for the evolution of humanity. It is of course a triviality to say, as I have often remarked, that our time is a transition age—for in reality each age is a transition. But it is a different thing to know what is changing in a definite age. Every age is assuredly an age of transition, but in each age one should also look about and see what is passing over.

I will link this to a fact—I could take a hundred others—but I will link on to a definite fact and let it serve as an example—one could draw on hundreds from every part of Europe. In the first half of the 19th Century, in 1828 in Vienna, a number of lectures were held by Friedrich Schlegel, one of the two brothers Schlegel, who have deserved so well of Central European culture. Friedrich Schlegel sought in these lectures to show from a lofty historical standpoint what the development of the time required, and how these requirements should be studied if the right direction were to be given to the evolution of the 19th Century and the coming age.

Friedrich Schlegel was influenced at that time by two main historical impressions. On the one hand he looked back at the 18th Century, how it had gradually evolved to atheism, materialism, irreligion. He saw how what had gone on in people's minds during the course of the 18th Century then exploded in the French Revolution. (We wish to make no criticism, merely to bring forward a fact, to consider a human outlook.) Friedrich Schlegel saw a great onesidedness in the French Revolution. To be sure, one might find it today reactionary if such a man as Friedrich Schlegel sees a great onesidedness in the French Revolution, but one would also have to look on such a verdict from other aspects. On the whole it is fairly simple to say to oneself that this or the other was gained for mankind through the French Revolution. It is no doubt very simple; but it is a question whether someone who speaks enthusiastically in this way of the French Revolution is really altogether sincere in his inmost heart. One questions it! There is a crucial test of this sincerity which simply consists in this: one should consider how one would look at such a Movement if it broke out round one at the present day? What would one say to it then? One should really put oneself this question when judging these matters. Only then does one have a kind of crucial test of one's own sincerity, for on the whole it is not so very difficult to be enthusiastic over something that went on so and so many decades ago. The question is whether one could also be enthusiastic if one were directly sharing in it at the present day.

Friedrich Schlegel, as I have said, looked on the Revolution as an explosion of the so-called Enlightenment, the atheistic Enlightenment of the 18th Century. And side by side with this event to which he turned his attention he set another: the appearance of that man who took the place of the Revolution, who contributed so enormously to the later shaping of Europe—Napoleon. Friedrich Schlegel from the lofty standpoint from which he viewed world-history, pointed out that when such a personality enters with such a force into world-evolution he must really be considered from a different standpoint from the one that is generally taken. He makes a very fine observation where he speaks of Napoleon. He says: ‘One should not forget that Napoleon had seven years in which to grow familiar with what he later looked on as his task; for twice seven years the tumult lasted that he carried through Europe, and then for seven years more the life-time lasted that was granted him after his fall. Four times seven years is the career of this man.’ In a very fine way this is pointed out by Friedrich Schlegel.

I have indicated on various occasions what a role is played by this inner law in the case of men who are really representative in the historical evolution of humanity. I have pointed out to you how remarkable it is that Raphael always makes an important painting after a definite number of years. I have pointed out how a flaring-up of Goethe's poetic power always takes place in seven-year periods, whereas between these periods there is a dying down. And one could bring forward many, many such examples. Friedrich Schlegel did not look on Napoleon exactly as an impulse of blessing for European humanity!

Now in these lectures Friedrich Schlegel showed what, in his view, the salvation of Europe demanded after the confusion brought by the Revolution and the Napoleonic age. And he finds that the deeper reason of the disorder lies in the fact that men cannot lift themselves to a more all-embracing standpoint in their world conception, which indeed can only come from an understanding of the spiritual world. Hence, thinks Friedrich Schlegel, instead of a common human world-conception, we have everywhere party-standpoints in which everyone looks on his point of view as something absolute, something which must bring salvation to all. According to Friedrich Schlegel the only salvation of mankind would be for each man to be aware that he takes a certain standpoint and others take others, and an agreement must come about through life itself. No one stand point should gain a footing as the absolute. Now Friedrich Schlegel considers that true Christianity is the one and only thing that can show man how to realize the tolerance that he means—a tolerance not inclining to indifference, but to strong and active life. And therefore he draws the conclusion (I must emphasize it is in 1828) from what he has put before his audience: the whole life of Europe, above all, however, the life of science and life of the State, must be Christianized. And he sees the great evil to be that science has become unchristian, States have become unchristian, and that nowhere has what is meant by the actual Christ-Impulse penetrated in modern times into scientific thought or the life of the State. Now he demands that the Christ-Impulse should once more permeate the scientific and State-life.

Friedrich Schlegel was of course speaking of the science, the political life of his time, 1828. But for certain reasons which will shortly be clearer to us than they are now, one could look at modern science and modern political life as he regarded them in 1828. Try for once to inquire of the sciences which count for the most in public life: physics, chemistry, biology, national-economy, political science too, try to inquire of them whether the Christian impulse is seriously anywhere within them! People do not acknowledge it, but all the sciences are actually atheistic. And the various churches try to get along well with them, as they do not feel strong enough really to permeate science with the principle of Christianity! Hence the cheap and comfortable theory that the religious life makes different demands from those of official science, that science must keep to what can be observed, the religious life to the feelings. Both are to be nicely separate, the one direction is to have no say in the other. One can live together in this way, my dear friends, one can indeed! But it gives rise to the sort of conditions that now exist.

Now what Friedrich Schlegel brought forward at that time was imbued with a deep inner warmth, and his great personal impulse was to serve his age, to demand that religion should not merely be made a Sunday School affair but should be carried into the whole of life, above all the life of science and State. And one can see from the way he spoke at that time in Vienna that he had a hope, a great hope, that out of the disorder produced by the Revolution and Napoleon, a Europe would come forth which would be Christianized in its life of State and Science. The final lecture treated especially of the prevailing spirit of the age and the general revival. And as motto for the lecture, which is truly delivered with great power, he put the Bible text: ‘I come quickly and make all things new.’ And he headed it with this motto because he believed that in the men of the 19th Century, to whom he could speak at that time as young men, there lay the power to receive that which can make all things new.

Anyone who reads through these lectures of Friedrich Schlegel's leaves them with mixed feelings. On the one hand, one says: From what lofty standpoints, from what lucid conceptions men have spoken formerly of science and political life! How one must have longed for such words to kindle a fire in countless souls. And had they kindled this fire what would Europe have become in the course of the 19th Century! I repeat: it is with mixed feelings that one leaves off reading. For in the first place: that is not what came about; what came about are these catastrophic events which now stand so terribly before us. And these catastrophes were preceded by a preparation in which one could have seen exactly that such events had to come. They were preceded by the age of materialistic science—which had become stronger than it was in Friedrich Schlegel's time—preceded by the age of materialistic statesmanship over the whole of Europe. And only with sorrowful feelings can one now behold such a motto: ‘For lo, I come quickly and make all things new.’ Somewhere there must be a mistake. Friedrich Schlegel most certainly spoke from utterly honest conviction. And he was in no slight degree a keen observer of his time; he could judge of the conditions—but yet there must have been something not quite in accord.

For, my dear friends, what did Friedrich Schlegel understand by the Christianizing of Europe? One can admit that he had a feeling for the greatness, the significance of the Christ-Impulse. And hence he also had the feeling that the Christ-Impulse must be grasped in a new way in a new age, that one cannot stop short at the way in which earlier centuries had grasped it. That he knows; a feeling of that is present in him. But, nevertheless, with this feeling he finds support in the already existing Christianity, Christianity as it had developed historically up to his time. He believed that a movement could proceed from Rome of which it could be said ‘I come quickly and make all things new’. He was in fact one of those men of the 19th Century who turned from Protestantism to Catholicism because they believed they could trace more strength in the Catholic life than in the Protestant. But he was a free spirit enough not to become a Catholic zealot.

There is, however, something which Friedrich Schlegel has not said to himself. What he has not told himself is that one of the deepest and most significant truths of Christianity lies in the words: ‘I am with you always even unto the end of the Earth-time.’ Revelation has not ceased; it returns periodically. And whereas Friedrich Schlegel built upon what was already there, he should have seen, have felt, that a real Christianizing of science and the life of the State can only enter if fresh knowledge is drawn out of the spiritual world. This he did not see; he knew nothing of it. And this, my dear friends, shows us, by one of the most significant examples of the 19th Century, that again and again even in the most enlightened minds the illusion crops up that one can link on to something already existing. It is thought that one need not draw something new from the well of rejuvenescence. With these illusions people can no doubt say things and carry out things that are great and brilliant, but it leads to nothing. For Friedrich Schlegel's hope was for a Europe of the 19th Century with its science and political life permeated by Christianity. It must come quickly, he thought, a general renewal of the world, a general re-establishing of the Christ-Impulse. And what came? A materialistic trend in the science of the second half of the 19th Century, compared with which the materialism known by Friedrich Schlegel in 1828 was child's play. And then also came a materializing of political life (one must know history, real history, not the fable convenue which is taught in schools and universities) of which likewise in 1828 he could see nothing around him. Thus he prophesied a Christianizing of Europe and was so bad a prophet that a materializing of Europe came about!

Men live willingly in illusions. And this is connected with the great problem that is now occupying us, the problem that will become clear to us in the coming days: men have forgotten how really to become old, and we must learn again to become old. We must learn in a new way how to become old, and we can only do so through spiritual deepening. But, as I said, this can only become clear in the course of our study. Our time is in general disinclined for it, still disinclined, and it must cease to be disinclined and grow inclined for it.

In any case, my dear friends, the customary thought and feeling of today are not aiming at familiarizing themselves with a certain ease and facility with what, for instance, forms the spiritual challenge of the anthroposophical Spiritual Science. One can see that by various examples: I will bring forward one that lies to hand.

I had a letter the day before yesterday from a man of learning. He writes to me that he has just read a lecture of mine on the task of Spiritual Science,¹ which I gave two years ago, and that he now sees that this Spiritual Science has, after all, something very fruitful for him. There is a thoroughly warm tone in this letter, a thoroughly amiable, kindly tone. One sees that the man is gripped by what he has read in this lecture on the task of Spiritual Science. He is a trained Natural Scientist, standing in the difficult life of today, and he has seen from this lecture that Spiritual Science is not stupid and not unpractical, but can give an impulse to the time. But now let us look at the reverse side of the matter. The same man five years ago sought to attach himself to this Spiritual Science, to join a group where Spiritual Science was studied, begged moreover at that time to have various conversations with me, and these he had. He took part in group meetings five years ago, and five years ago he so reacted that the whole matter became repugnant to him, and he turned away from it so strongly that in the meantime he has become an enthusiastic panegyrist of Herr Freimark, whom you know from his various writings. Now the same man excuses himself by saying that it would perhaps have been better, instead of doing what he did, to have read something of mine, some books of mine, and made himself acquainted with the subject. But he had not done that, he had judged by what others had imparted to him, and then he had got such a forbidding picture of Spiritual Science that he found it was not at all suited to his own path of development. Now after five years he has read a lecture and has found that this is not the case.

I quote this example—and it could be multiplied—of the way in which people stand to what desires in the only possible way—not in the way of Friedrich Schlegel—a Christianizing of all science—a Christianizing of all public life. I quote it as an example of the habits of thought of today, especially of the science of our time. It is therefore no proof that a man has found something antipathetic to him, if he approaches the Anthroposophical Movement, has various talks, takes part in group meetings, grumbles vigorously about the members of these meetings and what they say to him, concludes that he must now abuse Anthroposophy as a whole, and afterwards becomes an enthusiastic panegyrist of Freimark, who has written the vilest articles on Spiritual Science. After five years the same person decides that he will really read something! So it is no proof at all, if so and so many people today are abusive or agree with the abuse, that deep down they might not have a natural tendency to attach themselves to anthroposophical Spiritual Science. If they have as much good will as the man in question, they need five years, many need ten, many fifteen, many fifty, many so long that they can no longer experience it in this incarnation. You see how little people's behaviour is any kind of proof that they are not seeking what is to be found in anthroposophical Spiritual Science.

I bring this example forward because it points to the profoundly important fact I have often mentioned—namely the lack of stability in going into a matter, the holding fast to old traditional prejudices, which people will not let go! And that again is connected with other things. One only needs to transpose oneself in feeling into those ancient times of which I have spoken to you earlier and today. Think of a young man after the Atlantean catastrophe in his connection with other people. He was, let us say—twenty, twenty-five years old; near him he saw someone of forty, fifty, sixty years. He said to himself: What happiness someday to be as old as that, for as one lives one goes on gaining more and more. There was a perfectly obvious, immense veneration for one who had grown old; a looking up to the aged, linked with the consciousness that they had something else to say about life than the young men. Merely to know this theoretically is of no consequence, what matters is to have it in one's whole feeling, and to grow up under this impression. It is of infinite consequence to grow up in such a way as not merely to look back at one's youth and say: Ah, how fine it was when I was a child! This beauty of life will certainly never be taken from men by any kind of spiritual reflection. But it is a one-sided reflection which was supplemented in ancient times by the other: How beautiful it is to become old! For in the same degree as one became weaker in body, one grew into strength of soul, one grew into union with the wisdom of the world. This was at one time an accepted part of training and education.

Now, my dear friends, let us look at still another truth which, to be sure, I have not expressed in the course of these weeks, but which in the course of years I have already mentioned here and there to our friends: We grow older. But only our physical body grows older. For from the spiritual aspect it is not true that we grow older. It is a maya, an external deception. It is certainly a reality in respect of physical life, but it is not true in respect of the full nature of man's life. Yet, we only have the right to say it is not true, if we know that this human being who lives here in the physical world between birth and death is something else than merely his physical body. He consists of the higher members, in the first place of what we have called the etheric body or the body of formative forces, and then the astral body, the ego—if we only speak of these four. But even if we stop short at the etheric body, at the invisible, super-sensible body of formative forces, we see that we bear it within us between birth and death, just as we carry about our physical body of flesh and blood and bones. We carry in us this etheric body of formative forces, but we see there is a difference: the physical body grows ever older, the etheric or body of formative forces is old when we are born; in fact, if we examine its true nature, it is old then and it becomes ever younger and younger. We can say, therefore, that the first spiritual member in us continually becomes more vigorous and younger, in contrast to the physical-corporeal that becomes weak and powerless. And it is true, literally true, that when our face begins to get wrinkled then our etheric body blooms and becomes chubby-cheeked. Yes but, the materialistic thinker could say this is completely contradicted by the fact that one does not perceive it! In ancient times it was perceived. It is only that modern times are such that people pay no attention to the matter and give it no value. In ancient times nature itself brought it in its course, in modern times it is almost an exception. But even so, there are such exceptions. I remember that I once spoke of a similar subject at the end of the eighties with Eduard von Hartmann, the philosopher of the ‘Unconscious’. We came to speak of two men who were both professors at the Berlin University. One was Zeller, a Schwabian, then seventy-two years old, who had just petitioned for his pensioning off, and who thus had the idea ‘I have got so old that I can no longer hold my lectures.’ He was old and fragile with his seventy-two years. And the other was Michelet; he was ninety-three years old. And Michelet had just been with Eduard von Hartmann and said ‘Well, I don't understand Zeller! When I was as old as Zeller I was just a young fellow, and now, only now, do I feel really fitted to say something to people ... As for me, I shall still lecture for many long years!’ But Michelet had something of what can be called a ‘having-grown-young-in-forces’. There is of course no inner necessity that he had grown so old; for instance, a tile from a roof might have killed him when he was fifty years old or earlier. I am not speaking of such things. But after he had grown so old, in his soul he had in fact not grown old, but precisely young. This Michelet, however, in his whole being, was no materialist. Even the Hegel followers have in many ways become materialistic, although they would not assent to that, but Michelet, although he spoke in difficult sentences, was inwardly gripped by the spirit. Only a few, however, can be so inwardly gripped by the spirit. But this is just what is sought for through anthroposophical spiritual science: to give something that can be something to all men, just as religion must be something to all men, that can speak to all men. But this is connected with our whole training and education.

Our whole educational system is constructed on entirely materialistic impulses—and this must be seen in much deeper connections than is generally indicated. People reckon only with man's physical body, never with his becoming-younger. No account is taken of one's growing younger as one grows older! At first glance it is not always immediately evident. But nevertheless, all that in course of time has become the subject of pedagogy and instruction is actually only able to lay hold of men in their youth, unless they happen to become professors or scientific writers. It is not very often that one finds that someone cares to take up in the same way in later life, when he no longer needs it, the material which is absorbed today during one's schooldays. I have known doctors who were leaders in their special subject, that is to say, who had so passed their student years and youth that they had been able to become intellectual leaders. But there was no question at all of their continuing the same methods of acquiring knowledge in later years. I once knew a very famous man—I will not mention his name, he was so renowned—who stood in the front rank in medical science. He made his assistant attend to the later editions of his books, because he himself no longer took part in science; that did not suit his later years.

This is connected however with something else. We are gradually developing a consciousness that what one can absorb through learning is really only of service for one's youth and that one gets beyond it later on. And this is so. One can still force oneself later to turn back to many things, but then one must really force oneself—it does not come naturally as a rule. And yet, unless a man is always taking in something new—not just by allowing it to enter him through the concert hall, the theatre, or, with all due respect, the newspaper or something of that kind—then he grows old in his soul. We must absorb in another way, we must really have the feeling in the soul that one experiences something new, one is being transformed, and that one reacts to what one takes in just as the child reacts. One cannot do this in an artificial way, it can only happen when something is there which one can approach in later life precisely as one approaches the ordinary educational subjects when one is a child.

But now, take our anthroposophical spiritual science. We need not puzzle our heads over what it will be like in later centuries; for them the right form will be found. But in any case, as it is now—to the dislike however, of many—there is no primary necessity to cease absorbing it. No matter how extremely aged one may have become at the present time, one can always find in it something new that grips the soul, that makes the soul young again. And many new things have already been found on spiritual scientific soil—even such new things as let one look into the most important problems of today. But above all the present needs an impulse which directly seizes upon men themselves. Only in that way can this present time come through the calamity into which it has entered, and which works so catastrophically. The impulses in question must approach men direct.

And now if one is not Friedrich Schlegel but a person having insight into what humanity really needs, one can nevertheless keep to several beautiful thoughts that Friedrich Schlegel had and at least rejoice in them. He has spoken of how things must not be treated as absolute from a definite standpoint. He has, in the first place, only seen the parties which always regard their own principle as the only one to make all mankind happy. But in our time much more is treated as absolute! Above all, it is not perceived that an impulse in life can be harmful by itself, but can be beneficial in co-operation with other impulses, because it then becomes something different. Think of three directions that take their course together—I shall make a sketch.

One direction is to symbolize for us the socialism to which modern mankind is striving—not just the current Lenin socialism. The second line is to symbolize what I have often characterized to you as freedom of thought, and the third direction is Spiritual Science. These three things belong to one another; they must work together in life.

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If socialism, in the crude materialistic form in which it appears today, attempts to force itself upon mankind, it will bring the greatest unhappiness upon humanity. It is symbolized for us through the Ahriman at the foot of our Group, in all his forms. If the false freedom of thought, which wants to stop short at every thought and make it valid, seeks to force itself, then harm is again brought to mankind. This is symbolized in our Group through Lucifer. But you can exclude neither Ahriman nor Lucifer from the present day, they must only be balanced through Pneumatology, through Spiritual Science, which is represented by the Representative of mankind who stands in the centre of our Group. It must be repeatedly pointed out that Spiritual Science is not meant to be merely something for people who have cut themselves adrift from ordinary life through some circumstance or other and who want to be stimulated a little through all sorts of things connected with higher matters. Rather is Spiritual Science, anthroposophical Spiritual Science, intended to be something that is connected with the deepest needs of our age. For the nature of our age is such that its forces can only be discovered if one looks into the spiritual. It is connected with the worst evil of our time—that countless men today have no idea that in the social, the moral, the historical life, super-sensible forces are ruling; indeed, just as the air is all around us, so do super-sensible forces hold sway around us. The forces are there, and they demand that we shall receive them consciously, in order to direct them consciously, otherwise they can be led into false paths by the ignorant, or those who have no understanding. In any case the matter must not be made trivial. It must not be thought that one can point to these forces as one often prophesies the future from coffee grounds and so on! But nevertheless in a certain way and sometimes in a very close way the future and the shaping of the future are connected with what can only be recognized if one proceeds from principles of spiritual science.

People will need perhaps longer than five years to see that. But precisely because of these actual events—the signs of the time demand it—there must again and again be emphasized how it is the great demand of our age that people realize the fact that certain things which happen today can only be discovered and, above all, rightly judged, if one proceeds from the standpoint gained through anthroposophical Spiritual Science.

• 1. See: ‘The Mission of Spiritual Science and of its Building at Dornach.’

The matters which we are now discussing are connected with a fact that sounds strange at first hearing but which corresponds to a deep and significant truth—namely, man wanders over the earth but has in reality no true understanding of himself. One could say that this statement applies particularly to our own time. We know that once in ancient Greece the great and significant inscription ‘Know thyself’ stood on Apollo's temple as a challenge to those who sought for spiritual things. Nor was this inscription on the Delphic temple ‘Know thyself’ merely a phrase at that time, as we know from our various studies. For even in this Grecian age it was still possible to bring about a deeper knowledge of man than is possible at the present time. This present time, however, is also a challenge to us to strive again for a real knowledge of man, for a knowledge of what man on the earth actually is.

Now it seems as if the things that must be said in connection with this question are difficult to understand. In reality they are not, in spite of the fact that they sound as if they were difficult. They are only so for the present day because people are not accustomed to let their thinking and feeling flow into such currents as are necessary for a right understanding of something of this nature. The point is, that what we call understanding at the present day is actually the result of our always seeking to understand through abstract concepts. But one cannot understand everything through abstract concepts. Above all one cannot understand the human being through abstract concepts; one requires something different for the understanding of man. One must put oneself in the position of taking man as he wanders about over the earth, as a picture, as a picture which expresses something, which discloses something, which wants to reveal something to us. One must revive the consciousness that the human being is a riddle that wants to be solved. We shall not, however, solve the riddle of man if we are content to continue to be so indolent, so theoretic in our thinking as we now prefer. For you see, the human being is—this we have stressed again and again—a complicated being. Man is more, vastly more than the physical form that wanders about before our eyes as man—far, far more is man. But this physical structure that wanders round before our eyes as man, and all that belongs to it, is none the less an expression for the whole comprehensive being of man. And one can say: Not only can one recognize in the human form, in the physical man that goes about among us, what man is between birth and death here in the physical word, but, if one only will, one can also recognize in the human being what he is as immortal, as eternal being of soul. One must only develop a feeling that this human form is a complexity. Our modern science, which is made popular and so can reach everyone, is not fitted to call forth a feeling of what a miraculous structure this human being actually is, who wanders about on earth. One must regard man quite differently.

You have assuredly all seen a human skeleton—remember then that the human skeleton is actually twofold, if one disregards everything else. One could speak much more exactly, but if one disregards all the rest, the skeleton is a duality. You can easily lift up the skull from the skeleton; it is really only set upon it, and then the rest of the human being remains skull-less. The skull is very easily lifted off. The rest of the man without the skull is still a very complicated being, but we will now grasp it as a unit and leave aside its complexity. But we will first consider the duality which we see when we look at a human being, as, let us say, head-man, and for the rest trunk-man. And so too is the complete flesh and blood man a duality, though it is there less clearly shown.

Now in spiritual science we need not be so fond of comparisons as to treat them as absolute, develop them metaphysically—that we will not do. But by employing comparisons we wish to make various things clear. And so it is very natural, since it actually corresponds to what we see, to say: man in respect of his head is above all ruled by the spherical form. If one desires to express in a diagram what the human head is, we can say: man is ruled by the spherical form (see diagram).

If we wish to have a diagrammatic picture for the rest of man, we should naturally have to pay attention to the complications, only we will not do that today. You will, however, easily see that disregarding certain complications, just as schematically one can picture the human head as a sphere, so one can picture the rest of man in such a form as this (see diagram: moon form), only, of course, the two circles must be placed in varied positions according to the corpulence of each individual.

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But we can, as it were, really conceive of man so—as spherical form and as moon-form. This has a deep inner justification; however we will not discuss this, but only think of the fact that the human being falls into these two members.

Now, man's head is in the first place a true apparatus for spiritual activity, for all that man can produce by way of human thoughts, human feelings. The head, the apparatus ... but, if we were committed to the thoughts, the feelings, that the head as apparatus can supply, we should never be in the position of really understanding the being of man. If we were committed to use the head alone as an instrument of our spiritual life, we should never be in the position of really saying ‘I’ to ourselves. For what is this head? This head is in truth, as it meets us in its globular form, an image of the whole cosmos, as the cosmos appears to you with all its stars, fixed stars, planets and comets; even meteors—irregularities, as we know—make their appearance in many heads. The human head is an image of the macrocosm, an image of the whole world. And only the prejudice of our time—I have indicated this in another connection—knows nothing of the fact that the whole world has a share in the coming about of a human head. But now, if through heredity, through birth, this human head is transposed to the earth, it can be no apparatus for comprehending the being of man himself. We have been given in our head an apparatus, as it were, which is like an extract of the whole world, but which is not competent to comprehend man. Why? Well, by reason of the fact that man is more than all that we can see and can think through our head. Many people say nowadays ‘there are limits to human knowledge, one cannot get beyond these limits!’ But this is only because they merely reckon with the wisdom of the head, and the wisdom of the head, it is true, does not get beyond certain limits. This wisdom of the head, my dear friends, has also made what a few days ago we described as the Greek Gods. The Greek Gods have proceeded from the wisdom of the head. They are the upper Gods; they are therefore only Gods for all that the head of man can encompass with its wisdom.

Now I have often brought to your attention that besides this external mythology the Greeks had their Mysteries. The Greeks revered in the Mysteries other Gods as well as the celestial Gods, namely, the Chthonic Gods. And of one who was initiated in the Mysteries one could say with truth: he learns to know the upper and the lower Gods, the Upper and the Lower Gods. The upper Gods were those of the Zeus-circle; but they only have rulership over what is spread out before the senses, and what the intellect can understand. The human being is more than this. Man is rooted with his being in the kingdom of the lower Gods, in the kingdom of the Chthonic Gods.

But it is no good, my dear friends, if one only looks at the part of man which I have drawn here in the sketch. If one is to turn one's mind to the rooting of man in the kingdom of the lower Gods then one must complete this drawing and make it so: one must also, as it were, include the unillumined moon. (See drawing below.) In other words, one must regard the head of man differently from the rest of the organism. With the rest of the organism one must far more have in mind what is spiritual, what is super-sensible and invisible. The head of man as it confronts us is externally complete. All that is spiritual has formed for itself an image in the head. In the rest of man that is not the case; the remaining part is only a fragment as physical man, and it is not enough for the rest of man if one takes this bodily fragment which wanders visibly about on earth.

Now this already shows us that we must accept man as complicated. But, does what I have just said ever come before us in life? What I have just said seems to be abstract, it seems paradoxical and hard to understand, but yet the question

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must arise: does it ever come before us in life? That is the important thing: it appears in life quite clearly. The head is the instrument of our wisdom; it is so strongly the instrument of our wisdom, that our immediate wisdom is connected with its development. But even external anatomical physiological observation—look how a head develops, how a man grows up—shows that the head goes through a quite different development from the rest of the organism. The head develops quickly, the remaining organism slowly. The head in a child is relatively already quite finished, it develops very little further. The rest of the organism is still little perfected and goes slowly through its stages. This is connected with the fact that in life as well we are really a duplex being. Not only does our skeleton show the head and the remaining organism, but life itself shows this twofold nature: our head develops quickly, the rest of our organism slowly. At our present time the head develops practically up to our twenty-eighth or twenty-seventh year, the rest of the organism needs the whole of life up to death to do this. One can in fact only experience in a whole lifetime what the head acquires in a relatively short time. This is connected with many mysteries.

The spiritual investigator has a special knowledge of these things if he is able to observe a fatal accident... again it sounds strange but it expresses the full truth, in a fatal accident. Imagine that a person is struck down, dies by an accident. Let us suppose that a man is struck dead in his thirtieth year. To outer physical observation such a sudden death is a kind of accident: but from a spiritual science outlook it is simply absurd to regard such an affair as accidental. For in the moment when from outside, from any external cause, a man suddenly meets with death, an immense amount rapidly takes place. Think to yourselves: this same man who has been killed at the age of thirty would have become in the ordinary course of things perhaps seventy, eighty, ninety years old. If he had still lived from thirty to ninety years he would slowly have gone through, one after another, many life experiences. What he would thus have experienced during sixty years of life, he now goes through rapidly, it might even be in half-a-minute, if he is killed at the age of thirty. When it is a matter of the spiritual world, time relationships are different from what they seem to us here on the physical plane. A sudden death caused by external circumstances—one must treat the matter quite exactly—can cause the experience, I say the experience, the life-wisdom of the whole life that might still have been lived, to be passed through under certain circumstances very rapidly.

One is in this way enabled to see how a man assimilates life-wisdom, life-experience all his life through. And one can study through it the relation between what the head can provide with its short development, and what the rest of the human being can furnish with its long development in the social life. It is really true that during his young days a man takes in certain ideas and concepts that he learns; but he then only learns them. They are then head-knowledge. The rest of life that runs more slowly, is destined to transform the head-knowledge gradually into heart-knowledge—I now call the other man not the head-man, I call him the heart-man—to transform head-knowledge into heart-knowledge, knowledge in which the whole man shares, not only the head.

We need much longer to transform head-knowledge into heart-knowledge than to assimilate the head-knowledge. Even if the head-knowledge is an especially clever knowledge, one needs today the time into the twenties, is it not so? then one is a quite clever person, academically quite clever. But in order to unite this knowledge fully with the whole man, one must keep flexible one's whole life through. And one needs just as much longer to change head-knowledge into heart-knowledge as one lives longer than to the twenty-seventh or twenty-sixth year. In so far is the human being also of a twofold nature. One quickly acquires the head-knowledge and can then in the course of life change it into heart-knowledge.

It is not quite easy to know what this actually signifies. And, perhaps I may venture to instance an experience of the spiritual investigator through which something may be more easily known concerning these things than through other results of spiritual research. If one makes oneself acquainted with the speech which the human souls speak who have gone through the gate of death, who live in the spiritual world after death, one understands to some degree the speech of the dead, the so-called dead, one can then make the experience that the dead express themselves in a very special way upon many things connected with human life. The dead have a speech today that we who are living cannot yet quite understand. The comprehensions of the dead and the living lie somewhat far apart from one another today. The dead have a thorough consciousness of how man develops quickly as headman and slowly as heart-man. And if the dead wish to express what really happens when the quickly gained head-knowledge lives itself into the slower course of the heart-knowledge, they say there wisdom-knowledge is transformed through what ascends from man as heart-warmth or love. Wisdom is fructified in man by love. So say the dead.¹

And that is in fact a profound and significant law of life. One can acquire head-knowledge rapidly, one can know a tremendous amount precisely in our age, for natural science—not the natural-scientist—natural science has made very great advances in our time and has a rich content. But this content has remained head-knowledge, it has not been transformed into heart-knowledge because people—I pointed this out yesterday—no longer pay attention to what approaches in life after the twenty-seventh year, because people do not understand how to become old—or I could say, to remain young in growing old. Because men do not keep the inner livingness their heart grows cold; the heart warmth does not stream up to the head; love, which comes from the rest of the organism, does not fructify the head. The head-knowledge remains cold theory. There is no necessity for it to remain cold theory, all head-knowledge can be transformed into heart-knowledge. And that is precisely the task of the future; that head-knowledge shall gradually be transformed into heart-knowledge. A real miracle will happen if head-knowledge is transformed into heart-knowledge! One is completely right if one vigorously declaims today against the materialistic natural science, or, really, natural-philosophy—one is completely right, but all the same, something else is true. If this natural science which has remained mere head-knowledge in Haeckel, Spencer, Huxley, etc. and is therefore materialism, became heart-knowledge, if it were absorbed by the whole man, if humanity were to understand how to become old, or younger in old age as I showed yesterday, this science of today would become really spiritual, the true pursuit for the spirit and its existence. There is no better foundation than the natural science of the present day, if it is transformed into what can flow to the head from the rest of man's organism, that is to say from the spiritual part of the organism. The miracle will be accomplished when men also learn to feel the rejuvenation of their etheric body so that the materialistic natural science of today will become spirituality. It will the sooner become spirituality the greater the number of people who reproach it with its present materialism, its materialistic folly.

But together with this will be linked a complete transforming which can be felt by one who has but a slight feeling for what is taking place at the present time: linked with it will be a complete transforming of the nature of education and instruction. Who could deny, if he has an open eye for the social, moral, historical conditions of the present, who could deny that mankind as a whole is not in a position—though it sounds grotesque—to give children an adequate education, especially an adequate instruction? We can, to be sure, make children officials, industrialists, we can even make them pastors, etc. etc., but we are but little in a position to make children today into complete human beings, into all-round developed men. For it is a deep demand of the time that if man is to be a complete all-round developed organism of soul and spirit, he must be in the position to transform all his life through what he took in quickly, rapidly as a child. The whole life through must the human being remain fresh in order to transform what he has absorbed.

For what do we really do today in later life? (These things are not looked on unprejudicedly [?] enough). We have learnt a certain amount in youth, the one more, the other less; we are proud, are we not, that we have no more illiterates in Western Europe? One learns much, another less, but all have learnt something in youth. And what do we do in later life with what we learnt, no matter whether it was much or little? It is all of such a nature that one only remembers what one has learnt, it is present in man in such a way that one can remember it. But what do men work on there? It is not conveyed to the human soul so as to work in the soul, so that heart-contents may arise from head-knowledge. It is in no way fitted for that. Much water must still flow down the Rhine, if what we can give to youth today—(let us observe it only in one field, but it is applicable in all fields) is to be something that is fitted really to be transformed into heart-knowledge. What must that be? We have in fact today no possibility at all of giving our children anything that could really become heart-knowledge. For that we lack two conditions, and only Spiritual Science rightly understood can bring about these two conditions.

Two conditions are lacking for really giving to children today something that refreshes life, something which throughout life can be a source of joy in life and a supporting of life. Two things are lacking. The one is that, from all the current ideas that we have today, that modern culture can give us, man can gain no conception of how he stands in relation to the universe. Just think of all that is conveyed to one in school. It is imparted even to the smallest children—at least, what they are told is put into such words as contain what I am now expressing to you. Reflect that the human being grows up today under these ideas: there is the earth, it swings with such and such a velocity through universal space, and beyond the earth there are the sun, planets, fixed stars. And then what is said of the sun, the planets, the fixed stars, is at most a kind of cosmic physics—it is no more—cosmic mechanics, cosmic physics. What the astronomer says today, what our general culture today says about the structure of the universe, has that anything to do with this human being who walks about here below upon the earth? Most certainly not! Is it not true that for the natural scientific idea of the world, man goes about as a somewhat more highly developed animal; he is born, dies, is buried, another comes, is born, dies, is buried, etc. etc. and so it goes from generation to generation. Out in the great cosmic space events take place which are calculated purely mathematically as in a great world machine. But for the modern clever men what has all that takes place out there in the universe to do with the fact that here on earth this somewhat more highly evolved animal is born and dies? Priests, pastors, know no other wisdom to put in place of this comfortless wisdom. And since they do not know that, they say that they do not occupy themselves in any way with science, but that faith must have an entirely different origin.

Well, we need not enlarge on this. But they are two utterly different things that are spoken of by atheistic science and by the so-called religious faith of this or that Confession at Church, feebly upholding the theistic element. It was essential that for a certain time in humanity's evolution the present world conception should take the place of the earlier ideas. We need not go back very far—only people don't think of it today—and men were then still aware that they did not wander on the earth as higher animals who were just born and buried. Rather did they bring themselves into connection with the star-world, with the whole universe, and knew in their own way, in a different way from that in which it must be striven for now, of the connection with the universe. But one must therefore also conceive of the universe differently.

You see, such a world conception as is imparted even to children today would be unthinkable in the twelfth, thirteenth centuries; they could not in the least imagine having such an opinion of the world of the stars. They looked up to the stars, to the planets as we do today, but they did not merely calculate, as the modern mathematical astronomer does, the orbits of the planets, and believe that up there is a globe which passes through world space—the science of the Middle Ages saw in each globe the body of a spiritual being. It would have been simply a piece of folly to represent a planet as a mere material globe. Read about it in Thomas Aquinas.² You will find everywhere that in each planet he sees an Angelic Intelligence. And so in the other stars. Such a universe as modern astronomy fabricates was not imagined. But for a certain length of time, in order to progress, one must drive the soul, as it were, out of the universe, in order to conceive the skeleton, the pure machinery of the universe. The Copernicus, the Galileo, the Kepler world conceptions had to come. But only the foolish see them as something valid for all time. They are a beginning, but a beginning that must evolve further.

Many things are known already to Spiritual Science which official astronomy does not yet know. But it is important that just these things which Spiritual Science knows and official astronomy does not yet know, should pass over into the general consciousness of humanity. And although these concepts may seem difficult today they will become something that one can impart to the children, they will be an important possession for the children, to keep the soul full of life. We still have to speak of these things, however, in difficult concepts. For as long as Spiritual Science is received, as it is at present by the external world, it has no opportunity of pouring things into such concepts and such pictures as are needed if they are to become the subject of children's education.

There is something, for instance, of which modern astronomy knows nothing. It knows nothing of the fact that the earth speeding through the universe, speeds too fast. She rushes too fast, the earth! And since she rushes too fast, since the earth moves quickly, we also have our head-development quicker than we should have if the earth were to move as slowly as to correspond with our whole life's duration. The rapidity of our head-development simply depends on the fact that the earth races too quickly through universal space. Our head takes part in this speed of the earth, the rest of our organism takes no part in it, the rest of our organism withdraws itself from cosmic events. Our head which, as a sphere, is an image of the heavens, must also participate in what the earth performs in celestial space. Our remaining organism which is not formed on the model of the whole universe, does not participate, it makes its development more slowly. Were our whole organism to participate today in the speed of the earth, were it to develop in correspondence to the speed of the earth, then none of us could ever be older than twenty-seven years. Twenty-seven years would be the average life of man. For in fact our head is finished when we are twenty-seven years old; if it depended on the head, man would die at the age of twenty-seven. Only because the rest of man is planned for a longer life time, and continually sends its forces to the head after the twenty-seventh year, do we live as long as we do. It is the spiritual part of the remaining organism which sends its forces to the head. It is the heart portion that exchanges its forces with the head.

If humanity knows some day that it has a twofold nature, a head-nature and a heart-nature, then it will know too that the head obeys quite other cosmic laws than the rest of the organism. Then the human being takes his place again within the whole macrocosm, then man can do no other than form concepts that lead him to say ‘I do not stand here upon earth as merely a higher animal, to be born and to die, but I am a being formed from out the whole universe. My head is built up for me out of the whole universe, the earth has attached to me the rest of my organization, and this does not follow the movements of the cosmos as my head does.’ Thus, when we do not look at man abstractly, as modern science does, but regard him as picture in his duality, as head-man and heart-man in connection with the universe, then the human being is placed again into the cosmos. And I know, my dear friends, and others who can judge such things know it also: if man can make heart-warm concepts of the fact that when one looks at the human head it is seen to be an image of the whole star-strewn space of the world with its wonders, then there will enter the human soul all the pictures of the connection of man with the wide, wide universe. And these pictures become forms of narrative which we have not yet got, and which will bring to expression, not abstractly, but linked with feeling, what we can pour into the hearts of the youngest children. Then these hearts of young children will feel: here upon earth I stand as human being, but as man I am the expression of the whole star-strewn universal space: the whole world expresses itself in me. It will be possible to train the human being to feel himself a member of the whole cosmos. That is the one condition.

The other condition is the following: when we are able to arrange the whole of education and instruction so that man knows that he is an image of the universe in his head, and in the remaining organism is withdrawn from the universe, that with his remaining organism he must so work upon what falls down like a rain of the soul—the whole universe—that it becomes independent in man here upon earth, then this will be a particular inner experience. Think of this two-fold human being, whom I will now draw in this curious fashion.

When he comes to know that from the whole universe there flow unconsciously into his head, stimulating its forces, the secrets of the stars, but that all this must be worked upon his whole life through by the rest of his organism, so that he may conserve it on earth, carry it through death back again into the spiritual world—when this becomes a living experience, then man will know his twofold nature, he will know himself as head-man and heart-man. For what I am now saying means that man will learn to solve his own riddle, to say to himself: inasmuch as I become more and more heart-man, inasmuch as I remain young, I view in later years through what my heart gives me, that which in childhood and youth I learnt through my head. The heart gazes

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up to the head and will see there an image of the whole starry heavens. The head however will look to the heart and will find there the mysteries of the human riddle, will learn to fathom in the heart the actual being of man. The human being will feel as regards his education: To be sure, I can learn all sorts of things with my head. But as I go on living, as I live on towards death that is to bear me into the spiritual world, what I learn through the head is fructified in the future through the love ascending from the rest of the organism and becomes something quite different. There is something in me as man that is only to be found in me as man; I have to await something. Very much lies in these words and it means very much when man is so educated that he says: I have something to await. I shall be thirty, forty, fifty, sixty years old, and as I grow older from decade to decade, there comes towards me through growing older something of the mystery of man. I have something to await from the fact that I live on.

Imagine if that were not mere theory, if it were life-wisdom, social life-wisdom. Then the child is educated in such a way that he knows ‘I can learn something; but he who teaches me possesses something that I cannot learn; I must first be as old as he before I can find it in myself. If he relates it to me, he gives me something which must be a sacred mystery for me, since I can hear it from his mouth, but cannot find it in myself.’ Just think what a relationship is created again between children and their elders, which is entirely lost in our age—if man knows that age offers something that is to be awaited. If I am not yet forty years old, that sum of mysteries cannot lie in me that can lie in one who is already forty years old. And if he imparts it to me, I receive it just as information, I cannot know it through myself. What a bond of human fellowship would be formed, if in this way a new earnestness, a new profundity came into life!

This earnestness, this depth, is precisely what is lacking to our life, what our life does not possess. Our present life only values head-knowledge. But true social life will in this way die out, approach dissolution, for here on earth men wander about who have no idea what they are, who really only take seriously what there is up to the age of twenty-seven, and then employ the remainder of life in carrying about the corpse in them, but not in transforming the whole man into something which can still carry youthfulness through death.

Because people do not understand this, my dear friends, because an age has come that could not understand this, everything that refers to spiritual things remains so unsatisfying, as I had to say yesterday concerning Friedrich Schlegel. He was a gifted man, he had understood much, but he did not know that a new revelation of the spirit was necessary, he thought that one could simply take the old Christianity. In many respects he could even express right ideas with ringing words—I will read you a passage from the last lecture by Friedrich Schlegel in the year 1828. He sought to prove, as he said, ‘that in the course of world-history a divine guiding hand and disposition is to be recognized, that not merely earthly visible forces are co-operating in this evolution, or opposing and hindering it, but that the conflict is in part directed under divine assistance against invisible powers. I hope to have established a conviction of this, even I though it is not proved mathematically, which would here be neither proper nor applicable, and that it will nevertheless remain active and vigorous.’

He had a presentiment, but not a living consciousness that man, by living through history, has to become familiar in history with divine forces, and together with these divine forces fights against opposing spiritual powers—he says expressly, ‘opposing spiritual powers’. For in certain respects people flee from the real science of the spirit. Since the third century of our era, when in the West the prejudice as it was called, arose against the persuasion of the false gnosis (so they called it: the persuasion of the false gnosis!) people have gradually begun to turn aside from all that can be known of the spiritual worlds. And so it came about that even religious impulses prepared materialism, and that these religious impulses could not prevent the fact that we have really nothing to give to youth. Our science does not serve the young; in later life one can only remember it, it cannot become heart-wisdom.

In the religious field it is just the same. Man has finally come, one might say, to two extremes. He seems to have forgotten how to conceive of the super-sensible Christ and desires to know nothing of that cosmic power of which spiritual science must speak again as the power of Christ-Jesus. On the other hand there is the quite delightful, really lovely and charming picture which developed in the course of the Middle Ages and modern times through poets and musicians—a charming poetic picture which has developed round the Infant-Jesus. But pictures and ideas related to the dear Jesus-Babe cannot satisfy a man religiously his whole life through! It is in fact characteristic that a really paradoxical love for the sweet little Jesus is expressed in countless songs and so on. There is nothing to be objected to in this, but it cannot remain the only thing.

That is the one aspect, where man, in order to have at least something, has clung to the smallest, since he cannot raise himself to the great. But it cannot fill up life. And on the other hand the ‘bon Dieu citoyen’, as at Christmas we learnt to know him in Heinrich Heine's words, the ‘bon citoyen’ Jesus, who is divested of all divinity, the God of the liberal pastors and liberal priests. Now do you believe that he can really grip life? Do you believe in particular that he can take youth captive? He is from the outset a dead theology-product, not even a theology-product, but a theology-history-product. In this sphere, however, mankind is far removed from directing its gaze to what is spiritual power in history.

Why is this so? Simply because for a time mankind must go through a stage of gazing into the world purely from a materialistic standpoint. The time has also come when modern natural science which is so fitted for spirituality must be transformed into heart-knowledge. Our natural science is either execrable, if it remains as it is, or it is something quite extraordinarily grand, if it changes into heart-knowledge. For then it becomes spiritual science. The older science which is involved in all sorts of traditions had already transformed head-science into heart-science; the modern age has had no gift for transforming into heart-science the science it has acquired up to the present, and so it has come about that head-science, especially in the social field, has performed the only real work, and has thus brought about the most one-sided product it is possible to have.

You see, man's head can know nothing at all of the being of man. Hence when man's head ponders over the being of man and his connection with the social life, it has to bring something quite foreign into the social common life. And that is the modern socialism, expressed as social-democratic theory. There is nothing that is such pure head-knowledge as the Marxist social-democracy. This is only because the rest of mankind has shirked any concern in world problems, and in the Marxist circles they have only occupied themselves with social theories. The others have only—no, I will be polite—let themselves be prompted by professorial-thoughts, which are purely traditional. But head-wisdom has become social theory. That is to say, people have tried to establish a social theory with an instrument which is least of all capable of knowing anything about the human being. This is a fundamental error of present-day mankind, which can only be fully disclosed when people know about head-knowledge and heart-knowledge. The head will never be able to refute socialism, Marxist socialism, because in our times the head's task is to think out and devise. It will only be refuted through Spiritual Science, since Spiritual Science is head wisdom transformed through the heart.

It is extraordinarily important that one should realize these things. You see why even such a man as Schlegel suggested unsuitable means—since he was willing to accept the old, although he realized that man must re-acquire vision for the invisible that goes about amongst us. But our age is a challenge to direct the gaze to what is thus invisible. Invisible powers were always at hand as Schlegel divined: unseen powers have taken part in working upon what is being accomplished in mankind. Humanity, however, must evolve. Up to a certain degree it did not matter so much if people in the last few centuries gave no thought to the super-sensible, invisible forces, for instance, in social life. That will not do in the future. In the future, in face of the real conditions, that won't do! I could quote many examples to show this; I will bring forward one.

In the course of the last decade and a half I have spoken of this from other points of view. Anyone who observes the social state of Europe, as it has developed since the 8th, 9th centuries, knows that many different things have worked into the structure of European life, into this complicated European life. In the West it has retained the Athanasian Christianity, it has thrust back eastwards (as I said here a few weeks ago) an older Christianity, originally linked with Asiatic traditions, the Russian Christianity, the Orthodox Christianity. It has developed in the West the various European members of this European social totality—inasmuch as it has gradually created a member out of the preserved Roman element with the newly revived German and Slav elements in Europe—altogether a complicated organism. One could find one's way about in it up to now, if one disregarded what lives there unseen; for the configuration of Europe has much force in its structure. But an essential and important force in this structure is, among others, the relation in which France has stood to the rest of Europe. I do not now mean merely the political relation, I mean the whole relation of France to the rest of Europe, and by this I mean all that any European could feel in the course of centuries, since the 8th, 9th centuries, with regard to anyone belonging to the French nation. There is this peculiarity, my dear friends, that, so far as the relation of the rest of Europe to France is concerned, it comes to expression in feelings of sympathy and antipathy. We have to do with sympathy and antipathy, and hence purely with a phenomenon of the physical plane. One can understand the human relationship coming into play between France and the rest of Europe if one studies what hearts, what human souls live out on the physical plane. What has developed for France, at any rate outside France, is to be understood through physical plane conditions. Hence it did no harm—there were similar relationships in Europe in the last centuries—it did no harm if people neglected to see the super-sensible powers playing into things, since the sympathies and antipathies were caused by relations of the physical plane.

Much of what has thus played its part for centuries will become different. We are standing before mighty revolutions, even in regard to innermost relations that are coming over the European social structure. One need not believe it to have been lightly spoken if I have once again stressed the fact that things are to be taken more earnestly than men nowadays are inclined to take them. We are standing before mighty revolutions—and it will be necessary in the future for men to turn their eyes—the eyes of the mind—to spiritual relationships; for it will no longer be possible merely from physical plane relations to understand what is going on. It can only be understood if one can take spiritual relations into consideration.

What took place in March—the fall of the Czar—has a metaphysical character. One can only understand it if one has in mind its metaphysical character. Why then was there a Czar at all? The question can be grasped in a higher sense than in the external trivial-historical sense. Why was there a Czar at all? If one disregards individual pacifist cranks who have seen something serious in the tomfoolery of the Czar's Peace-Manifesto, then one must say: even those who from all sorts of reasons have ranged themselves with the Russian realm have not loved Czardom. And in those who loved it, the love was certainly not very genuine. But why was there a Czardom? There was a Czardom—my dear friends, I will now express it paradoxically, somewhat extremely:—so that Europe had something to hate. It was necessary to provoke those forces of hatred. There was a Czardom, and the Czardom behaved as it did, so that Europe had something to hate. Europe needed this hate as a sort of fresh impetus to something else. The Czar must be there in order in the first place to serve as the point on which the hatred concentrated; for a wave of hatred was prepared, as may now even be seen externally. What is now taking place will be transformed into powerful feelings of hatred. It will no longer be possible to understand these, as the sympathy and antipathy of former times were to be understood—from the aspect of the physical plane. For, my dear friends, not mere human beings will hate. Central and Eastern Europe will be hated, not by men, but by certain demons which will dwell in men. The time will certainly come when Eastern Europe will perhaps be hated even more than Central Europe.

These things must be understood and they must not be taken lightly. They can only be understood if men lift themselves to seek a connection with the spiritual world. For what has already been to some extent divined by such spirits as Friedrich Schlegel, will certainly come to pass, though they have not seen the foundations and the roots. Things must be grasped without prejudice in the eye of the soul, so that man can look back over the last centuries and what they have brought ... and then they will be able to co-operate in what must be founded.

Among the fine passages that occur from time to time in Schlegel's addresses there is this: ‘In the evolution of mankind all depends on the inner being of the soul and on the sincerity in the soul, and harmful above all is every kind of political idolatry.’ That is a fine passage of Friedrich Schlegel's. This political idolatry, how it has laid hold of our time! How it rules our time! And the political idolatry has created a fine symptom for itself, by which one is able to recognize what is there.

But one must look through circumstances! Yes, my dear friends, one must perceive what is living in our times. We have no possibility today, if we do not deepen knowledge through the heart, of giving children what they need in order to keep young and fitted for life all their life through. We have not yet this possibility³—and we understand that as soon as we look at the true nature of the head-man and heart-man. It must be established, it must come. If we want to put things in a few words we can say: Schoolmastering is utterly and entirely unable to fulfil its mission today. What ranks as Schoolmastering is completely foreign to the true being of man. But the world threatens to be ruled by a schoolmaster,⁴ revered through political idolatry. Schoolmastering, the least of all fitted for guiding men in the modern epoch, is supposed to be high politics.

At least some few people ought to realize these things. For they are things which are profoundly connected with the deep knowledge which man can only gain if he seeks a little to penetrate the secrets of humanity. The world today can neither be grasped nor in any way governed through desires and instincts, through Chauvinism and nationalism, but solely through the good will which tries to penetrate into true reality.

• 1. See also ‘The Inner Nature of Man and Life between Death and Rebirth’.
• 2. Compare ‘The Philosophy of Thomas Aquinas’.
• 3. The first of over eighty Waldorf Schools was not founded until 1919.
• 4. Woodrow Wilson.

We have seen that we approach certain riddles of the universe I and of mankind when we begin to observe man himself, seeing in his two-fold form something of the solution of the world-riddle. In meditating over all these things one can gain great help by thinking more deeply of the formula: The world as totality is a riddle, and man himself, again as totality, is its solution. We must not expect, however, to solve the world-riddle in a moment; human life itself in its completeness, what we experience between birth and death and again between death and a new birth—that is actually the solution of the world-riddle. So this is a very serviceable formula: The world is a riddle and Man is its solution.

We have seen that when we regard man's external physical form, we can distinguish in it the head-part and the remaining part. We can consider the head-part in its spherical form as an image of the whole cosmos, not only as a comparison but as an actuality. We can truly say that the whole starry heaven is at work to bring about the form, the shaping, the inner forces of the human head. Of course, it is also true—speaking lightly—that everyone has his own head. Man certainly has that. For as you know, the configuration of the starry heaven always differs, according to the special spot on earth and the special time at which one observes the stars. So that by taking the starry heavens, not in general, but in their configuration at the place and at the time in which the person is born, this must result in each person's having his special head according to the position of the stars in the heavens. Let us keep in mind that it is not the star-heaven in general that builds up our head, but its special configuration. And from the various studies we have pursued we can realize that a considerable part of man's task between death and rebirth consists in his becoming familiar with the mysteries, the spiritual secrets of the stars. One can even say in a certain sense, that the head is not merely given us quite passively but that we make it ourselves. Between death and a new birth we come to know all the laws that prevail in wide cosmic spaces. In fact, when we think of it spiritually, the wide universe is our home between death and a new birth. And just as here on the earth we learn to know the laws by which houses and other things are constructed, so in the time between death and rebirth we become familiar with the laws of the cosmos. And we ourselves take part in working in the cosmos. And from the cosmos, together with the purely spiritual beings who dwell there, we work chiefly upon the head. So that when the human head appears here in the physical world, it is only apparently determined by mere heredity from one's ancestors. I have said repeatedly that everyone acknowledges that the magnetic needle does not turn by itself to the North and the other pole to the South, but that cosmic forces are at work, namely, that the earth is working there. In the case of the magnet, people own that the universe plays a part, it is only when one comes to the origin of a living being that they are not yet willing to see that the whole universe participates in it. In the case of man, it is with the formation of his head that the whole universe is concerned. The head has not merely come about through heredity, from father, mother, grandparents, etc. but forces from the whole universe are at work within it. It is principally from man's limbs and members that the configuration of cosmic forces acts upon what is in his head. On the other hand, we actually receive the rest of our organism, in so far as it is physical, through a kind of hereditary transmission from the generations of ancestors.

Modern natural science, my dear friends, is moreover very close to the discovery of this from its own standpoint. In fact the natural science of today only struggles against those parts of the truth that are suggestive of Spiritual Science. Natural science is very near at many points to a meeting with spiritual science. I said in other lectures and have indicated the same thing here, that natural science is very near to a discovery of something that has met with opposition even in spiritual science. People who read my Theosophy often find themselves repelled by the chapter where I speak of the human aura and how man's forces of soul and spirit are expressed for clairvoyance in a colour aura that sparkles round him. Now Professor Moritz Benedict, whom I have often mentioned in other connections, has recently made experiments in Vienna with persons who have a gift for using the divining-rod. Professor Benedict did not make clairvoyant experiments; as he is very unwilling to acknowledge clairvoyance, but he made experiments in a dark chamber with those gifted for using the divining-rod, which has played such a great role in this war. You probably know that it has played a very special role in this war. Since water was needed for the soldiers, persons able to use the divining-rod were posted to various army-groups in order to discover springs of water for the men. This went on very largely in the southern areas of the fighting. Driven by necessity, of course, one had to do such things. Now in the camera obscura and with the method of natural science Professor Benedict has examined people who can find water or metals under the earth by means of the divining-rod. In the case of a woman who was quite small, he discovered that she showed under treatment in the camera obscura, an immense aura, so that she looked like a giant. He could even describe the right side as bluish, the left side as yellowish-red. This can all be read today as scientific findings, since Professor Benedict has published the whole matter in his book on the divining-rod. What has been observed by Professor Benedict through these methods is the aura, as I have mentioned on earlier occasions. It is not the aura of which we speak; we mean much more spiritual elements in man than this lowest, almost physical aura which Professor Benedict is able to find by natural means in the camera obscura. Still there is a connection. Precisely that part of my book Theosophy which has met with the most opposition and abuse, has thus shown its point of contact with ordinary science. Things will move quickly, and it will be the same with regard to what I have just touched upon. At no distant time, and purely from researches of natural science it will be possible to establish that what a man bears within him as inherited from ancestors is not the form of the head nor its inner forces, and that the head in fact is produced by forces of the cosmos. We should never be nationalistic, my dear friends, if we were to follow our head alone. The head is not in the least adapted to be nationalistic, for it is derived from the heavens, and the heavens are not nationalistic. All the dividing of men into groups that finds a place in our thoughts does not come from the head; it comes from that element through which we are connected with the hereditary stream of humanity. This of course plays into the head when man is living here between birth and death, for the rest of the organism continuously exchanges its nerve-forces and blood-forces with the head.

When we speak of heredity, however, and that the part of man which excludes the head received its forces from ancestors, we must only refer to the physical, for as regards the spiritual part of the remaining organism, it is another matter. And therefore it is very important for us now to consider a fact which can only be brought to light through spiritual science. Thus natural science will discover, as it has discovered the aura, the fact that the head is only influenced through heredity by being added to the rest of the organism. That man is only related to his ancestors in respect of the rest of the organism—this will be discovered even by natural science. But we touch upon another field which natural science cannot of course enter forthwith. Inasmuch as we are born we bear in our head the forces of the universe; they shape our head. A little, to be sure, can be outwardly substantiated. One who observes children in their development will perhaps know that in the very early days it can often be asked—whom does the child really resemble? And the likeness often only comes out strongly in later childhood—some at least of you will have already noticed that. It rests on the fact that the head is mainly neutral as regards earthly conditions; the rest of the organism must first affect the head (it can do so of course even in the embryonic stage) and then the features and so on can show a likeness to the ancestors. If one has a feeling for such things, one can see for oneself externally the truth that lies in this domain.

But the matter goes deeper. Between the spiritual universe—for the universe is filled with spirit and spirit-beings—and the earth on which we dwell there is an intermediary which is never at rest. A fine substance, which cannot be produced in the chemical laboratory since it does not belong to the chemical elements, streams in continuously on to the earth out of the wide universe. If one wants to draw it schematically, one can say: if the earth is here in universal space (see diagram), from all sides universal matter continuously streams in upon the earth, a fine universal substance (arrows inwards), and this fine substance penetrates a little below the earth's surface. So that this continually takes place—substances from the whole of cosmic space sink down towards the earth. It is not physical substance, not a chemical element, but actually spiritual, auric substance that sinks down below the surface of the earth. When we come down to earth from the spiritual world, to find a place in a human body, we use the forces that lie in this substance.

Now it is significant that this substance which streams into the earth and again streams out, is made use of by man when he

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dies. He finds in the out-streaming substance, forces which take him into the spiritual world. This substance, which I have shown coming inwards towards the earth, enters the surface to a certain depth and then streams away again (arrows pointing outwards). So that one can continually perceive a sort of inbreathing of ether or auric substance into the earth, and again an out-breathing.

This is an observation which is not so very easy to make. But if it has once been made, if one has once realized that the earth actually inhales and exhales spiritual substance continuously, then one knows how to apply it to all circumstances and, above all, to human life in the way I have just described. Thus we come into our bodily nature with what I have indicated as inwardly directed arrows, and with those pointing outwards, we pass out again in death.

In this case I will relate how I came upon this fact years ago. The forces that play here, the in-streaming and out-streaming forces, are not solely concerned with human life, but with every possible kind of earthly condition. Now a special problem for me was how matters stood with the cockchafers—yes, cockchafers. Cockchafers are in fact extraordinarily interesting because, as you probably know, when there are a great many cockchafers in a year then in three to five years there are very many grubs—(their larvae). These grubs affect the potato crop very seriously, one gets very bad crops if there are many grubs. And a man who has anything to do with potato culture knows that there will be a bad crop three to five years after a year in which there are great numbers of cockchafers. Now I had looked on that as an interesting fact, and then I discovered that the life of the cockchafer is connected with the in-streaming substance and the life of the grubs with the out-streaming substance. I will only stress this as a matter by which you can see how one comes upon such things from quite a different side. One comes to such things with the most certainty when one does not observe them on the direct object but on a relatively indifferent object, to which one can most easily maintain a neutral attitude. You see, however, from this that the substances of which I have spoken, penetrate under the earth and remain there for a time. The substance that in a certain year streams in, only streams out again after several years. This is also connected with the fact that the out-streaming substance is on the whole heavier than the instreaming substance. This latter is more active, streams in quicker, the out-streaming substance is heavier and streams out more slowly.

When one makes intensive observation of human life one can see how man makes use of the forces in the instreaming substance when he comes out of the universe to birth. Then in later years he loses connection with them. You will realize from what has been said that it is the head which is chiefly concerned with this instreaming substance. But the human head is a hard globe. It is indeed a hard globe, and among all the organs it is the most ossified. And thus, relatively early—not in childhood, but relatively early—it loses connection with the instreaming forces. Hence its formation and development are finished early. Man continues in his childhood his union with these instreaming forces and then they cease to influence him, at least this is so in our time-cycle. It was not always so on earth—I will speak of this presently—but it is so in our time. Now while man lives here on earth, the rest of his organism, apart from the head, takes possession of the out-streaming substances and their forces. This remaining organism imbues itself with them, and it is these forces which can rejuvenate the organism from without, as I indicated yesterday. They are the rejuvenating forces which act upon the etheric body, and which, while we are growing old physically, make it more and more chubby-faced. Thus the human being, as etheric man becomes chubby. In this process undergone by the etheric body that is connected with the remaining organism there work the forces streaming out of the earth. And it is these too which we use when we go through the portal of death to return to the cosmos, to the spiritual world.

The earth, as you see, has a share in our life, is inwardly interested in it. And something is connected with what I have now said that can very easily be brought into a formula, into an essentially important formula. For a long time we live as souls between death and rebirth before we enter physical life through birth, and again we live as souls when we have passed through the gate of death, even up to our next incarnation. The dead live a spiritual life, and this life is connected with the stars as here on earth we are connected with physical matter. Since our head has been formed and shaped by the forces which we have lived through between death and a new birth, since we build up our head, as it were, out of cosmic forces, our own real being of soul and spirit fairly early finds its spiritual grave in our head. We possess the head-forces that we have here on earth because our head is actually the grave of our soul-life as we led it before birth, or before conception. Our head is the grave of our spiritual existence. But inasmuch as we have come down to the earth, the rest of our organism is adapted to make us resurrect, for it takes up the forces which stream from the earth into universal space, in order to form its spiritual element. And whilst our physical organism falls away from us, our spiritual part with our forces that stream out from the earth passes through cosmic space into spirit existence.

This is the wonderful polarity that prevails in the universe in regard to man. We become physical out of the spirit, burying our spirit nature in the head, in the head is the end of our spiritual existence before birth. Here upon earth it is reversed. We leave the physical behind; the physical goes to pieces gradually during our life and the spiritual arises. We can say therefore: Birth denotes the resurrection of the physical, the spiritual being changed into the physical; death denotes the birth of the spiritual, the physical being given over to the earth, just as the spiritual is given over to the universe through our birth. We give our spiritual element to the universe by reason of our being born, and by reason of our dying we give over to the universe our physical element. By giving our spiritual part to the universe through our birth, we are physical human beings. By giving our physical part to the earth through death we are spiritual human beings in the period between death and a new birth. That is the polarity.¹ And our life here consists in developing our spirit organism. But we can only develop it in the right way for our present earthly cycle when what I said yesterday is taken into consideration. That is to say, when one reaches the point where both members of human nature enter into a real correspondence, when head-life and heart-life enter into correspondence with one another, and the shorter head-life really lives itself into the whole man. Thus the whole man can then be rejuvenated during the lifetime to be lived through, when in fact the head has long since lost its mobility, its power of inner development.

It will be the special task of a future educational science to make anthroposophical spiritual science so fruitful that the human being comes to feel how he is built up out of the cosmos, how he actually ‘shells himself’ from the cosmos and how he gives back to the cosmos what he has won for himself upon earth. This education must be given through all sorts of narratives, all sorts of things which are adapted moreover to youth—but so adapted that one can keep one's interest in them through every age of life. I only beg of you, my dear friends—I will not say to think-through something, for that is not of much use—to feel-through, thoroughly to feel-through something. Here too, you see, is a point where modern natural science is already concerning itself with what can be investigated through spiritual science. I have mentioned how intelligent geologists have expressed their view that the earth is already in a dying-out condition. The earth has overstepped the point where as earth-being she was actually in the middle of her life. In the excellent book by Eduard Suess, The Countenance of the Earth, you can read how the purely materialistic geologist Suess states that when one walks over fields today and looks at the clods of earth, one has to do with something dying out that once was different. It is dying out. The earth is dying. We know this from Spiritual-Science, since we know that the Earth will be transformed into another planetary existence which we call the Jupiter existence. Thus the earth as such is dying away. But man, that is the human-race as sum of spiritual beings, does not die with the earth; humanity lives beyond the earth, as it lived before the earth was Earth, in the way I have described in my Occult Science. And so one can permeate oneself—not in thought as I said, but in feeling and experience—with the conception: ‘I stand here on this earthly soil, but this ground on which I stand, in which I shall find my grave, has but a transitory appearance in the cosmos.’ How then does a next earth, a new planet, arise out of this earth, on which the humanity of the future can dwell? Through what does it arise? It arises through the fact that we ourselves carry piece by piece what is to form this new planetary existence. We human beings—the animal kingdom is also to some extent involved—inasmuch as we always carry within us something belonging to the next life, are already here during our physical life preparing the next planet that will follow the earth's existence. In the forces that go back again lies what is to be the future of the earth. We do not live merely in the present, we live in the future of the earth, but we have to keep returning into incarnation since we have many things still to fulfil on earth as long as earth exists. But we are involved in the future life of the earth. We have said that the earth breathes spirit-substance in and out. In the in-breathed substance we carry the past and the laws of the past, the forces of the past. In what is breathed out, given back again by the earth we bear in us what belongs to the future. In the human race itself rests the future of the earth's existence.

Think of all this made really fruitful with feeling and warmth, instead of all the stupid things that are imparted to the young nowadays: think of this made alive in hundreds and hundreds of vivid narrations and parables and brought to youth! Then think what a feeling towards the universe would be aroused—what there is to do! What there is to be done if our civilization is to go forwards—what there is to do concretely! This is very important to consider. And it can be considered all the more since it is connected with what I have called the rejuvenation of man. That present-day humanity has come to such calamities is connected with the fact that it has lost the secret of changing head-life into heart-life. We have hardly any real heart-life. What people generally speak of is the life of instincts and desires, merely that, not the spiritual element of which we have spoken. Today men let what streams out into the universe just peacefully stream out, and they do not bother themselves about it. They pay no attention to it.

Some individuals instinctively take it into account. I have recently given an example of how individuals take it into account, in which case however they differ very much from others. I have related the difference between Zeller and Michelet, the two Berlin Professors. I have said that I spoke with Eduard von Hartmann about the two men, just when Zeller had obtained his pension, since at seventy-two he no longer felt able to hold his lectures at the University. But Michelet was ninety-three years old. And Hartmann related how Michelet had just been there and had said to him ‘I don't understand Zeller, who is only seventy-two years old saying he cannot go on lecturing. I am ready to lecture for another ten years!’ And with that he skipped about the room and rejoiced over what he would lecture upon next year and could not imagine how that lad Zeller, the seventy-two-year-old Zeller, put in a claim to be pensioned off—no more to address the students!

This keeping young is connected with a proper mutual action taking place between head and heart. This can of course happen in the case of single individuals, but on the whole it can only occur rightly even in single individuals, when it passes over into our civilization, when our whole cultural life becomes imbued with the principle that it should not have mere head-life but heart-life as well. But you see, to acquire heart-life needs more patience. In spite of the fact that it is more fruitful, more youth-giving to life, yet for heart-life more patience is required than for head-life. Head-life ... well, you see, one sits down and crams. When we are young we prefer to stick to our cramming in spite of all the talk of the pedagogues. For, my dear friends, certain customs have remained from earlier times, when things were still known atavistically, but people no longer attach a right meaning to such customs. I will remind you of one.

Everything that has been preserved from relatively not very early times, before materialism had become general, has a deeper meaning. In recent decades the habit has already been lost, but when I was young—it is some time since—there was an arrangement in the Grammar School—in the Lower School in the second Class—to have Ancient History, and then in the fifth Class one had Ancient History again. Those who planned such regulations at that time no longer knew why it was so, and the teachers who dealt with these matters did not act as if they were aware of the reason. For anyone who had been aware of it, would have said to himself. ‘When I give history to a boy in the second Class, he crams it, but what he takes in needs a few years for it to become at home in his organism. Therefore it is a good thing to give the same again in the fifth Class, for only then does the knowledge that entered this poor head three or four years ago, bear its good fruits.’ The whole structure of the old grammar school was really built up on these things. The monastic schools of the Middle Ages had still many traditions derived from ancient wisdom, a wisdom that is not ours, but one that—preserved atavistically from olden times—arranged such things logically.

In fact it needs the principle of patience if life of the head is to pass over into life of the heart. For the head-life quickly unites with us, the heart-life goes more slowly, it is less active—so that we must wait. And today people want to understand everything all at once. Just imagine if a modern man had the idea of learning something and then had to wait a few years in order fully to understand it. Such a principle is scarcely to be associated with the frame of mind of modern men. The feelings of modern men lie along very different lines.

One can find examples of this and it is well to point them out. Two plays have lately been produced in Zurich by people connected with The Anthroposophical Society, in fact it has been widely pointed out that the two people are connected with the building in Dornach, with Spiritual Science and so on. In this case, to be quite just, it must be owned that these two Zurich performances by Pulver and Reinhart have really been very well received in Switzerland. But one can find remarkable things in the correspondence that has gone out from Switzerland. The foreign correspondents have shown themselves, well, less interested, shall we say, than in this case the Swiss audience themselves. Thus I have had a newspaper given me in which these two Swiss first performances by Pulver and Reinhart were discussed, where the correspondent cannot forego pointing out that the two authors are connected with our Movement and have drawn a good deal from it. Today people are not only afraid of the wrong teaching of the Gnosis, as I related yesterday, but they are afraid of anything concerning the life of spirit. If something about world-conception creeps into anything—Oh, that is dreadful! And this actually rests on the fact that there is no feeling for this relation of head-life and heart-life. All life to be found in mankind today outside the head is purely life of instinct and desire; it is not spiritual. And so the life of instinct and desire is irritated with the mere head-life. Head-life is very spiritual, very intellectual today, but more and more will it become—can one say—‘un-purified’ by the instinct and desire life. Hence thoughts come forth in a very curious way. And this correspondent of whom I speak—you can perhaps best judge of the confusion of his head through his instincts if I read you a characteristic sentence showing his fear that questions concerning world-conception play into these plays of the two authors. Just think, the man goes as far as writing the following:

‘But Pulver's belief in Christ ought to grow out of depths of sorrow and doubt if from the stage he wished to win disciples. The star flower plucked by Reinhart's seeker after Paradise at his studio window in the very first scene ought to bloom only at the end and from a bleeding heart.’

And now comes the sentence which I mean:

‘Both poets had their world conception already complete in their head as they began to write; it would have been better for the dramas if they had had to wrestle for their religion as they wrote.’

Now just think of that: nowadays one manages to make it a serious fault for anyone with a world conception to write! One is supposed to sit down as a perfect fool in face of the world to scribble away, and then in the scribbling, at the end, a world-conception is supposed to spring forth. Then the thing is produced at the theatre, and this is supposed to please the audience! Just imagine such stupid nonsense being actually spread abroad in the world today; and many people do not notice that such rubbish is being circulated.

Such things simply depend on the fact that the life of the head is not worked on by the whole man. For of course the journalist who wrote that was a very ‘clever man’. That should not be disputed.

He is very clever. But it is of no possible use to be clever, if the cleverness is mere head-life. That is the important thing to keep in mind; that is extraordinarily important.

Here we touch upon something fundamental, very necessary to our present civilization. One can make such observations in fact at every turn. Logical slips are not made today because people have no logic, but because it is not enough to have logic. One can be wonderfully logical, pass examinations splendidly, be a brilliant University Professor of National Economy, or any other subject, and in spite of being so clever and having any amount of logic in one's head, one can nevertheless go off the rails again and again. One can accomplish nothing connected with real life, if one has not the patience to lead over into the whole man what is grasped by the head, when one has not patience to call on the rejuvenating forces in human nature. That is the point in question. Anyone having to do with true science, such as spiritual science, knows that he would be ashamed to give a lecture tomorrow on what he had found out or learnt today—because he knows that that would be absolutely valueless. It would only have value years afterwards. The conscientious spiritual investigator cannot lecture by giving out what he has only recently learnt; but he must keep the things continually present in his soul so that they may ripen. If he brings forward what he has only just acquired he must at least make special reference to the fact, so that his audience may make note of it. One will only be really able to see what the present time needs if one bears in mind these demands on human nature. For what is necessary for the present age does not lie where today it is mostly sought; it lies in finer structures that nevertheless are everywhere spread abroad. One really need not touch on politics in calling attention to the following:

There are numbers of people today—more than is good for the world at any rate—who are of opinion that this war must continue as long as possible so that, from it, general peace may arise. If one ends it too quickly, one does peace no service. In the last few days—in what I say now I am passing no judgment on the value or lack of value of the so-called peace negotiations between the Central Powers and Russia, but it has been interesting all the same in the last few days to see what a curious sort of logic it is possible to work out. I have been given an article that is really extraordinarily interesting in this sense. The gentleman in question (his name is of no consequence here) argues against a so-called separate peace because he considers that through it universal peace would not be furthered. A direct way of thinking—but one perhaps that has gone a little deeper—might rather say to itself ‘Well, we may make a certain amount of progress if at least in one spot on earth we leave off mowing each other down’. That would perhaps be a straightforward, direct mode of thinking. But a thinking that is not so direct might be thus expressed: ‘No, one really dare not leave off in one place, for in that way “universal peace” would not be promoted.’ And now the gentleman in question gives interesting explanations—that is, explanations interesting to himself—as to how people quarrel over words. It is his opinion that those people who say ‘One must be enthusiastic about any peace, even if it is only a separate peace’, are only hypnotized by words. But one must not be dependent on words; one must go to the core of the matter, and the matter is just this—that a separate peace is harmful to the general peace of the world. Among the various arguments that the gentleman adduces is one of the following sentence, an interesting sentence, a most characteristic one for the present day—where is one to begin, not to reduce matters too much to the personal?—Well—‘Whoever is honest must admit that this is the motive of many’ (not all!) ‘among us who so delight in a “separate peace” and in Lenin and Trotsky’, (he means that enthusiasm for the word ‘peace’ is the motive) ‘while at the same time they shout tirelessly against anti-militarists and show little appreciation for our Lenins and Trotskys’. (He is speaking of Switzerland.)

‘We, however, who are not dupes of any word, but want to get at the matter itself, we do not want simply German peace, but peace, we want general peace. For us the word “separate” is a contradiction to the word “peace”.’

(If one goes into it seriously, one must carefully distinguish between peace and peace! Moreover the article is headed ‘Peace and Peace’.)

... ‘We too who do not want German peace, but peace, we want general peace. For us the word “separate” stands in contradiction to the word “peace”.’

Thus the gentleman who inveighs throughout the whole article against the worship of a word, then writes the following:

‘... For us the word “separate” stands in contradiction to the word “peace”. Separation is the principle of strife, not the principle of peace. After this World-War we need a World-Peace in which all nations come at the same time to a great mutual agreement. What we see in Brest-Litowsk, this game of a select circle of diplomats, imbued with all the subtleties of diplomacy, with the naiveté, the idealism, (also the dogmatism) of the representatives of a new order, is a spectacle that can please no one who wishes the ideal to remain pure. It is to be feared that we may get a Devil's peace, which will only produce more frightful war, instead of God's peace which finally leads to an end to all war.’

Well, my dear friends, this is certainly logic, for the article is written with ingenuity; it is brilliantly ingenious. This article ‘Peace and Peace’ is even boldly and courageously written in face of the prejudice of countless people, but its logic is devoid of any connection with reality. For the connection with reality is only found through that of which we have spoken, through the maturing of knowledge; what the head can experience must be reflected upon in the rest of man and this must mature. It may be said that what the very clever men of today lack most of all is this becoming ripe. It is something that is connected with the deepest needs and deepest impulses of the present. You see, the present day has no inclination at all to go in for the study of these things. Naturally I do not mean that every single person can go in for such study, but men whose métier is study, ought to occupy themselves with such things, and then that would pass over into the common consciousness of mankind. For do we not find that journalists—with all respect be it spoken—write what they find accepted as general opinion.

If instead of Wilsonianism or some such thing, Mohammedanism were to be represented as the accepted common opinion, European journalists would write away about something Mohammedan. And if spiritual science had already grown into a habit in human souls, then the same journalists who today grumble at Spiritual Science would, of course, write very finely in the sense of Spiritual Science. But nowadays there is a disinclination to go into such things among the very people whose task it should be.

You see, as man stands here on the earth, he is really connected with the whole cosmos. And I have said before that what holds good today on earth has naturally not always held good. That we may be informed at least about the most important things, we shall speak now principally of the period of time since the great Atlantean deluge, the Flood. Geology calls it the Ice Age. We know that changes took place in mankind at that time, but there was a humanity upon earth even before this, although in a different form. (You can read in Occult Science how mankind lived then.) The Atlantean evolution preceded the present evolution. In that part of the earth, for instance, where the Atlantic Ocean is today—as we have often said—there was land. A great part of present-day Europe was then under the sea—conditions on earth were quite different during the age of this Atlantean humanity. The ancient Atlantean civilization went down. The Post-Atlantean has taken its place. But the Atlantean followed the so-called Lemurian civilization, which again had several epochs. Thus we can say that we are in the post-Atlantean civilization in the fifth epoch, following the first, second, third and fourth epochs. Before this was the Atlantean civilization with its seven epochs (see diagram), before this again was the Lemurian civilization with its seven epochs. Let us turn our attention to the seventh epoch of the Lemurian civilization. It lies approximately 25,900 years before our epoch. It was about 25,000-26,000 years ago that this seventh epoch of the Lemurian age came to an end on earth. However remarkable it may sound, there is a certain resemblance between this seventh Lemurian epoch and our own epoch. Similarities are as we know always to be found between successive periods, similarities of the most diverse kinds. We have found a close similarity between our age and the Egypto-Chaldean. We will now speak of one which is more distant; there is also externally, cosmically, a resemblance. You know that our epoch which begins in about the 15th century of the Christian era is connected with the cosmos through the fact that since that time the sun has its Vernal Point in Pisces, in the constellation of Pisces, the Fishes. The sun had previously been for 2,160 years in the constellation of Aries, the Ram, at the Vernal Equinox. Here in this seventh Lemurian epoch (left) there were similar conditions. Twelve epochs ago the sun was in the same position. So that towards the end of the Lemurian age there were conditions similar to ours.

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This similarity contains, however, an important difference. You see, what we acquire today of inner force of spirit and head-experience, as we have described it in these studies, was also experienced by the Lemurian human being of that time, though in a different manner. The Lemurian man was constituted in quite a different way from the man of today, as you may read in my Occult Science. What could enter into him out of the universe, really entered right in. So that the Lemurian man received practically the same wisdom as the man of today gains I through his head, but it streamed into him out of the universe, I and only in this sense was it different. His head was still open, his head was still susceptible to the conditions of the cosmos. Hence powers of clairvoyance existed in ancient times. Man did not explain things to himself logically, he did not learn them, but he beheld them, since they entered his head out of the cosmos, whereas today they can do so no longer. For what comes in ceases in relatively early youth. As I have said, the head no longer stands in such intimate relation to the cosmos. That is so in the present epoch, at that time it was not so; at that time the head of man still stood in much more inward relation to the universe; at that time the human being still received world-wisdom. This did not lack that logic which is nevertheless lacking in what man gains for himself today. That original wisdom was an actually inspired wisdom, one that came to man from without, arising from divine worlds. Present-day man is unwilling to consider this; for modern man believes (forgive me if again I express myself somewhat drastically) that ever since he has been on earth he has had a skull as hard as it is today. This, however, is not true. The human head has only closed in relatively recent times. In ancient times it was responsive to cosmic in-streamings. Only an atavistic remainder is still there. Everyone knows that when he observes a child's head (a really young child's head) there is still one place that is soft. This is the last relic of that openness to the cosmos, where in ancient times cosmic forces worked in a certain way into the head and gave man cosmic wisdom. Man at that time still had no need of that correspondence with the heart, for he had a small heart in the head that has become shriveled and rudimentary today. Thus does the human being change. But conditions alter over the earth and man must grasp this and change too—adapt himself to other conditions. We should have been perpetually tied to the apron-strings of the cosmos, if our head had not ossified. We are shut off in this way from the cosmos and can develop an independent ego within us. It is important that we bear this in mind. We can develop an independent ego by reason of having acquired physically this hard skull. And we may ask when mankind actually lost the last remnant of the memories, the living memories of the ancient archetypal wisdom? This remnant really only faded away in the epoch that preceded ours, the fourth post-Atlantean epoch, during the Greco-Roman civilization. Human beings had then, of course, long since possessed closed skulls, but in the Mysteries there still existed original wisdom preserved from quite ancient times, from the epoch that preceded the Lemurian Pisces-age, from the Lemurian Aries-age.

As much as man could have of his ego in the Lemurian times was also revealed to him from the cosmos; his inmost soul-force was manifested to him from the cosmos. This came to an end in the fourth post-Atlantean epoch, the Greco-Latin time. The heavens closed their last door to man. But instead they sent down their greatest Messenger precisely at that time, so that man can find on earth what he formerly received from heaven—the CHRIST. The Mystery of Golgotha is indeed a cosmic fact, inasmuch as there would have ceased for man what had been revealed to him from the heavens, cosmically revealed, from Lemurian times. Then there appears the Impulse which can reveal it to him from the earth. Only man must gradually develop what has been revealed to him from the earth in the Christ Impulse, and develop it, precisely by that process of rejuvenation of which we have been speaking.

Now, it is a result of this human development that we bear something within us today that is—so to speak—quite wonderful. I have already mentioned in yesterday's lecture that the knowledge of our time is the most spiritual it is possible to have; man however does not remark it because he does not let it mature. What can be known today about nature is far more spiritual than what was formerly known. What man formerly knew brought down certain realities out of the cosmos. In the stars, as I mentioned yesterday, the Scholastics of the Middle Ages still saw angelic Intelligences. Modern Astronomy does not of course see any angelic Intelligences, but something that one can calculate by mathematics or mechanics. But what was formerly seen has been thoroughly passed through a sieve; it is there, but sifted to the last vestige of spirituality. It belonged to the quite lovable genius of Novalis to see rightly in this point. In the Aphorisms of Novalis you find the beautiful expression—I have often quoted it—‘Mathematics is in truth a great poem’. But in order to see how mathematics, by which one also calculates the worlds of the stars and their courses, is a great poem, one must be oneself a poet, not as the modern natural scientists are perhaps, but such a poet as Novalis. Then one stands in wonder before the poetry of mathematics. For mathematics is phantasy. Mathematics is nothing observed through the senses, it is phantasy. It is, however, the final product of phantasy that has still a connection with the immediate external reality. Mathematics in fact is Maya thoroughly passed through a sieve. And if one learns to know it, not merely in the schoolmaster sense that prevails in the world today, but learns to know mathematics in its substance, learns to know it in what it can reveal, then one learns indeed to know something in it that has as much reality as an image that we see of ourselves in a mirror, but which nevertheless tells us something, in certain circumstances tells us a good deal. But to be sure, if one considers the mirror image as a final reality, one is a fool. And if one even begins to want to hold conversation with the reflection because one confuses it with reality, one is not really looking for reality at the right spot. Just as little can reality be found in the mathematical calculations in Astronomy. But the reality is certainly there. As a mirror reflection is not there without the reality, so the whole spiritual existence, that is calculated purely mathematically, is there; it is only passed completely through a sieve, and must force its way back to reality.

Precisely because our age has become so abstract, has been formed so purely by the head, it has such an immense spiritual content. And there is actually nothing that is so purely spiritual as our present science; it is only that men do not know nor value this. At any rate it is almost ridiculous to be materialistic with modern science! For it is a funny way of going through life if one takes modern science materialistically, and yet almost all learned men do take it thus. If one asserts, with the ideas that modern science can develop, that there is only a material existence, it is actually comic; for if there were only a material existence, one could never assert that there was a material existence. Merely by making the statement ‘there is a material existence’—this action of the soul is in fact the finest spiritual element possible, it is a proof in itself that there is not solely a material existence. For no person could assert that there was a material existence if there were only a material existence. One can assert all sorts of other things, but one can never assert that there is a material existence, if one only accepts a material existence. By asserting that there is only a material existence one actually proves that one is talking nonsense. For if it were true what one asserts, if there were only a material existence, nothing could ever arise from this material existence which became somewhere or other in a person the asserting—which is a purely spiritual process—‘There is a material existence’.

You see from this that nowhere has such a logical proof been put forward that the world is of the spirit, as by the science of our time which does not believe in it—that is to say, does not believe in itself—and by our whole age, which does not believe in itself. Only because mankind has spiritualized itself increasingly from epoch to epoch and has arrived at having such sharply refined concepts as we have today, only because of this has mankind reached the point of now seeing solely the quite ‘sieved’ concepts and can of its own volition connect them with the heart forces. This is shown very plainly now in external life, it is shown too in the great catastrophic events.

For, my dear friends, if one really studies history, there is a great difference between what is now called the present world-war—which is really no war at all, but something else—and earlier wars. People today are not yet attentive to these things, but in all that is going on this distinction is shown. One could refer to many proofs of the fact that this is shown. But you see, there are many men who speak from the standpoint of a quite particular ingeniousness in such an unclear way as the man from whose article I read you a sentence. For this modern acuteness gets to the point of again and again defending the peculiar sentence ‘One must prolong this war as long as possible so that the best possible peace may be established’. No one would have spoken like that about earlier wars. In many other respects too they would not have spoken as is spoken today. People do not yet notice that, as I said, but nevertheless it is so. If you take all earlier wars you will always find that fundamentally in some way or other men could say why they were waging war. (I will bring forward two things to illustrate this, though hundreds might be brought forward.) They wanted something definite, clearly to be outlined, to be described. Can the men of today do this? Above all, do they do it? A great part of those who are heavily involved in the war, do not do it. No one knows what really lies behind things. And if someone says that he wants this or that, it is generally so formulated that the other has no real idea of what he wants.

That was certainly not the case in earlier wars. One can go through the whole of world history and not find it. You can take such grievous events in earlier times as, for instance, the invasions into Europe of the Tartars, the Mongols, and you will always find that they were quite definite things, that could be sharply defined, that could be understood, and from which one could understand what actually happened. Where is there today a really clear definition of what is actually going on, a really clear description?

That is one thing. But now, my dear friends, let me say something else—what was generally the actual result of wars in earlier times? Look wherever you will and you will find that it was certain territorial changes, which people then accepted. How do people face these things today? They all explain that there must be no territorial changes. Then one asks oneself again ‘What is the whole thing for?’ Compared with former things this is really how the matter lies: people cannot in any case fight for what they always fought before, because that simply cannot be done. The moment that is somehow supposed to happen there is an instant declaration ‘That simply cannot be done’. Thus according to the impulses that prevail there can really never be a peace; for if one were to leave everything as it was before, there was no need to begin. But since one has begun and nevertheless wants to leave everything as it was before, one can naturally not leave off, for otherwise there would have been no need to begin!

These things are abstract, paradoxical, but they correspond to profound realities; they really correspond to conditions that ought to be kept in mind at the present time. One must in fact say that what is discussed here as the lack of correspondence between head-man and heart-man is today world-historical fact. And, on the other hand, one can say: men stand today in a quite particular period of development; they cannot control their thoughts in a human way. That is the most significant characteristic of our time; men cannot humanly control their thoughts. All has become different, and people are not yet willing to notice that all has become different.

Thus, one is not merely concerned with something that has a significance in questions concerning world-conceptions, but with something that very deeply affects the most wide-spread event of our time, the most crushing event for humanity. Men no longer find from out their soul the connection with their own thoughts. And this can show us how not only the individual but humanity too in a certain way has forgotten how to call upon the rejuvenating forces. Humanity will not easily be able to extricate itself from this condition. It can only do so when there is a belief in the rejuvenating forces, when we get rid of much of what cannot be rejuvenated. Whether we look at individual persons or consider what is going on around us, we find the same thing everywhere. We find a sifted and sieved head-wisdom, head-experience, without the will to let things ripen through the heart-experience. This is, however, so deeply linked with the needs of the common evolution of mankind, that man should turn his closest attention to it for the present and the immediate future. We have indeed often spoken of it before from the most varied aspects. It is precisely this state of things that shows how necessary it is for spiritual science to enter the world today—even, one might say, as something abstract. But it is fruitful, it can remould the world because above all it can send its impulse into actual, concrete conditions of life. Man would face sad times if he should continue no longer to have faith in the becoming older, if he wanted to stop short at what the short-lived head can experience. For I have said already that the utmost extreme of what the short-lived head can acquire is abstract Socialism, which does not proceed from concrete conditions. Yet this is really solely and alone what people believe in. The philosopher constantly asserts today that there is only matter—on account of his refined spirituality. But he ought to give up this judgment at once, for it is nonsense. But the mainspring of the present so-called war is to be found in the general world-condition from which there is no way out—just as there is no way out from the sentence ‘There is only matter’. For the present time is in fact spiritual! And this that is spiritual needs condensing, needs strengthening, so that it may grasp reality; otherwise it remains mere mirror-image. In the way humanity works today it is as if one did not wish to work in a workshop with actual men, but as if one thought one could work in a workshop with mirror-pictures.

And so it is in the most extreme form of head-concept-socialism, which on this account is so plausible for great masses since it is logical head-experience, purely logical head-experience. But when this logical head-experience cannot meet the spirit element of the other man, with what then can it meet? That is what we have often spoken of, in fact, even today. It then unites with blind desires and instincts. Then there results an impure mixture between the head-experience, which is really quite spiritual, and the blindest instincts and desires. That is what they are now trying to join together in the East, in a world historical way! A socialistic theory, pure head-experience, has nothing whatever to do with the actual concrete conditions of the East;

what is devised by men like Lenin and Trotsky has nothing to do with what is developing as concrete necessities in the East. For if Lenin and Trotsky, through some peculiar chain of circumstance, had landed up in Australia instead of Russia, they would have thought they could introduce the same conditions that they wished to introduce into Russia. They fit Australia, South America, just as much, or just as little, as Russia; they would fit just as well on the Moon, since they fit no real concrete conditions at all. And why? Because they come from the head, and the head is not of the earth. Perhaps they would really fit better on the Moon, since they are purely from the head. The head is not of the earth. That they are intelligible, comes from the fact that they are closely related to the head. But here on earth such things must be established as are related to the earth; a spirituality must also be found which is connected with the earth's future, in the way we described yesterday.

That leads into quite deep and significant things. And when one considers them, one will see how little inclined the man of today really is, to go into these things. And they are as necessary as our daily bread. For otherwise, if the path to rejuvenation is not found, the evolution of mankind will either get into a pit or a blind alley.

• 1. See: ‘Prayers for mothers and children’—and ‘Earthly Death & Cosmic Life’.

It is significant that the Christian calendar places the festival of Adam and Eve on 24 December, the festival of the birth of Christ Jesus in the night between 24 and 25 December. In the Christian view, the beginning of the world, that is, the beginning of our immediate earthly existence, and the greatest event of earthly existence, that event which gives meaning to earthly evolution, are thus brought together. They are brought together for the reason that it is to be indicated through this how the way man's relationship to the spiritual universe has undergone such a significant change through the entrance of the Mystery of Golgotha that everything that preceded it, while important for the understanding of this mystery itself, can be left out of consideration for the time being for the immediate Christian consciousness with regard to the reception of the impulses of the will.

We are aware that the greatest turning-point in the evolution of earthly existence occurred through the Mystery of Golgotha. It stands before the soul of him who understands that through his understanding the meaning of earthly evolution is revealed. One can say: If one looks at the way in which the ancients related to world wisdom as an impulse for man himself in the time before the Christ entered into the development of mankind on earth, and compares this behavior of the pre-Christian time with the attitude of the Christian consciousness towards world wisdom as an impulse for human activity, one is given, when one is then in a position to develop the corresponding thought, a deeply impressive meaning.

One need only recall a figure – which one is reminded of when the feast occurs that is, so to speak, under the motto: “Et incarnatus est de spiritu sancto ex Maria virgine” – the image of the virgin Pallas Athena, the goddess of wisdom in ancient Greece, who is the daughter of Zeus herself, and the goddess who is considered the goddess of prudence. Zeus, the lord of lightning, of illuminating light, of the light that works in earthly existence, begets with Prudence the virgin Pallas Athena, the guardian of human wisdom before the mystery of Golgotha.

There is a deep meaning in the poetic invention of this figure of the virgin Pallas Athena. As the goddess of wisdom, she herself is a virgin. What does this actually mean in the higher sense? What did the Greek mystery guides mean when they spoke of the virgin Pallas Athena? They meant the wisdom through which man works in the historical context of the world. This wisdom was born out of what is not the world itself, but a reflection of the world, in the fourth period of time into which the development of Greek culture had just entered. Let us grasp this well: a reflection of the world, Maya. In the previous periods, the wisdom of the mystery priests was not presented as a virgin power because, as human wisdom, it was always fertilized by the ancient atavistic power of clairvoyance in the first, second, and third post-Atlantic periods. It was only in the fourth post-Atlantean period that the possibility arose of also knowing something from mere observation of what is not driven by those forces that underlie atavistic clairvoyance, by the affects, by the passions, by all that glows as fire in the human being, but by the virgin, by atavistic clairvoyance unfertilized mirror image of the world. The wisdom that is meant when its representative is depicted comes from Maja: Pallas Athena.

Pallas Athena is also a Maja, a Maria; but Pallas Athena is the Maja who still reflects the wisdom out of herself, who allows the wisdom to reveal itself to the human being out of herself. The great progress consists in the fact that this same Maja, this same Maria, is fertilized by the Cosmos, and a new wisdom is now born. Pallas Athene was the representative of wisdom. The Christ impulse is the son of Maja, of Maria, of the virgin representative of wisdom, and of the cosmic-divine, the cosmic-intelligent world power. Therefore, the ancient wisdom, as represented by Pallas Athena, was well suited to dissect and comprehend the mineral world up to the plant world, but not yet suited to grasp the human being himself, to comprehend the human being himself in his personality.

If one wanted to understand the human being in his personality in those days, one could do so in the mysteries, but one then had to attain atavistic clairvoyance in the mysteries. What is meant by Pallas Athene, the virgin representative of wisdom, denotes a beginning that was suitable as such for understanding the periphery of the earthly world. But only through the entrance of the Mystery of Golgotha, only through the union of the power of divine, intelligent love with the power of Maya, with the reflection of the world, is the human evolution confronted with the God of Man, the God who is no longer attainable only by transcending the physical plane, but the God who, in His essential being, can be found on the physical plane itself. The progress in the evolution of humanity that is meant by the Christmas mystery presents itself to the human soul when one composes the right legend of Pallas Athena with all that can be grasped in true form about the nature of the virgin Maja, from whom the Christ impulse for the evolution of the earth emerges.

In connection with such insights into human events, with such demands on human volition as we have discussed in order to grasp the Christmas mystery, it befits our very serious time – this time, for which it is so urgently needed – to gain insights that lie within the meaning of the thirty-three-year orbit, of which we spoke yesterday. Just as the ancients tried to unravel the stars and determine from their constellations what they wanted to do here on earth, so man should realize that he must now enter an age that can only bring hardship and misery and misfortune to mankind on earth if they do not decide to read the constellations of the stars of time in the development of humanity. With the achievements of which the materialistic age is so proud, nothing more will be attained in earthly existence in the future than what has already been achieved in this catastrophic time. Humanity must find the courage to make such a vow to its own soul as a sacred Christmas vow: to turn its gaze to the spiritual truths that are emerging in our time. Our time must find the courage to look unflinchingly, undaunted by weakness, into what is. Our humanity must acquire a new sense of truth if it is to follow again in the footsteps of the One Whose birth it celebrates at Christmas, but Who is not understood if His words are not grasped in sufficient depth: “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.”

In such a solemn time, it is not enough merely to desire to give soothing speeches about the festival of peace, as it is most certainly done in these times from many pulpits; in such a solemn time, it is necessary to grasp the thought of how little creativity there actually is in our time. For the great things that seek to enter it can only be served if people develop creativity in their own souls. Consider this: the Mystery of Golgotha has entered the development of humanity at the beginning of our era; but could it not have passed without a trace if the people of that time had not had the creative power in their own souls to grasp it, to conceptualize it, to imagine it, to talk about it at all? Externally, a personality was born in an unknown province of the Roman Empire, of whom the Gospels speak. The people of that time had the creative power to grasp what lived in this personality. That is what it takes when the greatest divine powers unite with human events: that people can muster the will to creative power within themselves. That is why the question should be raised yesterday: In what way was this 19th century, this haughty 19th, 20th century, able to develop creative power to understand what has now been recognized by humanity for centuries as the content of the idea of redemption?

Let us add – we could cite hundreds and thousands of examples – some voices from this nineteenth century, to show how they tried to speak about Jesus Christ. I said I wanted to quote the best, most profound people, to show what was in their souls. It is not so important to me to answer the question: What influence do people have like those whose voices about the Christ Jesus I have quoted to you? – but rather to show how time affects the best. For these are the ideas that dominate the minds of even the most honest. The others talk about Christ Jesus, but without really coming close to the impulse of truth in their own intuitive perception. Let us add something more.

In the 19th century, when people began to develop free-thinking ideas, one of those who tried to absorb these new ideas in a morbidly profound way was Karl Gutzkow. In his book “Wally, the Doubting Thomas,” he included more or less the ideas that occurred to him about Christ Jesus:

An even more characteristic voice, because a voice that has emerged from the science of the soul in our time, is the following. It is a summary of the content of the book “Jesus. A Comparative Psychopathological Study” by Emil Rasmussen, a Danish book. The content can be summarized in the following way:

"Neither the apostles nor the three synoptic gospels regarded Jesus as God. He himself considered himself to be the ‘Son of Man’ (Daniel VII, 13) announced and, without ever claiming to be the Messiah, thought he was fulfilling a part of the prophecies that were particularly important to him. The Nazarene belongs to the category of prophets. The religious heroes or proclaimers, alias prophets, are aberrations from the normal type of the race. For their inner experiences or experiences can only be compared in degree and kind with the paroxysms of the epileptic or hystero-epileptic. The “men of God” present a picture of illness that the psychiatrist can diagnose precisely as epileptic mental illness; the stigmata are: hallucinations or visual illusions, fits of rage, convulsive merriment, absence of mind (absence), stupor, twilight state or dream-like subconscious, speech disorders, delirium, melancholy, sudden changes of mood , exaggerated religiosity, the idea of suffering for others and of having to reform the world, megalomania, obsessive ideas, the delusion of romantic family trees, vagabond-like restlessness, abnormal sex life, whether on the side of debauchery or asceticism. A series of outstanding religious seers, both ancient and modern, such as Ezekiel, Paul, Muhammad, Sören Kierkegaard and so on, can be used to test the example, whereby common characteristics can be identified, such as the terrible terrible threats and curses, the manifold forms and disguises of the sense of cruelty, the paroxysms of rage, the imagined suffering for humanity, asceticism, thoughts of resurrection and much more.

All these symptoms observed in ancient and modern prophets are also displayed by Jesus: He has an unparalleled experience of fear, falls into a rage when exorcising the temple, suffers from hallucinations, reveals an excessive sense of self in his contradictory character and an abnormal life of the senses, indulges in the delusion that he is suffering for humanity and can atone for it, and through his violence, unsteadiness and the increasing narrowing of his mind, which no longer absorbs and processes new ideas, he provides new confirmation of his elective affinity with the prophetic type, which has remained the same at all times and under all skies. His ethics, which are based on hating one's family, living on charity and in the all-blissful faith, have not been accepted by humanity. If one understands genius to mean a creator, then one must also give up this position with regard to Jesus, since, as scientific research has established, he is only an imitator in the content and form of his teaching. His promise, namely his return, which earned him world domination, has failed completely. Jesus was a person worthy of deep sorrow, who, in his tragic, magnificent fate, deserves our heartfelt compassion.

There could be hundreds, thousands of such voices, and the fact that they can be raised in this way is not the essential point. The essential point is something quite different, namely that people who speak in this way are speaking truly and correctly in terms of present-day science, and that from the point of view of present-day science, one cannot speak differently if one is honest and sincere. The question that arises is: Do you have enough courage and willpower to hold up this mirror to science, which only spiritual science can hold up? - Those cowardly compromises, which are made over and over again and again every day a hundredfold between materialistic science and between religious traditions, these are the dishonest ones, these are the sins against what people claim to celebrate in the Christmas mystery and in the Easter mystery. That is what it is about.

There is an either/or in the present: either a commitment to spiritual life or the continuation of the life that led to the events of 1914/17 and so on. Each person must allow what underlies this to arise in their heart as their own realization of Christ, and also allow the will to want, the impulse for the courage not to seek some kind of salvation in partial compromises, but to go straight the way that must be gone: the way that must be shown through the realization of the spiritual life of humanity. Concrete impulses that can be linked to something like the Christmas mystery must be connected with this will.

What has been said about the thirty-three-year cycle of events – just as the realization that under certain conditions oxygen and hydrogen combine and that water cannot be recognized other than through electrolysis , which chemically examines the behavior of oxygen and hydrogen, so should the awareness come that one can only find social laws if one is able to see through such constellations in the course of time. To think into the day, to see only what is immediately around us, that is what humanity has gradually come to regard as salutary in the last four centuries. But to recognize the process of becoming in such a way that one says to oneself: What is happening now will arise again after thirty-three years, it is my responsibility to do the present thing under the responsibility that wells up out of this idea — that is what must be demanded in the future by those who want to intervene in life from any point of view of life.

Our time should completely dispense with the old phrases of Christmas. The Romans, who had the courage to make a god of war - Janus - only close the Temple of Janus when there was peace. It was closed only twice in the time of Numa Pompilius, under whose reign it was completely closed, for the entire 724 years until the time of Emperor Augustus. But the Romans had the courage to distinguish between war and peace in their service for one of the most important gods. One wonders whether today's world would have the same courage to perhaps close the places of peace, the places that were supposed to serve peace when the whole world is engulfed in war? One would only be able to speak of courage if there were so much creativity in the present that one could see a real difference at the places where peace is talked about, if this happens in such times as the present ones.

It is very instructive to look back in the sense of the thirty-three-year cycle: the catastrophic events that we are facing today began in 1914. I have already mentioned some events that are connected with the three- to four-year catastrophic events following the thirty-three-year cycle. Many others could be mentioned. One need only think that thirty-three years before 1914, that is, in 1881, Alexander II came to power in St. Petersburg, the tsar under whom the persecutions began in the Baltic provinces, the tsar who is the incarnation of so much European misfortune. One could also look at more internal events, I do not mean “internal” in a spiritual sense. If you study the role that Gambetta played in 1881 during his two-month presidency at the time, you will find in it the signature of what was preparing at the moment when these catastrophic events broke out and what, as I have said here before, is now in the mood between northern and southern Russia, in the unleashing of the Russian-Ukrainian enmity, a symptom that shines much more meaningfully when one takes the events that are being prepared than all the things that people today, in their complacency, are so willing to accept as important events.

Much more could be said in this way. The question can be raised: How should a person, when he is in an important position, go about arriving at such conclusions that can bear fruit thirty-three years later? He should only try to understand the events of the past thirty-three years under the influence of such an idea, and out of the true understanding will arise what he has to do in the present: then it will be able to arise in a worthy way in thirty-three years. That such a thing is in vain should only be asserted when it has happened. But where has it happened? Where in the exoteric life of today is world evolution considered in accordance with its inner laws? Official representatives of what is often called Christianity today are always objecting, especially in contrast to spiritual science oriented towards anthroposophy, that revelations from the spiritual world were possible in the time of Christ, but that the “fatal Gnosis” must not be allowed to resurface. Such things must not be interpreted with leniency. That these people mean well is something that unfortunately all too often crops up again and again as a fateful saying, even in our circles. It is a matter of really facing up to the truth. And above all we must have the will and the courage to take a stand against everything that is asserted today out of weakness against spiritual science.

There is one characteristic of spiritual science that is particularly not loved. It brings a concrete, real spiritual factual material, and speaks of the spiritual worlds as of real spiritual factual material. How often do we hear the words: Yes, that is difficult to understand, it is hard to find one's way into it. Such talk can still be understood by someone who, under the influence of the present school system, has not been able to learn how to think. However, such talk must be incomprehensible to those who claim to be taken seriously scientifically. Admittedly, something has gradually become scientific that makes the smallest possible demands on human thinking. Today, you can be a graduate with all kinds of diplomas and still be unable to grasp the simplest things with your mind, or tire quickly when you really need to think. People still prefer watered-down talk about all kinds of general spiritual things, pan-idealism and all that stuff. That relieves one of the effort of having to approach concrete spiritual facts. However, spiritual science must make demands on those who come to it. The good will must be there to use a little more of one's spirit than is necessary to further dilute general phrases about Panidealism and the like with one's watered-down heartfelt feelings. It is no longer time to revel in all kinds of “pan” and in all kinds of general, sentimental phrases. Today it is time to seriously face the concrete spiritual facts. Today it is time to muster the will to really think. Therefore, words must be spoken at the beginning of these Christmas celebrations that also sound serious in our time. For we will connect our souls all the more with what has entered into the evolution of the earth as the Christ impulse, the more we have the will to do so in a serious, dignified and urgent way.

For thousands of years, mankind has regarded space as that which is to be worshipped, the content of space, not the space of the earth, the space of heaven. It directed its gaze up to the constellations of the stars, to read in the stars what was to happen here on earth. It knew, this humanity: the dead read and must read in the stars, the dead must participate in earthly events. - So man must also learn to read that writing, which is the writing that the dead must read continuously. What happens here on earth, it was seen in these ancient times before the Mystery of Golgotha, that it was said: Up there, there are the Sun, Moon and Aries; or Sun, Moon and Taurus; or Sun, Moon and Gemini; or Gemini and Venus or the like, in such a constellation. It is a sign that certain impulses are coming in from the cosmos. When these impulses are present, then this or that must be done, because whatever happens here happens in time, and time delivers the Maya, time delivers the course of the great deception. In this sense, this deception only applied until the Mystery of Golgotha. Out of this Maja the Christ Impulse was born, as I explained at the beginning, out of the virgin Maja, that which is no longer fertilized by old atavistic clairvoyance, that which directly confronts the world powers untouched by the earth.

The veneration of that which passes in time, the recognition of that which passes in time, becomes a duty, just as in ancient times it was considered a duty to see the constellations in space. The old magician, whose representative appeared before the babe in the manger, looked up at the gold of the heavens, at the stars, and he said to himself: “As the stars are arranged, so it is written, and therein is to be read what must come to pass here on earth; for what is written in the stars is the result of the past. In the gold of the stars rests what the Ancient of Days, with his hosts, has written throughout the past, that it may come to pass in the present. The present has to carry out what can be seen in the gold of the stars; the present, which passes away at the moment it arises. The present is the continually flaming fire, represented by the incense; the present in the imagination of the incense. And the future rests in the present, fertilized by the past, under the imagination of myrrh.

The secrets of the ancient magicians were how the past, present and future are connected. But in this past, present and future they saw the veil of Maya, the veil of Pallas Athena herself, which only reflected the constellations of the stars. And the three magi who appeared before the manger understood that out of the content of time, out of that which is the mirror image of the constellation of space, out of the Maya of time, a new thing must develop, to which one must add past, present and future: gold, frankincense and myrrh. Insight into the Divine-Spiritual: gold; sacrificial service, human virtue: incense; the connection of the human soul with the Eternal, the immortal: myrrh.

So enormous is the turning point that lies between the time before the Mystery of Golgotha and the time after it, that one can say that the Holiest of Holies, which lay before, descended, united in love with Maja and gave birth to the impulse that will continue to carry the evolution of the earth: the Christ Jesus. To understand Christ Jesus – how the divine-cosmic love conceived Christ in the womb of Maya – means to understand a world-God who abolishes all those differentiations that must necessarily arise from looking up at mere spatial constellations. The star constellation is different for one spot on earth than for another. The old legends also depict how the initiated heroes move around, how the most diverse regions of the earth have the most diverse views of the gods. Thus, what originates in space as worthy of worship passes into time. Then time is the same for all human children of the earth, then a universal God will arise, a God to whom no narrower community has the right to claim him for itself, no human community may say for its interests that it does so in his name, but only the community of all people.

These are the thoughts with which we can turn our soul to grasp the meaning of the saying “Et incarnatus est de spiritu sancto ex Maria virgine”: “And was incarnated by the Holy Spirit out of the Virgin Mary”. “ The voices of those who live in the physical body are joined by the voices of those who, in these times, pass through the gate of death, who know how the constellations of time are connected in the modern sense, just as the constellations of space are connected in the ancient sense.

In addition to the many things that could be said to build a bridge to the souls that live between death and a new birth, this too should be added, for in those thoughts that are linked to the Mystery of Golgotha, the so-called living and the so-called dead understand each other best. For the Christ has truly descended from heaven to earth and must be sought on earth ever since. Here man gets to know his secret in the fleshly body, just as the Christ Himself sought His mission on earth in the fleshly body. The dead person looks down from the spiritual realm on what he has experienced here as the basis for his impulses for the Mystery of Golgotha. Souls who live here on the physical plane and souls who live on the spiritual plane understand each other best in all that is connected with the Mystery of Golgotha. But it is not only what this mystery of Golgotha brings up at every opportunity that is linked to the mystery of Golgotha, but also everything that is researched in the sense of the word: “I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” He, whose birth we celebrate in the splendor of Christmas candles, is truly He who should not reveal Himself only once, and then only to serve as a convenient basis for those who do not want to learn anything new and rejects everything new, but He who may be celebrated alone under the glow of the Christmas candles, is He who wanted to reveal Himself to people in the entire time that follows the Mystery of Golgotha.

If, in this time, enough people make the decision to understand Christ Jesus under the signs that appear so meaningfully on the spiritual horizon today, then this is a Christmas thought, a thought that consecrates the night and will resurrect in a good way after thirty-three years, that will live as the power of humanity in the time from today until his resurrection. Let us take strong, courageous, and wisdom-filled Christmas thoughts and imbue ourselves with them for this Christmas, then we will live through it in a dignified way.

That is what I would like to convey to your souls as a Christmas greeting today. And I know that this Christmas greeting is in line with the impulse that one may truly and worthily celebrate only under the sign of the Christmas lights.

Today I would like to approach the subject from a different angle and consider the connections that exist between the human being as a microcosmic entity and the whole macrocosm of the world, of which the human being is a part, a member, an organ, as it were. These things can be considered from the most diverse points of view, and in doing so, the most diverse relationships will come to light, which sometimes seem to contradict each other; but the contradictions consist in the fact that the matter must always be viewed from different sides.

From certain considerations that we have been making in these days, you have seen that actually man, as he relates to the world around him, mixes something of himself into his view of the world, that he actually does not take the world of sense as it is; that, as I have tried to express it drastically, he mixes into his view of the world something that rises from within, that is formed from within and that is actually a kind of transformation of the sense of smell. It is what man combines about the world in the most diverse ways, what comes out when he applies his ordinary acumen, as it is called, which comes to him through his body; one could also call it a sense of intuition. What else would be given to man if he could easily make the attempt at all - he can't even do it easily, because he can't easily switch off his intuition - if man would simply take the sensory world as it presents itself to him, without his mind, his combining mind immediately interfering in all sorts of ways.

This touches on a subject that may perhaps present some difficulties for understanding. But you can get an idea of what is actually meant if you consider how nature, the essence of a sense, comes to you. It is the same with the other senses, but the matter does not become apparent with the same clarity to the external observer, not as clearly as when you consider what is actually meant here for the sense of sight, for the eye. Consider that this eye as a physical apparatus is actually located as a fairly independent organ in the human skull and is actually only extended backwards into the human body by the appendages, the appendages of the blood vessels, the appendages of the nerves. One can say: this is the human eye, here is the extension (see drawing); but as an eye it lies here in the bony skull cavity with a great deal of independence, insofar as it is a physical apparatus. Here the lens, the incidence of the light rays, the vitreous body, so everything that is a physical apparatus is actually very independent. Only through the optic nerve, the choroid, which extends into the body, does the eye itself extend into the body, so that one can say that this eye, as a physical apparatus, insofar as it perceives the external sensory world in its visibility, is an independent organism, at least to a certain extent.

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It is actually the same for every sense, it is just not so obvious for the other senses. Each sense as a sense is basically something independent, so that one can already speak of a sensory zone. It is actually surprising that the study of the senses is not enough to drive the scholars concerned to some spirituality. Because it is precisely this independence of the senses that could drive the scholars to some spirituality. Why? You see, what is experienced through the optic nerve, through the choroid, that would – and this could easily be proven with ordinary science – that would not be enough to make a person aware of what he experiences in his senses. The remarkable thing about the senses is that the etheric body projects into this purely physical apparatus, and it is a purely physical apparatus. In all our senses we are dealing with something that is outside the organism and is only experienced by the etheric body. You would not be able to unite what is caused in your eye by the incidence of light with your consciousness if you did not permeate the sense of the eye, and thus the other senses too, with your etheric body.

A ray of light falls into the eye. This ray of light has exactly the same physical effect in the eye as the ray of light in a camera obscura, in a photographic apparatus. And you only become aware of what is happening in this natural camera of the eye because your etheric body lines the eye and captures what is not captured in the mere physical apparatus by an etheric body. In the mere physical apparatus, in the mere photographic apparatus, only the physical process takes place; so that man, in the totality of his senses, really has a kind of continuation of the external world. As physical apparatus, the receiving senses, at least the majority of the receiving senses, belong more to the external world than to man. Your eye belongs much more to the external world than to your own body.

In animals, the eye belongs much more to the body than it does to humans. The fact that humans, as sensory beings, have senses that are less connected to the body than the senses of animals, makes them superior to animals. In certain lower animals, this can be demonstrated anatomically. There are all kinds of organic extensions; for example, the fan is inside in lower animals. These are very complicated formations, partly of the nerve, partly of the blood corpuscles, which the lower animals have more completely than the higher animals and especially than man.

The fact that in man the physical body takes so little part in his senses and leaves the part very much to the etheric body, that is what makes man a relatively so perfect being. So that we can say: Man is, first of all, this inner bodily man, considered physically, and the senses are inserted everywhere in him, but they are actually - as I once said in a public lecture in Zurich - like gulfs that extend into the outside world. It would be much more correct to draw it schematically like this. Instead of drawing: there is a sense, and there is a sense, and there is a sense (see drawing), it would be much more correct to draw it like this: there is the human body, and that is where the human world is built, for example the eye or the organ of smell, their continuation into the outside world, and their gulfs through the sense organs. The outer world intrudes through the senses, the eye and so on, and from the inside we only encounter it with the etheric body and permeate what the outer world sends in with our etheric body. It thereby takes part in the outer world. As a result, we are dependent on our etheric body to somehow grasp what the outer world sends in.

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The fact that what I have just said is not known has meant that for more than a hundred years philosophy has been talking about nothing more fantastic than the way in which man perceives the outside world through his senses. You can get an overview of all this basically fantastic stuff by reading the chapter “The World as Illusion” in my “Riddles of Philosophy”. Because of the belief that the senses can only be understood from the inside out, from the body out, people do not understand how man can actually know something about the world through his senses. They always talk about it in this way: the world makes an impression on the senses, but then what is caused in the senses must be grasped by the soul. The truth is that the external world itself builds into us, that we therefore grasp the external world at the tip, with our etheric body grasp the external world at the tip, when we perceive the external world as human beings with our senses. Everything that Locke, Hume, Kant, the neo-Kantian philosophers of the 19th century, Schopenhauer, Helmholtz, Wundt and all the rest, everything that people have said about sensory perception, has been said to the exclusion of knowledge of the true conditions. As I said, you can read about it in the chapter 'The World as Illusion' in my book 'Riddles of Philosophy'. There you will see, in philosophical terms, the calamity that has been caused by the fact that, with the exclusion of spiritual knowledge of the matter, a giant cabbage as sense physiology actually took hold in the 19th century.

Now it is important to really understand what I just said. If you want to check to some extent the truth of what I just called a giant cabbage, it is interesting that in a certain sense what Locke, Hume, Kant, Helmholtz, Wundt and so on said about the senses is true; but curiously enough it is true for animals. Nineteenth-century man, in his quest to understand the human being through science, cannot go beyond understanding the conditions in the animal world. It is no wonder that he also stops at the animal world when it comes to the origin of man! But this is connected to much more complicated conditions. For, as I said, the etheric body touches what is called the external world of the senses at one corner. But what is the ether body in the last analysis? The ether body is ultimately that which the human being now receives from the cosmos, from the macrocosm. So that, by cutting off its ether body from the macrocosmic relationship, the macrocosm takes hold of itself in the human being through the senses. We can feel ourselves as a son of the macrocosm, in that we are an etheric body, and grasp the earthly sense world with our macrocosmic part.

The fact that this only became the case relatively late can, in turn, be proven with external science, I would like to say, with pinpoint accuracy, only that this external science cannot see the real conditions if it is not oriented by spiritual science. I have already pointed out that the Greek language does not actually have the expression that we have when we say: I see a man coming to meet us. We say: I see a man coming. The corresponding Greek expression would be: I see a coming man. In the Greco-Latin era there was still a much stronger sense that one is actually doing something when one sees or hears something, that one is grasping something with one's etheric body when one is in the sensory world. This active element is lacking in the drowsy humanity of modern times. This drowsy humanity of modern times would actually prefer to sleep through world events altogether, that is, to let them approach it as dreams. It does not want to develop the consciousness to participate when sensory perceptions occur. That is why it is so difficult to understand the Greek way of thinking today, because the Greeks had a much more active concept of the human being. They felt much more active even in what we today call the passivity of sensory perception. The Greeks would not have invented the incomplete, one-sided theory that man sleeps because he is tired; but they knew that man becomes tired when he wants to sleep, that sleeping is brought about by essentially different impulses, and that tiredness then arises from the impulse to want to sleep.

But it is not only this theory of sleep that was actually invented out of the laziness of modern man. Modern man wants to be as passive as possible, to be an active being as little as possible. He can do that, and in a sense, modern man has trained himself to be a passive being. And it is with this passivity that I presented yesterday, perhaps somewhat abruptly, the superstition, the idolatry of modern times.

So the outermost post of the external world enters into us, I would say, the outermost post of this external world. Let us draw this again schematically. Let us assume that we draw the human body here (see drawing), the outermost post of the external world enters into our body; we reach over it with our etheric body (red and blue).

You know that we actually have twelve senses; these twelve senses are therefore twelve different ways in which the external world penetrates into our body. What is it that actually penetrates into our body? That is the big question. What actually penetrates into our body?

We actually see only one side of what is penetrating; without clairvoyance we cannot turn around and look at it from the other side. With his etheric body, the human being receives the incoming ray of light or the incoming sound vibration. But it does not run from the outside into the ear according to the tone; it does not run from the outside into the eye according to the light ray. If it did, the human being would run with the sound wave, with the light beam, with the heat evolution from the outside into his sensory apparatus, as far as the senses extend from the outside. And this area is the realm of the exusiai, the spirits of form.

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So if you could turn around so that you could follow what is entering here through the senses (arrows), you would be in the realm of the exusiai, the spirits of form. You can see how the beings of the world are intimately intertwined. We walk through the world as human beings, opening our senses and actually carrying the exusiai, the spirits of form, within us, which reveal themselves to us as we open our senses to the external world. This world of exusiai, the spiritual world, is thus hidden behind the veil of the sensory world. But this world of the Exusiai, which is hidden behind the veil of the sensory world, the world that reveals itself in man, also has a universal cosmic side, because it permeates the cosmos. That which enters our senses vibrates and undulates throughout the cosmos. So that we can say, this area that projects into our senses is not only there in the senses, but also has its manifestation out in the world. What is it there? There are the planets that belong to our solar system.

Truly, the connection of the planets of our solar system forms a body that belongs to a spiritual being, and this spiritual being includes the exusiai, which are manifested in the revelations of our senses and which have their objective side out in the universe, in the planets. And embedded in all that is, embedded in this whole stream of exusiai activity, are other beings. They lie behind these Exusiai. I would like to say that other beings do not penetrate as far as the Exusiai do. They are out there in the same area, but they do not come close to us (see drawing): these are the beings of the hierarchy of the Archai, the Archangeloi, the Angeloi.

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They are all already present in that which is revealed in our senses, but man cannot take this up into his consciousness. It has an effect on him, but he cannot take it up into his consciousness. So you can say: Through our senses we encounter a world - the realm of the exusiai with the planetary system (red, blue, orange, see drawing on p. 97), and embedded in this whole realm is also the hierarchy of the archai, the archangeloi, the angeloi. These are, so to speak, the ministers of the exusiai. But the human being perceives only the outer appearance of all this; he perceives only the sensory tapestry spread out before him.

This is how it is with what is outside of us. It is different again with what is inside us, now also physically inside us. After hearing what is adjacent to our senses, you can go and ask: What is located directly behind our senses inwards? — We have seen: the eye continues inwards in the optic nerve. All the senses continue inward in their corresponding nerve. When the senses continue inward in this way, you get a wonderful structure from the twelve senses inward. It is very complicated. You could simplify it by saying: twelve strands to the inside, twelve sensory spheres; so on the outside the sensory zone, connected to it what the senses now send inward.

This is a very complicated structure. How does it come about when we look at the human being as a macrocosmic being? That which lies behind the senses inwards comes from the Dynamis, from the Spirits of Movement. So that, going further inwards, the deeds of the Dynamis, the Spirits of Movement, join the senses here (see drawing on p. 97). You could not think if the spirits of movement did not work on the thinking apparatus, which is the continuation of the sense apparatus. If you look outward, you see the Exusiai making the natural order. You see these Exusiai approaching people with their servants, the Archai, the Archangeloi, the Angeloi. But when you think of your inner being, you must remember that you owe this inner being to the spirits of the movement, who prepare the thinking apparatus for you as a continuation of your sense apparatus inwards; not the combining apparatus, which is a mere transformation of the sense of smell, but the thinking apparatus, which man does not use at all in ordinary physical life. For man uses the sense of smell, the sense of smell merely transformed. He has already ceased to use the sense sphere; he would think quite differently if he could really use the twelve inward continuations of the sense sphere.

In the brain, for example, the visual sphere lies behind the frontal lobe, which is essentially a reworked organ of smell. Man hardly uses it, he only thinks habitually through the olfactory sphere. He uses it in a reworked form by combining. If he were to use it directly, he would switch off his forebrain, this forebrain that is only prepared for the external sensory world, and think with the direct, with the four-hill section, with the visual section, where it enters the brain. Then he would have imaginations.

It is the same with the other senses. Man also has imaginations in the physical world, because one world always extends into the other. But man does not recognize these imaginations in the physical world as real imaginations: they are in fact olfactory imaginations. What a person smells is actually the only imaginative realm in the ordinary sensory life. But a much nobler imaginative realm could, for example, come from the sphere of vision and from other sensory spheres.

Looking inwards, we find the Spirits of Movement. And going further inwards, we come to the regions which do not dominate thinking but feeling, the organs of feeling, which are mostly glandular organs in reality. These organs are the deeds of the Spirits that we call the Kyriotetes, the Spirits of Wisdom. We are sentient beings because the Spirits of Wisdom work in us. We are volitional beings because the Spirits of Will, the Thrones, work in us. Located even further inward, the Thrones, the Spirits of Will, work on the organs of our will (see diagram on p. 97).

Just as the exusiai, the spirits of form, have their macrocosmic body in the planets, which, as it were, present the outer visible side to us for ordinary consciousness, so the spirits of movement have their outer side, strangely enough, but it is so, in the fixed stars. Only the dead person between death and a new birth can see their inner side; this is the spiritual side, seen from the other side. In contrast, the Spirits of Wisdom and the Thrones no longer have external visibility at all; they are spiritual in nature. It can be said that they lie behind the planets and behind the fixed stars. And as the deceased looks down on what affects the person in human feeling and human will, the deceased constantly looks at the Kyriotetes, at the Thrones. What I have told you, that the dead person has a connection with the people with whom he is karmically connected, is conveyed to him by the Kyriotetes and by the thrones. The dead person looks into the sphere that invisibly works outside in the objective world and actually only becomes visible in its creature, in human feeling and in human will. What people feel and will here shines up to the dead, and the dead says: In the body of Dynamis, in the body of Kyriotetes, in the body of the thrones, the thinking, feeling and willing of people shines. Just as we look up at the stars, the dead look down into the earthly sphere, into the human sphere. Only, we look at the mineral aspect of the stars, the external physical; the dead do not see the external physical of the glands, the organs of movement, and thus also of the blood, but instead see the spiritual side, the Kyriotetes, the thrones. Just as we look up at the sky, seeing its visible meaning from the outside, the dead person looks down to see the firmament of humanity. The spiritual of this firmament appears to him. That is the dead person's secret.

You see what reciprocity reigns in the universe. When you recognize this reciprocity, the human being takes on a strange countenance! Strangely enough, it takes on the countenance that you say to yourself: We look up at the stars, seek the spirits of form in their exterior in the planets, the spirits of movement in the fixed stars; then that in the distant perspectives fades into the spirit. From this sphere the dead person looks down, looks at that which the human being dreamily oversleeps here. But in that he sees his beyond; there the spirit stars shine up into his world. And the human being is embedded in this being.

What is said in the first scenes of the mystery “The Testing of the Soul” is given a peculiar illumination. Read these first scenes of 'The Test of the Soul', the words of Capesius, and you will see that from the ethical point of view everything is said there that is now being said, so to speak, from the point of view of celestial knowledge. The way in which this celestial knowledge can work in the consciousness of man is pointed out in the first scenes of 'The Test of the Soul'.

And then come the higher worlds, if one wants to apply the word 'higher', that which lies beyond the human being and this universe. I will try to present this schematically, but I must appeal to your goodwill to understand. We can say that if there is a kind of boundary here (see also the drawing on p. 97, yellow), the world of the planets, the world of the fixed stars, loses itself here into the spiritual – and from the other side it comes again. So that here we have the sphere of human will, the sphere of feeling, there the Spirits of Wisdom appear. There we have this order.

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But now you can think of an order that is common to both, where man and the universe are included, where we are embedded in such a way that on the one hand we, who shine up to the dead, and on the other hand the starry sky, which shines down to us, are embedded in it. Then we come to the hierarchies, which, if you want to use the word, are higher than the thrones: to the cherubim and seraphim. You can imagine that from this point of view, which has now been mentioned, one cannot speak of the physical exteriors of the cherubim and seraphim, because they are of course even higher spirits; but they are already so spiritual — here I really must appeal to your very good will to understand — they are already so spiritual, these cherubim and seraphim, that their effect comes from another, quite unknown side.

Is it not true that the exusiai, the spirits of form, can be perceived directly by the senses in the planets; that is simply the side they turn towards us. The spirits of movement are directly perceptible in the fixed stars; that is the side they turn towards us. But the cherubim and seraphim are not perceptible to the senses in such a way that they turn their other side towards us, so to speak. But they are so imperceptible that the imperceptibility itself becomes perceptible. So that which lives in the world through cherubim and seraphim is so imperceptible that imperceptibility itself is perceived. It withdraws so strongly from human consciousness that man notices this withdrawal from consciousness.

Thus we can say: the cherubim do in fact reappear, even if this is manifested in such a way that they are so deeply hidden that one perceives their hiddenness. The cherubim appear not only symbolically, but quite objectively in what takes place in the thundercloud, in what takes place when a planet is ruled by volcanic forces. And the seraphim truly appear in what flashes as lightning from the cloud, or in what manifests as fire in the volcanic eruptions, in such a way that their very imperceptibility in these gigantic effects of nature becomes perceptible.

Therefore, in ancient times, when people saw through such things, they looked up at the starry sky, which revealed the most diverse things to them: the secrets of the Exusiai, the secrets of Dynamis. Then they tried to reveal the higher secrets in what man today ridicules: from the interior of the human body - as one says trivially - from the bowels. But then they were aware that the greatest effects, which are really common to the solar system, announce themselves from a completely opposite side in the effects of fire and thunderstorms, in earthquakes and volcanic effects. The most creative aspect of the seraphim and cherubim is announced through its most destructive side, curiously enough. It is precisely the other side, it is the absolute negative, but the spiritual is so spiritually strong that even its imperceptibility, its non-existence, is perceived by the senses.

There you have placed man back into the macrocosm. And at the same time you can see that in this whole macrocosm there is something that begins with the cherubim and goes up to themselves, and that only, I would say, reflects, shadows itself in the gigantic effects that we have just mentioned. This gives you the perspective of a natural science that is at the same time a spiritual science; it gives you the perspective of a science that really sees the whole universe as spirit, that is not content with a vague pantheism and other “pantheisms”, but that really goes into what lies at the basis of the universe as spiritual.

These things will also make it clear to you that man must have a dual nature in a certain respect. Let us take man as he lives from waking to sleeping; he lives in his senses, in the sensual environment, if one perceives the outside as I have indicated. But the other part of a person lives between falling asleep and waking up. It is only so imperfect in the present human cycle that a person is not aware of what he experiences during sleep. But during sleep, a person experiences his being with the cosmos, with the extraterrestrial cosmos, just as he experiences his coexistence with the earthly cosmos with his senses while awake. The only difference is that he is unaware of the other coexistence, the coexistence with the extraterrestrial cosmos. The moment you fall asleep, you join in the movements of the cosmos spiritually, you enter into a completely different sphere. You make yourself ready when you wake up; you make yourself flexible in relation to the cosmos by falling asleep. You live the life of the cosmos by falling asleep; you tear yourself out of the cosmos by waking up. So that you can say: Man can recognize in his own nature, in his own being, a part that swims in the cosmos, that lives in the cosmos. If the ancient astrologer, in the sense in which it was meant in the last reflections, explored the cosmos with its secrets, he explored that in which man swims with that part of his being that sleeps. Man swims with that which the astrologer tries to explore, the real astrologer, not the merely calculating, mathematical one of modern times.

In the moment when the human being sees what he experiences with the part of his being that sleeps, in that moment he stands before what, roughly until the 15th century, was actually called nature. What the human being experiences there was called nature. The Greeks called the same thing that was called nature in the Middle Ages, Proserpina, Persephone. Of course, the mysteries of Persephone were described differently in Greece and in the Middle Ages. But you can see that the Middle Ages knew these things when you read descriptions of nature and its secrets as found in the works of Bernardus Silvestris. In the work 'De mundi universitate' by Bernardus Silvestris, the description begins of the experiences that man has when he awakens to the part that participates in the cosmos, which is otherwise overslept.

These things are particularly well described by Alanus ab Insulis, from the area we have mentioned several times; for in Alanus ab Insulis's 'Island', he means Ireland, Hybernia. In his work 'De planctu naturae' and in his 'Anticlaudianus', you will find parallels to the Proserpina myth and what he has to say about nature. And you will find that everything is resurrected in the great teacher of Dante, whom I once mentioned here, in Brunetto Latini. You will find the teachings of Brunetto Latini incorporated into Dante's own ideas. Read the parts of the Divine Comedy in which Dante describes the Matelda, the part that really resembles the Proserpina myth like two peas in a pod, which even the outer science has already noticed. You will acquire an awareness of it – from Bernardus Silvestris, Alanus ab Insulis, from Brunetto Latini and from Dante, you can acquire an awareness, from many others as well - as until the times when the new era dawned, people had an awareness of that other world of the coexistence of man as a microcosm with the macrocosm.

On the one hand, there was nature, the human being's experience of the cosmos, which the Middle Ages called Natura and which antiquity called Proserpina. This was personified and distinguished from Urania, who rules over the celestial sphere just as nature rules over what the human being experiences from falling asleep to waking up. And these medieval people believed they saw a deep secret when they spoke of the marriage of nature in man with the nus, with the mind, with the intellect in man. And in a right and wrong way, these people tried to experience in man the marriage of nature with the Nus, with the mind or intellect, as a mystical wedding, which was contrasted with the alchemical wedding, as I described in the essay that is the first about Christian Rosenkreutz.

These are things that are not so infinitely far behind us. And Dante's haunting work - which on the one hand describes the world and man, the human secrets, with as much sublimity as humor - is like the work that wanted to preserve what has been known for centuries and millennia about man's connection to the macrocosm. In Brunetto Latini we find the same thing that Dante describes in his own poetic way, from the point of view of initiation, also linked to an external event.

The consciousness of the connection between man and these spiritual secrets had to be hidden for a time, so to speak, so that what man can experience when it is separated out from the universe and, as it were, dependent on itself, could be kindled in man. We are now living in the age in which, on the one hand, man is exposed to the radiations that permeate him from Pisces, but on the other hand, he is exposed to the radiations of the differently acting, opposite constellation of Virgo. But this age must find the way out of spiritual infertility. Of course, we can no longer simply take over what humanity once knew, because that knowledge was in a form that was useful for ancient humanity. Dante's “Divine Comedy” is, although a great revelation, more a testament of a bygone era. A new era needs the revelations of the spiritual cosmos from a different source.

But one thing is possible. When one considers that, I might say, people knew spiritual secrets until a few centuries ago, this has such an effect on the human mind that it can inspire him to seek the way to these secrets in a new way. Therefore, we can also draw impulses from historical observation; only we must take this historical observation in such a way that we go back to what is really historical. Consider what all the external events related in history are worth – in this history, with which, lamentably, our schoolchildren up to the oldest are pampered – what these stories, which are recorded as history, are worth compared to the facts that people like Bernardus Silvestris, Alanus ab Insulis, Brunetto Latini, Dante and so on, Pico de Mirandola, Fludd , and even Jakob Böhme, Paracelsus, if we take a certain sphere of wisdom, and right up to the 18th century we could cite the disciple of Jakob Böhme, Saint-Martin — what are the usual events recorded in history compared to the facts that there were people who carried such cosmic knowledge within them and worked with such cosmic knowledge! Yes, the present is often proud of what it has achieved. This present-day intelligentsia – I mentioned it in connection with the Christmas plays today – has always been quite dismissive of the spiritual content; even when this intelligentsia, as in Oberufer, where the Christmas plays were performed until the middle of the 19th century, consisted of a single personality, the schoolmaster, who was also the village notary, and thus the legal personality and at the same time the mayor. He was the intellectual, he was the only enemy of all the Christmas plays. In his opinion, they were stupid, foolish. Schröer still experienced this, that the intelligentsia of Oberufer was hostile to what was in the Christmas plays. It is very often the intelligentsia that is hostile to what is actually fruitful in human evolution.

It is a matter of encouraging that which may be called the enthusiasm of history by looking at real history, by really immersing oneself in what history is. The spiritual part of the event also belongs to history, and it proceeds differently than the external physical-material part.

Especially in the harsh present, we must try again and again to stimulate the spiritual impulses by making ourselves aware of how spirit has ruled in the historical development of humanity. Whether you can count the details on the fingers of one hand: That is how the Dynamis work, that is how the Exusiai work — that is much less important than awakening this overall consciousness, how it wants to bring the individual human being together with the spirit of humanity. For in the awakening of this consciousness lies that which is to bring salvation into the evolution of mankind. Sometimes it is good to realize how far removed what passes as world opinion today is from what moves human souls, or at least seems to move them. As a result, there is often no sense of the weight of the individual facts. The spirit weighs the facts correctly.

More important than many other things for the assessment of the present – just think about it with the help of what you have heard here – more important than many other things is the news that came in the last few days that the American state administration has taken the railways into self-government. For this is one of a number of symptoms that clearly point to things that are being prepared in order to divert humanity as far as possible from the path along which it can only be preserved if it becomes fully aware that without spirit reality can only be a dying reality. One can indeed choose to die; then life must flee from the areas for which one chooses to die to other areas. The field of truth already carries the victory. But one looks at a field where, so to speak, those who look deeper into the world are also confronted with such powers of a left and a right, as Dante at the starting point of his description of his “Divine Comedy”, or as Brunetto Latini at the beginning of his initiation.

Oh, it would be so necessary for the world to grasp thoughts of spirituality in the broadest sense! Instead of this, it is true, we are only faced with the necessity of having to emphasize again and again that we must look towards the spirit. Again and again we are faced with the longing to be able to emphasize the seriousness of the matter sufficiently. People do not want to see where germs are, but they want to be passive, to let things happen to them if possible, to sleep through the course of the world if possible. If many people did not sleep as they do in the present, oversleeping events, then one would see that behind what is now buzzing through the world in such an untrue way, there is a strange tendency. It may well be said, since Woodrow Wilson, the universal idol of modern times, of the present time, of the present, has boasted of such things himself, that four-fifths of humanity is facing one-fifth. This idol of modern humanity, who has been raised to the altar much more than one might think, has indeed boasted of this himself.

It will have to be said that it would be a shame if humanity were to oversleep what lies in such an ideal as the ideal of this idol, whose slogans, even those that are not copied from the brave Don Pedro of 1864 like its last manifestation, but rather grew in its own hollow—pardon me, I mean head—go back to what is actually inherent in it as a tendency. What is it then? The aim is to be able to say one day on earth: centuries ago there was a legendary humanity in the middle of Europe; they managed to wipe it out. They had to be wiped out because they were terribly proud. They descended from the gods and even called the main poet Goethe to suggest that they had received a spirit directly from the gods. Although we shall not express ourselves in such spiritual terms, the germ or tendency of Wilsonianism will be recognizable in this. It will only be a matter of whether this can be the path of humanity, whether this can be the future path of the earth, or whether we should not rather reflect on how the earth can be saved from the so-called ideals of Wilsonianism and similar things. One need not fall into nationalism or anti-nationalism with such things. The phrases of nations and the freedom of nations can also be left to Wilsonianism in modern times. But one cannot point out seriously enough what is actually behind the idol that is meant.

I know that present-day humanity will not give much credence to such things, but I also know that in the future many a voice will be raised in agreement with what has been said here. May the voices of the future always be added to those of the past: Humanity allowed itself to be led in all sorts of ways by a strange idol; thank the world spirits that the goals of this strange leader of humanity were not fulfilled, who, after all, also to the world by theoretically proclaiming, in grand words, the republic as the only true form of government and by copying out his own republican manifestos from the Brazilian emperor of 1864. The fact that one is actually standing here before a grotesque phenomenon is something that can be said within closed walls. Outside, truth is not the highest value, but is weighed on the political scales. One must not say what is true or not true, but what is prescribed. Until March 15, one was not allowed to say anything against tsarism in the various countries; since March 15, one is of course allowed to say anything against it.

Unfortunately, truth is not the highest standard. But to speak out against it is the only way to touch the conditions that are necessary to write into the soul today. It makes sense to add to the great views into the cosmos the small thoughts that passive, sleepy humanity has today, but which unfortunately have great effects on deeds. For humanity must awaken, and the spirit must be the awakener.

When we gathered here a year ago, we were still, so to speak, occupied with the thoughts that arose from the intention at that time to gain some insight into the foundations, into the underlying forces of the current catastrophic events. Some time ago, several of our friends expressed the wish that more should be said than had been said so far about the specific, deeper forces that have contributed to these catastrophic events. And we occupied ourselves at the time with the intentions, with the aspirations of certain circles, which seek to introduce their intentions, one might say, in a hidden way into the world, and which proceed from certain goals which, as we have seen, are by no means generally human goals, but are the group-egoistic goals of certain narrower circles, which, however, know how to calculate - in the sense that one has to calculate in the world if one wants to carry out certain things - which know how to calculate with large time periods.

We have been able to refer back to aspirations that are to be pursued, they are to be pursued even further back, but for the time being they are to be pursued in continuous progression until the 1880s, aspirations that have reckoned with the trends and forces asserting themselves in the present cultural world. And perhaps from these considerations we have been able to gain some understanding of the course of events, some understanding that is independent of what dominates the whole world today, independent of the national and other group-egoistic aspirations that lead to such sad consequences. We may have been able to gain a view that is independent of the narrow perspectives that dominate almost all people today, and we may have been able to form, albeit less frequently expressed, certain inner views of what is necessary for the salvation of humanity in the present time.

And it is from what is necessary in the present time that the other endeavors have also emerged, which are currently being tried to be asserted on the basis of our anthroposophically oriented spiritual science. In the last year in particular, my public lectures, as friends may have noticed, had a certain basic character. They had the basic character of drawing attention to certain important hidden sides of human nature. Everywhere I was able to lecture this year, I endeavored to awaken a deeper understanding of the human being from this point of view, insofar as the human being is part of the overall human process of the world order. We need only look back at the public lectures that have been held here in Switzerland over the past few months. The aim everywhere, including the more detailed observations that I was able to make in Zurich, was to show how the human being, as a human personality, as a human individual, carries within himself the forces that actually belong to different states of consciousness. How he not only carries within himself forces that belong to his waking consciousness, but also other forces that remain in the subconscious, but which are by no means meaningless, but play their role in the historical development of humanity, which play their role in social and ethical life. Through such endeavors, the idea should be awakened of how necessary it is in the present to strive for a deeper understanding of human nature. In these lectures, even in the public lectures, the connection between the so-called dead and the living was deliberately mentioned. Although such references must still be subtle in public lectures, they have been tried in a more insistent way, especially in recent times.

The underlying tone of these lectures was intended to be one that arises from the, I believe justified, insight that salvation in the development of humanity can only come about in the present if humanity truly takes up certain spiritual-scientific impulses. And in the public lectures, an attempt was made to build a bridge between what humanity now chooses to believe and what leads to deeper truths. The attempt was made to build this bridge in such a way that it can be seen that a way can be found, if good will is applied, from what the individual scientists do not push towards, but what contemporary science as such does. It was attempted to show that actually the scientists of the present time are in discord with the results of their science, that science itself opens up the direct perspective into spiritual-scientific truths. And in particular, it was attempted to show how these spiritual-scientific truths have their significant consequences for practical human life, for all the various branches of this practical human life. The tone of these reflections, including the public ones, was such that, if there was good will for understanding, at least such an understanding could be achieved that one could say: something must happen in terms of human understanding of the world; there must be a kind of reversal of certain directions that have been taken, there must be good will.

It has been shown that suggestions have fallen on fertile ground here and there. But today there is still a formidable obstacle in the way of adopting a new direction. And this obstacle comes in particular from the human desire for mental comfort, which is so decisive today, from the self-chosen difficulty that many people find in getting away from old thoughts, in really activating their thinking, to banish certain ingrained prejudices from their souls and to take in certain new concepts that are necessary for the further course of human development, certain concepts, certain ideas, above all, ideas that engage with reality. The tone was set in the reflections of this year in such a way that this necessary turning to reality, to reality steeped in truth, was emphasized and particularly highlighted.

One might have thought that outside our circles there would be a larger number of people here and there who, inspired by such reflections, would have come to the question: Which paths should one take in this or that field? - that people would have emerged who feel that contemporary thinking has lost touch with true reality.

Admittedly, not much of this has been shown. The thinking, the feeling, the perception of people today is casual, comfortable, lethargic, and also haughty, and self-satisfied with what has been handed down. This can be seen from the fact that few people ask themselves: What can be learned from the events of recent years? How many, many people today still take it for granted that they are building on the same principles, which they call ideals, whose collapse they could clearly see through these catastrophic events. Even today, theories and views are still being expounded that could be known to have been shipwrecked by the events of recent years. Currents continue under the same principles under which they used to work, even though one could see that these currents, in their principles, are far removed from the forces that rule reality and that destroy reality if man does not prepare to include the nature and workings of these forces in his imagination, in his view.

Such things are not said for the sake of criticizing. Nor are they said for the sake of creating pessimism, but they are said because it cannot be emphasized often enough that the most necessary thing in the present is an understanding of true reality, a departure from the straw-like, insubstantial abstractions that have plunged the world into misfortune! Such straw-like, insubstantial abstractions dominate the world today. And it is urgently necessary for the human soul to turn to this direction.

For example, some people today take it for granted when clever people repeatedly declare that it is not people who matter, but rather the ideas that are spread in the world. Such a statement is therefore dangerous because it is a strong temptation. In the real world, everything depends on people, and the best principles and ideas can have no significance if they are represented by people who do not have the strength within themselves to realize what, according to the nature of time, must be realized, who do not have the strength within themselves to find their way to reality with their own hearts and minds. Remoteness from reality is the word that can be used for almost everything that is often proclaimed with grandiose words as an ideal in the world. And a dawn, as humanity must experience it, can only come when, time and again, New Year's reflections come that, on the one hand, reject the impulse of alienation from reality and, on the other hand, attempt to unite man in his soul with reality.

It is almost a truism to say, and yet necessary in the present situation: humanity has come under the influence of insubstantial word sounds, under the influence of insubstantial phrases of principle. People are not very inclined to look into where this or that comes from when they hear it, and so they come into tremendous discord with what is real and essential. For the world is not governed in the right way by the words that are spoken, if these words are not spoken from the heart of reality, if these words are only borrowed from the treasury of words and ideas that now flows on the surface of human existence, the content of which can be repeated without being understood. If one disregards the things that unfortunately have this character and are corrupting the world today, and focuses on something that may be insignificant in the face of great world events but is nonetheless characteristic because it is repeated in great world events, if one wishes to draw attention to something, one can say: It is quite natural in the present cycle of humanity that numerous people make good poems, because such good poems simply arise from the impulses rooted in the languages and the social circumstances of people. One need only, so to speak, put together what is already there, and good things will come out in the old sense. This is the case in the other arts and in the other areas of life.

Today, however, it is much more necessary to be able to pay attention to what may emerge as something new, perhaps in a stammering and imperfect way, than to be able to keep an eye out for what is pleasing and beautiful. That which carries future possibilities within it may emerge in a rather imperfect way; but the important thing would be to discover in this imperfection the impulsive germ for the future. If efforts were made in this direction, we would try to make it a general principle, as we have done in particular in the construction of this building here at Dornach: to break with the old, even at the risk of being quite imperfect in the new. If that were to become a general method, then some good would come to humanity from such a thing.

Above all, it is necessary to break away from the fixed, because the fixed is dying. There is something dying and something coming to life in the historical life of humanity. And it was not without reason that I said in those days: There is something dangerous even in the use of words themselves. One need not go as far as Fritz Mauthner, who in his “Criticism of Language,” in his “Philosophical Dictionary,” enumerates countless sins that people commit by pursuing the cult of the word everywhere. Certainly, Fritz Mauthner carries a correct thought to the point of absurdity when, for example, he asserts that Christianity in Europe is actually essentially a collection of twenty to thirty loan words, that is, it has developed in such a way that people have fallen in love with twenty to thirty words, to which they cling and consider them realities. Of course, we need not go that far. Nor can we entirely agree with Fritz Mauthner when he actually sees the most essential thing in the bringing about of these catastrophic events as being that people have practised idolatry with words, although it is absolutely true that idolatry with words has been practised.

This is something that must stop. The word has gradually become something that floats on the surface of human life and to which one clings. The word has gradually become something that is taken for granted. When you try to get to know more intimately what dominates thinking and thought habits today, then, for example, when I see this, I remember an argument that I often encountered during my childhood and up to the age of twenty-five of youth, of boyhood friends, often encountered: I was often asked by this or that person – please excuse the perhaps somewhat offensive topic that comes up – what the actual difference is between love and friendship when it comes to relationships between young men and young women. And a great deal of emphasis was placed on defining the terms “love” and “friendship” as precisely as possible. These were supposed to be well-nested terms. I really did have – I can say this without being silly – the aspiration not to look at such abstractions, but to look at reality. I always said: in case A I see a relationship between a male and a female individual, and the same in case B; these are all concrete relationships of the most diverse kinds. Whether you call it “love” or “friendship” is all the same to me, because what matters is the objective.

In contrast to what must be lived out in a social relationship between people, another interest does indeed arise. The interest of codification arises, and then, of course, nested concepts and nested words are needed. How could laws be made without adhering to words! But the alternative cannot be to say: no nested words, but direct human life! Such an alternative would be about as clever as it is clever to raise the ideal of establishing a paradise on the physical plane. But the physical plane is not suitable for establishing a paradise. One can raise the demand, but one can never fulfill it.

One can also raise other demands. In recent times, the demand for an international organization has been raised many times. You can make the demand; you can also codify such demands; it can of course come about. But what reality will have to say about that after ten years is another question! Reality takes the paths that you only recognize when you also want to engage with reality in your recognition. Establishing principles, representing principles, these are soon brought together. Founding associations, having programs in these associations, people-pleasing programs, beautiful, admirable programs that cannot be objected to - you can set them up. It is even a thankless task to have to point out that it is so easy to do so. In some cases, you may even - let me say this in parenthesis - come into rather harsh collisions if you have no inclination towards such codification.

For example, the Berlin branch of the Anthroposophical Society, in which I myself am involved, has not yet managed to draw up statutes for fifteen years because we have always considered real life to be more important than statutes, than codified life. You can have the most beautiful statutes, wonderful statutes. They may be quite good, but only for the purpose of enabling one to deal with certain outside powers. They have no significance for the inner life of a matter. A truly living thing actually resists statutes and principles. I am not criticizing the making of statutes, but nevertheless, the making of statutes and the founding of associations often seems to me to be just as clever as when a father and a mother have a baby of a few months and draw up a detailed program for this little child. There you have the clash of life with codification, the clash of life with abstract principles. The world will not cease to be a living being, even if a number of idealists — let us say, in order not to hurt them — are now setting up all kinds of world-blessing programs from intergovernmental organizations.

Spiritual science does not seek abstract ideals, unreal ideas, but spiritual science strives to seek the real impulses from the realm of life, to recognize that which is, because social principles can only be truly put into practice on the basis of what is. To do that, it takes discomfort to even take such things into one's heart, discomfort is necessary. It is convenient for seven or eight people to sit down together today and establish a world-blessing association with magnificent statutes. You can do that. The statutes will always be right if people are reasonably sensible. You can then also win followers, and there is no objection to such things, because the things are of course right. But it would be necessary for the people who often gather under such flags to first sit down for a few months and study the subject for which they want to achieve something. They do not do that. Instead of people spending a few months familiarizing themselves with the issues at hand, one finds that such associations have made a global impact, have gained thousands and thousands of followers, but that after twenty years there are not five among these thousands of followers have in the meantime taken the trouble to study the subject matter of the weekly journal published by the association, in which the same phrases are repeated over and over again, when the readers, who quickly forget and have forgotten history, which has already been so often.

Breaking away from the idolatry of words, breaking away from the idolatry of abstractions, is an essential part of what anthroposophically oriented spiritual science should bring to people. “With words one can argue excellently, with words one can prepare a system.” And one could add: And then one can live comfortably with the system. But life is complicated, and complicated life needs to be considered. And it is perhaps a very good time to point out such a contemplation of life when we are at the end of a year that concludes a series of such sad years for humanity. In such times, we should turn our gaze again to what the basic ideas of spiritual science can inspire in us. These basic ideas of spiritual science admonish us again and again to really study the character of our time.

We try to do many things to study the character of our time. Yesterday I referred to the great teacher and friend of Dante, to Brunetto Latini. In Brunetto Latini we have at the same time a man who, in the age of Dante, pointed in a penetrating way to what was to come for humanity. The initiation writing, one can already call it such, which comes from Brunetto Latini, contains approximately the following: He returns from his mission to Alfonso of Castile. On his way back, he learns that events have taken place in Florence, in his city, which, in his opinion, must end the old splendor and glory of Florence. Brunetto Latini senses, in expressing this, the approach of the fifth post-Atlantic period. After all, this initiation writing was still written at a time when there was still an awareness of the connection between man and the spiritual world in the furthest reaches, at a time when numerous human secrets about the spiritual world were still known, and therefore at a time when there was not yet the tendency towards such insubstantial abstractions as there is today. For in an age in which intellectual life is vibrant, in an age in which the life of feeling is truly present, there is no inclination towards insubstantial abstractions. Insubstantial abstractions are always related to the tendency towards materialism.

Brunetto Latini has this age, in which we now live, before him. He is approaching Florence. He knows that what Florence has become under the impulse of direct human life, of direct intellectual impulses, is to be buried under the advent of institutions that arise from abstraction. He is approaching Florence. He describes how the pain causes him to lose his way in a forest, a desolate forest. When he comes to his senses, he notices a path and a giant female figure in the middle of a magnificent world creation - which is his imagination. We hear that under this giant female figure he addresses “true nature”, not the nature that today's science describes, but “true nature”. This “true nature” teaches him about what lives in man, about the secrets of the human soul, about the secrets of the four human temperaments, about the secrets of the human senses, about the secrets of the elements, about the secrets of the planets. He is then led out beyond the planetary realm into the ocean of world existence as far as the Pillars of Hercules, mind you, at a time when Copernicanism had not yet been discovered, at a time when America had not yet been rediscovered. Then he is made aware that he has to leave all this, that is, the whole visible world. Only then would he recognize the secrets of good and evil; only then would he recognize the God of love and so on. One is tempted to say that this approach by Brunetto Latini is a proper New Year's reflection on the fourth post-Atlantic period in the cosmic New Year season of the approach of the fifth post-Atlantic period.

In the circles from which Brunetto Latini and others had grown, it was known that man has a connection with the spiritual world, and that the mere literal grasping of the spiritual world must lead to disaster. A preliminary climax has also been reached in science in the 19th century by mere literalness. Everything was prepared, but in the 19th century the matter reached its peak. And from science, the corresponding tendencies have spread to the rest of human experience. But now the time has come to find the courage to break with the old idolatry of words, with the old idolatry of even some word contexts and word combinations regarded as natural laws.

The mere fact that a word exists does not accomplish very much in itself. At the beginning of the new era, the Mystery of Golgotha took place. Since that time, Christianity has existed. There were, however, centuries in which this Christianity was sought to be grasped with the whole human soul. But then came other times. Then came the times when human comprehension became weak and was no longer sufficient to understand the Mystery of Golgotha. And now, in the broadest circumference of the Mystery of Golgotha, almost nothing remains but the name of Christ Jesus. But I have shown in these considerations that what is associated with the name of Christ Jesus is, in the light of spiritual science, not much more than an angelic being. And the fact that this is not noticed is due only to the idolatry of words. This idolatry of words has a suggestive power. Anyone who has felt this suggestive power - without becoming an idolater - could experience it in the most diverse fields. Sometimes it is good to make a personal connection without becoming maudlin. In this case, allow me to set an example.

I often think, when I try to characterize the tenor of the present time, of the lectures I once heard on constitutional law. Let me pick out just a very small part of these lectures on constitutional law: Now, gentlemen, what is judicial sovereignty? Judicial sovereignty is the sovereign right that lies within the omnipotence of the state. And now followed that which all falls within this state omnipotence. Gentlemen! What is financial sovereignty? Financial sovereignty is the sovereign right that lies within the omnipotence of the state. What is political sovereignty? Political sovereignty is the right inherent in state omnipotence... - and now followed again that which lies in state omnipotence. What is cultural sovereignty? Cultural sovereignty is the right inherent in state omnipotence.

Now imagine the human soul, made out of straw, presented with these contrived concepts and developing social efficacy – what do you have then? What you see around you now and what you close your eyes to, so that you can consider it something quite sensible, that has only slipped somewhat in recent years, but that is good and must be continued! But truth is not recognized by words, truth is recognized by realities. One can speak beautifully, and of course also truly, about the excellence of a democratic state administration, about the exemplary nature of a democratic state administration. But the insight into whether this is right or wrong is not shown by reality; rather, reality is shown by the fact that such a democratic state administration brings a Mr. Wilson to the head of almost the whole world. That is where reality is to be found. And talking about reality is not very popular. It was not without reason that I pointed out the hollowness of Mr. Wilson's personality in my Helsingfors cycle before this war. You can read about it in the cycle that was held on the Bhagavad Gita and its occult foundations. One of our friends found himself saying at the end of the lecture that it was terrible that something like that comes to influence and power.

Nothing happens in the world with principles. In the world, things happen through realities. In social life, the realities are the personalities. This is something to which spiritual science, in particular, must strongly and vigorously point out, because spiritual science honestly and sincerely wants to help the development of humanity, because it does not want to join in the parade of phrases that dominates the world today. And by this phraseology I do not mean merely that people utter phrases, but I mean something much worse: that people try to realize phrases, that they make phrases into institutions, that they do not decide to call things by their real names.

A great deal would be done in the world if people wanted to call things by their right name. It would lead to many things, as I have often pointed out: that one should not give so much importance to outward appearances, as if the most essential thing about the current catastrophic events were that the so-called Entente is at war with the so-called Central Powers, and that peace must be achieved again! I have often pointed out that this is not the most essential thing, this is not the most important thing, because appearances are often deceptive. What is being fought over in the world is something essentially different. The battle of the reality-seeking phrase against the living reality is fundamentally something much more universal. Only by reflecting on oneself can one see how attached one is to the comfort of the phrase.

There are already some opportunities for this here in this place. For us, who are connected by love to this building and to what is connected with it, for us, to a certain extent, what lies in time is symbolically expressed by the fact that this building has been started like one of the centers from which what humanity must transfer into a future according to the demands of the present, and how this building was interrupted, stands interrupted by that which now stands in the background of all human contemplation and all human works: the great collapse of the institutions of humanity, which, out of a love of phrase, have been growing for centuries.

Not without reason, during the weeks in which we were once again able to be together, until now, at the turn of the year, I have maintained a serious tone in our deliberations here at the building site itself and have repeatedly emphasized the necessity, at least in what is left to our discretion, to seek the necessary seriousness of life; in what is left to our discretion in our understanding, in the unprejudiced pursuit of events. That this structure, too, has been delayed for an indefinite period of time is perhaps a small event within the catastrophic events of the present, but it is symptomatic, it is symbolic in a certain respect; symbolic the reason that one could draw a line between what is loved for humanity from the intention of this building and what is loved from the word “idolatry” and what is associated with it.

At the present time, at this turn of the year, the great catastrophic event still looms in the background of everything that can be observed and done. And at this turn of the year we must think back to the turn of the year before. One month after that turn of the year we parted. I still think of the contrast that my words, often harshly characterizing the situation, have found even in our circle. Anyone who knows from what impulse the catastrophic events arose could not have imagined a year before that 1917 would not be even worse than the previous one. That was what people said at the time. Although on the one hand one had to say and could say how infinitely sad it was that a well-intentioned proposal - as I said at the time in my Christmas and New Year's reflection - was shouted down by what calls itself “four-fifths of humanity”, and how, under this shouting down, there was no right mood to look optimistically into this year 1917, so it is, when looking back again, only an unbiased look when one says to oneself: Is there anything that there is a prospect of this or that being achieved out of his or her selfish group interest? Is there anything that can be achieved by such interests and for which the prospect has increased after another year of terrible bloodshed? No! The world situation at the end of 1916 was exactly the same as it is today; for this world situation will only change when reason comes into thinking.

Anyone who believes that anything essential has changed in the past year is mistaken, mistaking the external for the internal. This is not to say that this or that, which a comfortable view of life may initially label as something favorable – until after a few months people see that it is not favorable – cannot be done. But the things lie much deeper; they lie so deep that, according to the experiences that have been made, it is not even possible, especially with regard to the events of the present, to speak the decisive word here either. Humanity has a task at the present time. And after a year like this, one can say a few words about this task.

That these catastrophic events have occurred was certainly not a task for humanity. That these catastrophic events are continuing is certainly not a task for humanity either. This is a task for humanity: to get out of these catastrophic events; to really get out of these catastrophic events and to recognize that it is a task to get out of them.

It does not matter if one wants to continue in the old way in this or that respect. It can already be said: if some socialists believe that what they believed seventeen years ago for the good of humanity can now be used as a universal remedy to get out of the great human calamity, then that is a mistake, a mistake that stems from being out of touch with reality.

These catastrophic events are composed of two things that we are not able to truly understand today in everything that exists outside of anthroposophically oriented spiritual science. On the one hand, these catastrophic events have only been made possible by the way in which certain goals have been used to exploit the great antagonism that has developed in humanity over the last three to four centuries between everything that is industrial, commercial and so on imperialism, and socialism, which is opposed to it. That is one thing. The other is that which has emerged through the psychology of nations, which plays a particularly important role in Eastern and Central Europe. Both issues contain problems of the most comprehensive kind for humanity.

We must start where we are least disturbed by the outside world today, where external codification still has the least say, in science and art. Or we could establish a bank based on our principles.

Many things could be mentioned that would show, alongside this wood and concrete construction, a kind of ideal building, but one that is taken from life and from friendship with reality. This wood and concrete construction stands unfinished today; that is a symptom, that is a symbol. These things, neither the real nor the ideal building or buildings, can be completed if there is only understanding in the world for the opposite, for that which must extinguish all individualism, all personality impulses, from humanity. If man must reconquer that which is lost in abstract institutions, in the tyranny of abstract institutions, then much time will be necessary.

Some things must be spoken of only in a roundabout way, if I may put it that way; everyone may try to draw from the things what he can draw. But above all, we should draw the conclusion that, if certain things have been repeated again and again this time, it is not without reason: the admonition to turn away from all that is empty words, even if these empty words have gained an external semblance of reality, and to turn to the truth, to true reality. For it is this true reality that we seek through our anthroposophically oriented spiritual science. Through it, we want to penetrate into the understanding of what is, of that which must work. And we want to free ourselves from that false idealism - false idealism because it is an abstract idealism - that believes it can work in the world without study, without knowledge and without love for reality.

In the times when one year follows the other, it is so close to the human soul to have more serious thoughts about how one's own soul relates to life and the essence of being. Today, one cannot think of more serious thoughts than those that come from the contrast between a world that is alien to reality and so proud of its friendship with reality, and between what should be striven for through a real friendship with reality, as it strives for anthroposophically oriented spiritual science.

Let us assume that, in addition to what we can so easily develop, we have a certain inclination to take in spiritual truths because they present our relationship to eternity and the like to our soul in a pleasant way. Let us assume that what is a kind of inclination to deal with spiritual-scientific truths, we also carry a real, inner, strong, devoted impulse: to look at life, at all life in the light of this spiritual science. Let us try to carry over from one year, which was truly not easy to live through, into the next, which will also not be easy to live through, let us try to carry over the will to look at life in the sense of spiritual science, the will to become free from the mere phrase that dominates the world today. For something has already been done if there is at least a small group of people in the world who can make a New Year's reflection to not join in the idolatry of the phrase in their thoughts. This is something. Let us get used to new words, new concepts, new ideas for many things that need them! This is said – since we could have another New Year's Eve reflection within this unfinished building, with whose forms, with whose reality we associate so many thoughts for the future – so that we can grasp the idea of living over into this New Year in such a way that, like a burning impulse, like a fire within us, so that this spiritual science is not just a theory that we cultivate in the privacy of our own rooms, but becomes something that passes into our head, into our heart, into our hands, into everything that is to become and happen in our lives.

In view of the words that may have sounded harsh but that were nevertheless spoken only out of love for humanity, I would like to give you the impulse, I would like to point you to the impulse, to think through this turning point of two years in such a way that the thought can be the starting point for a truly unbiased examination of what is real and what is unreal. For more than humanity thinks today depends on this. And one would truly like to have something other than weak words for a small circle at a time when so much more would be needed in New Year's reflections than what is so often spoken as New Year's reflections today. But let us be aware that spiritual science has a certain right to demand such a desire for otherness from us!

Today I would like to present something that is purely historical, as it were. I believe that the ninth century and the fifteenth century, which I will speak about in a future lecture, can indeed be considered in such a way that important things can be seen from the consideration of the cultural content of precisely these two centuries, from which much can be learned for the present, for the assessment of current conditions. We are dealing in the 9th century with a significant historical period of European life, in that in this 9th century, so to speak, the Occident is already approaching us in the sense that it has become Christianized. The earlier centuries are actually centuries in which Christianity is only just being integrated into Western life. And in the 9th century, that is, in the period that followed the century of, for example, Charlemagne, we see that Europe has a Christian character, that Christian character that has then been working through the centuries in the lives of the people of Europe. But the fact that Europe has become so Christian, as it actually appears to us in the 9th century, has many prerequisites. And one can only judge how Christianity has become established if one considers these manifold prerequisites.

We know, of course, that at the time of the emergence of Christianity, the Roman Empire was just beginning its imperial period, that it was beginning to encompass, in a unified administrative form, basically the whole world known at that time, or to assert this encompassing, to really experience it. We know that this is the time when Hellenism as an external political form of existence is already declining, that Hellenism has long since penetrated into Romanism as a ferment of education and culture, and we then have to direct our attention primarily to the fact that from the beginnings of Christianity, which we do know, this Christianity gradually settled into the entire form of the Roman Empire, into all the administrative and constitutional forms of the Roman Empire. And we see then how Christianity, developing under the most diverse conditions in Europe, in the first, second, and third centuries, becomes established in what is there as the Roman way of life. But then we see how this assimilation of Christianity is initially connected with a complete anarchization of European life. We know how the Roman Empire, from the moment in world history when it was at its most widespread, clearly showed the seeds of its decline.

The question will always occupy the mind of anyone who contemplates these things: how did this Roman Empire, which rose to such glory, actually perish in the first three or four centuries of the Christian era? One can believe that the onslaught of the northern, Germanic peoples alone was responsible for the fall of the Roman Empire. One can then find some of this guilt in the spread of Christianity itself. One will misinterpret the deeper basis for the downfall of the Western Roman Empire if one seeks the only motives for this downfall in these factors. For the Western Roman Empire shows, if one looks at it more thoroughly, that such structures do have a life of their own, that they have, so to speak, a birth, a youth, a certain age of maturity, and that they then gradually die, and that the causes of this dying-off must be sought within the state itself, just as, in the case of an individual organism, the causes of its aging and physical dying-off must be sought within the organism itself and not in external conditions. However, it is possible to discern from external appearances how this gradual aging and eventual dying-off of such a thing as the Roman Empire took place.

What must be taken into account when considering European development into the 9th century is that two phenomena clearly emerge before the eye that looks at history. One is the gradual decline of the Roman Empire and all that was connected with it; the other, however, is that at the same time the oriental way of life flourishes. We see that in the East, far beyond the areas bordering the Roman Empire to the East, a cultural flowering develops, albeit an external, material cultural flowering. In other words, these countries, to which the Roman Empire, one cannot even say that it bordered them in its cultural flowering, but which it nominally included, these countries develop a brilliant material cultural flowering. Without this material cultural flowering, which formed on the periphery of the Roman Empire, it would have been impossible for Islam to flourish and for the Arabs to assert themselves in the historical development later on, when they were able to lay claim to a large part of the world in such a brilliant way until the 8th or 9th century. We see that up to the 8th or 9th century the Arab domination spread under the spiritual banner of Mohammed as far as Spain, but that in other directions, too, European life came into clear contact with all the cultural blossoms that arose all around. What the Arabs achieved in Spain and Sicily and in the East, before they became the enemies of Europe, must have been rooted in a rich and splendid material civilization. Only on such a foundation was it possible for the Arabs to accomplish such brilliant conquests. Where does this phenomenon come from, which is more closely connected than one might think with what happened in Europe up to the ninth century? How did this phenomenon come about, that on the one hand the Roman Empire was declining, and on the other hand the oriental character was taking a brilliant upswing and had an extraordinary effect on the Occident? For it did not only work through its conquest, it worked in an extraordinary way spiritually. One cannot believe how much of what the Arabs, partly through the Greek education that they themselves had only recently adopted and interwoven with their own nature, has influenced the European Occident.

This European Occident, through the way it has developed until the 9th century, does not have just one current in itself. All of us, insofar as we have participated in the formation of the Occident, have two distinct currents within us. It is a great mistake to believe that only the Christian current has spread in the Occident; spiritually, what has come from the Arabs has spread throughout the Occident. The way of thinking, the way of imagining, has been deeply influenced by the Arabs in European conditions. In what today's man - I do not mean the man who is intellectually ill, but the man of general education - thinks about fate, about the natural order, about life in general, the most diverse Arab thoughts are found in it, right down to the peasant's head. And if you take much of what dominates minds today, you will find that Arab thoughts are in them.

What, among many other things, can be said to be characteristic of this Arab way of thinking that spread to Europe? It can be said to be particularly characteristic that this Arab way of thinking is, first of all, subtle and abstract, does not like the concrete, and therefore prefers to view all world and natural conditions in abstractions. Alongside this is a development of fantasy that cannot be called merely flourishing, but voluptuous. Just think, what develops alongside the sober, abstract way of thinking, which even shows itself in the artistic in Arabdom, what develops in fantasy about a kind of paradise, about a kind of afterlife with all the pleasures transferred from the sensual into this afterlife. These two parallel things: sober, materialistic observation of natural and world conditions, on the other hand, a lush fantasy life, which of course then becomes dulled and becomes intelligent, is something that has been passed down to the present day. For if today you want to present something of the spiritual world, yes, if it is in the form of fantasy, then people still respond to it. Then they do not need to believe in it, but can accept it as a figment of the imagination. They put up with that, because alongside it they want to have what they call genuine, real. But that must be sober, that must be dry, that must be abstract.

These two things, which live as a second current in the soul-life of Europe, came essentially with the Arab element. Although the Arab influence has been pushed back in many respects, this way of thinking has penetrated deeply into European life, especially into southern, western and central European life, less so into eastern European life; but even there, at least into what is called “education”, it has partially penetrated. So that Christianity, which is quite different in relation to these things, had to struggle with these opposing ideas. If we want to understand Europe's development up to the 9th century, we must not forget that such Arab ideas have penetrated into Europe. It is hard to believe how much in Europe is actually close to Turkishness, to Muslim culture in the thoughts that the European has about life, destiny and so on.

But how did it come about that something could arise, or rather take root, on the periphery of the Roman Empire that caused Europe so much trouble? This is connected with the ever-increasing expansion of the Roman Empire. This Roman Empire, as it spread more and more, was obliged to obtain many, many products from the Orient to meet the needs that arose in this vast empire, and all of them had to be paid for. And we see with the development of the Roman Empire, precisely from the beginning of our calendar year, that a significant phenomenon in the development of the Roman Empire is that the Romans have to pay so much for what they obtain from the Orient. In other words, we see that during this period there is an enormous outflow of gold from the Roman Empire to the periphery. The gold flows out. And curiously enough, no new sources of gold open up. And the consequence of this is that the wealth conditions of the Roman Empire change completely, that with the development of Christianity the Roman Empire becomes poor in money, that is, poor in gold and silver. This is a phenomenon of fundamental significance. So that Christianity spread throughout the Roman Empire in a region that increasingly tended towards primitive conditions in terms of its economy. For wherever there is a lack of money, wherever there is a lack of gold – on the physical plane that is the case – there the necessity very soon arises to return to primitive forms of natural economy, to primitive forms of a kind of bartering by merely exchanging goods. But that is not even the significant thing. The significant thing is that when such a scarcity of gold occurs, it becomes impossible to create extensive and meaningful human connections. As a result, people are dependent on the exploitation of much closer relationships; they are enclosed within much narrower limits in their needs in the exchange and in their coexistence.

And so it came about that the Roman economy gradually grew more and more into a way that it was not accustomed to as an empire. The institutions in the Roman Empire were all affected, all kinds of administrative institutions, administration and so on, everything that is referred to as the connection between the regions and their authorities and so on, was set up so that one had money. And now the money was getting less and less. You can clearly observe it in a particular area. Of course, as the empire grew larger and larger, the Romans needed more and more legions, especially in the outer parts of the empire; they needed soldiers. They had to be paid. You could not always transport infinite masses of things produced in Italy itself to the periphery. The soldiers wanted to be paid in gold, so that they could then trade for it from the others. But gradually the gold was no longer there. The soldiers could no longer be paid. This was the case in many areas. The Roman Empire thus died, so to speak, of its own greatness. And in its periphery, a very special wealth developed, which then of course also resulted in a certain basis for a spiritual life.

Now something else is added to this: the Romans had gradually come to be unable to live according to their old habits. Of course, one must not look at the individual people, but at the whole institutions. In the north, however, fresh peoples were there; they were organized according to their customs and habits precisely for natural economy. Among them, the tendency and urge towards natural economy had gradually developed. They were organized for such conditions, also through their deeply rooted, elementary inclinations and sympathies. These Germanic peoples – that is what they are called in their entirety, as they spread in Western and Central Europe, in the north of the Roman Empire – had gradually become, over the centuries, both at the time of complete anarchy in the 3rd and 4th centuries and up to the time of complete consolidation in the 9th century, they had gradually come to prefer a natural economy to the Roman one, because it corresponded to their customs and habits, as well as to their sympathies and inclinations. Above all, however, the natural economy corresponded in a certain sense to the institutions, the way people in these northern regions lived together.

We must now take a look at these northern regions. In general, we say: in the first Christian centuries, Germanic peoples were there. We call what spread in the north Germanic peoples only because, when something is far away, it appears uniform. When a swarm of mosquitoes is very far away, it looks like a uniform gray mass. If you were to look at each individual mosquito, it would look different. And so what spread in the north while the Roman Empire was falling apart due to the conditions described above, should not be generally referred to as “Germanic peoples”, as it appears now in the temporal distance. Above all, we must consider how it actually came about that what came from the north collided with the Roman Empire in the 3rd, 4th and 5th centuries. That must be borne in mind. Yes, even when Tacitus, in the first Christian century, saw these northern regions, it was the case that the process that had taken place there, when there was still little contact with the Roman Empire, had emerged from the fact that in all these areas there was originally a kind of native population that, if you go back in the development of Europe, leads straight back to Celtic culture, at least for Western Europe and Central Europe.

Everything that was cultivated in Europe in ancient times, of course before the emergence of Christianity, belongs to a certain Celtic indigenous population. This Celtic indigenous population can basically be found as the basis of the entire European population. The descendants of Celtic blood flow everywhere in Europe, not only in Western Europe, but above all in Central Europe. There are very many people in Bavaria, Austria, Thuringia, in whom, if one may be imprecise in describing these things, the succession of Celtic blood flows, quite apart from Western Europe. It is even highly probable that less Celtic blood flows in Western Europe than in Central Europe.

Into these primeval Celtic conditions something has been pushed which is actually rather unclear in its origin to external history. All kinds of theories have been advanced about this, but the truth is this: through what is usually called the migration of peoples, which also took place somewhat differently than it is usually described in the history books, a people element – one cannot even say a people element, but rather a larger number of people from the most diverse regions, also from Asia via Northern Europe – has pushed its way into the Celtic original population. And through the mingling of this new element with the old Celtic element, through the manifold minglingsome were stronger, some weaker, some in which the Celtic element remained in the foreground, some in which it receded into the background, the various shades of the European population came into being. And from these shades developed, on the one hand, those conditions that then became the folk conditions of Western and Central Europe, but also those conditions that led to the forms of life, to the forms of constitution and administration. There was a time when the Celtic element of the indigenous population lived relatively comfortably, perhaps even very frugally in some areas, but comfortably from year to year, not caring much about any innovations and the like, but lived along not much differently than you can see today, though less and less, in some abandoned area, where people live just from year to year without taking on any innovations. So this Celtic element lived in a certain comfortable calm, which was actually not at all appropriate for the national character of the Celts, but had gradually occurred. Then came these other masses of people, who actually only created Germanic culture by mixing with the Celts. The next thing that emerged was that, as I have already indicated, in one area the old element retained the upper hand, while the new element receded – in some areas it was the other way around – and as a result, different shades of blood emerged.

But on the other hand, the result was that the habitual residents were flooded by the intruders. The intruders became the masters. They were the ones who disturbed the peace and thus became the masters. And from this relationship between the conquering immigrant masters and the remaining original inhabitants, the relationship between the free, the semi-free and the unfree emerged. The original inhabitants were gradually pushed down into slavery. Those who had immigrated gradually formed the master class, and that determined the living conditions.

Thus Europe was settled by a population that arose in the way I have characterized it, but within which the distinct configuration of a master caste and a kind of serf or slave caste emerged. And on this basis, all the other conditions then developed. Through the nuances of which I have spoken, the various Germanic branches formed, especially towards the west, but also as far as the areas of present-day northern Bavaria, even into the areas of present-day Hesse and so on. What we call the Franks were, in some respects, the most active population, in some respects, in terms of external intellect, the most understanding, active, and in some respects, the most domineering group of the various groups that emerged as nations. This was the population group that spread more towards the west, the element of the Franks. The word is still present today in the word combination “frank und frei”; everyone knows what “frank und frei” means in its composition, and “Franken” is related to the word “frank”, which has a close relationship with the word: to want to feel free, independent, outwardly free, independent.

In the middle remained the population that could be described – if one wants a summarizing name – as the Saxon population, which spread into Thuringia, into the northern areas opposite Thuringia, down the Elbe, to the coast. This was the population that was more stubborn in terms of its older national character, that particularly held on to its original identity, that, so to speak, embodied the human-personal-conservative feeling.

And so there were other groups. It would be too much to list all these groups. What is important is that the British population developed from the Saxon group, through a variety of mixtures but with a strong predominance of the Saxon group, and that the British population, if one may say so, belongs to the Saxon tribe in its essential origin, leading back to these centuries.

Now we have to consider what the life of this population, which has developed in this way, actually was. This population, which lived there, was a youthful, childlike population in relation to the southern population, to the Roman and Greek population. What had become old in Celtic culture had not become very old at all, but had become old early on. A rejuvenation process did take place, however, in that certain ethnic groups pushed in from northern Europe and also indirectly from Asia. Above all, the population had sympathies for the southern element, for the natural economy, for the economy of barter, which placed little value on the money economy, which only comes into play when an empire is at an advanced stage.

Those who, despite the migration of peoples – which is, after all, somewhat different than presented in the history books – developed within these newly emerging European conditions, were actually basically only connected to their neighbors, to their closest neighbors. But there was also a very specific peculiarity in the intellectual relationship. All these nations still had something that the Greek and Roman populations had long since lost. Even well into the 6th, 7th, and 8th centuries, they all had, to a much greater extent than the most uneducated Greek and Roman populations, an original atavistic clairvoyance. These people all lived in connection with certain spiritual beings. For them, there was not only an external material nature, there were not only seasons and wind and weather, but for them there was, because they saw it in those states that were more than a dream, the god Wotan, whom the people knew. Many at least knew: they themselves saw the god Wotan, who moved with the wind, on wings of wind.

The people knew that. They also knew, for example, the god Saxnot, who helped them in their battles when they had to fight. When they had fought the battles, or before they fought them, their god Saxnot appeared to them, and much more. They were also familiar with the rapidly changing weather conditions not only in a material way, but they were spiritually familiar with the elements, with the god Thor, with his hammer, and the like. These were real experiences for these people, they still knew that. And besides, these people had a belief in guidance from the spiritual world because they knew from their own experience that there is a spiritual world. They believed that everything that happens in the days, in the seasons, is guided by spiritual forces and beings. If any tribe was victorious, it knew that the tribal god had stood by and guided it.

You could say of the tribal god: He led. You cannot say of a general human god that he is the god of battle. You can say that of a tribal god just fine. The people were right when they said of their tribal deities that they were led by them. Of course, any tribe can say that it has been protected and cared for by a tribal god, but the same cannot be said of a god to whom the whole of humanity is attributed in the same sense.

The priesthoods, which developed – there were also mysteries in these areas, we have often spoken about such things – in order to have, so to speak, the leadership in this whole context of people with the divine spiritual powers. But this leadership was a very specific one because the people knew that there are spiritual powers, that there are spiritual forces and entities.

So outwardly these people lived in a certain primitive way with a natural economy; inwardly, one can say, they lived a kind of spiritual life. There were no educated people in the sense that there were in Greece and Rome. The priests were leaders; they organized the life that the others also knew. But they were not educated in the sense that the Greek philosophers or the Roman philosophers, or the Roman poets or those who could read and write in Greece and Rome and were educated in this sense; because the people did not know all this. Of course there was no reading and writing. So you are dealing with a population that lived in primitive natural conditions and that led a spiritual life in a certain way.

There was a certain inner strength due to the revitalization that had come into this Celtic culture; it was suitable for the primitive conditions. The southern part was not suitable for the primitive conditions. In certain points, what was a new, young element there clashed with what was present in the south, was present in such a way that in an empire perishing from lack of money, Christianity took root, was adopted in the way you know things. And it was particularly at such points, where the two areas, the old dying and the young emerging, collided, that the Romans still founded their cities, their border cities on the periphery of their empire. Cologne, Trier, Mainz, Strasbourg, Basel, Constance, Salzburg, Augsburg, these were urban structures that had existed since Roman times.

Now it should be clear to you: the Romans thought of these urban structures of Cologne, Trier, Mainz, Strasbourg, Constance, Basel, Salzburg and so on as a kind of protective fort against the onslaughing people. But when Romanism - not through anything else, but through itself - gradually disintegrated, the cities were in a very special situation. In the countryside it was good for primitive conditions. In the cities it was nothing special under primitive conditions. And the consequence of this was that the cities would have been deserted if they had not been used in some other way. But the emerging church, which had taken hold of Christianity, was a good observer that knew: one must hold to the cities. And so the dioceses were transferred to the cities, which would otherwise have been deserted. But as a result, the cities gradually became a point of concentration for the surrounding people, who were unfree, over the centuries towards the 9th century, because the dioceses were transferred there, because education came into them – for the bishop initially came from the southern regions. The free had no particular reason to move into the cities, which would gradually have become deserted; so they followed the bishops and clergy into the cities only to a limited extent. But those who were unfree followed the calls from the church to move into the cities.

And if you now look at the basic conditions, you will easily understand: the unfree were, after all, the stragglers, the descendants of the original population. There was a great deal of Celtic blood in them. What flocked together in the cities was basically an element that wanted to free itself from those who had become the masters there. This gave the cities, little by little, the character of medieval free enterprise. This was essentially due to the fact that it was often the seething of the Celtic blood in the cities that the cities flourished in the Middle Ages, in the early Middle Ages up to the 9th or 10th century.

Then we must realize that all these conditions were real historical necessities. It is hard to believe how little man's character could be guided by external abstract means, especially in earlier times. But it could be guided if one first studied the conditions and then linked them to the concrete. Thus we see – and we could cite many examples, but I can only give a sketch – how a new element arises and how the old element in the south gradually dies out due to its own nature. This dying out can be seen from the fact that, on the one hand, in the south, ancient science and the ancient element of education gradually reach their particular height but then come to a dead end, freeze; they can no longer advance. In the sixth century, Emperor Justinian abolished the office of consul in Rome, helped to condemn the teachings of Origen and closed the last remnants of the Athenian schools of philosophy. The old Athenian schools of philosophy were transferred to Persia. There, Gondishapur was founded as an academy. The Athenian philosophers follow the paths that gold has taken, settling where a spiritual life can develop on the basis of a certain wealth. In Europe, it is necessary to take into account the primitive conditions that have arisen.

And two factors initially knew how to deal with these primitive conditions. It can be said that the other factors knew little how to deal with them. But two factors knew well how to reckon with these primitive conditions, namely, the papacy, which was a good observer, not only of the bad, but also of the good, because in those days the papacy had very many good qualities, and those - they were basically nothing more than large landowners - who gradually asserted themselves within the Frankish tribe as Merovingians, Carolingians and so on.

What did the papacy need? The papacy could not easily spread Christianity as a doctrine. It did make a thorough, even very thorough attempt to spread Christianity as a doctrine; but in such matters one must always take into account the concrete, real conditions. Pope Gregory the Great sent fifty emissaries to England and Ireland, and from there the emissaries went to Central Europe, Gallus, who is connected with St. Gallen, and many others. But here you could count on people who came from a peoplehood and had a great gift of persuasion. This was a current through which Christianity was spread in a certain spiritual way, spread in such a way that it also went among the rural population, who lived under the characterized conditions, built churches. And around these churches, Christianity gradually took hold in such a way that the people who, as Franks, Saxons, Alemanni and so on, populated these northern regions did not significantly change their concept of God. They still had this concept of God from their atavistic clairvoyance. They did not particularly change it; but, take any area, some messenger came, built a small church - in Alsace, for example, this has happened over and over again in many areas - near a place where there was an image, a statue of the god Saxnot or something like that. He builds a small church, and he knows how to take the people. After he has built his church with his comrades – they did everything themselves, they were hardworking people, not just book writers – he goes to the people and says: Now you have your god, it is the rain god; praying to him will achieve nothing!

Such a messenger knows how to make it plausible to them that the God for whom he built the church is better. Now, this required persuasion, because, of course, the God whom he called the Christ had not shown any direct influence on the rain either. But this was mixed up with the fact that the ideas about the gods that had emerged from the military campaigns were gradually brought into contact with Christianity. When some tribe was defeated by another that had already converted to Christianity, it turned out that the people said, “Our god did not help us; their god helped them.” I am only trying to express that the Christian God was equated with the individual tribal deities. But people did not arrive at any other concept of God than that which they had from their atavistic clairvoyance. From this arose the necessity, when the Roman Church naturalized Christianity by using this, that the old tribal deities had to be gradually eradicated, root and branch. For they wanted, as it were, to replace the name of God with the other deities.

As I said, attempts were made to spread Christianity as a doctrine, as a spiritual way of life. But it may be said that, owing to the most diverse circumstances, another element was more successful at first, and that was the warlike element of the Franks, who were the most enterprising tribe, the most active, who, through their intellect, through their understanding, really knew: they could make something out of the adoption of what was bound to perish in the Roman Empire, through this adoption of institutions and so on. Through these and similar circumstances a connection arose between the Frankish folk element and the shadow of the Roman Empire, with the institutions and the views of the Roman Empire.

This began in the 8th century, continued into the 9th century, and the result was that Christianity was associated with the conquering element. The Saxon tribe, which was conservative and stubborn, was indeed overcome in a conquering manner; and from the West spread that which arose initially from a combination of the old customs and habits with regard to the judiciary and human coexistence with Christianity. This combining of the original customs with the southern element, which came from Christianity but in which Romanism lived, is evident in everything. Today we no longer realize how much it is evident in everything. For example, people believe that a count is a particularly Germanic institution, while the word 'count' is nothing more than something related to graph, stylus, and writing. Writing and administration were taken from the south. The one who administered was the count. And in the event of war, he also led the district, the area. The word “count” has the same root as graphology and stylus and is related to writing. But everything that concerns writing, pen-pushing, everything that concerns education, that came from the southern areas, and which has its real life in dying. So that these two elements interacted well into the 9th century. The most powerful element had just become the Frankish element through Charlemagne, whose power was based primarily on the fact that it had absorbed ecclesiastical Christianity and was now renewing the shadow of the Roman Empire. Charlemagne was indeed crowned in Rome; the old Caesaranity was to rise again.

These things, however, had only an artificial supporting power in themselves, not a natural one. We know then: after Charlemagne, the wide areas that Charlemagne supposedly held together initially still followed, and which were also still ruled like a kind of empire by Louis the Dumb - that is to say, the Pious. And when the power of the original conditions became more pronounced, when the Germanic-Frankish breakthrough came – because this Frankish element emerged, as I said, from a large part of what is now called Germany – when that breakthrough came, then the Treaty of Verdun, 843, had to divide. Why did it actually have to be divided? It had to be divided because it was unnatural to hold together. The real cement was Romance, but it was actually effective through the chancellery and through what developed as the first primitive schools and the like, and through what the clergy did, which asserted itself as such. The cement was Romance, but life was not Romance, life was Germanic. The people were organized in small groups. At the head of such small groups stood a duke – not by law. The laws only came into being when what was the custom of the Ripuarian Franks was written down in the Lex Ripuaria or the Ripuarium, in the Salic Law, Lex Salica, and so on. In small communities, the duke was originally the one who brought in the strangers, who led the army that made the settled population into serfs. He gradually disappeared. The count was appointed where there was a duke. You can say that the dukes survived as far as Bavaria and Thuringia. But the count is placed there; he is placed there, judges, administers, where the duke used to be, whom the people called that because he was there before they came to the area. The count is installed and gradually becomes a landowner, gathering the unfree around him and making them his serfs. The feudal system comes into being, the development of which would be very interesting to observe, but we do not have the time.

And we see that it is actually through the interaction of such details that those great landowners come into being. Because that is what they are, namely those great landowners that we see in the Merovingians and Carolingians. They are great landowners; and they were now sitting inside, far removed from following Roman law, because according to Roman law one could not have divided up the land as in the Treaty of Verdun! So you divide when you are the owner and divide among your sons. That was an old custom where the personality was involved. That was right according to ancient custom. Roman law could not have allowed that in reality.

These were such disintegrating elements. They were everywhere, these disintegrating elements, so that one can only properly understand this 9th century, which is crucial, if one knows that all of Western and Central Europe was flooded by the Romanic element, the popular nature. This was even more pronounced later, as we will discuss in the 14th and 15th centuries, when it will become even more apparent. Of course, educated people are placed in the form of clergy and so on, but it is the Romanic element that overflows these areas. But the Germanic element lives in the people - throughout Europe from the 9th century onwards, yes, even in England, in the British Empire. And this Germanic element is first expressed particularly in the element of the Franks. It was only through this division of the heritage, which actually took place according to purely private, arbitrary circumstances, that this tripartite structure came into being, so that one received this middle long strip along the Rhine and Italy, the other received what was to the west of it, and the third received what was to the east of it. And this then became the basis for the later division of the German and French characters, as a result of the Treaty of Verdun. And what Lothar got in the intermediate line created the happy basis for Central and Western Europe to fight with each other forever! But these things are connected in this way.

Now we must bear in mind that there are various and variously important factors at work: the Germanic element, particularly in this period, finding expression in the Frankish element; but the Romance element, which, as a shadow of ancient times, flits across the scene like a ghost, an old inheritance. And into this development, according to the corresponding conditions given by this nature – whereby the Germanic nature, always arising out of the strength of the people, thus out of reality, wanted to shatter the Romanic semblance – into this development, Christianity had to be spread from Rome. One had to take into account all these conditions, one had to reckon with the urban elements, with the rural elements, and one had to try to introduce Christianity in such a way that people could understand it. In spite of Constantine and his successors, it could not be introduced in Rome, because education, although it had reached a high level, had reached a dead end. It had to be introduced into popular elements that had original, youthful vigor in them.

Therefore, one had to push back to the East what had just frozen into dogmas, what wanted to remain at a certain point of view. And in the West, one had to reckon with a popular element that wanted to develop out of the ecclesiastical, out of all the elements that I have indicated. The papacy in particular could already count on these elements. There was already active calculation on the part of the papacy when Charlemagne was crowned; for one simply reckoned with this large landowner, who also let himself be reckoned with. And then it was always the policy of the papacy, first and foremost, to introduce Christianity in such a way that it was suitable for seizing the souls of those who had just outgrown the old atavistic clairvoyance.

It is of particular importance that from the ninth century onwards, and influenced by the separation from Oriental Christianity, the Roman Church began to take the European ethnic elements and conditions into account in an eminent way, when under Nicholas I, the great Pope, the Orient began to separate from the Occident within the Christian element. The underlying reason for this separation was the necessity to take into account what was rooted in European conditions, as I have outlined in very sketchy fashion. If we now consider the 14th and 15th centuries in terms of their basic character, we will see that the period from the 8th to the 14th century is characterized by the interaction of the papal element, the interaction of the Central European element, and the development of that European configuration, which then changed again when the great discoveries and the Reformation and the like came.

I just wanted to show you the factors that culminated in the ninth century in purely historical terms. In the development of Europe, one can clearly distinguish the first three Christian centuries, which led to a kind of anarchy. Everything is topsy-turvy. In the third century, everything is mixed up. But then, through the natural conditions, the situation developed over the next five or six centuries, into the ninth century, in such a way that one can say that Christianity was carried into the circumstances in the way I have indicated, but that these circumstances were actually given by the way people lived.

The things I am now presenting in a somewhat prosaic way in this last lecture, in contrast to the great vistas we have been accustomed to in these meditations, do, however, have a certain inner connection with our entire meditations and also with the present time. And in a sense it was important to me, even if it can only be done in aphoristic form for these things, and again in the form of remarks, perhaps even without further context (otherwise one would have to talk for days on the subject). Just as we tried to penetrate the period that culminated in the 8th century with a few remarks, so we want to consider today the following period, which then culminated in a certain sense in the 15th century for European life.

This 15th century is extraordinarily interesting to consider in the most diverse respects, especially to see how it emerges from the European living conditions of the preceding centuries. This century is significant for the reason that it was only in the 15th century that the conditions in Europe were formed within which we are currently living. People think, one might say – we have mentioned this from other points of view – in the short term; they imagine that the way they experience the circumstances around them is constant. But it is not. Living conditions are subject to metamorphoses. And if one does not look at everything from the present-day point of view, as unfortunately happens so often in modern history, but tries to understand the nature of earlier times, which can only be done through spiritual science, especially in practical matters, one comes to the conclusion that times have changed quite considerably. I think I already mentioned in the course of these lectures that, when I recently presented something similar in a lecture, a gentleman said to me at the end: Yes, but spiritual science assumes that these epochs, as they developed, were different from one another; and history shows us that people have actually always been the same, that they have always had the same vices, the same jealousies and so on, that people have not changed significantly; what causes conflict today also caused conflict in the past. I replied to the gentleman at the time: You can go even further with this approach, you can simply take certain very obvious sources of conflict in the present and look for them among the Greek gods, who certainly have very different conditions of existence from all earthly men, and you will find that the things you are looking at can even be found among the Greek gods.

Of course, certain human conditions that have been the same everywhere can be found if you look at things abstractly. Indeed, there are even some scientific observations at present that find very similar conditions, family relationships and the like in these or those animal species. Why not! If you just apply enough abstractions, you will find such similarities. But that is not the point. Such a way of looking at things is eminently impractical.

Above all, people today, and truly not only people in the broader circles, but precisely influential, very influential circles, look at what national conditions are in Europe and in the educated world in general, as if these national conditions were eternal things. They are not eternal things; but precisely that form of feeling that arises from the national, for example, for today's man, is entirely dependent on what emerged in the 15th century, because before that, especially with regard to these things, Europe was something completely different. What the national structures are today, crystallizing into states, only dates back to the 15th century. And what Europe was before that has nothing to do with the national formations of today. This should be clear from a historical study of the past.

If, however, the past does not go back further than the 15th century, then it might happen that someone might express the judgments that can be made about the present as if they were eternal conditions. If, for example, a state structure such as did not exist in Europe before the 15th century could only be established according to European ideas in a territory that became known for European conditions only after the 15th century, which therefore does not have a past in the sense of Europe, where one therefore only thinks in terms of a few centuries and then considers this thinking to be eternal conditions, if one were to think up state ideas or even ideas of nations with such thinking, then at least the judgments that one can make about the present would have to be expressed as if they were eternal conditions. past in the same sense as Europe has, where one thinks only in terms of a few centuries and then mistakes this way of thinking for eternal conditions. If, with such thinking, one were to conceive of state ideas or even ideas of nations, then at least the Europeans should know that such ideas of nations must necessarily have very short legs.

In the 15th century, something else occurred that is connected with what I had to mention about the beginnings of Christian development in Europe, especially in the vast Roman Empire. I stated at the time that the Roman Empire had found its downfall through various forces, but that among these forces there was also the fact that there was an incredibly strong outflow of gold to the Orient, that the vast Roman Empire became poor in gold. Now this did not benefit the Romans, who were accustomed to needing gold in the institutions of their empire, and now they had none. This led to decadence.

But it benefited the peoples storming in from the north. Due to the various circumstances we mentioned last time, they were organized precisely for direct natural economy. And the strange thing is that – despite the fact that certain conquerors, of whom we have already spoken, laid hold of the lands that had previously been at peace – a certain settledness emerged from the coexistence of the conquered people and the conquerors. Those who were already there in Europe loved their land in a certain sense, and those who had been drawn to it sought a plot of land. And so, out of that event which is usually called the migration of peoples, favorable living conditions arose that can be called: natural economy versus monetary economy.

Europe had gradually become such that the Carolingians were forced to take into account the need to set up the conditions in such a way that, to a certain extent, the generous circulation of money could be dispensed with. The Carolingians, and even the Merovingians, these dynasties of rulers, often only meant something for the inner course of events – if you want to look at it objectively – what is called the hour and minute hands of the clock. You are also convinced, aren't you, that it is not the hour and minute hand that forces you to do this or that, and yet you do it; or when you tell the story, you say: I did this at twelve o'clock or one o'clock. - So in the historical account, it depends on the intention that one associates with it. When I say this, I mean the time, the living conditions in this time. But one must be aware that a person like Charlemagne meant something in Europe through his personality, through his outward appearance; because things are concretely different. Louis the Pious, of course, meant nothing more. And when playwrights find themselves dressing up Louis the Pious's family quarrels as grand state affairs, it's nonsense that may interest childish minds sitting in the theater; but it has nothing to do with any “history,” it is worlds away from any real history.

It is different when you take the tone-setting Charlemagne and then look away from the lesser ones who came after him; sometimes they are already strangely characterized by the epithets popular in such circles; history has some strange epithets for them: “the Simple,” “the Fat,” which, well, doesn't exactly seem meaningful for something that made a world-historical epoch. But there was a certain tone, a certain tendency in Carolingian life, and this tendency had a much broader effect than perhaps the tendency of any personal center since the 15th century has been able to have. In the Middle Ages, people lived in a time when personality still had a far greater value, a far greater significance, than it had later. Now, these Carolingians had to take into account that, out of the conglomeration of the migration of peoples, settled humanity had gradually emerged over Europe. This settled way of life, which was particularly characteristic of the Saxons in Central Europe and of their descendants who then came to England, to the British Isles, was a general characteristic of the Germanic peoples – I mean in this period, in the Carolingian period, after the migration of peoples had subsided. Settledness, combined with dependence on what is produced directly on the land, thus a farming population, administered by the count in the way I have recently discussed, administered by the clergy, a population in the vicinity of the cities, administered by the bishoprics in the cities; but a population that was settled in terms of agricultural production, in terms of commercial production, and that held something dear to the place with which it was associated, because the conditions of life kept them connected to that place. Of course, trade relations were beginning to develop, but these were more towards the coastal areas. In the areas that were of primary importance for medieval life, people were settled. And the consequence of this was that they were not able to administer and manage as they were accustomed to in the Roman Empire. They had adopted the traditional practices of the educated people who knew what was customary in the Roman Empire. They had adopted this or that practice, and administered it in the Roman Empire in a certain way, and it had proved to be correct. But that was not applicable to the conditions that had developed throughout Europe. It was not applicable because the entire Roman Empire, after it had once reached a certain size, was actually built on the military system of the Roman Empire, on the military system of the Roman Empire. The Roman Empire is inconceivable in its size without the possibility of sending soldiers everywhere, right into the periphery. The soldiers had to be paid.

I already mentioned last time that this required the circulation of gold. And when the gold circulation slowed down, it was no longer possible. And while these conditions were developing, while an empire was developing that was entirely dependent on its internal support, the possibility of its internal expansion, the possibility of developing itself, all views were formed in such a way that everything in these views was based on the military. So one could have said in the Carolingian period: I hire someone who is familiar with the administrative and legal techniques of the Roman Empire. For that had remained with them. But it did not help much, because what was built on the legion system of administrative art could not be applied where it was supposed to be applied across the whole of Europe and now also into Italy, because these conditions had developed for everything, where one had to deal with settled farmers. For at that moment, when one would have forced the peasants, or those who settled down as landlords and were only large farmers, to form legions, as was the case in the Roman Empire, then one would have deprived them of their living conditions. Under such a monetary economy as that of the Roman Empire, the legions could be sent anywhere. But conditions had gradually developed within Europe in such a way that if one had wanted to do it exactly the same way as in the Roman Empire, if the farmer had to go to war or the lord of the manor as a count had to lead the farmers in war, they would have had to take all their fields with them on their backs – which, as is well known, they cannot.

The consequence of this was that, since movement was needed among the peoples, something quite different had to gradually develop, an element that is not now like the legion system in the Roman Empire. And this element that emerged came about in the following way. It came about in the following way: I am now talking about the centuries that followed the Carolingian period, because what I am telling you happened over the course of centuries. Gradually, some of the landowners attracted people who entered into their special service and became dependent on them. These were mostly those who were now surplus to requirements in the wide field of natural economy. And these people, who were redundant in the field of natural economy, could be gathered around them when they wanted to undertake military campaigns and military expeditions. These people, who were either redundant due to overpopulation there or there, or who were redundant because they had others do their work for them, these were now the people from whom, gradually, all over Europe, what is now from the Middle Ages onwards as knighthood; knighthood - essentially what one might call “quality warriors”, people who made war their trade, who thus carried out what they did in the service of this or that lord for the sake of this trade. With knighthood, then, a special people of war developed at the same time, which became a special class throughout Europe.

And from this arose another necessary consequence: there existed, as it were, two circles of interests. Without realizing these two circles of interests, one does not understand the Middle Ages. There were the wide interests of those to whom it was actually absolutely indifferent whether these knights or their leaders undertook this or that, who wanted nothing more than to cultivate their soil and trade in the immediate vicinity, to pursue their trade. This interest gradually gave rise to the sentiment in Europe that was not yet present at the time of the migration of peoples, which later appeared particularly in the crafts of the cities: the bourgeois sentiment. This spread within one class of the population, and the chivalrous sentiment, which was based on the quality warrior, went parallel to it, but quite apart from the other sentiment.

In this way you have given an example – if you look at world history correctly, you will find such things everywhere, only in a different form – but you have given an example of how different classes develop out of certain concrete necessities that arise over time. But that was where a discrepancy occurred. Those who gradually rose through the ranks – isn't that right? I can't tell the whole story, I can only make aphoristic comments – rose from being a landed gentry, by gradually making their surroundings dependent. The whole essence of the Merovingians came about in no other way than that large estate owners extended their networks further, making more people dependent; for when we speak of a Merovingian “state” in history today, it is almost a cliché in comparison! What we call a state today only begins after the 15th century.

The Merovingians, who rose to power, initially had to deal only with the people who had joined them as a knightly population, so to speak, the supernumeraries who shared their adventures. Because the territory was a common one, they continually had the other interest groups either against them or had them beside them in such a way that they did not know how to deal with them properly. At that time there was no question of any real organization, such as a state administration, that would have reached into all aspects of life. If one speaks of princes for that time, then these princes basically only had some influence over those who had joined them. Those who sat on their own little plot of land regarded themselves as the independent lords of their own little plot and, if I may use the trivial expression, cared little about those who wanted to rule with them. They did as they pleased.

When going back to the time of Louis the Pious, one should not read history today as if what is attributed to him as the “empire” could be attributed to him in such a relationship, so-called to his government, as a state is to its government today. That is not the case at all. These things must be considered in concrete terms. And so one can say that it has been shown that there were constant, diverse, and strongly differentiated interests. This must be taken into account in particular because the historical life of the Middle Ages emerges from these things.

Now I said: the 15th century is remarkable for the reason that in the 15th century, again, especially through the natural development of mines and the like, gold appeared in Europe, later through the voyages of discovery; so that since the 15th century, circumstances have arisen that are fundamentally different from the previous ones in that gold has appeared again. And this 15th century, which we can also call the age of the Christian Rosenkreuz, is therefore the one through which we again sailed into the monetary economy in Europe. There is also a mighty turning point in this respect. The last times of the fourth post-Atlantic period in Europe were the moneyless ones, those of the natural economy. That is what we have to bear in mind. And now, during this time, through all the holes in that, what I have described developed, which then, from the 15th century onwards, brought about the gradual change in circumstances so that we can now speak of compact nationalities separated into states.

To speak of such a contrast between Germans and French, as one can do since the 15th century, is still quite impossible for the period up to the 15th century, and is even meaningless. What can be called the French nation has only formed very slowly and gradually. Of course, the Franks were distinct from the Saxons; but the Frankish character was no more distinct from the Saxon character than I described it last time. There were tribal differences, not ethnic or national differences, no greater differences than there are today between Prussians and Bavarians, perhaps even smaller in many respects.

But everything that had developed there is still connected with the circumstances we have just described. For that which then became the French kingship really emerged from landowning circumstances. And the great difference in the formation of the closed French nationality and the so-called German nationality, which was open in every direction, in the center of Europe is essentially due to the fact that the French members of the Merovingians, Carolingians and so on could more easily smooth over the differences between themselves and the others due to the tribal character; they got along better with the opposing elements. For from all that I have described, it emerged that, initially, the people who were settled on the land, the settled people in general, did not want to go along with anything, did not greet the Gessler's hat anywhere. That was already the custom throughout Europe: nowhere to greet the Gessler's hat.

But even those who had become knights gradually sought to settle here and there. Of course, after they had first attained a certain position under the protection of this or that feudal lord, that is, prince, they were very inclined to become independent again. Why should one not be as powerful as the one under whose protection one had become powerful?

But this meant that the one who was something like a ruler soon had to deal with unruly elements. And the period of the 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th, 13th, and 14th centuries essentially developed in such a way that there was a continuous struggle between the opposing elements and those who wanted to rule over them. What had emerged from the consequences of the migration of peoples could not easily be reduced to some abstract form.

One wonders how it actually came about that in what later became France a unified nationality was able to develop relatively early on? For the historical observer, this is in a sense a kind of puzzle that immediately presents itself, and one must try to solve such a puzzle. For one cannot get away from the general saying: nations develop in this or that way. In every corner of the earth, what is a nation develops differently, even if it is later called the same in each case. One asks oneself: how did it happen that from the Merovingian period until the 15th century this compact French nation was able to develop?

Now, this is still connected with somewhat earlier conditions. Even when the Roman Empire was still powerful, fewer inhabitants and personalities of the Roman Empire were transferred to Central Germany than to what later became France. The western regions of Europe were actually already very, very much permeated with Romance elements at the time of the Roman Empire. And I said that many things penetrated through the gaps in these conditions. Otherwise, in principle, present-day France is no different from what it was in those centuries, but there is one difference: intermingled with the other population were many Romance elements, Romance personalities with Romance views, interests, inclinations, remnants of the old Roman Empire. And on the wings of the old Roman Empire, one might say, Christianity had gradually spread throughout Europe.

Christianity came to France with the Roman element, and came in the same way as it had made its entry into the Roman Empire itself. And it was therefore of some advantage in this area if those who wanted to rule adhered to what was left of the Roman element. Because the settled people and the knights all had a characteristic that made them appear well suited for administration when there were others who were different. If, as in Central Europe, there had been no one as such for a long time, then of course these people had to be used. Right? In Central Europe they did it like this: The people of a certain area came together through purely oral agreements and from time to time they organized what was called a thing. And there, with ideas that were all from the atavistic Hell, they discussed how to punish one or the other who had done something wrong. This was arranged orally, and it was actually quite common in the areas of Central Europe to arrange these things orally. Little was written because the sedentary farmers and knights had the peculiarity that none of them could read or write. You may know that Wolfram von Eschenbach, the famous poet of the Middle Ages, could not read or write a single letter. But the Romance elements that had flooded into Western Europe could. They were also, in the sense that we call it today, educated people. The consequence of this was that, of course, those who wanted to rule made use of these “educated” people, apart from the fact that the clergy were of course taken first from this class. This also led to the connection of the administrative civil service with the spiritual element, which consisted to a large extent of the influx of the Romanic element.

But with this and with the church at the same time, which was thus drawn from the Romanic, it came about that the linguistic element began to play an enormous role. And the puzzle that I have hinted at cannot be solved otherwise than by gaining an idea of the tremendous suggestive power of language. With the language that was transformed from Romance in Western Europe, but which retained the Romance style, if I may say so, with this language not only a language but an entire spirit was transferred. For a spirit lives in language with tremendous suggestive power. And this spirit had an overwhelming effect. And the arrival of the Romance spirit on the wings of the Romance language, from the Carolingian period to the 15th century, was a fact.

And now the peculiar thing happens: Western Europe is now quite different from the conditions in Central Europe. In Western Europe, what language, which had gradually developed from a Romance element, has suggestively achieved in people's souls, as if from below, is complete. What lay in the broad popular consciousness, in what I have just described as the settled farmers, this settled peasantry with its ancient atavistic clairvoyance - even if these people had become Christians - with the bringing up of their, not faith, but direct insight into what was in the spiritual worlds, that did not emerge everywhere for the people who ruled or administered there above. But in Western Europe, an upper class emerged that, by shaping the language, also had a suggestive effect on the lower classes. We do not need to consider this upper class in terms of how it administered and what legal and administrative conditions emerged; but we do need to consider it as a class of civil servants, as a class of language that into the lower class and with the language the whole suggestive element, which spread as a uniform over a certain territory, before the people from below reacted against what had formed as a ruling class. Because we see until the 15th century what had formed as a ruling class, making its various manipulations; and what is below, does not care about it, remains free, until clashes occur. What rules has the tendency, after all, to draw more and more to itself. By the time the country had reached the point where the peasantry, the original folklore, reacted, the linguistic element with its suggestive power had already been vigorously effective. And you can find it particularly significant in Western Europe, you can see how the broad masses of the people react, who were still within their old spirituality, in their atavistic spirituality.

The messenger, the genius of this mass of people, is the Maid of Orleans. With the Maid of Orleans, there arises that which, after language has worked through its suggestive power, is the reaction of the people from below, which forces the French monarchy to take the people into account. You see, until the 15th century, until the appearance of the Maid of Orleans, who actually made France as France, Romanesque flooding, then the appearance of the people's messenger. So that even in this way of the appearance of the folk through the shear science of Joan of Arc, it shows how what was naturally alive everywhere in this folk reacts upwards and only then actually becomes “history” for external history.

There were such Maidens of Orleans throughout Europe in those centuries, not with the power of action but with the power of vision. And the foundation on which the Maid of Orleans built was the element spread over the broad peasantry and the broad masses of the people. In the Maid it only came to the surface. It is not described for the people. You have to codify Louis as stupid – no, pious – and his councils and all the stuff that is in the chronicles, what they wrote together, as “history” and you have to make people believe that these great landowners were rulers of states and the like. But basically that is outside of real concrete life. But real life was permeated with what then came to the surface in the genius of the Maid of Orleans and entered into the French character at a time when the suggestive power of language was being exercised. And thus, from below, what was national strength was poured into the French character. That is how it came about.

This was not the case in Central Europe. There was no language that exercised such suggestive power. All other conditions were similar, but there was nothing that welded a larger tribal group into a national force through the suggestive power of language. Therefore, in national terms, what exists in Central Europe remains a fluid mass, and – peculiarly – can easily be used for colonization. But the colonization that is done with the population of Central Europe is different from what it is today. When colonization is done today, it is usually to acquire foreign territories. But in the past, people were sent to foreign lands – and in large numbers they were called, the colonizers – and what they then understood from their homeland, they carried into foreign lands.

This is what happened in the eastern part of Europe in the broadest sense. But it remained a fluid mass. And while in the West, in particular, the suggestive power of language was effective, in Central Europe there remained the brawls, the quarrels, the differentiated interests that I have described, insubordination above all against those who wanted to rule, which then had the consequence that a widespread, uniform nationality could not develop as it could in the West. There was nothing to suggest the power of language. Therefore, in many cases, those who were the stronger as a result of the circumstances arose. Hence the territorial principalities, which had remained even beyond the 15th century, and which essentially arose because there was no such suggestive power as the power of language in the West.

The other element, which now really understood how to deal with some of these circumstances, had to take them into account: the ecclesiastical element, which gradually emerged in Rome from the perished Roman Empire. This ecclesiastical element is called in occult circles the grey shadow of the Roman Empire, because it took over everything that was the way of thinking about administration and the like from the Roman Empire, but applied it to ecclesiastical conditions. This striving of the church had to go in the direction of differentiating itself into what was developing in Europe. And I have already hinted to you a few times about how they in Rome knew how to deal with the situation. From the 9th century to the end of the 10th century and the beginning of the 11th century, they knew how to deal with the situation perfectly well, in that they in Rome now actually endeavored to force what they called Christianity into all these situations in an administrative form. If it was possible to convert a city into a bishop's see, then that was done; if there was a peasantry somewhere that one wanted to win over, one built a church for them so that they would gather around it; if there was a lord of the manor somewhere, one tried little by little to replace this lord of the manor by training his son or the like to become a clergyman. The church used all circumstances. And indeed: as never later was the church within these centuries put into the possibility of becoming a universal European power. This process, how the church worked in the 9th, 10th, 11th centuries, is tremendously significant because it really aims to take into account all the concrete circumstances. One must only consider this.

The people who were Catholic clergy or priests at the time were not so foolish as to believe that the spirits that people spoke of in atavistic clairvoyance were not spirits; they reckoned that these were real powers, but they sought the appropriate means to fight them. While the princes were not at all able to cope with them, the church was actually able to gradually provide the ideas - which were quite justified for them - with a nomenclature. It is true that in Rome they knew very well that the atavistic clairvoyance is not all about devils, but that these demons are our opponents and we must fight them.

One weapon in this fight was to label them as devils, to ascribe them to a particular category. This was a very real fight against the spiritual world that was waged in those days. It was only from the 15th century onwards that people no longer had any awareness of the spiritual powers at work. The strength of the spreading ecclesiastical Christianity lies in the fact that one knew how to deal with what is real: with the spiritual powers. And in the 11th and 12th centuries the process was actually completed to a certain extent.

You will only be able to judge the history of the Middle Ages correctly if you bear in mind that all the ecclesiastical arts that were effectively applied and which were great and meaningful arts, had actually been developed in the church from the 9th century, when it was shown, for example, under Pope Nicholas I, how one reckoned strongly with the spiritual powers, how one had to reckon with everything that the people knew through atavistic clairvoyance. And the art of working in the spiritual realm is what actually made the Church great. But by the 11th and 12th centuries these arts had been exhausted. Of course, the old arts were still practiced, but new ones had not been invented, so that one can say: everything else that happens is actually in the service of this mighty spiritual struggle. For even that which appears to set the tone, the establishment of the German-Roman Empire, which passes, not truly, from the West to Central Europe under the Saxon emperors, this coupling of Central Europe with Italy, this recedes more or less in the face of the tremendous power that lies in the fact that the church in these times is pouring an international over Europe that only from the 15th century onwards becomes a national. It is only from the 15th century onwards that the conditions under which people in Europe live at present have developed, also with regard to the peoples of Central Europe. It must be emphasized again and again, for what was actually the basis of what constantly took place between the so-called Roman-German emperors and the popes? You can study this especially if you read the accounts of Henry IV, who may have been distorted in history but was very clever politically. What was at the root of it was always that it was necessary for those who wanted to rule, who should rule for my sake, to tame the unruly. The spreading church was, of course, a good means of combating the unruly - if the church helped. Hence the perpetual binding together of secular power with ecclesiastical power, which in that time could only be achieved through a certain relationship between those who were elected in Central Europe and who, precisely because of what they achieved through this election in Central Europe, had little of their rule but the powers over the unruly, the powers over those whom they actually did not want at all.

Just think about it: we are dealing with an elective monarchy. The kings were elected. They were elected by the so-called seven electors. Of these seven electors, however, three were the ecclesiastical princes. The ecclesiastical princes, with the help of the ecclesiastical means, as I have just indicated, were powerful. The archbishops of Mainz, Cologne and Trier had three of the seven votes, and they were powerful. The only other powerful figure was the Count Palatine of the Rhine, who was still in a position to deal with his vassals – as they were later called, subjects – under the circumstances that had developed. But the other three electors, so-called electors, one of whom, for example, was the King of Bohemia, who was unruly himself; the other two ruled over what were then still entirely Slavic regions, along the Elbe and so on, with a strong Slavic population. Kingship really meant nothing more than what the Carolingian Empire meant. The only difference was that Carolingianism had an easier time dealing with what was striving to the surface because the suggestive power of language was there. That was not the case in Central Europe.

There is much more I could tell you about how these differences developed in detail, but you can read about it in any history book. If you follow the same points of view that we are applying here, you will read history with different eyes.

When the relations that had gradually developed between the papacy and the empire had died down a little, the ecclesiastical element had become so strong that it wanted to pursue independent policies. This was essentially the case in the 11th and 12th centuries. And it is interesting that Pope Innocent III now administered the affairs of Italy, which had been anarchic until then - in a sense, the clergy were the most difficult there - from Rome. Actually, Innocent III is now, as a human and spiritual power, the creator of a national consciousness of the so-called Italians with what came from him. Innocent III is a Lombard offspring, but one can say that what came from him basically made the Italian nation, which actually also became a nation through the impulses that Innocent III laid. The nationalization process was also completed by the 15th century. So it is essentially the church itself that created the national element. Thus, in the formation of the French nation, one must look for the suggestive power of language, and in the Italian nation, directly, the ecclesiastical element. These things only confirm what is obtained in a concrete way from spiritual science, which we have already considered for the various nations.

It is quite characteristic of Innocent III that he actually set very specific tasks for the Catholic Church. And one might ask: What then is the task that the papacy set itself after the great period of which I have spoken, from about the 10th, 11th or 12th century onwards, and what has been the mission of the papacy since those centuries? The mission of the papacy, in the Catholic Church in general, consists essentially in keeping Europe from recognizing what the Christ Impulse actually is. More or less consciously, the aim is to establish a church that sets itself the task of completely misunderstanding the actual Christian impulse, not to let the people know what the actual impulse of Christianity is. For wherever an attempt is made to place in the foreground some element that wants to approach the Christian impulse more closely - let us say the element of Francis of Assisi or something similar - it is consumed, but not incorporated into the actual structure of the church's power. The situation in Europe has developed in such a way that the people of Europe have gradually accepted a Christianity that is not Christianity at all. Christianity must first become known again through the spiritual-scientific discovery of Christianity. The fact that the Europeans have accepted a Christianity that is not Christianity has contributed significantly to the fact that talking about the Christian mysteries is an absolute impossibility today. Nothing can be done about this; first, long preparations are needed. For what matters is not that one uses the name of Christ, but that one would be able to properly grasp the essence of what Christianity is. But that was precisely what was to be concealed, what was to be suppressed by what popes like Innocent III did.

The external circumstances were already strange, as Innocent III shaped them. For one must not forget that at that time a remarkable victory had been won by the papal side. There was – as you will know from external history – a twofold current in Central Europe, Southern Europe, Western Europe: a more papal-friendly current, the so-called Guelph, and an anti-papal current, the Hohenstaufen. The Hohenstaufen were, after all, more or less always in conflict with the popes. But that did not prevent Innocent III from joining forces with the French and the Hohenstaufen to defeat the English and the Guelphs. For it had already come to the point that on the papal side they were now reckoning with the circumstances that subsequently became political. In its better times, the Church could not yet reckon with political circumstances; it had to reckon with concrete circumstances.

This gives you a picture of the configuration of Europe and of the gradual insertion, insertion of the universal church into this configuration of Europe. Now, we must not forget that it was essentially a overcoming of the old clairvoyant element by the church. That was one side of it. But the old clairvoyant element continued to develop nevertheless, and you see everywhere where secular and ecclesiastical powers make their compromises that there or there the talk is of the princes or the popes having to lead the fight against the heretics. Just think of the Waldensians and so on, of the Cathars; there are heretical elements everywhere. But they also had their continuation, their development. Gradually something emerged from them, and these were the people who, little by little, looked at Christianity on its own merits. And the strange thing is that, from among the heretics, people gradually emerged who looked at Christianity on its own merits and were able to recognize that what comes from Rome is something different from Christianity. This was a new element in the struggle, which, if you follow it, can be particularly strong for you to face, as the kings of France, who were allied with the Pope, had to wage war against the Count of Toulouse, who was a protector of the heretics of southern France. And you can find something like that in all fields. But these heretics looked at Christianity and could not agree with the political Christianity that came from Rome. So while the conditions I have described were forming, there were also such heretics everywhere, who were actually Christians, who were violently opposed, who often kept quiet, founded all kinds of communities, spread secrets about it. The others were powerful; but they strove for a special Christianity.

It would be interesting to study how, on the one hand, the continuous advances from Asia became occasions for what are called the Crusades. But for the papacy, at the same time, the call that was made by Peser of Amiens and others 'on behalf of the pope to the Crusades' was a kind of means of information. Even in those days, the papacy needed some kind of improvement. What had become purely political needed to create an artificial enthusiasm, and essentially the way the papacy conducted the crusades was designed to instill new enthusiasm in the people. But now there were people who actually emerged from the ranks of the heretics, who were the direct development of the heretics.

Gottfried von Bouillon was particularly characteristic of these heretical people, who had, however, looked at Christianity; for Gottfried von Bouillon is always distorted in history. It is always presented in history as if Peter of Amiens and Walter of Habenichts went first, could not accomplish anything right, and then, under the same tendency, Gottfried von Bouillon went to Asia Minor with others, and they wanted to continue what Peter of Amiens and Walter of Habenichts should have done. But that cannot be the case. Because this so-called first regulated crusade is something completely different.

Gottfried von Bouillon and the others associated with him were essentially - even if they did not outwardly show it - emerged from the ranks of the heretics, for the reasons that I have discussed. And for these, the goal was initially a Christian one: with the help of the Crusades, they wanted to establish a new center against Rome by founding a new center in Jerusalem, and to replace the Christianity of Rome with a true Christianity. The Crusades were directed against Rome by those who were, as it were, initiated into their real secrets. And the secret password of the crusaders was: Jerusalem against Rome. - That is what is little touched upon in external history, but it is so. What was wanted from heretical Christianity in contrast to Roman political Christianity was to be achieved indirectly through the Crusades. But that did not work. The papacy was still too powerful. But what came about was that people's horizons were broadened. One need only remember how narrow they had become in Europe since the time of Augustine. In my book, “Christianity as Mystical Fact,” you will find that Augustine is quoted as saying, and Gregory of Nazianzus and others have also said: Yes, certain things cannot, of course, be reconciled with reason, but the Church, the Catholic Church, prescribes them, so I believe it. - This version, this disastrous information, which was necessary for Europe in many respects, had, however, brought with it the fact that great points of view, which were capable of linking to great sensations, to great worldviews, were avoided. Read the Confessions of Augustine, how he flees from the Manicheans. And actually it is that in the Manichean doctrine he has a world view. One is afraid of it, one is afraid of it, one shies away from it. But over there in Asia, on the basis of what I have described in a very material way as the influx of gold into the Orient, the old Persian doctrine had blossomed and taken a great upswing. The Crusaders broadened their horizons considerably, were able to take up what had actually been buried, and thus many secrets were revealed to them, which they carefully guarded. The consequence of this was that, because they did not have enough power to carry out “Jerusalem against Rome,” they had to keep things secret. Hence, orders and all kinds of associations arose, which preserved certain Christian things under a different guise, because the Church was powerful, in orders and the like, but which are precisely opposed to the Church.

At that time, the difference actually emerged that now only comes up when you have visited a church somewhere, let's say in Italy, and someone inside has just preached against the Freemasons: you see people standing there who, of course, couldn't care less about the Freemasons; they don't know any names, but the pastor rants against the Freemasons from the pulpit. This antagonism between the Church and Freemasonry, which nevertheless developed out of heresy, essentially took shape in those days.

These and many other phenomena could be cited if one really wants to understand in detail what actually happened in reality back then. And you will have gathered from the whole that life was partly a very varied one, but that the most diverse spiritual interests played havoc with each other. People were confronted with such contradictions as those between the heretics, many of whom were actually Christians in the best sense of the word, and the church Christians. One could cite many other things that then led to the Reformation in Germany, for example, and the like. One could mention that the politicization of the church has led to the church losing more and more of its power, while in earlier times it would have been unthinkable that the church would not have found a way to get what it wanted. In certain areas, one must say, despite the fact that the church was able to burn Hus at the Council of Constance: Husitism has survived and as a power it actually had quite a significance.

But what is the actual timbre of these medieval scholars? It is true that a religious movement spread that ultimately took on a purely political form. It's a shame that time is so short; there would be many more interesting things to be said. A religious movement spread that takes on a universal character. Due to the different circumstances, the nationalities in Europe are gradually developing. If you consider that Christianity has brought with it ideas that have become so ingrained in Europe, such as the Fall of Man, then it is possible to create plays like the “Paradeisspiel”, which was performed in large parts of Europe, especially in the 12th century. It has penetrated into the most individual, most elementary circumstances. Ideas that go deep into the heart and soul have become widespread, ideas about what man could actually have been according to – if one may say so – God's original plan and what he has become.

This created an atmosphere in which, perhaps never before, and certainly not in our time, has a question been raised again and again and again, emotionally, in so wide a range, the question that is based on the difference between this world here and the world of paradise, between the world that can make people happy. This question, in the most diverse variants, already dominated wide circles. And people who were intelligent, people whose longings were intellectual, often came to direct their striving in a naive, but often also in a matter-of-fact way, towards such riddles. Just look at the whole configuration of the time. With the Roman Empire, Europe became poor in gold. The economy of nature came. Under the natural economy, conditions gradually arose that did not appear paradisiacal to the people. You only have to think of the medieval law of the jungle, of the intermarriage of the ruling families, and so on. The church had spread, for many to such an extent that they said to themselves: It is not Christianity, it is rather there to conceal Christianity, gives rather a false idea of the Christ mystery than a right one. But all this has indeed had the effect that we are not happy. The question: Why is man on earth not happy? Yes, one can say that, more than eating and drinking, this question gradually occupied people in the 13th, 14th and 15th centuries, especially those who felt something in the right way about the Mystery of Golgotha. Which, of course, has a deep meaning and another meaning, that connected itself with the question for people: Why are we not happy? Under what conditions can a person be happy on earth?

Something emerged as a result – in the form it took, it can be traced back to the cause I am about to mention – which will be clear to you from the descriptions I have given. Europe was without gold; natural economy was the basis on which unhappy humanity developed. The Roman papacy veiled Christianity. 'But people should strive for something that is a real human goal. And so, to put it briefly, it sounds paradoxical, but in wider circles, especially in those that emerged from the heresy circle, the mood has developed: Yes, we have become poor in Europe, Romanism has gradually made us poor. And it was realized that only those work their way out who work their way out in the same way that the Roman Empire became great, who had come to gold. How can you paralyze that? How can you paralyze the power of gold? If you can make gold!

Thus, the widespread art of experimenting and trying to make gold is connected with the very specific circumstances of the time when there was little gold and only a few individuals came into gold who could use it to tyrannize over others. People strove to balance this out. Because they knew that If everyone can make gold, then gold has no value. Therefore, the ideal became to be able to make gold. They said to themselves: In any case, you can only be happy in a world in which you can make gold. And it is similar with the quest for the “philosopher's stone”, even with the quest for the “homunculus”. Where interests arise as they did from family circumstances - as seen in the divisions of the Carolingians and so on - people cannot be happy. But this is connected with the natural reproduction of man. In any case, if a paradise is possible, it is more likely to be possible if homunculi are created than if ordinary reproduction with all its family relationships continues. Such things, which today sound quite paradoxical and twisted, were something that moved countless minds in those days. And you don't understand the time if you don't know that it was moved by such questions.

And then came the 15th century, and that put an end to gold-seeking, of course, in that they discovered America and brought the gold back from there. And then the phenomenon I have just characterized subsided. Universally summarizing all those elements that were active in the Crusades, deepening during the Crusades, summarizing all the longings that lay in the Middle Ages - the art of making gold, of creating the homunculus , to summarize all this in a truly spiritual way so that it could become an active impulse, that was essentially what the companions of Christian Rosenkreutz set out to do. To do this, it was first necessary to come to terms with all the things that had developed up to the 15th century.

The time had not yet come to draw new truths from the spirit, and so the impulses of Christian Rosenkreutz, like the efforts of Johann Valentin Andreae, ultimately remained unsuccessful. What did they lead to? They led to the emergence of what I am about to say now, and I would ask you to please pay attention and take it into consideration: Europe is differentiating itself; differentiated structures have emerged from what used to prevail there.

It would be interesting, but there is no more time, for me to also tell how the British nation formed in a similar way. Even in the east, the Russian-Slavic nation formed in a corresponding way. All of this could be described. Everywhere it has happened with a reaction from below, only in France it is so significant because the genius from below had a direct character in that it appeared in Joan of Arc.

In the face of this differentiation, to do something truly universalistic – for that Romanism is not suitable for being universalistic had just been shown by Innocent III, who founded the Italian nation; so the church is no longer universalistic – to find a spiritual impulse so strong that it transcends all these differentiations, and truly makes humanity a whole, that was essentially what underlay Rosicrucianism. Of course, humanity was not ripe enough to adopt the means and ways to achieve this. But it has always remained an ideal. And just as it is true that humanity is a whole, a unity, it is also true that, even if it takes some time in different forms, such an ideal must be taken up again. And history itself, the way it tends towards the fifteenth century and the way it develops the peculiar configuration in the fifteenth century, is the most vivid proof of this. There is no need to resurrect the old Rosicrucianism, but the ideal on which it was based must be taken up.

These are a few aphoristic remarks that I wanted to make at the end. I really wanted to give more suggestions than anything detailed and exhaustive, now that I will have to say goodbye to you again for some time. Over the years, if I may say so, it has become increasingly difficult to say goodbye because it has always happened under less hopeful circumstances. Now, I do not need to assure you that I view the structure and everything associated with it in an honest and sincere way as something that is essentially a real factor in the aspirations that should actually become the aspirations of our time in the broadest sense. I have never seen this structure as merely the hobby of a few individuals or something similar, but I have always seen in this structure and in what it emerges from, on the basis of which it is built, something that must be the cultural ferment of our time, namely, of the future.

Therefore, it can be said that a great deal depends on those who have come to understand the significance of this building to also really understand it emphatically and seriously and to represent it with all dignity. Certainly, the building is a first attempt in every respect. But if humanity is to be redeemed in the human being, if that which is trampled underfoot today is to be cultivated in humanity again, then forces will be needed that are of the same nature as those meant by our building, and that are connected with our building.

Today, when old religious beliefs and the like criticize this, it sounds very strange; after all, these old religious beliefs have had quite a long time to take effect. And if humanity has reached an impasse today, then it is perhaps not unfounded to ask: If you are saying the same thing you said before, why hasn't it worked before? If it is considered correctly, this may perhaps lead to an understanding of the necessity of what is actually meant here, and what is intended here.

And now, however time may change – every time I left, I asked you: May these or those circumstances arise, to the extent that you are able, hold fast to what has led to this undertaking. It is certainly true that the hostility is growing; but consider that even in this unfavorable time, in the course of the last few years, here and there and even in wider circles, some sympathy has arisen precisely for the nature of this undertaking and what is connected with it. And if one does not consider the great task of our spiritual scientific movement, the difficulties it has, the wide gap between what is to be achieved and what is there, if one finally, without becoming foolish on the one hand, but on the other hand without misjudging things, looks at what is developing - one can also look at the good for once - then it is there! Things are moving forward. If you follow with a finer feeling, for example, how such a detail as the eurythmic art has been developed here over the last few years – I think you can see that – then you can say that there is no standstill in our ranks. And if you were to look at the more intimate progress that is taking place within the creation of this building, you can speak of a certain progress. I can even say this today, when I have to say goodbye to you again for some time, with a certain inner heartfelt emotion.

When the first steps were taken to create this structure, the first thing to be done was to draw the larger lines, to ensure that this or that happened. But even though we have to focus our attention with deep pain and sorrow on the way this structure has suffered from the general catastrophic conditions of humanity, something else can be said: the circumstances have led me to work much more intensively on the details that arise here at the building site. And it is precisely for this reason that I can say that I may express it here with an agitated heart: what is being built really does express more and more visibly and intimately what is connected with the greater impulses of humanity. Recently, for example, I was able to tell you about the new legend of Isis, which story is meant to be characteristic of the entire situation of the building, characteristic of what I would like to express with it, in saying that this building is meant to be a kind of – let me use the philistine expression, a landmark that separates the old, which will finally have to recognize that it is old, from the new, which wants to become because it must become if humanity is not to end up in ever more catastrophic circumstances. The time will come when people will regret that what was intended with this building was often seen as folly. For this catastrophe of humanity will also have the consequence that many things will be recognized that would not have been recognized without this catastrophe. For it speaks with very, very clear signs. That humanity can be redeemed from man precisely through such impulses as are connected with this building is really supported by many things that could be observed during its construction.

Today, you will be particularly confronted with how many cultural works come about externally. Ask yourself whether wherever a church or something similar is built today - it could also be a department store - it is always built in such a way that those who build it and those who work with them are completely immersed in the purpose for which the things are built. One could build some great cathedrals in which the master builders do not really believe in the symbol that is inside. But here it is already a truth that the one works best who is most deeply connected with the matter at hand, who is able to use not only his art but his whole being, who not only works with the outer forms but who wholeheartedly not only works with this world view but lives this world view. And so I must say: It is of particular importance to me, especially this time, to express not only my outward thanks to all those who dedicate their work, their life forces, their thoughts to this building, to those who want to work with us here to bring this work to fruition, but to tell them that I really feel deeply, deeply, what it means that people have come together who want to work here on this work of culture. And out of this feeling, which indeed binds us even more deeply in times when people are as bound as they are in these, I say to you today, as we come to the end of these lectures, a kind of farewell for the time being, for the external physical circumstances. We will remain together in thought. Physical circumstances cannot separate us. But that which will connect us best will be when the power remains alive in us that wants to be built and formed into that which wants to develop into human peace in the stormy times of humanity.