The Rudolf Steiner Archive

In the idea which I developed here yesterday, I wished to point out that it is necessary for the evolution of humanity to impress very clearly upon ourselves certain ideas in Spiritual culture which have not as yet appeared in the present era. This is something that is of main importance, that certain ideas now non-evident, or least not in current use, should again come into the spiritual life of man. If we follow up the spiritual life of modern times in its various ramifications, we see that its characteristic is that in spite of all the arrogance, all the self-conceit which comes to light at times, the spiritual life does not contain any new ideas. Although all sorts of world-conceptions have appeared, of an ethical, artistic, and even philosophical or scientific nature, they all deal with old ideas which have been in use for a long time, and which are then mixed together, as in a kaleidoscope. We need new conceptions, yes new conceptions such as should rise are lacking. For that reason certain old truths cannot be understood to-day, truths which appeared among the Ancients and which are handed down traditionally; for instance, ideas which appeared in Plato or Aristotle as being the latest in this respect. In earlier times they appeared with still more significance; but today they are either not understood at all or else rejected, but only because they are not understood. I will give you an illustration of such a conception. When a man today sees something, he thinks: “The object is outside, it sends the light to me; the light comes into the eye, and in that passive—one may not say mysterious—manner, is produced with the soul experiences as the sensation of color.” In Plato another conception is found. There something appears which we cannot understand otherwise, if we take it literally, than as if the eye sent forth something to the object which grasps it in a mysterious manner; as if the eye stretched out a feeler which grasps the object. This can be found in Plato. The more recent ideas of natural science can of course make nothing of this, can understand nothing of it. It is the kind of idea which you can find recorded in the ordinary textbooks—or even in the ‘scholarly’ books—on the History of Philosophy. But you cannot do much with such books either, because such ideas rests upon something which existed in ancient times in a certain atavistic second-sight or second-feeling, which has gradually died out, but which must be rediscovered in our time, in another way. Since olden times certain ideas have been lost which must be recovered.

These concepts have been lost chiefly because what one may call the Latin or Roman culture had to pour over Europe, especially over Western Europe. The study of this Latin, Roman culture in its expansion over Europe would yield very illuminating results, if we observed it aright. We must be clear on the point that as regards blood, nothing is left in Italy today of the race which we call the “Ancient Roman.” The present-day battalions, although they may be responsible for many things in our time, are certainly not responsible for what I'm about to relate now. What streamed forth from the Roman Empire merely streamed forth into Europe in a cultural way, but it had a parching, burning effect on certain fundamental, basic ideas; ideas which must, as it were, again be redeemed from their grave. We need only call to mind the following fact. With the overthrow of Alesia, that town which was destroyed in the last era before the birth of Christ and is situated in what is now the province of the Côte d'Or in France, a piece of old Celtic-Gaelic culture was entirely rooted out by the Romans. (On the scene of the old ruined Alesia, Napoleon III ordered a monument erected to Vercingetorix!) Perhaps today Alesia would be called a gigantic “Academy.” Ten-thousand Europeans studied there in the way in which science and knowledge was studied at that time. All that was done away with, and in its place came what was spread abroad as the Roman culture. This is only an historical observation, intended to show that in Europe, also, older concepts existed in the old places of culture which have since been destroyed.

Today I wish to draw your attention to two ideas which must be incorporated into science as well as into everyday life, in order that a better understanding of the world may become possible. One of these is that an idea exists that really the perception of the world comes about through the senses. This happens in the following way.

If we stand opposite a color object it certainly impresses us; what takes place between the colored object and the human organism is a destructive process in the latter. I have often laid stress on this. It is in a sense a death in miniature, and the nervous system is the organ for continuous destructive processes. These disturbances, which are continually being brought about through the action of the outer world on our own organism, and balanced again, however, by the action of the blood. In the human organism there is a continual counteracting process between blood and nerves. This process comes about because the blood furnishes a quickening process and the nerves a sort of death-process, a destructive one. For instance if we stand opposite a colored object which works on us from the outer world, a destructive process takes place in our nervous system. Something is destroyed in a physical body as well as in the etheric body, a sort of canal is hollowed out in our organism through the destructive process which runs along a definite course. Thus when we “see” something, a canal is bored from the eye to the edge of the brain. Not that something takes place that has to be analysed and solved, from the brain-covering to the eye; but, on the contrary, a hole is bored and through this hole the astral body slips, so as to be able to see the object. Plato was still able to see this. It could still be perceived through atavistic clairvoyance, and we must re-acquire it through learning really know the human organism with the newer clairvoyance, learning to know this canal, this hole which is bored, leading from the eye to the brain-covering, through which the Ego unites itself with what works from outside. Mankind must learn not to form such concepts as are customary in the present-day theory of knowledge or physiology, but must learn to say: “A canal, a tunnel, is forward from the brain-covering to the eye, and by this means a door opens through which the astral body and the ego come into connection with the outer world.” This is a concept of which the present day has no idea! For that reason it does not know what physiological facts result from this. Today students learn physiology at the Universities, and learn very exactly the customary concepts which I have just mentioned, but they do not learn how things are really related, they learn just the opposite, which has no sense. This is one such concept.

Another is very frequently found today if we go into that sphere which is called the sphere of learning and scholarship—of course with full justification. It is they are described (and this is of course unavoidable today) how man is born as an undeveloped being; how then gradually his ‘soul’ and ‘spirit’ develop, and in this gradual development of soul and spirit are produced through the organism of the body becoming finer and more complicated. You can find this idea introduced by psychologists and especially by scholars, as also in all the popular books. Thus it appears to man; but what appears to thus is Maya. In many respects what we first encounter is the opposite of truth. This idea too is the opposite of what is true. Instead of this, we ought really to say (I may just remind you of what you said in “The Education of the Child,” where what I am about to say is expressed, though put somewhat differently): “While the child is quite young, soul and spirit are still ‘psychic’ and ‘spiritual,’ and as the child grows, his soul and spirit are gradually transformed into the material, the bodily. Soul and spirit gradually become of a bodily nature, man gradually becomes a complete image of soul and spirit.” It is very important that we should hold this idea. For if we do, we shall no longer say that what runs about on the ground on two legs is man; we shall become conscious of the fact that that is only the image of man, that man after being born in a super-sensible manner gradually grows in unity with the body and creates a full image of himself in his body. Spirit and soul disappear into the body, and appear less and less in their own nature. Thus we must adopt exactly the opposite concept to the customary one. We must know why, for instance, we really become “20 years old;” it is because spirit has descended into the body, because it has transformed itself into the body, because that which is body is an external image of the spirit. Then we shall also understand that gradually, when we are growing “old,” the reverse transformation is going on. The body becomes chalky and salted, but the spirit becomes more psychic and spiritual. Only man has not then the power of holding on to it, because while here, he stands face-to-face with the physical world and wishes to express himself through the body. What thus becomes more and more independent, only appears in its entirety after death. Thus it is not the case that the soul and spirit becomea blunted in old age; on the contrary, they become ever freer and freer. Of course the materialistic thinker, when these things are put before him, will frequently object that even Kant, for instance, who was a very clever man, grew weak in his old age; so that they are at any rate the soul and spirit could not have made themselves free. Materialistic thinker only makes that objection because he cannot observe the soul and spirit nature, and see how it had already grown gradually into the spiritual world. For very many people it will be a hard nut to crack if they are told to believe that when men grow old they do not become weak or even feeble-minded, but more psychic and more spiritual. Only, when the body is worn out, we can no longer express the psycho-spiritual which we have cultivated, through the body. It is like the case of a pianist: he might become a better and better player, but if his piano is worn out we cannot perceive this. If you were only to know his capabilities as a pianist from his plane, you will not be able to gather much if the piano is out of tune and has broken strings. So that Kant, when he was an old man and “feeble-minded” was not weak minded as regards the spiritual world; there he had become glorious.

Thus when we get the truth we have exactly to reverse certain conceptions. We must take it quite seriously that in the world we have to do with Maya, with the great illusion, for we must exactly reverse many of our ideas. If we seriously consider that in the external physical reality we are face to face with the great illusion, we shall also be able to accept the fact that external physical man when 70 years of age and apparently weak has his spirit somewhere else than on the physical plane. The obstacles in the way of understanding the teachings of Spiritual Science to a great extent consist in the fact that we are not able to form correct ideas as to what is happening on the ordinary physical plane. We form false ideas about what is happening on the physical plane, and the consequences is that these separate us from the true and right world and do not allow us to reach it. If we form such concepts as the second one to which I referred, we shall then no longer be very far from the knowledge which Spiritual Science is now giving out from its investigations concerning man immediately after death.

When man enters physical life through birth, he gradually enters more and more closely into relationship with his physical body. We have now become acquainted with a correct idea of this relationship. We do not always notice, because it would require too much explanation, that something similar also takes place between death and a new birth. The matter can be presented in a similar manner as regards the time between death and rebirth. We may say that man then gradually enters into relation with something similar to this physical body here on earth. Our physical bodily nature is not merely physical; it embraces, as we know: the physical body, the etheric body or body of formative-forces, and the astral body, the outer psychic or soul-body. As we have to appropriate these three ‘skins’ or ‘shells’ for physical life, so have we to put on coverings between death and rebirth, indeed three such coverings which, I will call: “Soul-Man,” “Soul-Life” or “Life-Soul,” and “Soul-Self.” As we take on the physical body here for use in the physical world, so do we take on the “Soul-Life” or the “Life-Soul.” Just as we take on the astral body, the Soul-body for our life Earth, so do we take on after death the “Individual Soul” or “Soul-Self.” I select these expressions for the reason that they should not be confused with what men will appropriate in another way for the Jupiter, Venus, and Vulcan time; there is a resemblance, but, because it belongs to another stage of being, it must in consequence be differentiated. But names are not the important thing in this matter. It is only necessary for us to study a little how these coverings are appropriated.

When man enters that life which runs its course between death and rebirth, the first characteristic is that he finds himself surrounded by a number of pictures. These pictures all proceed from his experiences between his last birth and last death, or even from earlier times; but we will first of all limit ourselves to what happened in the last earth-life. Thus first of all appear pictures which proceed from the last life; they are to be found in the environment of man. The essential point is that these are in the environment of the dead. The remarkable thing is that at first he has a certain difficulty in developing a consciousness that these pictures are connected with himself. This world of pictures is what is referred to in the book “Theosophy” as the experiences in the Soul World; but this retrospect in pictures is only a part of the collective picture-world which surrounds him there. Other pictures besides these are present; and the life of the dead consist in gradually recognizing these pictures as belonging to himself. Consciousness has to set to work to make them fully recognize in the right way that these pictures belong to him. We can only thoroughly understand what is here in question when we become conscious that the life which we lead here between birth and death is much richer than we are aware of. Suppose you live in certain circumstances, in company with certain people—what takes place consciously between you is really only one part of what goes on. Things are continually happening. You must recollect that life here so runs its course that we observe but a small part of what we experience. Take an ordinary occurrence for instance. You have gathered together here this evening, each one of you present has entered into some relationship with the others. Did you probably consider how much of this you have carried over into your consciousness, you will find it is indeed but very little. For if you are three yards away from another person and then approach him, this drawing three yards nearer to him represents a whole sum of facial impressions; you see his face differently the nearer you approach and so on. The ordinary physical intellect is quite unable to grasp what we are really always experiencing during physical life. What we experienced consciously is but a quite small part of it; by far the most important part remains subconscious. For instance, if you read a letter; as a rule you become conscious of the content, but in your subconsciousness much more than that goes on; there is not only happens that you are always either slightly vexed or pleased by the beautiful or ugly handwriting, but with every feature of the handwriting something passes from the writer into you which you do not observe with your ordinary consciousness but which lives as a dream, continuously through your whole life. We indeed find it so difficult to really to understand dreams for the reason that much appears in them which is not taken into consideration at all in our waking consciousness. Suppose one lady sits here and another there. If the one lady does not particularly notice that another is sitting over there and does not look at her very closely, it may occur that she does not observe the other at all, does not become aware of her gestures, or what she's doing. But all that remains in the subconscious soul, and into our dreams may enter just that which we hardly observed or noticed in our waking consciousness. This may very easily happen when in waking consciousness one directs one's attention to a particular subject, for instance, if when walking along the street plunged in thought and a friend passes by; perhaps one may not even have noticed him, yet one may dream of him, in spite of not knowing that he had passed one in the street. A great deal happens in life, of which but very little enters the waking consciousness. But all the enormous amount that goes on in the life of man, especially what is concerned with the soul and which remains in the subconsciousness, all this becomes pictures around a man. The fact that you come here today and will go away again causes the picture of the whole room to remain bound up with you, and all the more so inasmuch as it has all made a more psychic impression; psychically it is not confined in rigid boundaries.

Thus innumerable pictures are connected with human life. They are all rolled up—I can find no other expression for it—within the life of man. You carry millions of pictures which are being rolled up all through your life; and the first thing that happens after death is the “unrolling of the pictures,” as one might call it; the unrolling of posthumous imaginations. Around each man a world of imaginations gradually forms; and his consciousness consists in recognizing himself in this imaginative world. This is described from somewhat different point of view in the Vienna lectures of life between death and rebirth; but one must observe things from the most varied points of view. The unrolling of the pictures: here we can draw a comparison with what we are, as little children just born, when we still have a somewhat unformed body. Many people (though not precisely the mothers of the children concerned) say that every little child looks like a frog; it is not yet quite human but gradually shapes itself. Just as the child shapes itself, and that grows of which we may say that we have it in us when we lived materially, so does the growth take place in life which we might call the “unrolling of life's pictures.” For in this unrolling of the pictures the “Soul-Man” is formed, one of the principles of man. You must absolutely imagine that this, which is there after death, spreads out, and that the Soul-Man, the picture-man, the imaginative spiritual-body, forms itself thus; it first of all develops in the imaginative images.

Herein we can help the dead tremendously if we go through such ideas together with him as are at the same time those of Spiritual Science, or such ideas as we evolved yesterday of the bluish-red Earth with the golden Jerusalem. These are concepts for which the dead man longs, for he yearns for well-directed and ordered Imaginations. By means of these we can help him, and especially do we help him if we go through with him what we have experienced together with him, for the pictures can hold onto that they may wish to unroll. If we live call up things which have passed unnoticed, and go through these with the dead man, he gains enormously thereby. For instance, I mean by this, if you call to mind the picture of him while he was still alive, how he went through the door as he came out of his office and reached home, how you greet him—incidents wherein the Soul came to expression in a visible pictorial manner. There may be loving memories connected with these things—and of course it may also be otherwise. You will by this means come together with the dead man in thought. I have shown in many different ways how we can mingle this picture-world, in which the dead man must develop, and in which his consciousness must expand, with our own concepts. Concepts and ideas which the dead man strove to attain but could not fully reach and which make something clear to him—these become his picture world. You must work with him at the forming of his Soul-Man.

Of course, in the time which follows on death, the other bodies, the Soul-Life or the Life-Soul and also the Soul-Self, are already formed in the dead. But these very principles form themselves more and more definitely, in such a way that at first, immediately after death, the dead feels them as something for the future which he will only gradually developed by and by. In this respect the deceased has the feeling that he must work out the “Soul-Man,” he must work upon that, but the “Life-Soul” he must allow to develop, that must develop itself gradually. It is of course already present, as is the intelligence in the child; but it must develop gradually as the intelligence does in the child. Thereby an inspirational force appears in the dead man immediately after his death, but this develops and becomes ever stronger and stronger; and when we help the dead, we help them to develop this inspirational force. For gradually something must speak to the deceased from out of the pictures. They must become more than merely the remembrance of life; they must tell him something new, something which life could not yet tell him; for what they now say to him must become the germ for what he builds up as his next Earth-life.

Thus the Soul-Life, the Life-Soul, begins to develop and the pictures become more and more speaking. The dead man first of all directs his attention chiefly to the Earth—if I may express myself thus. As we here on Earth direct our thoughts to the Spirit-world, so does the dead man turn his soul downwards to the Earth, which is seen by him, for example, as I described yesterday, as blue in the Eastern hemisphere and reddish in the Western hemisphere; into this come these pictures, they are interwoven in it. He always sees his own life within the universal picture of the Earth; he sees his life among us. Therefore we can help him to understand these pictures aright. He certainly leaves the Earth, but with the eye of his soul does not leave it. And as inspiration develops more and more, gradually the Earth begins to sound, the pictures gradually tell him more and more.

The question is often asked whether this help can only be given to the dead soon after death or can it also be given after years or tens of years. It never ceases! No one can live on Earth long enough for it to have become unnecessary to help someone who died before us. Even if a person has been dead for 30 or 40 years, the connection, if it was karmic, still exists. Of course we must clearly realize that when the soul of the friend who is still here is undeveloped, he may have a clearer consciousness of disconnection at the beginning. At the beginning the consciousness of the connection with the dead friend may be felt and experienced very strongly, because the pictures are still passive and chiefly still contain what they contained on earth. Later on, they begin to sound; the music of the spheres sounds forth from them. That is something strange and unknown, and we can only gain information about it from Spiritual Science, through which we learn what will take place on the Earth in the future epochs. But it is not very frequent that there is such an active need to approach the dead man after decades, as immediately after his departure. Gradually the inclination towards the dead disappears in the living (experience proves this)—the living feeling for them dies out . This is too a reason why a later time the connection with the dead is felt less actively. This calls our attention to the fact that the first part of life between death and rebirth is chiefly devoted to the formation of the “Soul-Man,” which floats around man is a world of Imagination. Later on, his time is devoted to the inspirational force of the soul: the Life-Soul—though of course it was there from the beginning. And before him, as an ideal, is what we may call the Soul-Self. That too was there from the beginning, fir the Soul-Self gives him individual consciousness. As the intelligence of the child must be cultivated, although present within him from the beginning, so does man develop the Soul-Self in his life between death and rebirth. The time when the soul is again slowly approaching the earth life is chiefly devoted to the cultivation of the Soul-Self. Between death and rebirth man's Soul-Self reaches its highest development in the time when he becomes, spiritually, blooming with youth. Here on Earth we speak of growing old; in the spiritual world between death and rebirth, we have to speak of growing young. Here we speak of becoming gray with age, there we speak of one becoming blooming with youth. These things were well known not so very long ago. Let me remind you of Goethe's “Faust;”, where it says: “He grew young in the Land of the Mist,” which means: “He was born in the Northern World.” In former times they did not say: “someone was born,” but “he has become young,” which referred to his life before birth. Goethe still used this expression “become young in the Land of the Mist.

Thus the last part of the time between death and rebirth is that in which the soul chiefly works out the intuitive side. The first part of the time after death the imaginative part of the soul is active; that is the Soul-Man. Then the inspirational part of the soul, the Life-Soul, develops gradually to its full height, and afterwords that which gives full individuality to the soul is developed, the Soul-Self, the intuitive part, the capacity of entering something different and other than oneself and of finding one's way into it. Into what does the soul find its way? From what do its intuitions chiefly proceed?

At a certain point of the life between death and rebirth the soul begins to feel itself related to the succession of generations which lead down to Father and Mother. It gradually feels itself related to the ancestors, as they are brought together in marriage and have children and so on. Immediately after death, we feel the unrolling of the pictures and looking down upon the Earth, we see these pictures grouped together in their great imaginative connections. And as we turn again to the Earth-life we become more and more intuitive, and the pictures which I called forth yesterday appeared before the soul in larger outlines: the sphere of the Earth gleaming bluish over Asia, India and East Africa; and on the other side where lies America (one circles around the earth) glittering reddish; between these there is green and other shades. The Earth also ‘sounds’ in manifold tones: melodies, harmonies, courses of the music of the spheres. Amidst all this, the pictures we had gradually began to move—the pictures of the successive generations which we had first of all. Gradually one learns no one's 36th and 35th pair of ancestors, then the 34th, 33rd, 32nd and 31st, right down to one's own father and mother. One learns to know this; it is interwoven into the imaginative images. Intuition is impressed into it until one comes to father and mother. This ‘impression’ is really an entering into what lives through the generations. The second half of life between death and rebirth is of such a nature that during this time a man becomes quite accustomed to live in what is below, to live in the outer world already in advance, in that which then becomes his nearest as well as his less near environment, to live not in himself but in this other world. That living in the other is the first experience of life after death. Then one is born again and that first one still retains something of this other life. For this reason we must say that in the first seven years the human being is an “imitator,” he imitates everything that he perceives. Read the book “The Education of the Child” on this subject . Imitation is like the last impression of this “living in the other”which continues into physical life. It is the pre-eminent quality when transformed into the spiritual element, between death and rebirth, and it is the first quality which appears in the child: to imitate everything it sees. This imitative faculty of the child will never be understood unless we know that it proceeds from the magnificent intuitive life in the psycho-spiritual world during the latter part of the time between death and rebirth.

Here is again a concept which the spiritual development of the future must grasp. In olden times—chiefly because men knew of the Spirit through atavistic clairvoyance—the belief in immortality, which has become doubtful to men who think materialistically, was actuated by direct perception; men knew that life continued. But in the future the thought of immortality must be aroused from the other end. Men will understand that life here is the continuation of the spiritual life. As formally in conformity with the nature of the times, men looked first to the continuation of life after death, so in the future they will learn more and more looked chiefly at all life here as a continuation of the life between death and rebirth. Certainly the churches have erected barriers against this. For nothing is considered so great a heresy by the church as the thought of the “pre-existence of the soul” and, as is well known, the old Church Father Origen was looked at askance, principally because he still knew of the pre-existence of the soul. It was not only because—as I have already said—the “spirit” was done away with in the ninth century by the Church Council at Constantinople, by setting up the dogma that man does not consist of body, soul and spirit, but only of ‘body and soul,’ though it conceded that the soul has something of a spiritual nature in it. “It is forbidden to think,” said the Council, “that man consists of body, soul and spirit; he has a soul-like in the spirit-like soul, but he only consists of body and soul.” That is of course still the law of the church today. But something else is bound up with this, which is at the same time “unprejudiced science.” And this is the more interesting part. Among philosophers you find men everywhere divided into body and soul; a threefold division into body, soul and spirit is still very little supporter. Read the “celebrated Wundt” and you will see that it is “unprejudiced science” to divide man into body and soul. It is not unprejudiced science. It is the last remnant of the dogma of the eighth Ecumenical Council! Only the philosophers have forgotten that and look upon it as unprejudiced science. That is the one barrier: the doing away with the spirit. The other barrier which the church has erected is the suppression of the believe in pre-existence. I recall the celebrated philosophical theologian or theological philosopher—whichever you like to call him—Frohschammer in Munich. His books are on the Index. But that has not prevented him, however, from turning against the thought of a pre-existence of the soul, because, he says, that if really the soul did not exist beforehand, if it were not conceived at the same time as the body, then the parents would only produce a “little animal”which later receives the soul. That to him is an uncomfortable concept. (I have introduced this as a note in my ”Riddles of the Soul.”) But it is not so. When we know the fact that man is connected for more than thirty generations with the blood running through the generations, we cannot say that the parents only produce a little animal; for the whole process of the spirit which passes through more than thirty generations, belongs to it. Only one must become conscious of this.

Thus in the future men will not only turn their minds to the question of whether this life lasts after death; they will be able to say, if they study the physical earth-life correctly, that this physical earth-life is the continuation of a spiritual life! Close attention will be directed to this in the future. It will be recognized that the spiritual life continues into the mortal one, and the mortal into the immortal one; and when men recognize the mortal in the immortal, they will have therewith a sure foundation for the knowledge of the immortal. If they understand this earth-life properly, they will no longer try to explain it out of itself alone. Of course it would then be necessary to acquire other ideas such as I have just now set forth. It is indeed necessary to correct many an idea. One acquires with much difficulty ideas which count in life, and popular language is a great hindrance in this respect. We must indeed reckon with popular language first of all, because otherwise we should not be understood at all. But it is a great hindrance to think that we acquire a “likeness” direct from the parents. That is nonsense. I have said in the public lecture that our method of science is suffering very much because what is acknowledged in regard to the science of the inorganic is not also apply to the organic. No one will seek to refer the magnetic power in the magnet to the horseshoe-shaped piece of iron, but will explain the magnetism in the magnet or in the magnetic needle by what pertains to the Cosmos; but the origin of the egg in the hen or the embryo in man—these are not explained from the Cosmos! The Cosmos, however, works everywhere. And strange as it may appear, just as though a sense-impression a canal is poured into the eye in order to open the door for the Ego to come out, so does propagation rest on the fact that in reality room is made for it. What happened is that the organism of the mother is so prepared that room is created and what originates therein is derived from the Cosmos, from the whole Macrocosm. It is a complicated process; but in the being of the mother the room only is prepared; the organization of the mother is so far disturbed as to provide a cavity into which the macrocosm can enter. That is the essential point and even embryology will grasp this before long. They will understand that the most important part connected with embryo is where there is nothing, where the substance of the mother is pushed back because the macrocosm wishes to enter. But man is already united with and beholds the forces which work from the Cosmos through this macrocosmic element, which prepared itself ever since he was intuitively bound up with his ancestors—in the longest case from 32 to 35 generations ago. From the sphere of his stars, to which he is assigned, man beholds the ray fall upon the Earth, he beholds the place where he will be incarnated. Then he gradually approaches the Earth.

These are things which—as I think—can fill our minds with a significant impression. We cannot take up Spiritual Science as we might perhaps take up mathematics, but we shall accept it as something deeply connected with our higher feelings, which makes us in reality different beings, and which deeply enriches human life and lays the foundation of a real cosmic consciousness. This vivifying, in the best sense of the word “quickening” effect of spiritually-scientific knowledge is both essential and important. We certainly should not fail to recognize that at the present time we are to a certain extent in a state of transition with regard to the things here meant. Our age must take this on itself, as its Karma. Today people still say lightly: “Must I indeed except such complicated ideas in order to understand your teaching of the destiny of man? Other teaching makes it easier for people.” the point is that we are living in a time of transition and these ideas are still strange to people; but you will have to become accustomed to them. The time must come when these things will even be taught to children and thereby the discovery will be made that children will understand them surprisingly well. They will understand much better than others what comes from the pictures of Spiritual Science, for they bring much imaginative faculty with them out of the spiritual world, which we set to work to drive out of them, do not take into account and sometimes brutally ignore; otherwise we should admit that many a child says uncommonly clever things, much cleverer than grown-up people. Sometimes what a child says is much more interesting than what the professor says, because it is more connected with the real being of the world. These things should really be taken with a certain coloring, then it will no longer be difficult to introduce things in a suitable manner to the child-mind. The transition to this is naturally not easy and therefore people very willingly abandon the thought. But just from many questions of a child-mind we can recognize, if we pay attention to the direction and tone of the question, that reminiscences of a former life are present in the child.

We must take what is called Spiritual Science absolutely in earnest and must be of the opinion that it must find its way into the social life to which education and instruction also belong. In this respect much more might be done today than is usually considered possible. For what I recently remarked is absolutely true: when those who wish to become teachers or educators are examined today, attention is paid above all to what they have acquired in the way of knowledge—which really is quite unnecessary, for when they are preparing themselves, they can always read up in a suitable compendium what it is necessary for them to have for teaching purposes. What is learnt on examination is very soon forgotten again. We can see this best when we remember how our own school life was carried on. I once had to go through an examination. At the appointed time the professor was ill. I went to the assistant who said: “Yes, the Professor is ill, and his illness may last another week; I can sympathize with you; if you have to go about in this grand condition for a week, you will have forgotten everything, but there is no help for it.” It is therefore reckoned that what one has to give out in the examination will very soon be forgotten! It is simply a comedy! But what will have to be taken into account will be to consider what sort of man is being let loose on the young. The question is to study the human being in each one, not only what he has squeezed into the mechanism of his life of ideas. The question is whether the real man is in a position to establish that mysterious relationship to youth which is necessary. It will then not be at all so difficult really to bring to youth what Spiritual Science can evolve for it.

I want chiefly to draw your attention today to such facts of the human collective life as can make clear to your consciousness that we must not only preserve old ideas, but that man needs new ideas, that our legacy of ideas must be enriched by many things. You will see how it will be sought after when once such a thing as Spiritual Science is spread abroad. Mankind has been longing for it for a long time. Most people wish to spare themselves from taking in too many ideas; for that reason they go so willingly to lime-light lectures, or other illustrative lectures, where they can look on and need not take in many ideas. As a rule when something new is offered to people they ask: “Now what does he really want?”But what do these people themselves want when they ask: “What is he really after?” they would like the matter to be translated into what they already know! But in the domain of Spiritual Science there can be no question of that; there one must take up new ideas which do not already exist, which once in olden times were partly present in another form, but which are not yet here today. One must resolve to penetrate into new ideas. This is often very difficult, for if men would really take up new ideas they would not ask: “What is he really after?” but would accept it. In future a much more useful question will be: “What ought I really think?” and not “What does he really want?” Then we should see how that which is developed as “opinion,” also sets free life-forces within us, so that we come to the truth; we should see that although vision is certainly subtle, it is not at all so far away. First, however, prejudices will have to be overcome. There is, for example, a popular little book called “Introduction to Philosophy.” In it are ideas which I criticized both yesterday and today. But the compiler is especially remarkable when he speaks about “Supernaturalism.” He considers the supernatural, the super-sensible as particularly harmful, for the reason that he is of the opinion that “what is natural”is something which every man can judge and test for himself, but with the super-sensible, supernatural, the danger would be in the fact that everybody would not be able to judge for himself but would have to accept a thing on the authority of others. Of course this is related to the other statement, that the priesthood of all times had made use of this and that men have become spoiled by supernaturalism, because they thereby became dependent on the belief in authority. If however we observe the true circumstances, we can say that when the official philosophies of today come to speak of the super-sensible, they simply become childish. For it is a childish conception, and implies that the man had no idea of how universally prevalent the belief in authority is, just as in our present time, even though people wish to hold themselves free from it. How many people are there who know upon what the Copernican teaching is based? They learn it by someone illustrating it to them by placing some spirit or other on a chair as it were in the universe and showing from there how the Sun moves and how the planets revolve around it. All that is nonsense. If men were shown all that really can be disclosed to them, they would have a quite different concept and would see how uncertain all the hypotheses are. But just think what an enormous amount men believe in authority today! How happy they are today in another sphere (to remind you of a side-phenomena) when secret acts are discovered through a Bolshevik Government, upon which the fate of countless people depend! There is a proof of the matter as regards what is “natural,” everyone can prove it; but as regards the supernatural, it is believed that men would lose their independence! This is really turning things upside down. And one of the tasks of Spiritual Science will in many respects consistt in setting things on their feet again. That things should have been turned upside down is quite natural, for the Consciousness Soul had to be developed. Now however they must again be set on their feet, in a proper manner.

In the next lecture we will follow this up and we shall see that this picture of “setting things on their feet” is by no means untrue, but has indeed an even deeper significance.

In the course of these lectures I have of late often drawn your attention to the fact that occult truths, though coming from other sources, were always known to a few individuals through all periods of mankind's evolution; but that these persons always took great care that those who had been initiated into occult Mysteries should communicate nothing to those outside who were not initiated. Now we know that such things are still transmitted even when, in the further evolution of ordinary human life, they have lost their significance, and even their justification. Thus, certain truths are even today still strictly guarded by those who know them. We know, however, that certain things simply must be referred to today, they must not remain in secrecy any longer; but like other scientific truths, they too as spiritually scientific truths, must be made accessible to mankind in general.

Now this can only happen with respect to certain elementary things, but as regards these it must happen. Among the things of which we have spoken for a long time, much can certainly be reckoned as belonging to such truths, to such knowledge, as was guarded carefully in many quarters. Nevertheless an endeavor must be made to continue, in the spirit of these lectures, to encounter much which pertains to that which is guarded. Those who today hear these truths simply announced, should recognize in the truths themselves that they should be regarded with a certain great earnestness and reverence. For one of the reasons which make the Initiates afraid to communicate them is the fear of the want of reverence towards these truths in the man of today. Certainly we cannot pay much respect to what the materialistic sense of today regards as truth, nor are those things very much profaned by our not paying respect to them, at least not apparently. But certain things must be treated tenderly and reverentially if they are to be incorporated in the proper manner into the spiritual life of mankind.

To these belongs above all the knowledge about man himself; knowledge which at first seems simple when it approaches our soul, but which is of immensely important productiveness and range. These very considerations which have occupied us of late, and with all more or less culminate in bringing us near to the secret concerned with the connection between life in the physical body and the life between death and rebirth, just these very truths may lead man's observation very, very far, and serve to form a connection with much of a like nature which is intimately connected with the knowledge of man. We will now first of all direct our spiritual sight to these things of which we have already spoken from other points of view; we will today observe such things, but in one direction only, so as to keep to the point of view described in these lectures.

Natural science of modern times has, as we know, brought man very close to the animal. But we have already declared that what really differentiates men from the animal in the real sense of the word, is not taken into consideration at all by this modern natural science. It draws our attention, for instance, to the forms of the bones in man and in the higher animals and finds a great resemblance between them: it finds a great resemblance in construction, in morphology in general. So far it is certainly right, but it makes no reference to the most important thing. This which I have already pointed out once this winter, and indeed in a public lecture, at first presents itself from such a point of view that one can say: “He who with the necessary reverence and depth so approaches the observation of human life as to allow himself to be influenced by the great and important contrast between a man living physically here on the Earth and a human corpse, has set up a mystery before his soul in the impression of the contrast between the living man and a corpse.” What cannot then fail to strike him first of all is that the corpse is claimed by the forces of external Earth-nature, to which it was not subject in the time between conception or birth up to death, and from which it was immune by virtue of the fact that the living soul-element was connected with this combination of substances which confronts us in the corpse. Let us follow in thought what becomes of a corpse, whether disintegrated quickly by cremation or more slowly through decomposition (the two processes are exactly the same and only differ in rapidity). The substances combined materially in man will be dissolved in a more or less short space of time into the collective substance of our Earth; they pass over into it. Man can in fact follow with his ordinary senses and indeed with his ordinary thoughts all that becomes of the component parts of a corpse.

In this respect the spiritually-scientific investigator can go further. He can discover that what is present in the corpse immediately after death gradually passes over into an enormous realm of substance; this process is of course spread over centuries, but it passes into a great enormous realm of substance and dissolves, as it were, into the totality of our visible, outwardly perceptive world.

Now it is interesting to follow up the connection which exists between our Ego-consciousness here in physical life and this disintegrating corpse. Curiously enough the disintegrating corpse and the Ego-consciousness are connected in a certain respect. I say the Ego-consciousness: not of course the real, true Ego, for that passes of course through the portal of death and continues its life between death and rebirth. But what here in physical life floats before man is a picture of the Ego—for he has no consciousness of the Ego, only a picture of it in his consciousness—that is bound to the corpse, and indeed to that combination of substances which is dissolved into the Universe after death. The dissolution of the corpse into the Universe is nothing but the external picture of the collective Ego-consciousness; for in truth our Ego-consciousness belongs to the Universe into which our corpse is dissolved. The reason that between birth and death we maintain the opinion—a strange one for the occultist but a comprehensible and obvious one for ordinary man—that we are here, confined within the boundaries of our skin, is only because the substances in our body are held together between birth and death. It is also because of this cohesion that we believe ourselves to be in this content of space which we fill out with our flesh and blood. This is really absurd, we are not there at all. We are really everywhere; and between sleeping and waking we even try to be where the particles of matter and our body will be after death. Only between our birth and death does this Maya-consciousness come to us, of being within that content of space which is limited by our skin. But that is a Maya-consciousness which is produced in us. And death among many other things also disproves this Maya-consciousness concerning the physical material world. It leads the particles of our corpse where in reality our Ego-consciousness always dwells. This is already a very far-reaching concept.

But now you may ask: What is it then that when we are dead really carries our Ego-consciousness and its external image, the particles of substance of our body, out into the wide world? What forces are these?

There are three of these forces, which we can demonstrate somewhat in the following manner. One of these forces manifest during life in that in the very earliest time of our life we “crawl on all fours” and then we lift ourselves upright. While we are transforming ourselves from the crawling child to the man who walks upright, we are following a certain line of force, within which we place ourselves, and with which we identify ourselves. This line of force, from a spiritually-scientific point of view, is very clearly visible in man. From below runs a line which goes from the center of the Earth into the Universe. In olden times this was described simply by saying that a line goes from the center of the Earth into the Universe, which line differs for each human being, and differs indeed in each epoch, but always goes from the middle of the Earth into the Universe. That is one of the important lines of force in man. The way it works in our physical life only continues as long as this life, for the physical force of gravity of our body equalizes this force. The moment this physical force of gravity no longer works as it does in the living body, the moment the living body becomes a corpse, this line of force from the center of the Earth to the Universe discloses itself as that which chiefly pushes and caries our particles of matter. Of course they are always driven on further by their own weight; but if we were to follow up what becomes of them through a long period of time, we should find that they disburse in the direction of this force, even if this takes centuries to achieve.

The second force which here comes into consideration is one which chiefly comes to expression in human speech. We talk, or least we can talk. There is always a certain impulse in articulate speech. A certain centrifugal force lies in the air we breathe out when we speak. The spiritually-scientific investigator sees this force as slung round the first line. It has essentially a spiral form, twining around the vertical force. This force alters somewhat the pure force of repulsion; it brings it into play. Not only is this active, the third force must also be reckoned with, which proceeds from the following. Whereas speech develops a certain centrifugal force in an outward direction, thought, through which man is distinguished from the animal, works against this force which comes to expression and speech. This constitutes the third force. If we wished to draw at, we might do so in the following manner (see diagram). Through these three forces: the vertical force, the force working in speech and the force working in thought—the particles of a human corpse are slowly and gradually carried out in the Universe.

In opposition to these, of course, works gravity and other forces, such as chemical forces, etc. but these three forces overcome the opposing forces. These three forces, which are held together during physical life when we as men stand on our two feet, are set free at death and to disperse what is here held together in form. In particular what we call the Etheric or Formative-forces Body follows these three forces. Immediately after death—during the first days—what we have often described as the dissolution of the Etheric or Formative-forces Body takes place in advance and also in the direction of these forces. The other process, dispersion of the physical body, is of less importance to the dead man; it is only in so far operative that it fixes the moment of death in his mind, it preserves for him the memory of his earthly Ego. But what is more important is that these forces show him the permanent results of this dissolution of the Etheric or Formative-forces Body. But if there were nothing there but these three forces, the dead man could not know that it is his own form coming forth from him. He would perceive it, but as something foreign to him. Therefore what is important is that he should not only perceive what is disintegrating, but that he should be able to know that it proceeds from him, that it is the remainder of what he held together on Earth within his form. And that leads us to something else.

Here I must refer to something which in our dry, barren, soulless Age is really not treated with necessary reverence, although it is always and everywhere before us. It is something which really works in the physical world as the most mysterious thing of all, which is present in everyone in the physical world, although it's mysterious character is not realized. I refer to the colour of human flesh, as it reveals itself externally in man. You have only to think of the abundant variety expressed in each man we see in the flesh; how these questions differ essentially and every person, in fact we see as many different tints as there are people. He who busied himself with solving the secrets of the flesh-tints, as has already been attempted, will acquire a feeling for what is expressed in the colour of the flesh, in the tints of human skin. Something very mysterious expresses itself in the colour of the complexion. To one who approaches this from a spiritually-scientific point of view, the question: “What is really the meaning of this flesh-colour?” is of very great significance. For this peculiar colouring of the skin depends on two opposing forces; we might say on two counteracting forces of pressure which are active in man and which work against one another in the form. Indeed in a certain sense the Etheric or Formative-forces Body Works with an outward pressure, the Astral body works in opposition with an inward pressure; and this opposition goes on at all points. If the Astral body wishes to contract, to press from without inwards, the Etheric or Formative-forces Body wishes to press from within outwards, to expand; and as a result of these two forces of pressure from without and within, meeting in the human surface, plays a part in what is revealed in the colour of man's flesh-tints. What the etheric and astral bodies have to say to each other is expressed in a mysterious manner in the colour of the skin.

When we look at man, as he is here on the physical plane, we see the colour of his complexion. But this colour would appear differently if one could behold it as seen from within. Seen from within you, an average Central European, would not have a flesh-colored, pinkish color, but greenish blue. This greeny-blue colour shows itself in its after-effects after death. When the body of Formative-forces or etheric body expands in the sense of the three forces already characterized, and the dead man looks upon this image, he sees his flesh-colour as, in a sense, representing the after-effects coming from the other side. He sees it glimmering a greenish blue after death. Besides this there is something in a man's colouring which is essentially different from that which we see when we look at it in physical life from outside. Strictly speaking, this mysterious flesh-coloured is not only individually different in every different person, but it also alters in one and the same being in the course of his life, though only in minute shades of colour. Not only in certain diseased conditions do we sometimes look blooming and sometimes pallid, for those conditions are of course abnormal, but apart from these greater alterations the colour of the skin is continually changing. If this is seen “from the other side,” as the dead man sees it, something else is to be observed besides. It then discloses our entire memory-world, as though painted on tapestry. Thus, speaking pictorially, we must picture this flesh-colored tapestry as a dress, as a very fine garment, but now turned inside out as one turns a dress or a glove. We should then see from the other side what is otherwise turned inwards; of which, because it is turned inwards, we can only become conscious when it comes into the consciousness as memory; not as the content of thought, but as thoughts differing in their aura, vibrating thoughts. We learn to know only the outer life of what we drive down into our subconscious; we here do not learn to know how it glimmers through our skin, but the dead man learns to know this because of the after-effects of the colouring, after death. What a dead man looks back upon the dissolution of the etheric body, he retains it as “memory” behind him; he knows that is himself—“That is I, myself.” The investigations of Spiritual Science show that what in natural sciences is taken less into consideration—the great distinctions between man in the animal, viz., the vertical position, the power of speech; articulated language; the power of thought—these are the forces which after death carry man into the Universe, and the colouring of man's flesh is the physical expression on Earth for what works on after death as a residue of memory. Thus we distribute ourselves into the Universe after death and bear the outer signs of our Cosmic identity in what we show that our physical body here on Earth. Hence the feeling, which we connect with something so mysterious as the flesh-tints, that by reason of such a wonderful thing as the colour of his complexion more than through anything else, man must be a microcosm in relation to the macrocosm; we feel the universal significance of what thus confronts us in man. The basic colouring of a man is of great significance, for that is to some extent the colour of the tapestry upon which his memory appears after death; greenish, greenish-blue for the white races; violet-reddish for the Japanese; and just flesh-coloured for the black races.

These are things intimately and significantly connected with life between death and rebirth, for they prepare the new incarnation. An enormous amount lies in these things. In them lies the determining factor which leads a man to a certain race and so on in his next incarnation. The observation of the spiritual life does not only mean the satisfaction of our curiosity or of an inquisitive desire for knowledge; for life, as lived in the physical world, with all the things which make mysterious impressions on our mind, can only be correctly explained when we observe it in connection with the spiritual one.

Now you can imagine from the things which I have explained from a more or less elementary standpoint and which can be developed further, that an intimate introspection into human nature and its evolution is certainly connected with such a development. People of the present day are specially apt to shrink back from this introspection into human nature and its development. They do not desire it. On the another hand, just such persons as those to whom I have today and at other times called your attention, keep guard over certain occult truths, would like to gain power by having an exclusive possession of such things. This is of extraordinary importance. For there are men, though it may be difficult to believe this today, who in a certain sense, take part in the realisation of the world-plan by trying to understand from their occult sanctuaries, how the evolution of the world can best be realised, and how best to work powerfully upon mankind during the next 30, 40, 50 or 100 years! Nations, which have men among them who thus investigate the process of man's evolution and direct the political life in this sense, are of course in this respect in advance of others which do not enter into such things. These things play a great part in the life of mankind. We live today in an age when it will be necessary for man to pay attention to the fact that such things exist. I only wish to draw your attention to one thing in this direction today.

However calamitous the present events may be, however much, from a purely external, superficial point of view they surpass everything of a like nature since the historical life of mankind has been recorded, they are nevertheless part of a great comprehensive happening, a happening which can only be properly grasped by one who observes it with the necessary reverence and earnestness. Such a thing must be looked in the face. In certain abodes of our earthly humanity a great deal is known about the evolution of humanity. But that part of knowledge which could deliver power into the hands of those who know is very carefully guarded. I do not know to what extent you will believe this; but the things to which I refer are said in a way which leaves each one free to accept as much as he holds worthy of belief. The English-speaking population of today is striving after universal world-domination from certain impulses which we may perhaps go into more particularly at some other time. This is not said from many chauvinistic Central-European feeling, but is the result of quite objective occult investigations, and it would least of all be denied by those members of the Anglo-American population who are in the know. It might be disavowed perhaps, but not denied; but the wise ones wish it on no account to be known to the people. These men are also aware of the following, I shall make apparent to you by probing a little deeper.

In the course of human evolution, as we passed from the third and fourth into the materialism of the fifth Post-Atlantean epoch, many things which formally expressed truths were counted of no value, are really depreciated. If you search the old traditions you find everywhere the profoundest truths clothed in picture-form. Today men tolerate myths, pictures and images as “poetic license.” They tolerate it in Strindberg, for example, because he apparently wishes to give out poetry. But then modestly say that one need not believe it—and we are not supposed to see anything therein expressing the real truth of things. Mythical, pictorial expression is depreciated. Men do not feel that there is anything concealed behind the Imagination. This process will in the course of the Fifth Post-Atlanta epoch of culture extend as far as language, especially among the English-speaking population. Not only are “pictures” counted of no value as a means of expression, but the “word” as such is also depreciated. As today the materialistic consciousness disputes the picture, so in the future it will dispute the word. It will be said: the word is not of itself adapted to express anything at all. Fritz Mauthner has already tried in his “Criticism and Language” to impute to language all the superstitions which exists among mankind. Perhaps he may not have “an appropriate instrument” to work with; but his critical side is an appropriate tool, for he has to work with “unsuitable material”: the German language. There he deceives himself. The English-speaking occultists however have a suitable material in the English language. Its evolutionary impulse is to depreciate the full sense and content of the word then graduate to accept merely its degenerate meaning. Consider how much vagueness of meaning there is in the English language today and how much is merely scamped. Anyone studying English philosophy must notice that the language no longer yields a richness of words, full of content. Study, for example, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer and others; their language gives forth nothing by means of which one can get into the spirit. We can see how big a part language plays when the problem of language is taken up by English-speaking occultists, for this lies in the impulse of the times. Therefore with them it is a question of thinking out means and ways from occult sources to exercise world-dominion without the help of language. That is the great contrast between East and West: the East with its uncommonly living intensity of language—the West with its throwing aside of the inner meaning of language. Here again the Central-European is placed between the two extremes. What takes place there has its symbol in something which is today proclaimed as loudly as possible, but is as untruthful as possible; it is done to cover up the reality, which is to gain the mastery over a realm in which language is losing its power in the process of its own development. This again is not set from any chauvinistic feeling but as the result of the most objective discovery in Spiritual Science.

That is something of which the great incisive catastrophic events of the present time are special features; it must bring about a great world-embracing struggle which must come to expression among mankind on earth in many different forms in the near future. In this respect we cannot think that things will be the same as in other wars; there have also been wars in former times, and peace made, and all went on as before. But this is something we must regard as perpetual. For we can only get reliable ideas concerning the incisive events of the present if we take such things into account. We must make up our minds today no longer to think superficially about certain relationships, but to go into their depths, otherwise there will be no important result from what we try to undertake. It will however be very difficult for the present time to become accustomed to what must flow out in this respect from spiritually-scientific observation. Just recently a mere detail showed me this, in a very ridiculous way; and just because it had a specially timely origin it was the more absurd. I have been recently busy with bringing out a new edition of the “Philosophy of Spiritual Activity;” I was at the time about 32 or 33 years old, so it is really a very long time ago! Such an interval brings many things to the service of the soul. Now in regard to this book I had at that time a great satisfaction, as I set forth in the magazine “Das Reich.” I corresponded much then with Eduard von Hartmann, author of “Philosophy of the Subconscious,” and when he received my “Philosophy of Spiritual Activity” he wrote in his copy some remarks which he then placed at my disposal. I took down his remarks at the time and still have them today. You see, a really amiable motive which aroused my gratitude underlies what I now have to relate.

In the “Philosophy of Spiritual Activity” I began by representing spiritual reality in the form of thought which grasps itself, because one can only attain to an understanding of the spiritual by really learning and really experiencing what first approaches man as the spiritual: the thought which understands itself and is dependent upon itself. But in coming to this result, I was obliged to speak about many things in sentences different from those used by persons speaking from different points of view. Thus on one page I had for instance the sentence: “The idea is an individualized concept, the concept is experienced in the spirit by means of intuition. The idea is an individualized concept and is brought into relation with the object outside through the Ego.” Among the senses through which Eduard von Hartmann drew his pencil at that time was this one, and he had the remark: “This is an unusual form of speech.” You see this was a very amiable objection, but very characteristic; for if we may compare the great with the small, we might cite the following: One Copernicus expressed the thought that the sun does not revolve around the Earth but the Earth around the sun, if someone had written on the margin: “This is an unusual form of speech,” how strange that would have appeared! Of course a form of speech to which one is not accustomed must appear when something new makes its first appearance. But you see how, from a quarter in which one might expect absolute understanding, one is greeted with the words: “That is an unusual form of speech!” If men had never decided to have unusual forms of speech there would be no progress at all, and this not only in the spiritual domain. This is an example, which clearly shows how such things are to be met with. You will find in all directions what the aversion exists towards the use of the language which Spiritual Science employs. The form in which the old world philosophies are presented today is like a worn-out press, it could not even be any longer used by the old-world philosophers themselves; it is so worn out that even the “Old Clothes Shop” would no longer accept the dress! But when it appears as a “world conception” which lives in the inner soul, people do not notice it! One must acquire a feeling for this, but that is part of what men of the present they need in order to understand the times; and the times must be understood.

This is what must ever again be taken to heart, otherwise the individual initiates and those keeping guard over their knowledge for the service of humanity will very easily gain the upper hand. Care must be taken that a certain knowledge is not placed at the service of one part of mankind, but at the service of mankind as a whole. As soon as man does not permeate the best knowledge with this sentiment it will become harmful to mankind.

In the public lecture given yesterday, “The Human Kingdom and the Animal Kingdom,” I alluded among many other things to an idea which one may have concerning the life of the soul and which of course is in no sense hypothetical, but one which directly corresponds to the reality of the soul-life. I call your attention to the fact that what forms the beginning and end of life in the animal world, and in a sense only comprises two moments—the entrance into physical life and the leaving it, conception and death—stands in such a relation to the animal life that one might say: animal life might be represented as a ladder, at the beginning of which there is conception, and at the end, death. I called your attention to the fact that these two experiences really run through the whole soul-life of the human being; at every moment the soul-life of man gathers into a whole that which is experienced in the animal kingdom, whilst the Group-Soul—which really never quite descends onto the physical plane—is establishing a reciprocal relation with the physical being through conception. And something like a touch of Ego-consciousness appears in the animal at the single moment of death. I called your attention yesterday to the fact that one who is able to observe the death of animals can gain an idea of how in reality the Ego-consciousness, which runs through the whole life of man, is only present in the animal at the moment of passing out of life. But the important thing is this: that the two moments, which in animal life are really only “two moments,” are gathered together into one, in a synthesis as it were, and go through human life in such a way that the human head, the peculiar kind of organization which I have described, can develop a continuous becoming-pregnant and dying, gently reminding one of the fact that this human soul-life continuously proceeds from the interweaving of conception and death. Such is the life of the human soul, and this gives rise to the justifiable thought of human immortality.

In addition I said: Every time that we have a thought, the thought is born of the will; and every time we will, the thought fades into the will. I said that Schopenhauer represented this in a very one-sided manner, for he represented the will alone as something real. He did not see that “will” is only one side of the matter, that in a certain sense it is simply dying thought, whereas the thought is the will being brought to birth. To describe as Schopenhauer does is like describing a human life only from the thirthy-fifth year to the end, whereas every man who reaches the age of 35 must have attained some other age before this, for the time from birth up to the 35th year must also be taken into account. Schopenhauer only depicts the will, he considers thought or the idea as an illusion. That however is only the other side of the question: the thought of the will which strives to be born; whereas the thought is the expiring will. And through the fact that in our soul-life we have a continual interweaving of thought and will, we thus have birth, which refers back to conception (for perception is conception)—and death.

This idea is one for which nothing further is necessary—even if we wish to establish it anatomically and physiologically—but present-day science and the will, the good-will, really to observe the phenomenon of the soul. Anyone who does not take the experiences made with the human brain in the manner of official science today, but really tests free from prejudice, what physiology and biology have to say of it will find what I have just said borne out scientifically. If instead of all the hocus-pocus carried on today at the universities for the purpose of investigating all sorts of things in the psychological-physiological laboratories (for anatomists have no thoughts but, instead of thinking, sit down before their instruments in order to maltreat the soul life of the person to be studied and then to “investigate”), if people would not put up with this, a real observation of the soul-life would be possible and it would be possible also to gain an idea of the continuous coming to birth and dying which goes on in the human soul-life itself, that metamorphosis which is only an intensification of Goethe's theory of metamorphosis. But the science of today has not yet even come to the point of understanding Goethe's metamorphosis after the lapse of a hundred years, let alone really carrying such a thought, once given to mankind, further.

Such thoughts as I try to sketch for you in the last lecture are nothing more nor less than Goethe's teaching on metamorphosis carried further. These things can all be established without any sort of clairvoyant consciousness. Real science and psycho-observation are alone necessary. If a number of students were brought to understand such things, instead of the many absurdities to which official science leads, the time would not then be far off when Spiritual Science would be impressed on the culture of mankind. For it is just such thoughts, which could be scientifically established today, and which need nothing else to make them fertile for the soul-life but the good-will to observe and to think—such ideas, such concepts might form the bridge from the outer materialistic science to Spiritual Science; which is not kept from spreading lest it would not be understood by those who have no clairvoyance, but because such a thing as this, which comes fresh into existence, cannot spread at all on account of the aggressiveness of the present-day scientific mind. It is my firm conviction that it will do no harm if these things are sometimes really called by their true names and described as they really are. We may say that the effect of a thought on the human soul-life is more important than the spreading of it abroad as a thought. It is much less important what sort of thoughts we have, than which forces we must use in order to grasp this or some other thought. The constitution of the human soul must be quite different, according to whether one grasps some entirely dead thought of the so-called science of to-day, or a living thought of Spiritual Science. In the case of the latter the whole inner nature of man is brought into play; he is inwardly quick and placed in the Cosmos; on the other hand through what present-day science produces, especially when carried beyond its own narrowest limits, he is pushed out spiritually from any connection with the Cosmos.

We must understand that. It is that which must really be introduced to mankind, through Spiritual Science. For just in those things that begin to be important for our immediate life, for example, education, instruction and everything connected with that, it is of immeasurable importance that the living ideas, which really leads straight into life, should penetrate human souls. It will become clear to the soul when it tries to view things in this manner, what are the tasks and what the essential point in the understanding of Spiritual Science for the whole spiritual culture of our time. That ought really to be grasped in its full significance. Then only would people see how unnecessary it is to look with unprejudiced eyes upon the almost entirely disjointed thinking which sometimes lies at the bottom of the present-day practice of life. The symptoms of this disjointed thinking are by no means so easy to grasp.

I drew your attention to one thing yesterday. In our manner of life it is necessary that nothing of what we might call sluggishness or idleness of thought should be developed. For just imagine if an inactivity of thought were to be developed amongst us! I have recently sung the praises everywhere of Oskar Hertwig's book “The Growth of Organisms.” I have called it the “best book of recent times” as regards his scientific achievements. I spoke without restraint, for a man who stands at the height of the scientific methods of his time has undertaken to disentangle the theories of Darwin and relegate them to their own boundaries! One could agree with him from beginning to end. Now comes his latest book, “In Defense of the Technical, Social and Political Darwinism.” As I have already said, one might really speak scathingly against the limitations of this book. For once, the natural-scientific investigator forsakes his narrow sphere—and talks real nonsense! I gave an example and mentioned that the good man says the following about the methods of natural science: “In the last resort all natural science should be constructed on the pattern of astronomy.” Of course this is not even original! Du Bois Reymond already said this in the year 1876, in speaking of the structure of the atomic world. We are to observe the realities round about us; then the astronomical theory, which is as far removed as possible from man, is set up as a pattern! Logically this is of no more value than if one were to explain the inner life to a family living in poverty somewhere in the country, by telling them: You need not consider how your own father and mother, son and daughter behave, but study the family life of a count's household; from that you can deduce how family rules and regulations should be constituted! Today such things are taken very superficially, and not even noticed; with us not only should there be no belief in authority but also no bed of idleness. We must understand that because an opinion is once formed about a person, one cannot thereafter rely on everything which might come from the same person. Herein is the question, and that must really be carried out practically, even down to the details of our conduct. Therefore no one should wonder if the one activity in Oskar Hertwig is praised to the skies and another found fault with; that must happen; we must accustom ourselves to look at life without prejudice. For he who does not practice this does not practice this does not notice on the one hand the direct realities of life, and on the other hand where he may find the entrance to the spiritual world. I should like to give a little example of this. I do not know how many people have noticed this, that is, have noticed it so as to draw forth the practical application of it to life

Some time ago there appeared in the “Berliner Tageblatt” an article by Fritz Mauthner in which he indulged in the most incredibly trivial, really dreadfully trivial strictures on a man who had written a book referring among other things to Goethe's horoscope. The critical language, Fritz Mauthner, wrote long columns in an uncommonly complacent manner, and tried to show what wrong the author is committing against the present age by writing about Goethe's horoscope and things like that, especially in a book which appeared in such a popular collection as “From Nature and the World of Spirit.” As regards this article of Fritz Mauthner's, one felt that really there was a little too much frivolity in it; but apart from that, the compiler of this book in the “From Nature and the World of Spirit” collection, is really a fairly average scholar of the present-day, and it did not seem that there was anything about which one was compelled to feel especially excited. Really one did not see why Fritz Mauthner should excite himself. One could understand it even less, considering that the compiler of this little book laughs at all those taken things treated therein seriously, and Fritz Mauthner only abuses this man because he speaks of the “horoscope.” Now he who compiled this little book justified himself and explained in the “Berliner Tageblatt” that it had not in the least that his intention to speak in favor of astrology. Thus the author really fulfilled all the conditions that even Fritz Mauthner, in his position, could demand. The two are thoroughly at one; but Fritz Mauthner attacked the man because he considered it extremely dangerous socially but a book of this kind should appear in such a collection. And the “Berliner Tageblatt” the remark that he could not but think that Fritz Mauthner had not understood the matter, for it was quite in agreement with what Mauthner himself had written. This is a particularly striking example of that degree of spiritual feeble-mindedness which really lies at the bottom of all these things. If on the other hand we bear in mind how greatly life is stimulated by what is expressed by such inferior mental activity, we are struck by the thoughts characteristic of the present-based spiritual culture. And we must really take note of these thoughts. That is a necessity, if we wish to gain understanding of the tasks which may really fall to Spiritual Science. What we must above all be aware of is that such things as deceit, lies are real powers, and we cannot imagine a worse deceit than when such a thing as this happens: one man writes a book on astrology, and another assails him because he does not wish anyone at all to write about such subjects. The first man then justifies itself by saying: “Come, I was only joking.” If he had said before hand, “I am only joking when I am talking about Goethe's horoscope,” Mauthner would have been satisfied.

These things are absolutely serious and are connected with the most serious tendencies of the present day, above all with that which we must also perceive, that Spiritual Science must of necessity find it difficult in our present time to work its way through and to attain something of what it is really incumbent on it to attain. It really demands strong and courageous thinking. The field for this has been in many ways prepared, and to understand how this has been done leads us to see that not alone were earthly, human beings active in this work, but that for centuries the great Ahrimanic forces of mankind have been at work. Besides all the things undertaken by the Ahrimanic beings in order to bring mankind into such confusion, out of which the way has again to be found, must be added the fact that men have been rendered incapable of perceiving that everything material is rooted in the spiritual and that everything spiritual desires to reveal itself materially. The world has been torn in pieces, its continuity destroyed. Above all, if we look at the outer history of the continuous Christian impulse—not of Christianity—we find Ahrimanic powers working through humanity, and particularly in the Christian development. One thing among others should be specially observed: the tearing asunder of what on the one hand is Sun and Sun-force, from what on the other is Christ and Christ-force. If the connection between these forces is not again recognized, the world will not easily be linked to the spiritual. One of the principal tasks of Spiritual Science is that we must rediscover, in another way—in a way which entails the spiritualization of mankind through the Christ-Mystery—the great Sun-mystery, which throughout the ages before the Mystery of Golgotha was not then the Christ-Mystery but which afterwards became the Christ-Mystery. Julian, the recreant, the apostate, only knew the Sun-Mystery in the old form; he did not yet understand that it was the Christ-Mystery. That was his tragic fate; he was overtaken by the world-historic delusion of seeking to communicate to humanity the secret of the spiritual power of the Sun. This led to his being murdered on his march through Persia.

In the 19th century we have to record another spiritual undertaking which was directed by Ahrimanic powers to prevent mankind from knowing that of which I am now speaking: the Sun-Mystery in its connection with the other Mysteries. We must look at these things thoroughly in the face. What I am about to say would, if I were to mention it in any scientific society or the like, instead of to persons prepared for it, of course be counted as madness. But we need not consider that. The point is that the truth must be spoken; for the decision as to whether we or others are deluded must not come into the question. In the 19th century a concept was first fundamentally established which now dominates the whole of science and which, if it still continues to do so to an increasing extent, will never allow healthy concepts about the spiritual life to find a place. To the ideas disseminated concerning the basic principles of physics and chemistry belongs the fundamental concept of the “conservation of force,” of the “conservation of energy,” as accepted today. Wherever you investigate today you will hear it said that forces are simply converted. (The examples quoted are of course justified in every respect.) When I stretch out my hand over the table I use pressure, but force expended is not consumed thereby; it is transmuted into warmth. Thus are all forces transmuted. A transmutation of force, of energy, takes place. “Conservation of substance and force” is indeed a favorite expression, used more particularly by all scientific thoughts today. It is considered an axiom that nothing originates nor passes away as regards matter, energy, and force. If this is kept within its proper limits nothing can be said against it; but the science does not keep it within its limits but reduced it to a dogma, a scientific dogma.

Just in the 19th century a remarkable Ahrimanic practice of coarsening the concepts has come about. A wonderful and extremely brilliant essay on the “Conservation of energy” has appeared by Julius Robert Mayer. This essay, which appeared in the year 1844, was rejected at that time by most of the cultured thinkers in Germany; it was considered amateurish. Julius Robert Mayer was indeed later confined in an asylum. Today we know that he made a fundamental scientific discovery. But it had no effect, and we can easily prove that those who mention him in connection with this scientific law have not themselves read his work. There is a History of Philosophy by Überweg, in which Mayer is also mentioned; he is spoken of in a few lines only. But he who reads those few lines is at once aware that this classical writer of the History of Philosophy, which all students must plow through, has entirely misunderstood him. The subject has not entered men's souls in the fine intellectual manner in which it was treated by Mayer, but in a much coarser manner. That principally comes about because, not the thoughts of Julius Robert Mayer himself, but those of the English brewer Joule and of the physicist Helmholtz, ignoring completely the thoughts of Julius Robert Mayer, have permeated science. It is not always considered necessary nowadays to look these things in the face. These relationships ought, however, to be pointed out in our higher teaching institutions. People really ought to learn why Darwinism found such quick circulation. For, believe me, if Darwin's book “The Origin of Species and Natural Selection” had simply appeared as a book given to the public, it would not have gained popularity in all circles, and these opinions would have vanished in the clouds. No, the thought which is at the base of Darwinism was already prepared beforehand. In 1844, a long time before Darwin, a book of gleanings was compiled, which mentions in the most trivial manner all the things which Lemarck and others have said. It was a purely book-selling speculative enterprise inaugurated by Robert Chambers in Edinburgh, knowing that the instincts of the 19th century could be relied upon to push such a thing through. Into this pregnant atmosphere, Darwin threw his ideas. All he did was to connect and combine the theory of selection with the ideas of Lamarck, for these things have been known to English practitioners for a long time. A book had previously appeared, “Ship-building and Tree-culture” by Patrick Matthew, in which the theory of selection is openly pronounced. The ways along which these things penetrated the culture of the 19th century had to be disclosed some time. History, as it is presented, is a myth; and in most spheres is a great deception. We must really look at what actually happened. For it makes a difference whether a young man learns that he has to deal with a scientific reality, or merely with the thoughts of an English brewer, Joule; whether something was really established by the scientific observations of the 19th century, or whether he had to deal with an enterprise of the Edinburgh publisher and bookseller, Robert Chambers. The truth is then discovered aright. Mankind must above all take its stand on truth.

This concept of the absolute—not relative—imperishability of matter and force prevents men—and what I am saying might be established physiologically today, it is only the dogma of the “Conservation of Energy” which keeps men back from seeing it—this concept prevents them from recognizing where substance really does disappear into nothingness and new substance begins. And this unique place in the world—there are many such—is the human body. Substance is not merely passed through the human body, but during the process experienced in the soul in the synthesis of conception and dying, it happens physically that a certain substance which is taken by us in fact disappears, that forces pass away and are generated anew. The things which come into consideration in this connection are really older than one thinks; but no value is placed on these observations. If we carefully study the circulation of the blood inside the eye with the instruments which are perfect enough today to enable us to see such things externally, we shall be able to corroborate what I have just said, externally and physically. For it will be proved that the blood goes to the periphery of an organ, disappears into it, and is again generated out of it, in order to flow back again; so that we are not concerned with a “circulation of the blood,” but with an arising and passing away. These things exist, but the dogmatic concepts of present-day science prevents one from recognizing the cause underlying them, and the men of today are thus prevented from observing in their true reality certain processes and happenings which are absolutely real.

What does it mean to present-day science when men die, purely as physical beings? No notice is taken of this by science. On the other hand sciences is constantly studying the dead because it cannot get at the living, but it takes no notice of the fact of dying. An example of this was given to me only yesterday. In the year 1889 Hammerling was temporarily entombed in Graz. Later on he was transferred to another vault. The gentleman who made the discovery told me only yesterday that during the transference of the body from the temporary vault, the skull disappeared. He investigated the matter and found out that in the University-Museum a plaster cast had been taken of the skull. The skull, wrapped in newspaper, had been left somewhere and was only restored to the rest of the body in its grave because the matter was then discovered. Thus we concern ourselves with the death, but not with the fact of death. Yet this fact of death likewise leads to the perception of important things. I have already pointed to the fact, in one of my last lectures that this human dust takes quite a particular course. I pointed out that it really tries to take an upward path. The dust that comes from human beings, unlike other dust, would be disbursed into the whole Cosmos—no matter whether the corpse is cremated or decays—were it not taken possession of by the power of the Sun, by the forces which are the Sun. In fact that force, which shines from the surface of a brilliant stone, or which we see in the colors of the plants, is only one of the Sun forces, it is that force which Julian the Apostate called the ‘visible sun.’ We also have the ‘invisible Sun’ which lies at the back of the visible one, as does the soul behind the outer physical human body. This force, which of course does not come down with streams of physical ether but only lives again in it, animates the human dust in quite a special way; quite distinct from the way it animates anything else, either mineral, vegetable or animal dust. A continuous interaction takes place after death between what remains of the purely external, physical man and the forces which streamed down from the Sun—they encounter each other. The forces which streamed down to act upon the human dust are indeed those forces which the dead man, now become a soul-and-spirit individuality, himself discovers after death. Whereas we, when we are incarnated in the physical body, see the physical Sun, the dead man, when he has passed through the gate of death, discovers the Sun first as the Cosmic Being Who animates human dust on the Earth below. This is one discovery among the many others which the dead man makes after death. He learns of the interweaving of the Sun-force, the spiritual Sun-force, and the human dust. When he learns to know this web composed of human dust and Sun-force, he first really becomes acquainted with the secret of reincarnation; seen from the other side, the next incarnation is being prepared and woven out of the Cosmos. Besides this he learns to know from the other side certain facts upon which the secret of reincarnation depends, and of which we will also speak in the near future.

This enables us to grasp the concept of how very different the ideas of the inner life of the human soul are when the soul has passed through the gate of death, as compared with the experiences which it has here. After death these are quite different in the whole configuration of the soul. Just as here on Earth we alternate between sleeping and waking, so does the dead man alternate between different states of consciousness. I have already called your attention to this in these lectures, but I will once more characterize it briefly from another point of view.

Among other things we live here in the inner thoughts of our soul. The dead man enters a world of reality. This reality consists of what to us are merely thoughts. Whereas in physical life we perceive the external, mineral, vegetable and animal worlds, and have our physical world besides, that of which we only experience the shadowy reflection in our thoughts is immediately present to the dead man when he has passed through the gate of death. The world he then enters really bears the same relation to the physical world as do objects to their shadows here. In our thoughts we have only the shadow of what the dead experience; but they experience it differently from the way we experience our thoughts. They learn something more concerning thoughts from what man on earth does, at least in our present-day epoch. For we usually dream in respects to our thoughts. But the dead man experiences that while he thinks, he lives in his thoughts as in realities; he grows, he expands, he flourishes; but to the extent to which she ceases to think and no longer lives in thought, he declines, becomes thinner and sparer. Even coming into being and passing away are, after death, connected with living in thought and living outside thought. If it were the case here that men who did not wish to thank became thinner, a remarkable world might be seen. But we only experience the ineffectual shadows of thought, which have no real results. The dead man experiences thoughts as realities; which neither nourish nor devour him in his existence as soul and spirit. The time in which the thoughts either nourish or devour him is at the same time that in which he develops his super-sensible life of perception. He sees how thoughts stream into him and pass out again. It is not such a perception as we have in our ordinary consciousness, where we have only finished perceptions; but a passing stream of thought life, which always connects itself with his own being. No matter how many things a human being on earth can see, yet, when he has seen everything, he is still exactly the same as before: except that afterwards he generally knows something of what he was before, but at least his organization has not altered to any considerable extent. With the dead man it is different; he sees himself in continuous interchange with that which he perceives. That is one of his conditions; the perception of the flowing-in and the continuous flowing-out of a living stream of thought. The other is that this ceases, and a quiet recollection of what has flowed through him comes about; an intense and far-reaching memory, not our abstract memory, but one connected with the whole of the Universe. These two conditions alternate. For that reason the dead are really only receptive to thoughts such as those brought to them from Spiritual Science, or from a spiritual point of view. The thought-organization usually possessed by men of today does not really reach the dead; and the kind of thought which does penetrate to the dead is not much appreciated by the men of today. They like thoughts which they can gather in some way from the outer world. But thoughts which we can only have by working upon them inwardly, which inwardly and spiritually have already a trace of that which thoughts have after death—this mobility and life is not liked by men. It is far too difficult for the men of today. Therefore they are nicely seated in their laboratory, and are able to have a microscope and to study the cells under the microscope, they can make the necessary incision with a knife; they can study the incision and are able to work out other observations in some way or other. They can then write remarkable books such as Oskar Hertwig's “Birth of Organisms.” But the moment they begin to think, they can write senseless books such as those of the present Oskar Hertwig. The only difference is that for such a book as his second one, even “thought corpses” would not have been necessary. For natural-scientific books, thought corpses are necessary; but for books like the second one, living thoughts would have been necessary, and these he has not got! It is necessary really to love such thoughts and to be able to live them. The moment a man left behind on Earth wishes to build a bridge to the friend who has passed through the gate of death, with whom he is linked by karma, he needs at least a disposition of mind which inclines towards life of thought. If we have this disposition of mind our thoughts are really quite a considerable addition to the life of our dead friends, and make a great difference to the existence of those stand between death and rebirth. But if a vague feeling lives in men's souls about everything which the dead consider should be different on the Earth from what it is, the living have but little satisfaction in this thought. Such vague feelings exist; men fear that the opinion of the dead might prevail over much that men think, feel and do in physical life. They are not conscious of this fear; but it holds them chained to materialism. For the unconscious, though we may not be aware of it, is still active. With the courage of the thinker we must not only put soul into the conscious life of idea, but also into the profoundest depth of the human being. This must be said again and again, if Spiritual Science is to be taken in full earnest. The question is not that we should accept some sentence or other which someone or other finds interesting or important for himself, but that just as an organism moulds itself together out of many units, so all the units should form together in man a whole attitude of soul, which for our time can only be characterized from the most varied points of view, as I have attempted to do. It is absolutely necessary that there should be some people at the present day who know how to take Spiritual Science seriously from this point of view, realizing that it gives to our time and active, living thought-life; so that one person does not fall out with another when they are both really quite in agreement; that there is therefore no reason for us to adopt the tendency of crying out when someone says something about the horoscope. That is not looking at the matter properly.

An age in which such an attitude of soul prevails brings forth much more besides from its depths. Unfortunately one can only allude to this briefly; but the possibility had to be created of really looking that in the face which arises out of the necessities of our time, and which is expressing itself sufficiently in such a catastrophic manner. Some people are indeed beginning today to have serious thoughts. But one sees how difficult it is for people to free themselves from the unreal situation towards the world and mankind in which the souls of today are enmeshed. How frequent the question arises which I have referred to briefly today and which I will go into further in the near future, the question: What is the position occupied by Christianity during the past centuries and thousands of years, seeing that although it has been working for hundreds of years, yet the present-day conditions are possible? This question has been touched upon at different points. It can be seen that the materials necessary to answer it are not yet to be found among what mankind calls today the scientific or religious or any other kind of studies. Spiritual Science alone will be able to produce these materials. For it is indeed an earnest question: How is the present-day man to regard Christianity?—considering that it has indeed worked for a long time in the past and yet has allowed such conditions to come about today. Those men are certainly peculiar who demand that Christianity should go back again to some of the forms existing before these conditions, who does have no feeling for the fact that if we go back to the same thing, the same must again come out of it. These people will certainly not very easily admit that something new of a penetrating and intense nature must strike into spiritual life. More as to this in our next lecture.

Spiritual Science should above all things be conceived of, by those who have already noted for a long time, in the sense that the question should come before the soul as to how Spiritual Science can be most intensely effective for human life. This has certainly often been emphasized, but we cannot often enough to bring forward the side of the reality of Spiritual Science and its significance for our age. Spiritual Science is certainly in a sense a Science, and as such it is, we may say, still in a “fragmentary” stage at the present day, only partly established; what it may eventually become can really only be present in the first beginnings at the present time.

What I mean by this is the content of Spiritual Science, through which we can learn something of man in so far as this has its life on the other side of the gates of physical life: which are birth, or conception, and death. Through spiritual Science we can also learn something about the evolution of the Earth and the Cosmos, and as to how this evolution of Earth and the Cosmos is connected with man, and so on. Thus, through Spiritual Science the human desire for knowledge can be satisfied in a more comprehensive and complete manner than is possible through external sensible science. We can answer the questions which weigh on man's soul and so on.

Besides this significance of Spiritual Science from the view of ‘content’ there is another very essential one. This can be observed if we keep in view what we can become, what can be made of our soul-life, our soul-disposition, our soul-constitution, when we busy ourselves with the thoughts and ideas which come to us from Spiritual Science. It might even be—in what science has this not been the case in the course of the development of mankind!—that much of what can and must be proclaimed today quite conscientiously from the sources of Spiritual Science might have to be corrected; that much may appear in another form in the future through the further progress of Spiritual Science. Then perhaps there may be a different content in one or another department of this Spiritual Science. But what it may become for the disposition and constitution of our soul through its ideas and its thoughts, would not be affected thereby, and this is fundamentally connected with certain basic qualities of our present day. We will today review certain basic characteristics of our time, particularly as regards the constitution of the soul of man. We will dwell on the four most important soul-activities which we know well from our observation: the perception of man with respects to outer sense-processes; imagination (the forming of ideas) through which we then work upon these outer sense-impressions; our feeling; and our willing. Our soul-life runs its course from waking till going to sleep in perception, imagination, feeling and willing.

First we will consider perception. When the soul's eye is sharpened by Spiritual Science we can observe what has of necessity developed as the basic cultural characteristic of the human soul in the course of the last three or four centuries, in those countries which come into our consideration. (What I say is not setting criticism: it is only a characterization.) It may be asked what this is. It only needs a superficial observer of life to discover that men, in regard to their faculty of perception (in respects to the immediate relation of the soul to the outer world through the senses), have come to a point when they constantly need livelier, more violent, more fascinating impressions, to satisfy the faculty of perception of their senses. Those of you who are somewhat older may think back to your youth; just compare many of the phenomena of life in your youth, which you could perceive around you, with similar phenomena of life now—the further you go back the more striking this is—and ask yourselves to what a high degree that which is known as the impulse, the tendency to the ‘sensational,’ has not gained the upper hand! What is really this sensational element? It rests on the fact that man needs today forceful, exaggeratedly quick-changing and purely sensuous impressions, so that he may be thrilled and carried away from the outer world; he wants to be taken hold of and fascinated. The sensational has gained the upper hand to an uncommon extent. But something significant is connected with this. Through the domination of the sensational, the strength and energy of the human Ego is modified. Spiritual Science alone can lead to an understanding of what comes under consideration here; for he shows what perception of the outer world really is.

If we search through philosophical literature we find nothing more spoken of in the nature of external perception, or ‘sensing’ as it is called. All sorts of theories have been set up as to what sensing, perceiving really is, within the human physical soul life. I need not enlighten you as to that. But the point of view of Spiritual Science in this respect shall be indicated.

I have already mentioned here in Berlin, in a public lecture, that the development of natural science in the 19th century and into our own times has accomplished great things, great things in regard to the understanding of certain sensible connections of the external world of realities. But it sees the evolution of man in particular as far too direct and simple. It simply imagines that at one time there were only the lower animals, then higher animals, then still higher ones, and out of these men finally developed as, in a sense, the highest animal all. The evolution of man, however, is not so simple as this. We have often pointed out that man, who must appear to us in his external bodily form has an image of the divine reality of the Cosmos, can be thought of as represented in the most varied manner. He can even be thought of, in regard to certain natural-scientific points of view, as being divided into three parts: first the head- or senses-man (this is not exact but as the most important senses lie in the head, we may say ‘head-man’). Secondly, the trunk-man; and thirdly, the extremities-man. Of these three members of the human organization, the trunk-man, the heart- and lung-man, alone is really formed as natural science imagines him today. The head-man is really not in the process of progressive development but of a retrogressive one. The head of man arrests the progressive development at a certain stage and turns it back again. It has been repeatedly said that such an idea is difficult, and it has been asked how one can simplify it for oneself. I have pointed out in several places even the external rightly understood facts of natural science confirms my statements—only one must be a real natural scientist and not merely follow the pattern of certain scholars of the present day. Observe the human eye, and compare it with the eye of animals which have reached a certain stage of evolution. We cannot say that the human eye is more complicated in its outer form than the eyes of these animals, for that would not be true. There are animals which have, for example, in the inside of their eye—where we, from an outer physical point of view, have nothing at all—the ‘cell-apophysis’ and the ‘sword-apophysis.’ These are certain organs in the inside of the eye which are continuations of the blood vessels into the inside of the eye. Through these an intimate connection between the whole life of feeling of the animal and his perceptive life is established in the eye. The animal feels much more intensely in the eye than man does. In man there is no ‘cell-apophysis’ or ‘sword-apophysis.’ The human eye is simplified. In its form is not merely progressive, it is retrogressive. One could prove in the smallest details of the human head-organism that man is really retrograding in respect to his head, especially compared with the rest of the human make-up, which is progressive.

Someone who thought that this backward development of the head was difficult to imagine asked me whether I could point to a significant fact or clue by which one could understand this better. I told him to think of the following: In the process of development of the different animals ending with man, it comes about a certain period of the embryonic stage that the human being turns back to the hairy state. Man himself is not hairy, but the head belongs to the hairy portions, in general; the fact that man, as regards the formation of his head, reverts to the rank of the animal, likewise shows the retrograde development of the head. This is a superficial, external indication. The inner signs speak much more distinctly. I beg you to keep in mind the vast importance of these facts.

For the very reason that the head is retrogressive, that evolution does not progress in a straight line but is retrogressive in the head, is dammed up and turned back, room is thereby created for the psycho-spiritual development of man. Those natural scientists who are of the opinion that the psycho-spiritual life of man is only a result of his physical organism, do not understand their own natural science aright. They do not understand that in order to bring his soul and spirit nature into being it is necessary that the physical organization of man should not shoot and sprout, but that it should withdraw. It flags and is turned back and makes room for the psycho-spiritual development. Where man most develops his soul and spirit nature, there the physical development draws back.

One becomes inwardly aware, when one has gone through a psycho-spiritual development, that, simply through inner observation, one can get an answer to the question: What really is ordinary imagination and perception? What is the ordinary waking life, in which imagination and perception are mingled?

As regards the head of man, perception and imagination and the waking life in general is a state of ‘hungering.’ Man is so peculiarly organized that, in his inner equipoise, from waking till sleeping, the head, that is his inner organization, is continually ‘hungry’ as compared with the rest of the body. Certain ascetics who seek an increase of psycho-spiritual life have made use of this; they allow the whole body to be hungry, because the hunger-process, extended to the whole body, is said to bring about certain inner illumination. This is false. The normal state is that our head in the waking state is nourished less through the inner processes than the rest of the organism, and we can only be awake and perceive because the head is less nourished than the rest of the body.

Now the question arises: if our head hungers whilst we are undergoing this backward development of the head—in sleep there is an attempt to arrest this process—what then do we perceive? Through Spiritual Science we learn to distinguish between two things which in practice are always linked together, but which are two quite different things. There is first the mere waking life, and then the outer perceptions and the ordinary concept of memory. What then goes on when in waking consciousness we are hungering in our head?

First of all we are aware on the one hand of our Ego from the last incarnation. When we are merely awake we are aware of what we brought with us from the spiritual world, and with which we entered into existence through birth or conception. That enters and fills the space made for it in our organism; but when we perceive outer sensible objects, these external objects step into the space of the Ego, which otherwise we perceive when we have no external impression but are merely awake. In ordinary life these two things are intermingled: we are continually perceiving external objects, and are very seldom in such a state of soul that we are merely awake. The state of soul directed to external things is however always interwoven with an inclination to perceive our former Ego and to replace it by something, by external colors and sounds; then again, to perceive the former Ego and then again the external things. As soon as we perceive externally, as soon as an outer object works upon us, it suppresses our tendency, our power, to perceive the Ego of our last incarnation. It remains unconscious, we know nothing of it; but in this sense-perceiving there is really a conflict between the object which now stands before us and the Ego from our last incarnation.

Now you can imagine what it means when we are developing a striving after the sensational, when we wish to give ourselves up to the outer world. That never makes us stronger in life, but always weaker; for in so doing we weaken our Ego from the past incarnation, which in a certain sense constitutes our strength. Thus you can clearly see that with the inclination of man towards the sensational, a certain weakening of the human nature appears, and the Ego becomes weaker.

Now when we do not perceive, but think, imagine, what process takes place? Either our thoughts are silent or—which is not so frequent in present-day man—they link onto some external perception. When they are silent in waking-life, all we have gone through between the last incarnation and the present one works in us, in that which is able to work where room has been made for it by the body. Thus the last incarnation works in the place where perception arises; and in the place where conceptions arises, works the life which we have spent between death and the present birth. If we develop powerful thoughts within ourselves, it means that we are trying to develop these out of what we brought with us from the last birth, upon which we must take our stand. If only we have all thoughts which are called up within us from an external stimulus, which only revolve in our soul because we receive them from outside, we continually weaken what we have brought over from the time he dreamed death and birth, that is to say, our Ego. The search for sensation weakens our present life. The desire to animate our Club evenings with the dusky pints of beer so that we need to make as little demand as possible on ourselves, or the excitement of playing games, in short all this seeking for excitement from without, is not a strengthening but a weakening of the Ego, and it rests fundamentally on the fact that we do not feel strong enough to occupy ourselves with something pertaining to our soul-life. Through Spiritual Science we can clearly see the underlying reason why people are so desirous of sensation and in need of stimulus at the present time. What enters from this side into our present-day culture can be designated by a common name. Do not be offended by this name; it betokens a fundamental feature of many of the currents in the life of the present day: a limitation and narrowness of outlook. No one can deny, even taking present-day science and other activities into consideration, that one of the chief characteristics of the present-day man is his limited outlook, that limitation which prevents him from seeking the rich material in his own soul which comes from his past life and from his prenatal life. He does not believe, and he would have first to believe it, that one could be incited to do this through Spiritual Science.

Let us observe from this point of view what thoughts and ideas of Spiritual Science can be for the mood and disposition of the soul. They are certainly not external stimuli, nor anything sensational, and they decidedly did not aim at this. They do not take possession of the senses through external sensations. Many people miss this. In matters of Spiritual Science people must themselves reflect, and if they do not bring forth anything from the fund of their own soul, they are likely to fall asleep over Spiritual Science.

Spiritual Science gives us just this animation and shaking up of the soul-life, so that we gain the possibility of developing thoughts from our own inner self. It works against the sensational. It does this specially by giving us the possibility of thinking much about a few impressions of the senses. We need not hasten from sensation to sensation. We can give much thought to all possible sorts of sense-impressions. All the simple things which approach us personally become a riddle. Every detail makes us think a great deal; and thoughts about Saturn, Sun, Moon, the different Earth and so on, which many find so complicated, make the mind active and mobile and do not allow narrow-mindedness to any extent. Thus does our Spiritual Science work against a certain attribute of culture; it fights against a narrow outlook in the realm of perception and imagination. That is different again from the content which one can get from Spiritual Science; it is something that it can make up our soul, and we should take note of that.

Now in regard to the life of feeling. What is the most noticeable thing about a person who approaches Spiritual Science in any way? And what is the most noticeable thing about most people who do not wish to know anything about it, and who turn aside from it altogether? In the latter it is lack of interest in the great circumstances of the world. We must first of all enlarge our interests beyond what lies nearest, if we are to become interested in Spiritual Science. For what do most people in our time care about what the Earth was before it became “Earth”? What do most people of the present day care what civilization was before our own time? To do so one must develop more comprehensive interests. It is a question of extending one's interests beyond the thing lying nearest. Our age has the tendency to narrow the sphere of our interests as much as possible. What is really the tendency of our age? Allow me to use the following expression: it is not at all flattering, but I do not wish to criticize, only to characterize. Our time is striving in all ways towards narrow-mindedness, towards Philistinism, and if this takes hold of the majority of people, the consequence will be that the Philistinism will gradually be introduced into the most public departments. In this respect we have a remarkable example, which in respect to the things of the present day, must have a most depressing effect on those who can see through things.

In the East we have a nation which today is certainly in its infancy as regards the basic forces of its soul, but which possesses basic forces which in the future—in the sixth Post-Atlantean epoch of culture—are to develop to a remarkable height; basic soul forces which will work spiritually and have a spiritual character, and which we ought to recognize and cultivate as such. But what has established itself as public life in a remarkable manner today over a great part of this national force? Leninism! One cannot imagine anything more grotesque than the coupling together—I do not now refer to the man but to the thing—of this “aping of the civilization of the West” with the prophetic civilization of the East. There are no two things more opposite, and yet they are coupled together here. It is the most grotesque expression of materialistic striving; for out of the Folk-Spirit of the East something absolutely anti-philistine will be formed; but Leninism is the most absolute basic force of philistinism, the negation of all cultural interests of a far-reaching nature and the limitation of the interests of civilization to the narrowest realm of philistinism. We must clearly understand that. Nothing can better help us to penetrate these things, then the knowledge of Spiritual Science. Spiritual Science also works against philistinism, by appealing to the wide comprehensive interests of man. For one cannot possibly become a Spiritual Scientist without taking an interest in what binds man to the Cosmos, in what passes beyond all that is narrow and pulses into all that is great. So, in the realm of the life of feeling, spiritual knowledge is also the opponent of philistinism and of narrow-mindedness, which must inevitably result from materialism; as in the realm of the perceptive and conceptual life is also the opponent of narrow-mindedness and limitation.

In the domain of the will-life also, he who observes life even but to a small extent, can make a noteworthy observations. In respect to the expressions of the will, not materialism itself but what it brings in its train leads to the development of something remarkable in collective human life. The will must indeed always express itself with the help of the bodily nature, if it is to have an effect on the outer world. In regard to the will, present-day materialism makes man awkward. By reason of man's directing his bodily forces only in to quite distinct channels in his earliest youth and wielding them only in some particular directions, he becomes awkward in wider spheres. There are men today who, when they first find themselves in need of it, cannot even sew on a trouser-button for themselves, let alone anything else, strange as this may sound. If a man does not regard Spiritual Science as theory or doctrine but as something that works warmly within him and is taken into his whole personality, he will find that this passes over into the muscles and the pulsation of the blood and makes him dexterous. If we imparted a spiritually-scientific way of picturing things to our children, we should see the result; we should see that they would become adroit, that they would be able to do things more easily, their fingers would become more flexible. The possibility of making the ideas more mobile, occasions the will also do become more active in its methods of expression. Thus in the sphere of the will-life, Spiritual Science fights against that which threatens mankind: awkwardness. This is a characteristic of our time to a far greater extent than we realize. Just observe how little fitted men are today to do anything at all outside the narrow concerns of their professions; they are no longer able to do anything else besides; and they only do more or less work in their professions for the reason that their soul's course has been laid out for them. Confront a man who is thoroughly routine in his profession with something different, and you will see how very one-sided our present-day culture is. That cannot be obviated by external means; for the whole political economy tends towards specializing everything. To try to fight against this would be absurd. It is possible, however, so to fortify men's inner nature that they would receive the impulse of dexterity from the center of there being. For that it is necessary however to be quite permeated, thoroughly permeated, with the knowledge of the super-sensible world, and chiefly of the super-sensible nature of man. We cannot understand perception and conception, even from a spiritually-scientific point of view, if we do not know what I have said before, that the human organism makes room, through the backward activity of the head-organism, for the past life and also the life between death and rebirth to flow in. The life after death also close into our organism.

The opinions of natural science about the human organization are, as I have already said, far too one-sided. The trunk-man alone might be thus one-sidedly observed, but not so the extremities-man. If we observe the extremities: arms, hands, feet, legs (which organism is continued inwardly), this extremity-organism is seen to be the reverse of the head-organism: and over-development exists there which forces the development beyond the normal. If we accurately study man's development in regard to these relations we shall see that it shoots beyond the needs between birth and death. Let us consider only what is external: the armed organism in connection with the breasts; the secondary organs which serve propagation; the legs in connection with the primary sexual organs—the extremities in connection physically with that whereby man even physically looks out beyond himself. The extremities organism at its center serves not nearly what is poured out over the individual human life, but that by means of which his vision extends beyond himself: the psycho-spiritual. What lies—as soul and spirit—beyond the extremities extends beyond what serves human life between birth and death. Thus, just as man physically out of his own organism functions into that of the child through the center of his extremities, so that is present in him spiritually as imagination which he carries through the portal of death by virtue of his being an arm- and leg-man. Through imaginative cognition it can be very clearly seen that man bears quite distinctly—and even anatomically—his future state after death, spiritually in his extremities-organism. If we study natural science properly, we shall gradually cease to say that Spiritual Science is something that we cannot understand. If we really observe the human organism not as rectilinear, for that it is not, but as it really is, then natural science itself will make it necessary to turn to Spiritual Science. Mankind will of course have to overcome something—the belief in the similarity of all other sense-impressions. The similarity of all external sense-impressions is believed today, not only by the unlearned, but also by the scientific investigator who has a man before him in the clinic and examines him anatomically. To him the heart is a similar organism to the head, but this is not correct; the head as compared with the heart stands at the retrogressive stage in its whole organization. Only we do not know how to observe; that is the trouble. If we want to learn to observe correctly, we can gain from natural science itself fundamental conviction of the spiritual in man, which passes through births and deaths. When however we arrive at this, we shall also take into account this soul and spirit nature in the whole movement and growth of culture and we shall then understand the importance of the struggle against having a narrow outlook, against philistinism, and gaucherie, and we shall copperhead much else as well. Above all we shall learn to reckon with the spirit in practical life. The physicist is allowed to speak freely today of positive and negative electricity, of positive and negative magnetism; and yet it is taken amiss when the spiritual scientist in his domain speaks of two currents of force in the human soul, the Luciferic and Ahrimanic. But these two currents of force are just as much a polarity for the human soul as positive and negative magnetism or electricity in the physical. If we wish to understand humanity in its development we must take the trouble to observe what is at work in regard to the Luciferic and Ahrimanic element in life. An example:

Our social structure was for a long period of time influenced in a one-sided manner by Luciferic beings. Yet we could not simply eradicate the Luciferic element from life! A person who is always saying, “I will protect myself from the Luciferic element” is the very one to fall into it. There can only be a question of conceding it the right place in life and of knowing what is Luciferic and what is Ahrimanic: then we shall not exaggerate their effects and not put them in a false light. For centuries our social structure in Europe and also in other parts of the world has been ruled by strong one-sided Luciferic impulses. These strong Luciferic impulses lay hold of the instincts and habits of man, of that which works from within. All this is not criticism, only a characterization of these times. How did the Luciferic element work? Now great consideration has been given to determining social culture, the position of a man in life by laying great value on his vanity, on his ambition. These are Luciferic impulses. The vanity and ambition of a man had been stimulated. I would remind you how much weight is attached to pride and ambition in schools, even up to our times; and pride and ambition has led a man in many respects to acquire this or that, in order to gain an important place in life.

We have now reached an important point in life. It can scarcely escape the notice of a close observer that these Luciferic impulses are on the decline. To use a superficial expression, they no longer draw. But now something else is to be brought in, something essentially Ahrimanic; and one Ahrimanic feature is creeping into the customs of our present day. Our beloved populist so free from authority, which never wants to believe in authority, and which therefore, as a matter of course, falls a victim to all authorities, will again unsuspectingly allow to pass unobserved what is now about to take root as a one-sided Ahrimanic power in regard to the form the social structure. Something quite remarkable is now making itself felt, so-called “Intelligence tests.” Experimental psychology, which at the universities is doubtless to a certain extent justifiable, can discover many things as regards the working of the human body and as to how it expresses various things. But this psychology desires to have a certain occupation, and testing is easier than any other examination of the soul. The experimenter has a certain instrument which makes records on an electrical course; it places students at certain points and notes how long it takes for an impression to be received and to be brought to their consciousness. He thus works, from he an external clinical point of view, in a business-like way. That is easier than to investigate inwardly. For certain things the value of this experimental psychology is undeniable, but it wants to have a wider field. It now wants to take in hand “Intelligence tests.” For that, a number of children are taken from various grades of school classes and are tested as regards their “talents,” their memory, their power of observation, and so on; but the way in which the test is carried out by the methods of experimental psychology is very remarkable. Memory, for instance, is tested in the following way: On the blackboard two rows of words are written which have no connection with one another; for example, “head” and “crystal,” then two other disconnected words, and so on. After they have all been rubbed out again, the first word only is written down and the child has quickly to add the second one from memory. Those children who have best observed which word came next are considered to have the best memories, and the others who can recollect nothing at all or need a longer time are supposed to have a worse one. That is how the memory or the intelligence is tested. I will read a prize example of this (from the newspaper “German Politics,” 1918: “The discovery of the psycho-technique in Germany during the War” by Dr. Curt Piorkowski):

“For instance, in getting the concepts of ‘mirror,’ ‘murderer,’ ‘escape,’ a whole row of different connections between the mirror and the escape assert themselves, for the discovery of which no sort of special knowledge is necessary, only a distinct combination. The obvious connection (which will be made by the less intelligent persons) is of course that the person threatened sees in the mirror the murderer creeping along. Yet quite other suggestions are also possible! A stealthy murderer can for instance knock up against a mirror and waken the threatened sleeper by the clatter, so that he can escape; or the designing murderer may be blinded by a reflecting mirror.”

Imagine how intelligent a boy or girl must be if they are to hit upon such an idea!

“But motives of feeling may also be related. So for instance the murderer may be so terrified at his own image, indistinctly seen in the mirror in the semi-darkness, that he desists from the carrying-out of the deed, be it that horror or prickings of conscious seize him at the sight of himself in the mirror, or that in the dim light he takes his own reflected image for that of another.”

It is considered quite especially intelligent if the person under examination thinks that the murderer might see himself in the mirror, and take his own face for that of another.

“Another idea is the discovery of the stealthy murderer reflected in the water of the calm peaceful forest lake near threatened man, and so on.”

Just according to whether the examinee interpolates the obvious thing or not is he considered more or less intelligent, and as a child who is shown to be the more intelligent in this respect will be supported by scholarships or in some other way; while the one who could think of nothing further then that one might see a murderer in the mirror receives no scholarships. In such a way is the intelligence to be tested today and with regard to these tests there is enthusiasm. By this means social order is to be influenced even if not arranged. The dear public however will welcome such things with all their hearts as the issue of the true and sincere science of the present day, for these things create a great stir today. In this way sought to find ways and means of methodically “putting the right man in the right place,” and essays are written beginning as follows: “More than almost any other science has applied psychology blossomed during the war. It is not a chance appearance, for war with its waste of men and its various requirements has proved the importance of not using human forces extravagantly and aimlessly; but using them to the best advantage. Up till now pedagogy alone dealt practically with exact psychology; now three new questions are added: for what vocation as the man best suited? (Problem of the suitability of a profession) How is a substitute be found for the many intelligences that have been destroyed? (Selection of talent); What possibilities of healing are there for those wounded in the head or those with otherwise damaged nerves? (Practice of psychical therapy).”—And so it goes on in the style. An error of the times is coupled with a significant phrase and the matter will be less noticed, because there are, of course, vocations which must be conducted according to this method. It is quite obvious that airmen for instance have to be examined in a similar way, with a certain justification. But this should not be applied to all. For in such a one-sided development something Ahrimanic will thereby be brought into our social structure. All that comes from the soul-nature, from the elemental, impulsive soul-nature, would thus be eliminated from human aspirations and endeavor. To put the matter roughly: Do we believe that if such intelligence tests could really be determinative, a phrase like “Joy and Love are the wings of great deeds” could still have significance? If people would only think of their own great men! We can be quite sure that if such an examiner had to examine Helmholtz he would have represented him quite certainly as a fellow without talent. Read the biography of Helmholtz!

That is an Ahrimanic feature. Things appear disguised as well. If people are not able to observe things through Spiritual Science, they cannot see where the harm is. It does not suffice that in our time people like to wallow in all kinds of sensual feelings, it is necessary they should wake up in regard to their judgment of life. A great deal would be gained in regard to this nonsense of intelligence tests if there were at least a few people who formed an objective opinion about it. For it will blossom and flourish, you may be quite sure of that! It will become what the “prejudice-free soul-test” has at last made it, and it will be glorified as one of the finest outcomes of that philosophical tendency which has at last stripped off the old idealistic prejudices and methods and now goes in for “the real.” Spiritual Science must work practically in this sense.

Now much is connected with these things, and above all this, that breadth of interest and reality must at last become fundamental attributes of the human soul. I should like to give you two pretty examples of the way in which reality works in our day, and how a certain interest is not present. If I choose personal examples I take it for granted that you will not take it amiss, for you indeed know that I do not do so from any personal foolishness. Recently I held a lecture in Munich on the experiences which the seer makes in art. I have never supposed that any newspaper reporter would be able to understand the subject of Spiritual Science or to write anything in praise of it. If a newspaper reporter should begin to write about Spiritual Science in a flattering manner I should think that something was not in order; but we may study some examples of their work. In the lecture mentioned I also spoke of the art of music and of how musical experience affects the whole man in a remarkable way, that really whenever there is a musical experience a rhythm is set up in the inner man. I then spoke on the one hand in reference to the physiological side, explaining the flowing to and fro of the brain-fluid through the arachnoidal space and further demonstrated how the spinal-marrow canal is elastic to a greater or less degree and how a wonderful inner rhythm is in fact brought about thereby. Musical experiences create a glorious rhythm in life; I mentioned these rhythmical movements of the brain-fluid as being connected with inspiration and expiration; and as I also spoke in this lecture of symbolic ideas, a newspaper reporter wrote that I myself used symbolic ideas which were untenable: the idea of ‘brain-fluid’! We need only recollect that without the ‘brain-fluid’ the brain, which according to the principle of Archimedes becomes lighter than the brain-fluid, would compress and crush to pieces the blood vessels lying beneath it. Thus the ‘brain-fluid’ is a very real thing. But thus do matters stand with respect to the interests which men have, and such is the nonsense written in consequence.

Then an example, only a small illustration, of truth and untruth. I have often mentioned that the remarkable scholar Max Dessoir has also written a chapter about Anthroposophy in his book “The Other Side of the Soul.” I tried to point out to him the many different misrepresentations. Even from an external point of view his method of relating is really very comical by reason of its absolute superficiality. Thus for instance he mentioned my “Philosophy of Spiritual Activity” and said of it that it was my first literary production. I could not do otherwise than reply, although it was out of place to do so, that for 10 years before it appeared I had already written and had my books published. But “The Other Side of the Soul” by Max Dessoir aroused attention; it was discussed everywhere by the journalists (who consider the brain-fluid as a symbolical idea). It caught on, and now a second edition has appeared. In the preface to this, Max Dessoir tries to justify himself, and again in the same fashion. He cannot get out of it and says the context proved quite clearly that I did not grasp what he meant; he meant that the “Philosophy of Spiritual Activity” was my first “theosophical” book. Thus apart from the fact that everyone must smile at his statement that he did not mean my first literary work, everyone must again laugh when the “Philosophy of Spiritual Activity” is called my first “theosophical” book. For a far-reaching discussion exists as to whether I abandoned philosophical authorship in my theosophical works. That is how far veracity is regarded, and it is necessary to attract people's notice to it. But without veracity we cannot progress, and we dare not let such things simply pass in this manner. To anyone who has knowledge of the things concerned, the whole book of Max Dessoir is compiled like the chapter on Anthroposophy . And yet, what happened? A newspaper, the “Kant Studien,” which regards itself as extremely serious (I mention this because in this paper no attack is made on Anthroposophy)—the “Kant Studien”—which prides itself tremendously on its purely scholarly scientific bent, speaks of this product of Dessoir as a serious scientific book in many ways. One of the saddest experiences one can have is to find a book which evinces the greatest superficiality considered by a philosophical magazine as a “serious scientific book,” as it is called there. Now I ask: What then is the public, the public which has no belief in authority, to do today? It takes such works as the “Kant Studien” (Studies of Kant) and so on, as a matter of course out of the libraries. And yet such things are to be found in it.

We must go back to what lies at the base of human nature through the spirit if the will be present. And this foundation is only touched by the strivings of Spiritual Science today. In this one cannot do otherwise than work towards reality, breadth of interest, towards anti-philistinism and activity as regards life. I wished to speak to you again of these things so that our consciousness may not grow faint; in Spiritual Science it is not merely the content that matters, but also the special nature of the concept, ideas and thought in our soul, so that it may be raised out of limitations, philistinism and awkwardness. That is something which the observer of the special impulses which lie in Spiritual Science must consider more and more. We must grasp the practical value of Spiritual Science. In the next lecture we shall speak further of these things.

In former years we have always at this season studied subjects connected with the Festival of Whitsuntide. I have often stated that we are now living at a time when the events which affect the march of humanity are so significant and so different from the ordinary trend of life in human history, that there is scarcely a possibility of making the ordinary festival observations—although indeed, even at the present, such are all too frequently made—if indeed, not for the definite object of forgetting what is now happening around us in such a catastrophic manner for humanity, yet with some such purpose in mind. We may however be allowed just to refer to the meaning of the revelation of Whitsuntide.

From the former lectures on Whitsuntide we know that the most important feature in the Whitsuntide event is, that the communal life of those who had taken part in the great Easter Event of mankind became individualized. The “fiery tongues” descended on the heads of each of them, and each one learnt in that language, which is like none other and for that reason comprehensible to all, to grasp what has streamed through the evolution of mankind as they Mystery of Golgotha. The fiery tongues descended on the head of each one. Formerly the souls of the individual disciples felt themselves—one might say—in the collective aura of the Mystery of Golgotha. Then through the event of Whitsuntide, that which they only comprehended through the life they lead in common, so passed over into their separate souls that each one gained illumination within himself. That is the most important thing, though naturally expressed in abstract form. We must realize this individualizing of the Easter message in the soul through the revelation of Whitsuntide, if we wish to understand it in the right sense. There is then the possibility to conceive, in the sense of this Whitsuntide proclamation, what Spiritual Science intends to do. For, in this Spiritual Science it is desired first and foremost that every human soul should find the spiritual germ of his own being within himself, which is able to illuminate it as regards the cosmic aims for which we must strive. The future life of mankind should so develop that men shall be, less inclined to turn their minds always towards the social structure which all have in common. We hope that every man will become ripe and capable of leading such a life of his own initiative, that his neighbor may be able to lead a similar life. Then an inner tolerance will prevail in the souls, and in the social structure “liberty” must be realized. In no other way can liberty be realized in the world; in no other way than by the message of Whitsuntide passing into the individual human souls.

We must work and cooperate in our souls, and must grasp what is offered by Spiritual Science in accordance with the model given in this Whitsuntide message. For that reason it may be said that in a certain sense Spiritual Science is a perennial, continuous and lasting Whitsuntide proclamation.

What the present time teaches us above all, if we wish to draw this teaching from it, is that we must furnish ourselves with patience. There are friends sitting here who have worked inwardly almost from the beginning of what we call our spiritual scientific movement. This is now more than 15 or 16, perhaps even 17 years ago; and really the thought should remain continually before our soul, how little, how very, very little has been really obtained in these 15-17 years. This should give rise to another thought; how greatly we should arm ourselves with patience, when we reflect what Spiritual Science might be to us, what it can become through us, that it can really lead to a kind of fresh impulse for human existence.

We should always compare what Spiritual Science may become, with what we have so scantily achieved in this decade and a half. Certainly, many have accepted what has been offered to mankind by Spiritual Science. But that is but the merest beginning, as has been stated in the numerous lectures which have been given. Spiritual Science is still faced with the other task—of really flowing into the social structure, into the whole life of the humanity of the present age. But if we wish to grasp this thought we must connect with another which sounds forth to us today at every hour, from all the happenings of the world, which presents a certain conflict into which the human soul is driven and which just in our present age—one might say—reaches a certain climax.

If we recollect the principal points of our spiritually scientific investigation, we shall everywhere find that it rests on the fact that super-sensible spiritual reality flows into the soul of man. Spiritual Science teaches us that in the course of humanity spiritual life continually streams into men, but that nevertheless what happens on Earth is only an “advance,” insofar as men understand how to awaken into external being what streams into them from the spiritual world. Such a thought should really be able to penetrate our whole feeling and experience. We must above all, be able to bring it into connection with what is known to us, for instance, as the Science of History; and we should be able to apply it to the present day from this point of view. We ought to be able to ask ourselves seriously (these things are of course hypotheses but they lead to realities in a true life of thought): What would have happened if Columbus, or anyone else fundamentally connected with the evolution of modern humanity—for instance Gutenberg, discoverer of the art of printing, or even Luther—had been born in the eighth or ninth century or at some other time in history? What would have become of those personalities who bear these names? They would certainly not have figured as they do in history today if they had been born in other times. Of course that could not have happened, for the evolution of the world has its karma; but the hypothetical consideration of such a possibility leads to realities. They would in all probability have become persons of whom external history does not speak. Yet, on the other hand, can you imagine that in such a case, at the approach of the modern age, the art of printing for instance would not have been discovered? Can you imagine that the Reformation would not have come about with the approach of this newer time? You can see from this that the principal thing is that we should look at the objective facts, at what has been imparted to mankind from the spiritual world, and that we should learn to a still greater degree than the present time can yet do, to look at man as an instrument, through whom reality may enter into Earth life from this virtual world.

I said that just at the present time man, in regard to these things, is placed in a sharp conflict. The present day does not recognize that such a thing as the streaming down of a spiritual stream of evolution into the events of the Earth can take place; it does not recognize that man is only an instrument, and it wishes to build up a social order which does not recognize this. It wishes to build up a social order which really only reckons with the quite personal man standing here on the Earth, and to fix attention on him. The most extreme caricature of the plan of only viewing man from the most individual point of view, is Leninism or Trotskyism, to which I have already alluded. This conception of society only recognizes the man who stands here on the Earth. I do not only mean by this the theoretical side alone—that would be the least harmful—I am referring to the consequences in life of this view. Men like Lenin or Trotsky seek—even in a sphere where it is least suitable—so to establish the framework of society as if nothing else came into consideration that the individual man of flesh and blood. That however is an ideal which has been forming for decades in the sphere of so-called socialism, and Leninism and Trotskyism are indeed only the latest grotesque flutterings of such a conception, which has been forming for a long time.

You see what our object must be? To find the way back again to the feeling of the Whitsuntide Event. Certainly, individual spiritual life was to arise illuminatingly in the different disciples on whose heads the flames descended; but that was to be spiritual life; for the greatest imaginable impulse towards the essential thing, as regards which man is but an instrument, was divided among the individual members.

There is also another meaning to this Whitsuntide proclamation, and it is the most important—the strengthening of the realization that a man does not lose his value when he allows the other aspect to count; viz, that the spirit is continually flowing into mankind, and that man has to form the instrument for the spirit streaming down into humanity. Man retains his personal value notwithstanding. That is something which we cannot only see theoretically today, but for which it is necessary to draw the consequences for life and to carry over into our way of thinking about the construction of the state, about moral and social life. The point is that a thought should have an awakening effect, and an “awakening” it certainly was when the flames descended on the head of each one of the disciples. To be asleep today to the events of the time, a state which is only too prevalent today, is a sinning against the events of the time. But in the cycle of evolution which we are now entering, we cannot possibly be awake to the events if we do not observe them with a certain inner mobility of soul-life, if we are not able to distinguish the essential, the right thing, from what is unessential and wrong. What floods us today, especially in reading the newspapers, cannot be regarded as all of like value; for in the columns of a thousand books and newspapers there may be two lines which are of tremendous fundamental importance, pointing in a highly indicative way to the origin of the “phenomena,” to use the expression of Goethe—to what is really going on. The rest may all be a waste of printer's ink. It is a question of awakening an inner feeling in one's self as to what is important and essential, and what is unimportant and unessential. This feeling arises in the soul, if a man unconsciously acquires a vision for the great world perspectives of the present day, which Spiritual Science can disclose; only he must absorb this into his feeling, must try gradually feel as he will when Spiritual Science becomes alive in him. It is certainly necessary to create an inner trust in what one feels inwardly, a much greater degree than men are accustomed to do today. Anyone who expects that what he acquires today points immediately too far-reaching events tomorrow, while not as a rule attaining a true observation. It may be something right and correct, but events may so discount this that perhaps it may only come to expression in a distant future. It is necessary for us to have the right attitude to the world, and have correct ideas as to what is taking place.

Thus, in the present stream of evolution extraordinarily important things are happening, which are already to be observed in external occurrences if we grasp these in the manner just indicated: viz. by distinguishing the essential from the nonessential, and by having the courage to do so.

What is happening today—I will only mention one thing—is the lessening importance of the outer British Empire, as such. What the world has up till now really known historically as Britain itself and which was specifically British, is now merging into Pan-Anglo-Americanism. That such a thing actually forms part of the developments which we have already indicated in different ways, does not contradict these developments. On the other hand it is of tremendous importance to grasp such a significant thought, for much depends on whether we take correct or false forces into our life of idea. The times can teach us much in this respect; that must be pointed out again and again. Certainly, the men at the fronts have become different. Everyone who is familiar with the facts is aware of that. This is not the place to discuss in what way they have changed. But among those who have lived at the front there are still many who think just as they did in July 1914, who have learned nothing since, who use exactly the same concepts as were used to then. When you talk with the men, they just say the same things as they might have said in July 1914. Yet no man today can be really awake if all his ideas have not acquired a different impression, a different value. For this reason the question will have to be put—everyone should put it to himself, as a quite serious and I might say Christian question of conscience: Where are the men to be found today who, before July 1914, held the possibility in view that that might happen which has come to pass up to the present day? I might formulate the question differently. In the cycle of lectures which I held before the war in Vienna, there is among other things an expression which runs thusly: The human social life bears something within it which can be compared to a cancer; a cancerous disease is in the life of humanity. That had to be realized at that time; but there are many people who have not yet realized it at the present time. I ask: In how profound a sense has it been understood that a “cancer” in human development was spoken of just at that time?

By this I only wish to point to the seriousness with which Spiritual Science ought to be taken if it is to be applied to the events of the present. Indeed one great reason why Spiritual Science is rejected is the fact that this seriousness required for Spiritual Science is frightfully inconvenient. The “theories” of Spiritual Science please many people, but the serious demands it makes on life is very, very inconvenient to many who otherwise like the theories. All this leads us perhaps to understand better what I must now introduce into these observations, and which it is important to grasp, if one wishes to understand Spiritual Science in its essentials.

If a man wishes to understand something in the world today, he really always has the feeling that the means to this understanding must somehow be sought in what belongs to the present day. But the spiritual element cannot be sought in the present alone. For instance, if one wishes to become acquainted with the spiritual aspects of the human being—the being of man, even between birth and death, can never be fathomed merely through knowledge of the man of today. Why? Suppose you have reached the age of 50 and you developed some kind of soul-life connected with the powers of the sentient soul. You will unconsciously conceive of it according to the ideas of the present day: :That is my sentient soul, which I have within me; it expresses itself when the sentient life of the soul is externalized. That however is not the case. Now your sentient soul developed between your 21st and 28 year, and what was in your soul at the time came to an end with the 28th year, but the after-effects continue; they go on working; you use them today when reviewing the powers of the sentient soul. You do not use the present powers of the sentient soul but the powers existing within it at that age. The past works on. It is not the case that the present time includes the whole of what is at work, for the past continues to work on. The spiritual world must be conceived as music, but as real music. You could not possibly grasp a melody if, when you heard the third note, you have lost the first; the first works on in the third, it works within it. In spiritual action something goes on working, not only because we hold it in our memory, but through its after-effects it works on in reality. The effects of former forces of spiritual life in the different parts of the soul are continually at work, as part of the spirit and soul nature, and in yet another sense. Our 21st to 22nd year works on within us still later; it is there because it was there in the past, not because it is there in the present. To form new ideas is uncomfortable to man, and what I have just disclosed is a new idea; it is nowhere to be found among the concepts of the present day. For instance you do not want to admit: “When I am old and gray-headed, or bald, I still speak and think with the forces of my youth, of my childhood.” Yet it is absolute truth that what you learnt at school, or where you spent your time from your 18th to your 28 year, works on through your whole life. You cannot replace it later by other powers, except as you make use of those sources which Spiritual Science opens up; that is the only means by which many things in life can be replaced. You will not find it difficult to understand that many people nowadays remain essentially unfruitful. That is connected with the present system of education. We can develop nothing except what was placed in us during our childhood, nothing but just what was placed in us through the ordinary powers by which we turn to man himself.

Much is required before we can grasp such ideas aright. I must declare over and over again from many different aspects that for this it is necessary above all for men once more to learn, in a much higher sense than they wish to today, to believe in life, to believe in the spiritual side of life. To-day it may perhaps occur to man to believe in his spiritual origin. It will be relatively easy to get him to believe that a spiritual element which proceeds from a spiritual world has united with what developed materially through heredity in the course of generations; but that does not suffice. What is necessary is that we should not only believe in the spiritual origin of a “part” of our life, but in the spiritual origin of our whole life. What does this imply?

Today we indeed believe from the evolutionary tendencies of mankind to which I have often referred that, as a rule, with the 20th year of our life we have brought our life to its perfection. We believe that we are then ready to be elected to a municipal assembly, to Parliament and so forth, because we are then capable of deciding on all subjects. Men believe they have long ago outgrown those bygone times when people waited for the fullness of years, in the belief that each new year of life brings new revelations. Today we expect that when the age of puberty is reached the soul-powers of the child are also transformed. For the other years of childhood we may have a like expectation, though perhaps not in such a strong degree. We look at evolution and are convinced that human life develops up to the 20s. From then we cease to believe in further development. We then believe ourselves to be ready for anything. We no longer expect the later years of life to bring new revelations. We cannot do so if we keep the usual ideas. We know however that humanity becomes younger in the course of evolution, that at the present day it never grows older than 27. The bodily development produces nothing further after that. Therefore what constitutes the further development must be drawn from the spirit. But when it is drawn from the spirit it unites with our soul. Just consider how few people today at the age of 22 admit that when they reach the age of 45, something can come about through inner revelation which could not have come earlier, for the simple reason that at an advanced age one has different experiences from those of youth. Who now believes in the productivity, the fruitfulness of old age? But although it is not believed in, it is nonetheless there; only people do not pay attention to the new revelations each new year brings. Just consider how much would be altered in human life, if the belief really became general, if all men believed that they must wait for old age, when they will learn things through their own experience which they could not have learnt before. Where is life full of expectation, full of hope to be found today? But if such a thought, such a feeling were carried into the everyday life of the community, just imagine what a tremendous significance this would have! What a tremendous significance it would have if in the life of men that consciousness were added to all the different “struggles for equality” which play such a part at the present time—the consciousness that for the simple reason that a man has reached the age of forty he may have learnt something which he could not have learned at 27. Imagine how a young man of 27 would regard one of 40 if that were a natural feeling! Of course it cannot be so today, because often today the men of 70 have not grown beyond the age of 27, and often just the most representative men are no older, though they are not aware of it. Thus one cannot demand this is a real requirement today.

What life must bring forth and what the future requires is that people should begin to look upon the spiritual as a reality. What is alone known to man today as “spirit”? On the whole, nothing but a mass of abstract concepts. Man acquires a mass of abstract concepts, such as are characterized by the fact that they can be quite well received up to the 27th year. But besides the fact that we live here on the Earth between birth and death and have at first a sprouting and budding life, then with our 28th year stand still in our development and then begin our descending life, we have also a real concrete spirituality, which changes just as the exterior man changes, but undergoes a reverse process to that of the outer man. The outer man grows old and wrinkled; but his etheric body, his formative-forces by, it becomes ever younger; only man does not trouble himself today about this formative-forces body which grows younger in old age. Men go about with bald heads and gray hair and do not know that they have a body of formative forces, which has a sprouting and budding life just when they begin to get gray, and which only than can give them certain things which could not be given earlier. Certainly this depends upon the character of the times. But the times in this respect need a reversal. Times need a change of ideas. One thing which must especially be brought about by the change is that thoughts should become more forceful and healthy and not cling to what only comes from outside; otherwise we shall become frightfully one-sided in all spheres. What we must do is to penetrate reality with our thoughts in all spheres. We cannot understand the historical life of man unless we are able to bring inner wisdom to bear on what is considered externally as wisdom. For various reasons connected with the schism, with the rent which is going on in human evolution, we have ceased to understand much that is great and which has still been found in an atavistic way. In many domains men today believe themselves to be original.

A long time ago I put a query in a lecture in Dornach as to what the public would say if at a performance of “Faust,” after Faust has risen against the Spirit of the Earth, the manager were to allow Wagner to appear in slightly altered form but otherwise exactly like Faust in external appearance. And yet something of the sort must be done someday. I will tell you the reason why. What do we read today in the books on Faust, what have people in their mind when they speak of this to which I refer about Wagner and Faust? You need only recollect the absurd declamations made by many “Fausts,” and the insipid tones which come from Wagner, to gain an idea of what lies before us; if besides this we think of the great Faust towering up to the heavens and the pedantic Wagner, who is always represented on the stage as limping a little, and so on. But what is really in question here? Faust despairs of the various sciences—it is already considers trivial today by many people who are not very “deep.” What strange things are considered “deep” today! How often among many other demands for an elucidation of the world of spirit, does one hear this: that one should consider among the deepest thoughts of Faust that of the “Omnipotent One” who “holds and contains me and thee and Himself,” in the conversation with Gretchen? People forget that Faust says this to the sixteen-year old Gretchen, and coins it for her intellect and sentiments. All humanity is willing to be catechized by being reduced to the standpoint of the 16-year-old Gretchen! I have even known professors of philosophy who consider these Gretchen-catechisms as the height of wisdom. At the beginning of the poem, Faust does not despair of all the sciences. But the main point lies in the fact that he turns from what is revealed to him through the sign of the macrocosm, of the cosmos. First of all he does not wish to know anything of the relations of man to the whole comprehensive great universe. He turns to the Earth-Spirit, to that which wishes to reveal to him that which man has from the forces of the Earth alone. What reveals itself to him out of the macrocosm is only a drama to him. He turns away from it. But the Earth-Spirit dismisses him. Faust believed he would be able to grasp through the Earth-Spirit something connected with his deepest being. The Earth-Spirit brings about his overthrow. Then come the words: “Thou resemblest the spirit whom thou understandest, not me!”

Now let us ask: Who is it whom Faust understands? He says himself: “Not thee—whom then?—whereupon Wagner enters. “All that thou hast developed till now is only a desire for feeling; what thou art already carrying within thee, behold it is Wagner!” That is the other nature of Faust. That is the dramatic, real answer! In the drama the development is shown by the facts. It had to be made comprehensible to Faust that in everything concrete which he had till then developed he is as yet nothing more than a Famulus, and just through this stage of self-knowledge he is to be led a step further. The reality might be represented if the two were to step onto the stage at the same time, side by side. That would need the courage to take much more seriously than before such words as: “Thou resemblest the spirit whom thou understandest, not me!—Not thee—whom then?” One would have to enter thoroughly into the situation in thought. Thus is it represented in a drama.

And again—let us consider something else. Faust has turned away from the sign of the macrocosm; he does not wish to experience the forces which bind man to the macrocosm, to the great cosmos. That was how the thoughts lived in the soul of Goethe himself, when he had written the first part of his Faust. When Faust had retrieved what he neglected in his youth—at least in the retrospect through the Easter-walk and all through the Easter-night—he passes beyond the stage of self-knowledge which he encountered in Wagner, and reaches the point of regaining what he had allowed to pass him by, which may be the Easter message to him. Read the sentences: Wagner does not wish it. The separate words are extraordinarily pregnant, for instance:

“As not all hope vanishes from the head
Which claims to empty husks,
which digs for treasure with the greedy hand
and is content if he finds earth-worms.”

It cannot possibly be otherwise: “all hope vanishes” from this head. That is the motive of self-observation. Faust only suffers the consequences, but he regains what he has neglected in his youth. He tries to regain it, and does regain it. Through this he is led a step higher. This justifies his asking once more the question: “Whom then?” Of the one who approaches him in the form of a poodle: Mephistopheles. But what is this? It is the counterforce of the human striving forces, which opposes man as Faust opposes the Earth-Spirit when he does not wish to have anything to do with the macrocosm. These are the Luciferic forces which come from the inner soul of man. For that reason Mephistopheles is at first decked out with Luciferic features, and the Mephistopheles of the first part of Faust's poem is essentially a Luciferic being.

But even at the end of the nineties Goethe was ready to grow out of what dated from his youth. Read the prologue in heaven. What is developed therein is no longer connected with the revelations of the Earth-Spirit; there Goethe already busies himself with the impulse which comes from the macrocosm. Goethe has grown beyond his own beginning, and now something enters his soul which is tremendously significant and important, and which, when we recognize it, allows us to look deeply into his soul. Goethe had the tradition of the Faust-legend, the tradition of the North-German myth. Mephistopheles was one of the characters in that. But when, compelled by Schiller, he further develops his Faust, then Mephistopheles—Goethe himself is not properly conscious of this—becomes a figure which worries him inwardly, with which he does not really come to rights. Jacob Minor, also an interpreter of Faust, who said many intelligent things, had a remarkable explanation for the fact that Goethe could not get on at all when he took up Faust again. He thinks that Goethe at about 50 years of age had grown “old”! I should like to know how anyone could write “Faust” at all if poetic power is exhausted at 50 and yet one has to bring into poetry the forces belonging to the years after 50—unless the powers of youth could flourish in a life such as Goethe understood how to lead. But his soul was worried about Mephistopheles, instinctively worried, and it did not allow him to go any further, because the conflict of Faust and Mephistopheles did not go well. Goethe had introduced Faust to the biggest questions of humanity and that did not now fit in with Mephistopheles, who has taken on a Luciferic character. In that character, one only has to contend with the forces which proceed from the sentient life, the life of feeling. As soon as Goethe develops the Prologue in Heaven, Faust is confronted with the macrocosm. It would be no longer possible to allow Faust to fight only with the powers living in the inner soul of man; it is no longer possible to give Mephistopheles only a Luciferic character: Goethe perceived this; and really not in order to be pedantic, but only to point out some important things, I should like to draw your attention to some little details.

“Of all Spirits who deny
Is the rogue is the least burdensome to me.”

Then there must be other spirits who deny! Yet in Faust there is but one: Mephistopheles. And consider how Mephistopheles says in the Prologue:

“Dearest to me are full, fresh cheeks,
To a corpse I am not at home.”

And recollect the end, when he really busies himself earnestly enough about the corpse. What does this mean? It signifies that Goethe perceived that what he had received from the myth, from the Faust-legend as the unitary Mephistopheles-figure, when one goes out into the macrocosm divides into two. Goethe possesses the power of feeling the twofold nature of Lucifer and Ahriman. He did not then get any further because there was not yet any Spiritual Science in his day. He was brought to a standstill. As, however, he had later to unite macrocosmic happenings with human happenings in the classical Walpurgis-night, and at the end where macrocosmic happenings and humanity's experience became woven into one, he had to make his Mephistopheles take on an Ahimanic character. To a great extent he succeeded in this. But really everything that Goethe himself said concerning his own personal relationship to his Faust is said under the impression that he would not be able to go on with it. If the Faust of the pedantic but nevertheless popular national drama of the Middle Ages is to be placed on the great cosmic stage, then it is necessary to divide Mephistopheles into a Luciferic and Ahrimanic being. For that reason Goethe could go no further. He then succeeded, as he was nearing the second part of the poem, by giving his Mephistopheles Ahrimanic features. A Luciferic being loves “fresh and rounded cheeks;” an Ahrimanic one has to do with the corpse, because it permeates our consciousness between birth and death with what we experience in our perceptive life. When we contemplate a personality like that of Goethe we recognize how it preserves the forces of youth, and with these he has constantly new and fresh life-experiences. Not because he has grown old did that appear which can be seen in such a remarkable manner in Goethe's life-history at the end of the nineties of the 18th century, but because he had passed through a crisis which brought certain forces of his youth to life again, made them arise anew, and made him experience them as a Whitsuntide miracle.

What I have just said about Faust is further developed in the pamphlet which is just about to be published: “Goethe's Faust as a measure of his esoteric cosmic conception.” This is to form the first part of a little book about to appear: “Goethe's Standard of the Soul” (Goethes Geistesart). The second part is to give Goethe's thoughts about his Faust, and the third part some development of thoughts on the “Fairytale of the Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily.”

I mention this because I wish to draw your attention to the fact that it is really necessary to grasp with penetrative thoughts what is contained in the spiritual substance of humanity—also as regards the past; that we should take seriously what is to be found there. For the last four or five decades we have completely forgotten how to take in full earnest what is greatest in the past of humanity. A tremendous amount has been missed and lost in the last 40 to 50 years, and it is necessary for what was there spiritually to reappear, though certainly in a new form; for it was in some respects atavistic and could not break through a certain crust.

Goethe could not rise to the division of the Mephistophelian figure into two, a Luciferic and an Ahrimanic, the time was not yet ripe for that. But the sense of this cleavage lived in Goethe's nature. In that we must learn to believe in the whole of man's life, not only in his childhood. We must learn to be able to lead a life full of expectation. Imagine if one were curious and were to ask: What shall I be like when I am 50? How many people foster such thoughts today? How many lead a life in which they believe that ever new content streams into the human soul? What alterations would come about in the social life of mankind if this believe in the whole life were held! What simple thought could lead to this believe in the whole life of man. The thoughts contained in the question: Would there be any sense in living to the age of 70, if we had finished our development at 28. If that were so why then should we grow older? But for that some assistance from natural science is certainly necessary, so that what appears as Spiritual Science can be connected with what is by science today taken seriously.

Spiritual Science has really achieved very little in our movement; and yet it is not without prospects. One notices that on many occasions. One sees it best when (as not infrequently happens) young people, who are busy with their university studies come forward to find something which can link up there special studies with Spiritual Science. Young people, who are novices in life today, feel from their study of the sciences that each science can be led over into Spiritual Science. This may perhaps become the most fruitful germ possible; for people would then have to take things seriously. But difficulties arise immediately if these young people wish to write an essay for their Doctor's degree on what they learn from Spiritual Science and which might well be introduced into their studies. They are not allowed to do so; they cannot do what they want. Spiritual Science is really something essentially rich in prospects, but people are kept away from it, they are forced away from it. We must understand this too in the fullest sense of the words. I know a case in Berlin (it is so long ago that I can now mention it; more recent cases of the present day would not be so permissible) in which a Doctor's thesis was handed in, with which no other fault was found than that my “Christianity As Mystical Fact” was mentioned in it. It was a dissertation on philosophy, not on theology. The writer said: “What shall I do now? Paulsen will not take it; he said ‘You cannot introduce Steiner here.’” I could only answer: “Go to Münster and take your Doctor's degree under Gideon Spicker, perhaps you can test there.” It came off. We must look at things as they really are, must examine them closely. The points of view developed when a man seeks to build up his career on an academic basis are sometimes extremely remarkable. Thus a young University teacher, who certainly overcame this obstacle as you will hear immediately, became one in the following manner, of which he told me himself. He had written an aesthetic treatise on the works of a certain poet (I will not mention his name for the story might come out in some way or other); he then wrote a treatise on Schopenhauer, besides his Doctor's thesis, of course. Now he wished to become a university teacher. He went to the suggested University, to the professor mentioned, who liked him well and considered him a very able man; and he thought that this professor could easily arrange for him to become a teacher. This professor said: “I'm afraid this will not be possible—You have written a treatise on a poet, on an aesthetic question, but this poet lived in the 19th century; that is too recent. Then you have written one on Schopenhauer, that cannot be regarded as scientific.” Thereupon the young man said: “Then what am I to do?” The professor replied: “Take any old catalog of books of a former century and look up and aesthetician as unknown as possible, whom nobody knows—this will be very easy, for as there is no literature on the subject you will not need to study hard, write what will be easy to write, for you will simply look it up in a book-catalog.” The prospective teacher did so, looked up an old Italian Aesthetician about whom nothing had yet been written, and composed a treatise, which he considered extremely inadequate, in which the man who had to judge it also considered very poor, but it was sufficient foundation for becoming a teacher in the University! I did I mention this to blacken any one particular person. It is not a question of persons, I am only mentioning an example. For the man who had to judge the treatise laughed at what he had to recommend the other man to do on account of the prejudices of the times. The other who wished to become a teacher at the University laughed also! Two extremely nice people, one old and the other young, but the fault was not theirs! It lies in the mental substance in which our age is firmly fixed, against which one can only prevail with strong and powerful thoughts. And strong and powerful thoughts are only possible today if mankind is replenished from out of the spirit, if it will build on what Spiritual Science can give. Thus whether we direct our attention to Goethe or to the immediate present, this ever sounds forth to us from the immediate circumstances of the times; we must renew our world of ideas, we must renew our thoughts, so that they may oppose the present in a powerful manner. It depends on the Whitsuntide Mystery fulfilling itself in the soul of every individual and all humanity in our catastrophic times, revealing itself as a renewal of life; when men, illuminated by the Spirit, so stand to one another as individual beings that through their combined willing, thinking and growing, a spiritual structure of mankind can be formed. From man, from the individual man, must come what is necessary for the future. We must not wait for a universal message which mankind should follow. There will be no such message. But there will be the possibility of every single human soul being illumined by what can come from the spiritual world. Then through the social life of man will arise what is to arise and must arise.

Today I should like to look back, drawing together and amplifying what has been said here in the past. In this way I want to lay a foundation for: carrying certain essential themes to a conclusion in the present lectures.

In spiritual-scientific inquiries we encounter besides the two forms of consciousness known to everybody—dreaming and ordinary day-time life from waking to sleeping—a third form, best described perhaps as “higher perceptive consciousness”. Dream-consciousness we reckon in ordinary life as merely a sort of interruption of ordinary consciousness, but that is because we recall only a small part of our dreams. We are really dreaming all the time from falling asleep to waking, and what we commonly describe as the content of our dream-consciousness is merely such fragments of dreaming experience as we are able to remember when we are awake. From the standpoint of Spiritual Science, therefore we must say: We know three stages or kinds of consciousness; that of dreams, that of waking life, and the consciousness in which the spiritual world is open to higher perception.

You will have no difficulty in recognising that each type of consciousness has a certain quality in common with the one next above it in rank. For instance, dream-consciousness gives us pictures—we know that our dream-experiences are pictures. When you recall them you are unable to fit then into the sequence of Cause and Effect in daily life. To try to do that would mean confusing dream life and day-life, and you would become visionaries. Dream-experiences consist of pictures in contrast to realities, by which we mean the events experienced in waking life.

If we now compare our ordinary waking-experiences with those of the higher perceptive consciousness, we find an exactly similar relationship. Here, compared with what is experienced by this higher consciousness as spiritual, super-sensible reality, the experiences of the day-time from waking to falling asleep, are pictures. Therefore, to the degree in which the awakened, higher perceptive consciousness is experienced, it is possible to say (this must be done with prudence): “I experience in this consciousness a genuine reality, compared with which ordinary so-called reality is only a set of pictures”.

Put in this abstract way, the statement has little value. Of course, many people are quite content with these abstract phrases, believing that thereby the riddles of the world can be solved. This is not so. Such a statement has value only when it is applied directly to the actual practice of life. Hence it has to be made relevant to certain definite realms of experience.

There is a realm to which I have already drawn attention from time to time, one which we needs must contemplate if we would make progress in Spiritual Science. It lies nearest to us, yet it is often quite beyond our ken—the realm of man himself. The common opinion is that though we are ignorant of the super-sensible man, we do know the physical man, but this is true only up to a certain point. Anatomy and physiology, as usually understood, are woven out of countless illusions. To-day let us start, if only apparently, from the outer form of man as a physical being and proceed on the lines of the threefold division of his organism to which I have often referred.

If he is viewed in relation to the super-sensible world, and thus as a picture—not as the reality which ordinary anatomy and physiology take him to be—he falls into three markedly different divisions, even as regards his outer physical form: the man of head, chiefly concentrated there; the breast-man; and the man of the extremities or limbs. It must be understood however, that this third man does not consist only of arms and legs, but that these limbs have terminations within the body, as contrasted with the outside, and that all these together make up the whole third man. These three divisions must be kept in mind.

Without sinning against the reality of the super-sensible world, we cannot actually speak of three “men”: for, as regards the super-sensible being of man, a fundamental distinction exists between these three parts. The different forces, or streams of force, which went to build into the structure of these different bodily parts, come from widely different sources. If the human form is examined with super-sensible faculties, the structure of the head is seen to be derived from forces operative before birth or conception. One must go back to the spiritual world, not to the stream of physical heredity. In the formation of the head one can trace—admittedly in its finer details—a share of what belongs, in the spiritual world, to the forces of the human soul before it unites itself with the physical stream of heredity through birth or conception. The chief shore in the formation of the head, belongs not so much to the outer configuration of what a man lived through in his previous earth-life, but to his behaviour, the character of his actions, and to some extent his feelings. When super-sensible perception has so far advanced as to awaken a sense for this kind of form, it is possible to see, through the formation of the head, into what we call the preceding incarnation. Here we touch an extremely significant mystery of human development. More than is usually supposed by initiates of a lower grade, the form of the head is linked with a man's karma—with his karma as it comes over from the previous into the present incarnation.

Leaving aside the breast-man, let us focus our attention on the limb-man (or “man-of-extremities”), with the inner terminations I have mentioned. Here we find by no means so decided, so individual a form as in the head. Each person has his own individual form of head, pointing back to an earlier earth-life. The limb-system, with which the sex- organisation is essentially connected, points forward to future earth-lives. Everything there is still undifferentiated and what corresponds in the soul to this organisation points forward towards lives still to come.

To consider the breast man attentively is specially important. This part of his organism is the combined work of the forces which play their part in man's spiritual life before conception and after death between death and the next birth. What has been the soul's environment between the last death and this conception or birth, acts together with what will surround it between the next death and birth, (or conception). The two interweave. This interweaving of the two sets of forces works itself out in man's breast-organisation, and is principally noticeable in its most conspicuous activity, the process of breathing. Out-breathing gives a picture—here again we must use this word—of what took place in the soul between the last death and this birth; while in-breathing gives a picture of what will operate in and around the soul between death and the next conception or birth.

Here is a concrete fact. The procedure of ordinary anatomy and physiology is to put things down in a row:—head, breast, limbs, and in the same way a collection of nerves and blood vessels. Supersensible perception discriminates between them, realising the essential differences of these members of the human form. Ordinary anatomy and physiology see merely the immediate realities. Spiritual Science sees in the shape of the head a picture of the deeds and feelings of the last incarnation: in the out-breathing, with its distinct individual form in each person (differing in each one according to the particular formation of his head) a picture of the forces surrounding the soul between the last death and rebirth; in the in-breathing, the forces to be met with by the soul between the present death and the next birth. The life of the limbs presents a picture of the next earth-life. Thus the vast panorama of super-sensible life which lies open to spiritual consciousness is interwoven with pictures, even as daytime-life is in dreams. But these pictures represent the reality of our daily life. We arrive at the conclusion that each successive world of phenomena, viewed from the point of view of spiritual consciousness, presents the next to us in pictures. Our prosaic reality is a picture of super-sensible reality, and in dreams we have in picture-form the ordinary realities grasped in everyday life.

Spiritual consciousness is needed to make all this clear, simply because the contemplation of the outer form alone is not sufficient for the purpose. Suppose there were a person possessing a low degree of clairvoyance, of the kind in which there is more “sensing” than full perception—that might lead him, through the head, breast and limbs, to a dim idea of what has just been said, and this would not be at all difficult even to a quite low grade of clairvoyance. But there would be no certainty about it. Conviction of its accuracy could hardly be possible without the searching proof acquired through clairvoyance endowed with the states of consciousness connected with those three members of the human organism. For the head not only shows by its outer form that it points back to a former life; it is clearly marked out by its own soul-qualities, as well as by its inner construction, from the other parts of nan's being. Ordinary consciousness is blind to this fact. For either it dreams, or is occupied with daily realities and fails to notice something which “underlies”, so to speak, the activity of the head. By this I mean the following.—We go through our daily experiences in waking consciousness, we fill our minds, through the medium of the head, with outer perceptions, with the pictures brought to us by the senses, and the mental conceptions we form about the sense-pictures. For the ordinary consciousness, all this is so vivid, so intensely real, that a subtle undercurrent of finer consciousness, a low-toned background as it were, is overlooked.

The truth is that the head is dreaming all the time we are awake. This is the remarkable fact, that behind our waking: consciousness the head has a continual flow of dreams. This we can easily discover for ourselves; no very extensive training is needed, only an endeavour to attain the stage in which consciousness is “empty”—awake, but devoid of perceptions, even of thoughts. In ordinary life we are in some way or other busy with the world of outer perceptions, with memories of them, or with thoughts arising from them. Oftener than we think we are given up to a pure waking consciousness, unknowingly. It is dim. When we endeavour to attain to the soul-state which can be described as “nothing but waking”—outer perceptions, memories, and thoughts all banished, so that we are trying solely to be awake—perceptions will at once arise which are not to be clothed in ordinary ideas. They have, as they emerge, something of the nature of dim feeling—picture-like, yet lacking; the substantial character of pictures. One frequently meets people who are familiar with this state. They speak of it, perhaps, as a state of soul in which they perceive something that defies description; they perceive it, but it is not like a perception of the outer world. It is not unusual to find people speaking in this way, and there are many more than we suppose who, if we get, to know them well, will tell us about such things.

The source of these perceptions is the weaving of the “underlying” consciousness which I have mentioned, and this is itself a kind of dream. But what is the dream about? It is actually about the former incarnation, the last earth-life. The interpretation is the difficulty. Latent in the consciousness of the head lies this dream of a former life on earth. In this subjective fashion it is possible to arrive at such a dream, although it may be hard to interpret. We shall return to this question.

Hence you will see that what I have described as the human head is, in terms of soul-life, somewhat complex, inasmuch as two forms of consciousness belong to it, closely interwoven: the ordinary waking day-consciousness and the underlying dream-consciousness, which is a kind of reflection of the former incarnation. Another interesting characteristic of the life of soul concerns the other pole in man, the man of limbs, or extremities. This limb-man, too, is extremely complicated psychically—that is, in terms of the corresponding part of the soul. I have often pointed out that we are “asleep” as regards this limb-man, although “awake” as regards the head; and our will really acts as though asleep. All that we are able to bring into clear consciousness is what the will accomplishes. Nobody carrying out the idea, “I move my hand”, perceives how all the bodily apparatus comes into it. This goes on as unconsciously as do the bodily processes during sleep. Sleep continually pervades the daytime consciousness of this man of limbs, inasmuch as the will of man is sunk in sleep.

The curious thing is that this “third man” wakes in a sense at night, when, during sleep, man is outside the physical and etheric bodies, and neither consciousness nor self-consciousness function, or only very dimly. Man at his present stage cannot penetrate behind the scenes with his ordinary consciousness, because this sleep-dimness prevents him from following up the activity of the limb-man in the night, when self-consciousness is detached from the physical body. This activity is also a sort of dream. The limb-man actually “dreams” in the night. So, as the head dreams by day, below the clear day-consciousness, so the limb-man dreams in the night, below the dim sleep-consciousness—parallel with it. What does he dream? He dreams of the next earth-incarnation. In truth, we not only bear the past and future in our outer physical form, but we have within us, as soul-life, in the form of usually unrecognised dreams, an ever-present, underlying consciousness of our past and future earth-lives.

Then, as to the breast-man. Although the processes of out-breathing and in-breathing are not followed with any , distinctness by the ordinary consciousness, our organic functions are closely bound to them. In the East, the processes of out-breathing and in-breathing are so attentively followed as to be lifted into consciousness. This procedure is no longer suitable for us; we must attain spiritual consciousness in a different way. The Eastern seeker tries to dim or suppress the head-consciousness, and to stimulate, to clarify the breast-consciousness. He really tries to perform the breathing processes so as to arouse a distinctive type of breath-consciousness. Tracing the inhaled air, as it pervades his organism, and the exhaled air as it leaves the body, and streams out, he raises to consciousness what would otherwise remain unconscious. In this way he attains to a state in which he has a distinct consciousness of the reality pictured in the breathing-process—that is, of the life in the spiritual world between death and birth. This clear knowledge, of which the West has no conception at all, still Persists in the East to a much greater extent than is supposed, and is one reason why understanding between East and West is so difficult. In the East it is no theory that a life of spirit and soul lies before birth and after death, but as clear a certainty as that the road extends before and behind a traveler on the physical plane. Just as it is an obvious fact that the road in front and the road behind possess such and such features, so, for the Oriental, what lies before birth or conception and after death is not a theory, not a result of forming ideas about it; but something perceptible to him through the breathing process raised to consciousness. This breast-part of man never ceases dreaming. It does not entirely wake with our waking, or sleep with our sleeping; but there is a difference between these two states. The breast-man's dream-consciousness by day is dimmer than in the sleeping-state, when it is rather clearer; the difference is not so very great, but there is a slight variation.

This all shows us that we have not only a threefold man in our outer form, but complicated states of consciousness within us. They compose our soul-life, as they interweave and reflect each other. Through the waking-day consciousness of the head, what we know as the life of perception and thought is made possible; through the unbroken dream-consciousness of the breast-man, what we call the life of feeling; and through the limb-man's consciousness—asleep by day, but awake at night—what we call our will.

One thing more. When we consider merely the outer aspect of man, we have to do with more than a visible physical organism, for we bear a fine etheric, super-sensible organism in us—to which in the later issues of the magazine “Das Reich”, I have applied, to avoid misunderstanding, the term “body of formative forces”. It is less differentiated, compared with the physical organism; approaching nearer to a unity: only crude observation will ascribe unity to man's outer form. Man's proper unity lies in his etheric body, which can be divided into parts like the physical body, but not into limbs side by side. The parts of the etheric body call rather for the approach that we have used in speaking of states of consciousness. The etheric body also is in a constantly varying state of consciousness—a different state between waking and falling asleep from that which prevails between falling asleep and waking. Here again, with this super-sensible body, we carry something very significant in ourselves. Some theosophical theorists may think they have accomplished something important in dividing man's being into physical body, etheric body, astral body, etc., but they delude themselves. That is reducing it to a kind of system, and systematising is never any good.

The only way to gain insight is to examine what is happening in the etheric body. If anyone merely says, “We have an etheric body,” that is no more than a phrase, calling up a picture of the thinnest kind of mist, and to take this for the real thing is self-deception. The point is that in the etheric body we have something very real and substantial, though it is not perceptible in ordinary life. Living and weaving in the etheric body, ceaselessly from waking to falling asleep, is the karma of earlier earth-lives. In truth, the etheric body weaves in our subconscious, and through its weaving brings to view our karma from previous incarnations. The clairvoyant knows something of karma because he can make use of his etheric body as he does at other tires of his physical body. Anyone who has learnt to do this cannot help seeing that karma is a reality. The etheric body as concrete reality means this—from waking to falling asleep, it has the vision of karma from earlier earth-lives, and during sleep, of karma in the making. I am again describing it from a clairvoyant's point of view.

The dreams of the breast-man accordingly, are not only about experiences between the last death and birth; we look also at what the past has laid upon our shoulders as karma—at what is spread out below our normal consciousness by the functioning of the lower body, and viewed by the etheric body, although by a spiritual eye, as the karma of the past. Neither do we perceive through the consciousness of our extremities, as we breathe in, only what is bound up with the incarnation to come; for the etheric body becomes the eye of the spirit, giving us, in a fashion unknown to ordinary life, a vision of karma in the making. It is not easy for present-day man to bring the training of his soul to such a point, although it is necessary for everybody to envisage truly all that I have described. (There are certain difficulties, discussed in the book “Knowledge of Higher Worlds and its Attainment.”) It was far easier in bygone ages. Even in historical times life has undergone more changes than we think, and one momentous point in human history (described in “Occult Science” and other writings of mine) is the transition from the third to the fourth post-Atlantean epoch of civilisation, the inception of the Graeco-Latin age. It was at this point that it became so intensely difficult for civilised humanity to penetrate into the worlds I have just described. Before this, it had been comparatively easy, and Orientals still retain something of this facility. The Western man doss not possess it; therefore he cannot do the same exercises, but must resort to those described in “Knowledge of Higher Worlds.” The period which began about 700 to 600 B.C. marks a deeper descent of man into the physical world. Another period will dawn, approximately at the beginning of the third millennium after the Mystery of Golgotha, and preparation must be made for it. Something indefinable will arise in every soul—inexplicable save through occult science. It is not merely a subjective ideal or tendency which Spiritual Science has to prepare and establish in readiness for the next millennium; it answers to a need in mankind's development. The middle of the third millennium will be a critical moment in the development of civilisation, for then a point will be reached when human nature will have progressed so far that it will be thrown back into decay unless it has acquired the vision of repeated earth-lives and karma, lost since the seventh or eighth century before Christ. In earlier times, human nature had a healthy power of response; knowledge came naturally to it. In future it will become diseased unless it takes this teaching into itself. We understand our age only if we keep in mind that it lies between two poles. One pole lies far back, beyond the seventh or eighth century before the Mystery of Golgotha. Those were the times when knowledge of the soul's super-sensible experience was given by human nature itself. The other pole will be in the third millennium, when (as described in “Knowledge of Higher Worlds”) man must acquire super-sensible knowledge in spiritual ways, so that health, and not sickness, may stream into the body. Our age can be understood in both its inner and its outer aspects only if we keep this in mind. Naturally the change will be slow and gradual. But anyone who does not want to dream through the most important things of our age in a dull, sleepy way, but wishes to live in conscious wakefulness—it behooves him to mark what is seeking entry into human life. It will not enter completely until the middle of the third millennium; but little by little it will make its presence felt, and humanity must now consciously be alive to and prepare for its inevitable advent. Learn to study life, and even outer phenomena—especially those of human life—will yield a superficial perception of this truth. With a brain of the coarse development normal for most people to-day, it is certainly not easy to acquire what has to be taken intelligently into the mind, as Spiritual Science depicts it. But I would like to add this: it is tragic to see what unknown powers (I shall speak of them in the next lecture) are trying to make of mankind. At the present day there are certain sick natures—that is why I use the word ‘tragic’—which are abnormal for their time; yet they receive intimations of much that men will encounter normally in the future. I have often mentioned a very well-known contemporary whose life ran its course in alternating health and sickness: Otto Weininger, who wrote the remarkable book, “Sex and Character”. Weininger was altogether an extraordinary man. Picture someone who in his very early twenties presented the first chapter of his book as a University thesis—this book which has roused as much enthusiasm in some quarters as fury in others—both ill-founded. But something else might well have been noted. For he came to live more and more into the problems raised in his book. He travelled in Italy, jotted down his experiences, seeing very different things from other travellers in that country. I find much that is remarkable in Weiniger's Italian diary. As you know, I describe much that can be described only in Imaginations: concerning the Atlantean and Lemurian periods, and the appearance of things in times which to-day can no longer be followed with ordinary consciousness or by historical research. Certain concepts and ideas are necessary in order to present such descriptions to human consciousness. When I read Weininger's notes, something in then strikes me as a fine, artistic caricature of the truth. His life is certainly remarkable. He was only 23 when a thought struck him which puzzled him terribly: that he would have to commit suicide lest he should kill somebody else; he thought that a murderer, a criminal, was latent in his soul—a symptom easily to be explained by occultism. Equally mingled in his life were greatness, punctiliousness and affectation. He left his parents' house, took a room in Beethoven's house in Vienna, stayed there one night—and in the morning shot himself.

The characteristic of this soul was that its union with the body was never quite complete. For external psychology, Weininger was merely a case of hysteria; but for anyone who appreciates the facts it was obvious that an irregular union between his spiritual -psychic and his physical-bodily principles must have existed. With normal present-day people, the former principles leave the latter at the moment of falling asleep, rejoining it on awaking; but with Weininger it was different. I could show you passages from which it is evident that at times his spiritual-psychic part was just a little outside his physical-bodily part and then suddenly dived down into it: as this occurred, a thought flashed through him, which he wrote down often in quite a dry fashion: but of course in diving down he acted imaginatively—and very strangely. To anybody who understands the matter it is clear that an irregular union of these principles brings in a remarkable and peculiar way a knowledge which humanity will have in the future. Think—in a man labeled “hysterical” by a clumsy psychology, there arises a knowledge which all humanity must possess in times to come—only it is caricatured. From what I have said you can quite understand that through such abnormalities something like pioneers of the future appear amongst us, (just as there are “stragglers” from the past): a future in which humanity will inevitably know about recurrent earth-lives, about karma and the dreams of karma. And because such people appear as the pioneers of the future, the knowledge makes them ill. So, by means of an unhealthy organism, there comes out in caricature what is some day to be the wisdom of humanity. Look for instance at a paragraph in Weininger's “Last Things”, (printed by his friend Rappaport): “Perhaps no memory is possible of the state before birth, because we have sunk so deeply through birth itself; we have lost the consciousness and chosen to be born through impulse alone, without rational decision or knowledge, and that is why we know nothing of such a past.”

One thing is clear—although the knowledge shining forth in this utterance is a caricature, yet someone writes as though absolutely convinced: “Through my birth I passed from a state, a spiritual life, in which I previously lived.” If that had been written ten or twelve centuries before the birth of Christ, or at the time of Origen, it would not have been surprising, but here in our time is a man who has set such a thing down in a fashion of his own, full of passionate feeling, as a direct illumination of consciousness, not as a theory.

I could adduce many such instances. What do they mean? They are presages of the super-sensible knowledge which is coming to mankind, and because it is not sought on the path of anthroposophical spiritual science, it comes convulsively, shattering human nature, making it sick, as in the case of Weininger. I say “sick”, not in the common sense of the word, but surely the outer facts show that there is something really abnormal when a man of twenty-three shoots himself because he finds a hidden murderer concealed within him, and saves himself from becoming a murderer by committing suicide.

A hundred,—nay, a thousand,—examples could be given; this knowledge must inevitably come; and it be well if as many souls as possible could be awakened to the fact. In the subconscious of mankind the longing for such knowledge is extraordinarily widespread. External powers, which I have often described, hold it back. We must very carefully keep in mind what is implied in the close of my article on Christian Rosenkreutz, in “Das Reich.” We must remember that what became evident in the seventeenth century had been noticeable since the fifteenth, Growing steadily stronger. In speaking of it now to people of our own time, the customary scientific formulae must be used. I described in the last number of “Das Reich” how it was manifested in the writing of the “Chemical Marriage” of Christian Rosenkreuz by Johann Valentin Andreae. Philologists have racked their brains about this: Johann Valentin Andreae wrote down the “Chemical Marriage”, in which really deep occult knowledge was hidden, but behaved afterwards in a very remarkable fashion, Not only was he unable to explain certain words he had spoken in connection with writings which he had produced at the same time as the “Chemical Marriage”, but in spite of having transcribed this great work, he appeared to be entirely without understanding of it. This bigoted Pastor, who afterwards wrote all kinds of other things, does not understand anything of the “Chemical Marriage”, nor of the other works composed by him at the same period. He was only seventeen when he wrote it. He never altered; he remained just the same person; but a totally different power had spoken through him. Philologists cudgelled their brains, and corresponded about it. His hand wrote it; his body was present, assisting; but through his human equipment a spiritual power, not then in earthly incarnation, wished to make it known to mankind, in the style of those days.

Then came the Thirty Years War, the tomb of much which should then have come to mankind. What should have been then understood, was not understood, was even consigned to oblivion. The “Chemical Marriage” was written down about 1603, ostensibly by one who signed himself Johann Valentin Andreae; little notice was taken of it because in 1613 the Thirty Years War began. Such things often happen before a war. Then one can truly read in the signs of the times: “What is now planted as a seed, must one day bear flowers and fruit”.

This is all part of what I am now pointing out—what is to be read in the signs of the times, in our own catastrophic century.

Before proceeding to draw conclusions from our recent considerations, I am going to bring forward something which links them up—there is really a close connection, though it may not seen so—with the character of our building at Dornach.

Through its special character this building has a part to play in what we have come to recognise as the Spiritual evolution of humanity, leading on from the present into the future. This period in human development has a characteristic feature, until now existing only in germ, which we have tried to illuminate from many different points of view. To-day let us consider how particular aims of Spiritual Science can come to expression through the building devoted to it.

The developments of the present day can be surveyed, to some extent from outside, as is done by those who base all their knowledge, all their view of the world, on purely outward considerations; yet there are cogent reasons to-day for regarding current events from an inner, Spiritual point of view. We can get a correct picture of these events which have been maturing through long ages, and in another form will have a sequel in the future, if we observe them Spiritually. I will start from something apparently quite material, and try to make it a living example of how such impulses as are always with us, working in the present, can also be viewed spiritually.

Among those who in the last few decades have occasionally—not very often—taken a comprehensive view of events, some technicians can be found. One such was Reuleaux who from his own materialistic point of view threw out in 1884 some thoughts regarding certain characteristic features of contemporary culture. He divided present-day mankind into two groups. In one group he placed those who are entirely restricted to a “natural” way of life; in the other, those who pursued, as he said, a “manganistic” way. Manganistic he derived from “magic”,—that which endeavours to bring the forces of the universe into connection with human living. I will briefly go into the basis of this grouping of mankind, is a present-day standpoint.

In earlier times all mankind was “natural”; in a certain sense, and the greater part still is so. The rest, in Europe—especially in the Middle and West—and in America, are “manganistic” mankind. Keep in mind that this “naturalistic” civilisation is still predominant in the world. It is significant that the so-called “manganistic” civilisation has fully developed only during the last century. The most paradoxical result of this new civilisation one might say, is that it has hurried on to the earth many more “hands” than there are men on the globe. This is due to the prodigious expansion during the last few decades of mechanism, machines among the minority of mankind. It is obvious that a large portion of the work of to-day is-done by machinery; but it is rather astonishing to calculate, as can be done, how great this machine-work, replacing human toil, really is. One can reckon how many million tons of coal are turned annually into machine power. Then, translating this coal- output into terms of man-power, one can calculate how many men would be necessary to carry out the work. We find that to accomplish what the machines do would take no less than 540 million men working twelve hours a day. It is therefore not quite correct to say that there are only 1500 million inhabitants on the earth, for machines have added 540 millions to the population. Thus there are present many more “hands” than those of flesh and blood, because for a minority of mankind all this “manganistic” ,work is done by machines. Indeed, during the last century, the human race has not merely increased to the extent shown by statistics, for the working-power of 540 million more men must be taken into account. Truly we European and American peoples—leaving out Eastern Europe are surrounded by a form of labour which continually extends its influence over our daily life more than we think, and takes the place of human strength.

The people of the West are extremely proud of this accomplishment, especially the following aspect of it. By simply comparing the output of machinery with that of the numerous peoples who live more on a natural level and make little use of machines, we find that Europe and America produce significantly more than all the rest of mankind. Here we can say that to do the work accomplished by the machines, 540 million men would have to work twelve hours a day. That means a great deal. There we have the proud achievement of the new world-civilisation, and it has a variety of consequences.

To get an insight into the underlying meaning of this, we need only look at a case where “natural” civilisation projects deeply into the “magical”—for instance, with matches.

The oldest among us may still remember the time when matches were scarce, and flint and steel were used to produce a spark and so to ignite tinder, when fire was wanted. That leads us back to a much older way of producing: fire—where a great deal of human energy was used in twisting a burning stick in another piece of wood, to produce the equivalent of the fire now engendered by a box of matches. If we compare this “natural” method with that of to-day, another aspect of it comes into view, and we can say: The entire “magical” civilisation has another special peculiarity: it puts out of sight, banishes to a distance, the laws with which man was formerly in touch. To take the example of the primitive way of producing fire—see how this labour was inwardly connected with the man himself and his personal achievement. The fire which resulted directly from his work was intimately bound up with the personal deed. All this is pushed into the background. Because to-day a physical, mechanical or chemical process takes its place, nature's own process, in which the Spiritual plays its part, has become remote from the direct human action.

We constantly hear the statement: “Through this new application of science, man has compelled the forces of Nature to serve him”—a statement which is quite justified from one point of view, but is extremely one-sided and incomplete. For in everything done by machine-power (taking this in a wider sense, to include its use in the form of chemical energy) not only is natural energy pressed into the service of man, but the natural event in its deep connections with the essential impulses of the world is thrust out. In machinery it is gradually withdrawn from man's ken—and this means a robbery from man himself. Through technology, something deathly spreads over nature's living face; the living thrill which formerly passed directly from nature into man's labour is banished. When we consider how man extracts death out of nature, to incorporate is into his “magical” civilisation, it will not seem very surprising if I now bring Spiritual Science into connection with what the purely natural scientist says.

Reuleaux from his point of view rightly asserts that man's latest advance consists in harnessing nature's forces to his service; but we must, above all, keep in view the fact that machines literally replace human strength. It is not simply a question of a process provoking visible results; that is very important from a spiritual point of view in the creation of 540,000,000 imaginary people. Human energy is crystallised in all this; human intellect has been poured into it and works in it, but only the intellect. We are surrounded by intellect detached from man. Directly we set free what should be bound up with man, the forces known to us in Spiritual Science as Ahrimanic take possession of it. The 540,000,000 imaginary people on the earth are just so many receptacles for Ahrimanic forces; and this must not be overlooked. Linked up with the purely external advance of our civilisation are the Ahrimanic forces—the sane which are found in the Mephistopheles-nature, for this is closely allied to the Ahrimanic. Moreover, nothing exists in the universe without its opposite; never one pole without the other. The Ahrimanic in the mechanical forms of industry, etc., on the earth, is exactly balanced in the spiritual realm by a Luciferic element. The purely Ahrimanic is never found alone; but to the same degree as it takes visible form on earth, as just described, appears the Luciferic element, woven through this entire civilisation, already saturated with the Ahrimanic. To the same extent as the imaginary “hands” are brought into existence, and the Ahrimanic civilisation hardens on earth, spiritual correlations work into the human will, human intentions, impulses, passions and dispositions. Here on earth the Ahrimanic machines—in the spiritual stream enfolding us, for each machine a Luciferic spiritual being! As we produce our machines, we descend into the realm of death, which in this Ahrimanic civilisation has for the first tine become outwardly visible. Invisible to this Ahriman-civilisation arises a Luciferic one, like a reflection. This means that to the same degree as machines are made, man on earth is saturated in his morality, his ethics, his social impulses, with Lucifer's mode of thought. One cannot arise without the other. That is the pattern of the world.

We can see from this that the point is not to “flee from Ahriman” or to “avoid Lucifer”. A condition of which they are the opposite poles is necessarily bound up with the development of modern civilisation. Regarded spiritually, that is what is active in our culture, and this is the point of view from which things will need to be looked at increasingly from now onwards.

Now it is very remarkable that Reuleaux, the engineer, waxing enthusiastic over the “magical advance” of mankind, (from his standpoint a fully justified enthusiasm—for as always emphasise afresh; Spiritual Science has no reason for being reactionary—when he has brought it into bold relief, at the same time he refers to various other things. Especially he remarks on the fact that the man of to-day, especially in the European and American civilisations, placed as he is in a new world, urgently needs stronger forces for the cultivation of spiritual life than did the man of old, who with his “natural” culture, stood so much nearer in his personal workmanship to the intimacies of nature. (Of course Reuleaux does not say “Luciferic” and “Ahrimanic”; he describes only what I mentioned at the beginning-of this lecture. It is quite easy to discriminate between what I have added and what the scientist of the present-day materialistic world has to say.) For instance, Reuleaux points out how Art, for further Growth, needs stronger aesthetic impulses than were required in times of more instinctive development. A remarkable belief lies at the back of his mind—the naive belief, as he puts it, that in face of the assault of machinery, which destroys art (he readily admits that), the soul will need to attain to a more intensive experience of aesthetic laws. The naivety consists in his having no inkling that before this can happen, stronger artistic forces than those of the past will have to inspire the human soul. The misconception lies in supposing that although mechanical science battles against everything hitherto wrested by man out of the spiritual, this can be compensated for purely through an ‘intensive’ experience of the spiritual forces of the past. That is impossible, quite impossible. What is really necessary is that with the emergence of human civilisation on to the physical plane, other, stronger, and more spiritual forces should play into spiritual life; failing that, men will inevitably fall victim to materialism in practice, even though in theory they may strive against it.

Thus you can see that if one starts from the impulses of contemporary culture and reflects on the inner nature of present developments, one can reach this conclusion: Art must receive a new impetus; a new impulse must flow into it. If we are firmly convinced that our anthroposophical Spiritual Science, rightly directed, will bring a new impulse into the old spiritual culture of humanity, we are bound to conclude that art, too, will share in this stimulus.

This was the aim of the project, obviously very imperfect, for our Building at Dornach. As a matter of course its imperfections must be admitted; it is just a first effort. But perhaps we are justified in believing that it is a first step along a path which must continue. Others who follow us in the work, when we ourselves are no longer in the physical body, will perhaps do it better; but the impulse for the Dornach Bau had to be given at the present time. The Bau will be rightly understood only by someone who, instead of applying an absolute standard to it, familiarises himself a little with its history, and this I will relate to-day, because we are always being confronted with antiquated misconceptions.

You are aware that in Munich, since 1909, our work has included the presentation of certain Mystery Plays, the aim of which is to reveal through dramatic art the forces operative in our view of the world. Courses and Lectures, always strongly attended, were grouped about these artistic presentations in Munich, and so among our friends the idea arose of providing an appropriate home for our spiritual endeavours. This suggestion came from them—not from me, please remember. The Bau really started from the shortage of space observed by a number of our friends, and obviously, once such a building had been thought of, it was bound to be fashioned according to our view of the world. In Munich they had in view, properly speaking, only an interior structure, for it was to be surrounded by a number of houses, inhabited by friends able to, settle there. These houses would have so shut in the building that it would have been as plain as possible, for it would have been hidden from sight among the houses. The whole building was conceived of as a piece of inner architecture. “Inner architecture”, in such a case, has only a meaning when it provides an enclosure, a frame, for what goes on inside. But it was to be artistic, genuinely so—not a copying, but an artistic expression of the activities within. I have always compared, perhaps trivially but not inappropriately, the architectural idea of our building with that of a cake-mould. This is made for the sake of the cake inside, and the outer shape is correct only if it encloses and moulds the cake rightly. The “cake-mould” is in this case the free for the whole activity of our Spiritual Science, for the art which belongs to it, and for all that is spoken, heard, experienced within it. All that is the cake—everything else is the mould; and this must be expressed in the interior architecture. That was the first idea.—After much trouble to arrange the building on the site already acquired in Munich we discovered that we were opposed, not by the police or local authorities, but by the Munich Society of Arts, and indeed in such a way that we felt these worthies objected to our establishing ourselves in Munich, but would not tell us what they wanted. We were thus continually obliged to make changes in our plan, and this really night have gone on for a decade. At last the day came when we were driven to give up the idea of realising our hopes in Munich and to make use of a building-site in Solothurn, available through the kind offices of one of our friends. So it came to pass that in the Canton of Solothurn, on a hill in Dornach, near Basle, we set about building. The idea of the encircling houses was given up; the building had to be visible from all sides. The impulse arose; and the zeal was there to carry the matter through quickly. And without fundamentally re-casting the scheme already sketched out for the interior, all I could do was to try to combine the exterior with the already existing plans for the inside. From this arose many defects, of which no one is so conscious as I, but that is not the chief point. The great thing is that, as I have said, a beginning was made with such an enterprise.

I would like now to draw attention to a few thoughts which will make clear what constitutes the peculiar characteristic of this Building, so that you may see the connection between it and our entire movement—scientific as well as spiritual.

The first thing that will strike an unprejudiced observer is that the partition walls are quite evidently, conceived differently from those of ordinary public buildings. Walls enclosing a building, generally speaking, have hitherto always been considered, from an artistic point of view, as a “shutting off” of space. Walls, boundary walls, are always so considered and all architectural and ornamental work on walls has been in connection with this idea, that the function of the outer wall is to enclose. This canon is transgressed in the case of the Dornach building!—not physically, of course, but artistically. The conception of the outer wall, as it appears there, is not that it shuts off space, but that it opens the space to the universe, the macrocosm. Whoever stands within this space, should have the feeling, through the very walls themselves, that the building expands into the universe, the macrocosm. Everything should represent connections with the universe. What is the conception in the fashioning of the wall itself; the same with the pillars, accessory in their several ways to the walls—so also with the entire carved work, the bases of the pillars, the architraves, capitols. The conception is of a wall which is transparent for the soul—the very opposite of a space-enclosing wall. Anyone standing inside should feel that he has the freedom of the infinite universe. Naturally, if anything has to be done within this space, physically the enclosing is there; but the forms of the physical enclosure can be so taken that, abrogating themselves, they are annulled through their artistic fashioning.

Everything else is related to this. The laws of symmetrical proportion, usually followed in buildings, have to be disregarded under the influence of this main conception. The Dornach Building has, properly speaking, only one axis of symmetry, which goes straight from West to East; and everything is ordered upon this single axis. The pillars, at a certain distance from the walls, are not all furnished with the same capitols; only by twos, right and left, the capitols and mouldings are alike. Starting at the principal entrance, the first two pillars are the same, in capitol, base, and architrave. In the second pair, pillar, capitol, architrave design, are different, and so through the whole length of the building. Thus in the subjects of the capitols and bases it becomes possible to depict Evolution. The capitol of each pillar always evolves from the one before it, just as the organically complete form develops from the incomplete. The ordinary symmetrical equality is dissolved into a progressive development.

The whole Building consists of two principal parts; they have an essentially circular ground-plan, and are closed above with domes; but the domes are so cut as to link into one another, so that the bases form incomplete circles. One circle is short of a small segment in the front, and the other, the larger circle, is joined on just there.

The whole is so erected as to form two circular spaces, a larger and a smaller. The larger space is the auditorium, the lesser is for the presentation of the Mystery Plays, and kindred things. Where the two circles unite, are the rostrum and curtain. It was a very interesting piece of work, technically, to make the two domes intersect and cut into one another.

The Building, wholly of wood, rests on a concrete sub-structure which contains only the cloakrooms, with concrete steps leading up to the Building itself.

Along each wall of the greater space, under the large dome, there are seven pillars; in the smaller, six; so that in the latter, which forms a kind of platform, there are twelve, as against fourteen in the former. The sculptured designs of the pillars develop progressively, in a fashion which amazed me myself, as I worked at them. While I was making the model, shaping the pillars and their capitols, I was astonished at one thing in particular. There is no question here of something “symbolical”. People who have spoken and written about the Building, saying that all sorts of symbols are introduced, and that Anthroposophists work by means of symbols, are wrong. No symbol, such as they have in mind, is to be found in the whole Building; each part of the whole springs out of the conception in its entirety. Neither does the smallest part signify (I an using “signify” in its worst sense) anything unconnected with the artistic conception. This unbroken development of the designs on the capitols and architraves has been the outcome of artistic perception, one form out of its predecessor; and while, I developed one from the other, there arose, as of itself, a reflection of evolution, of the true evolution of nature, not as understood by Darwinism. That was not intended, but it arose spontaneously, in such a way that I could recognise, with amazement, how, for instance, certain human organs are simpler than those of certain species of lower animals. I have often pointed out that evolution does not consist in complication; the human eye is more perfect because it is simpler than the eye of an animal, reverting to simplicity.—I noticed that after the fourth of these designs a simplification was necessary. The more perfect one emerged precisely as the simpler.

This was not the only thing which struck me. Comparing the first pillar with the seventh, the second with the sixth, the third with the fifth, I was surprised to see that a remarkable correspondence came to light. In the carvings there are, of course, some raised surfaces and others hollowed out; these were elaborated purely from intuitive feeling and visual sense. Yet, taking the capitol and base of the seventh, and thinking of the whole and its separate parts, one could superimpose the high surfaces of the seventh on the hollow surfaces of the first, and vice versa. The raised surfaces of the first exactly fitted the hollow surfaces of the seventh. I mean this as a matter of convex and concave, of course. Symmetry, not merely external, but from within, was the result. Really, in this interchange and the working of it out in sculpture, something arose that was like bringing architecture into movement and sculpture into repose. It was all at the same time wood-carving and architecture.

The whole Building has a concrete foundation, with inner motives which will surprise visitors when they first come there. Of course they come with preconceived notions, compare it with what they have seen elsewhere, and are astonished. Many, not knowing what to make of it, have called it a “futurist Building”. The lines of the concrete part are designed in accordance with the capacities of concrete, the new material, to express artistic form; but within the concrete frame an attempt is made to construct pillar-like supports. These came of themselves to look like elementary beings, gnome-like, growing up out of the fissured earth, while at the same time they support the weight above—so that it can be seen that they are for support but bear the heavier part, push it, throw it back, and do this in a different way f or the lighter parts. Such is the substructure of the wooden part.

In Munich it would have been a case of inner architecture only; windows were necessary for the Dornach Building. To understand these, I would ask you first to make the effort to grasp the whole idea of the wooden building. As it stands, it has really no claim to be artistic; it is not a work of art. As regards pillars, walls, and windows, it is so. The entire Building, which is to have no decorative character, to be constructed with no decorative purpose, is meant to arouse, through every line and every surface-shape, certain experiences and thoughts in those who behold it. The eye, the sensitive eye, must trace the direction of the lines and the surface-shape. What is experienced in the soul, when one's gaze takes in works of art, this is first aroused by a “work of art” in the wood-carving. It arises first in human feeling. The concrete foundation and the wooden part are the preparation for it. Man himself must bring into being a work of art through his appreciation of the forms. What has been worked into the wood is so to speak, the more “Spiritual” part of the Building. A work of art really comes into existence only when the soul of the listener or speaker is inwardly receptive.

Then it was necessary to provide windows for the space between each pair of pillars. If the windows were to carry out the idea of the Building, a distinctive workmanship in glass was needed. Sheets of glass in plain colour were taken and the appropriate designs etched into them, so that here we have etchings in glass. With an enlarged form of dentist's drill, enough was ground out of the thick sheet of glass to give varying thicknesses to it—and this produced the design. Each sheet of glass is of one colour only; the colours are so placed as to yield a harmony in their sequence. Viewed from the entrance, the Building shows a window of the same colour on each side of the axis of symmetry, so that there is colour harmony in evolution. Still the window, as a “work of art”, is not complete. It becomes complete only when the sun shines through it so that in the scheme of the windows something is created which forms a work of art with the co-operation of living nature from outside. Etched on these sheets of glass you will find much of the content of our Spiritual Sciences imaginatively perceived—the dreaming man, the waking man in his real being, various mysteries of creation, and so on. All this in terms of perception, not in symbols; all artistically intended, but complete only with the sunlight. Hence, through yet another means, we have tried here also to surmount the feeling of an enclosed space. In the wood-carving, architecture and sculptures the pure forms are used to give the soul an impression of overcoming the enclosed space and going out beyond it. This effect is first conveyed directly to the senses through the windows. The union with the sunlight which shines through, streaming from the universe through the visible world, is something belonging to these windows. Between these two parts of the whole there is a certain correspondence. Through the conjunction of light and glass-etching there arises for the soul an external work of art; while the wood-carving provides a spiritual element which is experienced as a work of art within the human soul itself.

The third part consists of the paintings in the domes. The subjects of these too, are taken from our Spiritual Science. The paintings express the content of our conception of the world, with regard at least to a great macrocosmic stretch of time. Here we have, so to say, the physical “part” of the thing, because in painting, for certain inner reasons, (to go into them would take us too far) whatever one wants to present must be presented directly. Colour must itself express what it has to express, and so with the lines. Only through the content can the endeavour be made to go out beyond the borders of the dome into the macrocosm; that is how one arrives at it. All that is painted there really belongs to the macrocosm, its meaning presented directly to the eye—We tried, by using colours derived from pure vegetable substances which have their own light-force, to produce the light-force necessary for the painting, of these designs. Of course, we might have succeeded better, but for the war. However, it is only a beginning. Naturally the whole style of painting had to conform to our conception. To paint the spiritual content of the world means that we have to do, not with forms thought of as illuminated from an outside source, but with forms that are self-luminous. Quite a different approach to painting is necessary. For instance, the human aura cannot be painted in the same way as a physical shape, which is drawn with light and shade, according to the source of light. In the aura we have to do with a self-illumined object, and the character of the painting must therefore be quite different.

So now I have given you, with a few rough strokes, as far as it can be done without a model, some idea of what the Bau is meant to be. As a whole it is oriented from West to East, the axis of symmetry lying in that direction, between the and it cuts into the small circular space, containing the stage, at its eastern end. At this eastern end, between the sixth pillar on either hand, stands a group of figures carved in wood. Its intention is to present in ,artistic form something—I might say—which lies at the heart of the world-conception which we hold through Spiritual Science; something which must, by necessity enter into man's spiritual outlook now and in the future. Man must learn to grasp the fact that everything of importance for the shaping of world-destiny and for human life runs its course in these three streams: the normal spiritual stream in which his life is set, the Luciferic, and the Ahrimanic. In everything, as much in the foundation of the physical world as in the manifestations of spiritual events, divine evolution is interwoven with the Luciferic and the Ahrimanic evolution. This is expressed in our carved group, again not symbolically, but artistically. A group carved in wood! The idea of it came to me, for I believe I have grasped as thought what is not yet clear to me so far as its occult basis is concerned: it may well be that future occult investigation will reveal this. Still, it seems to me certainly right that the ancient themes are better portrayed in stone or metal, and all Christian ones—ours being in the most eminent sense Christian—better in wood. I cannot help confessing that I have always been obliged to think of the group in St. Peter's at Rome, the “Pieta” of Michael Angelo, as being made of wood: only so, I believe can it represent what it ought to express, and the same applies to other Christian sculpture I have seen. There is doubtless something behind this feeling; but I have not yet arrived at the reason of it. Therefore our group has been conceived and carried out in wood.

The leading figure is a kind of representative of humanity, a Being expressing Man in his divine manifestation. I am glad when anyone, looking at this figure, has the feeling that it is a representation of Christ Jesus. It seemed to me inartistic to take as the underlying impulse: “I will carve a figure of Christ Jesus”. I wanted to produce just what I did. The result may be a feeling in the beholder that it is Christ Jesus. I should be most glad if that were so; but the artistic idea was not to produce a representation of Him. The idea rests purely in the artistic form, in its manner of expression; to set out to carve a figure of Christ Jesus—that would have been merely a descriptive, programmatic idea. The artistic thought must rest in the form, at any rate in sculpture.

The whole group is about eight and a half metres high, and the chief figure is raised, with rocks behind and below it. From the rocks below, which are a little hollowed, grows an Ahriman-figure. It half lies within a hole of the rock, its head above it. On the slightly hollowed rock stands the chief figure. Above the Ahriman-figure and to the left of the beholder, a second Ahriman-figure rears itself from the rocks, so that the Ahriman-figure is repeated. Above the one to the left is a Lucifer-figure. A sort of artistic connection exists between the Lucifer above and the Ahriman below. A short distance away, over the chief figure, and on the right of the onlooker, is another Lucifer-figure, so that Lucifer is also twice represented. This other Lucifer is marred, and falls headlong owing to his injury. The right hand of the central figure points downwards, the left upwards, and this upward pointing left hand indicates exactly the point of the fracture suffered by Lucifer, through which he is shattered and falls headlong. The right hand and arm point to the Ahriman below and bring him to despair. The whole group is so designed—I hope it will convey this experience—,that this central figure is in no way aggressive, but intended by its gesture t0 express only love. However, neither Lucifer nor Ahriman can endure this love. The Christ does not “fight against” Ahriman, but radiates love. Lucifer and Ahriman cannot endure this love near them. It comes near them; Ahriman feels despair, the destruction of his very being, and Lucifer falls headlong. Their inner nature is revealed in their gestures.

The figures were naturally not easy to create, for the reason that, in the case of the chief figure partly, and in that of Lucifer and Ahriman wholly, the Spiritual had to be depicted, and of all things it is most difficult to express the Spirit in carving. The endeavour was made, however, to achieve what is especially necessary for our purpose—to bring out the significance of the form (although it must remain an artistically conceived form), in gesture and in mien. Human beings are really able to make use of gesture and mien only in a very restricted sense. Lucifer and Ahriman are entirely gesture and mien. Spiritual figures have not got a limited form; there is no such thing as a complete spiritual figure. To try to model the Spirit is just like trying to model lightning. The form of a spiritual being chances from moment to moment. That must be taken into account. Try to hold a Spiritual shape fast even for a moment, as might be done in representing a form at rest, and you will not succeed; the result will be only a frozen figure. Hence, in such a case, gesture alone must be reproduced. This is so with Lucifer and Ahriman entirely, and it had to be partially attempted also in the central figure, which is of course a physical form—Christ-Jesus.

Now I want to show you a few pictures, to give you an idea of the principal group. [Here some lantern slides were shown. The description follows.]

The first is of Ahriman's head, exactly as the figure first came to me; as a man (remember the threefold division of man into head, breast, and limb-being) who is all head, and therefore an instrument for the most consummate cleverness, intellectuality and craft. The Ahriman figure is meant to express this: his head, as you see it here, is true “spirit”, to use a paradox; but you know how often a paradox results from a spiritual description. He is actually like the model, faithful in spirit, artistically true to nature: he had to sit for his portrait!

The next is Lucifer, as seen on the left. To understand him, we must picture what appears as his form in a very peculiar way. The most Ahrimanic characteristic in man must be eliminated: the head vanishes; but the ears and ear-muscles, the outer ear, substantially enlarged and of course spiritualised are depicted as wings and formed into an organ entwined round the body with wings at the some time spreading from the larynx, so that the head, wings and ears form one organ. These wings, this head-organ, present themselves as the figure of Lucifer. Lucifer is an extended larynx—the larynx becomes a whole figure out of which develops, through a sort of wine, a connection with the ear; so that we must imagine Lucifer as a being who receives the music of the spheres, takes it in through this organ of ear combined with wine. Without any help from the individuality, the cosmos, the music of the spheres itself, speaks through this same organ, of which the extension in front is the larynx; another metamorphosis of the human form, an organ composed of larynx-ear-wing. Therefore the head is only indicated. As to Ahriman, you will find, when you see the figure at Dornach, that it is developed out of what one imagines as form; but what appears as Lucifer's head (although you can hardly picture your own as being like his) is something in the highest decree “beautiful”. The Ahrimanic nature is intellectual, clever—but appears as ugly in the world; the Luciferic appears as beautiful in the world. Between them they comprise everything in the world. Youth and childhood are more Luciferic, old age is more Ahrimanic; the impulses of the past lean to the Luciferic, those of the future to the Ahrimanic; women are more inclined to Lucifer, men to Ahriman; the two streams embrace everything.

Above Lucifer an elemental being arises as it were out of the rock. The group was complete, but when it was released from its framework, the curious fact was noticed that the centre of gravity (naturally as viewed) seemed too far to the right, and something had to be added to redress the balance—evidently so brought about by karma. It was not a case of merely introducing a mass of rocks, but of following out the idea of the carving; therefore this elemental being sprang into existence, in a sense crowing out of the rocks. There is a noticeable thing about this being, although expressed only in slight indications; in it one can see how an asymmetry comes into play, directly spiritual forms are in question. It finds only limited expression in the physical, the left eye is not very different from the right; the same with the ear and the nostril; but directly we enter the spiritual realm, the etheric body is seen to work absolutely differently on the two sides. The left side of the etheric body is quite different from the right: a fact which immediately becomes evident in trying to portray spiritual forms. If you walk round this being, you will get a different view from every point. But in the asymmetry you will see a kind of necessity; it expresses the demeanour with which the being peeps over the rocks and looks down with a certain humour at the group below. This looking down over the rocks with a humorous air has a good reason. The right attitude for raising oneself into the higher world is never a sentimental one. Mere sentimentality is of no use for the man who wants to toil up the spiritual heights, in the right way, for it always smacks of egoism. You know how often, when the highest spiritual subjects are being discussed, I mix with our considerations something not designed to take you out of the mood, but simply to banish any egoistic sentimentality from it. A genuine ascent to the spiritual must be undertaken in purity of soul (which is never destitute of humour), not from a motive of egoistic sentimentality.

Then, as to the head of the central figure in profile, as of necessity it revealed itself. The head also had to be asymmetrical, because in this figure the intention was to show how not only the right hand, the left hand, the right arm and so on reflect the inner being of the soul, but how in a being living entirely in the soul, as Christ-Jesus did, this reflection is seen also in the very shape of the brow and in the whole figure, far more than can be the case in the mien of the ordinary man. We made a trial by reversing the lantern-slide, (although this was contrary to reality) to see whether the view thus obtained was quite different. It proved to be so. The impression made Was different. The artistic intention of the asymmetry will be apparent only when the head of the central figure is complete.

It may well be said that in working out such a subject all artistic questions have to be considered; the smallest has its connection with the far-reaching., whole. For instance, the handling of surface. Life has to be engendered specially through this. The surface curved once and the curve curved again—this particular handling of it, the doubling of the curve, thus drawing life out of the surface itself, is perceived only in fashioning these things. What we were aiming at, therefore, consisted not only in what was represented but in a certain artistic treatment of the subject. To achieve a representation of the Ahrimanic, the Luciferic, or of human nature by means of a copy, in a kind of narrative style, was not the intention; rather must it be seized through the fingertips, in the chiselling of the surface, in the entire artistic moulding. The expansion which man feels when he extends his view into the Spiritual, widens out again on the other side into the artistic.

This group is placed at the eastern end of the building, in the space provided for the stage. Above it is spread the vault of the smaller dome, decorated as I have described, in such a way as to continue in painting; the theme of the croup. The Christ, Lucifer and Ahriman are all there, and we have tried to make the colours artistically expressive in themselves. The variety of treatment shows how all these things can be brought out purely by artistic means.

All this could be achieved only because a number of our friends worked on the Building with the greatest devotion. Most curious things have been said about the Building, but some day, perhaps, due credit will be given to tag way in which the friends in our Movement, especially the artists, gave themselves with selfless devotion to it, and found their way wonderfully into this clothing of a cosmic conception in artistic form.

The Building is of course not complete; it might very probably have been so—except for the group—if these catastrophic world-events had not hindered it.

I wanted to bring before you, in these brief, disjointed sentences, an idea of what is intended, and I hope that you have at least acquired some small notion of the Building which, we may expect, will one day stand complete in Dornach. The aim of it all is this: to insert an artistic rendering of our cosmic conception into the spiritual life of the present and the future. People will see that this conception is no mere theory, but is made up of real, living forces. If we had produced something symbolical, people could have said: “That is a theory.” But as the conception is capable of giving birth to art, it is something different, something vital. It will give birth to yet other things; it must fructify other domains of life. There is widespread longing for a spiritual life suitable to the present day, but in this realm we encounter a good deal of visionary, irrational and barren stuff. My hope is that people will learn to distinguish between what is born out of the demands of the present spiritual age, and what arises from confusion and the like. We see spiritual movements, so-called, sprinting up everywhere like mushrooms. But one must learn to distinguish between what springs truly from the real forces of human spiritual development, and mistaken talk about spiritual things. There are many forms of this to-day. Naturally we notice it, for it shows that men are striving towards the spirit. If we keep our eyes open, we shall everywhere see this desire for Spiritual things. A metaphysical novel by a certain Herr Korf has just appeared—dreadful stuff; it is really more a mischievous piece of propagands for the “Star in the East”. I hope that such things, which express in their own way a perversion of man's metaphysical aspirations, will be distinguished from those created out of she fundamental strivings of his being, adapted precisely for our time.

Our considerations have shown once more that the soul's life, in all its aspects, is complicated. Threads unite the soul to numerous realms, farces, and centres in the universe. We will remind ourselves of what was said a fortnight ago, in order to give us a link with certain truths that we shall begin to consider to-day, and which will bring a certain aspect of world-happenings before our souls in a way that is important for use I will recapitulate very briefly what was said a fortnight ago.

I said that to know man in reality, it is useless merely to keep to the track of the ordinary consciousness which predominates in him from waking to falling-asleep, for we must recognise that within it, other states of consciousness exist, dim and shadowy, to be fathomed only by looking at man in his threefold division of head, breast, limbs. Of course his whole being makes use of the head, on which depends the familixe form of consciousness; but we have established the fact that he has also, by means of his head, a dream-like consciousness which enables him to look back into his earlier earth-lives. In the same way we have found that the limb-man, but in conjunction with the whole man, unfolds a continual dream-consciousness of his next life on earth. What we bring forward in our Spiritual Science as a theory of “repeated earth-lives” already exists as a reality in the human soul. Dim and shadowy it is, but nevertheless a reality. Besides this, it was said that through the process of out-breathing, which belongs to the breast man, a similarly dreamy consciousness develops of the life between the last death and the present birth; and through the process of in-breathing, likewise belonging to the breast-man, a dim consciousness of the life to come after death until the next birth. In short, all these forms of consciousness interweave in man. Thus we see that in the whole an we have to do with a delicately-woven organisation, and that what is customarily dubbed man, what people visualise as man, is in fact only a very limited part of his whole being, and the coarsest part, at that.

This complication comes about through man being embedded with his various members, in worlds which are unknown and “super-sensible” so far as the ordinary consciousness is concerned. What is embedded in this way in a spiritual world, and proves to be not by any mans a very delicate, refined soul-life—as we observe in ordinary human existence if we follow it through different earth-lives—that is not so simple. Yet the total significance of human life can be arrived at only by observing the complicated human being in his progress through various lives. For human vision of to-day, this intricate web is altogether veiled, disguised. (we shall speak further of this ‘disguise’) All that is known of a man, as a rule, is the disguise. For that which descends from the spiritual world, takes up its abode in physical man and re-enters the spiritual world at death, does not crudely advertise itself in human life; indeed, much that happens in human life is so crude that the processs whereby man is led from one earth-life to another are hidden, disguised. An idea of the complication of human life is arrived at only by tracing it through long periods of time. And please observe that this tracing—what I have to tell you of the true course of human soul-life through long periods,—is widely removed from what outer history relates. The reason for this has often been pointed out. (We will speak of it more exactly later on.)

One important epoch in the development of humanity—particularly of Western civilised humanity—comprises the seventh and eighth centuries before the Mystery of Golgotha. Just then, a rapid, significant change took place in human souls, especially those of Western civilisations. We remember that this was the time when the third post-Atlantean epoch gradually changed into the fourth. Before this particular period, (700 or 800 B.C.) the characteristics of the sentient soul were most conspicuous in humanity; afterwards, those of the intellectual soul were acquired. In the fifteenth century after Christ, not so very far behind us, there was again an important turning point, when the stamp of the consciousness-soul became apparent. Different soul-qualities were acquired; there was also a difference in the dreamlike retrospect into an earlier incarnation.

For instance, at the beinning of the Graeco-Latin civilisation, in the third fourth century B.C., a man of normal development in the West, or thereabouts, manifested the qualities of the intellectual or mind-soul. Yet his “dream” was concerned with an earlier earth-life in which the characteristics were those of the sentient soul. To be sure, in the course of the fourth Post-Atlantean period the faculty of directly perceiving repeated earth-lives gradually disappeared, but it remained with a good many people, and those who had it looked back to see themselves as “possessors of the sentient soul”. There was a comparatively great difference between what man met within himself at that particular time, and what he saw when the retrospective dream became objective to him, and he realised: “That is what I was in my last earth-life”. Many people saw that they differed widely in their present incarnations from what they had been in the last. Because in their then incarnation they felt according to the intellectual or mind-soul, they realised that they had been sentient-soul beings in their earlier life.

What did it mean to have this feeling: “I was a sentient-soul in the last incarnation”? It is an impossible feeling for present-day man, but in the early centuries of the fourth post-Atlantean period man could still remember it vividly. In the third epoch, the Egypto-Chaldean, it was the normal thing to experience—and it means that man was unaware that he was a thinking being. To have thoughts meant nothing to him; but he had an unbroken, vital feeling of standing, in connection with the outer world—an outer world entirely steeped in spirit.

It is extremely difficult to describe this sentient-soul consciousness, because it was so vivid to the senses that really a man continually felt himself remaining behind as a shadow in each par; of space through which he had passed, For instance, as we should express it, to have sat on a chair and left it for a time, produced the feeling, “I am still sitting there”. The feeling of union with outer things was very vivid. Above all, a complete, clear view of one own spatial form was continually present, and the corresponding feeling of that form. The strength of this feeling made the teaching of reincarnation, at that time consciously given, very powerful; for looking back, a man saw a vivid image of his spatial form in the dream of his earlier earth-life. His veritable self appeared, as it had been in many different circumstances.

This living vision of himself was lost to many during the fourth post-Atlantean epoch. -Man became incapable of producing a force strong enough to grasp what was present in him as dream-like remembrance of a former earth-life—chiefly because men who reincarnated later, did not, in this dream of earlier earth-lives, remember the sentient soul, but an intellectual mind-soul, destitute of this vision, vague and inward and not objective. Man could not grasp its the consciousness of earlier earth-lives entirely ceased. In a quite definite way it will come back in the fifth post-Atlantean epoch, and no one can truly understand human development without taking account of such truths as these.

What arose in humanity was to be found under varied forms in the most diverse regions of the earth. As I have often pointed out, we must expect that in the future there will again be a time—and it will manifest with particular significance in the third millennium when it will be impossible for anyone not to possess a certain power of looking back into earlier earth-lives, and more especially also a clear realisation that there are more lives to come. This particular consciousness will appear in varied forms in different regions, a fact which it is specially important to understand.

Let us consider the main regions where this will come about in various ways: the great oriental region, stretching from Eastern Europe, into Asia, and then the occidental region, including Western Europe and America. The capacity of the future for perceiving repeated earth-lives is germinating differently in these two regions. In the West it is already clearly recognised in initiated circles, and the significant thing in the West is that occult capacities are reckoned with, and their employment in outer life is contemplated. To omit this from consideration shows a very indifferent understanding of the development of the West and its whole influence on the history of mankind. Precisely the most important things in the West, the occurrences due principally to the Anglo-American race, happen under the influence of mysterious inner knowledge such as this. To describe the things in question is apt to land us in paradox, because they are things of which the shrewd observer (he always is so shrewd and clear-sighted!) says: “Well, why do not the initiates know that?” We need only recollect what I have told you of the activities of Lucifer and Ahriman, in the past and present, what they do and feel and specially what they have done; yet people think themselves cleverer than they, and claim that they themselves would have avoided “remaining behind”, etc. A correct view of such things is necessary. Certain things can be done by those who are cleverer than man.

There is apparent in the West, from certain mysterious depths, a tendency to oppose the teaching of repeated earth-lives. An opposition to it as regards the future is noticeable in certain very enlightened circles amongst the English and Americas . That is the paradox to be noted. It is desired in certain spiritual centres in the West to cause the gradual cessation of these repeated earth-lives, alternating between birth and death, death and rebirth, so that in the end a quite different arrangement of man's life may be brought about—and means do exist for achieving such a purpose. The object is this: through a certain schooling, a certain acquisition of forces, to transpose certain human souls into a condition in which, after death, they feel themselves more and more akin to the conditions and forces of the earth, acquiring almost a mania for the earth-forces—of course those of a spiritual nature—quitting the neighbourhood of the earth as little as possible, remaining in close proximity to it, and by means of this nearness hoping to live on as “the souls of the dead” around the earth, exempt from the necessity of again entering physical bodies. The Anglo-American race is striving after a remarkable and strange ideal: no longer to return into earthly bodies, but through the souls of the living to have an ever greater influence on the earth, becoming, as souls, more and more earthly. All efforts are thus to be directed to the ideal of making life here on earth and life after death similar to one another. Thus will be attained—in our day only by those instructed according to this rule, which will become more and more the prevailing custom—as immeasurably greater, stronger, attachment to the earth than the recognised “normal” one.

But for the Luciferic and Ahrimanic influence on humanity jn Lemurian and Atlantean times, the human soul would feel itself less intimately connected with the physical body than it does to-day. This would have been shown by the fact that numerous people, (indeed the majority of mankind), would have regarded their bodies as belonging to the earth, and would have felt, “I live within my body”, in the same way as we to-day experience, “I walk on the solid Earth”. Thanks to the Luciferic influence, we feel our bodies nearer to us than the Earth. We say that the earth is “outside us”, but we reckon our bodies as part of ourselves. From a certain lofty spiritual point of view, we are just as much outside our bodies, even in waking, as we are outside the earth. In a sense our soul only ‘stands’ upon the brain; the brain is the ‘floor’ for our thinking. This is no longer recognised because of the effect of the Luciferic and Ahrimanic influence. Had there been no such influence, we should have felt ourselves as souls, more alien to the body; we should have regarded it as a sort of movable hillock, on which we supported ourselves, just as we do on a heap of sand.

In certain Anglo-American circles this is organised into a science. They cultivate especially the powers of perception belonging to the body which strengthen the subjection of man to the body, through the incoming of forces not belonging entirely to the body but binding it to the earth. Various practices are intended to bring home vividly to the man of this race that his body belongs to the earth. He is to feel not only, “I am my arm, my leg”, but “I am also the force of gravity passing through my limbs; I am the weight which encumbers my hand or arm”. A strong physical sense of relationship between the human body and the earthly elements is to be acquired. This strong feeling of relationship between the creature in the physical body and the earth exists to-day in certain species of apes, which have it as their soul-life. In them it can be studied physiologically and zoologically. What is present there can be gradually formed into a “system of instruction for human beings”; all that has to be done is to develop the coarse side of relationship with nature into a system of bodily education. (In saying this I am neither railing nor criticising; I am merely stating facts.) Thus it will be possible to bring about a sort of practical Darwinism, intensifying the relation of man to what binds him to the earth in a certain sense, to “monkeyfy” him. That is the practical side. It will be pursued through the intensive cultivation—ostensibly instinctive but in fact carefully directed—of sports and such-like things. This fetters the soul, drawing it into a sense of kinship with the earthly, with the earth itself, and so a spiritual ideal such as I have described is set up. By this means the continuing alternation of spiritual life and physical life will be overcome, and by degrees the ideal will be realised of living in future periods of earth-evolution as a kind of “phantom”; of dwelling on earth in this guise. A very interesting point is that this ideal can be appropriately followed only by the male population, and hence, in spite of all politicl endeavours, an increasing difference between men and women will arise in Anglo-American civilization (Political endeavours certainly seem to be aimed in the opposite direction, but in the inner depths of their being men often want sonething quite different from what they are pursuing by political means.) Anglo-American spiritual life will in essence descend to future ages through woman; while that which lives in male bodies will strive towards such an ideal as I have described. This will set the pattern of the future Anglo-American race .

If now we look at the East, we have an entirely different picture. Modern man may well look towards the East, for what is to develop in Eastern Europe is at present entirely hidden and suppressed. What for the moment has taken root there is of course the reverse of what has to come about. In Russia there is a battle against spiritual life of any kind, against any spiritual foundations for humanity, although it is just in the East that some of these ought to be laid. We are nowadays little inclined to open our eyes and rouse ourselves to an understanding of what is happening. We sleep and let things pass over us, although it is absolutely necessary—in our day particularly—to exercise our power of judgment concerning what is going on. Men such as Lenin, and Trotsky should be seen by their contemporaries as the greatest, bitterest enemies of true spiritual development, worse than any Roman Emperor, however atrocious, or the notorious personages of the Renaissance. The Borgias, for instance, are proved by historical events as far as the conflict with the spiritual is concerned to have been mere babes compared with Lenin and Trotsky. These are things which people do not observe to-day, but it is necessary sometimes to draw attention to such matters. For one thing surely should attract the attention of our souls—these four years (of war) should have taught us that the old history-myth, elaborated in so many forms, is no longer tenable. Once and for all it should by recognised that in the light of present events the tales about the Roman Empire of the Renaissance are worth no more than “school-girl fiction”, and anyone who clings to them is incapable of being corrected by what can be learnt through awakening to a real estimate of recent events. Something escapes the notice of sleeping mankind—escapes it more now than it did a short time ago, when the as was judged more by its spiritual creations, for in them one could find a true indication of what might be called the elements of a real understanding of Eastern Europe; and if we are to look into what is preparing over there we must take account of this.

This region—Eastern Europe—will, although not in the very near future, produce people who will cultivate a survey of repeated earth-lives, although in a different way from the West. In the West a sort of battle against such an idea will be fought, but in the East, there will be an adoption, a reception, of this truth. There will be a longing so to educate human souls that they will become attentive to what lives within them not only between birth and death, but between one earth-life and another. During this training certain things will be pointed out which these Eastern people will experience with peculiar force. Even to children it will be explained that man possesses something—something he can feel and experience—which is not accounted for by the life of the body. Older people will make the following clear in teaching the young; they will say, “Now notice; what do you feel in your soul”? When this question is put to him in various ways, the pupil will have the idea: “I feel as if something were there; something has entered my body which was on earth long age, went through death, and will come back again some day—but it is a very dim feeling.” Then, bringing it home more closely to the pupil: “Try to explore further behind this: What relation does your dim feeling bear to the rest of your Soul-life?” And the pupil, going behind the various forms of the Question (of which the right one will certainly be found) will say: “What I feel, what is destined to live again, is something which destroys my thinking; it will not let me think, its aim is to slay my thoughts”. This will be a very important feeling, arising and being inculcated as a natural thing in Eastern people. They will acquire a feeling of something within, which endures from life to life, yet deprives them, as earthly-beings, of thought; it benumbs them, renders them empty, deadens them. “I cannot think correctly; thought grows blunter when I feel the depths of my human nature; this part of me entombs my thought; although I feel something within me which is eternal, I possess it as a sort of inner murderer of my thought”.

That will be the feeling. Among all exceptionally interesting psychic things which the world has yet to learn from the East, will be this; and it occurs to me that those who have concerned themselves with the East if only in the domain of its art and literature, will find that indications of such things are already there. In Dostoevski's writings such indications are not lacking, where men strive towards the best and highest within them, only to find an inner murderer of their thoughts. The cause is the coming to fruition in a quite special form of the Consciousness soul, the most earth-bound of all the members of the human soul. As time goes on, and the soul feels the capacity for experiencing its repeated earth-lives, it will not feel as in ancient Greece in the days before Christ, when the sentient-soul was seen in all its vividness; no, the Intellectual soul or mind-soul will gradually be felt as something lying further away behind, and as the direct killer of thoughts.

The training; will go further. These souls will seem to themselves as an inner tomb for their own being, yet a tomb through which the way will be made clear for the manifestation of the spiritual world, and this is the next feeling I will describe. They will say: “It is true: when I experience my immortal part which goes from life to life, it is as though my thought-effort died; my thinking will be put aside, but Divine thought streams in and spreads over the tomb of my own thoughts.” Thus the Spirit-Self arises: the Consciousness or Spiritual Soul descends into the grave. No diagram is needed here—the Consciousness Soul is superseded by the Spirit Self—but I want to show how it will be for the human soul when the ego experiences the gradual transition from the one to the other. In the East this experience will be like this: “The Eternal has so developed on earth—(descending ever since the Graeco-Latin epoch)—that ordinary thought, which springs only from the human side, is disturbed by it. Man becomes empty, yet not for nothing: into the void gradually flows the new manifestation of the spirit, in its infant form of the Spirit-Self, filling the soul of man.

Dramas of the soul, tragedies of the soul, necessarily accompany the achievement of such a development. In the East many a man will endure deep inner tragedy and suffering, because he discovers: “My inner being kills my thought”. Those who seek the ideal humanity, because the first step brings no freedom, will succumb to something akin to inner weariness, deadening, dimness.

In order to enable these circumstances to be seen objectively, so that they can be understood with a proper sense of whither they are tending, the Central European peoples are there. That is their task, but they will accomplish it only if they recall to mind what I have spoken of in my book, The Riddle of Man, as a forgotten stream of spiritual life. It is very, very important that this stream, which to-day is mostly forgotten but once existed as a force of spiritual understanding in relation to the whole world, should be taken hold of again in Middle Europe. Who to-day realises what a magnificent understanding of all aspects of human culture was evinced by certain personalities, such as Friedrich Schlegel for example? Or the deeply significant insight into human evolution of such thinkers as Schelling, Hegel, Fichte? People talk a great deal today about Fichte, but, needless to say, those who talk most about such great thinkers, understand least. What a revival of understanding would be possible if, in the genuine, real sense of the words, “the Goethe-spirit” animated mankind! We are far from that at present! To keep on saying that the Goethe-spirit must be revived at once, to-day, is beside the point; what does matter is that in the world we are unjustly criticised because we give, the impression of no longer possessing it. The connection, for instance, of our Building at Dornach with the Goethe-spirit—I do not believe that many people understand that. Nevertheless it is not unimportant.

What I have been telling you to-day from the aspect of Spiritual Science as to the characteristics of West and East is declared by the thinkers of West and East alike, only it must be correctly understood. What emerges from political discussions of to-day in the West must be interpreted in the right way, and certain impulses which appear in connection with man's soul-development must be correctly perceived. The impulse to conquer the earth, as it prevails amongst the Anglo-American peoples, is inwardly connected with the ideal of becoming disembodied earthly beings in the future; and Rabindranath Tagore's remarkable lecture on the “Spirit of Japan”, now published in book form, is entirely impregnated with what is dawning in the East. Not that it contains what I have been saying; but pulsing through it are the experiences which such an Eastern thinker, at any rate one from the Far East (what dawns in the Far East is more significant), has to express concerning the coming development in Eastern Europe. It is, however, necessary for everybody, whether in the West or East, to recognise the content of the spiritual substance of Mid-Europe. Of course what people first look at are the outward, physical surroundings. Eastern writers—I call to mind Ku Hun Ming—are now publishing significant works; but supposing that the name of Goethe comes up for discussion, where can such an Eastern turn but to the “Goethe society”, with its headquarters in the town from which Goethe's spiritual activities once rayed forth? There he would find this Goethean spiritual life cared for in the most remarkable way—as never before. The opportunity was presented of making princely munificence fruitful for a widely-spread spiritual life; for what the Grand-Duchess Sophie did to encourage the Goethe-cult was immeasurably great. That was really equal to the occasion; but other people were by no means equal to it. A “Goethe society” was founded. Looking at it from outside one must ask—who supports it, who represents it? Is there anyone in whom the spirit of Goethe lives? It is very characteristic of our time that its representative is a former Finance Minister! We must take into account all the experiences, the soul-experiences, which lead to such a thing. The only ray of hope in the concern is his name, “Kreuzwendedich,”¹ a surname in use for generations. Usually such things are ignored, but they ought not to be; the great need is for more understanding of what is going on in the world.

Now I pointed out last time that by reason of the developments of the last centuries, 540 million extra hands, machine-hands, have been added to the earth population of 1500-million. Through this an Ahrimanic element entered into human development. It is related to something which has become altogether necessary—the exploration of the world by natural science, as I said before. Within the last four centuries this exploration has obliged man to study nature in detail, to acquire knowledge of natural laws and beings. This sort of observation has been carried into every possible field, even that of history, where it is out of place. Nobody is supposed, in the realm of natural science, to talk for ever about “Nature, nature, nature!”, as though the idea were to establish a sort of pan-nature, a universal nature. This conception would do little to advance modern culture, but some outlooks are always inclined to stop short at that point. I will give you an example.

When the investigator of Nineveh, Layard, once asked the Kadi of Mosul about the characters of certain of his subjects and the previous history of his different states, that was a far too concrete scientific way of thinking for the Kadi. He could see no reason why anyone should need to study the characteristics of his subjects as though they were a landscape, or the history of his provinces. That, he supposed, was the foolish European way of studying nature; and he said to the explorer: “Listen, my son; the one and only truth is to believe in God, and this truth should restrain a man from wishing to enquire into His deeds. Look up; you see one star circling round another, also a star with a-tail; it has needed many years to get so far; it will need years to pass out of our orbit. Who would be so foolish as to enquire into the path of this star? The hand that created it will lead it and guide it. Listen, my son; you say that it is not curiosity, but that you have a greater craving for knowledge than I have. Now if your knowledge has made you a better man than you were before, you are doubly welcome; but do not ask me to trouble about it. I trouble about no wisdom except that contained in the belief in God. I disdain all other. Or I ask you another Question:—has your wisdom, which spies into every corner, gifted you with a second stomach, or opened your eyes to paradise?”—Thus the Kadi of Mosul, on the subject of natural science.

It may perhaps amuse you that the Kadi, a typical representative of this view, should give utterance to such sentiments, but Spiritual Science, although in another realm, has to reckon with the same type of thought. There are plenty of Kadis of Mosul. They are for ever saying, “It is not at all necessary to trouble ourselves about the Spiritual world or anything else, except trust in God.” As the Kadi of Mosul declined to know anything about natural science, so plenty of people around us—esecially official representatives of spiritual life—reject Spiritual Science. A little book has just been printed, written from the best of motives, in which is to be read this sentence : “The wickedness of Spiritual Science lies in the fact that it wishes to know about the Spiritual world, whereas the true value of religious life consists in knowing nothing about it—to have faith, great faith to believe in what you do not know.” A man is supposed to be admirable if he can admit “I know nothing, but I accept the Divine.” People do not yet see that with regard to the spiritual world this is the same view as the Kadi's—which make us smile—with regard to the physical sense-world and the knowledge of it. What is just the point: man must find the transition to knowledge of the spiritual world exactly as he found it to knowledge of the natural world. This needs to be clearly and firmly recognised, for it will determine whether in the future we shall have a view of the universe on which a social structure for humanity can be founded. Such a structure cannot be founded on what nowadays is called the science of political economy, or something like that. All the doctrines and views that make up political economy are either an inheritance from ancient times, no longer useful, or they are useless, foolish encumbrances, withered rubbish. A real political economy will arise only when thought is permeated by ideas taken from the spiritual world. What is taught in official schools as political economy or as the-science of human happiness gets into the heads of such enemies of mankind as Lenin and Trotsky; they are the culmination of it. What should fill mankind with the creative force of the future must come from knowledge of the spiritual world. It may seem paradoxical to speak as I have done about the West and the East, but spiritual realities are contained in this paradox! Although knowledge of these spiritual realities it will be impossible to find a sound way of ordering earthly conditions, which are inclining more and more towards future chaos. Ideas that not long ago were recognised as significant and valuable are no longer taken seriously. Everywhere there will have to be a complete change of outlook. Religions will mean nothing to humanity unless they are vivified by real knowledge of the spiritual worlds. Their exponents will have to learn—I am referring not to the content of religions but to the way in which they have crystallised into form—that these outer forms are not adapted to speak truly to the inner being of humanity unless they appeal to the real forces which come from the Spiritual World. The counterparts of the Kadi of Mosul can no longer be tolerated in the realm of public life. I speak humbly, unpretentiously; but I believe you will feel that there is much, very much, in what I am saying.

A distinct question now remains to be considered. How is it that these metamorphoses of the human soul, accomplished say, from the twelfth century till now, or in a wider sense between the seventh or eighth century B.C. and the present time—are so entirely hidden from humanity at large? This depends on the fact that in human nature something still exists belonging to another world, and that this remaining part appertains to the very deepest mysteries of humanity. Man can only be understood by learning something of this other world, which has a continuous interest in not being known. We will speak of this next time.

• 1. Literally: Cross, turn thyself about!

I want to continue the observations I have begun concerning the progress of the human soul through its various earth lives, and to continue them in such a way as to make the experiences referred to useful as regards our judgment of the immediate present. To-day I would like to dwell more on the external side of things, and in the next lecture more on the inner side.

We have traced the path of the human soul in its repeated earth-lives through the three epochs most vitally concerning us—the Egypto-Chaldean, the Graeco-Latin, and our own, during which the human soul—looked upon as a self, as an individuality—experiences sonething different in each incarnation. Now we need only call up before our minds what will happen to those souls who go through earthly incarnation in our own time, to return after a more or less normal period, as will happen with most people, though not with everyone. It has often been pointed out, and last time it was repeated, that souls incarnated at thn present time will come back knowing with certainty, in some form or other—and (this I described more closely last time) through their own inward exerience—the fact of repeated earth-lives. This momentous step will be accomplished in the next age; souls will advance from their present ignorance to knowledge of reincarnation; but something else needs emphasis.

Remember that I laid stress on an important epoch which began with the seventh or eighth century before the Mstery of Golotha. In the earlier centuries of this epoch many souls were able, in the old clairvoyant fashion, to look back on their earlier earth-lives; but because they looked into a time when the sentient soul was specially developed, what they saw was the connection of human beings with the outer world. They gained a clear picture of man's proceedings in the outer world, and what happened to him there. To be sure, this will not be so in the next epoch to ours, when the retrospect will be more directed towards aspects of the soul. It will be less concerned with actions and experiences in space, less like a realistic picture, and more of a looking back into the life of the soul.

I mention this again so that you may see what very, very different experiences souls have in their successive earth lives. And of course the question must press upon each one of you—how has the outside world come to believe that during the course of history, human beings have not greatly changed? Taking the current presentations of history (some of which, but not all, are well-intentioned), we find over and over again that each goes back to a certain point of time, to which the historical accounts and documents extend, but they take for granted that the structure of the human soul has been the same all along. They grant a certain development, but they do not think of it in nearly as radical a way as we must do, in the light of the conclusions of spiritual science. The question forces itself on every one of us:—How is it that there is no proper awareness of “the metamorphosis of the human soul”?

If now we consider historical events from the point of view of spiritual science, we see that for a long time man has really been held back from knowledge of himself, rather than led towards it. To discover how the human soul changes from one incarnation to another is possible only when self- knowledge, real self-knowledge, takes root; but this has been driven back through events which we still have to appraise. Significant examples of this forcing-back process could be found in recent history. A certain fraternity, known to you all, that of the Freemasons, believes—honestly in the case of many of the brethren—that they can lead members of their circle to self-knowledge. They have various symbols of which it is evident, when they are approached with spiritual scientific knowledge, that they are profound, fraught with meaning; all really designed to lead to self-knowledge; but they do not do so. If one reads the official records of Freemasonry, it is remarkable to find the “enlightened” supposing that to understand their craft it is necessary to go back only to the eighteenth or seventeenth century. Yet what is contained in their symbols has been entirely concealed since the seventeenth century, changed into something to be looked at and shared—but which it is not felt necessary to understand. To approach these Masonic symbols with a capacity for understanding them would provide a path to self-knowledge, for they are all designed to that end. The real development of Freemasonry, however, has taken another path,—that of concealing self-knowledge, and by admitting only an outward explanation of the symbolism, to make self-knowledge impossible. Hence we can really say, from the standpoint of truth, that the development of modern Freemasonry is fundamentally that of a fraternity for making incomprehensible the symbols to be found within it. It is as though the unconscious purpose was precisely to make the symbols incomprehensible, for the very time over which the new Freemasonry has extended, (as regards the “enlightened”, not the mystical side), coincides with the greatest dread of self-knowledge in men's minds. There is much talk about it; man must seek “the divine within him”, “his higher self”, etc.; but that is all mere talk. It all tends to block up, not to open, the way to real self-knowledge; and we must ask: Whence comes this aversion, this terror? We will consider this from its outer side to-day.

It is apparent in a very remarkable way, not only in the limited realm of Freemasonry, but over the whole range of modern culture. We see how modern culture—notably in the spreading of Christianity—really takes the line of concealing and suppressing self-knowledge; a line of extraordinary interest and significance. Few people to-day take the trouble to compare the best available accounts of widely separated centuries, and fewer still reflect on the real character of what is described.

You can make an experiment, not very revealing but interesting all the same, by taking such a work as “The Life of Michelangelo” by Herman Grimm, which deals in fact mainly with Michael Angelo's period, the environment from which he emerged. Try to realise what the world would be like if one lived in the time which Grimm describes, and try to compare it with the world of to-day. The difference is tremendous! Yet that will not mean much, for the centuries in question are not very far apart. Something else emerges if one gives real thought to studying the epoch—including its preparatory stages and its after-effects—in which the great transition to modern times was accomplished. Looking back at the three great epochs which Spiritual Science shows us in our Present earth-cycle, we find that the third ends about the seventh or eighth century B.C., and the fourth with the beginning of the fifteenth century A.D. At this point there lies, not far behind us, an important, significant transition in the soul-life of civilised humanity. Usually it is hardly touched upon in history—and why? There, too, is the dread of self-knowledge, and also of knowledge of the human soul. An interesting example of the time antecedent to the change can be found in accounts of a personality such as St. Bernard Of Clairvaux. St. Bernard, perhaps the most outstanding personality of the twelfth century, and indeed of the age with which the fourth Post-Atlantean epoch of civilisation came to an end, manifested a structure of soul which after the fifteenth century was no longer possible in Europe. Nowadays it is very hard to describe this, because the preconditions for forming the right conceptions are altogether lacking; but I advise you to read accounts of the life of St. Bernard so as to see the impression he made on other people. Reading these accounts, one says to oneself: By the side of these, what are the Gospel stories of Miracles? The few sick folk healed by Christ Jesus himself—according to the Gospels—are a trifle compared with the astonishing wonder-working activities of St. Bernard! The number of people of whom it is said that he made the blind to see and lame to walk, is beyond all comparison with the number of similar cases reported in the Gospels. The accounts of the impression made by his preaching gives one the feeling that what he said acted as a widespread, intensely active spiritual aura. In the words of this man there lived a reality of which we can have no conception at the present day. If one tried to describe all the effects produced by his personality, people would simply not believe it for there is no possibility nowadays of giving an adequate idea of how he was then regarded. To penetrate to the inner structure of his soul, is, as I have said, difficult to-day, because, even in our own circle, the conditions for it are wanting. However, I might hint at one thing:—

In this personality there was an amazing devotion to the spiritual world, an absolute absorption in it. If anyone to-day undertakes something and it fails, he naturally begins to doubt whether he was right to embark on it. A personality such as St. Bernard was never doubtful, because he had always taken counsel with his God in the spiritual worlds before he undertook or advised anything. Through all the failures he experienced in the Crusades, when everything he had advised went wrong, he never doubted for a moment that his thoughts were absolutely correct, and that the discrepancy between what really happened in the outer world and what he had conceived under the influence of the spiritual world would in some way be cleared up and accounted for.

In choosing out such a personality, one is speaking of a single, outstanding figure; but what I have been saying is not restricted to him. It is the signature of the whole age—in no way confined to him. It is the signature of the epoch which began in Europe about the third or fourth century A.D., and lasted until the thirteenth, fourteenth or fifteenth. Of course within this age something further was being prepared, but this came to expression, as a deep influence, stamping itself on its time, only after the fourteenth or fifteenth century. The third to the fifteenth centuries was the time of an even more concentrated power of Faith, the age in which the events of the time came to pass under its impress.

In this connection I must beg you to recollect what I always request in these lectures—it is particularly important in passages such as these. I choose my words in such a way that other words cannot be substituted for them. If these carefully chosen words are replaced by others, from that moment your description is no longer historically accurate. I said, “It was the age when the power of Faith-was established”: If that be changed into “It was the age when Piety was established”, that would represent something entirely untrue, not my meaning at all. It was the Power of Faith I referred to in describing Bernard. He was also without doubt a pious nan, but that may belong to a man's personal character. What in those days worked and lived in outer events was the influence of Faith. The power of Faith is indeed to be found in every age, but it is not always decisive in the making of history. Our present age will be superseded by one in which Faith will again play a significant though sporadic part, but it has not yet come to that. Superstitious belief in medicine for instance, take grotesque forms in the future, and Faith will have a great part to play in that, but things have not yet gone so far. In humanity to-day, a hazy somnolence as regards historical events plays the chief part. Now we can put the question: How did it happen that this power of Faith became such an important historical impulse in Europe—the very impulse which significantly ushered in what arose in the fifteenth century as the fifth post-Atlantean epoch, in which we are now living?

First of all it was something apparently quite external which laid the foundation for the advent of the power of Faith: I mean, the circunstances which brought about the fall of the Roman Empire. The dominant historical-impulses from the third or fourth century up to the fifteenth, took the place of the impulses of the Roman Empire. Of course there were very many impulses which contributed to the fall of the Empire but one very substantial one was that during the course of Roman history money gradually flowed away towards the East. With the extension of the Roman Empire the Legions had to be moved further and further to the borders of the huge Empire; the men's wages had to be paid in money—not in kind, as was possible while the Empire was smaller. Therefore, with the extending Empire, money-wealth was gradually diverted to the East; and an essential characteristic of Europe from the early part of the third and fourth centuries onward, was its shortage of money—of coinage, that is. Many other things are, involved in this, and it is important to look at them with a sound eye for reality, not with mystical enthusiasm.

The art of making gold, alchemy, was partly conditioned in Europe by the outflow of gold to the East; men believed that if gold could be made, crated, they could once again be rich. A frequent reason for alchemy, as it was cultivated in the first centuries of the Middle Ages, was the shortage of coinage due to the extension of the Roman Empire. Linked up with this was the eruption into the impoverished Roman Empire, at that period, of the peoples from the north. With their pagan ideas, pagan culture and pagan experiences, they understood little of the Roman social structure, which had gradually become more and more powerful under the influence of money. The Romans had found things very uncomfortable after the diversion of money to the East, but these conditions suited the invading German races very well.

The spread of Christianity coincided with this condition of the Roman Empire. It is a fact, though one no longer recognised, that a profound spiritual perception lived in the spreading waves of Christianity throughout those early times. There is an incurable fear to-day, especially in theological circles, of the sc-called “Gnosis”. Many a time on asking why people in such circles dislike, and even fear, Spiritual Science, one receives the answer that “it lead to a revival of the Gnosis”; that is quite a sufficient reason for rejection! the Gnosis (though of course in our age it would have to make its appearance in a different guise from what it was in the early centuries of Christianity) is nothing else than a positive knowledge of the spiritual world, the human capacity to attain to vision of spiritual realms, as sight in the physical world is gained by the senses. One can meet people to-day who make fun of the disputes there used to be as to whether the Spirit proceeds from the Father or from the Son, or is connected in some other way with the Father and the Son. Nowadays people unite no conceptions with these ideas, but they did in those times. Anyone who writes the history of the first Christian centuries out of true knowledce, will see that in these origins of dogmas the spirit was active, although men can no longer find it now. A deeply significant spiritual outlook was carried on the advancing waves of Christianity, and it lasted on into the ninth century. A study of the details of this spreading Christianity shows that the later opinion, according to which the religious outlook should be concerned only with the strengthening of faith and should meddle as little as possible with tie particulars of the spiritual world, arose from a certain way, a right way, of regarding the nations from whom the new Europe was to arise. They were pagan peoples—peoples moreover, who had not come far in connected thinking or in the forming of ideas which lead into the spiritual world; they were strong, forceful, primitively sound men, but not exactly men of a disposition to form very defined conceptions of anything spiritual.

So, in order that Christianity might spread, it was made suitable for these peoples. Because they were not great thinkers, more was made of the “heart”, of the power of faith. So we find that in the tenth century all spiritual vision had more or less disappeared from Christianity; everything was centred in faith—and what was then regarded as faith, what was meant by the term, had gradually become the soul-content of man. Souls then lived in a different atmosphere from that of to-day. One needs to realise what was then experienced through legends. I will relate one simple legend, a thoughtful one, which in those days was known everywhere. It runs thus:

Saint Bernard occasionally rode on an ass. He had a monk with him. This monk suffered from what we call epilepsy. He was constantly falling. St. Bernard saw this when the monk accompanied him to lead his ass; so he besought his God that in future the monk might never have an attack of epilepsy without knowing of it beforehand. The legend goes on to say that the monk lived for twenty years, but every time he had an attack, he knew it was coming so he could stay in bed, and not bruise his limbs by falling.

This is a simple, unpretentious tale, but it worked deeply and was told everywhere. Men felt strong in soul in experiencing the supporting power of true faith, and they lived in the aura of such an experience.

Now it would not have been possible for this power of faith to establish itself in this way if Europe had not been to some extent isolated during the centuries I have described. Money had flowed Eastwards; and for this reason, trade had gradually ceased. Europe was for a time limited to agriculture. The fact that a third of the soil of Europe should have passed over in the course of these centuries to the upholders of the power of faith—that is, into the possession of the Church—is highly symptomatic. It is as though the whole content of the fourth post-Atlantean period (interrupted only by the Roman element) had been condensed into this power of Faith. But in the course of this strengthening of faith one thing was lost—progress in a genuine Christ-consciousness. We must not forget that Christ was known in the highest sense during the first Christian centuries by those who knew how the Christ-Figure, the Christ-Being, stood in relation to all the forces of the Spiritual world. For those who were first affected by the Christ-Figure, the ground of their emotion was that they gazed up into a spiritual world, and in a sense perceived as it were the approach of the Christ-Figure to the Earth through the aeons, and could connect the Event of Golgotha with all that happened in the Cosmos. This was the grasp of the Event of Golgotha which led those who first interpreted it to explain what had happened on earth as the outcome of event in the worlds of great cosmic happenings.

I know very well that this is otherwise represented now, but when it is said, “We must go back to the plain, simple conceptions of Christ Jesus prevailing in the early centuries”, that is to speak accords to personal fancies, from a wish to conceal the greatness of the Christ-idea and the profound insight of those early centuries into the Mystery of Golgotha. That is why the favourite idea was brought out: everything was made simple, designed to show that Christ Jesus was no more than “the simple man of Nazareth”. It is less surprising to find this view among young people. Older people, at any rate, ought to know that in these matters a significant change has taken place in our time. I have often heard that it is said “These things as presented in Spiritual science we simply cannot understand; they are so very difficult! If only there were not these hindrances!” Thirty years ago the simple country people would have understood such subjects well, but in course-of the last few decades a great change has come about. Older people may still know something of how certain writings, such as those of Böhme and Eckartshausen, which most strenuously endeavoured to open a way into the concrete realities of the spiritual world, were then accepted by the souls of simple peasants. Our spiritual life, unfortunately, has become superficial, under the influence of the bourgeois mind and the increasing repetition of its favourite idea—that truth must be “simple”, meaning that truth must be easy for everyone to grasp in a comfortable way without much reflection. Certainly, there are not many traces left nowadays—even in simple minds—of the fact that in the early centuries of Christianity it was possible to bring lofty spiritual truths before quite simple people when Christ Jesus was spoken of. this implies that what occurred in the subsequent centuries was, in a sense, directed primarily to concealing the knowledge of Christ from Man, to keeping, it at a distance from him.

In these matters we must not look at what we imagine, but at the reality. One of the deepest demands of our age is that we should learn to face reality. Here is an example. I once gave a lecture in Colmar on the subject of “Christianity and Wisdom”; two Catholic ecclesiastics were present. Naturally, they had never heard anything like it before, and on that account they came to me after the lecture, for what I had said did not seem to them so very wicked. It might have seemed so only if some of their superiors had previously spoken about it, and then they would probably have heard nonsense. They only made one objection. They said: “What you say is all very well; it is excellent to talk in this way about the spiritual world, but people understand none of it. We talk in such a way that people can understand it.” I said: “You know, reverend sirs, that neither you nor I ought to lay down the law as to how we should speak to people. Our favourite theories are of no consequence; for of course, according to them, the way in which you speak will please you and the way in which I speak will please me, but that is not the point. What matters is the duty laid upon us by the time we live in:—- not to answer such questions as you have just raised according to our favourite theories, but to let reality itself give the answer. And this is not far to seek. I ask you, since you believe that you speak to everybody, does everybody go to church to hear you?" As truthful men they could only answer: “Many stay away.” Then I could say: “That is the answer of reality! I speak for those who remain outside, who have also the right to find the way to Christ Jesus.” Let the question be asked of reality, of the age, not of man's own self, because the answer one can get from oneself is clearly known to one It seems very simple; but to learn to grasp the obligation laid on us by our age is not a simple matter. Only after deep counsel with himself can a man recognise what really lies behind this.

Mankind's real need to-day is just this: to become objective, to learn to live with the facts of the world. If we understand how to grasp the impulse which is meant by this, we shall come to terms with the truth that gradually, under the influence of the course of events through the centuries, the higher knowledge, the upward gaze into the connection between the Mystery of Golgotha and cosmic events, has been quite lost in Europe. Christ has been put at a distance—from the European soul; He has been reduced to what men were willing to grasp and imagine. The important thing, however, is that men should grasp reality, not merely what they would like to grasp. We often hear it said: “Man should seek his God and he will find Him within. He must unite himself with his inner divine self, then he will find Him”. People are particularly shocked when Spiritual Science is impelled to declare: “If we rise into the spirit from the world in which we live, we find the “Hierarchies”, a richly-membered hierarchical spiritual world, even as here below we find a richly-membered physical world. It is certainly easier and more comfortable to say, “Let each draw near directly to the one Christ: everyone can find Him.” But it does not matter what men imagine; the point is that they should recognise what is really to be found in the spiritual. What do those find who so often say, “I have found an inner connection with my God?” What they call “God,” when they speak like this is in fact often the nearest Spiritual Being belonging to the hierarchy of the Angels, the Guardian Angel, who is thus revered as the “highest being.” To say we “believe” we have found God, means nothin; what is necessary is to understand the reality of this inner experience. When anyone believes himself to be permeated inwardly by a divine being, he is generally permeated only by a member of the Hierarchy of Angels, or else by his own Ego, as it was between the last death and the present birth, as it lived in the spiritual world before uniting with his physical body.

Is it not interesting, that there is one word of which the origin is unknown? Search dictionaries, and you will discover fine explanations of all sorts of words. Yet for this one word the most learned dictionary-makers can find no origin; they do not know what it means even philologically—and this is the word, “God.” It is the word whose meaning is unknown. Very significant and very suggestive! For what people are often really talking about, when they speak so constantly about their “God,” is their own Angel, or simply their own Ego in the time between the last death and present birth. What is thus actually experienced—(I am thinking only of genuine, honest experiences)—is real enough. The point is not to succumb to the illusion that people are praying to “one God.” People have only one word for the experience of their Angel, or indeed for their own ego, whether embodied or not.

It is not uncommon for someone to have a vague foreboding that through Spiritual Science he will get behind the veil of what is constantly referred to as an “experience of God,” and this hinders the spread of Spiritual Science, for Spiritual Science is inherently inclined to reveal the truth behind the immensely significant fact to which I have just referred. The whole historical trend from the third to the tenth—indeed to the fifteenth—century, tends more to the concealment of the mysteries of Christ Jesus than to their becoming manifest. This is not a criticism, but simply a characteristisation; and if people are not in a position to take it in objectively, they will never understand the powers ruling the age that begins with the fifteenth century, the age of the “Consciousness-Soul.” This age, I might say, “thunders in,” and everything in the spiritual world tends to bring out the Consciousness Soul, with its two poles, the material and the spiritual. It is from this point of view that the course of historical development must be scrutinised. Let us picture, for example, how the frame of mind which appears at a higher stage in St Bernard, as the fruit of a strengthened, consolidated faith, produced the European tendency to put Jerusalem in the place of Rome, to found an anti-Roman Christianity with its centre in Jerusalem. For this impulse lay at the root of the Crusades. Godfrey de Bouillon was no emissary of the Roman Pope; on the contrary, he seized on the Crusades in order to build in Jerusalem a bulwark against Rome, to make Christianity independent of Rome. It was an idea which held sway for several centuries. Henry the Second, the Saintly, gave it out in the form of “a Church Catholic but not Roman”.

We see how the faith of Europe sends its aura into the regions where the Romans had sent their gold! In the East the Crusaders came into contact with money and its results; with Roman gold on the one hand, with Oriental Gnosis on the other. This aura under which the Crusades arose must be taken into consideration. It is entirely the aura of European faith—that is the one tone, the one colouring the picture. Let us set against this colouring—if it were to be painted, it would have to be in this one colour—another picture of the dawn of the Consciousness Soul. How should this be represented?

Consider Dandolo, Doge of Venice (1120–1205), formerly in Constantinople and blinded there by the Turks, who was the incarnation of the Ahriman-spirit, and, in spite of his blindness, was the ruler Venice—that Venice which imported the Ahrimanic element into the spirit, as I have described. It was a moment of great significance in the history of the world when this Doge conquered Constantinople, and led over the original spirit of the Crusades into the later ones. How did it happen? In this way.

The Crusaders originally went to the East in quest of the holy places and relics, wishing to bring them under the mantle of their faith. That was their aim they wanted to bring the relics back reverently to Europe. They wished to establish a real link between their faith and the events of he Mystery of Golgotha. When Venice intervened, what became of the relics? They were all collected, but in reality everything was made a business transaction! Under the influence of Venice, the relics were gradually treated as stocks and shares; they rose and rose in value. The capitalist aura spread through Dandolo, the incarnation of the Ahriman-spirit!

We ask ourselves—how did Venice succeed in reversing the earlier trend of events? Venice led trade back from the East to Europe; she rekindled commercial life, which had been impossible before. The question must arise: How could Venice become so powerful in the realm of commerce, while Europe was fundamentally so poor?

Commerce was carried on by barter. During the first part of the period of which I have been speaking, Europe was cut off from the East, to which, to begin with, she had given her coinage. In the absence of money, barter was substituted. Over and over again the historical fact of the way in which Venice came into this field must be insisted upon. We can prove that Venice drove a great bargain for the possession of Alexandria and Damieta, in order to barter her goods for the Oriental wares she coveted. What was it that Venice sold? One thing can easily be proved by documentary evidence, and many others could be added to it: investigation in this direction could be carried far. The Venetian wares were men! Thousands of men! The new trade with the East was begun with human beings—men were sold to the East; and anyone who follows up what became of them arrives at a remarkable result, of which outer history as yet knows but little. From these bartered men sprang the strongest of the warriors with whom the great military expeditions from Asia into Europe were successfully undertaken. The choicest troops of the Asiatic tribes which later fell upon Europe consisted of the descendants of the men sold into slavery to the East by Venice and other Italian States.

It is really necessary to look behind the scenes of world-history, and not to cling to the legends so often retailed to mankind as the “history of the world.” These legends must ultimately suffer the fate of being dismissed as school-girl tales, even though written by Ranke. The times we live in are much too serious for us to refrain from emphasizing what must be learnt; and the most important thing gained from these maters will be the acquirement of a judnment which will awaken man's consciousness—so that he will no longer remain asleep to current tendencies. A monstrous thing happens in our present time, but men do not, and will not, see it; they prefer to look at everything in a disguised and confused way. If here or there a note is struck, sounding from the depths of human development, it is repulsed with phrases drawn from superficial journalism or newspaper articles, which are as far as possible from profitable truth.

To-day I wished to draw your attention from an external point of view, to something belonging to the period in which, during the fifteenth century, the transition was accomplished from the Mind-Soul to the Consciousness-Soul It is most desirable that such ideas should sink into men's souls; they are needed—needed in all domains of life. People talk a great deal nowadays about the ways in which the structure of the community will develop in the future. This very morning I read an article by a man who esteems himself exceptionally clever, who believes he has really grasped the truths of political economy from their foundations. The profound fact he gives out in his argument is that the community, the communal life, must be comprehended as an “organism.” Something really significant is supposed to have been advanced when it is said that the life of the community must be looked upon as an organism, not as a machine. Thus is the most dreadful Wilsonism rife amongst us! I have often said that the very essence of “Wilsonism” is its inability to conceive of the life of the community except as an “organism.” Men must eventually learn to employ higher concepts than this, in contemplating the social structure. It can never be understood as an “organism:” it is an affair of the soul, of the spirit. The Spirit works in every human social community. Our age has become poverty-stricken in conceptions. We can found no social policy unless we steep our minds in spiritual knowledge for only there can we find the “meta-organism!” which transcends the mere “organism.”

Everywhere we find unwillingness to penetrate directly into the spirit; but it must be done, or incalculable effects will follow. On this subject, if you remember, I pointed out how, in the seventeenth century, Johann Valentine Andreae wrote the story of the “Chemical Marriage” of Christian Rosenkreuz, which contains much that springs from impulses connected with the transition in the fifteenth century. The story is told as having occurred in that century.

It is very interesting to notice that Johann Valentine Andreae wrote it as a youth of seventeen, when he was still unripe in external intelligence, and repudiated it in his later yenrs. Andreae, the pious theologian of later years, wrote everything possible in opposition to it. The interesting fact is that Andreae's life shows no glimmer of understanding the meaning of what he wrote in the “Chemical Marriage”. The Spiritual worlds desired to reveal to mankind something connected with the entire experience of that age.

Recently I visited, a castle in Central Europe, where there is a chapel in which the ideas of the transition-period of the new age are symbolised. Primitive paintings adorn the well of the staircase, and what do they represent? The “Chemical Marriage” of Christian Rosenkeuz! The way leads through the Chemical Marriage to a Chapel of the Grail. Then began the Thirty Years' War, after which the “Chemical Marriage” was written down, but its meaning was lost in the waves of conflict.

The lesson to be learnt from this is that the same thing never happens twice. The spiritual development which has been required of humanity since the fifteenth century must make its appearance little by little. In the next lecture we will speak of this from a deeper aspect.

We have been trying to come to grips with the following question: Why does man not notice how different—different spiritually and in their culture—are the several periods in which, during our present earth-cycle, he has spent his repeated earth-lives. We need to understand clearly why it is so widely believed that Man has altered very little during thousands of years, since history began, whereas Spiritual Science shows how greatly souls changed in their essential character during the third; fourth and fifth Post-Atlantean epochs—the fifth being our present one. These changes are confirmed by Spiritual-Scientific knowledge, but we find very little trace of them if we scan outer history, as usually presented and written.

I have already tried to show, in approaching this question, that, if one pays a little attention to the soul-element in history the changes spring to lisht. I have endeavoured to make comprehensible the difference between the feelings of the human soul, in, for instance, the eleventh or twelfth centuries, and those of the of the human soul of to-day. As an example I tried to illuminate for you the soul of Bernard of Clairvaux in the twelfth century. Such examples might be multiplied, but before we go further in this direction, we will revert once more to the kernel of our question: What is it that prevents man from observing rightly how his various earth-lives differ in this respect?

He is chiefly prevented by the circumstance that, as constituted in the present earth-era, he has exceedingly little perception of his real ego, his true human self. But for certain hindrances, he would have quite a different idea of his nature and being, We will deal with these hindrances presently. For the moment I would like to point out,—you can take it, to begin with, simply as an hypothesis—how man would appear to himself if his real being were revealed to him.

If this were possible, he would above all notice a great and constant change in his personal life between birth and death. Looking back from whatever age—20, 30, or 50—towards his birth, he would see himself in perpetual metamorphosis. He would perceive by-gone changes morn clearly and realise hopefully that further changes are in store for him in the future. These I have mentioned in other lectures.

Because present-day man is too little inclined to realise himself as a soul-being, he has not much idea of how he has altered in the course of time. Strangely, but truly, his idea of himself is divided into two parts. He sees his bodily part on the one hand, a more or less constant factor in his life between birth and death. He is conscious, of course, that he “grows”, that he was tiny and became bigger, but that is almost all he knows consciously about his outer physical being. Take a simple example. You cut your nails—why? Because they grow. That shows, if you think about it, that a continual process of shedding takes place in your organism as regards the outer bodily part of it. In fact you drive that part out, so that in a certain time, at most in six or seven years, the material of the body is completely changed. You continually get rid of your material outfit. Man, however, is not conscious of this outer dissolution and continual reconstruction from within. Just fancy, how differently we should know ourselves, if we were conscious of how, as it were, we shed the external part of our physical body, dissolve it, and rebuild ourselves anew from within—we should be observing the metamorphosis of our own being!

Something else would be linked with this. If we really took into our consciousness that the body we bear is our possession for only seven years, that we have thrown off all we possessed of it before that, we should appear to ourselves much more spiritual. We should not have the deceptive notion, “I was a little child to begin with—then I grew bigger and different”—but we should know that though the material of the child-substance is somewhere, what has remained is not material, but absolutely super-substantial. If man could bring this metamorphosis into consciousness, he would be looking back at something retained ever since childhood. He would recollect himself as a spiritual being. If we knew what takes place in us, we should have much more spiritual conceptions of ourselves.

Yet again—suppose we looked at ourselves much less abstractly, we talk about ourselves as though we had a “Spiritual centre.” We speak of our Ego and we have the idea: “Our Ego was there in our childhood, and accompanied us further,” and so on; but we really picture it simply as a kind of spiritual centre. If only we could rise to the other conception—that of outer dissolution and inner reconstruction—we could not help regarding the Ego as the efficacious, active cause of it. We should see ourselves as something very real and inwardly active. In short, we would look upon our Ego not as something abstract, but would survey its inwardly active work on our body, leading this from one metamorphosis to another. We should correct any erroneous conceptions which we cherish on the subject at present. They are even embodied in the expression of speech. We say “we grow,” because we have the notion that we were to begin with, children, and have grown taller; but the matter is not as simple as that. The truth is that in a tiny child the bodily and the soul-spiritual activities are experienced more as a unity wherein the head-organism and the reproduction-organism (sex-organism) are closely associated. The two experiences of head and body separate later, becoming alien to one another. The material organism of childhood does not increase, for it is thrown off, dissolved; but the two poles of our own being grow wider apart. By this means, later on, in a fully formed body, in which the poles have separated from one another, our substance is organised from within. It seems to us as mere growth, but that is not so; we are organised inwardly, therefore we are connected with different outward things in earlier and later periods of life. As time goes on, the head-organism needs to move itself further away from the immediate earth-forces. The head rises; consequently, we “grow.”

All these conceptions would change if we accepted the actual truth—which we do not do. We leave out of account the constantly changing body, the body that is always becoming different we ignore it and imagine that it grows of itself and becomes larger; and so we fail to notice what a rich, mobile, living, inward entity is the ego, which works on us unceasingly between birth and death. Such a conception would give us a really coherent idea of ourselves if we could but grasp it, but modern man is not capable of that. This is to some extent connected with the destiny of the human race, with the whole development of our epoch. Man does not really identify himself with his living, active, ego, which actually builds his organism from year to year, but he divides it; on the one side he looks at his organism, which he imagines to be solid and enduring, and on the other at his ego, which he makes into an abstraction, a figure of straw. Such a man says: We have on the one side a sense-organism, a bodily one, through which we cannot approach things because they can only make “impressions” on us: the essential nature of the thing does not reveal itself to us at all; the “thing-in-itsef!” cannot be apprehended, we have only phenomena. Certainly, to look on the body as enduring substance gives this argument some justification. Then he looks at this insubstantial ego and says: There, within, there is something like a “feeling of duty,” and he sums it up as the “categorical imperative.” The unity is split up. If we thus divide the unity in human nature, criticising it from two sides, we become followers of Kant. What I am now saying goes into the very depths of present-day human thought.

Man of this age is little fitted to comprehend himself as a complete being in the word. He divides himself in the way I have described. The result is that we never contemplate our real soul-being with the eye of the spirit, or we would see that this part of ourselves is what continually works upon and changes the body. We look merely at the abstract body and the abstract ego and do not trouble about what the whole undivided human being may be. To become aware of that would at once lead us to recognise that this undivided being is different from incarnation to incarnation. The true, genuine human ego, concealed as it is, hidden at present from the soul's gaze, differs from life to life. Of course, if we are thinking of the abstraction, “ego,” not of the concrete human ego, we cannot arrive at the idea of the ego being so different from life to life. The result of thinking abstractly in this way is that things which are in any way similar are ultimately reduced to a featureless uniformity. Souls of course are similar in successive earth-lives; but on the other hand, they also differ, because from life to life a man passes through the course of human development. Because man does not in truth behold either the mutability of his body, or the real, whole activity of his ego, he does not see his true being. This is, as it were, a golden rule for gaining real knowledge of man and insight into his nature. And why?

The answer to this question lies in what you know of the Ahrimanic and Luciferic elements. We divide our being in such a way that on the one side we place our body, which we regard as having been small once and having expanded and grown, whereas it has in reality continually renewed itself. What is it that appears to us if we look at the body in this way? The Ahrimanic element, active within ourselves. But this Ahrimanic element is not our real human being; it belongs to the species and indeed remains the same though all ages. Therefore in looking at the body, we are really looking at our Ahrimanic part, and this is all that modern scientific anthropology describes in man. That is one thing we see—the corporeal part of ourselves, which we hare conceived of as being dense. The other is the abstract ego, which is in reality fluctuating, living strongly within us only; while we form a conception of ourselves, between birth and death. There we have our individual education, our uselessness and also our value,—there we survey our own personal life between birth and death; but we do not see our ego as it is in reality, as it works upon the metamorphoses of our physical body; we see it as Lucifer shows it to as, rarified. We see our physical part materialised, densified by Ahriman; our soul-spiritual part rarified by Lucifer.

If this was not so, if we did not divide ourselves so that one pole of our being is Ahrimanic and the other Luciferic, we should have a much more intimate connection with the dead who are always among us, because we should be more closely related to the spirituel world. We should comprehend the complete reality, to which belongs also the world in which man is after he passes through the gate of death, and before he returns to this world through the gate of conception.

Thus we never have our real being before us, but on the one side the physical-corporeal Ahrimanic phantom, on the other the soul-spiritual Luciferic phantom; two phantoms, two delusive images of ourselves, yet between that, imperceptible to us, lives the real man, that being to which we must refer when we say “man,” because this is the true man, progressing from life to life.

We must in all seriousness consider what this means for human knowledge. In this way we shall come to understand why it could be imagined that throughout the various epochs man remains the same. What we see are the incorrect thoughts about man; on the one side the idea of what does remain true to the species through long ages, and on the other, the real soul-spiritual psychic being, which is supposed not to extend beyond the life between birth and death. An understanding of how the soul-spiritual element alters the body from year to year would lead to a grasp of the mighty transition which occurs when it envelopes itself in the physical-corporeal through conception or leaves it again through death. We pay no heed to the work performed by the soul-Spiritual element on the body.

All this can be expressed in a different way. What we conceive of as our complete organism is but a small part of what we are as human beings. We only “dwell” in this organism. What we are accustomed to look upon as our organism, densified through Ahriman as we see it, has its real origin much more in our last incarnation than in this one. From the various studies of this year and former years you will gather that your physiognomy, in its present form, results from your preceding incarnation, your last earth-life. In a person's physiognomy we can really see a connection with his former life. Everything belonging to the physical corporeal organism is much more deeply connected with the last life than with the present one. Man of to-day is easily beguiled into saying: inasmuch as we have had no previous life, it cannot give us our present form, whether great or small. That is only self-persuasion. If we were to understand ourselves correctly, we should be obliged to look back to a former life. Paying attention to what forms our organism, in the way I have set forth, would bring enlightenment. A sudden light would be thrown on what we ourselves cannot form, and we would see how it has been formed by an earlier life. We can really have insight into someone if we know how his soul-spiritual part has fashioned his organism. This comes forth, as it were, out of his personality, and behind it remains what Ahriman makes visible as the result of th earlier embodiment.

For anyone who is accustomed to look upon man as a real living being, it is, when meeting a fellow-man, as though an entity emerged from him. Ths entity is his present self: only as a rule it is invisible. The other entity remains a little behind the first, and this it is which was formed from the past life. In the emerging entity something soon presents itself. At first, this entity is, I might say, perfectly transparent, but it rapidly becomes opaque, because the soul-spiritual element, appearing as an active power, densifies the entity which has just emerged. And then appears something else, which seems to be a seed for the ensuing earth-life.

For him who can perceive the connections, present-day man is seen as threefold. All sorts of myths convey this in their symbols. Call to mind numerous descriptions in which three consecutive generations are set forth, obviously to illustrate the threefold nature of man. Remember many of the renderings of Isis, also various Christian portrayals in which three figures are described as belonging together. Man's threeford nature is what is really meant. Of course a materialistic interpretation is possible—“Grandmother, Mother and Child,” if you like; but the threefold character is put there because it corresponds to a reality which can be perceived. We can most truly picture earlier times if we divest ourselves of the fantastic ideas of modern learning (which always tries to spin a meaning round pictorial representations), and take notice of what humanity's perceptions were in a past not so very far behind us, and how these were expressed artistically.

This kind of consideraticn is of the utmost importance. if we are to bring home to ourselves that the Christ, Who went through the Mystery of Golgotha, has His relation (of which we speak so often), to the true human ego. If we consider St. Paul's words, “Not I, but Christ in me,” this “in me” refers to the true, hidden ego, invisible to view as yet. Man must in a sense look on it as a Spiritual being if he would find the right connectiona with the Christ. One would like to know how certain passages in the Gospels can possibly be understood, if this is not taken into account. For instance, the passage at the very beginning of the Gospel of St. John, where John speaks as go the Christ came to man as to the abode where He belongs. The (German) translators usually construe it “He came unto His own estate, and his own people received Him not,” yet the Gospel goes on to say: “But to as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the children of God, even to them that believe on His Name, which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of man, but of God” (John I. 12,13.). And it is made quite clear that He desired to come to all men who had this consciousness; yet those without, indeed all men, are certainly born “of blood” and “of the will of man”. The being I have been describing as the “true man”, not born of blood nor of the will of man, comes indeed from the spiritual world, and clothes himself in physical heredity. The Gospel is speaking of the man of whom I have told you to-day, and that is why it is so difficult to understand and is so erroneously expounded, fettered as it is by the conceptions current, to-day. Without the conceptions conveyed by Spiritual Science, the underlying, aspects of the Gospels cannot be understood; with them, a sudden light breaks in.

In respect of all these relationships, something tremendous happened at the Mystery of Golgotha for the evolution of humanity. Before then, as you know, the complete human ego lived differently in the body. The Mystery of Golgotha marked a point of time in which the whole consciousness of man was changed, as the result of the Union of the Christ-Being with earthly evolution. Now the time has , for an increasing comprehension of the Mystery of Golotha and its conneetion with mankind.

A knotty point for the many expositors of the Gospels, for instance, is the saying which, however epressed or translated., always has the same ring—the saying that “The Kingdom of Heaven has descended.” Amongst those who have entirely misconceived this expression is H.P. Blavatsky, who seized upon it and asserted that Christians therefore maintained that with the Mystery of Golgotha a sort of heavenly kingdom had come down to earth, and yet nothing different has happened—the ears of corn and the cherries have not become twelve times is large, etc.; intimating that on the physical earth nothing is altered. This “descent of the Kingdom of Heaven,” of the spiritual kingdom, crates great difficulties for many commentators of the Gospels, because they do not clearly understand it. The meaning really is that until the Mystery of Golgotha, men had to experience what they could of the spiritual on the physical plane by means of atavistic clairvoyance. After that, they had to lift themselves up to the spiritual, and discern things in the Spirit, which really has drawn near to them. There is no need for the word-spinning arguments which are brought forward from all quarters; the' truth must be recognised, and this truth is as follows:—

The effect for men of Christ having passed through the Mystery of Golgotha is that they can no longer receive spiritual life mearly through the fact of their physical existence, but only by living in the spiritual world. Anyone who now lives only in the physical world, is no longer living on the earth, but below the earth; because from the Mystery of Golotha onwards, the possibility is given us of living in the spirit. The spiritual kingdom has in truth come among us. Taken in this sense; the expression is at once understood, but only in connection with the Christ. This, however, was to be temporarily hidden. As man made the effort to acquire it, it would be gradually communicated to him; and only by gaining insight into it can the real course of, modern history since the Mystery of Golgotha be understood. Christianity, as it had come into the world through the Mystery of Golgotha, was in its early centuries implanted in the Gnosis, which was then more or less still in existence. It embodied very spiritual views of the real nature of Christ Jesus. Then the Church took on a defined form. This form can be traced historically, but you must bear in mind what its task was from the third, fourth, fifth century onwards. The explanation now given must not on any account be misunderstood. Spiritual Science, as here advocated, stands on the ground of genuine, active tolerance for all existing religious revelations. Spiritual Science must therefore be able to discover the relative truth of the different religious creeds. It is not that Spiritual Science leans more or less sympathetically towards this or that creed; its aim is to distinguish the truth contained in the different religious denominations; it weighs them all with care, and refuses to be one-sided. Spiritual Science must not be proclaimed as leaning towards this or that Creed: it is the Science of the Spirit. It can for instance, fully appreciate that it is a pity that for many people the inner content of Catholic ritual is lost. It knows how to appreciate the special virtues of Catholic ritual in relation to the course of civilisation, and also that a certain artistic output is closely related to Catholic ritual, which indeed is only a continuation of certain other religious creeds, much more so than is commonly thought. In this ritual there resides a deep element of the Mysteries. However, what I have to say essentially concerns sonething else, at all events not the Catholic ritual, which has its full inner justification as an extraordinary impulse for human creative achievement. What I now have to set forth is this: that ecclesiastical forms were given certain tasks—which are indeed still theirs to a certain extent, but were given for the most part at the time when such ardent souls as Bernard of Clairvaux found their way to their God through the Church. We must always discriminate between the Churches and such personalities as Bernard of Clairvaux and multitudes of others. What then, was the task of the Church? Its task was to keep souls as far away as possible from an understanding of Christ, to bring it about that souls should not approach too near to Him: The history of Church-life in the third or fourth century, and later on, is substantially the story of the estrangement of the human mind from a comprehension of the Mystery of Golgotha; in the development of the Church there is a certain antagonism towards an understanding of Christ. This negative task of the Church has its justification in the fact that men must always strive anew through the force of their own minds and souls to reach the Christ, and fundamentally through all these centuries man;s approach to the Christ has been a continual struggle of the individual against ecclesiasticism. Even with such men as Bernard of Clairvaux, it was so. Study even Thomas Aquinas. He was reckoned a heretic by the orthodox; he was interdicted, and only later did the Church adopt his teaching. The path to Christ was really always a “defensive action” against the Church, and only slowly and gradually could men win their way to Christ. We have but to think, for instance, of Petrus Waldus, the founder of the so-called sect of the “Waldenses,” and his associates in the twelfth century, none of whom at that time had any knowledge of the Gospel. The spreading of Church-life had come on without the Gospels. Just think of it! From those around Petrus Waldus a few persons were chosen who could translate something of the Gospels; thus they learnt to know the Gospels, and as they learnt, a holy, lofty Christian life flowed to them from the Gospels. The outcome was that Petrus Waldus was declared a heretic by the Pope, against the will of his contemporaries. Up to this time a certain amount of gnostic knowledge had spread even in Europe, as for instance among the “Catharists” translated as “Purified Ones;” it was directed to acquiring concepts, concrete concepts, about the Christ and the Mystery theof Golgotha. From the standpoint of the official Church this was not allowed, therefore the Catharists were heretics: “hetzer” (German for “heretic”) is only an alteration of their neme—it is the same word.

It is very necessary to take that of which I am now speaking in its full strictness, in order to distinguish the path of Christianity from that of the Church, and thus to grasp how, in our age, through the principles of Spiritual Science, a way must be paved tothe true Christ, to the real Christ-concept. Very many features of the present day become clear when we realise that not all that called itself Christian was intended to communicate the understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha, but that much was even intended to hinder that understanding, to raise a barrier against it. Does this barrier exist to this day? Indeed it does! I would like to give you a case in point.

Manifold endeavours, including that of Protestantism, were always in opposition to the Church, because the Church in many ways had the task of erecting a barrier against the understanding of Christ, and men could do no other than strive for that understanding. Petrus Waldus felt that need when he had recourse to the Gospels. Until then, there was only the Church—not the Gospels. Even now, many strange opinions are held about this relation of the Church to the Gospels. I want to read you a passage from a modern writer, very characteristic of this state of things, from which you will recognise that the opinion which condemnned Petrus Waldus to excommunication is deeply rooted even now. Take it as an example of what is being said even to-day:

“The Gospels and Epistles are for us incomparable written records of revelation but they are neither the foundation on which our Faith was built, nor the unique source from which the content of the latter is spontaneously created. In our view the Church is older than the sacred writings; from her hand we receive them, she guarantees their trustworthiness, and as regards the dangers of hand-written transcriptions, and of the changing of the text in translation into all languages of the earth, the Church is the only authoritative interpreter of the sense and import of every particular utterance.” (“The Principles of Catholicism and Science”, by George von Hertling, Freiburg 1899.)

This means that the actual content of the Gospels is irrelevant; all that matters is what the Church declares is to be found in them. I have to say this, for the simple reason that even in our own circles there is much simple mindedness on the subject. Again and again one hears the view that it would be useful if we could approach the Catholic Church, saying that our interpretation is entirely favourable to the Christ. But that would not help us at all, it would only blacken us in the eyes of the Church, because she allows nothing to be upheld about the Christ, or about any conclusions beyond those of Natural Science, unless the Church herself recognises it as in agreement with her doctrine. Whoever among us upholds a conception of Christ, and believes thereby to vindicate himself in the eyes of the Church, really accuses himself—is indeed regarded as having done so, because he has no right to declare anything about the Christ from any other source than the Church's owm doctrine .

The same author from whose work I have just read, speaks very clearly on the subject: “Believers are in just the same position as is the investigator of nature with the facts of exoerience.” He means that the believer must receive what the Church dictates to him about the spiritual world, just as the eyes take in the facts of nature.

“He must neither take anything away nor add anything, he must take it as it stands; above all the very purest reception of the true content of the matter is expected of him. The truths of revelation are something given, for him who grasps them in faith. For him, they are conclusive and complete. No enrichment of them has been possible since Christ: their volume cannot to decreased, and any change in their content is out of the question”.

So speaks one who subscribes fully to the genuine orthodox Catholic view—a view which must dissociate itself, for instance, with a certain aversion from any train of thought such as Lessing's, which leads-towards a renewed search for the Spiritual. Lessing's views went as far as to embrace repeated earth-lives; they are a product of modern spiritual life. The bitterest opposition is bound to exist between the Catholic Church and such Cerman spiritual life as flowed through Lessing, Herder, Goethe and Schiller. This same person (von Hertling) writes further:

“The edifice of Church dcctrine, as it appears to the Theologian of to-day and is presented by him, was not complete and ready-made from the beginning. What Christ imparted to the Apostles, what they proclaimed to the world, was not a methodical, fully prepared system, developed at all points: it was a rich store of truths, all united as in a focus in one event of sacred history: the story of the Redemption, of the Incarnation of the Divine Logos; but the instruction of the believers, and the necessary defence against heathen assaults, as well as against the misrepresentations of heretics, made it necessary tc unite these truths in a system, to develop their full content, to determine their purport.—This was done by the unwearying proclamation of the doctrine by those specially chosen as instruments, according to the Catholic interpretation under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, but at the same time vith the co-operation of the learning of the early Church.

“No new language was creeted by this revelation, but what was already current was used; the sense and meaning of individual words being recoined and heightened. Theology, which undertook to think out the content of Revelation while setting it in order for expository purposes, needed for the task certain tools and resources: sharply circumscribed ideas for organising the subject-matter; special exnression for making comprehensible relationships which far exceeded the experience of everyday life. A new task in the history of the world thereby devolved upon Greek philosophy. It had the vessels ready Prepared, into which an infinitely richer content, springing from a higher source, was to be poured. Platonism was the first source of this creative work. The drift of its speculation on the super-sensible distinctly singled it out for the task. Much later, after the lapse of more than a thousand years, when the most important essentials of revelation had at last been formulated in dogma, the close union of theological science with Aristotelian philosophy was completed and exists to this day”.

(Because, therefore, the philosophy of Aristotle was united with the Church as long ago as the Middle Ages, its value for the Church today is beyond question!)

“With its help, the sainted Thomas Aquinas, the greatest master of system known in history, raised the great edifice of doctrine, which, only modified here and there in detail, has determined Catholic theology as to form, expression and method of teaching ever since.”

The author in question regards what he calls Church doctrine as having come about by means of a certain union between the Christian wisdom-element and Greek Aristotelian Philosophy. He does recognise the possibility that in a very distant future, (he says expressly “in a future by no means near as yet”), Christianity might be approached through quite different ideas He says: Supposing that Christianity had not been spread abroad throurth Greek philosophy, but as it might have been, through the Indian, it would have come forth in an entirely different form. However, it must remain in the form it has received: it must not, be changed by any novel view, arising in modern times. But he in certainly aware that there are points where he is treading on thin ice:—

“I am only against a spiritual disposition which, in realms where full freedom is accorded to Scientific investigation, is deaf to all the fundamental objections, and holds fast to tradition.”

Yet he holds strongly enough to tradition!

And finally, it is then necessary to give way, as was done in the case of the Copernican system."

That waseonly in 1827! He turns away from legitimate endeavours to understand Christianity afresh, with a modern consciousness. That is remarkably little to his taste. He says:

“I could conceive that a far-distant future might loosen the union of Theology and Aristotelian philosophy, replacing it's no longer comprehensible or satisfying concepts with others, which would correspond to a knowledree improved in many ways.” He “could conceive”—that what nobody in any case understands to-day might be replaced by something equally incomprehensible.

“It would not be offending against the warning of the Gospel, because it would not be pouring new wine into old skins, for on the contrary new vessels would be produced, to preserve therein the never-failing wine of the doctrine of salvation, in its essential character, and to purvey it to the faithful.”

But that must not happen. He goes on:

“But the vessels must be chosen ones. The attempts made by Cartesianism in the seventeenth century, and by the philosnphy of Kant and Hegel in the nineteenth, exhort us to prudence. A school of ideas which would replace Aristotelianism would have to arise, just as that did, From fulness of knowledge and contemporary consciousness.”

Then these same men would oppose it, because they at any rate are not the offspring of “fulness of knowledge and contemporary consciousness”.

“It would have to acquire equal authority over wide circles of thinking humanity, and even then its transformation into ecclesiastical theology would hardly be attained without errors and perplexities on all hands.”

It would be necessary to “labour” to bring about understanding. “As, for instance, in the thirteenth century, when through the Arabs the complete philosophy of Aristotle was brought to the Christian West. Its reception aroused severe opposition. Even a Thomas Aquinas was not spared hostility. He was held by many to be an innovator, against whom the champions of the well-tried old order had to marshal their forces.”

It is remarkable how it is with this principle of over coming an old way of understanding. “Christianity—men may think it quite a good principle, but they absolutely will not admit its validity in their own epoch. It cannot be said that such a thing is done in simplicty. It is very learned, for the pamphlet concludes with a really significant reference—a reference to an Order which has at all times had reputation for shrewdness—a brotherhood which has a different standing from that of Bernard of Clairvaix or Francis ef Assisi, whose reputation rested or a certain mystical tendency. This other Order reckoned mystical piety aad such-like of less value than a certain shrewdness and understanding of worldly affairs. Hence the pamphlet says in conclusion:

“I end with an utterance of St. Ignatius of Loyola, which has been incorporated into the constitution of the Jesuit Order, and has ben referred to of late in different quarters: “Scientific pursuits, if they are undertaken with pure stiving in the service of God, are on that account, because they comprehend the whole of humanity, not less, but more pleasing to God than pennance.”

The endeavour has been made in our own time to awaken clear understanding on all sides. I will prove this to you by an example. I have been reading to you from this author so that you may see the position taken up by those who hold certain views, as regards a movement I was describing. This attitude of theirs was perceived by a writer who published a short time ago, (it is importent to note that it is of recent date) an article on the author of this pamphlet. I will read an extract from it:

“At the Conference in 1893, on the subjct of Catholic Science and the position of Catholic savants at the present day this declaration was made:

“We Catholic-Scientists of the nineteenth century are convinced that there is no antagonism between Science and Faith, but that they are ordained to combine in inner harmony. We are convinced that no two sides of truth exist, or can exist. God is the source of all truth; He has spoken to us through the Prophets and the incararnated Logos; He speaks to us through the ordained ministry of the Church, and no less in the laws of logic, which we must hold to when we strive for knowledge of the truths of Nature. eBcause God cannot contradict Hinself, therfore no antagonism can exist between supernatural and natural truths; between the teachings of revelation and a science which earnestly, honestly brings to light the laws and the rules of method.”

“This really means, however, that philosophy is reduced to silence. Its freedom is just the same for us as that of a flock of sheep in its enclosure, or the prisoners within walls. Philosophy, as regards its own principles, is just as little free under the determining, limiting rule of faith as they—who are allowed to walk about on their own feet, to use their own-hands and to move as they like, but in a strictly—enclosed space. The phrase “Catholic philosophy” embodies a direct contradiction, for by its own account of itself it is not unconditionally free.”

If our Spiritual Science were not independent, it would not be what it ought to be.

“Catholic philosophy has to follow a prescribed line of march. A philosophy claiming to be based. on scientific method must hold firm, regardless of consequences, to nothing outside the results of its own researches and its own thinking. It is bound by strict rules of investigation and verification, and is forbidden to take its stand within any particular religion or on any point of ecclesiastical dogma. Otherwise it is not science but unscientific dogmatism, governed not by principles of knowledge, but by faith and the power of faith. In that case it does not go its way unhindered and uninfluenced, nor does it follow impartially its own laws, but it acknowledges as a matter of course an ordained truth, and, in relation to that, resigns its independence.” (Dr. Bernhard Münz. “The German Imperial Chancellor as Philosopher” in the “Austrian Review”, 15th April 1918.)

That is precisely the task of the present time, to find the way for every hman being to stand on his own feet. A man who maintains such things as you have just heard quoted stands in sharpest contradiction to this task. There are neople who see that such opinions preclude any possibility of a scientific view of the universe; but it seems very difficult at the present time to prove the impartiality of one's judgment, however necessary it may be. The further progress of civilisation will depend on men comin to learn how in their soul-being they are connected with the Spiritual world; whoever shuts his eyes to this, hinders the most important task of his own day. There is no escape from this conclusion. The remarkable thing to-day is that people can look at the matter, and in a marvellous way draw other conclusions from it. The author of this article writes of the man from whose pamphlet I have read to you, which culminated in the confession of Jesuitism. The “subject” of the article is Georg von Hertling, now “Count” Hertling.—The author of the article, however, in spite of having said that the outlook he is criticising “excludes all science”, adds in conclusion:

“Count Hertling is a decided, strongly-marked individuality. Individuality literally means indivisibility, but in this case it implies divisibility, inner blending, universal organisation. Individual soul, family soul, and nation-soul meet and are accentuated side by side in this man: this trinity-of soul it is that makes him so strong and stamps him as the predestined Chancellor of the German Empire.” A need of our time is to find a way of touching the nerve through which the current of Spiritual Science must flow, and this can be none other than the one which enables the soul to find its onn way to the spiritual world. This must be thoroughly understood, for it is bound un with the deepest needs, the most indispensible impulses, our age. Our time demands of man that he should be able, in noticing a thing, to admit it, and to draw the real conclusions from it. Spiritual Science can be genuine only in those who have the courage to face truth and to maintain it; otherwise such experiences as I have described will become more frequent. I must add this, because more and more simple minds are to be found amongst us who hear with joy any praise of Spiritual Science, or what appears like it. Discrimination precisely in these very points is necessary. “Praise” can be far more hurtful and run far more counter to our efforts, than adverse criticism, when honestly meant.

Hermann Heisler, a protestant theologian, gave seventeen sermons in Constance and published them afterwards under the title of “Vital questions of the Day”. By chance a characteristic review of his book fell into my hands, and our unsophisticated friends would perhaps count it as something to be pleased with, inasmuch as it is unadulterated praise:

“These sermons deserve particular attention, on account of their authorship. Heisler was for ten years an evangelical Pastor in Styria and Bohemia, then, alarmed at the danger of becoming numbed by the routine of his office, resigned it for the time being, in order to devote himself for a year to studying the fundamentals of natural science and philosophy. Finally, urged by an inner call, he returned to his spiritual sphere with new joyfulness and love. As he could not serve his country with the colours, he offered his spiritual services to the Church of his native Baden, and was entrusted with a cure of souls at Constance, where these seventeen addresses were given in 1917. They are remarkable as regards their substance. They are all based on deep spiritual effort, and expect hearers and readers alike to share in it. They are not, designed to arouse beautiful feelings but to lead through earnest thinkins to convinced knowledge. They avoid the sermonising tone, and read almost like scientific treatises developed in a popular way about religious problems. I would instance the sermon on that many-sided conception, freedom. It arrives at the true conclusion: ‘Of course there always remains as absolute necessity which directs us. Even as free human beings, we still follow the aim which most attracts us; but the divine gift of freedom which Christ brings us is that the lower attractions of the sense-world lose their constraining power over our souls, and the majesty of the spiritual world gains inner sovereignty over us.’ ” The peculiar feature of Heisler's preaching, however, does not lie in the powerful grasp of his thinking, but in its special content: Heisler is a convinced, inspired Theosophist. He himself would rather use the term, “follower of Spiritual Science”. That must not be confused with the spiritualistic belief in the materialisation of spirits. It calls for a purely spiritual activity, bound to no material means. Our thoughts are forces, which, invisible yet powerful, stream out from us and impress the seal of our being on the whole of Nature, beneficially or the reverse. This belief in the imperishable power of the spirit is set forth for our comfort in the address, ‘Our Dead are Alive;’ it takes an amazing form in the one on ‘Destiny.’ Based on the account in St. John's Gospel of the man born blind, the old Indian and Orphic doctrines of the soul's pilgrimage, its reincarnation in an earthly body, is taught; the preacher would thereby solve the riddle of how fate so often seems unjust, and, like Lessing in his “Education of the Human Race,” would arouse a belief in a carefully planned divine education of humanity. When I add that Heisler looks upon this teaching, indeed on all his Spiritual Science, as a return to the New Testamet, lecturinrg upon it as science, and consciously overstepping the Kantian boundary between knowledre and faith, I have sketched his schene of thoght it its main features.”

“Well, we might say, what more is wanted! Really nothing better could be written! But the author of the review concludes his considerations thus: “I myself reject this Spiritual Science and abide by Kant; but after all, the sermons contain so much that is good, and Theosophy is for the moment agitating theology in so significant a way, (cf. for example, Rittlemeyer's writings in the Christliche Welt), that I believe I do many theologians and laity a service by drawing attention emphatically to these addresses.” (D. Schuster in “The Hanover Courier”, 18th July, 1913.)

That is often the way of thought in our age: inner force and courage are lacking in it. The man has “nothing but good” to say; one notices that he has insight into the good, because he can define it in charming words; but then—“I personally reject this Spiritual Science”! There you have the fruits of what I began by describing, and much in the present time is connected with these “fruits”. In the next lecture I will deal further with the tendency I have been discussing, and its effpcts in social democacy and Bolshevism.