The Rudolf Steiner Archive

The nature of man is complicated, and very much of what actually goes on within the human being remains more or less beneath the threshold of consciousness, merely sending its effects up into consciousness. True self-knowledge cannot be won without first obtaining insight into the working of the sub-consciousness weaving below the surface in the impulses of soul. These, it could be said, move in the depths of the ocean of consciousness and come to the surface only in the wake of the waves they create. Ordinary consciousness can perceive only the waves that rise to the surface, and on the whole one is not capable of understanding their significance, so true self-knowledge is not possible. Merely pondering on what is washed up into consciousness does not lead to self-knowledge; for things in the depths of the soul often differ greatly from what they become in ordinary, everyday consciousness. Today we shall look a little into this nature of man in order to gain, from this point of view, an idea of how the subconscious soul-impulses in the human being really work.

In this field we can, of course, to a greater or lesser extent, speak only in pictures. But if you bring together much of what we have hitherto discussed within our Anthroposophical Movement, you will be able to understand the realities that want to speak through the pictures. We can say: The invisible nature of man, his ego, his astral body, his etheric body, work through his visible nature, so what is not manifest works through what is manifest. However, the manner in which what is evident works through what is not evident is very complicated. But if we work our way bit by bit through the various parts of this complicated process, and place them all together, we shall, in the end, attain an overall view of the being of man. Even this, though, will always remain incomplete, for the being of man is infinitely complex. But at least we can gain a certain basic knowledge of human nature as a valid foundation for self-knowledge.

Today we shall examine how the separate components of man's nature express themselves in a more or less pictorial or formalized manner through physical life. Here is a human being. To illustrate what I want to tell you, I shall start with what we recognize for earthly man as the aspect of which we are conscious: the ego. I must emphasize that pictorial explanations can very easily lead to misunderstandings, because things said earlier seem to contradict other things said later. Follow carefully, and you will soon notice that such contradictions are, in fact, non-existent.

So let us start with the ego-nature of man, with that component we call our ego. This ego-nature is, of course, entirely super-sensible; it is the most super-sensible part we have as yet acquired, but it works through the physical. In the intellectualistic sense the ego works in our physical being chiefly through the nervous system which is called the system of ganglia, the nervous system radiating from the solar plexus. Diagrammatically we can indicate this nervous system, this system of ganglia, this system of the solar plexus, thus (see diagram, dark shading). It is active in a way which, at first glance, does not appear to have much to do with what, in a materialistic sense, we could call the life of the nerves. Yet it is the actual point of contact for real ego-activity. This is not a contradiction of the fact that when we begin to see ourselves spiritually, we have to seek the centre of the ego in the head. Since the ego-component of the human being is super-sensible, the point at which we experience our ego is not the same as the point at which it chiefly works in us.

We must be quite clear what we mean when we say: The ego works through the point of contact of the solar plexus. What it means is this: The ego itself is equipped with only a very dull consciousness. The ego-thought is not the same as the ego. The ego-thought is what is washed up into consciousness, but the ego-thought is not the real ego. The real ego intervenes as a formative force in the whole human organism through the solar plexus.

Certainly you can say that the ego distributes itself over the whole body. But its main point of contact, where it particularly intervenes in the formative element of the human organism, is the solar plexus. A better expression would be the system of ganglia, because all the ramifications are part of this process—the system of ganglia. It is a process that lives in the subconscious and works in this system of ganglia. Since the system of ganglia plays its part in the circulation of blood as well, this does not contradict the fact that the ego expresses itself in the blood. The exact meaning of everything that is said must be considered. It is one thing to say: The ego intervenes through the system of ganglia in the formative forces and in all the life processes of the organism. But something else is meant when we say: The blood with its circulation is an expression of the ego in the human being. The nature of the human being is, as I said, complicated.

To understand the significance of what has been said, it will be useful to answer the following question: What is the relationship of the ego with the system of ganglia and all that is connected with it? How is this ego anchored, as it were, in the abdominal organs of the human being?

When the human being is in a normal state of health, the ego is chained to the solar plexus and all that is connected with it. It is bound by the solar plexus. What does this mean? This human ego, given to man during the course of earthly evolution as a gift from the Spirits of Form, has been, as we know, subjected to the temptation of Lucifer. The ego, as it now exists in man, and because it has been infected by luciferic forces, would be a bearer of evil forces. The truth of this fact must definitely be recognized. The ego is not a bearer of evil forces because of its own nature, but because it has become infected with luciferic forces through the temptation by Lucifer; it is in fact the bearer of truly evil forces, forces which, because of the luciferic infection, tend to distort the thought life of the ego towards evil. Since the moment when the ego was given to him, man has been able to think. If there had been no luciferic temptation, man would think only good thoughts about everythiug. But as the luciferic temptation did, in fact, take place, the ego does not think good thoughts, but thoughts infected by Lucifer. This is a fact of earthly evolution: the ego is malicious and dastardly. It thinks only of showing itself in a good light and consigning everything else to the shadow. It is infected with all kinds of egoisms. This is how it is, because it is infected by Lucifer.

Now the system of ganglia, the solar plexus, is something in man that has come over from the Moon incarnation of the earth. It is a kind of house for the ego; the ego fits into it in a certain way. In fact, it can be held a prisoner there. So we have the following state of affairs: Because of its luciferic infection, the ego tends all the time to behave in a dastardly, lying manner and place itself in the light, while consigning everything else to the shade. But it is held prisoner by the nervous system of the abdomen. There it has to behave itself. By means of the nervous system of the abdomen the properly progressing forces, which have come to us from ancient Saturn, Sun and Moon, compel the ego not to be a demon in the bad sense of the word. So the manner in which we bear our ego within us is to have it bound by the organs of the abdomen.

Assume now that these abdominal organs are unhealthy in some way, or not in a normal state. Not to be in a normal state means not to want to take in fully what fits into them spiritually, what spiritually belongs to them. The ego can be somewhat freer in its activity if the abdominal organs are not quite healthy. If this freeing is brought about by some physical hyperactivity, this can express itself in the human being in that the ego is let loose on the external world, instead of remaining bound. When the ego behaves freely in this way, we have a case of psychological illness: the human being displays the characteristics of the ego infected by Lucifer. The characteristics of the ego of which I have spoken then make their appearance. There is certainly no need to be a materialist in order to understand fully the manner in which the spiritual—in this case the ego—can be bound to physical organs in life between birth and death, though in a way that differs from what is perceived by a materialist. There is no need to be a materialist to see how, in a manner of speaking, the devil can throw off his chains and break loose. This is one instance of psychological illness.

The freeing of the ego, however, is not necessarily a question of psychological illness, because another state of affairs is also possible. In such an instance it is not a question of illness in the abdomen but rather a ‘switching off’ of its normal activity. This is what happens in the great majority of cases of hypnotic consciousness. The functioning of the system of ganglia in the abdomen is put into a state—either by natural causes or by all kinds of mesmeric effects—in which it is unable properly to keep the ego under control. Thus in this way, too, the ego has an opportunity to become more involved with its environment. It is not embedded in the system of ganglia and is therefore free to make use of channels to the outside world which enable it to perceive from a distance all kinds of processes in space and time which, when it is embedded in the system of ganglia, are processes which it cannot normally perceive.

So it is important to know that a certain relationship exists between the hypnotized state, which in a mild way switches off the normal activity of the processes bound to the system of ganglia in ordinary consciousness, and certain forms of madness, where the switching-off is caused by deformation or illness in certain abdominal organs. If the ego is freed, if it feels, you might say, free of its chains and is linked, not with its body but with the spiritual forces in its environment, this is always, in a way, a pathological state, just as is also the case in madness. That is why some forms of madness are characterized by the appearance of spite, mendacity, cunning and craftiness—everything that comes from luciferic infection; the urge to place oneself in the light and consign others to the shadow, and so on.

Now you will understand why a person's constitution of soul depends on the very way the shell which binds his ego is fashioned. In order not to focus too closely on the human being and perhaps offend some human souls, let us instead look for a moment at a lion, a savage carnivore, and how it compares with a bull or an ox. You can see the difference. Even though the lion has a group ego while the human being is endowed with an individual ego, we can still use this comparison. What is the difference between the lion's nature and the ox's nature? The lion is definitely a carnivore while the ox is for the most part a vegetarian. The difference is this: What in the lion corresponds to his group ego is less bound; the forceful activity suitable for his abdominal organs makes the ego freer, lets it loose more on its environment, whereas in the vegetarian ox the group ego is more bound to the abdominal organs. The ox lives more bound up in itself.

You can see why it can be good sense for human beings to become vegetarian—of course, only if they so wish. For what does a vegetarian diet bring about? It makes the abdominal organs even more capable of binding the ego, which, if this does not sound like a paradox, leads to the human being becoming more gentle. His evil demon is more internalized and lives less in the environment. Nobody, however, should persuade himself that he does not possess this demon, for he does, but it is more imprisoned within him. It would be easy to set up an experiment to compare the behaviour of hungry carnivores and hungry vegetarians. When hungry, one is apt to be less inhibited. So it would be likely that the hungry vegetarians, who are in the habit of containing themselves as a result of their vegetarian diet, would be the more savage. For hunger brings about changes in the functions of the abdominal organs, which are then less able to fetter the ego than they are when satiated. I do not mean to be absolute in what I say, because the carnivore in any case binds the ego less strongly than the vegetarian. But I said that, in comparison, the hungry vegetarian, in contrast to his state when satiated, is likely to be far more savage than the hungry carnivore, in contrast to his state when satiated.

Human nature is indeed exceedingly complicated. One very good way of attaining some knowledge as a basis for true, genuine self-knowledge in life is to pay attention to the connection between the spiritual and bodily parts. I should add, though, that vegetarians should take care not allow themselves to become too undernourished. If they are undernourished they are in danger of damaging themselves, and then their chains—the prison for their devil, who shows himself in wiliness, lies and so on—are weakened. They then let their devil out into the environment, and the environment is troubled by their problems. Either that, or else they themselves have the trouble. They fail to cope with themselves, for they either constantly have a mania for manifesting the various bad qualities of the ego, or—if they are well brought-up—they have the urge to keep all this to themselves, in which case, too, it can happen that they fail to cope with themselves. All kinds of dissatisfactions arise in their soul. It is important to see this.

Just as the ego has its point of contact in the system of ganglia, so does the astral body have its point of contact in all those processes which are linked with the nervous system of the spinal cord. Naturally, the nerves run through the whole body; but in the nervous system of the spinal cord we have a second point of contact. Included in this, of course, are once again all the processes connected with this spinal nervous system. I am not speaking of the cerebral nervous system. I mean the nervous system of the spinal cord which has to do, for instance, with our reflex actions and is a regulator for much that goes on in the human body. In the present context we must include all the processes regulated by this nervous system. Again we have to see that the astral body is either bound to everything connected with this spinal system or that it can become free of it, through illness or through partial somnolence brought about by mesmerism or something similar. The entity which is bound here received its luciferic attributes, which are mingled a little with ahrimanic attributes, as long ago as the time of ancient Moon. Therefore these are weaker than the luciferic attributes of the ego, but they are present in the astral body, too. If you want to turn your soul to a contemplation of the process by which this luciferic infection crept into the astral body, you will have to study what I said in my book Occult Science about the separation of the moon from evolution as a whole. This infection made its appearance during the time of ancient Moon. Here you will discover another reason for certain characteristics in the human being, characteristics of a hypnotic nature—higher hypnotic characteristics which are bound, in the main, to the organs of the chest and which bring in higher experiences than do the organs of the abdomen. At the same time you will see that if something is not in order, so that the astral body cannot be bound as it should be, something can again come about which is a psychological illness, a psychological disorder. Just as the ego can be released, causing signs of madness, so also can the astral body be released, which again leads to signs of madness.

When the ego is released, this leads, as I have said, to characteristics such as spite, cunning, wiliness, fraudulence, giving prominence to oneself and putting everyone else in the shade, and so on. When the astral body is released, this leads to volatility of ideas and lack of cohesive thought, manic states on the one hand or, on the other, to withdrawal, depression, hypochondria. Again, these conditions could be brought about by hypnotic or mesmeric intervention; but in this case the organs are not ill, but have had their normal physical function suppressed by the intervention of a hypnotist or mesmerist.

There is much in our human nature which must be held in check, for in a way we do belong to the devil. We are at least partially decent human beings solely because the devils in us are held in check by the divine spiritual forces which have developed in the proper way through the periods of ancient Saturn, Sun and Moon. Because of the various temptations, we do not possess all-that-great an aptitude for decency. A good many bad dispositions and moods of soul life are the result of meeting with the demon in us. The appearance of the demonic element comes about because what is bound can become unbound.

We shall speak on another occasion about what it is in the life between death and a new birth that binds those aspects that are bound by our physical body now, during life between birth and death. You will agree that we owe a great debt of gratitude to the cosmic order that here, between birth and death, we possess our physical organism, for without it we would have no prison for our higher components. When these higher components are set free, after we have laid aside our physical body, different conditions come into operation, which we will discuss another time. Suffice it to say that the higher components still retain some fetters, even then.

Now, just as the astral body is bound in this way by the system of the spinal cord and all the processes of organic life connected with it, so is the etheric body bound by the cerebral system and everything that belongs to it. Therefore, the etheric body has its point of contact by means of the cerebral system. Similar things could be said here, too. In our head there is a prison for our etheric body. Madness or hypnotic conditions come into operation if the body is not quite well and the etheric body is let loose. Left to itself, i.e., not enclosed in the prison of the head, the etheric body has the tendency to reproduce itself, thus becoming a stranger to itself and spilling over into the world, carrying its life into other things. This is a description of the conditions that come about if the prison warder releases the etheric body.

So we have three possibilities for psychological illness, and also three possibilities of escaping from the physical body. These three possibilities must definitely be taken into consideration—but of course in quite a different way—when a person is to become free of his physical body through Initiation. What we have been speaking about is a freeing brought about by illness, when the organs of the physical body do not remain healthy and are then incapable of containing the higher components. Somnolence of the brain would result if brain activity were damped down. The etheric body would be freed and a somnolent condition would take over. But when the brain is defective, the prison can no longer hold the prisoner—that is, the etheric body—which then embarks on its own adventures, endeavouring to live and create its own disordered, muddled life by opening out into the world. So you see clearly that psychological illnesses are, in the main, caused by a kind of freeing from the physical basis to which the various higher components of man belong during life between birth and death.

The etheric body, when it is freed, has mainly ahrimanic characteristics. Envy, jealousy, avarice and similar states will be pathologically exaggerated, always in connection with a kind af spreading into the environment, a kind of letting oneself go. Try to understand it like this: The only point of attraction for the ego is, more or less, the system of ganglia and whatever is connected with it; the astral body's point of contact is with the spinal system, but together with the system of ganglia; and the etheric body is linked with the cerebral system, but jointly, with both the spinal system and the system of ganglia. So, from this point of view, the system of ganglia also has to do with the brain, for instance, in so far as it serves all subconscious organic processes. If the system of ganglia brings about a process of illness which runs its course in the brain, then it could be the etheric body which is freed, even though the root cause lies in the system of ganglia. You see how very complicated things are.

Psychiatry today has, as yet, no means of distinguishing between these three forms of soul sickness. Psychiatry will only achieve some degree of perfection when distinction is made between psychological abnormalities brought about by the freeing from bondage of the etheric body, or the astral body, or the ego. Then there will be a really significant way of distinguishing between, and assessing, the various symptoms of psychological abnormality—and it will be important to assess them in this way.

You see from all this how self-knowledge can only be built up on a penetrating view of the complicated nature of the human being. Knowledge can certainly have disagreeable sides to it. But knowledge is not supposed to be a toy, for it is the most serious matter in the whole of human life. Someone who knows everything there is to know about human nature—if he is even only somewhat inclined to understand it in a way which is not egoistic, if he is inclined to think and feel about it in an objective way—can have in this knowledge an important healing factor at his disposal. One might be too weak to use this healing factor; but this knowledge is an important healing factor. It cannot be gained by remaining in one's subjective nature; it cannot be gained by failing to extricte oneself from this.

This is a great problem for a movement such as ours. On the one hand it is necessary to strive earnestly for the highest knowledge, but on the other hand not everybody who decides to join such a movement is inclined to accept such knowledge with total objectivity and with full earnestness. Such knowledge brings health to personal life only if one is not constantly busy reflecting upon one's own personality, if one is not constantly wondering: How do I feel, what is going on in me, how am I getting on in the world, what is living in my soul, and so on. It brings healing only if we free ourselves from all that and concern ourselves instead with the affairs of mankind as a whole, matters which concern every human being. Difficulty arises only if one wants to concentrate on oneself, if one cannot get away from oneself. The more one is capable of turning away from oneself and towards all that concerns people and the world in general, the more can knowledge become a healing factor.

How glad I would be if only you would believe this! A movement like ours gives plenty of opportunity for observing the very opposite of what I have been saying. It is, of course, natural and justified that people who cannot easily get away from themselves should turn to our Movement for comfort and hope and confidence. But if they do not honestly strive to get away from themselves, if they continue to concern themselves with their own head and their own heart—not to mention whatever else very many people in our Movement are concerned with—then knowledge cannot become for them what, in truth, it is. It is possible to be interested in knowledge in such a way that it becomes not only a personal, but also a general human affair. The more personal considerations are involved, the more one is distracted from what is healing in all the knowledge about the deeper aspects of the world.

From the points of view we have now reached we must endeavour to gain clarity about how certain impulses in human nature are connected with the freeing of the soul and spiritual element, either in states brought about by hypnosis or mesmerism, or in madness. A process of freeing is always connected with a merging into the spiritual element. But this is in turn bound up with a certain feeling of voluptuousness, with real voluptuousness, both direct and indirect. For whatever has become free—be it the etheric or astral body, or the ego—in a way pours itself into the spiritual world. And this pouring forth is defnitely connected with inner feelings of bliss.

Somebody with a psychological abnormality gains a certain satisfaction from his abnormal soul activity and is therefore loath to depart from it. In every age, those who have concerned themselves with the healing of psychological abnormalities have reported the following experience: When doctors have found a way of healing their patients, it happens that as the moment of health approaches, the patient senses that he can no longer freely merge with his spiritual environment and that he has lost a certain feeling of voluptuous bliss, so he begins to hate the doctor who has taken this from him. Usually those who are not psychologically ill are grateful to their doctor when he heals them, but efforts expended on the psychologically ill are met with the opposite. You will find this documented in the appropriate literature. Doctors have frequently found that when a cure is effected, or even only an attempt is made to overcome the sickness, the patient begins to find his doctor abhorrent because he is taking away what the patient really wants, especially in his subconscious, even if he would consciously deny this.

Such things lead us deep into the mystery of the human being's soul nature. We then also understand that the ego, or the etheric or the astral body, after endeavouring to work with the help of their physical tools, if they then become free, yet are still strong and imbued with the forms they had within their physical tools, can more easily unfold certain forces than was possible for them within the diseased organs. That is why people with periodic illnesses—for there are cyclic, periodic abnormalities of the soul—when they once again leave their organism, often feel that they have capacities which they do not otherwise possess. This gives them great satisfaction, and when they then return to their physical body a certain awareness of what they have experienced remains with them; they can sometimes be very clear about themselves and what has happened.

During the first half of the nineteenth century a well-known physician, Willis, cured someone suffering from madness; that is, he brought him to a point at which he was once more capable of thinking sensibly about himself. And this person, who was intelligent, wrote a kind of review of his madness. If you take into account what I have just said, you will well understand what this intelligent individual wrote. His illness involved the freeing of all three higher components. He wrote ‘I expected my fits of insanity with impatience ... with bliss’. Remember, he awaited the moment of leaving his body with impatience because he knew he would then enjoy a kind of bliss.

‘Everything appeared easy to me. No obstacles presented themselves either in theory or practice. My memory acquired, all of a sudden, a singular degree of perfection ...’

Someone who understands these things can tell from this that the patient must otherwise have suffered from severe constipation, i.e. an abdominal condition, which led to a dulling of his memory. As soon as his ego tore itself free, his memory was again intact.

‘Long passages of Latin authors occurred to my mind. In general, I have great difficulty in finding rhythmical terminations, but then I could write verses with as great facility as prose.’

You see how exactly the patient described himself, and it is understandable that in a certain way he endeavoured to induce the abnormal state. This cannot actually be done, of course, but he was glad when it came, for it brought him voluptuous enjoyment.

This is the main difficulty in the case of psychological abnormalities for, subjectively, the patients have to be led from a happy to an unhappy state of mind, and so they are truly downcast about it. In their ordinary consciousness this is different, of course, but in their subconscious they are downcast if they are cured. Of course they go to the doctor and say they want to be cured; but subconsciously they do not, in reality, want to be cured. This is the difficulty. The freed component or components resist with all their might being torn away from the bliss they enter when they are freed. You see how, by looking at things in this way, we do justice to the material foundation of our physical existence, and yet we do not become materialists.

Take a person who is stupid to a greater degree than is apparent in external life. There are such people. Well, stupidity is only one stage on the way to a certain abnormality of soul: namely, imbecility. The cause is possibly that the otherwise bound etheric body is free because the brain is too compact and cannot achieve sufficient fluidity in the way it works. Perhaps this person shoots himself in the head without killing himself. Someone who knows what to look for might find that this is not a bad thing, as long as he had not done himself any other harm. For the resulting loosening of his compact brain might lead to his becoming clever. There are certainly known cases in which head wounds have led to people becoming more wide awake than they were before.

There is truly nothing in the physically-perceptible world as complicated as the nature of the human being. It is more complicated than anything else in the world. To understand man in his totality you have to view him in the way I have been describing. We have seen, for instance, that in the human being as he stands before us with his head, the activity of this head depends in some degree on the etheric body connecting up in the right way to it. Abnormal activity comes about if the etheric body is freed, if it is unbound. Because of the way the human being is normally organized with regard to his sense organs and the nerves of his brain, the etheric body can have a normal relationship with the ordinary environment. What man is as a result of the special connection between his etheric body and his head makes him into a human being like all others in his existence between birth and death in the physical world. If we had nothing else about us except the normal connection of our etheric body with our head, all human beings would be the same, and there would also be no way of feeling connected with that part of our being that is immortal. For our head brings to us the experiences we have in life between birth and death through our senses, through the nerves of the brain.

Consider this in connection with what I have said about the loss of the head during the course of reincarnation: What is now our head was in our previous incarnation our body, and what is now our body will become our head in our next incarnation. We know about this connection with our immortal part which runs through all births and deaths, even though without the wisdom of spiritual science this knowledge can only take the form of a belief. Through our head we can understand this connection, but we can only have this knowledge because we have the system of the spinal cord as an organ of our astral body. This is where those ideas and feelings are wrought which bring us into a mutual relationship with our immortal, our super-personal, part.

Everything we possess only for this life between birth and death is given to us through the earthly, solid element in our organism. On other occasions I have pointed out that there is indeed very little of the solid element in our make-up, of which ninety-five per cent consists, in fact, of fluid, of a pillar of fluid. The human being is a pillar of water containing only five per cent of solid ingredients. Yet only this solid element can be the bearer of our ordinary thoughts in physical life; and only in so far as we are permeated by the fluid element with its pulsation can we know about our super-personal part. And this fluid element with its pulsation is linked with the spinal system, which for the most part regulates this fluid element and its pulsation.

How all this is related to certain things I have described on other occasions, to the pulsating rise and fall of fluid between the abdomen and the brain, I shall discuss tomorrow, for at the moment it would take us too far from today's theme. Now, because the human being bears the fluid element within him he is linked with his super-personal part. But this fluid element also establishes his specific personality. If we had only heads, we would all think the same, feel the same. But because we also have hearts, the fluid element, blood and other juices in us, we are specific in some degree; for through this element the hierarchy of the angeloi can have a part in our being. The hierarchy of the angeloi can intervene in us via the fluid element.

A third possibility for intervening in our being is given because even with the normal working together of the higher components with the system of ganglia, it is possible for the airy element and everything connected with it to have an effect on us. This happens in the process of breathing. It is very complicated, and it varies depending on where we breathe, on how much oxygen, how much humidity, how much sun warmth is in the air and so on. It is the hierarchy of the archangeloi, the archangels, who work on us via the airy element. And everything that works in us from the hierarchy of the archangeloi—both those who have progressed normally and those who are retarded—works via the system of ganglia. Also this is the route by which the folk spirits work, for they belong to the hierarchy of the archangeloi. The work done by the folk spirits in the human being takes its effect through the organs which are connected with the system of ganglia. This is why nationality is something so far removed from consciousness, something that works in such a demonic way. And for the reasons I have pointed out it is linked so strongly with everything to do with locality. For the locality, the local climate, is far more closely connected with the working of the hierarchy of the archangeloi than one might imagine. Climate is nothing other than what works on the human being via the air.

So you see that by discussing the system of ganglia one is indicating how the impulses of all that belongs to the folk soul work in man's unconscious. You will now also understand why, more than one might ordinarily think, belonging to a particular nation is connected with certain characteristics which are linked to the system of ganglia. More than one might think, the problem of nationality has to be seen in relation to the problem of sexuality. Belonging to a nation has the same organic foundation—the system of ganglia—as the sexual element. Quite externally you can understand this when you remember that you belong to a nation by birth, that is, your body develops inside that of a mother who belongs to a particular nation. This of itself creates a link. So you see what subterranean soul foundations connect the problem of nationality with the problem of sexuality. That is why these two impulses in life manifest in such related ways. If your eyes are open to life you will see a tremendous amount of similarity between the way people behave in an erotic sense and the way they show their connection to their nationality. I am not speaking either for or against either of these things, but the facts are as I have described them. Arousal of a nationalistic kind, which works particularly strongly in the unconscious if it is not brought up into ego-consciousness by making it a question of karma as I described the other day, is very similar to sexual arousal. It is no good glossing over these things by making out that the emotional illusions and longings of national feeling are noble, while sexual feelings are rather less so. For the facts are as I have described them to you.

From all this you will see that a good amount of agreement can be reached amongst people in matters of the head, for in the head everyone is the same. If we consisted of heads only, we would understand one another famously. It is peculiar to say: If we consisted of heads only. But when life has brought one together with all kinds of people one grows accustomed to speaking in paradoxes such as this. In parenthesis, let me tell you that I once met quite an important Austrian poet who also entertained philosophical thoughts and was terribly worried about the way human beings were growing ever more and more intellectual. He said: People are growing more and more intellectual, so in the end the rest of their body will waste away and there will be nothing left but walking heads. He was quite serious.

If, as I said, we were heads, it would be easy for us to reach an understanding about all kinds of things. It is less easy to reach an understanding about matters which have to be comprehended via the tool of the spinal system. That is why people are embattled with regard to their view of the world, their religion and everything else they connect with what is super-personal. And there is no doubt at all that today they are embattled also with regard to everything for which the system of ganglia is the organ. By this I do not mean the external war; I mean the war that speaks in the language of hate against hate, for the external war need not necessarily have anything to do with all that is unfolding in such a terrible way in the form of hate against hate.

It is essential for people to become conscious of these things. Only if people can come to understand the nature of the human being will it be possible to find a way out of that chaos into which mankind has entered. Tomorrow we shall speak more about this chaos. But we must be clear about one thing: The knowledge and understanding we gain about the complicated nature of the human being must be filled with a mood that I described just now as an impersonal mood.

So far I have only described harmless, personal moods such as those in people who cannot cope with themselves, who go on and on about their heart, or one thing and another. But in the world at large we meet with less harmless moods, either personal or belonging to the egoism of a whole group. Occult knowledge is not always applied in a selfless manner, as you saw during our considerations over the past few weeks. We can certainly look more deeply into the impulses at work in human history if we have an understanding of the complexity of human nature. For what we can come to know with regard to the individual is connected in turn with all that happens between people, both on a one to one basis and also between the different groupings that come about during human evolution.

Now I told you that occult knowledge was used by certain secret brotherhoods in order to give a turn to events which would serve not general human aims but the egoistic aims of a particular group. I told you that certain secret brotherhoods entertained views about how Europe ought to be structured and how they could influence that structuring. Today I want to add to what has already been made plain something that has not yet been mentioned. I do this because it seems to me to be a good thing that once at least, in however small a circle, something is said which will certainly be made known in the future, just as the division of Austria has been made known in the note from the Entente to President Wilson. Those who knew about these things could have sketched the division of Austria as long ago as the nineties—I do not want to go back any further—on the basis of the maps I have already mentioned.

Whatever is made publicly known is only a fragment. It flows into external, exoteric affairs at a time when it is considered to be useful; but the rest, meanwhile, is held back. Truly, I say what I am now going to tell you not from the slightest political or inflammatory motive, but solely in order to let you have the facts. They do exist in the world. I am truly very far from wanting to worry anyone, or persuade anyone to believe anything in particular or be anxious about anything; for I am concerned only with knowledge. So let me sketch approximately part of the future map of Europe as it was worked out in those secret brotherhoods. So as not to take too long, my sketch will only be approximate. As I said, this is the form which such secret societies thought Europe should take at some point in the future. [The lecturer drew.]

First they turned their attention to the southern European Balkan confederation. This was to be a kind of bulwark against Russianism. Obviously, in the West, Russianism was considered to be the opposite pole, definitely not something with which to remain linked for ever, but something against which there would always be a need to fight. Since the intention was to weld together the present Kingdom of Italy with the Balkan Slavs and the southern Slavs at present belonging to Austria, this confederation would comprise a large part of the Apennine peninsula, the Italian-speaking part of Switzerland, the southern part of Austria, Croatia, Slavonia and Dalmatia. To this the northern part of Greece would be added. The confederation would also include Hungary and the Danube estuary. This would be the Balkan confederation. Next to this, eastwards, would be everything belonging to Russia in the wider sense. In the programme shown in these maps it was always—I mention this expressly—sharply stressed that however Poland might behave, it was a necessity of world history that the whole of this country should, whatever the circumstances, be returned to the Russian Empire. From the start the programme said that Poland, including the parts now belonging to Prussia, must once again be included in the Russian Empire. So according to the programme, the Russian Empire would include today's Poland, and also Galicia reaching beyond the Slovaks. The part that I am shading here would dip in like a peninsula. This would be Bukovina. [Drawing was continued].

Then would come France which, starting at the Rhine estuary, would cover the territory over as far as the Rhine and the French-speaking part of Switzerland and would be bounded here by the Pyrenees, and here something like this. Nothing much was said about the Scandinavian peoples. No doubt they have been granted a good long respite.

The rest would be: German-speaking Switzerland with Germany and the German parts of Austria. They would cover this area. And these coloured parts would fall more or less into the sphere of influence, however that may appear, of the British Empire: Holland, Belgiurn, the coast, Portugal, Spain, the lower part of Italy—we can speak about the islands another time—and the southern part of Greece.

So here we have a map for which the one we tried to draw on the board yesterday is clearly a kind of payment on account. The Central European part looks quite similar to that implied by the note from the Entente to Wilson. This is what was seen to be an ideal structure for Europe. I repeat yet again: This is not something remotely intended to influence anybody. All I want to show is that this structure for Europe, clearly traceable by me to the nineties, or even the eighties, was taught in certain secret societies.

The reasons for wanting to shape Europe like this were also always given. The ways and means—of course the reasons were eminently sensible—for achieving this structure for Europe were more or less described. We shall talk about this tomorrow. Just let me say that I am not making this up. It is something that lived as a powerful impulse in many heads, something that had to be brought about, something that would have to be brought about by every effort.

I know very well how ill will could easily maintain that it is improper, in consideration of a particular point, to say such things precisely here, of all places. But I do not want to be inflammatory, nor do I want to set up a picture of the future, either for those nations now at war or for those who are neutral. I have nothing to do with these things. I speak about them merely to show you the impulses which existed in those circles. What we have here is a picture of the future arising from endeavours to use certain impulses in the egoistic interests of a group. Those who are shocked to see what would disappear, might remind themselves that we are concerned with the tasks of mankind in general. Things which emanate from the egoistic interests of a group are obvious, and there is no need to regard them as fateful, as pending fate. What I do regard as fatal, however, is the attitude of hiding one's head in the sand, of simpfy refusing to recognize such facts because they are uncomfortable, with the excuse that such things ought not even to be thought because they might cause disquiet. Of course I know that it could be said: We should not speak about such things because they might upset people who are honestly striving to be neutral. But the foundations on which we stand ought to have enabled us to transcend this kind of upset by now. We should be capable of looking at what is really happening in the world. And when I say these things it is on the assumption that you are sensible enough to take them in the right way.

I pointed out yesterday how the spiritual components of man's being have their points of contact in his physical organism. Awareness of this will have to enter into the consciousness of mankind as a whole, for it is this knowledge that in truth must lead man to the light out of the darkness of today's materialism, which will last for a very, very long time. Never, though, must the thread of spiritual knowledge be lost entirely. At least a small group of human beings must always ensure that this does not happen. I have already shown how the true discoveries of material science—which anthroposophical spiritual science must certainly not fail to recognize—are put in the correct light when things are seen spiritually, especially the human being. The examples I started with yesterday can show you how the physical processes in the human being are fully recognized by spiritual science—only spiritual science recognizes what is spiritual and investigates how the spiritual element is anchored in the physical element, especially, in the first instance, in the human being.

Thus we avoided the pitfall of seeking the spiritual element solely in abstract concepts which are unable to deal with something that has been created by it, namely, the material world. What is spiritual must not live only in a Cloud-cuckoo-land floating above the material world. It must be so strong and intense that it can permeate the material element and show how spiritual it is and how it has been created by the spirit. Thus true spiritual knowledge must come to the possibility of understanding the material world and existence on the physical plane. It is important now, of all times, to pay attention to the interaction of spiritual and material elements in the human being, because now it is necessary properly to understand the intervention of something not material, namely, the folk soul, in the human being.

I said: Those things in everyday life which we think, feel and will—not as members of one group of people or another but as citizens of the earth—are bound to the solid, earthly element. Even though only five per cent of our body is made of this earthly element, I said that that in us which gives us in the world between birth and death our purely personal knowledge, will impulses and degrees of feeling, is bound to the mineral, solid element of the brain; that is where it has its point of contact. As soon as we progress to what leads us into super-personal or sub-personal realms, we can no longer count on conceptions which are brought to us by the solid element, for conceptions here are brought by the fluid element. And conceptions which take us so far into the super-personal or sub-personal realm that we come to the intervention of the archangeloi in our being are brought to us by the airy element. The airy element is the mediator between these archangel beings and their sphere and everything which the human being experiences in that very subconscious way I described yesterday.

Well over ninety per cent of our physical being is a pillar of water, a pillar of liquid, but this liquid element in the human being, of which very little account has so far been taken by natural science, is the main bearer of life in the human being. I have pointed out how the aeriform element works through the liquid element into the solid element which is anchored in the brain. We breathe in; because we breathe in a stream of air and fill our body with it, the organ we call the diaphragm is pushed down. In this sucking-in of the stream of air and everything that goes with it, down to the lowering of the diaphragm, is to be found that sphere in which the impulses emanating from the kingdom of the archangeloi work. Just as all this remains in the subconscious, so does the real manner of the folk soul's working remain in the subconscious. As I said by way of comparison yesterday, it surges up like waves, in a form that differs utterly from the way it lives down there in the depths. When the diaphragm is pushed downwards it, in a way, dams up the blood in the veins of the abdomen. This pushes the stream of cerebral fluid upwards through the spinal cord so that it pours into the brain, or rather round the solidified mass of the brain. So now, as a result of breathing in, the cerebral fluid is in the brain, has been pushed up. In the way these pulsations of the cerebral fluid work lie all the impulses that come into man from the sphere of the archangeloi, everything man can have in the way of conceptions and feelings which lift him into the realm of the super-personal or sub-personal, everything that connects him with the forces that reach beyond birth and death. And in the brain itself the cerebral fluid comes up against the solid element.

Parallel with this runs the process by which all our ideas and conceptions ebb and flow in the liquid element. These ideas and conceptions are spiritual entities which ebb and flow in the liquid element, and they appear as our everyday conceptions relating to the external world because they come up against the solid element and are mirrored back by this solid element into consciousness.

When we breathe out, a damming-up takes place in the blood vessels of the brain, and the cerebral fluid is pushed down through the spinal cord into the abdomen. There is room for it there because breathing out has raised the diaphragm. So thinking and having ideas and so on is not the mere brain process of which the sciences of anatomy and physiology dream today. What takes place in the brain is a mirroring-back by something solid, and this is connected with what is not mirrored but remains in the fluid element whence, via the detour of breathing, it regulates the influence of the aeriform element. This is also the detour via which everything is mediated to us which belongs to a particular climate, the local soil conditions of a particular terrain and all the other influences connected with breathing. That part of breathing which never enters our consciousness but remains lika an ocean swell, is where spiritual realities surge. Via the detour through the cerebral fluid the breathing process is connected with the brain.

Here you have a physical process belonging to the whole human being, described in such a way that you can recognize it as a revelation of the spirit which surrounds us everywhere, just as does air or humidity. This gives you, through a true understanding of physical processes, an insight into how his earthly surroundings, together with the spirit contained in them, work on man, and into how, as a being both spiritual and physical, man is embedded in his earthly environment, which is also spiritual and physical. The air, water and warmth which surround us are nothing other than bodies for the spirit, just as our muscles and nerves are bodies for the spirit.

I am presenting you with these things now because they show how human life is founded on processes which are not at all obvious to present-day science. It will be the task of the fifth post-Atlantean period to raise these processes to the level of true knowledge. During the course of the fifth post-Atlantean period this realization must enter into everything we do—in teaching, in education generally and in the whole of external life. It must, in due course, be recognized that what is seen as science in materialistic circles today will gradually have to disappear from the life of the earth, together with all the consequences it has for life. All the battles still to be won in the fifth post-Atlantean period will be no more than an external expression of a spiritual battle, just as, in the final analysis, the present battle is an external expression of the confrontation between materialism and spiritual life. Hidden though these things are, behind today's infinitely sad events lies the battle of materialism against spiritual life. This battle will have to be fought to the end. It will take various forms, but it must be fought to the end because human beings must learn to bear everything they need to bear in order to achieve the spiritual view necessary for the sixth post-Atlantean period. It may be said that there must be much suffering, but only out of pain and suffering can arise what truly binds knowledge to our self. For the other side of the coin is that connected with the materialistic view of the world, is the materialistic way of life, which is only beginning today but which will take on infinitely more terrible forms.

The materialistic way of life began when science became willing to recognize only what is material. It has already led to a stage at which people are prepared, in life, too, to accept only what is material. This will be taken much, much further and will become far more intense. For the fifth post-Atlantean period must be lived to the end. In all areas it must reach a kind of climax. For spirituality needs its opposite pole if it is to recognize itself with the intensity that will be needed if mankind is to step with maturity into the sixth post-Atlantean period.

So do not shy away from following the spiritual guidelines offered as a possibility for comprehending the external facts of the world. For it is the prime task and duty of all those who strive spiritually to comprehend the course of human evolution up to the present and also to understand the likely evolution of the future in spiritual directions. We have often spoken of our inheritance from the fourth post-Atlantean period which ended in the fifteenth century, and of the fact that it is the task of the fifth post-Atlantean period to develop to the full the consciousness soul.

Now it is precisely the consciousness soul which will unite man intimately with all material events and everything belonging to materialism. We have seen how, in the fourth post-Atlantean period, from the eighth century BC right up to the fifteenth century AD, the Greco-Latin element gradually came to dominate the world, first in what is usually called the Roman Empire and later in the Roman Papacy which reached the climax of its dominance during the thirteenth and the beginning of the fourteenth centuries. This is at the same time the beginning of the fifth post-Atlantean period. It coincided with the first breaking of Roman Papal dominance. It is also the beginning of those impulses whose influence has brought about the present sad events. In the end no one can understand what is going on today without taking a wider view. For really all the peoples of Europe have contributed their share to the sad events of today's Europe. Those who want to understand things must necessarily turn their attention to impulses which have been in preparation for a long time and which today are being given a kind of first chance to show themselves.

So today we shall bring together what can be seen far in the future with things that are close at hand. First let us remember the description I gave of how the southern peoples, the Italian and Spanish peoples and the various kingdoms they have brought forth, represent a kind of after-effect of the third post-Atlantean period—of course, with the inclusion of the overall heritage of the fourth period. You need only follow the whole structure of Italian-Spanish development as it took place at the turn of the fourth to the fifth post-Atlantean period, in order to see that it still included what was directly justified in the third, the Egypto-Chaldean period. You can see this especially in the way in which, emanating from Rome and Spain, a religion spread which was borrowed from the cults of Egypt and Chaldea. In this you have the continued existence of what had been left behind in Egypt and Chaldea, and this reached its climax in the thirteenth century.

Papal supremacy emanated from the South and reached its climax in the thirteenth century. In order to describe it in a way which is meaningful today and which fits the facts, we should have to say that this papal supremacy, which covered and dominated the whole of European culture, was essentially the ecclesiastical element of cultus and hierarchy. This ecclesiastical element of cultus and hierarchy, which was a transformation of ancient Rome into the Roman Catholicism which streamed into Europe, is one of the impulses which continue to work like retarded impulses throughout the whole fifth post-Atlantean period, but especially in its first third. You could, I might add, work out how long this is going to last. You know that one post-Atlantean period lasts approximately 2,160 years. One third of this is 720 years. So starting with the year 1415, this takes the main period to the year 2135. Therefore the last waves of hierarchical Romanism will last into the beginning of the third millennium. These are echoes in which the impulses of the fourth post-Atlantean period assert themselves in the forms of the third post-Atlantean period. But many things work side by side at the same time, so there are other impulses working together with these. Roman Catholicism had its actual climax in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.

Let us now see how it continues. We have to distinguish the way it worked up to the thirteenth century—when it was, you might say, justified, because that was still the fourth post-Atlantean period—and what then followed, when it began to assume the character of a retarded impulse. It seeks to spread. But how? For it certainly spreads significantly. We see that the form of the state, which gradually matures in the new age, is more or less saturated with this Roman Catholicism. We see that the English state as it begins to grow at the beginning of the fifth post-Atlantean period is at first entirely in the hands of this Roman Catholicism. We see how France and the rest of Europe are entirely in the grip of this Roman element of hierarchy and cultus in so far as their ideas and cultural life are concerned. To characterize this impetus we would have to say that there is an impulse on the part of Rome to permeate, to saturate the culture of Europe with this hierarchical ecclesiastical element right up to the bulwark it has itself created in eastern Europe. But it is noteworthy that an impulse like this, if it is a retarded impulse, takes on an external character. It no longer has the strength to develop any inner intensity, but becomes external in character. It spreads out widely on the surface but has no strength to go into its own depths. So we see the strange phenomenon of Roman hierarchism spreading further and further afield yet, in the countries at its core, being unable to give any inward strength, thus depriving its own population of inwardness.

See how such things start. Everywhere Romanism spreads in all shapes and forms, whereas in Italy itself, in Spain, the population is hollowed out. Just think what an extraordinary Christianity lived in Italy when the Papacy was at the height of its glory. It was the Christianity against which the thunderous words of Savonarola were directed. For in isolated individuals, such as Savonarola, the Christ impulse was alive; but these individuals felt impelled to grind official Christianity into the dust. A history telling of what happened at the point from which Christianity rayed forth would have to say: The power of the Roman church element rayed forth, but the Christian souls at the point from which this happened were hollowed out. This could be proved in detail. It is an important truth: Something raying out destroys its own inner core. This is how life goes. Like a human being growing old and using up his forces, so do cultural phenomena, when they spread, use up their own being and hollow themselves out.

On earlier occasions I have shown how the French state was in a certain way a recapitulation of the fourth post-Atlantean period in the fifth. Here we now have a second case of raying forth. For the southern element we used the expression ‘ecclesiastical element of cultus and hierarchy’ to describe something that strove to found a universal monarchy of the church, a theocracy of Europe. Now we shall endeavour to find an expression to describe that cultural element which bears the culture of the intellectual- or mind-soul from the fourth post-Atlantean period up into the fifth. An expression encompassing all the historical elements, an expression which fits the facts and describes the reality of what is brought into the fifth post-Atlantean period, if we have the good will to find it, would have to be: the universal diplomatic element. Everything connected with this universal diplomatic element is also connected with what grew out of the French state element. It is not for nothing that the French language is the language of diplomacy, even today. Every historical trend is illuminated in detail when you discover that just as the universal theocratic element rays out from Rome and Spain, so the universal diplomatic element rays out from Paris.

And it is remarkable that just as with the Spanish-Italian element—though to a lesser degree because the element being brought forward is less ancient—so also, in the case of the French element, the raying forth is accompanied at its source by a hollowing out. It is particularly interesting to view history in the light of this. Take the way in which great French statesmen, such as Richelieu or Mazarin, inaugurate and carry on world diplomacy by translating old impulses into the diplomatic, political element. The servants of Louis XIV think on a European, not a French, scale and see themselves as the obvious leaders of Europe as regards the diplomatic, the universal, diplomatic element. One element, one impulse, always absorbs the other. It is not for nothing that cardinals practised in politics and diplomacy surround the King of France when the French state is at its zenith.

Studying that time particularly in the history of France, we find that the very concern which sends diplomacy all over Europe withdraws from its own country infinitely great forces in the realm of economics, finance, and also culture in general, hollowing it out down to the fine details. To see things this way, they must, of course, not be viewed in the light of national prejudices, but in all truth, objectively and impartially. This hollowing out is also the source of that uprising of the people into the element of revolution which leads to the exact opposite of what would be the most suitable for the French state: monarchy. In the Spanish-Italian realm there is no parallel to this Revolution, for the reasons I have already given. Yet it is precisely this Revolution which shows how strangely this contrast works in the French element, this contrast between concern for European diplomacy and the lesser concern for one's own country.

For we must not forget that the fifth post-Atlantean period was accompanied by the spread of civilization and culture across the whole earth, which went with the discovery of hitherto unknown regions. We see how, as a matter of course, those states which border the ocean build up their navies. French diplomacy spreads its concern over the whole earth, and at the same time—you can follow this in the various trends of history—the French navy begins to blossom; but this has its opposite in what rages uncared-for within and then comes to expression in the Revolution. It is notable that the more the Revolution proceeds, the more the French navy is neglected. You can observe how, during the build-up to the French Revolution, France's sea power grows ever smaller as her navy is totally neglected.

This has a significant consequence. When the French element withdraws once again from the revolutionary age and returns to what is more suited to it—the emperorship of Napoleon—there develops in the person of Napoleon that significant opposition to the third element, that element which is now suitable for the fifth post-Atlantean period, the opposition of France against England. This had been in preparation for a long time but in the person of Napoleon it took on quite a new character that differed greatly from the character it had had before.

What is most remarkable in all the waves created by Napoleonism? If you investigate what lived in Europe with regard to Napoleon, you find the important opposition between Napoleon and England. But Napoleon lacked something which was missing in the heritage of the Revolution, something which had to be lacking—I speak of a historical necessity—but which he would have needed so that the second element could have asserted itself against the third, the French against the English, namely: a navy! Hypotheses are only justified in connection with history as tools for understanding, but they can indeed make a great contribution. So let us make a hypothesis: If Napoleon had had a navy which he could have joined to those of other countries with which he was allied, he would not have been defeated at sea by England and the whole of history would have taken a different course. But the Revolution had not given him a navy. Here we see the mutual limitation of the two elements, those of the third and the fourth post-Atlantean periods, as they rise up into the fifth.

Now we come to the third element, the one which corresponds to the fifth post-Atlantean period and has the task of bringing into being the culture of the consciousness soul: the English, the British element. The sentient soul element, brought into culture by the Italian-Spanish sphere, expresses itself in the theocratic element of the cultus—the sentient soul does not live in consciousness. Similarly the political and diplomatic element corresponds to the French sphere. And now in the British sphere we have the commercial and industrial element, in which the human soul lives fully and entirely in the material world of the physical plane. But we must make clear an important difference. The Papacy could only pretend to world dominance for one particular reason.

Here [the lecturer drew] is the fourth post-Atlantean period. Now comes the first element, A, of the fifth post-Atlantean period, the papal, hierarchical element. It strives for a kind of universal monarchy because in a certain way it is the continuation of the universal Roman Empire.

Here, B, is the culture of the intellectual or mind soul. It also strives for something universal, but it is something universal that is very much in the realm of ideas. The most important consequence of the spread of the French element are not the conquests, which are merely side-effects, but the saturation of the world with the political spirit, with political, diplomatic thinking and feeling—that diplomatic, political thinking found not only in French diplomacy and politics, but also in literature and even the other aspects of French artistic life. A universal monarchy in connection with this could only be described as a kind of universal dream. And the way in which France marched in the forefront of civilization is a very exact expression of this dream.

In contrast, we now come to the third element, C. This, in harmony with the whole of the fifth post-Atlantean period, which has the task of bringing to expression the consciousness soul, is what corresponds to the British element, the special bearer of the consciousness soul in the age which is to develop especially the consciousness soul. Hence the pretension of the British element to universal commercial and industrial world dominance.

My dear friends, things which have their foundation in the spiritual world will run their course. They will, with all certainty, run their course. Do not imagine that you can moralize or theorize about this. They will run their course and become fact. Nobody need believe, therefore, that the mission of the British people will not—out of inner necessity—become fact: namely, the mission to found a universal commercial and industrial monarchy over the whole earth. The pretensions emerge as realities. These things have to be recognized as lying in world karma. And what people express and what they think is only a revelation of spiritual forces behind the scenes. So nobody should believe that British politics will ever be morally reformed and withdraw, out of consideration for the world, from the pretension to dominate the world industrially and commercially. Therefore we need not be surprised either that those who understand these things have founded societies whose sole aim is to realize such aims by the use of means which are also spiritual means.

This is where the forbidden interplay begins. For obviously occult principles, occult means and occult impulses are not permissible as promoters, as driving forces, especially in the fifth post-Atlantean period, which ought to be a purely materialistic civilization. The moment occult impulses work behind the spread of this purely materialistic culture, things become questionable. Yet, as I have shown you, this is what is happening. There are those who want to foster world dominance not only with the forces available on the physical plane, but also with the impulses of occultism, the impulses which lie in the world of the invisible. But these occult means are not used to work for the good of mankind in general but only for the good of a group. If you see the connection between such encompassing viewpoints, given to you from deeper knowledge, and everyday events, you will thoroughly understand a great deal.

There are still plenty of praiseworthy idealists—this is not meant as any kind of mockery, for idealism is always praiseworthy, even when it errs—who believe that the network of commercial and industrial measures, which has been spread by the British Empire over various countries, can only last as long as the war, and that after that people will once more be free to go about their own commercial business. Apart from a few illusions which will be raised by creating some interregnum or other, or by some other means to prevent people from becoming suspicious, all the measures that have been set up during this war to control commercial traffic throughout the world are not intended as something that will disappear once the war is over, but as something which is only beginning with the help of the war and will then continue. The war merely provides the opportunity for noses to be poked into business records. But do not imagine that this poking of noses into business records will cease after the war. I am speaking symbolically to describe something that will take place on the widest scale. What I mean is that commercial world dominance will become more and more thorough.

I am not saying all this in order to be inflammatory, but simply in order to show you what, out of the impulses of world history, really is the case. Only by recognizing what is really the case can people learn to conduct themselves appropriately. That is no doubt why that map of the European world turned out in the way I showed you on the blackboard yesterday. Let me repeat: I have traced this map back to the eighties of the nineteenth century. How far back it goes beyond that I do not know. I state only what I know, only what I can assert with certainty. That is why I have said nothing about the Scandinavian countries, since I do not know whether any plans have been made for them too. I limit myself strictly to what I know, and wish to stress this particularly on this occasion, though it is a principle which I follow on every occasion.

Further, this map—that is, this rearrangement of European affairs—has the tendency to serve the formation of a universal commercial monarchy. Europe is to be arranged in such a way that a universal commercial monarchy can be founded. I am not saying that this is to happen by tomorrow. But you can see that part payments are already being demanded. Only compare the most recent note to Wilson with the map of Europe, and there you have it. Nothing is said as yet about Switzerland. This payment on account will be demanded later. But as the demands appear one by one they will correspond to the map I drew yesterday.

The division of Europe shown there is suited to the founding of commercial world dominance. Study the details of this map and you will see that it is well conceived as a basis for founding what I have just said. I said: commercial world dominance. There is no need actually to possess all the territories, for it is quite sufficient to arrange them in such a way that they fall into one's sphere of influence. It is also very cleverly arranged so that at first those very regions will be drawn into the sphere of influence which I yesterday coloured yellow, as being the ones to be claimed as British: the peripheral territories. Indeed, in order to leave the others a little longer in the warm glow of a certain idealism, it is possible to arrange things in such a way that one practises the commercial domination oneself while leaving the others to play about with territories for a little longer. But the spheres of influence will be established as the drawing shows. It is quite irrelevant whether in the year 1950 there will be a Belgium, or a France extending right up to the border. The important thing is what power Belgians have in Belgium, or the French in France, and what power the British have in Belgium or France. In order to found commercial world dominance it is not necessary to actually possess the territories. What we must be clear about is that this world dominance is to be commercial and industrial. This is the basis for something extremely important.

I should, though, have to give a whole series of lectures if I needed to prove these things to you in detail. This would be perfectly possible, for the things I am saying can be proved very profoundly. Today, however, I can only draw an outline. In order to found a commercial and industrial world dominance, the first thing to do is to divide the main region into two parts. This has to do with the nature of commercial and industrial affairs. I can only explain this by using an analogy: Whatever takes place on the physical plane always requires a splitting into two parts.

Imagine a teacher without any pupils; there is no such thing. In the same way there cannot be a commercial empire without another region which is its counterpart. Therefore if a British commercial empire is founded, then a Russian opposite pole must be founded too. So that a differentiation can arise between buying and selling, so that the necessary circulation can come about, two regions are needed. If the whole world were to be made into a unified realm, it would be impossible to found a universal commercial realm. It is not quite the same, but similar to saying that if you produce something you need a buyer, otherwise you cannot produce. So this twofold split is necessary. And the fact that this has been initiated as a major trend is a great—indeed, a gigantic—conception on the part of those secret brotherhoods of which I have spoken. To create this contrast is a conception of universal proportions, against which everything else pales into insignificance: this contrast, between the British commercial empire on the one hand and, on the other, all that emanates from the Russian sphere involving, through their spiritual capacities, preparations for the sixth post-Atlantean period, together with everything I have described to you. It is a great, gigantic, admirable conception of these secret brotherhoods about whom we have spoken. Put simply, it is hardly possible to imagine a better opposite pole for what has developed in the West—namely, the supreme flowering of commercial and industrial thought—than the future Russian Slav who in times to come is sure to be even less inclined than he is today to occupy himself professionally with commercial matters, and who, just because of this, will be an excellent polar opposite.

A commercial empire of this kind will, of course, have to state its own terms. Profound thought on the part of Spencer, and even his predecessor, led them to stress repeatedly: The industrial and commercial element which suffuses a nation does not want to have anything to do with war; it is for peace, it needs peace and loves peace. It is absolutely true: There will indeed be a deep love between the element striving towards commerce and industry and the element striving towards peace in the world. Only this love for peace can sometimes adopt bizarre forms, as witness the present note to Wilson, which certainly contains something peculiar.

Look at what happens to Austria in this map, which is drawn exactly in accordance with the note. Yet this note dares to express something else as well: The common political unity living in the nations of Central Europe is not to be touched in any way. Well, this too is ‘gigantic’, a gigantically frivolous game with the truth. Usually untruths are not actually put down on paper, but here we have one note which says two different things: We shall dismember the middle realm, but we shall, of course, do it no harm. There is an accompanying chorus from the newspapers too. They write: Let us see whether the Central Powers will agree to these acceptable terms. Everywhere we read: The Entente Powers have stated their terms; now we shall see whether these terms, which ought to be eminently acceptable to the Central Powers, are bluntly rejected or not. Things have come a long way, have they not! For such things are there for all to read.

Now let us see where the thought leads us. We are dealing here with a splitting of the world into two parts, and those concerned are interested in achieving this in such a way that they can say to the world: We want peace, we stand only for peace. The recipe they are following is one which is behind much that is written today. It is like saying: I shall not touch you, I shall not harm a hair of your head, but I shall lock you in a deep dungeon and not give you anything to eat! Have I done anything to you? Could anyone maintain that I have harmed even a single hair of your head?

Many things are shaped in accordance with this recipe. Even the love for peace, despite the fact that it is a reality, is shaped in accordance with it. But if this love for peace is paired with a pretension to commercial world dominance it becomes unacceptable for the other side and it is utterly impossible to apply it. And so the peace-loving commercial empire is sure to find itself in future somewhat disturbed in its love for peace. This is, of course, known to those who divide the world into two parts, and so they need a rampart in between. This rampart is to take the form of the great southern European confederation which also comprises Hungary and everything else I mentioned yesterday. This is supposed to make for peace. Through the sphere of influence I have hinted at, the manner in which the British Empire is behaving towards the Mediterranean shows that it can quite easily give the southern European confederation Constantinople, as well as all kinds of other things. For they cannot go further than the Mediterranean, since the West, if it so wishes, can blockade the Mediterranean at any time.

In short, you can follow in every detail the gigantic, splendid thought on which this map is based. We have not enough time today to go through everything in detail. But it is a gigantic, splendid thought to leave only the southern ports which lead to the Mediterranean open for France, whilst keeping the others under one's own sphere of influence. This means, basically, that the French Empire, which France was anyway only able to found under the protection of the others, becomes an illusion, and can also be included in one's sphere of influence. If you follow all this, you will see in how gigantic a manner is to be realized—out of what belongs to the culture of the consciousness soul—what these occult schools are striving to achieve.

Those things which correspond to certain impulses do come to pass. For necessity governs world history and world evolution. These things do come to pass. But they come to pass in such a way that forces really do mutually affect one another. Just as there can never be positive without negative electricity; where opposites work on one another with varying intentions—so is it also in the events of human history. Therefore we must be careful, when we turn our attention to such things, to apply judgement that is free of moralizing. This also saves us from asking: Why must such a thing happen? For in the mission of one element or another is included the fact that things develop which must develop. And the adversary, the opposite pole must also exist: namely, something that resists whatever it is that wants to come about. This also must exist. So if we now once again take a wide view of all these things, we shall see something working in from the periphery which we have characterized as these three elements.

First let us return to the centre. Our concern here is that the adversary, the opposite pole should be there, so that a kind of brake can always be applied. This brake is just as necessary as the other element. And I blame one as little as I praise the other. I am simply describing the impulses and the facts. I have not the least inclination to pronounce a morally disparaging judgement on something I am describing as a necessity arising out of the whole character of the fifth post-Atlantean period. There is nothing bad about giving the world a materialistic, industrial, commercial culture, for this is a necessity. But the opposite pole must exist, too, for human evolution cannot proceed in a straight line. Opposing forces must clash with one another, and in this clash reality evolves. In Central Europe a collection of impulses has always of necessity existed, some of which worked with those streaming to the periphery in the way I have already described, while others had what was in many ways the tragic destiny of working in opposition to these.

These forces certainly stream outwards from Central Europe and make themselves felt elsewhere in many ways. But if you look closely you will find also in Central Europe the forces that oppose those I have described. Consider, for instance, that the first opposition to the theocratic, cultic element of the Spanish and Italian South came from Central Europe. It reached a certain climax in Luther and its greatest profundity in the mysticism of Central Europe. Not only German elements worked here, for mingled in the Central European stream were also Slav elements. Here there was a desire not for the Christianity of the Papal hierarchy, but for precisely that inwardness that had been hollowed out in the South. Savonarola was, after all, simply executed. This inwardness lived in the Czech, John Huss, and in Wyclif who stemmed from the Germanic element in England, and in Zwingli, and in Luther. Its more profound element is to be found in the mysticism of Central Europe, which, by the way, is very close to the Slav element. Precisely these relationships show how things fulfil themselves in a remarkable way. For Central Europe backed up by the Slav element is, in this, certainly an opponent of the periphery. So although they are in many aspects still disunited politically, Central European influences and Slav influences work together. In an occult sense, too, they work together fundamentally in a wonderful way.

We see how a certain materialistic element develops more and more in the South, reaching a peak in such people as Lombroso. We see this materialistic element setting the tone elsewhere in the periphery, as well. Right up to Oliver Lodge, about whom we spoke recently, we see materialism projecting itself into spiritual life. But on the other hand we also see how this is opposed by something which emancipates itself—to start with, from the Roman, hierarchical element. In this, Copernicus, the Pole, stands behind Kepler, the archetypal German; in this, Slav spirits, in particular, stand behind those who are German spirits. Indeed I could say: On the physical plane we see links between what is Central European and what is Slav; Huss, the Czech, Copernicus, the Pole—others might just as easily be named—these form a link stretching across the physical plane. We see, too, how in Central Europe the Slav element joins with the German element—we see the eastern European Slav element growing together with Europe. This, though, we only see when we consider the occult situation.

Let me give only one example: The soul of Galileo lives again in the Russian Lomonosov, and the Russian Lomonosov is in many ways the founder of Slav culture in the East. In between these two lies the spiritual world, so that we might say: The Central European Slavs are still linked with the people of the West on the physical plane; what lies behind this is linked with the people of the West via the higher plane.

This fits entirely with the fact that the Russian element follows the Slav element; but it also fits with the situation in which the western Slav element must be thought of as having a relationship to Western Europe differing from that of the eastern Slav element. Therefore, only those who do not think in accordance with human evolution as a whole, but solely in accordance with the English-speaking Empire, will want to assimilate Poland in the Russian Empire.

This point in particular gives an example of the difference between the kind of thinking which is concerned only with a particular group and that other kind of thinking which is concerned with the good of mankind as a whole. The thinking which is concerned with the good of mankind as a whole could never include the territory of Poland in the Russian Empire. For in a remarkable way it is precisely the western Slavs with their profoundest characteristics who belong to Central Europe. I cannot speak today about the checkered destiny of the Polish people. But I just want to say that the spiritual culture of the Polish people found one of its culminations in the Polish messianic movement—let everybody think what they like about this reality—which, out of the substance of the Polish people contains spiritual feelings and spiritual ideas belonging to mankind as a whole. We are speaking here, in a way, about that Gnostic element which corresponds to one of the three soul components which are to flow from the western Slavs to Central Europe.

The second element lies in the Czech people to whom—not for nothing—John Huss belongs. Here is the second soul component inserted into Central Europe out of the Slav element. And the third component is from the southern Slavs. These three soul components push westwards like three cultural peninsulas and most certainly do not belong to the eastern European Slav element. Externally, on the physical plane, by means of political marriages, but inwardly by means of what I have just been explaining, this Austria has come about whose purpose it is to amalgamate German and western Slav peoples precisely so that the western Slavs can unfold in accordance with their own impulses. This has nothing to do with any principle of dominance! Anyone who has known Austria in the second half of the nineteenth century will regard as utterly ridiculous what is said in the present note to Wilson about Austria and a certain principle of dominance. Of course the situation is difficult. But anyone familiar with the history of Austria in the nineteenth century knows how possibilities were sought which would enable any Slav people, indeed any nationality whatever, to develop absolutely freely in Austria.

However, all kinds of things are contained in this note. You need only glance at an elementary history textbook to see that the territories Italy is now demanding from Austria have never been under Italian rule. Yet the note says: The Italians are demanding the return of territories which once belonged to them.

But truth is not the concern of this note, for its aim is to say what it wants to say while counting on it that the magical power of modern journalism has persuaded people to believe everything. And you can certainly often count on this. The power of journalism is indeed one of the means on which certain societies count. Just because Austria has been preparing—as it were, beneath the surface—for the mission about which I have spoken, she has always been an opponent, an opposite pole, to any Freemasonry of the kind which has developed in the West in the way I have been describing over the last few weeks. Freemasonry has never been allowed to enter Austria. Its presence begins to be felt to some extent—but merely in the way I have described—only beyond the river Leitha.

Of course there are also other impulses which, as you have seen, are the cause for some degree of leniency, so that the peoples of Central Europe will not be utterly destroyed politically. The war aims, and also the peace initiatives which are at present being made, are in accord with this. But the fact that Austria herself is being attacked so viciously is in part explained by the enmity that has always existed between Austria and western European Freemasonry, right from the days of Maximilan I. It is disguised in various ways, of course, and what I am now saying is easily proved wrong, just because on the physical plane things are disguised, are masked.

So we see how Central Europe has to put up a fight on behalf of mankind, for it is the pole which opposes the impulses coming from the West. This brings it about that the evolution of Central Europe does not proceed in a straight line. It fluctuates, for Central Europe always has to take up and bring to a certain climax, a certain intensity, whatever there is by way of opposition to any of the impulses coming from the West. Take the hierarchical, theocratic impulse. While a kind of Christianity is carried into Europe on the waves of the hierarchical, theocratic impulse, opposition begins to build up as early as the twelfth century. Read Walther von der Vogelweide, that great Central European poet, and you will find he opposes the Roman Papacy and indeed everything Roman. What later reaches a climax in Huss, in Luther, in Zwingli and so on, is already hinted at by Walther von der Vogelweide. Then you also find what is developing as a more inward Christianity, parallel with that of the periphery but inwardly intimate, in Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival epic.

There, at the very beginning of the fifth post-Atlantean period, you have opposition against the theocratic, hierarchical, Roman element emanating from Spain and Italy. This opposing pole works in such an extraordinary way that intimate inwardness is never denied. It remains. It is confiscated from the principle of power and fashioned into the opposing pole.

I am neither praising the one nor blaming the other, for I am simply quoting facts. After the hierarchical, theocratic principle came the diplomatic, political principle. It is carried over in all its forms and in all its side manifestations. Here, some historical details are interesting. Something that is often said in historical textbooks is not actually correct: namely, that the invention of gunpowder was the origin of modern military forces, in contrast to the armies of the age of chivalry in the Middle Ages. A much more important factor came into play when, at the beginning of modern times in Europe, the barter economy of the Middle Ages was replaced by a currency economy, so that those in power came to be administrators of money, which had formerly not been the case. Until then, barter had been much more to the fore, with money playing only a minor role. The currency economy led to the development of mercenary armies that were no longer compatible with the armies of the age of chivalry which had been adapted to the barter economy of the Middle Ages.

This modern military organization started in Switzerland. The Swiss were the first soldiers in the modern sense of the fifth post-Atlantean period. You can follow this in history: It was just because the Swiss became such efficient soldiers that they were able to win all those battles they had to win in order to create a Switzerland which would later be able to withstand the assaults of chivalry. I am speaking to the Swiss amongst us. Basically the Swiss with their armies are the primary, the real, conquerors of chivalry. Chivalry was overcome in Switzerland. It was from Switzerland alone that the rest of Europe learnt how to use their armies of infantry to overcome the armies of chivalry. Study history, and you will find that this is true.

Now let us proceed in history to Napoleon. Why were Napoleon's soldiers and armies superior to those of Central Europe? It was because Central Europe was still working, at the time of Napoleon, not with Swiss soldiers of course, but with the Swiss military principle, whereas Napoleon had under his command a real national army born out of the French nation itself. You will appreciate this if you follow the battles between the Central Europeans and Napoleon in the right way. How the generals of the Central European armies had to keep a hold on their mercenaries—for that is what they really were—even inside their barracks! Thus they never had the possibility of a strategy of long battle lines. Napoleon is the first to be able to use long battle lines because the French army at his disposal is a national army born of the people. When strategy necessitated a wide distribution of his forces, he did not need to worry that the men might desert. The Prussian general, on the other hand—for instance during the famous campaigns of Frederick the Great—was constantly concerned that a troop dispatched to a distant spot would desert, for his was not a national army but a crowd collected and sometimes coerced from all quarters; they came from all over the place, including quite foreign parts. The national army was invented in France, and this meant that Central Europe, starting with Prussia, also established national armies modelled on that of France. The Central European national armies came into their own when they assumed a French character.

So we see how even in this field things work parallel with the periphery. When it is a matter of armies, obviously the opposition takes the form of waging war. This is not the point I want to make, however, for I want to lead on to a similar contrast in another field.

So far we have seen that the hierarchical, theocratic, Roman character met its opposition in Central Europe in everything that culminated in the Reformation. The diplomatic, French character made its way into Central Europe up to the time of Frederick the Great, right into the eighteenth century. Lessing was still in a position to debate whether he might, indeed, write Laokoon in French. Read the published correspondence of the eighteenth century. In Central Europe people wrote excellent French and poor German. The French element flooded the whole of Central Europe. We can say that what the Reformation had done to what came up from the South, Lessing, Herder, Goethe and those who came after them did in relation to the French, diplomatic element. Here, in Central European literature, Goethe, Schiller, Herder and Lessing emancipate themselves from the West, just as, in the Reformation, Central European Christianity emancipated itself from the South. But this process of separation goes hand in hand with one of combination. In his youth, Lessing still wrote a great deal in French. Leibniz wrote the whole of his philosophy, apart from what he wrote in Latin, in French, not German. In both these fields there was at the same time a working together and a standing in opposition. It is quite correct to summarize as follows: The South and Central Europe—opposition; the West and Central Europe—opposition.

With the third element, the British, it is the same. At first there is some kind of a parallel course. This is expressed especially in the fact that, from the eighteenth century and during the course of the nineteenth century, the great Shakespeare becomes a thoroughly German poet, for he is totally absorbed into German culture. He is not merely translated, he is totally assimilated and lives in the spiritual life of the German nation. For obvious reasons, I do not want to say that he still lives more in the spiritual life of the German nation than in that of the British nation. But look at the whole development, starting with Elias Schlegel, who first translated Shakespeare into German, and on to Lessing's subtly spiritual penetration into the spirit of Shakespeare; the enthusiasm for Shakespeare felt by the German Naturalists of the eighteenth century, and also by Goethe; the absolutely outstanding—not translations—assimilations into German of Shakespeare by Schlegel and Tieck, and so on, right up to the present. Shakespeare lives in the German nation. When I went to Vienna and sat in on the literary history lectures in addition to my scientific studies, the first I heard were by Schröer, who announced he would be speaking about the three greatest German poets, Schiller, Goethe and Shakespeare! Of course Shakespeare has not been captured in the sense that it is claimed that he is actually German. But this one example shows how standing in opposition can at the same time take the form of an absolute working together.

Thus it was with regard to the diplomatic, political, French element. And so it happened also with regard to the British element. At the same time the opposite pole must be present as well. The third element has not yet found a form in Central Europe. The first was all that led to the Reformation; this was in opposition to the southern, hierarchical element. The West is opposed by what culminated in Goethe's Faust. And what we now hope for in Central Europe is the development of the element of spiritual science. In consequence there will arise the sharpest opposition between Central Europe and the British realm, an opposition even sharper than that of Lessing, Goethe and their successors, with regard to the diplomatic, French element. Thus, what took place between us and the followers of Mrs Besant and so on, was no more than a prelude. These things must be seen from wide points of view.

I hope you know me well enough not to think that I speak out of any petty vanity when I say certain things. But I do believe that the great opposition is to be found between what works with experiments on the physical plane—even to proving the existence of the spirit—on the one hand, and on the other hand what in the human soul longs to rise up to the spiritual world. There is no need for anything as coarse as the declaration of an Alcyone as the actual physical Christ, for the more subtle descriptions by Sir Oliver Lodge would be quite sufficient. One senses what is intended. Well, I suppose there is no harm in saying these things. There is indeed a kind of opposition between two things that came into being more or less simultaneously when, on the one hand, Sir Oliver Lodge pointed to the spiritual world in a materialistic way, while at the same time I was writing my book Vom Menschenrätsel, in which I endeavour, in a totally Central European manner, to point to the paths which are being taken in Central Europe by the human soul to the world of the spirit. There is no greater contrast than that between the book by Oliver Lodge and the book Vom Menschenrätsel. They are absolute opposites; it is impossible to conceive of any greater contrast.

This very clear differentiation only began more or less at the commencement of the fifth post-Atlantean period. Before that, things were still rather different. At first the universal Roman realm exercised its power, even as far as England, and the sharp differentiation between England and France only really came to the fore with the appearance of the Maid of Orleans. But then everything began, everything which was to happen within the context of these differentiations. The remarkable thing is that, even within this context, the impulse appears which says that a link ought to be created with the opposite pole. Thus, as I have often shown, we see the utterly British philosopher Francis Bacon of Verulam, the founder of modern materialistic thinking, inspired from the same source as Shakespeare, working across so strongly into Central Europe, in the way I have described. Jakob Böhme, too, was inspired from the same source. He transforms the whole inspiration into the soul substance of Central Europe. And again from the same source comes the southern German Jesuit Jakobus Baldus.

You see, beneath the surface of what takes place on the physical plane there works what is to bring about harmony. But one must see things as clearly differentiated and not let it all disappear into a nebulous jumble. One of the greatest, most gigantic spirits of the British realm stands quite close to the opposition against what is merely commercial within the British commercial empire, and that is James I. James I brings in a new element by continuously inoculating into the substance of the British people something that they will have forever, something that they must not lose if they are not to fall utterly into materialism. What it is that he inoculates into them is something that is linked by underground channels to the whole of the rest of European culture. Here we are confronted by a significant mystery.

You will agree—neither one thing nor the other can be called either justified or unjustified; things simply have to be comprehended as necessary facts. But we must be clear that we surely ought to understand these things properly. It is easy to ask the question: What can I myself do in these painful times? The first thing one can do is to endeavour to understand things, to really see through things. This brings up thoughts which are real forces and these will have an effect. What about the question: Have the good forces no power against the evil forces we see all around us? To answer this we have to remember how difficult human freedom makes it for the spiritual world to assert itself amid the surging waves of materialistic life. This is what it is all about. Is it to be made so very easy for human beings to enter fully into the life of the spirit?

Future ages will look back to today and say: How careless these people were with regard to adopting the life of spirit! The spiritual world is sending it down to us, but human beings resist it with all their might. Apart from all the sadness and suffering holding sway at present, the very fact that all this does hold sway is in itself a destiny signifying a trial. Above all it should be accepted and recognized as a trial. Later it will become apparent to what extent it is necessary for those who—so it is said—are guilty, to suffer together with those who are blameless. For after all, during the course of karma all these things are balanced out. You cannot say: Are not the good spirits going to intervene? They do intervene to the extent that we open ourselves to them, if we have the courage to do so. But first of all we must be serious about understanding things; we must be deeply serious about trying to understand.

As a contribution to this understanding it is necessary that a number of people muster the strength to oppose the surging waves of materialism with their deepest personal being. For something else is going to unite with the materialism that works in the industrial, commercial impulse; something coming from other, retarded impulses from the Chinese and Japanese element, particularly the Japanese element, will become increasingly caught up in materialism.

Yesterday somebody asked whether the societies working from the West for a particular group did not take into account that the Japanese might follow suit from the East. Indeed, the people who belong to these societies do not regard this as something terrible, for they see it as a support for materialism. For what follows suit from Asia will simply be a particular form of materialism. What we must be clear about, at all costs, is that we have to oppose the waves of materialism with all our strength. Every human being is capable of doing this. And the fruits of such efforts will be sure to follow. There is no need to give a name to whatever it is that must work against materialism. Don't call it ‘Central European’, don't call it ‘German’; that is not necessary. But do consider how a counteraction of forces can come about and how this can be objectively proved.

You can summarize in two sentences what is needed to work against materialism—which, after all, has some justification. In the fifth post-Atlantean period the world will become even more pervaded by the industrial and commercial element; but the opposite pole must also exist: There must be people who work on the opposite side because of their understanding of the situation. For what is the aim of these secret brotherhoods? They do not work out of any particular British patriotism, but out of the desire to bring the whole world under the yoke of pure materialism. And because, in accordance with the laws of the fifth post-Atlantean period, certain elements of the British people as the bearer of the consciousness soul are most suitable for this, they want, by means of grey magic, to use these elements as promoters of this materialism.

This is the important point. Those who know what impulses are at work in world events can also steer them. No other national ele¬ment, no other people, has ever before been so usable as material for transforming the whole world into a materialistic realm. Therefore, those who know want to set their foot on the neck of this national element and strip it of all spiritual endeavour—which, of course, lives equally in all human beings. Just because karma has ordained that the consciousness soul should work here particularly strongly, the secret brotherhoods have sought out elements in the British national character. Their aim is to send a wave of materialism over the earth and make the physical plane the only valid one. A spiritual world is only to be recognized in terms of what the physical plane has to offer.

This must be opposed by the endeavours of those who understand the necessity of a spiritual life on earth. Looked at from this point of view, you can express this counter-force in two sentences. One of these is well-known to you, but it does not yet come fully out of the hearts and souls of human beings: ‘My kingdom is not of this world.’ The sentence ‘My kingdom is not of this world’ must sound forth against that kingdom which is to be spread over the physical plane, that kingdom which is only of this world, that kingdom of commercial and industrial materialism.

There is not enough time today to explain to you how the words ‘My kingdom is not of this world’ link up with the cultivation of what belongs to mankind as a whole—not to what is German, but to what belongs to mankind as a whole. In ancient India there were four castes, in ancient Greece four estates. They came into being one after the other during the course of the second, third and fourth post-Atlantean periods. In the fifth post-Atlantean period the fourth estate, social life, that which belongs to mankind as a whole, must come into being. Not everyone can be a priest, but the priestly element can strive to become the powerful, the dominant estate. We see it doing this in the third post-Atlantean period; there we see it coming to life again in the hierarchical, theocratic, Roman force. And we can see the second caste, the kingly estate in ancient Greece and Rome, coming to life again in the second post-Atlantean element, where the diplomatic, political element is particularly active; for the republican element in France is only the opposite pole of this, just as everything generates its own counterpart. The actual character of the French state corresponds solely to the monarchic principle, so that even now France is a Republic in name only. In reality she is ruled by a king, who happens to be a lawyer who used to conduct cases in Romania. It is not a question of terminology but of facts. What is so terrible today is the way people allow themselves to be so easily intoxicated by words. If somebody is called a president it does not necessarily mean that he is a president, for what matters is the actual situation.

The third estate, as we know, is the industrial element, what was commerce in ancient Egypt and Greece. This is striving to come to the fore again in the British Empire and for the moment must still be dominant over the fourth element, which will eventually be the general, human element. It is interesting to observe this in one particular phenomenon. You do have to gain some insight into what is really going on if you want to understand the world. Ask the question: Where has the theory of Socialism been worked out with the greatest discernment? You will receive a curious answer: Among German Socialists. For in accordance with the principle I explained to you, the Germans always have the mission to work concepts out in their purest form. So even for Socialism the Germans have worked out pure concepts, but the German concept of Socialism does not fit in at all with the state of affairs in Germany.

Social conditions in Germany do not correspond in any way to the German theory of Socialism! For instance, it is quite comprehensible that, after teaching in a Socialist school for a while, I should have been banned from teaching there, after I said that it ought to be in keeping with Socialism to develop a theory of freedom. On behalf of the leader of the Social Democrats I was told: It is not freedom that matters, but reasoned persuasion! Socialist theory does not fit in with social conditions. In other words, social theory ought to be developed on the basis of the evolution of mankind. On this basis its three great principles are developed: Firstly the principle of the materialistic view of history, secondly the principle of added value, and thirdly the principle of class war.

The three principles are minutely worked out, but they do not fit in with social conditions in Germany. However, they correspond exactly to social conditions in England. That, after all, is where they were worked out. That is where Marx worked on them first of all, and then also Engels, and Bernstein. This is their source. Here they fit in because—to take the third principle—they are founded on the class war. And this class war is waged, basically, in the British soul. Think of Cromwell. If you study all the impulses that have reigned in the British soul since Cromwell, you will wind up with material for the third principle, the principle of class war. Furthermore, since the invention of the spinning-jenny and the commencement of the social life which came into being as a result, everything that has flowed into the theory of added value has been uppermost in the British Empire. And the materialistic view of history is, when you look at it, nothing but Buckle's view of history translated into a pedantic German way of thinking. Look at Buckle's History of Civilisation. It is written in accordance with the way such things are written within the framework of British culture: namely, according to the principle of never entering into consequences. Darwin, too, did not enter into the consequences. He limited himself in a certain way. But in Karl Marx's materialistic view of history the matter is transformed with severity—regardless of consequences—in, if you like, a pedantic, German way.

It is interesting that no theory has been worked out for the general human element, the fourth caste or class. In this element there can be no question of dominance, for there is nothing below it over which dominance might be exercised; it is solely a matter of laying the foundation for human beings to relate with one another. A theory for this will only come about when the general human element given in anthroposophical spiritual science is made the foundation.

This, if it is not misunderstood, will lead to that other, second sentence which is to be added to the first: ‘My kingdom is not of this world.’ The second sentence is: ‘Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's and unto God what is God's.’ This means that a proper attitude to life, a real cultivation of life, can only come about when one realizes that the spiritual element must be cultivated, because the spiritual world must penetrate down into the physical world. But there is no point in making any statements at all unless they can be comprehended wholeheartedly in the soul. These statements must be comprehended: ‘Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's and unto God what is God's’ and ‘My kingdom is not of this world.’ Then the atmosphere of the spiritual world will come, an atmosphere that has nothing to do with those materialistic things which have especially to develop in the fifth post-Atlantean period. But for this to happen, things must be seen in their true guise.

To summarize what we have been considering, let me say: May your hearts strive to see things in their true guise. Only if hearts exist which see things in their true guise and penetrate that terrible fog of untruth which shrouds everything in the world today, can we progress in an appropriate way. As I said: Since the bow-string is stretched to its limit, it will break. In this sense this document that people have had the temerity to present to the world at this late stage, and whatever is said in response to this document, does in the first instance hold out a prospect of improvement. Whatever horrors still lie ahead of us, this document represents a challenge to the Spirit of Truth himself, and he will certainly intervene in these matters in an appropriate manner! You need only remember—let me say this in conclusion—the exemplary, or should I say non-exemplary, manner in which we ourselves have been treated.

We have endeavoured to be as cosmopolitan as possible over the years. We have tried in the most conscientious way to preserve this archetypal German trait of cosmopolitanism. And what is the consequence? Read the slanderous things said about us in Britain; the theosophists there have slanted everything to make it appear that we have some kind of Germanic aspirations. We have no such aspirations; they have been foisted on us by others.

Edouard Schuré,—one on whom we relied so heavily in France, and towards whom we have never been tempted to display any kind of Germanic quality, since he is fundamentally himself the bearer of German cultural life to France—even he has interpreted things containing no trace of nationalism as being ‘pan-Germanic’. How curious that only the other day we should have found under ‘Edouard Schuré’ in an encyclopaedia: ‘The mediator of German culture to France.’ This is entirely apt, for truly the only French thing about Schuré is the language he speaks. Of course, if language is taken to be paramount, then naturally the whole man can be considered French. So one is a pan-Germanist if one does not speak about the Germans in the manner preferred by the French chauvinist Schuré . And one is a German agent if one does not speak about the Germans in the way required by Mrs Besant. Similar things are beginning to appear in Italy, too, among our former friends.

So it became necessary to defend ourselves. And the present time is proving most opportune for those who want to point fingers at us and say: See what attacks they are making; that shows who is the aggressor! There is the Vollrath method, and there is the Gösch method. We see it everywhere and we know it from within our own circles. First you force the other fellow to defend himself and then you treat him as the aggressor. It is a very effective method and one that plays an enormously strong role in the world today. The attacker hides behind the clamour he raises after he has forced the other to defend himself by labelling him the aggressor.

Yet we have no other purpose than to serve the mission of furthering spiritual life and gaining recognition for spiritual life. This is linked on the one hand with the principle: ‘My kingdom is not of this world’, and on the other with the principle: ‘Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's and unto God what is God's.’ Both are also, as you know, good Christianity. But it will be a long time before such things are understood in every detail.

Nowadays strange things are once again being said. Let me just mention this as my very last point. It is said: The Entente has stated its aims with regard to the war; now let the Central Powers state their aims, so that like can be compared with like. Indeed, this clamour for the war aims of the Central Powers has been heard for some time. Well, we have discussed some of the war aims of the Entente. But why should Central Europe name its war aims? It never had any! It has none! So quite naturally it took the stand: We will gladly negotiate, for then it will become clear what it is you want and then we shall have something on which to base our talks; but as far as we are concerned, we have nothing in particular to say; we merely want to live. Of course this does make it possible for the others to say: They are not willing to tell us what their war aims are; that means there must be something suspicious going on. There is nothing suspicious going on. Central Europe wants nothing now that it did not want in 1913 and 1912. It had no war aims then and it has none now.

It is not what is said that is important but whether what is said conforms with reality. On every side we now hear the loud cry that a particularly cunning, wily trick lies at the bottom of the Central Powers' Christmas call for peace. So this Christmas call for peace is supposed to contain some trick, some wish to dupe everybody else. On many sides it is said that the Central Powers never wanted peace but were only seeking for some clever way of carrying on the war. The answer to that is: If only they had reacted to this call for peace! All they needed to do was accept it and they would soon have known whether it was some kind of trick. Along this path lies genuine thinking rather than an inclination to believe in empty phrases. We must, my dear friends, overcome the empty phrase with all the forces of our soul. This is the most intimate task we have to accomplish in our own soul.

Impulses connected with the spiritual world, whatever their direction, can only be understood from the viewpoint of spiritual science. As we have seen, playing into today's events there are impulses which we have traced back to human beings, but only to those who know how to handle spiritual impulses in one way or another.

We must ask ourselves: Why do certain people do the kind of things we have been talking about? Which leads to the next question: Why are we living in an age when untruth—untruthfulness—is working as a dominant force in the world, a force which drives human beings with a veritable passion that could, if only it would turn towards the truth instead, bring about infinitely much in the way of healing?

These things are indeed connected with what are, at the moment, the deepest impulses of humanity. We can gain a closer understanding of them, in a manner appropriate for our time, by including in our considerations the most urgent task of that spiritual-scientific view of the world which we have made our own. Remember that our anthroposophical spiritual science seeks to understand certain spiritual aspects which exist in the world, certain forces which are at work in the world of human beings in so far as they develop not only between birth and death but also between death and a new birth. It is difficult for people today to think about these things in the right way, because they have lost certain faculties which were once present in human evolution; for a while these faculties had to go underground, but now they must light up again through spiritual science.

We know well enough that in olden times the human soul was linked with the spiritual world in a way that was more elementary, more natural; such links did not have to be brought about by active spiritual work but existed of themselves. We called them atavistic. We know, too, that in those days it was impossible for human beings to doubt the existence of life after death. The possibility of such doubt only arose for an interim period which is now to be succeeded by an age in which all shall know about life between death and a new birth.

In those olden times something else—a third condition—came as naturally to the human soul as waking and sleeping do today. In today's state of being awake, human beings are restricted entirely to the physical world which they can perceive with their senses; they live between birth and death in a world which they can experience through their senses and through their understanding which is bounded by the brain. And in sleep they are unconscious. The entities of ego and astral body in which they live between falling asleep and waking up are not yet strong enough to supply them with a comparable consciousness. We know that the astral body has only been developing since the time of ancient Moon and the ego only since the beginning of Earth evolution. Both are young measured against cosmic evolution and they are not yet strong enough to achieve consciousness when left to themselves between going to sleep and waking up.

Dreams, however, with all their manifold pictures, do rise up out of sleep. These dreams can contain a great deal that belongs to the spiritual world. There is a great deal in dreams which belongs to the spiritual world, but the human soul as it is today is not capable of seeing beyond the dreams in order to discover what it is that lives in these dreams. Dreams are deceptive pictures woven out of a veil of maya. When they are rightly interpreted they yield experiences of earlier times or prophetic indications for the future. They also reveal the interplay which takes place between the living and the dead during sleep. Everything can come to us through dreams. But, at the present stage of their evolution, human beings do not understand the strange language of dreams. Dream pictures remain incomprehensible, and this is quite natural. Just as Europeans cannot interpret the sounds spoken by the Chinese, so people today cannot interpret the picture language of dreams.

Thus during this interim period the human being is totally restricted in consciousness to whatever he can discover through those older instruments, the physical body and also the etheric body, which have been developing since the time of ancient Sun and ancient Saturn and are therefore so constituted that they can offer him consciousness as long as he is in them, that is, between waking up and going to sleep.

Now the spiritual science for which we are striving gives us concepts of the super-sensible world working in and behind the sense-perceptible world. The concepts and ideas given to us by spiritual science and which we make our own are related to nothing that can be perceived by the senses. They relate either to what lies between death and a new birth, or to the super-sensible world which lies beyond the world of the senses. Comprehension of these is not, or ought not to be, a mere comprehension of certain theories. We are not concerned with knowing one thing or another but with achieving a certain inner mood of soul when we take in truths relating to the super-sensible world.

It is difficult to describe these things in words because our language has been coined for the external, physical plane, so we have to exert ourselves when applying it to super-sensible conditions. You could say that everything to which we ordinarily apply our understanding lives coarsely, densely in our soul because our brain is always at our disposal and is trained to deal with ideas and concepts relating to the physical plane. But to explain things which do not relate to the physical plane we have to exert our soul to such an extent that, when we study spiritual science, our brain plays an ever-decreasing part. When we experience difficulties in understanding what spiritual science gives us, this is only because our brain impedes our understanding. Our brain is adjusted and adapted to the coarse concepts of the physical plane and we have to exert ourselves to acquire the subtler concepts—subtler only in so far as human comprehension is concerned—of the spiritual world. This exertion is entirely healthy, it is certainly good, because with spiritual science we then live in our soul in a new way, quite different from that required by physical knowledge and understanding and ideas. We transport ourselves into a world of mobile, subtle pictures and ideas, and that is significant.

It is possible for all of you to be aware of the point at which you are sufficiently within the sphere where the etheric body more or less lives on its own, using the brain only in faint vibrations. It is the point at which you begin to feel that you no longer have to exert yourself to think the thoughts given by spiritual science, in the way in which you have to exert yourself to think everyday thoughts. You know very well that you yourself make the thoughts which you think about everyday matters on the physical plane; you develop the concepts in accordance with the daily requirements and conditions of life, in accordance with sympathies and antipathies and with whatever is prepared by your senses and by your brain-bound understanding. With spiritual science, however, once you really enter into it, you will begin to sense: I have not thought all this myself; it has already been thought before I think it; it is floating there as a thought and merely enters into me. When you begin to feel: This is floating in the objective thinking of the universe and merely enters into me—then you will have won a great deal. You will have experienced a relationship to that delicate etheric, floating and weaving world in which your soul lives. After that it is really only a matter of time, though it might be quite a long time, before you gradually enter that sphere which we share with those among the dead with whom we are karmically linked.

I said that in olden times there was no question of discussing whether immortality existed or not. People then had a third condition apart from sleeping and waking, an in-between condition which was not merely a state of dreaming. It was an elementary and natural condition, in which human beings saw their dead spiritually face to face. They were there and they lived together with them. In those earlier times, when people did something, or when something happened to them which was a little out of the ordinary—and this of course happened and still happens all the time, for we are not only creatures of habit—they then felt beside them one or another of those who had gone through death before them, either long, or not so lang, ago. They felt as though the dead person acted with them, or joined in their counsel. So when the soul of a person living on the earth decided to do something, or when something happened to that person, this soul felt that there was one who had died who joined in the action or the suffering. The dead were present. So there was no discussion about immortality or the lack of it. It would have been as pointless as questioning whether someone with whom we are speaking is actually there or not. Whatever we experience is a reality, and in olden times people experienced how the dead shared in all that happened.

We know the reasons why those times had to go into the underground of existence. But they will return, though in a different form. The manner of their return will be brought about by human beings who achieve the mood of soul which can be achieved through spiritual science, through actively living in the pictures of the spiritual world given by spiritual science. This will enable the soul to attain a delicate attuning, and then into this delicate attuning the souls of the so-called dead will enter. Of course they are always present, but what matters now is that we should be aware of how they enter into our soul-sphere. Of course, the dead always surround those of us with whom they were karmically linked during life. But to enable them to enter our consciousness we must go to meet them with the fine attuning I have just described. For you see it is always possible for the dead to gain entry into human souls if these souls lead their life in a mood such as that described just now, where the concepts and ideas formed by these souls live, somehow, in a super-sensible sphere. From the bodily, physical aspect of man the dead have to flee, for at the moment they cannot enter there. Neither can they enter those thoughts which only rise up from the brain after the manner of the physical world. And because today human beings mostly entertain only thoughts that rise up from the brain, it is so very difficult for the dead to make contact with the living.

But if the living go to meet the dead by developing the fine attuning that arises when one concerns oneself a great deal with super-sensible ideas, then the dead can enter that floating and weaving world which extricates itself from the bodily aspect and takes no account of it. Today everything depends on whether human souls will find it possible, in some measure, to tread the path which leads to the dead. For then the dead will come to meet them. There must be a meeting in a common realm.

I have often stressed that what spiritual science has to say about the super-sensible world, the concepts and ideas we develop—all this is there for both the living and the dead. That is why I have recommended the practice of reading to the dead: that is, of unfolding thoughts orientated to them which refer to the super-sensible world. Doing this is a way of offering them a bridge and it is one which can reach not only those who have died recently, but all those who have died, even a very long time ago.

In this way the living have the possibility of approaching the dead. And similarly the dead have the possibility of working into the thoughts of the living. When you have absorbed the spirit of spiritual science you will be able to form from such arguments a fair conception of the fact that in the materialistic age we human beings have lived through for so long the dead can have less and less influence on the course of events here in the physical world where human beings have turned towards more materialistic ideas relating only to the physical plane, ideas which are of no use to the dead. So events in the physical world now run their course without any, or with only very little, influence from those who have passed on. This will have to change. Active communication must once more be established between the living and the dead. Those who have died must become able to work into the physical world, so that what takes place there no longer goes on solely under the influence of conceptions which arise in this physical world.

So our pursuit of spiritual science is indeed intimately bound up with giving the dead an opportunity to work here in the physical world. It must be said that a grave and lofty aim of our work in spiritual science is the creation of a link between the spiritual world, where the dead have their home, and the physical world. Then the dead will no longer have to say to themselves that they are more or less exiles from the physical world owing to the fact that the living, down here, cannot develop thoughts through which the dead might bring their influence to bear in this physical world.

Many, for sure, will say: I have been striving to open myself to the ideas of spiritual science, but I have seen no sign of any influence emanating from the dead. My dear friends, these things demand a good deal of patience. You must take into account the degree to which for centuries the life of mankind on the physical plane has tended towards materialism and against anything that might make it possible for the dead to work here in a suitable way. Amongst all that has been going on for centuries, certain feelings, certain sensations have developed which human beings now entertain quite unconsciously towards the spiritual world. To these feelings and sensations, what comes today from spiritual science frequently appears as no more than abstract theory. One may well be convinced that what spiritual science has to say about the spiritual world is true. And yet it has not thus far entered so fully into one's whole soul life as to enable one to develop those sensations and feelings which do not disturb the delicate and subtle play of what comes over from the dead.

It is not easy to see these things in their proper light. People today are the children, or the grandchildren, or the great-grandchildren, or even the great-great-grandchildren of those who have lived during recent centuries and who have, under the influence of rising materialism, turned their sensations and feelings in certain directions. These directions are now expressed in every detail of these feelings and sensations. We can have the best will in the world to turn in the right way to someone who has died, to remember someone in the right way. But the whole disposition of our feelings and sensations working, perhaps one could say, through our blood which flows down to us from our ancestors, is not suited to placing before our soul in a proper way the delicate and intimate manifestations and revelations which come from the dead. Instead our feelings are like flickering lights, excitable flickering lights which interpose themselves in front of these subtle impulses which are today still so very delicate and intimate.

But though this may be the case we need not be discouraged, but should always cling to the positive aspect. And the positive aspect is that we genuinely strive for that condition which in certain moments of life, as the fruit of studying spiritual science, can give us a peacefulness of soul. What matters is that peacefulness of soul, the fine attuning in that peacefulness of soul, which makes it possible for us to receive these delicate, intimate manifestations and revelations from the kingdom of the dead.

Something else, too, is necessary, and that is the goodwill to resist all that untruthfulness about which we have been speaking in these lectures. All these untruthfulnesses that buzz about in the world enter into what might be called the spiritual aura and generate there a thick fog which the dead find impossible to penetrate. This thick fog contains all that black rubbish which comes, for instance—to name only one source—from today's journalism, in the form of untruths which are printed and repeated, creating an aura of untruthfulness spanning the earth. It is no exaggeration to say that it is exceedingly difficult for the dead to penetrate this black fog. Therefore, with the help of ideas such as those we have been developing concerning the absolutely concrete untruthfulness buzzing about in the world, it is necessary to endeavour to reach clarity, to really make the effort in this field to recognize the purely external truth of the physical plane in so far as this can become accessible to us, in order not to cover our soul with a dense fog through which the spiritual world simply cannot penetrate. You will understand how very necessary this is.

In conjunction with the concepts we have just been discussing, let us now touch on the question: What is the aim of those secret societies which send impulses of the kind we have been describing into the world, impulses which then live in the life of untruthfulness and which have led, out of this untruthfulness, to the painful events of today? What do these secret societies want? Among others—we cannot go into everything—there is one particular thing they want: They want to materialize materialism even further; they want to create even more materialism in the world than would come about as part of the natural evolution of mankind in the fifth post-Atlantean period. They want even more materialism. This is only one aspect of what they are aiming for, but it is the aspect we want at least to touch on here. With this aspect in mind such societies are founded and with this aspect in mind people are persuaded to join them, people who are approached during their lives because they are deemed suitable.

There are the most varied types of such societies. One type, much in evidence in the West and taking all kinds of forms, includes organizations which practise ceremonial magic. Ceremonial magic can, of course, be good magic, but we are speaking now of those societies which do not practise ceremonial magic for the good of mankind in general, but for the good of certain groups of people, or certain specific aims which are not general human aims.

Let us look first at those societies which practise ceremonial magic from this point of view. As we have said, it can be good, but in these societies it is not good. Certain kinds of ceremonial magic have definite effects on the human physical body. Everything physical is, after all, a manifestation of the spirit. Certain spiritual aspects which come into being under the influence of ceremonial magic can have an effect on the human physical body, specifically on the system of ganglia, as I described it the other day, and also on the spinal system. The cerebral system is the most difficult of all to influence by means of ceremonial magic. All this has to be done via the detour of the spiritual element, but it can be done and it can become effective.

Imagine certain secret societies carrying on a form of ceremonial magic directed towards its grey or black aspects. Imagine they influence their members in a way that affects even their physical body, even the delicate vibrations and weavings of their physical body, so that something spiritual flows into this physical body.

What is the consequence? The consequence is that something now comes about which was suitable in earlier periods of human evolution but is no longer permissible today. Such procedures make it possible for the spiritual world to influence those human beings who participate, even though they do not turn towards it along the path I have described. This means that it becomes possible for the dead, as well as other spirits, to influence the members of a circle created by ceremonial magic. In this way today's materialism can be made hyper-materialistic.

Imagine a human being—and there are countless such in the West—who is entirely materialistic, not only in his view of the world but also in all his feelings and sensations. And then imagine this materialistic disposition increasing to a high degree. Such a person must of necessity develop an urge to exercise an influence on the material world, not only while he lives in his physical body but also after he has died. He is bent on the following: When I die I want to have some abode through which I can affect the people I have left behind on the earth, or who are trained in such a way in relation to me. There are indeed certain people today whose materialistic urge is so great that they strive for means by which they can cultivate connections with the physical world even beyond death. And such means, through which a person secures for himself the possibility of affecting the material world from beyond death, are abodes of certain kinds of ceremonial magical practice.

This is something that can have immense consequences. Imagine a number of people brought together to form a certain brotherhood. These people know: Others have gone before us; their urge to exercise their power was so great that their life on earth was not enough for its gratification, so they want to go on gratifying it even after death. For them we are creating an abode, and through the acts of ceremonial magic we perform, they work into our bodies. Because of this we gain greater power than we have; because of this we are enabled to exercise a certain degree of magical power over other, weaker people who stand outside such brotherhoods. When we speak words, when we give a speech, these dead souls work in us because we have been prepared by sharing in these acts of ceremonial magic.

It is one thing if somebody who simply participates honestly in the cultural processes of our time gives a speech in parliament or writes a newspaper article. But it is something entirely different if a person who belongs to a circle of ceremonial magic, and is thus strengthened by the power urges of some who have died, gives a speech in parliament or writes an article for a newspaper. The latter exercises an immensely greater degree of influence in the direction of his wishes than would be the case if he did not have this backing. This is one side of the matter.

The other side is that those who enter the circle of certain societies practising ceremonial magic are securing for themselves a power that reaches beyond death, a kind of ahrimanic immortality. For these people this is their main concern. For them, the society they enter provides a kind of guarantee that certain forces—which should by rights only live in them until the moment of death—will continue to live, even beyond death. More people than you might think are nowadays filled with this idea of guaranteeing for themselves an ahrimanic immortality, which consists in exercising influence not only as an individual human being, but also through the instrument of a society of this kind. Such societies exist in the most varied forms, and individuals who have attained certain degrees of advancement in these societies know: As a member of this society I shall become to some degree immortal because forces which would otherwise come to an end at my death will continue to work beyond death.

What these people then experience through this ceremonial magic makes them quite oblivious to a thought which would concern someone who takes such things truly seriously and in a genuinely dignified way. This is that the more a person gains by way of materialistic immortality, or rather ahrimanic immortality, the more he loses of the consciousness of true, genuine immortality. Yet materialism has taken such a hold on many souls today that they remain unconcerned about this and are tricked into striving for ahrimanic immortality. It could indeed be said that societies exist today which, from a spiritual or occult point of view, could be called ‘insurance companies for ahrimanic immortality’!

It is only a small number of people in each case who understand all these things. For as a rule these societies are organized in such a way that the ceremonial magic they practise influences only those who are unaware of the implications, merely desiring to make contact with the spiritual world by means of symbolic ceremonies. There are many such people. And those who have this desire are by no means necessarily the worst. They are accepted as members of the circle of ceremonial magic among whom there are then a few who simply use the rest of the members as instruments. Therefore one should beware of all secret societies administered by so-called higher grades whose aims are kept hidden from the lower grades. These administrative grades usually comprise those who have been initiated to a stage at which they only have a vague idea of what I have just been explaining to you. They comprise those who are to work positively in connection with certain goals and aims which are then realized by the wider group of those who have been merely inveigled into the circle of ceremonial magic. Everything these people do is done in such a way that it leads in the direction required by the higher grades but is strengthened by the forces which come from ceremonial magic.

Those who know how huge a number of such societies exist in the West can begin to gain an idea of what immensely effective tools such societies of ceremonial magic can be for certain far-reaching plans for the world. As you have seen, the chief aim is to prolong into our time a way of proceeding in which the spiritual world works into the sense-perceptible, physical world in a manner that was right in earlier times. For our times, however, the right procedure is for human beings to go towards the dead and meet them half-way. In the mood we have just been discussing, however, a path is sought which was appropriate in earlier, atavistic times but which today is brought about through the medium of ceremonial magic.

This should give you an idea of the disproportionate lengths to which exaggerated materialism, materialism that is hyper-materialistic, is prepared go in order to cross the border to the spiritual world, a border which today should only be crossed by means of attuning the soul to that mood which can be achieved through contemplating super-sensible concepts. An attitude appropriate for today is one that never accepts things which are given out by many secret societies, and which are not understood, for indeed a great deal that has not been understood is today both given out and accepted. Today it is appropriate to treat what these societies give out as something that is at most a failure to give the spoken word its true value, that is, something that uses words as mere concepts.

In much that today buzzes about in the world by way of untruthfulness and by way of egoism, in much that has even led to the canonization of egoism—not by the Pope, of course—in much that has led to the coining of the phrase sacro egoismo, which has become a new saint, though not canonized by the Pope, in much that today buzzes about in the world by way of egoisms and untruthfulnesses, influences and impulses are at work which gain extra strength from the world of the dead, in the manner described. And by searching for these impulses you will be led on to link up with other impulses about which you may find information in my book The Spiritual Guidance of Man. The lectures on which this book is based were given in 1911 in Copenhagen, for the most varied reasons. You will find there a description of how certain angelic powers remained behind in the third post-Atlantean period, in order today to unfold a force resembling that developed during the ancient Egyptian epoch. In those lectures I said:

‘Anything wonderful can become a tempter and seducer of mankind if people follow it one-sidedly; and then if this one-sidedness starts to take a hold, the great danger arises that all kinds of good endeavours begin to manifest as fanaticism. True though it is that mankind progresses by means of its noble impulses, it is equally true that an over-enthusiastic, fanatical pursuit of these most noble impulses can lead to all that would be worst for their right unfolding.’

The lecture then goes on to describe how certain forces which had their proper place in the third post-Atlantean period are now starting to work in our time. One may now add that just as an individual quite rightly finds a connection with his proper angel, so is it also possible for him to find a connection to those retarded spirits of the Egypto-Chaldean period, those retarded angels, if he seeks those forces and impulses which, in fact, are exaggerated ahrimanic forces coming in the manner described from the realm of the dead. These retarded angels play an important role in the secret societies I have been describing to you. There they are important helpers and leading spirits. A great deal that goes on in such secret societies is aimed at bringing Egypto-Chaldean elements in the old way into the present time. When these matters are no mere tomfoolery but stand fully in occult life, this takes place under the influence of retarded beings from the hierarchy of the angels who become leaders there. These are the beings from the hierarchy next above man who are sought by these societies.

This points to something exceedingly important. When we understand how the living testaments of these societies—not written testaments left over for those still alive, but testaments which are forces going beyond death—when we understand how these work and are preserved, which is something that ought not to happen, then we understand something of the magical power wielded by such societies which often enables them to impress the stamp of truthfulness on to something untrue. And indeed, one of their important magical functions is to spread untruth in the world in such a way that it gives the effect of being the truth. For in this working of the ‘untruth in what is true’ lies one of the mighty strengths of evil. This strength of evil is then put to considerable use in all kinds of quarters.

This I wanted to say today, in order to give you the esoteric background to the more exoteric matters I have been describing. Tomorrow we shall continue with this and endeavour to enter even more deeply into certain aspects.

Let me start by drawing your attention to a number of things which might be of interest to you, beginning with an article in yesterday's issue of Schweizerische Bauzeitung, reporting on the Johannesbau in Dornach, near Basel. This is the result of a recent visit of a group of Swiss engineers and architects. The article is most gratifying and fair. Indeed, it is like an oasis in the midst of other things which have recently appeared in print about our efforts which had their source in our very midst. It is most satisfying to find such a fair discussion that gives the building its due, especially since it comes from specialist, objective quarters outside our own circle. Do read it. Herr Englert, who acted as guide for that group of Swiss engineers and architects who showed such genuine interest in our building from the technical and also the aesthetic point of view, has just reported that the article is also due to be published in French in the Geneva journal Bulletin de technique.

Further, I should like to draw your attention to a book—you will excuse my inability to tell you the title in the original language—just published by our friend Bugaev under his pen-name of Andrei Belyi. The book is in Russian and gives a very detailed account in great depth of the relationship between spiritual science and Goethe's view of the world. In particular it goes into the connections between Goethe's views and what I said in Berlin in the lecture cycle Human and Cosmic Thought about various world views, but it also discusses a good deal that is contained in spiritual science. Its connections to Goethe's views are discussed in depth and in detail and it is much appreciated that our friend Bugaev has published a revelation of our spiritual-scientific view in Russian.

Herr Meebold, too, has just published a book in Munich to which I should also like to draw your attention. The title is The Path to the Spirit. Biography of a Soul. You will find it interesting because Herr Meebold describes in it a number of experiences he had in connection with the Theosophical Society.

These are the oases in the desert of attacks. It seems that another has just appeared, written by one of our long-standing older members. It is said to be particularly scandalous, but I have not yet seen it. These attacks from among our members are particularly unwelcome because we realize that it is precisely these long-standing older members who ought to know better.

Yesterday we spoke about aspects of the human being's connections with the super-sensible world, particularly with regard to the fact that our dead, and indeed all those who have left their bodies and gone through the gate of death, must be thought of as being in that world. In our present context it is particularly important to understand that in the world through which man passes between death and a new birth an evolution, a development is taking place just as much as is the case here on the physical plane.

Here on the physical plane, taking a shorter span to start with, such as the post-Atlantean time, we speak of the Indian, the Persian, the Egypto-Chaldean, the Greco-Latin, the modern period, and so on. And we consider that during the course of these periods an evolutionary process takes place—in other words, that human souls and the manner in which these souls manifest in the world during this sequence of periods differ in characteristic ways.

Similarly, if only one can find sufficiently graphic concepts, one can speak of an evolution that takes place for these periods of time in the sphere through which the dead pass. There, too, an evolution takes place. On all kinds of occasions, where this has been possible, this evolution has been discussed in different ways. But relatively easy though it is to speak of evolution on the physical plane—and as you know it is not all that easy in this materialistic age—it is naturally less easy to do so with regard to the spiritual world, since for that world we lack sufficiently graphic concepts. Our language was created for the physical plane, and we are forced to use all kinds of paraphrases and graphic substitutes in order to describe the spiritual sphere in which the dead are living, especially with regard to evolution.

Naturally, of particular interest now is the fact that life between death and a new birth in our fifth post-Atlantean period is suitably different from what it was in earlier times. While the materialistic cultural period is running its course here on earth, a great deal is also taking place in the spiritual world. Since the dead have a far more intense experience of everything connected with evolution than is the case for people living on the physical plane, their destiny is most intensely dependent on the manner in which a certain evolution takes place in definite periods. The dead react far more intimately, far more subtly, to what lives in evolution than do the living—if we may use these expressions—and this is perhaps more noticeable in our materialistic age than has ever been the case before.

Now, to assist our understanding of a number of things we shall be discussing, I want to introduce into these lectures something that has emerged in relation to this, as a result of careful observation of the actual situation. To do this I shall have to widen our scope somewhat and speak today about various aspects in preparation for the statements towards which our train of thought is leading.

I have already pointed out that the right way to look at the human being in relation to the universe is to consider the individual parts of his being separately. From the spiritual point of view, what exists here on the physical plane is more a kind of image, a manifestation. Thus we may regard as fourfold the physical human being we see before us.

First we see the head. As you know from earlier discussions, the head as it appears in a particular incarnation is supposed to have reached its final stage in that incarnation. The head is the part most strongly exposed to death. For the way our head is formed is, for the most part, the consequence of our life in our previous incarnation. On the other hand, the formation of our next head in our next incarnation is the consequence of the life of our present body. A while ago I expressed this briefly by saying: Our body, apart from our head, metamorphoses itself into our head in our next incarnation, while our next body is growing towards us; whereas our present head is the metamorphosed body of our previous incarnation, the rest of our body has grown towards us more or less—there are varying degrees—out of what we have inherited.

This is how the metamorphosis takes place. Our head, as it were, falls away in one incarnation, having been the outcome of our body in our previous incarnation. And our body transforms itself, metamorphoses itself—as does leaf to petal in Goethe's theory of metamorphosis—into our head in our next incarnation. Now because our head is formed from the earthly body of our previous incarnation, the spiritual world has a great amount of work to do on this head between death and our new birth, for its archetypal form must be fashioned by the spiritual world in accordance with karma. That is why, even in the embryo, the head appears before anything else in its complete form, for more than any other part it has been influenced by the cosmos. The body, on the other hand, is influenced for the most part by the human organism. So this appears later than the head in the embryo. Apart from its physical substance, which has of course been gathered through heredity, our head, in its form, its archetypal form, is indeed shaped by the cosmos, by the sphere of the cosmos. It is not for nothing that your head is more or less spherical in shape, for it is an image of the sphere of the universe; the whole sphere of the universe works to form your head. Thus we can say that our head is formed from the sphere.

Just as here on earth people busily work to construct machines and build up trade and commerce, so in the spiritual world human beings are busy, though not exclusively, developing all the technical requirements, the spiritual technical requirements for building the head for their next incarnation from out of the sphere of the universe, the whole cosmos, in accordance with the karma of their earlier incarnations. We glimpse here a profound mystery of evolution.

The second aspect we must consider, if we want to view man as a revelation of the whole universe, comprises all the organs of his breast, centred around lung and heart. Let us look at them without the head. The head is an image of the whole spherical cosmos. Not so, the organs of the breast. These are a revelation of all that comes from the East. They are formed out of what might be called the hemisphere. (See diagram).

Imagine the cosmos like this. Then you can see the head as an image of the cosmos. And the organs of the breast can be seen as an image of what streams in from the East—the hemisphere I am shading green. This hemisphere alone works on the organs of the breast. Or, expressed as a paradox: The breast organs are half a head.

This is the basic form. The head is based on the sphere, the breast organs on part of a circle, a kind of semicircle, only it is bent in various ways so that you can no longer recognize it exactly. You would be able to see that your head really is a sphere had luciferic and ahrimanic forces never worked on man. And you would see that the organs of the breast are really a hemisphere, had these forces never exercised their influence. The direction in relation to the centre—one would have to say for ordinary earthly geometry, the infinitely distant centre—is eastwards. An eastward-facing hemisphere.

Now we come to the third part of the human being, excluding head and breast organs: the abdominal organs and the limbs attached to the abdomen. Although this is not an exact term, I shall call all this the abdominal organs. Everything I comprehensively call the abdominal organs can also be related, like the other parts, to forces which work and organize from without. In this realm they work, of course, on man from the outside via embryological development in the way they do because during pregnancy the mother is dependent on the forces which have to be gathered together to form the abdomen, just as forces have to be collected from the sphere to form the head and from the East, the hemisphere, to form the organs of the breast.

The forces that work on the organs of the abdomen must be imagined as coming from the centre of the earth, but differentiated, with all that this entails, according to the region inhabited by the parents or ancestors. The forces all come from the centre of the earth, but with differentiations depending on whether a person is born in North America, Australia, Asia or Europe. The organs of the abdomen are determined by forces from the centre of the earth with differentiations according to region.

Seen from the occult point of view, the complete human being also has a fourth aspect. You will say that we have already dealt with the whole human being, and this is so, but from the occult point of view a fourth aspect must be considered. We have examined three parts, so now all that is left is the total human being. This totality, too, is a part. Head, chest and abdomen all together form the fourth aspect, the totality, and this totality is in turn formed by certain forces. This totality is formed by forces that come from the whole circumference of the earth. They are not differentiated according to region. The total human being is formed by the total circumference of the earth.

Herewith I have described to you the physical human being as an image of the cosmos, an image of the forces of the cosmos working together. Other aspects, too, might be considered in connection with the cosmos. For this we would have to think of the spiritual cosmos in relation to the human being, not only the physical cosmos. We have just been examining the physical human being, so we were able to remain with the physical cosmos. Once we start to consider the discarnate human being between death and a new birth we cannot remain with the elements of space, for the three-dimensional space that we have—though it determines the measure of the physical human being living between birth and death—does not determine the measure of the spiritual human being living between death and a new birth. We have to realize that those who are dead have at their disposal a world that is different from the one which lives in three dimensions.

To turn now to the discarnate human being, the one we call a dead human being, perhaps we need a different kind of consideration. Our method of consideration must remain more mobile. Also there are various points of view from which we could conduct our considerations, for life between death and a new birth is just as complicated as life between birth and death. So let us start with the relationship between the human being here on earth and the human being who has entered the spiritual world through death.

Once again we have the first part, but it is temporal rather than spatial. We could call it the first phase of a development. The dead human being goes, you might say, out into the spiritual world in a certain way; he leaves the physical world but, especially during the first few days, is still very much connected with it. It is very significant that the dead person leaves the physical world in close connection with the constellation arising for his life from the positions of the planets. For as long as the dead person is still connected with his etheric body, the constellation of planetary forces resounds and vibrates in a wonderful way through this etheric body. Just as the territorial forces of the earth vibrate very strongly with the waters of the womb that contains a growing physical human being, so in a most marked way do the forces of the starry constellations vibrate in the dead person who is still in his etheric body at the moment—which is, of course, karmically determined—when he has just left the physical world.

Investigations are often made—unfortunately not always with the necessary respect and dignity, but out of egoistic reasons—into the starry constellation prevailing at birth. Much less selfish and much more beautiful would be a horoscope, a planetary horoscope made for the moment of death. This is most revealing for the whole soul of the human being, for the entry into death at a particular moment is most revealing in connection with karma.

Those who decide to conduct such investigations—the rules are the same as those applied to the birth horoscope—will make all kinds of interesting discoveries, especially if they have known the people for whom they do this fairly well in life. For several days the dead person bears within himself, in the etheric body he has not yet discarded, an echoing vibration of what comes from the planetary constellation. So the first phase is that of the direction in the starry constellation. It is meaningful as long as the human being remains connected with his etheric body.

The second phase in the relationship of the human being to the cosmos is the direction in which he leaves the physical world when he becomes truly spiritual, after discarding his etheric body. This is the last phase to which terms can be applied in their usual, rather than in a pictorial, meaning to describe what the dead person does, terms which are taken from the physical world. After this phase the terms used must be seen more or less as pictures.

So, in the second phase the human being goes in the direction of whatever is the East as seen from his starting point—here, direction is still used in a physical sense, even though it is away from the physical world. Through whatever is for him an easterly direction the dead person journeys at a certain moment into the purely spiritual world. The direction is to the East. It is important to be aware of this. Indeed, an old saying found in various secret brotherhoods, preserved from the better days of mankind's occult knowledge, still points to this. Various brotherhoods speak of one who has died as having ‘entered into the eternal East’. Such things, when they are not foolish trappings added later, correspond to ancient truths. Just as we had to say that the organs of the breast are formed out of the East, so must we imagine the departure of the dead as going through the East. By stepping out of the physical world through the East into the spiritual world, the dead person achieves the possibility of participating in the forces which operate, not centrifugally as here on earth, but centripetally towards the centre of the earth. He enters into the sphere out of which it is possible to work towards the earth.

The third phase may be described as the transition into the spiritual world; and the fourth as working or having an effect out of the spiritual world, working with the forces from the spiritual world.

Such ideas bring us intimately close to what here binds the human being to the spiritual worlds. The table below shows that the conclusion of number 4 meets up with the beginning of number 1, namely working on the head out of the realm of the sphere. This work is done by the human being himself after he has entered into the spiritual world by way of the East.

In our dealings with the dead we can perceive strongly that those who have died have to leave the physical world in an easterly direction. They are to be found in the world which they reach via the door of the East. They are beyond the door of the East. And in this connection the experiences we undergo now, in the fifth post-Atlantean period, in the sphere of development of materialism are very significant.

For you see, in this fifth post-Atlantean period, the dead now lack a great deal because of the materialistic culture prevalent in the world. Some aspects of this will be clear to you from what we said yesterday. When, by suitable means, we come to know the life of the dead today, we discover that they have a very strong urge to intervene in what human beings do here on earth. But in earlier times, when there was less materialism on the earth than there is today, it was easier for the dead to intervene in what took place on the earth. It was easier for them to influence the sphere of the earth through what those on earth felt and sensed of the after-effects of the dead.

Today it can be experienced very frequently—and this is always surprising in the actual case—that people who have been intensely involved in certain events during their life are unable, in their life after death, to have any interest in the events which take place after their death, because they lack any kind of link. Amongst us, too, there are souls who showed great interest for events on earth while they were here but who now, having gone to the spiritual world, find the events taking place since their death quite foreign to them. This is frequently the case, even with distinguished souls who here on earth were greatly gifted and filled with the liveliest interest.

This has been going on for a long time, indeed it has been on the increase during the whole of the fifth post-Atlantean period, ever since the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Expressed in commonplace terms—which are unfortunately all we have in our language—our experience is that, because they are less and less able to intervene in what human beings do, the dead have instead to intervene in the way people manifest as individual personalities. So we see that since the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries the interest and the work of the dead has been concentrated increasingly on individual personalites rather than on the wider contexts concerning mankind. Since I have occupied myself closely with this very aspect, I have reached the conviction that it is connected with a certain phenomenon of modern times that is very noticeable to those who are interested in such things.

In recent history, unlike former times, we have the remarkable phenomenon of people being born with outstanding capacities. In general they work with tremendous idealism and distinguished endeavour but are incapable of gaining a broader view of life or of widening their horizons. In the whole of literature this has been expressing itself for some time. Individual ideas, concepts, and feelings, expressed either in literature or art, or even science, sometimes display strong promise. But an overall view is not achieved. This is also the reason why people find it so difficult to achieve the broader view needed in spiritual science. It happens chiefly because the dead approach individuals and work in them on capacities for which the foundations are laid during childhood and youth. The faculties which enable individuals to gain a broader view when they reach maturity are more or less untouched by the activities of the dead in this materialistic age. Incomplete talents, unfinished torsos—not only in the wide world, but also in individual situations—are therefore very prevalent because the dead can more readily approach individual souls rather than what lives socially in human evolution today. The dead have a strong urge to reach what lives socially in human evolution, but in our fifth post-Atlantean period this is exceedingly difficult for them.

There is another phenomenon today of which it is most important to become aware. There exist today many concepts and ideas which have to be very definite if they are to be of any use. Modern, more mercantile, life demands clearly defined concepts based on calculations. Science has become accustomed to this, but so has art. Think of the development art has undergone in this connection! It is not so long ago that art was concerned with great ideals on a wide scale, when, thank goodness, concepts were insufficient for an easy interpretation of great works which were full of meaning. This is no longer the case to the same extent. Today, art strives for naturalism, and concepts can easily encompass works of art because now they have often arisen merely from concepts instead of from an elemental, all-embracing world of feeling. Mankind is today filled to the brim with commonplace, naturalistic concepts which are determined by the fact that they have been conceived entirely in relation to the physical plane where it is in the nature of things to be sharply defined and individualized.

Now it is significant that the so-called dead do not appreciate such concepts. They do not appreciate sharply-defined concepts which are immobile and lifeless. One can learn some extraordinary things, some very interesting things in this connection—if I may be permitted to use such commonplace and banal expressions for these venerable circumstances. As you know, for we have gone through all this together here, I have recently been endeavouring to discuss, using lantern slides, all kinds of considerations about periods in the history of art. I have been endeavouring to find concepts for all kinds of artistic phenomena. To communicate through speech one has to find concepts. Yet I have constantly felt the need to avoid firm, clearly-defined concepts for artistic matters. Of course, for the lectures I had to attempt to define the concepts as far as possible, for they have to be defined if they are to be put into words. But while I was preparing the lectures and formulating the concepts I must say I had a certain aversion, if I may use this word, to expressing what had to be said in such meagre concepts as have to be used if things are to be expressed in words. Indeed, we shall only understand one another in these realms if you translate what has been expressed in close-textured concepts back into concepts of which the texture is less clearly defined.

If one comes up against this experience at a time when one is also concerned with the world of discarnate souls, the following can happen. One may be attempting to comprehend a phenomenon which gives one the feeling of being far too unintelligent to grasp it in concepts. One looks at the phenomenon but has insufficient understanding with which to bind it properly into concepts. This experience, which is particularly likely when one is contemplating a work of art, can bring one into especially intimate contact with discarnate souls, with the souls of the dead. For these souls prefer concepts which are not sharply defined, concepts which are more mobile and can mingle with the phenomena. Sharply defined concepts, concepts similar to those formed here on the physical plane under the influence of the physical conditions of the sense-perceptible world, give the dead the feeling of being nailed to one particular spot, whereas what they need for their life in the spiritual world is freedom of movement.

Therefore it is important that we occupy ourselves with spiritual science so that we may enter those intimate spheres of experience where, as was said yesterday, the living can encounter the dead; because the concepts of spiritual science cannot be as closely defined as can those of the physical plane. That is why malevolent or narrow-minded people can easily discover contradictions in the concepts of spiritual science. The concepts are alive, and what is alive is mobile, though it does not, in fact, harbour contradictions. We can achieve this by concerning ourselves with spiritual matters, and to do so we have to approach things from various sides. And approaching things from various sides really does bring us close to the spiritual world. That is why the dead feel comfortable when they enter a realm of human concepts which are mobile and not pedantically defined.

Indeed, the dead feel most ill at ease of all when they enter the realm of the most pedantic concepts. These are the ones that have recently come to be defined in relation to the spiritual world for those people who do not want to live in anything spiritual, but who want the concepts for sense-perceptible things to apply to the spiritual world as well. These people conduct spiritualistic experiments in order to imprison spiritual concepts in the world perceptible to the senses. They are, in fact, more materialistic than any others. They seek rigid concepts in order to hold commerce with the dead. Thus they torture the dead most of all, for if they want to approach they force them to enter the very realm most disliked by them. The dead love mobile concepts, not rigid ones.

These are experiences to which the fifth post-Atlantean period seems to be particularly prone, given the two circumstances of materialism here on earth and the peculiar situation of the dead as described. One and the same thing determines materialism here on earth and a certain kind of life in the spiritual world. In the Greco-Latin period the dead most definitely approached the living in a manner which differed from that of today. Nowadays, in the fifth post-Atlantean period, there is what I would like to call a more earthly element—but you must imagine this of course in a more pictorial sense—a more earthly composition in the substantiality of the dead than there used to be. The dead appear in a form that is much more like those of earthly conditions than used to be the case. They are more like human beings, if I may put it this way, than formerly. Because of this they have a somewhat paralysing effect on the living. It is nowadays so difficult to approach the dead because they bring about a numbness in us. Here on earth materialistic thoughts reign supreme. In the spiritual world, as a karmic result, the materialistic consequence reigns supreme, for there the spiritual corporeality of the dead has assumed earthly qualities. It is because the dead are super-strong, if I may put it thus, that they numb us. To overcome this numbness it is necessary to develop the strongest possible feelings for spiritual science. This is the difficulty today, or one of the difficulties, standing in the way of our relationship with the spiritual world.

For the earthly realm seen spiritually—indeed the earthly realm can be seen spiritually—things appear different from what might be assumed when they are not seen spiritually. It is correct to say, as we have done many a time, that we live in the age of materialism. Why? It is because human beings in this materialistic age—human beings in general, rather than those who understand these things—are too spiritual—paradoxical though this may sound. That is why they can be so easily approached by purely spiritual influences such as those of Lucifer and Ahriman. Human beings are too spiritual. Just because of this spirituality they easily become materialistic. It is so, is it not, that what the human being believes and thinks is something quite different from what he is. Those very people who are most spiritual are the ones most open to the whisperings of Ahriman, as a result of which they grow materialistic.

Strongly though one must combat materialistic views and materialistic ways of life, nevertheless one may not maintain that the most unspiritual people belong to the circles of materialists. I have personally met many spiritual people, that is, people who are themselves spiritual, not just in their views, among the monists and suchlike, and equally many coarse materialists especially among the spiritualists. Here, though they may speak of the spirit, are to be found the most coarsely materialistic characters. Haeckel, for instance, is a most spiritual person, regardless of what he often says. He is most spiritual, and just because of this can be approached by an ahrimanic world view. He is a most spiritual person, entirely permeated by the spirit. This once became clearly apparent to me in a cafe in Weimar. I have told this story before, perhaps more than once. Haeckel was sitting at the other end of the table with his beautiful, spiritual blue eyes and his marvellous head. Nearer to me sat the well-known bookseller Herz, a man who has done great service to the German book trade and who knew quite a bit about Haeckel in general. But he did not know that that was Haeckel sitting at the other end of the table. At one point Haeckel laughed heartily. Herz asked: Who is that man laughing so much down there? When I told him it was Haeckel he said: It can't be, evil people can't laugh like that!

Thus the concepts entertained by present-day materialists are so bare of spirituality that they are unable to discern the revelations of the spirit in the material world. So spiritual and material worlds fall apart and the spiritual world becomes no more than a set of concepts. Anyway, the biggest materialistic blockheads are often found today in societies and associations that call themselves spiritualistic. Here are the materialistic blockheads who on occasion have even succeeded in tracing mankind's descent from the apes, even from a particular ape, to the greater glory of the human race. These people were not satisfied with the descent of man from the apes in general, they even traced the lines back to particular apes. For those of you have not heard about this, let me explain. A few years ago a book appeared in which Mrs Besant and Mr Leadbeater described exactly which apes of ancient days they were descended from. They traced their family trees back to particular apes and you can read all about this. Such things are possible, even in much-read books today.

We need the concepts I have elaborated today in order to penetrate more deeply into certain aspects of the theme we are discussing. For our world is definitely dependent on the spiritual world in which the dead live; it is connected with the spiritual world. That is why I have endeavoured to unfold for you certain concepts which relate directly to observations of the immediate present. Everything that takes place here in the physical world has certain effects in the spiritual world. Conversely, the spiritual world with the deeds of the dead shows itself either in what the dead can do for the physical world or in what they cannot do because of the present materialistic age. I also described this present materialistic age in so far as it has been made excessively materialistic by certain secret brotherhoods, as I showed yesterday. The type of materialism that underlies all world events to a high degree today is what we might call the mercantile type.

I ask you to take good note for tomorrow of the concepts I have put before your souls today, concerning the life of the dead. But also please note how little the present age takes certain things for granted which were taken much more for granted in earlier times. We shall see tomorrow how all these things are linked. However, it is characteristic for our time that certain conceptual views are extended to mercantile life which would escape someone who fails to pay attention to such features of our time. We ought not to let them escape us. Mercantilism is all very well as long as it is put in the right light in the way it stands within social life. For this to happen it is necessary for us to have certain yardsticks for everything. Today, however, much conceptual chaos reigns. Yet within this conceptual chaos, concepts are given quite clear definitions, as is our way in the age of materialism in which concepts are fixed to ideas based on what the senses can experience. And when a chaos of concepts then results, as happens in today's materialism, this really does draw the sharpest possible line between the physical world in which human beings live between birth and death, and the super-sensible world in which they live between death and a new birth.

Only consider in this connection the fact that in Central Europe—in contrast to other regions where the inclination to philosophize is less pronounced—there is a tendency to philosophize about the mercantile system even though this is not at home in Central Europe. In Central Europe there is a tendency to make a philosophy of everything. Thus people also philosophize about what aspects of materialism are typical for our time. An interesting book by Jaroslav was published long before the war: Ideal and Business. Certain chapters interested me particularly because of their significance with regard to cultural history. It was not the content that interested me but their relation to cultural history; so, for instance, the chapter entitled ‘Plato and Retail Trade’. This deals with everything to do with commerce, with the mercantile system. Another interesting chapter is ‘The Astrological System Applied to the Price of Pepper’. Not uninteresting is also ‘Wholesale Trade as Described by Cicero’. Another chapter is entitled ‘Holbein's and Liebermann's Portraits of Merchants’. Not uninteresting, too, is the chapter ‘Jakob Böhme and the Problem of Quality’. Very interesting is ‘The Goddess Freya in Germanic Mythology in Relation to Free Competition’. And finally, especially interesting is ‘The Spirit of Commerce as Taught by Jesus’.

As you see, everything is thrown in the pot together. But by this very fact things gain that characteristic which makes for materialism. Let us take all this as a preparation for our considerations tomorrow.

In the cycle of lectures in Vienna on The Inner Nature of Man and the Life between Death and New birth, you will remember that I described concepts—or rather, inner experiences of soul—through which the human being can approach those worlds of which we have spoken and which we share with the disembodied souls of those who have passed the portal of death and are preparing themselves for a new life on earth. On the basis of those lectures, you will be able to imbue with life a concept which is indispensable if we seek to arrive at a true understanding of the spiritual world, and that is that many things—I say many things, not everything—are, from the point of view of the spiritual world, entirely the opposite of what is revealed in the physical world. On this basis, let us consider the way the human being steps over, and also looks over, into the life of the spiritual world.

Here on earth, bound to our physical body as we are between waking up and going to sleep, using this physical body as a tool for our experiences in the world, we feel a lack of ability to comprehend the spiritual world and grasp its revelations. As long as we are enclosed within our physical body, and in order to perceive anything, we have to use the rough and ready instruments of this physical body. We cannot avoid using them. And when we are unable to use them, as is the case between going to sleep and waking up, our astral body and our ego-being—which are recent additions from the time of ancient Moon and the earlier periods of Earth—are too attenuated, too intimate, to detect anything. Of course the spiritual world is ever about us, just as the air surrounds us constantly. And if our astral body and our ego-being were—let me say—sufficiently dense, we should always be able to perceive, to grasp, what is all around us in the spiritual world. We cannot do so because in our astral body and our ego-being we are too attenuated; they are not yet fully-formed instruments, like the physical senses or the brain, which our capacity for forming ideas uses in order to attain waking experiences in the soul.

Having stepped through the portal of death, human beings find themselves on the whole, as you know—at least for the first few decades—endowed with a degree of substance similar to that of our sleeping state while on earth. This substance cannot remain quite so attenuated as that pertaining to the time of our physical incarnation, otherwise all experiences between death and a new birth would remain totally unconscious. They do not, as we know. On the contrary, a certainly different, but much brighter and more powerful consciousness than that which prevails while we are in our physical body comes about between death and a new birth. So we must ask how this form of consciousness emerges while we dwell in our astral body and ego-being.

In physical life here on earth we possess our physical instrument which permeates us—or we could say envelops us—with all the ingredients which make up the physical world: that is, the mineral, the plant and the animal kingdoms. The physical body thus prepared for us is our tool for waking life. In a similar way a tool is prepared for us which serves us between death and a new birth. Because we are human beings, the first thing to be prepared for us after death, as soon as we have laid aside our etheric body, is something that comes from the hierarchy of the angeloi. We are mingled with the substance of the hierarchy of the angeloi. One being from this hierarchy actually belongs to us, is the leading being of our human individuality. As we now grow upwards into the spiritual world this being from the hierarchy of the angeloi who belongs to us is joined by other beings from this hierarchy, and together they mould in us—or rather for us—a kind of angeloi organism, the structure of which differs from that of our physical organism.

To make a diagram of this, we could say: We grow upwards through the portal of death into the spiritual world. This is a sketch of our own individuality (mauve in the diagram). Linked with it is the one angel being who, we feel, is given to us by the hierarchy of the angeloi (red). But when we lay aside our etheric body, this angel being forms a relationship with other beings of the hierarchy of the angeloi—it links up with them, and we feel the whole of the world of the angeloi within ourselves. We feel it to be within ourselves, it is an inner experience—except, of course, for the external experiences which also result.

This permeation by the world of the angeloi makes it possible for us to relate to other disembodied human beings who have passed through the portal of death before us. Let me put it like this: Just as here our senses link us to the external world, so the condition of being embedded in the world of the angeloi links us to the spiritual beings, including human beings, whom we find in the spiritual world. Just as here in the physical world, in accordance with the prevailing conditions, we receive an organism which is organized in a certain way, so do we receive an organism of spirit which is brought into being by this network of angeloi substances. How this network of angeloi substances is structured, however, depends very much on the manner in which we work our way up to the spiritual world. If we work our way up in such a way that we have little sensitivity for the spiritual world because we have far too many echoes of physical pleasures, urges and instincts, physical sympathies and antipathies, then the formation of our angeloi organism is difficult. This is why we tarry for a while in the soul world, as we called it, so that we can free ourselves from all that permeates us from the physical world and prevents us from forming our angeloi organism properly. It is gradually developed while we tarry in the soul world. We grow towards this angeloi organism. But concurrently another necessity arises—the necessity to permeate ourselves not only with this angeloi organism but also with another substance, that of an archangeloi organism. Our consciousness in the spiritual world between death and a new birth would remain exceedingly dull if we could not permeate ourselves with the archangeloi organism. If we were to be permeated only with the angeloi organism, we would be dreamers in the spiritual world. We would be woven out of all kinds of Imaginative substances belonging to the spiritual world, but we would dream away our time between death and a new birth. So that we do not dream this time away, so that a strong, clear consciousness can come about, we have to be permeated by the archangeloi organism (blue in the diagram).

This gives our consciousness the right clarity. Only through this do we wake up in the spiritual world. Now the degree to which we wake up in the spiritual world determines the degree to which we can have a free relationship with the physical world. And a free relationship with this physical world is something we must have. Let us ask what is the relationship of the physical world with the excarnated human beings who have passed through the portal of death. You can find the answer to this, too, in the lectures given in Vienna. Here in the physical world it is difficult for human beings, however strong their yearning, to rise up in thought and feeling to a perception of the spiritual, heavenly world. Human beings thirst for ideas about the heavenly world, but they cannot easily unfold the powerful capacity for forming ideas necessary to bring this heavenly world into their reach. In a certain sense the situation is the opposite during life in the spiritual world between death and a new birth. Into this world we are followed by what we experience in the physical world; we are followed by what was important in the physical world, by what we perceived here. We are followed by all this in a very extraordinary way. The examples I give will show you how complicated these things are. In the light of our capacity to form ideas in the physical world, these examples will sometimes appear grotesque—even paradoxical—but it is impossible to enter in a concrete way into the spiritual world without also taking account of precisely these ideas.

Perception of all that exists in the mineral kingdom is lost almost as soon as we step through the portal of death. Here in the physical world, because we have senses, our capacity for perception is greatest with regard to the mineral kingdom. Indeed, we could almost say it is virtually exclusive, for other than the mineral kingdom there is not much that we can perceive as long as we are confined to our senses. You might say that we perceive animals and plants as well. Why do we? A plant is full of minerals, and what we perceive in the plant is everything mineral that streams and pulsates through it. The same goes for the animals. So it is true to say that here on earth human beings perceive with their senses almost exclusively what belongs to the mineral kingdom. When we die this mineral kingdom, so clearly perceived here, disappears. Take an example. Every day you perceive salt on your table, you perceive it as an external mineral product. But someone who has left his body and gone through the portal of death cannot see this salt in the salt-cellar. However, when you sprinkle the salt in your soup, and then swallow it, a process takes place within you, and that process, which is accompanied by the sensation of the salty taste, is perceived by the one who has died. From the moment when your tongue begins to taste the salt, from the moment when a process takes place within you, the one who has died can perceive the salt in the way it works. This is how things are. So those who have gone through the portal of death cannot perceive the mineral kingdom unless it has an influence in some way on a human or animal or plant organism. This shows that what might be called the external environment of the dead is quite different from what we are accustomed to calling our environment here between birth and death.

One thing, however, always remains perceptible to the dead, and it is important to pay attention to this. It is whatever has been filled with human thoughts and feelings; it is the human thoughts which are perceived. Salt in a salt-cellar, as a product of nature, is not perceived by the dead. Nor do they perceive the salt-cellar, whether it is made of glass or any other material. But in so far as human thoughts have come to rest in the salt-cellar during the process of its manufacture, these human thoughts are perceived by the dead. When you consider how everything around us, except what is purely the product of nature, bears the signature of human thoughts, you will have a good idea of what the dead can perceive. They also perceive all relationships between beings, including those between human beings. All this is alive for them.

There are certain things in the physical world, however, of which the dead endeavour to rid themselves; they want to expel them from their ideas and soul experiences—as it were, wipe them out. Their desire to do this is comparable to the longing on the part of human beings here on earth to gain certain insights about the world beyond. Here we long to achieve ideas about the next world. After death, as regards certain human matters here on earth—the world beyond, from the viewpoint of the dead—we long to extinguish them, to wipe them away. But to do this it is necessary to be filled with the substances of the higher hierarchies of angeloi and archangeloi. Once the dead are filled with these substances they can extinguish from their consciousness what must be extinguished.

This, then, gives you an idea of how the dead grow into the spiritual world by filling their individuality through and through with the substances of beings of the higher hierarchy. It is very important to understand that in order to remove from consciousness all the things with which they are more or less personally connected—and that means everything manufactured and consequently bearing within it human thoughts which enable the dead to perceive it—the dead must, above all else, fill themselves with the substance of the angeloi. Other things, too, must be cast aside, must be extinguished, so that the dead can find their way to a proper sojourn in the spiritual world.

Strange though it may sound from our standpoint here on earth, there is an obstacle to growing into what gives us a clear, enlightened consciousness in the spiritual world. This obstacle standing in the way of growing easily into the spiritual world is, strangely enough, human language, the language we use here on earth for the purpose of a physical understanding from one human being to another. The dead have to gradually grow away from language, otherwise they would remain stuck in the affinities which bind them to language and which would prevent them from growing into the kingdom of the archangeloi. Language is definitely only suitable for earthly conditions. And within earthly conditions the human being has, in his soul, become very strongly linked with language. For many people, especially now in this materialistic age, thinking has come to be virtually contained in language. People today think hardly at all in thoughts but very strongly indeed in language, in words. That is why they find it so satisfying to find the right term for something. But such terms, such definitions in words, are only valid here in physical life, and after death our task is to extricate ourselves from definitions in words.

In such matters, too, spiritual science gives us a certain possibility to find our way into the realm of the super-sensible. How often do I say to you that to reach a genuine concept we can only approximate; we can only, so to speak, feel our way all around the actual words. How often have I not shown you how we have to endeavour to reach the concept by approaching it from all sides, by experimenting with the use of different expressions in order to free ourselves of the actual words. Spiritual science in a certain sense emancipates us from language. Indeed it does this very fully, thus bringing us into the sphere which we share with the dead.

Emancipation from language is intimately bound up with the way the dead grow into the substance of the archangeloi. By emancipating ourselves from language in spiritual science, by creating concepts in spiritual science which are more or less independent of language, we build a bridge between the physical and the spiritual world.

Take a clear look at what I have just said. You will then find that you have understood an important connection between the physical and the spiritual world. And if you think the thought through in a living way you will discover an important means by which to understand all kinds of impulses that emanate from those brotherhoods about which we have spoken on numerous occasions in the past weeks. From various things I have said you will have gathered that these brotherhoods make it their business to fetter human beings to the material world. Just recently we spoke of how these brotherhoods are eager to make materialism super-materialistic or, in a way, to create a kind of ahrimanic immortality for their members. They can do this most strongly by representing group interests, group egoisms, and they certainly do this outstandingly.

One way of representing a group interest is followed by the most influential among these brotherhoods, whose point of departure is something I have already described to you. It is their aim to thoroughly immerse the fifth post-Atlantean cultural period in everything connected with the English language. To these brotherhoods the very definition of the fifth post-Atlantean period is that every English-speaking element belongs to the fifth post-Atlantean period. Thus, even in their primary principle, they restrict things to an egoistic group interest.

This involves something extremely important from the spiritual point of view. It means that their intention is nothing less than the aim of influencing not only human individuals while they are incarnated in physical bodies between birth and death, but indeed all human individuals, including those who are living between death and a new birth. They are striving to let human individualities enter into the spiritual world and become immersed in the hierarchy of the angeloi, but then to prevent them from becoming immersed in turn in the hierarchy of the archangeloi. The aim is, one could say, to depose the hierarchy of the archangeloi from the evolution of mankind!

Perhaps not those of you who have recently joined us, but certainly those who have been with us for some considerable time will discover, if you pay close attention to many things you have been told, that there are clear signs of such things, even in the Theosophical Society. Those of you who shared in the life of the Theosophical Society will surely remember that certain leading members of that society, especially the notorious Mr Leadbeater, said in so many words that in many ways the life between death and a new birth was a kind of dream-life. Those of you who had been members of the Theosophical Society for some time will know that such things were circulated.

It is not extraordinary that such things have been said, for in the case of some souls, who had been successfully influenced in this way and who were found by Leadbeater in the spiritual world, this had actually happened. These souls had indeed been prevented from contact with the world of the archangeloi and they therefore lacked any strong, clear consciousness. So in his way Leadbeater was observing souls who had fallen prey to the machinations of those brotherhoods, only he did not go so far as to observe what became of those souls after a while. Such souls cannot spend their whole time between death and a new birth without the ingredients which would normally be given to them by the world of the archangeloi, so they have to receive something else instead. And they do indeed receive something that is an equivalent; they are indeed permeated by something; but what? They are permeated by something that comes from archai who have remained behind at the stage of the archangeloi. So, instead of being permeated by the substance of the real archangeloi—as would be normal—they are permeated by archai, by time spirits, but by those who have not ascended to the level of the time spirits but have remained behind at the level of the archangeloi. They would have become archai if they had evolved normally, but they have remained behind at the level of the archangeloi. That means that these souls are permeated by ahrimanic influences in the strongest manner.

You need to have a proper idea of the spiritual world in order to comprehend the full significance of a fact such as this. When occult means are used in an endeavour to secure for a single folk spirit the rulership over the whole world, this means that the intention is to influence even the spiritual world. It means that in the place of the legitimate rulership of the dead by the archangeloi, is put the illegitimate rulership by archai who have remained at the stage of the archangeloi and who are, therefore, illegitimate time spirits. With this, ahrimanic immortality is achieved.

You might ask why human beings can be so foolish as to allow themselves to be programmed away from normal evolution and into quite another evolutionary direction. This is a short-sighted judgement, for it fails to take into account that out of certain impulses human beings can indeed come to long for immortality in worlds other than those that would be normal. It is well and good that you do not long for any part in some kind of ahrimanic immortality! But just as all kinds of things are incomprehensible, so you will have to admit that it must be allowed to remain incomprehensible, if people in the normal world—including life between death and a new birth—want to escape from this normal world, saying—as it were: We do not want Christ to be our guide, Christ, who is the guide for the normal world; we want a different guide, for we want to oppose this normal world. From the preparations they undergo—I have described these to you—from the preparations brought about by ceremonial magic, they gain the impression that the world of ahrimanic powers is a far more powerful spiritual world and that it will above all enable them to continue what they have achieved in the physical world—making immortal their materialistic experiences in physical life.

The time is ripe for looking into these things, because those who do not know about them, those who do not know that such endeavours exist today, are not in a position to understand what is going on. Behind everything visible in the physical world there lies something that is supernatural, something physically imperceptible. And there are today not a few who work, either for good or for bad, with means, with impulses that are hidden behind what the senses can perceive. It can be said that the world in which we live will follow its proper evolution if human beings place themselves in the service of Christ. But there are many and varied means by which this can be avoided, and some of these are so close to home that it is not easy to speak about them. People have no idea of what can spread through human souls, yet at the same time work as an immeasurably strong occult impulse.

You know—now this is close to home—that at a certain point of time the doctrine of infallibility was declared. This doctrine of infallibility—and this is the important aspect—is accepted by many people. But someone who is a true Christian might wonder about this doctrine of infallibility. He could ask himself what the early fathers of the Church, who were much closer to the original meaning of Christianity, would have said about it. They would have called it a blasphemy! In a truly Christian sense, this would hit the nail on the head. And at the same time it would point to an exceptionally effective occult method of stimulating faith by means of something eminently anti-Christian. This faith represents an important occult impulse in a particular direction, away from normal Christian evolution. As you see, we can touch on something quite close to home, and wherever we do so in the world we find occult impulses.

A similarly powerful occult impulse, which failed, was sought by Mrs Besant when she launched the Alcyone fiasco. If a belief in the incarnation of Jesus in Alcyone had taken hold, this would have become a strong occult impulse. So you see that even the mere spread of certain concepts, certain ideas, can contain strong occult impulses. And since those brotherhoods of whom I have spoken have set themselves the task of making the fifth post-Atlantean period—in the egoistic interest of their group—into the long-term aim of earthly evolution, eliminating what ought to come into this earthly evolution in the sixth and seventh post-Atlantean periods, you will understand why these brotherhoods send out into the world the things that I have described. To achieve their aims they have to create impulses which are meaningful not only for incarnated human beings but also for those who are not incarnated. The time has come when it is necessary that at least a few solitary individuals understand these things so that they can gain an idea of what is actually going on and being accomplished.

For this to be possible, concepts about the life of mankind on earth must come into being which are ever more and more right. It is unthinkable that those concepts can continue which are causing so much harm in our time. For the more human beings there are who have the right concepts, the less will certain occult trends be able to stir up trouble. However, as long as the things which are being said continue to be said in Europe today, things deliberately distorting the truth about the relationships of nations with one another, this is a sign that many occult impulses are at work with the aim of distracting earthly evolution away from the sixth post-Atlantean period. After all, important things are going to be brought about by the sixth post-Atlantean period. I have stressed very strongly that Christ died for the individual human being. We must see this as an essential aspect of the Mystery of Golgotha. He has an important task during the fifth post-Atlantean period which we shall leave aside for the moment. But He also has an important task in the sixth period. This is to help the world to overcome the last vestiges of the principle of nationality. That this should not happen, that steps should be taken in good time to prevent any influence by Christ in the sixth post-Atlantean period—this is the purpose served by the impulses of those brotherhoods who want to preserve the fifth post-Atlantean period in the manner I have shown.

The only counter-measure is to create the right concepts and gradually imbue them ever increasingly with life. These right concepts must live. Nations could dwell so peacefully side by side if only they would endeavour to discover the right concepts and ideas about their relationships. As I have said, no programme, no abstract idea, but solely the right concrete concepts, can lead to what must come about. Difficult though it is in the face of current ideas, by which our friends, too, have of course been not a little infected, nevertheless it is necessary to draw people's attention to various aspects which can lead to the right concepts. You all have at your disposal the necessary materials on which to base these right concepts, but these materials are not illuminated properly. As soon as they are correctly illuminated you will arrive at the correct, concrete ideas.

Let us now take up something we have already discussed from a certain viewpoint. Here on this globe, in the Europe we inhabit, the relationships between nations are spoken about in a way that inflicts utter torture on the dead, for all the ideas and concepts are based on the peculiarities of language. By forming concepts about nationality based on the peculiarities of language, people persistently torture the dead. One way of torturing the dead, one way of failing to show them love, is to participate in spiritualist seances. For this forces them to manifest in a particular language. The dead person is expected to speak a particular language, for even with table-rapping the signs have to refer to a particular language. What is done to the dead by forcing them to express themselves in a particular language might very well be compared with pinching someone living in the flesh with red-hot tongs. So painful for the dead are spiritualist seances which expect them to express themselves in a particular language. For in their normal life the dead are striving to free themselves from the differentiations between languages.

So, simply by speaking about the relationships between the peoples of Europe in concepts based on language, we are doing something about which we are barely able to communicate with the dead. That is why I could say that it is necessary today, or beginning to be necessary, to form concepts of a kind which can be discussed with the dead, or about which we can have communication with the dead. Of course there is no need to inundate the world with Volapuk or some other constructed language, for though it is true that all people wear clothes, they need not all wear the same clothes. On the other hand, though, we cannot be expected to see our clothes as part of ourselves. Similarly something we need for the physical world, namely the differentiation between languages—which serve the purpose of bringing the spiritual realm into the physical world—cannot be seen as belonging to our inmost archetypal being. We must be clear about this.

So how can we arrive at concepts which gradually rise above the ethnic elements which are almost exclusively based on language? In this, too, Anthroposophy must rise above mere anthropology, which has really no other means of answering this question except by referring to the differentiations of language.

As I said, the peoples of Europe could easily live in peace if only they could find suitable concepts, concepts which are alive. We took a step towards this when we discussed Grimm's law of sound-shifts. There I showed you how some languages have remained behind at an earlier stage. We spoke of the sequence of stages: Gothic, Anglo-Saxon—present-day English—and then High German. High German has continued to advance while English has remained at a certain stage. This is not a value judgement but merely a fact which has to be observed as objectively as a law of nature. In English we have d where in High German there is t, and we saw that this conforms with a certain law, the law of sound-shifts. However, this law of sound-shifts is, in a certain sphere, an expression of more profound conditions prevailing in the whole of European life. In this connection it is worth noting that certain concepts and ideas work with a vengeance, albeit unconsciously, to bring about misunderstandings. These things, too, must be seen entirely objectively.

Taking our departure from what we have said so far, we could state that in Central Europe there existed what we might call the ‘primordial soup’ for what later streamed out to the periphery, particularly towards the West. Let us take a closer look at this ‘primordial soup’ (see diagr, below). For a very long time it has been customary for the nation which represents this ‘primordial soup’ to call itself ‘das deutsche Volk’. The peoples of the West have exercised a kind of revenge on this nation by refusing to call them by the name they have chosen for themselves, a name which signifies a profound instinct. They are called ‘Teutons’, ‘Allemands’, ‘Germans’, all kinds of things, but never, by those who speak a western language, ‘Deutsche’. Yet this is the very name that has deep links with the nature of this people which is, in a way, the ‘primordial soup’. One stream of this went southwards. We described it as the papal, hierarchical cultic element.

Another stream went towards the West. We described this when we spoke of the diplomatic, political element. And a third stream went towards the North-west. We described it in connection with the mercantile element. At the centre there remained something that has retained a fluidity which allows for further evolution. You need only remember that in the periphery even language has stopped developing, whereas in the German language of Central Europe there still exists, in the sound-shifts, the possibility of growing beyond the sounds and ascending to the next stage of sound-evolution.

What is the basis for this? The ‘primordial soup’ was still virtually undifferentiated, bearing within it all the elements which then streamed outwards. They really did stream outwards. The migrating peoples moved right down through Italy. Present-day Italians are not the descendants of the Romans; they are the result of all that arose through the mingling of the Germanic tribes as they moved southwards. The whole process began when the Romans used the Germans whom they had absorbed to wage war on other Germans, for these were their best warriors. Things then continued in the manner familiar to us from history. Similarly, the Franks migrated westwards and the Anglo-Saxons north-westwards. How can we gain a proper conception of what it was that migrated outwards in this way?

The undifferentiated ‘primordial soup’ of humanity was not quite without structure, even though it was undifferentiated. It is right to distinguish between what was at first undifferentiated and what later became differentiated. The ‘primordial soup’ contains what migrated down towards the south; it is there as one of the parts. This part (red in the diagram) migrated southwards with all its one-sidedness. Drawing an analogy to what people meant by the ancient castes, we could say that a caste migrated southwards, a caste with a capacity for priestly things—a priestly caste. Since then a priestly element has always emanated from that part of the periphery. This has taken many forms and, although in an extraordinary way, even the latest phase has a kind of priestly character. Not only is the impulse called ‘holy egoism’, sacro egoismo, but also, d'Annunzio, for instance, could not have used words of a more priestly nature. Right down to the rephrased ‘Beatitudes’, everything that came from that quarter was clothed in priestly robes. Whether good or bad, everything was of a priestly nature. What remained in the ‘primordial soup’ became the opposition to all this, in the way I have described. What appeared in the Reformation was the element which had remained in the ‘primordial soup’; it came to be the opponent of the one-sided priestly element. The fact that today nothing more can be detected of this priestly element, or that all that can be detected is what is obviously there, is simply the result of that hollowing-out of which I have spoken.

The second element migrated westwards: the warrior caste, the kingly caste, the element of kingship. We have spoken of this, too. This western part only fell into republicanism because of an anomaly. In actual fact it is inwardly structured through and through in a warlike, kingly manner and it will ever and again fall back into this warlike, kingly element. Again we have something that has streamed out, so that a part of this element which has streamed out towards the West has also remained in the ‘primordial soup’ and will in turn have to provide the opposition to what takes place in the West (blue).

And north-westwards went the mercantile element. It, too, remains as a part (orange) and will have to stand in opposition to what has developed one-sidedly. No moral evaluation is meant by this, for let no one believe that I in any way share the opinion, expressed so frequently, that the mercantile element is something despicable in comparison with the priestly element. All these things must be seen in their dissimilarity, but they must not be labelled and evaluated. Indeed, for the fifth post-Atlantean period, as we have seen, the mercantile element is something utterly essential. But we really must see the realities as they exist. If people cannot see them now, then they will come to see them in the future.

From one quarter many occult impulses have emanated which have used the priestly element in the interests of certain groups, and from another quarter have come occult impulses which have used the warlike element. In the same way, from a third quarter, occult impulses are emanating today which prefer to use the mercantile element as their vehicle. They will be stronger than the others, for numbers I and II are only repetitions of the third and fourth post-Atlantean periods, whereas number III belongs fully to the fifth post-Atlantean period. Therefore, all the impulses that come from the third quarter will be stronger than those coming from the first and second quarters because they coincide with the fundamental character of the fifth post-Atlantean period. They will be as strong as certain impulses were during the Egyptian civilization in the third post-Atlantean period, and others which emanated from the Near East and transplanted themselves through the cultures of Greece and Rome during the fourth post-Atlantean period. The sorcery of the ancient Egyptians and the blood sacrifices—these are the forerunners of what comes from the secret brotherhoods of which we have been speaking, though what comes from them will be something different. Because it makes use of the mercantile element it will have a more common-or-garden character in the ordinary human sense.

We really must be clear about these things. Only if human beings feel themselves to be immersed in a living way in what truly exists can healing come to evolution. Through this alone is it possible, within what happens, to learn to distinguish what is true from what is untrue. We have heard how necessary it is to learn to distinguish between truth and falsehood—that falsehood which is the cause of the huge groundswell of impulses now running through the world. So many false ideas bear within them a powerful occult force if they are believed by human beings.

Just as in earlier times other media served the impulses which were at work, so in our own time, in the fifth post-Atlantean period, the art of printing books and everything that exists in the mercantile element serves these purposes. We have a foretaste of the terrible things to come in people's strong dependence on everything put out in the Press by mercantile groups by means of the medium of printing. The aims of these groups are anything but what they say they are in their newspapers. They want to make profits, or achieve certain things through doing business, and for this they possess the means by which they can disseminate views whose truthfulness is irrelevant but which serve the purpose of entering into certain kinds of business. In the case of much of the printed matter distributed around the world today the right question to ask is not: What does this person mean? but: In whose service does this person stand? Who is paying for this or that opinion? This is often the crucial question these days. The secret brotherhoods about whom we have been speaking are not concerned with suppressing these things, but rather promoting them as an important occult means of which they can make use. An important aim is achieved by them when what is said no longer matters, as long as it exercises influence over people in the interests of certain groups.

The important thing is to see these things as clearly and soberly as possible. And we can only discern the nuances sufficiently if we see them properly in their connections with the spiritual worlds. I am referring to the symptoms, to the symptoms of history, as I have said. Of course you must not expect to find black magic behind every phenomenon. But there are phenomena which are used in the service of grey or black magic. It is also not necessary to pass moral judgements on everything; you must simply see things in the proper light.

For someone who wants to see things in the proper way, certain words spoken by Sir Edward Grey will surely be unforgettable and startling—words appearing among other, less important, things which nevertheless also had to be said in order to make the whole thing credible. These words were part of the great speech he made to introduce England's entry into this European war, and they are saturated with the blood—I mean the soul blood—of the fifth post-Atlantean period. These words are not only true but more than true; their truth is drawn from what lives in a materialistic way in the fifth post-Atlantean period. ‘We are going’, says Grey, ‘to suffer, I am afraid, terribly in this war whether we are in it or whether we stand aside. Foreign trade is going to stop, not because the trade routes are closed, but because there is no trade at the other end. Continental nations engaged in war—all their populations, all their energies, all their wealth, engaged in a desperate struggle—they cannot carry on the trade with us that they are carrying on in times of peace, whether we are parties to the war or whether we are not,’ and so on.

The whole of western Europe stands today under the dominion of a single question of power. This talk of trade, and that it is for considerations of trade that it is important not to remain detached from the war—this is far more profoundly truthful than all the other things contained in this speech, things which only had to be said in order to make this speech credible. It no longer matters what people say, as long as it is believed. They might even say it unconsciously. Neither am I passing a moral judgement on anyone. What does matter is the ability to recognize—on the basis of the inner truth of human evolution—where the truth is being expressed. And this was a point at which the truth in the truest sense was spoken. The same facts, the same truths are truthfully expressed which, once they have been suitably developed by those brotherhoods of whom we have spoken, lead to the impregnation of the mercantile trend with occult impulses.

This must become known to mankind; it must be experienced by mankind. If human beings were not to experience this, they would not grow sufficiently strong. They must harden themselves by opposing what lies in the impulses we have described. In an earlier age there existed a tyranny which forced people to believe only what was recognized by Rome. A far greater tyranny will come about when neither philosophers nor scientists decide what should be believed but when the tools of those secret brotherhoods alone specify what is to be believed, when they alone make sure that no human soul may harbour any beliefs other than those dictated by them, when nothing new is done in the world except what is stipulated by them alone. This is the goal of these brotherhoods. And though I have nothing against idealists—for idealism is always something good—certain idealists are naive if they believe that these things are only temporary and will disappear again once the war comes to an end. The war is only the beginning of the way things are tending to go. And the only possibility of getting beyond this lies in the clear and proper understanding of what is going on. Nothing else is of any use. Therefore—although certain quarters will not be pleased to hear and see them and will take steps against them—there will always have to be people who clearly point out the full intensity of what is really going on, people who cannot be deterred from pointing out the full intensity of what is happening.

At the beginning of these considerations I said that the Germans called themselves ‘Deutsche’, but that they met with no understanding on the part of those who call them ‘Germans’, or whatever else. Seen from their own point of view, ‘German’ is exactly what they are not, for those who call themselves ‘Deutsche’ consider that ‘Germanic’ refers to all those whose languages are at the same stage historically, and this does not include High ‘German’ or anything that is ‘Deutsch’. From their point of view the Scandinavians, the Anglo-Saxons, the Dutch are ‘Germans’, and they mean by this nothing more than that below the surface their languages are related. So ‘Germans’ no longer means much to those who call themselves ‘Deutsche’ because all of this no longer has any reality today. Thus, when outside Germany the phrase ‘pan-Germanic’ is coined, this is quite meaningless to those who call themselves ‘Deutsche’ because for them ‘Germanic’ can no longer have any real substance. Different national structures have formed, and to use the purely theoretical expression ‘pan-Germanic’ is simply to regress to an earlier age; it expresses nothing that has any connection with the future or even with the present. The designation ‘Deutsch’, however, is based on a profound instinct.

Differentiated out of what I called the ‘primordial soup’ came the three castes, the first, the second and the third caste. They developed and migrated. The fourth caste I have already described as those who simply wanted to be human beings, and nothing else. They always remained where they were and, as a result, underwent developments which to the others seemed grotesque—for instance, in relation to the first sacramental stage of alliteration, which went on to develop into the sound-shift. This is most interesting because it is a link among many others.

Let us put it this way: Those who migrated were various differentiations of ‘the people’; and those who remained were ‘the people’ per se, the ‘volk’, the ‘diet’. The name Dietrich, for instance, means ‘he who is rich in people’. ‘Diet’ later became ‘deutsch’, and to be ‘Deutsch’ means nothing other than to be ‘the people’. The people who remained where they were are the fourth caste. The other three migrated, ‘the people’ remained.

So this is the profound instinct that lies behind the designation ‘Deutsch’; it simply denotes the human element. Therefore, what stayed where it was as ‘the people’ has the capacity to be felt, not as something that has developed organically, but as something that has remained fluid in its development so that it can go beyond all the differentiations. Certainly the priestly element is there, but there is the possibility of going beyond the priestly element. The warlike element is there, but there is the possibility of going beyond the warlike element. The mercantile element is also there, but there is the possibility of going beyond the mercantile element. Similarly in language; the older form was there, but there was the possibility of going beyond it.

Connected with this, though, is a phenomenon which understandably has led to endless misunderstandings. Seen at a deeper level, these are tragic misunderstandings, but they come about because, of course, in the ‘primordial soup’ there is much which contains the germs of what later reappears in the periphery. Yet whereas in the periphery it is seen as characteristic and fitting, when it is discovered in the ‘primordial soup’ it is thought to be totally abnormal. Let us take militarism. This does not belong to the nature of the German people at all, it belongs to the French. In France no fault is found with it, because there it has developed organically. But when it is discovered in Germany it is seen as something improper which ought not to be there. Fault is found with it when it comes to the fore as a result of some emergency situation such as the geographical situation we discussed at length earlier. Or take the German ‘Junker’; all he represents is what developed in the British Empire into something absolutely acceptable, the aristocratic squire. Simply because it developed in its own way in Central Europe it stands out like a sore thumb and is seen as a provocation. Thus there arise endless misunderstandings; indeed the world is full of things that are misunderstood, it is full of subjective interpretations of reality. Wherever you look, you find all kinds of ideas which crumble on closer inspection. Those who really understand what is going on have no use for these things, those whose thinking is based on reality have no use for them, and yet they work as impulses; in public opinion they act like dynamite. They elbow their way into public opinion. Some would be infinitely funny if they were not so infinitely tragic.

Here is an example. Treitschke is described by the nations of the Entente as a monster, as a person whose views are an abomination for Europe. He is presented as typifying those views about Central Europe which justify inflicting on Central Europe its just deserts. But let us look at some of Treitschke's views. What does he think, for instance, of the Turks? He thinks that they should depart from Europe, that they should not be allowed to live in Europe but should scatter themselves across Asia. What we read today in the note to Wilson exactly expresses Treitschke's view! Fault is found with Treitschke, but in this matter, as in countless others, his opinion is taken up and even acted upon. His views on Turkey might just as well have been copied straight down in the note to Wilson. This is what I mean by an idea which crumbles; as soon as you apply any knowledge or understanding it disintegrates. Other concepts disintegrate, too, as soon as a little knowledge is applied. But most people today make statements without any knowledge, much to the advantage of those who want to spread their ideas in the dark. How often do we hear today that it is perfectly ‘humane’ to surround and starve out Central Europe. Among the various reasons given for this most humane method of warfare is the justification that in 1870 the Germans did just the same. They found it perfectly ‘humane’ to surround and starve out Paris; and the relative size of the territories in question is irrelevant. Only someone who knows nothing of history can talk like this—of course I do not mean the history you can read in the newspapers!

But what were the facts? In 1870/71 Bismarck, who was responsible for starving Paris out, was totally against doing any such thing. You can read in his book how distressed he was that the impulse came from England, via the English princess who later became the Empress Friedrich, to conquer Paris by starvation rather than by any other means. He writes that unfortunately they were forced by the Englishwoman to apply ‘this humane method’ to Paris; he speaks of the humane English method.

That is the real historical context. But, of course, you have to know about it if you want to judge things without using ideas which crumble. Comparing the two situations, they seem so truly alike. But very often things are not at all alike when they are compared against the full background. In this case the ‘humane’ method of starving Paris out is an English invention of recent history. So the objection now being made should not be made, if reality is to be the basis. To work with reality, to understand things on the basis of reality—this alone can lead to salvation today.

To be able to meet the request of many of our friends to investigate current events, we have had to discuss things we usually discuss in other connections, in order that our souls might experience the deep seriousness with which the reality of events must be seen. If just a few people can be found who are willing to see things as they really are, then the grim times we are about to face will be followed by better times. The seeds take a while to ripen. But if you sow thoughts of reality in your souls today, these are real seeds capable of ripening, and we can add that these are thoughts about which one can be in agreement with the dead. It is so painful to hear on all sides these days that ‘we owe this or that to the dead’. This event, which for convenience sake is still termed ‘war’, though it has long since become something utterly different—how often do those who want to prolong this event proclaim all the things we are supposed to owe to the dead, to those who have fallen! If people only knew how they blaspheme against God when they maintain that we owe it to the dead to prolong these bloody events; if only they knew the position of the dead in this matter, they would quickly distance themselves from this blasphemy!

So, my dear friends, from all these things which come about through human beings, you see how necessary it is to build a bridge between the living and the dead. Spiritual science will build this bridge. Spiritual science will bring about a possibility of reaching an understanding, even with those who have passed through the portal of death. A life of community will embrace all human souls—those embodied on the earth and those living between death and a new birth—when the fundamental nature of the human being is understood, when it is understood that life in the body and life without the body are simply two forms of one and the same all-embracing life. This knowledge, that the human being has two forms of life, one in the body and one without the body—this knowledge, if it is fundamentally understood, bears within it salvation for the future, but only if human beings fill themselves with these ideas in a truly living way.

Today I shall speak more generally, perhaps aphoristically, to prepare the way for Tuesday, when I shall discuss our anthroposophical spiritual science and its significance for the present time and for human evolution. I shall then bring to your notice some things which we should certainly take to heart. On the one hand we will look back on our work, and on the other hand I shall present certain matters which are important for the whole way in which we assess our spiritual scientific movement, as well as the manner in which we relate to it. It seems to me to be appropriate, at this time, to take into our hearts a consideration of this kind.

Let me start today with some remarks on what it is that can give us, as human beings, a sense for our situation in the cosmos. Actually, human beings in this materialistic age feel, you might say, deserted and isolated in the cosmos. If you cut off a person's finger or hand, or amputate his leg, he feels you have taken away something that belongs to his physical, bodily nature; he feels that the missing part belongs to the whole of his bodily nature. In earlier periods of human evolution people felt quite differently about this. Not only did they feel their hand, or arm or leg to be a part of their whole being, but they felt that they were, in turn, a part of a totality. In those days it was possible to speak quite differently about a group-ego. Tribes, families, for generations back, felt themselves to be a totality. We have gone into this frequently. As for their external, physical existence, however, people felt something quite different. They felt in a way as though they stood within the cosmos as a whole, as though they had been formed out of the whole cosmos.

Just as today we feel that our finger, our hand, is one member of our total organism, so in olden times people felt: Up there is the sun; it runs its own course but it is not unrelated to us; we are a part of the region traversed by the sun; we are a part of the universe as it is given certain rhythms by the moon. In short, they felt the universe to be one great organism and that they were within it, just as today our finger might feel that it is part of our body. The fact that this feeling, this perception, is virtually lost to us today has not a little to do with the rise of materialism. Today's science, in particular, disdains to have anything to do with an idea that man might be a part of the cosmos. Science regards a human being as an individual body, of which the separate parts are examined and described anatomically and physiologically. It is no longer customary in science to regard the human being as a member of the total organism of the universe in so far as this is physically visible.

But people's view of things, especially their scientific view, will have to return to the concept of man embedded in the whole cosmos. Human beings will have to sense once again that they stand within the cosmic universe. This will not be possible in the way that was the case in olden times. They will have to achieve it by expanding their science, which today is abstract and directed to the individual, to include certain considerations. They will have to apply certain judgements, of which we shall discuss only one today—which we mentioned several weeks ago. This will show us the direction scientific thinking will have to take—having become far more human than current scientific thinking—if human beings are to find once again an awareness of how they stand within the universe as a whole.

You know that the position of the sun on the ecliptic at the spring equinox moves forward in the Zodiac. You know that this point has always been designated, ever since mankind began to think, according to its position in the Zodiac. So from about the eighth century before the Mystery of Golgotha until about the fifteenth century after the Mystery of Golgotha, the sun at the spring equinox rose in the sign of the Ram, though not always at exactly the same spot. During this period the sun traversed the sign of the Ram. Since then, the sun at the spring equinox has been rising in the sign of the Fishes. Note, please, that astronomy takes no account of the constellations, so you will find that calendars still say that the sun rises in the constellation of the Ram at the beginning of spring, which is in fact not the case. Astronomy has stuck to the earlier cycle. It simply divides the Zodiac into twelve equal parts, each of which is named after one of the signs. You know from our calendar what the situation is.

However, this is immaterial as far as we are concerned. What is important for us is the fact that the position of the sun at the spring equinox moves forward, passing through the whole Zodiac little by little. It traverses the whole Zodiac until it finally returns to the original position, taking approximately 25,920 years. These 25,920 years are termed the Platonic Year, the Cosmic Year. The exact figure varies according to the various methods of calculation. However, we are not concerned with exact figures but with the rhythm this precession entails. You can imagine that a cosmic rhythm must lie in this movement which repeats itself every 25,920 years.

We can say that these 25,920 years are very important for the life of the sun, for during this time the life of the sun passes through one unit, a proper unit. The next 25,920 years are then a repetition. We have a rhythm in which one unit measures 25,920 years.

Having looked at this great Cosmic Year, let us now turn our attention to something small, something intimately connected with life between birth and death, that is, with our life in so far as we are inhabitants of the physical universe. It is indisputable that one of the most important things in this life in the physical body is a single breath, an in-breath and an out-breath, for our very life depends on this breathing in and breathing out. If it were to be interrupted, we should cease to be capable of living. One breath is indeed something very important. A breath brings in the air which enlivens us in a particular way. Within our organism we transform this air into the breath of death, for it would kill us if we were to breathe it in again once we have breathed it out.

On average, a human being takes eighteen breaths a minute. Not all breaths are equal, for those in youth differ from those in old age, but the average is eighteen breaths a minute. Eighteen times a minute we rhythmically renew our life. Multiply this by 60 and you have 1,080 times an hour. Now multiply by 24, and the number of breaths in twenty-four hours comes to 25,920!

You see how a remarkable rhythm underlies the course of our life in one day. Let us take one unit of life to be one breath. This is something very important for us, since the rhythmical repetition of our breathing maintains our life. In one day we are given exactly as many units of life as the years it takes the sun to return to its original position on the ecliptic at the spring equinox. This means that if we imagine one breath to correspond to one microcosmic year, then we complete one microcosmic Platonic Year in one day, an image of the macrocosmic Platonic Year. This is most exceptionally significant, for it shows us that the process of our breathing, something which takes place within us, is based on the same rhythm, on a different time-scale, as the great rhythm of the sun's passage.

It is important for us to consider such a thing in our soul. For if we transform what has been said into a feeling, then this feeling will tell us that we are an image of the macrocosm. To say that the human being is an image of the macrocosm is no mere empty phrase, no idle chatter, for it can be proved down to the last detail. From this you can gain a feeling of the solid foundation on which stand all the laws that come from spiritual science. They are all based on similar intimate knowledge of the inner connections of the cosmos, even though it is not always possible to go into every detail.

Now in considering these things, it must above all be clear to us that the human being is, in some way and to some extent, detached from the cosmos. He stands within the rhythm of the cosmos and yet he is to some extent free. He changes things subtly, so that the rhythms do not exactly match, but it is just this fact of not quite matching which gives him the possibility of freedom. In general, however, he stands within the rhythms of the cosmos.

I had to bring forward these considerations so that what I now want to say might not be misunderstood. Having considered the rhythm of breathing, let us now turn to a larger one, the next in size: the alternation of sleeping and waking. A single breath is the smallest element of life. Now let us look at the alternation between sleeping and waking, which is indeed, to some extent, an analogy to the rhythm of breathing.

As you know, I have often described the taking in of the astral body and ego on waking up, and the letting go of the astral body and ego on going to sleep, as a breathing in and a breathing out in the course of a day and a night. But we can look at this in an even more materialistic sense. When we breathe the air, it goes in and it goes out. We inhale, we exhale. Something material swings back and forth like a pendulum; out, in, out, in. The alternation of sleeping and waking occurs as a very similar rhythm. In the morning, when we wake up and take in our ego and our astral body, our etheric body is displaced, is pushed down from the head and more into the other elements of the organism. And when we go to sleep again, pushing out our astral body and our ego, then our etheric body spreads back into our head and is there just as it is in the whole of the rest of our body. Thus there is an incessant rhythm. When the etheric body is pressed down, we wake up, and it stays down while we remain awake. When we go to sleep it is pushed back up into our head. Up and down it goes in the course of twenty-four hours. The etheric body moves rhythmically during the course of twenty-four hours. Of course there are irregularities, and this is in keeping with the human being's capacity for freedom, his degree of freedom. But, overall, what I have described takes place.

We could say that something breathes in us—though it is not an in-and-out but an up-and-down—something breathes in us during the course of a day which resembles our breathing every eighteenth of a minute. Let us see whether what breathes in this up-and-down of the etheric body also represents a kind of circulation, something which returns to its starting-point. We must fathom the meaning of 25,920 days, for 25,920 such up-and-down movements could be seen as a replication of the Platonic Year. Just as a day corresponds to 25,920 breaths, so 25,920 days ought to correspond to something in human life too. How many years does this come to?

A year has 365¼ days and if we divide 25,920 by 365.25 the answer is: nearly 71. Let us say 71 years, which is the average life-span of the human being. The human being is free, however, and often lives much longer, but you know that the patriarchal life-span is given as 70 years. The span of a human life is 25,920 days, 25,920 great breaths, and so we have another cycle wonderfully depicting the macrocosm in the microcosm. We could say that by living for one day, taking 25,920 breaths, we depict the Platonic Cosmic Year, and by living for 71 years, waking up and going to sleep 25,920 times—a breathing on a larger scale—we once again depict the Platonic Year.

Now let us turn to something which time will not allow us to discuss in detail today, but which I nevertheless want to indicate, something that can be sensed in an occult way. We are surrounded by air. It is the air which gives us the possibility of that closest element of life that takes place in the rhythm of breathing. This rhythm is given to us by the air, which is something belonging to the earth. And what gives us the other rhythm? The earth itself! That rhythm arises because the earth turns on its own axis—speaking in accordance with modern astronomy—and brings about the alternation of day and night. So the air breathes in us when we take a breath. And the earth, by letting us wake up and go to sleep, breathes, pulses in us by turning on its axis and giving us the alternation of day and night. Our life-span can be seen in relation to the earth as one day in the life of an organism which, instead of taking one breath every eighteenth of a minute, takes one breath in one day and night. For such an organism seventy years are one day, and ordinary days and nights are its breaths.

You see how we can feel ourselves to be within a life on a larger scale, a life which takes one breath every twenty-four hours and for which one day takes seventy, seventy-one, years. We can feel ourselves to be within a living being which has much longer rhythms of pulse and breathing. So you see that it is quite correct to speak of the microcosm as being an image of the macrocosm, for every part of the image can be proved mathematically. If we maintain that the air breathes within us, that it breathes itself in us, that the earthly realm breathes in us because we belong to this greater living organism, then we might come to ask: Apart from being related to the air, which is on the earth, and to the whole of the earth with its rhythm of day and night, are we perhaps also related in a certain way to the rising of the sun as a whole, as it progresses during the course of the Platonic Year, returning to the position from which it set out?

These things are of the utmost interest, yet science today takes no more notice of them than of shadows. On one occasion I found myself startlingly confronted by this contrast between today's science and the science which must come in the future. Perhaps I have told you that in the autumn of 1889 I was called by the Goethe and Schiller Archive in Weimar to edit Goethe's natural-scientific works for the extended complete works. I had to examine all the documents left behind by Goethe containing his studies on anatomy, physiology, zoology, botany, mineralogy, geology and also meteorology. He made an enormously thorough study of the weather during the course of a year, recording especially the barometric data, and it is astonishing how many tables he worked out in this connection. Only small parts of this work have been published. A few of the tables are reproduced in my edition, but otherwise little is publicly known. Like temperature charts, he made graphs showing the barometric data at a particular place compared with other places and he recorded his readings every few hours for months on end. In this way he hoped to show how the curves differed in different places.

Graphs showing barometric data are something for which today's science has little use as yet. But Goethe wanted to record these curves which for him represented an analogy with the pulse as we record its fluctuations in temperature charts. He wanted to record a kind of pulse of the earth, the regular, day-to-day earth-pulse. Why? He wanted to prove that the fluctuations in the barometric data during the course of the year are not as irregular as ordinary meteorology supposes but are subject to a certain degree of regularity which is only modified by secondary conditions pertaining at certain times. He wanted to prove that the earth's gravity depicts a breathing out and a breathing in during the course of a year; he wanted to point to the very thing that is expressed in the human being's breathing out and breathing in. He wanted to find the same thing in the barometric data. Science will embark on such projects in the future, when once again the microcosm will be examined in its relationship to the macrocosm.

So you see how Goethe was working towards a form of science which will come about at some time in the future. We also gain an idea of the immense diligence he applied in order to reach the results he achieved. He never simply makes an assertion, as is so often the case with others. When others speak of the pulse of the earth, they often intend this simply as a metaphor, an aperçu. But when Goethe says, in three or four lines, for instance, that the earth breathes, he can back this statement with a large pile of tables. Empirical knowledge is behind whatever he says. Yet most people consider empirical knowledge to be stuff and nonsense. We can learn from Goethe that one must have material with which to back one's assertions. In this way we now have material to back our statement that the earth breathes like a great organism.

Let us now see whether we can speak in a similar way about breathing if we place ourselves within the great Platonic Year of the sun, which has a span of 25,920 years. Without more ado let us now regard these 25,920 years as a single year, and let us see how much a single day amounts to. To do this we must divide by 365¼, and the answer will be a single day. We have already done this sum, and the answer was seventy-one years, the span of a human life. This means that a human life takes one day of the whole Platonic Year. So we could look at the whole Platonic Year with regard to the human life-span as follows: As physical beings we are breathed out by the whole process of the Platonic Year, so that if seventy-one years are seen as a single day, this would be one breath of the being who lives in the rhythm of the Platonic Year.

With regard to an eighteenth of a minute we are a limb of the life of the air, and with regard to a day we are a limb of the life of the earth. With regard to our life-span it is as though we were breathed out and breathed in again in one day of that being who lives in the rhythm of 25,920 years. So we could consider our physical body, which lives out its patriarchal span, to be a single breath of that great being which lives so long that 25,920 years are as one year for it. Our patriarchal life-span is then one day. So looking at a being who lives with our earth and experiences day and night in twenty-four hours, this is one breath for our etheric body. And one breath for our astral body is our actual breath of one-eighteenth of a minute.

Herein you have an analogy for an ancient assertion, for something that was called the ‘days and nights of Brahma’. Think of a spiritual being for whom our seventy-one years are as is a single breath for us. We find we are a single breath for that being. When we enter the world as a tiny baby, that being for whom the Platonic Year is one year breathes us out. It breathes us out into the cosmos, and when we die it breathes us in again; we are breathed out and we are breathed in. Now turn to the earth: It breathes us out and in again in one day. Now turn to the air, which is a part of the earth: It breathes us out and in again in an eighteenth of a minute. Whichever way we look at it, the number 25,920 represents the return to the starting point. This is a regular rhythm; it gives us the feeling of being embedded in the cosmos; it teaches us that the span of a human life, and one day in a human life, are indeed, for greater, more all-embracing beings, the same as is one breath for us. If we can transform this knowledge into feeling, then the expression ‘resting in the world-all’ assumes immense significance.

Such things really do belong in the orbit of scientific research, and nothing other than the attitude of mind of spiritual science will lead to such research into these figures, which are to be found, after all, in any encyclopaedia. One day such research will be carried out and then ordinary science will be able to find a link with anthroposophical spiritual science.

As we have seen, everything is ordered according to numbers. But it is also ordered according to measure. Human science will lend great depths to the Biblical words: Everything in the universe is ordered in accordance with measure and number.

Let us continue. There is something connected with our breathing, a kind of dependant of our breathing, and that is our speech. Organically, speech is connected with breathing. Not only does it emerge from the same organ but it is also connected with the rhythm of breathing, the rhythm of an eighteenth of a minute. Thus we speak, and thus speak those who are with us on the earth. Just as the air surrounds us on the earth, so are we surrounded by human beings whose speaking bears a relationship to the rhythm of breathing. It should follow that the other breathing, the breathing connected with day and night, also has a kind of speaking linked with it. This would be a speaking by beings who belong to the organism of the earth, just as human beings belong to the air.

In olden times, the wisdom imparted to human beings by higher beings came, not via the breathing rhythm of an eighteenth of a minute, but via the rhythm of breathing which has one day as its unit. In those ancient days they could not learn as quickly as we can today; they had to tarry longer for words which were linked to a breathing rhythm of twenty-four hours. In this way ancient knowledge came to man, knowledge which is at the foundation of everything and which can be discovered in various traditions. It was brought by higher beings who are linked to the earth in the way man is linked to the air, and who approach man. Those who today work towards an initiation still notice something of this. For knowledge which comes from the spiritual world comes to us far, far more slowly than does that which is imparted to us on the wings of our ordinary air processes.

That is why it is so important for one striving for initiation to learn to sense within himself the great significance of the transitions of going to sleep and waking up. In going to sleep and in waking up, in this transition, we are most likely to sense how spiritual beings mysteriously speak with us. Later we can then gain some control over this. If you seek entry into the world inhabited by the dead, it is good to be aware that the dead are most likely to speak at the moment of going to sleep and the moment of waking up. The moment of going to sleep is more difficult, because here we usually become immediately unconscious and fail to perceive what the dead have said. But in waking up, if we succeed in becoming fully aware of the moment of waking up, that is when the dead are most likely to communicate with us. But we must seek to gain a firm hold of the moment of waking up. This means that we must endeavour to wake up without immediately entering into the light of day. You know that there is a—shall we say—superstitious rule, that if we want to hold on to a dream we must not look at the window or the light because if we do, we will forget easily. This applies just as much to the delicate observations which flow to us from the spiritual world. We must endeavour to wake up in the dark, in darkness which we wilfully create by not listening to noises, by not opening our eyes, by waking up consciously while not yet going out to meet the day. That is when we best notice the approach of communications from the spiritual world.

You could say that if this is the case we shall receive precious few communications during the course of our lifetime! For just think how difficult it would be if this situation meant that in the course of our lifetime we could only receive as many communications as could come to us during the course of one day. This would be sufficient, no doubt, but we should have no chance of making use of any of them, for think of the time taken up by our childhood, and so on. However, the earth takes part in all this—please bear this in mind—the earth receives these communications into its etheric body. And because they are inscribed on the earth's etheric body, the communications remain available for study. We can also study, in the sun-ether which fills the whole world, the more comprehensive communications given to us by the being whose life element is the Platonic Year. This is described in Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and other books.

You see how a thread can be spun to link ordinary science with spiritual science, although those who are strangers to spiritual science will hardly find themselves in a position to evaluate what ordinary science gives them in a suitable way. But those who have the attitude of mind of spiritual science will not doubt, when they approach these matters, that a time will come one day when external science and spiritual science will join forces fully.

As I said, I have only spoken to you about a part of all this, namely, the rhythmical process which is built into breathing. There are many other things which, if studied in relation to numbers, show how the microcosm is in harmony with the macrocosm, and human beings can gain a comprehensive sense for this harmony. Such a comprehensive sense for this harmony was given to the pupils of the ancient Mysteries, right up to the fifteenth century. Before any knowledge was imparted to them, their teachers endeavoured to imbue them with a feeling for the way man stands within the cosmos. It is another sign of these materialistic times that knowledge today can be absorbed without any preparation in the feeling life. I pointed this out in the opening words of the first chapter in Christianity as Mystical Fact.

A feeling for the correspondence between microcosm and macrocosm will be especially important when the endeavour is made to reach concrete concepts for what at the moment only exists in abstractions. For instance what is ‘a people, a nation’ in today's abstract materialism? Nothing but so and so many people who speak the same language! For our materialistic age has, of course, no conception of a folk being as a separate individuality, such as we have often described. We speak of a folk being as a separate individuality, a real single individuality. But in the materialists' view a folk being is merely a collection of people who speak the same language. This is an abstraction, for the concept does not refer to a concrete being. So what does it mean to you when discussing a people or a nation to speak, not of an abstraction but of a concrete being?

Well, in Anthroposophy we have the possibility of studying the human being, who is also a concrete being, and who possesses a physical body, an etheric body, an astral body and an ego. So can we assume that a folk being is also a concrete being with differentiated parts?

Indeed we can. In addition to man, true occultism studies all the beings who exist, and who are as concrete as man. However, in the case of a folk soul we have to look for different elements, for if they were the same as in man, then a folk soul would be a human being, but it is not; it is a different kind of being. In fact, in the case of folk beings we have to study each folk soul individually in order to arrive at concepts which are real. Generalization would lead us back to abstraction, so each has to be considered individually.

Let us do so. Take the folk soul which today rules the Italian people to the extent that the individual members of a people can be ruled by a folk soul. What can we say about it? In the case of a human being we say that he has a physical body consisting of various salts, various other minerals, five per-cent solids, so much that is liquid, so much that is gaseous, and so on. That is his physical body. A folk soul such as that of the Italian people does not possess a human body, but it does possess something which can be seen as analogous to the physical body. The Italian folk soul does not have a physical body made up of salts or solids or liquids, though this does not mean that other folk souls have no liquid components. However, the Italian folk soul has none; it begins with components which are aeriform. There are no liquid or other components, for the most densely material part of the Italian folk soul is woven out of air. All its other components are even less dense. The human being has earthly substance, whereas the Italian folk soul has, to start with, aeriform substance. And where the human being has liquid substance, the Italian folk soul has warmth. The human being has aeriform substance which he breathes in and out, and the Italian folk soul has light which corresponds to air in the human being. The human being has warmth, and the Italian folk soul has sounds instead, the sounds of the spheres.

This is approximately what corresponds to the physical body, but the ingredients are different. Instead of solid, liquid, gaseous and warmth elements, as in the human being, the Italian folk soul has something similar—though not a physical body in the same sense—consisting of air, warmth, light, sound. From this you can see that if the Italian folk soul wants to ensoul the human beings who belong to it, this can take place via their breathing, since its lowest, densest component is air. And indeed it is so that the communication between the individuals and the Italian folk soul takes place through the breathing process. In the breathing the folk soul spreads down into the human beings. This is an actual, real process. Of course breathing is done through something quite different, but in the actual breathing process the folk soul steals in and influences its people.

In a similar way we could consider what corresponds to our etheric body. This would start with the life ether, and then in place of the light ether there would be what I called in my Theosophy ‘burning desire’; then, corresponding to the sound ether, would be what is there described as ‘mobile sensitivity’, and so on. You can find all the ingredients in Theosophy, but you have to know how to apply them. If you were to take further this study of the correspondence, the communication, between the folk soul and the individual human being; if you were to continue on the basis of what we have said so far, you would find that all the qualities in the character of the Italian people are connected with these things. This can be studied concretely in every detail.

Only examples can be given here. Suppose we wanted to study the Russian folk soul. We would find that the lowest component has nothing material in it, nothing solid, liquid, gaseous, aeriform, not even warmth. The lowest component, what in the Russian folk soul corresponds to the salt, the solid element in the human being, would be found to be the light ether. The sound ether would be what corresponds to the liquid element in the human being; the life ether would correspond to the air in the human being; the ‘burning desire’ to warmth in the human being. Then we could ask how the Russian folk soul communicates with the individual Russian human being. This takes place in that light, streaming down, is reflected in a certain way by the earth. Light exercises certain influences on the earth. It is reflected not only physically, but also out of the vegetation, out of whatever is in the soil. The light does not work directly on the individual Russian. First it works into the earth, not the coarse, physical earth, but the plants and everything that grows and flourishes on the earth. And this light is reflected. In what is reflected back lies the medium through which the Russian folk soul communicates with the individual Russian. That is why the Russians' relationship to their soil, to everything brought forth by the earth, is so much stronger than is the case with other nations. It is because of this extraordinary bearing of the folk soul. And ‘mobile sensitivity’—this is immensely significant—is the first etheric ingredient of the Russian folk soul, corresponding to light in the human being.

Thus we come to the concrete folk being; thus we can study how one spirit speaks to another, when one is a human being and the other a folk soul. This takes place in the subconscious realm. When an Italian breathes, when he maintains his life by breathing—when what he consciously wants is to maintain his life by breathing—then, in his unconscious, the folk soul speaks and whispers to him. He does not hear it, but his astral body perceives it and lives in the exchange that goes on beneath the threshold of consciousness between the folk soul and the individual human being.

And in what streams back out of the Russian soil, fructified by sunlight, are contained the mysterious runes, the whispering runes by which the Russian folk soul speaks to the individual Russian while he paces across the face of his land or senses the life which rays forth from the light. Do not imagine that these things must be taken in a material way. Of course a Russian might live in Switzerland, but in Switzerland, too, there is light which is reflected by the earth. If you are an Italian you will hear your folk soul whispering in your breathing when you are in Switzerland. If you are a Russian you will feel rising up from the soil of Switzerland whatever it is you can hear as a Russian. You must not take these things in a material way. Such things are not tied to locations—though, of course, because the human being is to some extent material, one's own location yields more. The air of Italy, together with the whole climate there, naturally facilitates and promotes the kind of speaking I have described. And the soil of Russia facilitates and promotes that other kind of speaking. But you must not take these things materialistically, for of course a Russian can be a Russian not only in Russia—although it is Russian soil which especially promotes Russian-ness. You see, on the one hand materialism is given its due, but on the other hand we have here something relative, not absolute. For light above the soil of Russia is not only part of the body of the Russian folk soul, but it is also light, as elsewhere. On the other hand the Russian folk soul—I have described all this before—has the rank of an archangel. And archangels are not fettered to one location, they are supra-spatial.

Concrete concepts such as these are what ought to underlie any talk of the relationship of the individual to his people. Yet consider how far mankind is today from even the faintest notion of what is contained in the name of a people. Notwithstanding such considerations, world programmes are scattered abroad and the names of nations cast in every direction. When you take proper account of the fact that a folk-being is a concrete being and that every folk-being differs from every other, you will be able to realize fully just how much of what is flying around in the world today is nothing but empty phrases. What is air for the Italian folk-being is light for the Russian folk-being, and these things lead to quite different kinds of communication between the folk-being and the individual human being. Anthropology is the materialistic, external view; Anthroposophy will have to reveal the true conditions, the actual realities. Since, in their materialism, people today are such a long way from any reality, it is no wonder that things which are included in world programmes are spoken about in such an arbitrary and mendacious manner.

On Tuesday we shall continue to speak about the nature of our anthroposophical spiritual science. In connection with this I also want to refer to a number of things at the present time which can really only be properly understood from the standpoint of spiritual science. The suffering mankind is having to bear today is connected in large measure with the fact that people do not want to find clarity with reference to the things they discuss. Instead they send into the world furious messages which bear no relation to reality. This is once again brought home to us when we come across something like the pamphlet which has been published in Switzerland, Conditions de Paix de l'Allemagne by someone who calls himself ‘Hungaricus’. For those of us whose attitude of mind is that of spiritual science, we need only read this through in order to discover every single defect in present-day materialistic thinking with all its awkward complications. So on Tuesday I shall say a few words about this pamphlet and its method and the kind of thinking it reveals, for it really is so very characteristic of today's awkward and complicated materialistic thinking.

Today it seems appropriate to mention certain thoughts on the meaning and nature of our spiritual Movement—anthroposophical spiritual science, as we call it. To do so will necessitate references to some events which have occurred over a period of time and which have contributed to the preparation and unfolding of this Movement. If, in the course of these remarks, one or another of them should seem somewhat more personal—it would, at any rate, only seem to be so—this will not be for personal reasons but because what is more personal can be a starting point for something more objective. The need for a spiritual movement which makes known to people the deeper sources of existence, especially human existence, can be easily recognized by the way in which today's civilization has developed along lines which are becoming increasingly absurd. No one, after serious thought, will describe today's events as anything other than an absurd exaggeration of what has been living in more recent evolution.

From what you have come to know in spiritual science, you will have gained the feeling that everything, even what is apparently only external, has its foundation in the thoughts of human beings. Deeds which are done, events which take place in material life—all these are the consequence of what human beings think and imagine. And the view of the external world, which is gaining ground among human beings today, gives us an indication of some very inadequate thought forces. I have already put into words the fact that events have grown beyond human beings, have got out of hand, because their thinking has become attenuated and is no longer strong enough to govern reality. Concepts such as that of maya, the external semblance which governs the things of the physical plane, ought to be taken far more seriously by those familiar with them than they, in fact, often are. They ought to be profoundly imprinted on current consciousness as a whole. This alone might lead to the healing of the damage which—with a certain amount of justification—has come upon mankind. Those who strive to understand the functioning of man's deeds—that is, the way the reflections of man's thoughts function—will recognize the inner need for a comprehension of the human soul which can be brought about by stronger, more realistic thoughts.

In fact, our whole Movement is founded on the task of giving human souls thoughts more appropriate to reality, thoughts more immersed in reality, than are the abstract concept patterns of today. It cannot be pointed out often enough how very much mankind today is in love with the abstract, having no desire to realize that shadowy concepts cannot, in reality, make any impact on the fabric of existence. This has been most clearly expressed in the fourteen-, fifteen-year history of our Anthroposophical Movement. Now it is becoming all the more important for our friends to take into themselves what specifically belongs to this Anthroposophical Movement. You know how often people stressed that they would so much like to give the beautiful word ‘theosophy’ the honour it deserves, and how much they resisted having to give it up as the key word of the Movement. But you also know the situation which made this necessary.

It is good to be thoroughly aware in one's soul about this. You know—indeed, many of you shared—the goodwill with which we linked our work with that of the Theosophical Movement in the way it had been founded by Blavatsky, and how this then continued with Besant's and Sinnett's efforts, and so on. It is indeed not unnecessary for our members, in face of all the ill-meant misrepresentations heaped upon us from outside, to persist in pointing out that our Anthroposophical Movement had an independent starting-point and that what now exists has grown out of the seeds of those lectures I gave in Berlin which were later published in the book on the mysticism of the Middle Ages. We must stress ever and again that in connection with this book it was the Theosophical Movement who approached us, not vice versa. This Theosophical Movement, in whose wake it was our destiny to ride during those early years, was not without its connections to other occult streams of the nineteenth century, and in lectures given here I have pointed to these connections. But we should look at what is characteristic for that Movement.

If I were asked to point factually to one rather characteristic feature, I would choose one I have mentioned a number of times, which is connected with the period when I was writing in the journal Lucifer-Gnosis what was later given the title Cosmic Memory. A representative of the Theosophical Society, who read this, asked me by what method these things were garnered from the spiritual world. Further conversation made it obvious that he wanted to know what more-or-less mediumistic methods were used for this. Members of those circles find it impossible to imagine any method other than that of people with mediumistic gifts, who lower their consciousness and write down what comes from the subconscious.

What underlies this attitude? Even though he is a very competent and exceptionally cultured representative of the Theosophical Movement, the man who spoke to me on this was incapable of imagining that it is possible to investigate such things in full consciousness. Many members of that Movement had the same problem because they shared something which is present to the highest degree in today's spiritual life, namely, a certain mistrust in the individual's capacity for knowledge. People do not trust the inherent capacity for knowledge, they do not believe that the individual can have the strength to penetrate truly to the essential core of things. They consider that the human capacity for knowledge is limited; they find that intellectual understanding gets in the way if one wants to penetrate to the core of things and that it is therefore better to damp it down and push forward to the core of things without bringing it into play. This is indeed what mediums do; for them, to mistrust human understanding is a basic impulse. They endeavour, purely experimentally, to let the spirit speak while excluding active understanding.

It can be said that this mood was particularly prevalent in the Theosophical Movement as it existed at the beginning of the century. It could be felt when one tried to penetrate certain things, certain opinions and views, which had come to live in the Theosophical Movement. You know that in the nineties of the nineteenth century and subsequently in the twentieth century, Mrs Besant played an important part in the Theosophical Movement. Her opinion counted. Her lectures formed the centrepiece of theosophical work both in London and in India. And yet it was strange to hear what people around Mrs Besant said about her. I noticed this strongly as early as 1902. In many ways, especially among the scholarly men around her, she was regarded as a quite unacademic woman. Yet, while on the one hand people stressed how unacademic she was, on the other hand they regarded the partly mediumistic method she was famous for, untrammelled as it was by scientific ideas, as a channel for achieving knowledge. I could say that these people did not themselves have the courage to aim for knowledge. Neither had they any confidence in Mrs Besant's waking consciousness. But because she had not been made fully awake as a result of any scientific training, they saw her to some extent as a means by which knowledge from the spiritual world could be brought into the physical world. This attitude was extraordinarily prevalent among those immediately surrounding her. People spoke about her at the beginning of the twentieth century as if she were some kind of modern sibyl. Those closest to her formed derogatory opinions about her academic aptitude and maintained that she had no critical ability to judge her inner experiences. This was certainly the mood around her, though it was carefully hidden—I will not say kept secret—from the wider circle of theosophical leaders.

In addition to what came to light in a sibylline way through Mrs Besant, and through Blavatsky's The Secret Doctrine, the Theosophical Movement at the end of the nineteenth century also had Sinnett's book or, rather, books. The manner in which people spoke about these in private was, equally, hardly an appeal to man's own power of knowledge. Much was made in private about the fact that in what Sinnett had published there was nothing which he had contributed out of his own experience. The value of a book such as his Esoteric Buddhism was seen to lie particularly in the fact that the whole of the content had come to him in the form of ‘magical letters’, precipitated—no one knew whence—into the physical plane—one could almost say, thrown down to the physical plane—which he then worked into the book Esoteric Buddhism.

All these things led to a mood among the wider circles of the theosophical leaders which was sentimental and devotional in the highest degree. They looked up, in a way, to a wisdom which had fallen from heaven, and—humanly, quite understandable—this devotion was transferred to individual personalities. However, this became the incentive for a high level of insincerity which was easy to discern in a number of phenomena.

Thus, for instance, even in 1902 I heard in the more private gatherings in London that Sinnett was, in fact, an inferior spirit. One of the leading personalities said to me at that time: Sinnett could be compared with a journalist—say, of the Frankfurter Zeitung—who has been dispatched to India; he is a journalistic spirit who simply had the good fortune to receive the ‘Master's letters’ and make use of them in his book in a journalistic way which is in keeping with modern mankind!

You know, though, that all this is only one aspect of a wide spectrum of literature. For in the final decades of the nineteenth century and the first decades of the twentieth, there appeared—if not a Biblical deluge, then certainly a flood of—written material which was intended to lead mankind in one way or another to the spiritual world. Some of this material harked back directly to ancient traditions which have been preserved by all kinds of secret brotherhoods. It is most interesting to follow the development of this tradition.

I have often pointed out how, in the second half of the eighteenth century, old traditions could be found in the circle led by Saint-Martin, the philosophe inconnu. In Saint-Martin's writings, especially Des erreurs et de la vérité, there is a very great deal of what came from ancient traditions, clothed in a more recent form. If we follow these traditions further back, we do indeed come to ideas which can conquer concrete situations, which can influence reality. By the time they had come down to Saint-Martin, these concepts had already become exceedingly shadowy, but they were nevertheless shadows of concepts which had once been very much alive; ancient traditions were living one last time in a shadowy form. So in Saint-Martin's work we find the healthiest concepts clothed in a form which is a final glimmer. It is particularly interesting to see how Saint-Martin fights against the concept of matter, which had already come to the fore. What did this concept of matter gradually become? It became a view in which the world is seen as a fog made up of atoms moving about and bumping into one another and forming configurations which are at the root of all things taking shape around us. In theory materialism reached its zenith at the point when the existence of everything except the atom was denied. Saint-Martin still maintained the view that the whole science of atoms, and indeed the whole belief that matter was something real, was nonsense; which indeed it is. If we delve into all that is around us, chemically, physically, we come in the final analysis not to atoms, not to anything material, but to spiritual beings. The concept of matter is an aid; but it corresponds to nothing that is real. Wherever—to use a phrase coined by du Bois-Reymond—‘matter floats about in space like a ghost’: there may be found the spirit. The only way to speak of an atom is to speak of a little thrust of spirit, albeit ahrimanic spirit. It was a healthy idea of Saint-Martin to do battle against the concept of matter.

Another immensely healthy idea of Saint-Martin was the living way in which he pointed to the fact that all separate, concrete human languages are founded on a single universal language. This was easier to do in his day than it is now, because in his time there was still a more living relationship to the Hebrew language which, among all modern languages, is the one closest to the archetypal universal language. It was still possible to feel at that time the way in which spirit flowed through the Hebrew language, giving the very words something genuinely ideal and spiritual. So we find in Saint-Martin's work an indication, concrete and spiritual, of the meaning of the word ‘the Hebrew’. In the whole way he conceived of this we find a living consciousness of a relationship of the human being with the spiritual world. This word ‘the Hebrew’ is connected with ‘to journey’. A Hebrew is one who makes a journey through life, one who gathers experiences as on a journey. Standing in the world in a living way—this is the foundation of this word and of all other words in the Hebrew language if they are sensed in their reality.

However, in his own time Saint-Martin was no longer able to find ideas which could point more precisely, more strongly, to what belonged to the archetypal language. These will have to be rediscovered by spiritual science. But he had before his soul a profound notion of what the archetypal language had been. Because of this his concept of the unity of the human race was more concrete and less abstract than that which the nineteenth century made for itself. This concrete concept of the unity of the human race made it possible for him, at least within his own circle, to bring fully to life certain spiritual truths, for instance, the truth that the human being, if only he so desires, really can enter into a relationship with spiritual beings of higher hierarchies. It is one of his cardinal principles, which states that every human being is capable of entering into a relationship with spiritual beings of higher hierarchies. Because of this there still lived in him something of that ancient, genuine mystic mood which knew that knowledge, if it is to be true knowledge, cannot be absorbed in a conceptual form only, but must be absorbed in a particular mood of soul—that is after a certain preparation of the soul. Then it becomes part of the soul's spiritual life.

Hand in hand with this, however, went a certain sum of expectations, of evolutionary expectations directed to those human souls who desired to claim a right to participate in some way in evolution. From this point of view it is most interesting to see how Saint-Martin makes the transition from what he has won through knowledge, through science—which is spiritual in his case—to politics, how he arrives at political concepts. For here he states a precise requirement, saying that every ruler ought to be a kind of Melchizedek, a kind of priest-king.

Just imagine if this requirement, put forward in a relatively small circle before the outbreak of the French Revolution, had been a dawn instead of a dusk; just imagine if this idea—that those whose concepts and forces were to influence human destiny must fundamentally have the characteristics of a Melchizedek—had been absorbed, even partially, into the consciousness of the time, how much would have been different in the nineteenth century! For the nineteenth century was, in truth, as distant as it could possibly be from this concept. The demand that politicians should first undertake to study at the school of Melchizedek would, of course, have been dismissed with a shrug.

Saint-Martin has to be pointed out because he bears within him something which is a last glimmer of the wisdom that has come down from ancient times. It has had to die away because mankind in the future must ascend to spirituat life in a new way. Mankind must ascend in a new way because a merely traditional continuation of old ideas never has been in keeping with the germinating forces of the human soul. These underdeveloped forces of the human soul will tend, during the course of the twentieth century, in a considerable number of individuals—this has been said often enough—to lead to true insight into etheric processes. The first third of the twentieth century can be seen as a critical period during which a goodly number of human beings ought to be made aware of the fact that events must be observed in the etheric world which lives all around us, just as much as does the air. We have pointed emphatically to one particular event which must be seen in the etheric world if mankind is not to fall into decadence, and that is the appearance of the Etheric Christ. This is a necessity. Mankind must definitely prepare not to let wither those forces which are already sprouting.

These forces must not be allowed to wither for, if they did, what would happen? In the forties and fifties of the twentieth century the human soul would assume exceedingly odd characteristics in the widest circles. Concepts would arise in the human soul which would have an oppressive effect. If materialism were the only thing to continue, concepts which exist in the human soul would arise, but they would rise up out of the unconscious in a way which people would not understand. A waking nightmare, a kind of general state of neurasthenia, would afflict a huge number of people. They would find themselves having to think things without understanding why they were thinking them.

The only antidote to this is to plant, in human souls, concepts which stem from spiritual science. Without these, the forces of insight into those concepts which will rise up, into those ideas which will make their appearance, will be paralysed. Then, not the Christ alone, but also other phenomena in the etheric world, which human beings ought to see, will withdraw from man, will go past unnoticed. Not only will this be a great loss, but human beings will also have to develop pathological substitute forces for those which ought to have developed in a healthy way.

It was out of an instinctive need in wide circles of mankind that the endeavours arose which expressed themselves in that flood of literature and written material mentioned earlier. Now, because of a peculiar phenomenon, the Anthroposophical Movement of Central Europe was in a peculiar position relative to the Theosophical Movement—particularly to the Theosophical Society—as well as to that other flood of written material about spiritual matters. Because of the evolutionary situation in the nineteenth century and at the beginning of the twentieth century, it was possible for a great number of people to find spiritual nourishment in all this literature; and it was also possible for a great number of people to be utterly astounded by what came to light through Sinnett and Blavatsky. However, all this was not quite in harmony with Central European consciousness. Those who are familiar with Central European literature are in no doubt that it is not necessarily possible to live in the element of this Central European literature while at the same time taking up the attitude of so many others to that flood. This is because Central European literature encompasses immeasurably much of what the seeker for the spirit longs for—only it is hidden behind the peculiar language which so many people would rather have nothing to do with.

We have often spoken about one of those spirits who prove that spiritual life works and weaves in artistic literature, in belletristic literature: Novalis. For more prosaic moods we might equally well have mentioned Friedrich Schlegel, who wrote about the wisdom of ancient India in a way which did not merely reproduce that wisdom but brought it to a fresh birth out of the western cultural spirit. There is much we could have pointed to that has nothing to do with that flood of written material, but which I have sketched historically in my book Vom Menschenrätsel. People like Steffens, like Schubert, like Troxler, wrote about all these things far more precisely and at a much more modern level than anything found in that flood of literature which welled up during the last decades of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century. You have to admit that, compared with the profundity of Goethe, Schlegel, Schelling, those things which are held to be so marvellously wise are nothing more than trivia, utter trivia. Someone who has absorbed the spirit of Goethe can regard even a work like such as Light on the Path as no more than commonplace. This ought not to be forgotten. To those who have absorbed the inspiration of Novalis or Friedrich Schlegel, or enjoyed Schelling's Bruno, all this theosophical literature can seem no more than vulgar and ordinary. Hence the peculiar phenomenon that there were many people who had the earnest, honest desire to reach a spiritual life but who, because of their mental make-up were, in the end, to some degree satisfied with the superficial literature described.

On the other hand, the nineteenth century had developed in such a way that those who were scientifically educated had become—for reasons I have often discussed—materialistic thinkers about whom nothing could be done. However, in order to work one's way competently through what came to light at the turn of the eighteenth to the nineteenth century through Schelling, Schlegel, Fichte, one does need at least some scientific concepts. There is no way of proceeding without them. The consequence was this peculiar phenomenon: It was not possible to bring about a situation—which would have been desirable—in which a number of scientifically educated people, however small, could have worked out their scientific concepts in such a way that they could have made a bridge to spiritual science. No such people were to be found. This is a difficulty that still exists and of which we must be very much aware.

Supposing we were to approach those who have undergone a scientific education, with the intention of introducing them to Anthroposophy: lawyers, doctors, philologists—not to mention theologians—when they have finished their academic education and reached a certain stage in life at which it is necessary for them, in accordance with life's demands, to make use of what they have absorbed, not to say, have learnt. They then no longer have either the inclination or the mobility to extricate themselves from their concepts and to seek for others. That is why scientifically-educated people are the most inclined to reject Anthroposophy, although it would only be a small step for a modern scientist to build a bridge. But he does not want to do so. It confuses him. What does he need it for? He has learnt what life demands of him and, so he believes, he does not want things which only serve to confuse him and undermine his confidence. It is going to take some considerable time before these people who have gone through the education of their day start to build bridges in any great numbers. We shall have to be patient. It will not come about easily, especially in certain fields. And when the building of bridges is seriously tackled in a particular field, great obstacles and hindrances will be encountered. It will be necessary above all to build bridges in the fields encompassed by the various faculties, with the exception of theology.

In the field of law the concepts being worked out are becoming more and more stereotyped and quite unsuitable for the regulation of real life. But they do regulate it because life on the physical plane is maya; if it were not maya, they would be incapable of regulating it. As it is, their application is bringing more and more confusion into the world. The application of today's jurisprudence, especially in civil law, does nothing but bring confusion into the situation. But this is not clearly seen. Indeed, how should it be seen? No one follows up the consequences of applying stereotyped concepts to reality. People study law, they become solicitors or judges, they absorb the concepts and apply them. What happens as a consequence of their application is of no interest. Or life is seen as it is—despite the existence of the law, which is a very difficult subject to study for many reasons, not least because law students tend to waste the first few terms—life is seen as it is; we see that everything is in a muddle and do no more than complain.

In the field of medicine the situation is more serious. If medicine continues to develop in the wake of materialism as it has been doing since the second third of the nineteenth century, it will eventually reach an utterly nonsensical situation, for it will end up in absurd medical specializations. The situation is more serious here because this tendency was, in fact, necessary and a good thing. But now it is time for it to be overcome. The materialistic tendency in medicine meant that surgery has reached a high degree of specialization, which was only possible because of this one-sided tendency. But medicine as such has suffered as a result. So now it needs to turn around completely and look towards a real spirituality—but the resistance to this is enormous.

Education is the field which, more than any other, needs to be permeated with spirituality, as we have said often enough. Bridges need to be built everywhere.

In technology—although it may appear to be furthest away from the spirit—it is above all necessary that bridges should be built to the life of the spirit, out of direct practical life. The fifth post-Atlantean period is the one which is concerned with the development of the material world, and if the human being is not to degenerate totally into a mere accomplice of machines—which would make him into nothing more than an animal—then a path must be found which leads from these very machines to the life of the spirit. The priority for those working practically with machines is that they take spiritual impulses into their own soul. This will come about the moment students of technology are taught to think just a little more than is the case at present; the moment they are taught to think in such a way that they see the connections between the different things they learn. As yet they are unable to do this. They attend lectures on mathematics, on descriptive geometry, even on topology sometimes; on pure mechanics, analytical mechanics, industrial mechanics, and also all the various more practical subjects. But it does not even occur to them to look for a connection between all these different things. As soon as people are obliged to apply their own common sense to things, they will be forced—simply on account of the stage of development these various subjects have reached—to push forward into the nature of these things and then on into the spiritual realm. From machines, in particular, a path will truly have to be found into the spiritual world.

I am saying all this in order to point out what difficulties today face the spiritual-scientific Movement, because so far there are no individuals to be found who might be capable of generating an atmosphere of taking things seriously. This Movement suffers most of all from a lack of being taken seriously. It is remarkable how this comes to the fore in all kinds of details. Much of what we have published would have been taken seriously, would have been seen in quite a different light, if it had not been made known that it stemmed from someone belonging to the Theosophical Movement. Simply because the person concerned was in the Theosophical Movement, his work was stamped as something not to be taken seriously. It is most important to realize this, and it is just these trifling details which make it plain. Not out of any foolish vanity but just so that you know what I mean, let me give you an example of one of these trifles which I came across only the other day.

In my book Vom Menschenrätsel I wrote about Karl Christian Planck as one of those spirits who, out of certain inner foundations, worked towards the spiritual realm, even though only in an abstract way. I have not only written about him in this book, but also—over the past few winters—spoken about him in some detail in a number of cities, showing how he went unrecognized, or was misunderstood, and referring especially to ane particular circumstance. This was the fact that, in the eighties, seventies, sixties, fifties, this man had ideas and thoughts in connection with industrial and social life which ought to have been put into practice. If only there had been someone at that time with the capacity of employing in social life the great ideas this man had, ideas truly compatible with reality, then—and I am not exaggerating—mankind would probably not now be suffering all that is going on today which, for the greater part, is a consequence of the totally wrong social structure in which we are living.

I have told you that it is a real duty not to let human beings come to a pass such as that reached by Karl Christian Planck, who finally came to be utterly devoid of any love for the world of external physical reality. He was a Swabian living in Stuttgart. He was refused a place in the philosophy department of Tübingen University, where he would have had the opportunity to put forward some of his ideas. I entirely intentionally mentioned the fact that, when he wrote the foreword to his book Testament of a German, he felt moved to say, ‘Not even my bones shall rest in the soil of my ungrateful fatherland’. Hard words. Words such as people today can be driven to utter when faced with the stupidity of their fellow human beings, who refuse to see the point about what is really compatible with reality. In Stuttgart I purposely quoted these words about his bones, for Stuttgart is Planck's fatherland in the narrower sense. There was little reaction, despite the fact that events had already reached a stage when there would have been every reason to understand the things he had said.

Now, however, a year-and-a-half later, the following notice may be found in the Swabian newspapers:

‘Karl Christian Planck. More than one far-seeing spirit foretold the present World War. But none anticipated its scale nor understood its causes and effects as clearly as did our Swabian countryman Planck.’

I said in my lecture that Karl Christian Planck had foreseen the present World War, and that he even expressly stated that Italy would not be on the side of the Central Powers, even though he was speaking at the time when the alliance had not yet been concluded, but was only in the making.

‘To him this war seemed to be the unavoidable goal toward which political and economic developments had been inexorably moving for the last fifty years.’

This is indeed the case!

‘Just as he revealed the damage being done in his day, so he also pointed the way which can lead us to other situations.’

This is the important point. But nobody listened!

‘By him we are told the deeper reasons underlying war profiteering and other black marks which mar so many good and pleasing aspects of the life of the nation today. He knows where the deeper, more inward forces of the nation lie and can tell us how to release them so that the moral and social renewal longed for by the best amongst us can come about. Despite all the painful disappointments meted out to him by his contemporaries, he continued to believe in these forces and their triumphant emergence.’

Nevertheless, he was driven to utter the words I have quoted!

‘The news will therefore be widely welcomed that the philosopher's daughter is about to give an introduction to Planck's social and political thinking in a number of public lectures.’

It is interesting that a year-and-a-half later his daughter should be putting in an appearance. This notice appeared in a Stuttgart newspaper. But a year-and-a-half ago, when I drew attention as plainly as possible in Stuttgart to the the philosopher Karl Christian Planck, no one took the slightest notice, and no one felt moved to make known what I had said. Now his daughter puts in an appearance. Her father died in 1880, and presumably she had been born by then. Yet she has waited all this time before standing up for him by giving public lectures.

This example could be multiplied not tenfold, but a hundredfold. It shows once again how difficult it is to bring together the all-embracing aspect of spiritual science with everyday practical details, despite the fact that it is absolutely essential that this should be done. Only through the all-embracing nature of spiritual science—this must be understood—can healing come about for what lives in the culture of today.

That is why it has been essential to keep steering what we call anthroposophical spiritual science, in whatever way possible, along the more serious channels which have been increasingly deserted by the Theosophical Movement. The spirit that was even known to the ancient Greek philosophers had to be allowed to come through, although this has led to the opinion that what is written in consequence is difficult to read. It has often not been easy. Especially within the Movement it met with the greatest difficulties. And one of the greatest difficulties has been the fact that it really has taken well over a decade to overcome one fundamental abstraction. Laborious and patient work has been necessary to overcome this fundamental abstraction which has been one of the most damaging things for our Movement. This basic abstraction consisted simply in the insistence on clinging to the word ‘theosophy’, regardless of whether whatever was said to be ‘theosophical’ referred to something filled with the spirituality of modern life, or to no more than some rubbish published by Rohm or anyone else. Anything ‘theosophical’ had equal justification, for this prompted ‘theosophical tolerance’.

Only very gradually has it been possible to work against these things. They could not be pointed out directly at the beginning, because that would have seemed arrogant. Only gradually has it been possible to awaken a feeling for the fact that differences do exist, and that tolerance used in this connection is nothing more than an expression of a total lack of character on which to base judgements. What matters now is to work towards knowledge of a kind which can cope with reality, which can tackle the demands of reality. Only a spiritual science that works with the concepts of our time can tackle the demands of reality. Not living in comfortable theosophical ideas but wrestling for spiritual reality—this must be the direction of our endeavour.

Some people still have no idea what is meant by wrestling for reality, for they are fighting shy of understanding clearly how threadbare are the concepts with which they work today. Let me give you a small example, from a seemingly unrelated subject, of what it means to wrestle for reality in concepts. I shall be brief, so please be patient while I explain something that might seem rather far-fetched.

There were always isolated individuals in the nineteenth century who were prepared to take up the question of reality. For reality was then supposed to burst in on mankind with entirely fresh ideas about life, not only the unimportant aspects but especially the basic practical aspects of life. Thus at a certain point in the nineteenth century Euclid's postulate of parallels was challenged. When are two lines parallel? Who could have failed to agree that two lines are parallel if they never meet, however long they are! For that is the definition: That two straight lines are parallel if they never meet, whatever the distance to which they are extended. In the nineteenth century there were individuals who devoted their whole life to achieving clarity about this concept, for it does not stand up to exact thinking. In order to show you what it means to wrestle for concepts, let me read you a letter written by Wolfgang Bolyai. The mathematician Gauss had begun to realize that the definition of two straight lines being parallel if they meet at infinity, or not at all, was no more than empty words and meant nothing. The older Bolyai, the father, was a friend and pupil of Gauss, who also stimulated the younger Bolyai, the son. And the father wrote to the son:

‘Do not look for the parallels in that direction. I have trodden that path to its end; I have traversed bottomless night in which every light, every joy of my life has been extinguished. By God I implore you to leave the postulate of the parallels alone! Shun it as you would a dissolute association, for it can rob you of all your leisure, your health, your peace of mind and every pleasure in life. It will never grow light on earth and the unfortunate human race will never gain anything perfectly pure, not even geometry itself. In my soul there is a deep and eternal wound. May God save you from being eaten away by another such. It robs me of my delight in geometry, and indeed of life on earth. I had resolved to sacrifice myself for the truth. I would have been prepared for martyrdom if only I could have handed geometry back to mankind purified of this blemish. I have accomplished awful, gigantic works, have achieved far more than ever before, but never found total satisfaction. Si paullum a summo discessit, vergit ad imum. When I saw that the foundation of this night cannot be reached from the earth I returned, comfortless, sorrowing for my self and the human race. Learn from my example. Desiring to know the parallels, I have remained without knowledge. And they have robbed me of all the flowers of my life and time. They have become the root of all my subsequent failures, and much rain has fallen on them from our lowering domestic clouds. If I could have discovered the parallels I would have become an angel, even if none had ever known of my discovery.

... Do not attempt it ... It is a labyrinth that forever blocks your path. If you enter you will grow poor, like a treasure hunter, and your ignorance will not cease. Should you arrive at whatever absurd discovery, it will be for naught, untenable as an axiom ...

... The pillars of Hercules are situated in this region. Go not a step further, or you will be lost.’

Nevertheless, the younger Bolyai did go further, even more so than his father, and devoted his whole life to the search for a concrete concept in a field where such a concept seemed to exist, but which was, however, empty words. He wanted to discover whether there really was such a thing as two straight lines which did not meet, even in infinity. No one has ever paced out this infinite distance, for that would take an infinite time, but this time has not yet run its course. It is nothing more than words. Such empty words, such conceptual shadows, are to be found behind all kinds of concepts. I simply wanted to point out to you how even the most thorough spirits of the nineteenth century suffered because of the abstractness of these concepts! It is interesting to see that while children are taught in every school that parallel lines are those which never meet, however long they are, there have been individual spirits for whom working with such concepts became a hell, because they were seeking to push through to a real concept instead of a stereotyped concept.

Wrestling with reality—this is what matters, yet this is the very thing our contemporaries shun, more or less, because they ‘realize’, or imagine they realize, that they have ‘high ideals’! It is not ideals that matter, but impulses which work with reality. Imagine someone were to make a beautiful statement such as: At long last a time must come when those who are most capable are accorded the consideration due to them. What a lovely programme! Whole societies could be established in accordance with this programme. Even political sciences could be founded on this basis. But it is not the statement that counts. What counts is the degree to which it is permeated by reality. For what is the use—however valid the statement, and however many societies choose it for the prime point in their programmes—if those in power happen to see only their nephews as being the most capable? It is not a matter of establishing the validity of the statement that the most capable should be given their due. The important thing is to have the capacity to find those who are the most capable, whether they are one's nephews or not! We must learn to understand that abstract concepts always fall through the cracks of life, and that they never mean anything, and that all our time is wasted on all these beautiful concepts. I have no objection to their beauty, but what matters is our grasp and knowledge of reality.

Suppose the lion were to found a social order for the animals, dividing up the kingdom of the earth in a just way. What would he do? I do not believe it would occur to him to push for a situation in which the small animals of the desert, usually eaten by the lion, would have the possibility of not being eaten by the lion! He would consider it his lion's right to eat the small animals he meets in the desert. It is conceivable, though, that for the ocean he would find it just and proper to forbid the sharks to eat the little fishes. This might very well happen. The lion might establish a tremendously just social order in the oceans, at the North Pole or wherever else he himself is not at home, giving all the animals their freedom. But whether he would be pleased to establish such an order in his own region is a question indeed. He knows very well what justice is in the social order, and he will put it into practice efficiently in the kingdom of the sharks.

Let us now turn from lions to Hungaricus. I told you two days ago about his small pamphlet Conditions de Paix de l'Allemagne. This pamphlet swims entirely with the stream of that map of Europe which was first mentioned in the famous note from the Entente to Wilson about the partition of Austria. We have spoken about it. With the exception of Switzerland, Hungaricus is quite satisfied with this map. He begins by talking very wisely—just as most people today talk very wisely—about the rights of nations, even the rights of small nations, and about the right of the state to be coincident with the power of the nation, and so on. This is all very nice, in the same way that the statement, about the most capable being given his due, is nice. As long as the concepts remain shadowy we can, if we are idealists, be delighted when we read Hungaricus. For the Swiss, the pamphlet is even nicer than the map, for rather than wiping Switzerland off the map, Hungaricus adds the Vorarlberg and the Tyrol. So I recommend the Swiss to read the pamphlet rather than look at the map. But now Hungaricus proceeds to divide up the rest of the world. In his own way he accords to every nation, even the smallest, the absolute right to develop freely—as long as he considers he is not causing offence to the Entente. He trims his words a little, of course, saying ‘independence’ when referring to Bohemia, and obviously ‘autonomy’ with regard to Ireland. Well, this is the done thing, is it not! It is quite acceptable to dress things up a little. He divides up the world of Europe quite nicely, so that apart from the things I have mentioned—which are to avoid causing offence—he really endeavours to apportion the smallest nations to those states to which the representatives of the Entente believe they belong. It is not so much a question of whether these small territories are really inhabited by those nationalities, but of whether the Entente actually believes this to be the case. He makes every effort to divide up the world nicely, with the exception of the desert—oh, pardon me—with the exception of Hungary, which is where he practises his lion's right! Perfect freedom is laid down for the kingdom of the sharks. But the Magyar nation is his nation, and this is to comprise not only what it comprises today—though without it only a minority of the population would be Magyar, the majority being others—but other territories as well. Here he well and truly acts the part of the lion.

Here we see how concepts are formulated nowadays and how people think nowadays. It gives us an opportunity to study how urgent it is to find the transition to a thinking which is permeated with reality. For this, concepts such as those I have been giving you are necessary. I want to show you—indeed, I must show you—how spiritual thinking leads to ideas which are compatible with reality. One must always combine the correct thought with the object; then one can recognize whether that object corresponds to reality or not.

Take Wilson's note to the Senate. As a sample it could even have certain effects in some respects. But this is not what matters. What matters is that it contains ‘shadowy concepts’. If it nevertheless has an effect, this is due to the vexatious nature of our time which can be influenced by vexatious means. Look at this matter objectively and try to form a concept against which you can measure the reality, the real content with which this shadowy concept could be linked. You need only ask one question: Could this note not just as well have been written in 1913? The idealistic nothings it contains could just as easily have been expressed in 1913! You see, a thinking which believes in the absolute is not based on reality. It is unrealistic to think that something ‘absolute’ will result every time. The present age has no talent for seeing through the lack of reality in thinking because it is always out for what is ‘right’ rather than for what is in keeping with reality.

That is why in my book Vom Menschenrätsel I emphasized so heavily the importance not only of what is logical but also of what is in keeping with reality. A single decision that took account of the facts as they are at this precise moment would be worth more than all the empty phrases put together. Historical documents are perhaps the best means of showing that what I am saying has to do with reality, for as time has gone on the only people to come to the surface are those who want to rule the world with abstractions, and this is what has led to the plight of the world today. Proper thinking, which takes account of things as they are, will discover the realities wherever they are. Indeed, they are so close at hand! Take the real concept which I introduced from another point of view the other day: Out of what later became Italy in the South there arose the priestly cultic element which created as its opposition the Protestantism of Central Europe; from the West was formed the diplomatic, political element which also created an opposition for itself; and from the North-west was formed the mercantile element which again created for itself an opposition; and in Central Europe an opposition coming out of the general, human element will of necessity arise. Let us look once more at the way these things stream outwards. (See diagram.)

Even for the fourth post-Atlantean period—proceeding on from the old fourfold classification in which one spoke of castes—we can begin to describe this structure in a somewhat different way: Plato spoke of ‘guardian-rulers’; this is the realm for which Rome—priestly, papal Rome—seized the monopoly, achieving a situation in which she alone was allowed to establish doctrinal truths. She was to be the only source of all doctrine, even the highest.

In a different realm, the political, diplomatic element is nothing other than Plato's ‘guardian-auxiliaries’. I have shown you that, regardless of what people call Prussian militarism, the real military element was formed with France as its starting point, after the first foundations had been laid in Switzerland. That is where the military element began, but of course it created an opposition for itself by withholding from others what it considered to be its own prerogative. It wants to dominate the world in a soldierly way, so that when something soldierly comes to meet it from elsewhere it finds this quite unjustified, just as Rome finds it unjustified if something comes towards her which is to do with the great truths of the universe.

And here, instead of mercantilism, we might just as well write ‘the industrial and agricultural class’. Think on this, meditate on it, and you will come to understand that this third factor corresponds to the provision of material needs. So what is being withheld? Foodstuffs, of course!

If you apply Plato's concepts appropriately, in accordance with reality, then you will find reality everywhere, for with these concepts you will be able fully to enter into reality. Starting from the concept, you must find the way to reality, and the concept will be able to plunge down into the most concrete parts of reality. Shadowy concepts, on the other hand, never find reality, but they do lend themselves exceptionally well to idealistic chatter. With real concepts, though, you can work you way through to an understanding of reality in every detail. Here lies the task of spiritual science. Spiritual science leads to concepts through which you can really discover life, which of course is created by the spirit, and through which you will be able to join in a constructive way at working on the formation of this life.

One concept, in particular, requires realistic thinking, owing to the terrible destiny at present weighing down on mankind, for the corresponding unreal concept is especially persistent in this connection. Those who speak in the most unrealistic way of all, these days, are the clergymen. What they express about Christianity or the awareness of God, apropos of the war, is enough to send anyone up the wall, as they say. They distort things so frightfully. Of course things in other connections are distorted too, but in this realm the degree of absurdity is even greater.

Look at the sermons or tracts at present stemming from that source; apply your good common sense to them. Of course it is understandable that they should ask: Does mankind have to be subjected to this terrible, painful destiny? Could not the divine forces of God intervene on behalf of mankind to bring about salvation? The justification for speaking in this way does indeed seem absolute. But there is no real concept behind it. It does not apply to the reality of the situation. Let me use a comparison to show you what I mean.

Human beings have a certain physical constitution. They take in food which is of a kind which enables them to go on living. If they were to refuse food, they would grow thin, become ill, and finally starve to death. Now is it natural to complain that if human beings refuse to eat it is a weakness or malevolence on the part of God to let them starve? Indeed it is not a weakness on the part of God. He created the food; human beings only need to eat it. The wisdom of God is revealed in the way the food maintains the human beings. If they refuse to eat it, they cannot turn round and accuse God of letting them starve.

Now apply this to what I was saying. Mankind must regard spiritual life as a food. It is given by the gods, but it has to be taken in by man. To say that the gods ought to intervene directly is tantamount to saying that if I refuse to eat God ought to satisfy my hunger in some other way. The wisdom-filled order of the universe ensures that what is needed for salvation is always available, but it is up to human beings to make a relationship with it. So the spiritual life necessary for the twentieth century will not enter human beings of itself. They must strive for it and take it into themselves. If they fail to take it in, times will grow more and more dismal. What takes place on the surface is only maya. What is happening inwardly, is that an older age is wrestling with a new one. The general, human element is rising up everywhere in opposition to the specialized elements. It is maya to believe that nation is fighting against nation—and I have spoken about this maya in other connections too. The battle of nation with nation only comes about because things group themselves in certain ways but, in reality, the inward forces opposing one another are something quite different. The opposition is between the old and the new. The laws now fighting to come into play are quite different from those which have traditionally ruled over the world.

And again it was maya—that is, something appearing under a false guise—to say that those other laws were rising up on behalf of socialism. Socialism is not something connected with truth; above all it is not connected with spiritual life, for what it wants is to connect itself with materialism. What really wants to wrestle its way into existence is the many-sided, harmonious element of mankind, in opposition to the one-sided priestly, political or mercantile elements. This battle will rage for a long time, but it can be conducted in all kinds of different ways. If a healthy way of leading life, such as that described by Planck in the nineteenth century, had been adopted, then the bloody conduct of the first third of the twentieth century would, at least, have been ameliorated. Idealisms do not lead to amelioration, but realistic thinking does, and realistic thinking also always means spiritual thinking.

Equally, we can say that whatever has to happen will happen. Whatever it is that is wrestling its way out, must needs go through all these experiences in order to reach a stage at which spirituality can be united with the soul, so that man can grow up spiritually. Today's tragic destiny of mankind is that in striving upwards today, human beings are endeavouring to do so not under the sign of spirituality but under the sign of materialism. This in the first instance is what brought them into conflict with those brotherhoods who want to develop the impulses of the mercantile element, commerce and industry, in a materialistic way on a grand scale. This is today's main conflict. All other things are side issues, often terrible side issues. This shows us how terrible maya can be. But it is possible to strive for things in different ways. If others had been in power instead of the agents of those brotherhoods, then we would, today, be busy with peace negotiations, and the Christmas call for peace would not have been shouted down!

It is going to be immensely difficult to find clear and realistic concepts and ideas in respect of certain things; but we must all seek to find them in our own areas. Those who enter a little into the meaning of spiritual science, and compare this spiritual science with other things making an appearance just now, will see that this spiritual science is the only path that can lead to concepts which are filled with reality.

I wanted to say this very seriously to you at this time. Despite the fact that the task of spiritual science can only be comprehended out of the spirit itself, out of knowledge, and not out of what we have been discussing today, I wanted to show you the significance, the essential nature, of spiritual science for the present time. I wanted to show you how urgent it is for everything possible to be done to make spiritual science more widely known. It is so necessary in these difficult times for us to take spiritual science not only into our heads but really into our warm hearts. Only if we take it into the warmth of our hearts will we be capable of generating the strength needed by the present time.

None of us should allow ourselves to think that we are perhaps not in a suitable position, or not strong enough, to do what it is essential for us to do. Karma is sure to give every one of us, whatever our position, the opportunity to put the right questions to destiny at the right moment. Even if this right moment is neither today nor tomorrow, it is sure to come eventually. So once we have understood the impulses of this spiritual Movement we must stand firmly and steadfastly behind them. Today it is particularly necessary to set ourselves the aim of firmness and steadfastness. For either something important must come from one side or another—although this cannot be counted upon—in the very near future, or all conditions of life will become increasingly difficult. It would be utterly thoughtless to refuse to be clear about this. For two-and-a-half years it has been possible for what we now call war to carry on, while conditions remained as bearable as they now are. But this cannot go on for another year. Movements such as ours will be put te a severe test. There will be no question of asking when we shall next meet, or why do we not meet, or why this or that is not being published. No, indeed. It will be a question of bearing in our hearts, even through long periods of danger, a steadfast sense of belonging.

I wanted to say this to you today because it could be possible in the not too distant future that there will be no means of transport which will enable us to come together again; I am not speaking only of travel permits but of actual means of transport. In the long run, it will not be possible to keep the things going which constitute our modern civilization, if something breaks in on this civilization which, although it has arisen out of it, is nevertheless in absolute opposition to it. This is how absurd the situation is: Life itself is bringing forth things which are absolutely opposed to it.

So we must accept that difficult times may be in store for our Movement too. But we shall not be led astray if we have taken into ourselves the inner steadfastness, clarity and right feeling for the importance and nature of our Movement, and if in these serious times we can see beyond our petty differences. This, our Movement ought to be able to achieve; we ought to be able to look beyond our petty differences to the greater affairs of mankind, which are now at stake. The greatest of these is to reach an understanding of what it means to base thinking on reality. Wherever we look we are confronted with the impossibility of finding a thinking which accords with reality. We shall have to enter heart and soul into this search in order not to be led astray by all kinds of egoistic distractions.

This is what I wanted to say to you as my farewell today, since we are about to take leave of one another for some time. Make yourselves so strong—even if it should turn out to be unnecessary—that, even in loneliness of soul, your hearts will carry the pulse of spiritual science with which we are here concerned. Even the thought that we shall be steadfast will help a very great deal; for thoughts are realities. Many potential difficulties can still be swept away if we maintain an honest, serious quest in the direction we have here discussed so often.

Now that we have to depart for a while we shall not allow ourselves to flag, but shall make sure that we return if it is possible. But even if it should take a long time as a result of circumstances outside our control, we shall never lose the thought from our hearts and souls that this is the place—where our Movement has even brought forth a visible building—where the most intense requirement exists to bear this Movement so positively, so concretely, so energetically, that together we can carry it through, come what may. So wherever we are, let us stand together in thought, faithfully, energetically, cordially, and let us hear one another, even though this will not be possible with our physical ears. But we shall only hear one another if we listen with strong thoughts and without sentimentality, for the times are now unsuitable for sentimentality.

In this sense, I say farewell to you. My words are also a greeting, for in the days to come we shall meet again, though more in the spirit than on the physical plane. Let us hope that the latter, too, will be possible once more in the not too distant future.

To-day I shall endeavour to speak of more general things, perhaps in the form of aphoristic considerations, and on Tuesday I shall describe the significance of our anthroposophical spiritual science for the present time, and for the evolution of humanity. On that occasion, I would also like to speak of something which is indeed worthy of our consideration, for, on the one hand, it will be a kind of retrospection of our activity and, on the other hand, it will be a description of certain things which may be important for the whole way of judging our spiritual-scientific movement and of the way in which we stand within it. I think that at the present moment it is necessary to consider such things more closely and to give them our best attention.

I shall begin to-day with the description of some of the things which enable us to feel, as it were, our position in the universe. The human being of the materialistic age really feels himself, as it were, abandoned and lonely in the midst of the universe. You see, if we cut off a finger, or a hand, or if we amputate a leg of a human being, or if we take away from him something which is connected with his physical, bodily being, he will feel that the single part belongs to the whole body. In earlier times of human evolution, the human beings had different kinds of feelings. Not only did they feel that the hand, the arm or the leg formed part of their being, but they also felt that they themselves formed part of a whole. In regard to these earlier times, one could speak of a group-ego in an entirely different way than we do now; the families and tribes felt, throughout many generations, that they were a unity, a whole. We have often explained these things. But in these earlier times of human evolution still other feelings existed in regard to external physical life: the human beings felt, as it were, that they were standing within the whole universe, that they had been formed from out the whole universe. Just as we now feel that the finger or the hand are parts of our whole organism, so the human beings of a remote past felt: The sun is up there, in the sky; it travels along its course; that which constitutes the sun, is not entirely disconnected with us; we are a portion of that space through which the sun travels. And we are a portion of the universe which the moon brings into a certain rhythm. In short, the universe was experienced as a great organism and the human beings felt that they formed part of it, just as the finger now feels that it forms part of the body. The fact that this feeling and sensation has more or less been lost, is connected to a great extent with the gradual rise of materialism. At the present time, modern science in particular scorns to attribute any special value to the fact that we are standing within the cosmos. Science looks upon the human being, such as he presents himself as an individual corporality, investigates his single parts anatomically and physiologically and describes the observations which have thus been made. Science no longer has the habit of considering the human being as a member of the whole organism of the universe, in so far as this may be perceived physically.

Human observation, and also scientific observation, must return to a manner of contemplation which once more incorporates the human being with the whole universe, with the cosmos. The human being must feel once more that he is standing within the whole cosmos. He will no longer be able to do this in the same way in which this has been done in the past; he must achieve this by enlarging the abstract science of the present time and by contemplating the individual human being with the aid of certain definite ideas and considerations; I shall indicate a few of these ideas, in order to show the direction of a future scientific manner of thinking, but this future scientific thought will, at the same time, be far more human than our modern scientific thought, and this new manner of thinking must arise if we are to find once more our consciousness within the cosmic whole.

You know that the so-called vernal point, that is to say, the point where the sun rises in the spring, cannot always be found at the same place, but that it advances. It advances along that circle which we designate as the Zodiac. We know that this vernal point is designated.—and has always been designated for a long time, ever since humanity is able to think—by indicating that place in the Zodiac which coincides with the vernal point. In the 8th century before the Mystery of Golgotha, until about the 15th century after the Mystery of Golgotha, the sun could be seen rising in the spring in the sign of Aries, but not always at exactly the same place, for the vernal-point, the point where the sun rises, kept on advancing. Throughout the above-mentioned length, of time, it traveled through the sign of Aries. Since that time, the vernal point has advanced to the sign of Pisces. I must point out expressly that modern astronomy does not make its calculations upon the foundation of these signs, so that the calendars still indicate the vernal point in the sign of Aries, where it does not stand, in reality. Astronomy has maintained the accepted ideas of a former cycle of time and simply divides the whole Zodiac circle into twelve parts, completely ignoring the signs themselves and simply designating every twelfth part of the circle as a Zodiac sign; this subdivision will be maintained even though the vernal point advances. Our own calendar, instead, shows how matters really stand. But this is not so important, just now. The essential thing to bear in mind is that the vernal point advances along the whole Zodiac circle, so that the point where the sun rises is always a little further on. The vernal point must travel along the whole Zodiac and it will then return to its point of departure. The time required for this will be about 25,920 years. These 25,920 years are also designated as the so-called PLATONIC YEAR. Thus, the platonic year is a year of great duration. It embraces the time employed by the vernal point, by the point where the sun rises in the spring, to travel through the Zodiac. The time during which the sun's rising point has once more returned to its point of departure consequently embraces 25,920 years. The indications vary according to the various calculations, but just now the exact figures do not matter so much; the essential point to be borne in mind is the rhythm which these figures contain. It is possible to imagine that a great world-rhythm is contained in the fact that this movement, resulting from the explanations which I have just now given to you, always returns to its point of departure after 25,920 years.

Thus we may say: These 25,920 years are most important for the life of the sun, because during that period the sun's life passes through a unity, through a real unity, a complete whole. The next. 25,920 years are a repetition. Thus we obtain a rhythmic repetition of this unity, consisting of 25,920 years.

After having considered this great world-year, let us now consider something which is quite small and is intimately connected with our life between birth and death, that is to say, with our life, in so far as we are human beings of the physical cosmos. Let us consider this, to begin with. Undoubtedly, a respiration, consisting of one inspiration and of one expiration, is most important for our life within a physical body; our physical life is, after all, based upon the fact that the breath is drawn in and that it is sent out again. If our respiratory process were to be interrupted, we would not be able to live, physically. A respiration is indeed something very significant. Our breath brings us the air, which fills us with life, in the form in which it is able to do so; through our organism, we transform this air, so that it becomes a deathly air, which would kill us if we were to breathe it in again, in the condition in which it is immediately after we have breathed it out.

On the average, a human being breathes 18 times a minute. This may, of course, vary, for our breathing is different in our youth, and in old age, but if we take an average, we obtain as a normal figure for the respiration, 18 breaths a minute. We thus renew our life rhythmically 18 times a minute. Let us now see how often we do this in one day. In one hour this would be equal to 18 x 60 = 1080. In 24 hours: 1080 x 24 = 25,920, that is to say, 25,920 times.

You see, the way in which our life takes its course in one day, has a most peculiar rhythm. If we take one respiration as a unity, as a life-unity, this is very significant for us, since our life is maintained by the rhythmical repetition of the respiration. One day gives us exactly the same number of respiratory rhythms, as the number of years which the sun employs in order to lead back its vernal point to its point of departure. That is to say: if we imagine that one respiration is one year in miniature, we pass through one platonic year in miniature, so that in one day we have a reproduction, a microcosmic reproduction, of one platonic year. This is extremely important, for it shows us that our respiratory process, that is to say, something which takes place within our human being, is subjected to the same rhythm—differing only in time—as the rhythm which, on a large scale, lies at the foundation of the rhythm of the sun's course.

It is important to place such a fact before our soul. For if we transform into a feeling what these explanations convey, this feeling will be of such a kind that it tells us: We are a reproduction of the macrocosm. It is not just a phrase, not only empty talk, if we say that man is an image of the macrocosm, for this can be proved in detail. This can also make you feel the sound foundation of all the laws which come from spiritual science, because they are all based upon this intimate knowledge of the inner connections, existing in the universe, but it is not always possible to set forth clearly every detail.

When considering such things, we should, of course, realise, above everything else, that the human being is in part torn out of the whole universe. Seen as a whole, he stands within the rhythm of the universe, but at the same time he is, in a certain way, free; he modifies certain things, so that there is not an EXACT harmony, in every case. But the possibility of human freedom lies in the very fact that a perfect harmony does not always exist. The harmony, however, which exists as a whole, contains the fact that man stands within the whole cosmos.

The observations which I have made just now, had to be made for a special reason, so that the things which I shall now tell you may not be misunderstood. After having considered the respiration, let us now consider a greater life-element, the next greatest life-element, namely, the alternating conditions of WAKING and SLEEPING. Our respiration may be looked upon as the smallest life-element. But let us now consider the alternating states of sleeping and waking. Indeed, in a certain way, we may consider the alternation of sleeping and waking in analogy with the breathing process.

You know that I have frequently described how the astral body and the ego are taken up by us when we awake, and how we let them out when we fall asleep; I have frequently described this as a respiration, as a breath which is drawn in and sent out again during the course of one day and of one night. We may even contemplate this in a far more materialistic sense. When we breathe, the air goes in and it goes out. The air is therefore drawn in and it is breathed out again, so that this process simply sets forth an oscillation of material substance: in and out, in and out. In an entirely similar way, we may see a rhythmical process in the alternating conditions of sleeping and waking. For when we take up in ourselves our ego and our astral body, upon awakening in the morning, our etheric body is pushed back ... it is pushed back from the head, more into the other members of our organism. And when we fall asleep once more, and send our astral body and ego out of our body, then we may find, for instance that the etheric body spreads out in our head, in the same way in which it also spreads out in the whole inferior part of our body. Thus we have an incessant rhythmic process. The etheric body is pushed down—and we wake up; it remains down there while we are awake. When we fall asleep, it is once more pushed up into the head. And so it goes up and down, up and down, in the course of 24 hours, just as our breath goes in and out, in and out. Thus, we have a movement of the etheric, taking place in the course of 24 hours. Of course, also here irregularities may be found in the human being, for his capacity of freedom, his degree of freedom, are based upon this; but, on the whole, the things which I have explained to you may be taken as valid.

Now we might say: Something, therefore, breathes within us, yet it is another kind of breathing, it is something which rises and falls ... it breathes within us in the course of one day, in the same way in which something breathes within us during the 18th part of a minute. Something breathes within us in the course of one day. Let us now see if that which breathes within us in the course of one day, if the rising and falling of our etheric body, which thus breathes within us, also sets forth something which resembles a circular movement, a return to a point of departure. In that case, we would have to investigate what 25,920 days really are. For 25,920 of these breaths, in which the etheric rises and falls, would have to correspond, in their rise and fall, to a reproduction of the platonic year. Just as one day corresponds to 25,920 respirations, so 25,920 days should also correspond to something in human life. How many years are 25,920 days? Let us see.

Let us take the year with an average of 365¼ days, let us make a division and then we shall obtain as a result of the division

25,920 ÷ 365.25 = about 71

that is to say, about 71 years, which is the average duration of human life. Of course, the human being has his freedom and frequently he may grow much older. But you know that the patriarchal age is indicated as 70 years. Thus you have the duration of human life equal to 25,920 days, 25,920 of such great breaths! Once more, we obtain a cycle which reproduces microcosmically in a wonderful way the macrocosmic happenings. Thus we may say: If we live one day, we reproduce the platonic world-year with our 25,920 respirations; if we live 71 years, we again reproduce the platonic year with 25,920 great breaths, with the rising and falling pertaining to our waking up and our falling asleep.

We may now pass on from this to something which would lead us too far, if I would explain it in detail to-day; but I shall indicate what may be felt occultly.

We are enveloped by the air. The air supplies the possibility for our nearest life-element, which takes place in the rhythm of our respiration. We therefore obtain this rhythm from the air, which exists upon the earth. Who gives us the other rhythm?—The earth itself. For this rhythm is regulated through the fact that the earth turns round its own axis, if we wish to speak in the modern astronomic sense; it turns round its own axis during the change of day and night. Thus we may say: The air breathes within us when our breath goes in and out. Through the movement round its own axis, through the change of day and night, the earth breathes within us and causes us to wake up and to fall asleep, the earth breathes and pulses within us. In respect to the earth, the duration of our life may now be considered as one day of a living being, that draws its breath during the course of one day and of one night, not during the 18th part of a minute. For such a Being, 70 years would be equal to one day; in 70 years it would live through one of its days. And the changes of day and night, in the ordinary sense are the respiration of that Being.

You see, this enables us to feel that we are standing within a more encompassing life, which merely has a longer respiration; that is to say, a respiration which takes its course in 24 hours—and a longer day, namely, 70–71 years. We may thus experience ourselves within a living Being, whose pulse and breathing rhythms are much longer than ours. This shows you that it is absolutely justified to speak of the microcosm as an image of the macrocosm, for the reproductiveness can be demonstrated with figures. When we therefore say: The air breathes within us, it uses itself up whilst breathing within us, and the earthly element breathes within us, in so far as we belong to that greater life-Being, we might eventually throw up the question: Perhaps we are not only connected with the air on the earth, and with the whole earth and its rhythms of day and night, but also with the rise of the sun, with its return to the point of departure in the course of one platonic year? Perhaps we are in some way also connected with this?

These things are of greatest interest. But modern science passes them by, as if they did not exist at all, because such things are not taken into consideration by modern science. In a very tangible way, I have once come across the difference between modern science and that science which must arise one day. Perhaps I have already told you that in the autumn of 1889 I was summoned to collaborate in the Goethe and Schiller Archives at Weimar, for the preparation of Goethe's scientific writings, which I have then brought out for the larger Weimar edition of Goethe's works, the so-called “Sophia Edition.” My task was to study in the documents left by Goethe—everything connected with his anatomical, physiological, zoological, botanical, mineralogical, geological and also meteorological studies. Goethe made extraordinarily numerous observations on the weather, in the course of one year. He made observations on the weather particularly in connection with the heights of the barometer, and it is really surprising to see the great number of charts which Goethe drew up for meteorological purposes. Not many of these charts have been published, some of these have been reproduced in my edition, but very little of this material has been published. Just as fever curves are now registered, so Goethe registered the barometrical heights of one particular place, indeed, of several places, upon charts, by marking the barometrical heights on one particular day. He then observed them a few hours later, again a few hours later, and so forth. He did this for whole months, and thus endeavoured to discover the corresponding curves for various localities.

Modern science has not yet advanced very far in the handling of barometrical curves. Goethe studied these curves, for he saw in them almost an analogue of the pulse which is registered on fever charts; that is to say, he wished to trace a kind of pulse of the earth, its constant regular pulse, of course. What did Goethe really aim at?—He wished to prove that the oscillations of the barometrical heights in the course of one year are not so irregular as ordinary meteorology assumes them to be, but that they contain a certain regularity, which is merely modified by inferior time-conditions. Goethe wished to prove that the gravitation of the earth represents its respiration, in the course of one year; he wished to indicate the very thing which also comes to expression in the human respiration. That is what he wished to re-discover in the barometrical heights. In future, THESE kinds of scientific observations will arise, for the microcosmic and the macrocosmic processes will once more be investigated. Goethe drew up quite a number of charts, in order to study the pulse of the earth, its respiration, the breath of the earth which goes in and out, as he himself designated it.

Also in this connection you may therefore see that in Goethe we may find an endeavour to work in the direction of a science which will only arise in future. At the same time, we obtain a picture of the enormous diligence applied by Goethe; in order to reach the results which he actually did reach. In Goethe, we never discover mere statements, as is so frequently the case in other people. When others frequently speak of the pulse of the earth, they merely have in mind an image, a metaphor, and this is nothing but an aperçu for them. But when Goethe advances a statement, which he often recapitulates in three or four sentences ... for instance, when he says that the earth breathes in and out ... then he always draws up quite a number of tables and charts upon which he bases his statements, and there is always real experience behind them, whereas the majority of people say: “Real experience! This is but an echo, a fog!” Goethe in particular may show us that it is necessary to have something behind us whenever we advance a statement.

Also in this way, we may therefore reach the point of recognising that the earth itself breathes just as if it were a great living being.

Let us now try to see if it is possible to speak of a similar breathing process when we place ourselves within the whole platonic year of the sun. In that case, we would have 25,920 years. Let us now consider these 25,920 years as ONE year and investigate its relationship to one day. If we wish to consider the whole platonic year as one year and if we then wish to discover what would constitute one of its days, we would have to divide it by 365¼, and this would give us one day. If the whole represents one year and if we then divide it by 365¼, we obtain ONE day. Let us see what result we reach when we divide 25,920 years by 365¼. We obtain 71 years, which is the duration of a human life. In other words: the duration of a human life is equal to one day within the whole platonic year. In relation with the length of a human life, a whole platonic year may therefore be considered in such a way that we ourselves, as physical beings that pass through the length of our human life, are breathed out by that which is active within a whole platonic year, and in that case, 71 years, considered as ONE DAY, would correspond to one breath of that Being who passes through the platonic year.

Within the 18th part of a minute, we are therefore a life-member of the air; within one day, we are a life-member of the earth; within the duration of our life, we may consider ourselves in such a way that at the moment of our birth we are breathed out by that great Being for whom a platonic year is equivalent to one year; we are breathed out and breathed in again in one of its days. If we consider, our physical body, we have within this physical body which passes through its patriarchal age, one breath of that great Being, whose life is so long, that 25,920 years correspond to one year. Our patriarchal age (71 years) is in that case equivalent to one day of that Being. If we therefore think of a Being that lives together with our earth, alternating day and night in the course of 24 hours, this would represent one respiration for our etheric body; the true respiration of our astral body would be equivalent 1/18^th part of a minute.

There you have an analogue for a very ancient statement. Consider the following fact: In ancient times, people imagined something which was designated as the days and nights of Brahma. There you have the analogue. Now imagine a spiritual Being, for whom our 71 years are equivalent to one breath of our air; in that case, we would be the breath of that Being. Through the fact that we are placed into the world, as tiny mites when we are born, we are breathed out by that Being who passes through the platonic year, as if it were one year, a Being who therefore measures its age in platonic years. That Being consequently breathes us out into the universe and when we die, it breathes us in again. We are thus breathed out and we are breathed in again.

Let us now return to the earth. It breathes us in and out in the course of one day. And let us now go to the air, which forms part of the earth. It breathes us in and out in 1/18^th of a minute; yet the number 25,920 always constitutes a return to the point of departure. This shows us a regular rhythm; we feel that we are standing within the universe; we learn to know that human life, and one day of human life, are, for greater and more encompassing Beings, equivalent to one of the breaths which we ourselves draw in our own life. And if we take up this knowledge through our feeling; the old saying, according to which we repose in the bosom of the universe, acquires an extraordinary significance.

Such things undoubtedly lie in the direction of a scientific way of looking at things, and in order to make the right use of these figures, which are known to everybody and which may be found in every encyclopædia, we shall only require a. spiritual-scientific attitude. If these figures are once used in the right way and if their true value is recognised, a connection with spiritual science, with the anthroposophical spiritual science, will be found from out our ordinary science.

In a similar way, we shall find that everything, indeed everything, is ordered according to the laws of number and measure. The biblical words, that everything in the universe is ordered according to the laws of number and measure, will in that case acquire a deep meaning through human science.

Let us proceed. What is connected with our breathing, almost depends upon our breathing? It is our SPEECH. Indeed, from an organic standpoint, speech is connected with our breathing process. Speech does not only come from the same organ, but it is also connected with our breathing; that is to say, with what is contained in the rhythm of 1/18^th of a minute. This is how we speak, and our fellow-men beside us speak in the same way. As far as the respiratory rhythm is concerned, the human beings in our environment speak in accordance with the air which is upon the earth and which envelops us.

We might now deduce from this that also the breathing rhythm which is connected with day and night must be related in a definite way to speech, to a spoken intercourse, but in this case with Beings who belong to the organism of the earth; they belong to the earth's organism in the same way in which the human beings belong to the air—a spoken intercourse with Beings of that particular kind.

The wisdom which has been transmitted to the human beings of a remote past by higher Beings, has not been transmitted to them in such a way that it was connected with the breathing rhythm of 1/18^th of a minute, but it was connected with that breathing rhythm which has one day as its unity. In those ancient times, the human beings could not learn so quickly; they were obliged to wait, until words of such length had been spoken, corresponding to a breath which takes up 24 hours. This is how the ancient wisdom arose, and even to-day this fact lies at the foundation of things and may be recognised in various traditions. The ancient wisdom came from higher Beings, who are connected with the earth in the same way in which we are connected with the air, and these higher Beings approach the human beings. Those who are now working their way up to initiations, may still perceive something of this. For the things which are transmitted by the spiritual world approach us far more slowly than the things which are transmitted to us upon the wings of our ordinary air-processes.

For this reason, it is so important that those who strive after initiation should learn to feel within themselves the great significance of the transition stages of falling asleep and of waking up. When we fall asleep and when we wake up, in these transitions, we may feel more than anywhere else that spiritual Beings are mysteriously conferring with us; only at a later stage this passes over, to a certain extent, into our own control. If we wish to gain access to the world which is the dwelling place of the dead, we shall be following a good path also if we grow conscious of the fact that the dead speak with us most easily during the moments in which we fall asleep and in which we awake. It is more difficult for them to reach us when we fall asleep, for then, as a rule, we immediately pass over into an unconscious state, so that we do not hear what the dead wish to tell us. But when we wake up, and if we have reached the point of bearing in mind clearly the moment of waking up, this moment will be the best one for entering into communication with the dead—particularly the moment of waking up. We must try, however, to gain full control of the moment of waking up. To gain full control of the moment of waking up, means, in other words, that we should endeavour to wake up, without passing over immediately into the light of daytime. You will perhaps be acquainted with the special rule—you may call it a superstitious rule, if you like—according to which we should not look out of the window and into the light if we wish to bear in remembrance a dream, for if we look into the light we would easily forget our dream. This applies in particular to the fine observations which flow out to us from the spiritual world. We should endeavour, as it were, to wake up in the dark, but in a darkness which has been produced consciously, by avoiding to listen to noises and by avoiding to open the eyes. We should endeavour, consciously, yet without going out immediately into the life of daytime, to wake up, and this will best of all enable us to notice the communications which come to us from the spiritual world.

Now you might say: In that case, we would, receive very little in the form of communications during the course of our life. Just imagine how difficult it would be, if during the course of our life we only had the possibility of receiving as many communications as we normally receive in one day! This would suffice, but we cannot make the right use of it, for there is our childhood, etc. But the earth participates and (please bear this in mind) takes up these communications within its etheric body, and since these things remain inscribed in the ETHER OF THE EARTH they may be studied there. Other encompassing communications which are transmitted to us by the Beings whose life-element is the platonic year, may be studied in the ETHER OF THE SUN which fills the whole world; they may be studied in the way described in various parts of KNOWLEDGE OF THE HIGHER WORLDS and in other books.

You may therefore see that a band can be woven, which connects ordinary science and spiritual science. But of course, one who is not acquainted with spiritual science, will hardly be able to make the right use of the knowledge which ordinary science can supply. Those, however, who have a spiritual-scientific mentality, have not the slightest doubt when approaching these things, that the time will come when the ordinary external science and spiritual science will really be completely at one.

I have told you that I have only explained to you one. aspect of these things, namely, their rhythmical course, which is contained in the respiration. Now there are many things which could be demonstrated in figures, thus showing the harmony and correspondence between microcosm and macrocosm. Indeed, it is possible to acquire a deep feeling for this harmonious correspondence.

This kind of feeling was still transmitted in the Mysteries to the older disciples, up to the fifteenth century. Before that time, they were only able to take up anything in the form of science, when their teachers had tried to make them feel that they were standing in the midst of the universe. This, again, characterizes the materialistic age, that to-day we can acquire knowledge without being in any way prepared for this knowledge as far as our feelings are concerned. In the introduction to the first chapter of CHRISTIANITY AS A MYSTICAL FACT, have already drawn attention to this fact by indicating that in the Mysteries, certain feelings were first cultivated, before taking into consideration the acquisition of knowledge.

Particularly important is the feeling relating to the harmony between microcosm and macrocosm¹,and if we once more wish to acquire real concepts in regard to things for which mere abstractions exist to-day, it will be important to cultivate that feeling.

What is a nation considered to be, in the present abstract, materialistic age? As a number of people who speak the same language. The materialistic age is, of course, unable to judge the true essence and being of a nation, seen as a definite individuality—a fact which we have frequently considered.

When we speak of the essence and being of a nation, we speak of a definite individuality, of a real individual Being. This is how WE speak of a nation's character. But, materialism merely sees in a nation a number of men who speak the same language. That is an abstract concept, which has nothing to do with the nation's real and concrete Being.

What results from the fact that we really do not refer to an abstract concept, but to an actual Being, when we speak of a nation, or of a nation's character? What results from this?—You will say: Theosophy enables us to study the human being: his physical body, his etheric body, his astral body, his ego—this is how we contemplate the human being; If a nation is also a real Being, also the Being of a nation might be studied in this way, and even for the Being of a nation we might assume the existence of certain parts and members. This is the argument which you may advance.

This can really be done! Also the other Beings, that exist besides the human being and that are just as real and concrete as man, are studied in genuine occultism. But the various members of these Beings should be sought elsewhere than in the case of man. For if a Folk-Soul had the same members as a human being, it would be a human being; but a Folk-Soul is not a human being, it is an entirely different kind of Being.

In the case of Folk-Souls, we must really study the individual Folk-Souls and then we shall have an idea of what they are really like. We cannot generalize, for this would lead us to abstractions. We cannot generalize, and for this reason, we can only speak, as it were, in the form of examples.

Let us, therefore, consider one particular Folk-Soul, the one which now governs, for instance, the Italian nation, in so far as a nation is governed in all its details by a Folk-Soul. Let us consider one particular Folk-Soul and ask: How can we speak of this particular Folk-Soul?²If we were to speak of it in the same way in which we speak of the human being, that he has, for instance, a physical body, we really mean, when speaking of man's physical body, that it contains certain alkaline substances, certain mineral substances, and that 5% of it is solid, whereas the rest is liquid and gaseous. All this constitutes man's physical body. When we speak of a Folk-Soul, for instance, of the Italian Folk-Soul, we cannot say that it has a human body, nevertheless it has something which, may be compared with a physical body. But its physical body does not contain alkaline substances, nor any solid parts; the physical body of the Italian Folk-Soul does not even contain any liquid parts (which does not exclude that other Folk-Souls may contain liquid parts); the Italian Folk-Soul has no liquid parts, but it begins with gaseous parts. It has no liquid parts, or other more solid parts, but the body of the Italian Folk-Soul is woven out of air, which is its DENSEST material substance; everything else in it is less compact.

Thus, when we say that the human being contains EARTHLY substance, we must say, in the case of the Italian Folk-Soul, that it contains, to begin with, AERIFORM substances. And where the human being has WATERY substances, there the Italian Folk-Soul has HEAT, WARMTH. The human being breathes AERIFORM substances in and out—the Italian Folk-Soul LIGHT. In the case of the Italian Folk-Soul, light corresponds to the air of human beings. Where man has heat or warmth, there the Italian Folk-Soul has TONES, namely, the MUSIC OF THE SPHERES.

Now you have more or less that which corresponds to the physical body, except that its ingredients are different. Instead of saying, as we do in the case of man: Solid substance, liquid substance, aeriform substance, warmth, we must say, in the case of the Italian Folk-Soul, if we take for granted something analogous to the physical body (for then, it is not in the same meaning of the word, a physical body): Air, Warmth, Light and Tone.—This shows you that when the Italian Folk-Soul really animates the human being to whom it belongs, it chooses the respiration as its channel, because its lowest and densest ingredient is the air. In fact in the Italian nation, the correspondence between the individual human being and the Folk-Soul takes place through the respiration. The Italian Folk-Soul communicates with man through the breath. This [is] an actual and real process. Of course, one breathes through entirely different means, but the influence of the Folk-Soul steals into the breathing process.

In the same way, we might depart from that which corresponds to the etheric body. In that case, we would have to begin with the life-ether and instead of the light-ether it would have that element which has been characterized in my THEOSOPHY as the “burning desires,” and to the tone-ether would correspond that element which has been described in THEOSOPHY as “mobile susceptibility,” etc. You may therefore find the ingredients in my THEOSOPHY but you must know how to apply them. And if you were to continue studying the nature of the correspondence which takes place between the Folk-Soul and the individual human being, if you were to continue by studying this upon the foundation of the things which I have now indicated, you would realise that this is connected with all the qualities which are contained in the character of a nation; We should study these things thoroughly and concretely.

These things can only be given in the form of examples. Let us now, for instance, say that we wish to study the Russian Folk-Soul. In the lowest member of the Russian Folk-Soul we would find nothing material, in the way in which solid, liquid, gaseous substances, or heat are material, but we would find that the lowest member of the Russian Folk-Soul, which it has in the same way in which the human being has his alkaline, solid substances, is the LIGHT ETHER, the ether of light. And we would also find that the Russian Folk-Soul has the TONE ETHER in the same way in which the human being has within him liquid substances, and it has the LIFE ETHER in the same way in which the human being has air; moreover, we would find in that part which corresponds to the physical body of the Russian Folk-Soul the BURNING DESIRES, which it has in the same way in which the human being has heat, or warmth.

We might then ask: How does the Russian Folk-Soul communicate. With individual Russians?—This takes place in such a way, that the light reverberates in a certain way from that which constitutes the earth. The light exercises certain influences upon the earth; it does not only reverberate, I might say, physically, but it reverberates in particular from the vegetation, from that which the soil bears upon it. The light does not influence the individual Russians in a direct way, but the influence of the light first penetrates into the earth; of course, not into the coarse, physical earth, but into the plants, into everything which grows and flourishes upon the earth. And all this reverberates. What thus reverberates, contains the medium through which the Russian Folk-Soul can communicate with the individual Russians. This explains the Russian’s connection with his land, which is far stronger in him than in others, the strong connection of the Russian with his soil, with everything that the earth brings forth. This is contained in the peculiar attitude of the Russian Folk-Soul. The “mobile-susceptibility”—and this is extremely important—is the first etheric ingredient of the Russian Folk-Soul; it-corresponds, to a certain extent, to the light, to what the light is for us human beings.

Thus you may reach a real Being, the true nature of a nation, and you may also reach the point of studying the question: “How does a spirit communicate with another spirit” ... one of the spirits being the Folk-Soul and the other one man. This communication takes place in the sub-consciousness. When the Italian breathes and maintains his life through breathing—in his consciousness he therefore has in mind something quite different, that is to say, he breathes in and out in order to maintain his life—when the Italian breathes, then the Folk-Soul whispers and talks to him in his sub-consciousness. He does not hear it, but his astral body perceives it and lives in these communications which are being exchanged below the threshold of his consciousness between the Folk-Soul and the individual human being.

What the Russian soil rays out, through the fact that the light of the sun-fertilizes it, contains the mystical runes, the whispering runes, through which the Russian Folk-Soul speaks with the individual Russian, while he walks over his land, or feels the life which rays out of the light. But again, do not think that these things should be taken materialistically. A Russian may be living in Switzerland, but the light which the earth throws back is also to be found in Switzerland. If you are Italian, you may hear your Folk-Soul whispering through your breathing; if you are Russian, you will find that even from the Swiss soil comes up what you are able to hear as a Russian. These things must not be taken materialistically. They are not chained to a particular place, although materialistically, and seeing that the human being is, in a certain way, in a materialistic frame of mind, he will obtain more from his-Folk-Soul when he lives in his own country. The Italian air, with its whole climate, naturally facilitates and furthers that manner of speaking which I have just now characterized. The Russian soil facilitates and furthers the other kind—but these things must not be considered materialistically, for a Russian can just as well be a Russian outside Russia, although the Russian soil particularly favours all that pertains to the Russian nature.

You will therefore see that, on the one hand, materialism is borne in mind, but, on the other hand, materialism is something relative and nothing absolute. For the light which is spread over the Russian soil is not only contained in the body of the Russian Folk-Soul, but there is light everywhere. A Russian Folk-Soul has the rank of an Archangel. (You know that I have frequently described this). An Archangel is not chained to a particular place; he is above the limits of space.

These kinds of thoughts, these kinds of concrete ideas, must lie at the foundation of our consideration's, if we wish to speak objectively of the connections between the individual human being and his nation. Consider the fact that modern mankind is far from having even an inkling of the concrete reality which is contained in the name which we give a nation! Nevertheless world-programmes are strewn out to-day, in which one continually toys with the names of nations! To what an extent all that which pullulates in the world is empty talk, may be clearly seen and judged through the fact that a nation is a real Being, and the Being of every nation is, after all, different. What is air for the Italian Folk-Soul, is light for the Russian Folk-Soul, and this, in its turn, calls for an entirely different way of communication between the Folk-Soul and the individual human being. Anthropology is a materialistic, external manner of contemplating things; it will be the task of Anthroposophy to reveal the truth, the real connections and true aspects. Since the human beings are now so far away from truth in their materialism, it is not surprising that people should talk in such an arbitrary and consequently untrue way of things, which to-day are even raised to the level of world-programmes!

On Tuesday we shall therefore speak of the character of our anthroposophic spiritual science.³ In this connection I shall also deal with certain [things] pertaining to the present time, which can only be grasped from a spiritual-scientific standpoint. For the sufferings which humanity must now bear, is connected to a great extent with the fact that people do not wish to have a clear insight into the things which they say, that they send out furious words into the world, which are far away from every knowledge of the real connections. This may be clearly evident if we take hold, for instance, of a book, such as the pamphlet which has recently been published in Switzerland, entitled “Conditions de la Paix de l'Allemagne,” by an author who has chosen the name of “Hungaricus.” With the aid of a spiritual-scientific attitude, it will suffice to glance through this pamphlet, in order to detect all the deficiencies of the present, distorted way of thinking of materialism. For this reason, I also wish to say a few word's next Tuesday on this pamphlet, but only from a methodical aspect, only in regard to its way of thinking, because this publication, “Les Conditions de la Paix de l’Allemagne” by Hungaricus so clearly characterizes the distorted way of thinking of materialism.

• 1. SeeMACROCOSM AND MICROCOSM by Rudolf Steiner.
• 2. THE MISSION OF THE INDIVIDUAL FOLK-SOULS IN CONNECTION WITH THE GERMANIC NORTHERN MYTHOLOGY
• 3. See THE SIGNIFICANCE OF SPIRITUAL SCIENCE FOR THE PRESENT TIME published in Vol. 7, 1939, of the News Sheet.

Those who study the soul-spiritual¹ life of mankind cannot make use of many of the concepts which are commonplace in every-day life and in our current way of thinking. One such idea which cannot be used is that of evolution or development – the idea that one thing, or better said one condition, arises from another. Now I don’t want to be misunderstood, so I should make it quite clear that I do not mean the concept of evolution is useless. Yesterday, for example, we made extensive use of it, when we needed the idea of evolution to speak about how soul-bodily life proceeds between birth and death. But we need quite different concepts if we want to talk about what soul-spiritual life really is.

As you know, our experience of soul-spiritual life within outer sensory reality takes place in thinking, feeling and willing. To understand what is really happening soul-spiritually within the processes of thinking, feeling and willing, we must bear in mind the following: –

If someone feels something and the feeling comes to expression via thinking, or if someone perceives something in the outer world and what is perceived comes to expression via thinking, or if someone does something so that the will is translated into action – in other words whenever someone lives in the soul-spiritual – then this must always be considered as relationships taking place between spiritual beings. Whenever we want to describe the soul-spiritual world within which the human soul exists, then we really can’t avoid speaking about these relationships between spiritual beings.

Suppose that the human being were more of a thinking type, although in reality it is never the case that the activities of thinking, feeling and willing are completely separate. While one is thinking and forming thoughts, the will is at work within the process of thinking, because one actually performs the thinking. And while one is doing something, performing some action, the will is also at work, executing the ‘what-is-wanted’. When we think or contemplate, we do a little more thinking and less willing, and when we act or surrender ourselves to some feeling, we do more willing and less thinking.

But so far everything that I have touched upon is in fact only an outer characteristic of the matter. To grasp the reality of these things we must speak about them quite differently. For example, I might perceive something in the outer world which prompts me to form mental images of it; I don’t do anything, but confine my will to direct my senses towards the outer world so that I can perceive and string thoughts together. I am therefore contemplating, actively perceiving. In reality this means that I shift myself into a spiritual region where ahrimanically inclined beings have the upper hand. Pictorially speaking, in a certain sense I stick my head into a region where ahrimanic beings rule. While on the face of it I say “I am contemplating something”, in reality I should say “I am busy in a spiritual region where certain beings have the upper hand, somewhat subduing other beings, and hold the balance which tends towards the ahrimanic.”

When we describe things this way, at first it all seems rather vague and indefinite, because they take place in the spiritual realm, and our language is made for sensory reality. One can however express them pictorially by removing the human being somewhat from the process and moving it more into the cosmos. For this reason a situation which could be characterised externally by saying “Something stimulates me and I ponder upon it”, would be expressed pictorially by initiation knowledge in something like the following way: –

The human being lives in and orients himself within the cosmos. As I have shown in the last few days, this is like a compass needle that points, cosmically speaking, north-south, its orientation not determined from within, but by the cosmos. This orientation varies so that it can follow the zodiac, alternating amongst Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius and Pisces. (See Figure). There is also at first a fundamental state, taking this orientation of the zodiac as a basis, in which the human being points upwards according to his head-nature and downwards according to his limb-nature. All this can then be viewed as a kind of balance beam which separates what is above from what is below.

Now what becomes of this human cosmic orientation if we were to look at someone who is neither thinking nor acting – I hope you are not doing this – someone who is casually given over to the feeling of being lulled by life, half asleep and half awake, neither active nor passive? Actually rather a lot happens to him, only he doesn’t notice it. And if we want to picture this condition – as I said, one that I hope you are not in right now – then we would say that the balance beam rested horizontally.

But if we want to describe a state of mind which I hope you are now in – contemplative, stimulated and absorbing what I’m talking about – then we must picture the balance beam differently. We would say that all the souls sitting here – or at least some of the souls sitting here – are shifted into a region where certain spiritual beings raise one side of the balance beam. In the physical world, when a beam moves because of an imbalance, we say that it drops, but in the spiritual world we say that the beam rises. When someone is in a state of contemplation, he shifts to a different spiritual region, and ahrimanic beings there raise the beam away from Libra and towards Virgo (see ‘blue’ in Figure).

So when someone is contemplating, it means that he takes advantage of his situation as a human being in the entire cosmos, exploiting those forces within which he oscillates, in order to shift into a spiritual region where a condition of balance once again holds sway. You start to contemplate, and while you are actively doing this, your spiritual space – if I can call it that – shifts to a region where a battle takes place, and then subsides. The beings here on the left fight against the beings on the right, and vice versa. But once you have achieved a state of contemplation, the battle is over, and peace is restored. This peace signifies that certain ahrimanically oriented beings have the upper hand, like when a tilted balance beam comes to rest, no longer oscillating because something is pulling at it. That would be the reality corresponding to contemplation, to thinking actively.

In normal sensory existence, what we call thinking is only maya, an illusion. You have to describe cosmically what thinking really is, asking about the person’s whole situation within the cosmos. And the answer you get about the person’s cosmic situation reveals both what certain spiritual beings are doing and what contemplative thinking is. So you see that it is basically an illusion if we describe thinking as we do in normal life, because in reality we find ourselves in a certain region in which thoughts take place in our ‘thinking space’ through the fact that certain ahrimanically inclined beings have tilted the balance beam to one side. That is what really happens.

Consider another event in human soul-spiritual life; we do something, not charging aimlessly around, but acting intentionally, an action filled with thought. How this is described in ordinary life is also a mere illusion, because when we are acting, we again shift into a specific cosmic region. But in this region there are certain luciferically inclined beings who raise the balance beam from its state of rest in the other direction, which we can picture with this arrow (see ‘red’ in Figure). So when we are acting intentionally, really willing our deeds, we are oriented in a region of the cosmos where the balance beam is held by certain luciferic beings. Now the state of rest is gone because we have shifted to a region where these luciferic beings begin to make the balance beam tremble, and we are transported into a kind of battle that takes place in the cosmos. Within our will the luciferic beings begin to fight against the ahrimanic beings, and this volatile situation expresses itself as the rocking of the balance beam. So what is called will in everyday language is also only maya, and is correctly described by saying that when we will something we are in a region where luciferic beings have raised the balance beam. We find exactly the region where the state of rest begins to change into rhythmical movement, and raising the beam takes place without our involvement.

I have mentioned in the first of my mystery dramas – of course in dramatic form – that when we think or feel soul-spiritually, we should not have the idea that this only happens within us, because cosmic forces are also set in motion. This was expressed pictorially in a scene in which Capesius and Strader do something, and at the same time great cosmic events take place. They do not happen in the sensory world but in the super-sensible, so one can only make them perceivable in the sensory world in the way it is done in the drama. All the same, it is quite clearly expressed in the play that human action as we normally describe it, is only a reflection of reality, and when one thinks or wills the slightest thing in one’s soul, significant events happen in the cosmos. We can never think or will something without shifting ourselves into regions where spiritual battles are taking place, or spiritual battles are subsiding, or spiritual battles have already been fought and we move into the outcome of these struggles, and so on.

What I have just described to you is present in the human soul-spiritual being, only it is hidden in the life we lead between birth and death; but it is the truth in the spiritual world. Recently I have spoken in other contexts about how modern man, behaving intellectually as is the custom today, really lives in hallucinations. Basically, the ideas we form about thinking, feeling and willing are hallucinations, and the reality that lies behind them is what we can illustrate pictorially in the way I have just done.

So what we have just described lies behind our soul-spiritual events, and reveals itself to us as a reflection, appearing as thinking, feeling and willing. And as soon as we consider the human being as he really is soul-spiritually, the concept of development, of evolution, becomes inapplicable.

For example, it would be complete nonsense to say that the human being becomes reasonable at a certain age, prior to which he is given over to a raging will, and that the one develops from the other. In spiritual regions nothing develops in this way; we can only say of the child that he thinks, feels and wills differently from an old man; that the child is shifted into a different spiritual region where the battles between the various beings take place in other ways. In spiritual regions, development, as we described it yesterday, does not take place. There we understand the past as a picture of battles, of relationships, of the changing circumstances of the spiritual beings that we look for behind the higher hierarchies. When we speak about the present there is a different picture of the interplay of the hierarchies, and there is yet another picture when we talk about the future. As we regard the past, present and future, so accordingly do we see different pictures in the relationships between the various beings of the hierarchies. And it would be absurd to suggest that the picture of the future battles develops out the picture of the past battles. These things belonging to the region of the spirit are in a certain relationship of juxtaposition, not one after the other. For this reason we cannot speak of development, only of spiritual perspective, as I have already told you in respect of other matters. What we can say is that when we consider the human being as a soul-spiritual being, then it makes no sense to speak of him first as a child who goes through the change of teeth, then puberty, and so on. So what appears as evolution, as development, in the region of the soul-bodily, cannot be spoken of as evolution when it is to do with the soul-spiritual. Instead it should be understood as transition from one picture to another within the changing relationships of the beings of the higher hierarchies.

If you fail to bring into consideration the connections between what I explained yesterday and today then you will never really understand the relationship between the temporal and the eternal.

I have already explained how the human being, as a soul-bodily being, is placed in temporal development in such a way that he needs to become an old man before he can first begin to understand what happened to him as a child. This has everything to do with the concept of evolution. But as a soul-spiritual being, we must recognize that the human being is not placed within evolution, that the concept of time as we know it in outer sensory life is totally inapplicable there, and that we make a mistake when we speak of the human soul-spiritual being and bring time into the sphere of the higher hierarchies. There, everything is eternal and things do not happen in time, only in perspectives within which we see battles and changing relationships. The concept of time is inapplicable to the changing relationships in the higher hierarchies, and if we do use it, then we are only using it to make an illustration of the essential being of these hierarchies. Hence you can follow in my Outline of Occult Science how carefully I suggest that what appears to be temporal must be presented in picture form. For example, where I speak about the stages of Old Saturn and Old Sun, I draw attention very clearly to the fact that the concept of time is only used pictorially to describe what preceded the Old Sun period and even into the first half of the Old Sun period itself. You can check all this in Occult Science where these apparently minor details in my book about spiritual science are of tremendous importance, because precisely in these details lies the basis for an understanding of the difference between what is temporal transitoriness and what endures eternally.

If you think about what I have just said, then you will see that yesterday I tried to describe the being of man purely in time. The concept of time played a really major role there, because it depends on time whether someone has gained a certain understanding by living through to old age, or not if he is still in childhood. Yesterday when we described what forms the basis of the soul-bodily being of mankind in the light of the spirit, it was based firmly on the concept of time. Today I have described what forms the basis of the soul-spiritual being which can only be portrayed by describing it in the sphere of eternity, in which – and this is rather difficult – the concept of time is completely inapplicable.

In this respect our being is indeed split in two, and insofar as we do develop through our lives, we do so on the one hand, by waiting calmly and patiently until we are mature enough in soul and body to understand something, while on the other hand we remain without development in the sphere of eternity, where to a certain extent we gaze simultaneously at our childhood in one region, and at our dotage in another. Here on earth, mankind lives in such a way that what happens in the sphere of eternity rays down into what happens in the temporal sphere, and vice versa, both being mixed up with each other.

The task of initiation wisdom is to separate what is mixed up, because only by being held apart can it be understood. Initiation wisdom has always called what is in the sphere of eternity – Above, and what is in the sphere of transitoriness – Below. But as the human being lives here on earth, he views a mixture of Above and Below, and can never come to an understanding of his own being when he sees it mixed up in this way. He can only understand himself when he understands how to separate what is mixed up.

So you can appreciate why the point of view that ordinary life provides makes it impossible to grasp in normal consciousness how things are the way I described them yesterday and today. Someone basing things on normal consciousness might say: “Yesterday, you outlined something about mankind that we can’t see, that isn’t reality at all, because people don’t develop the way you described; there are many people who are quite mature in their youth”, and so on. But this is an objection based on a deception, since reality is as I described it, and people today slip into dualism because they do not see what is Below as mobile and fluid in the way I presented it yesterday. The normal view is to look at a person as he stands before us, while the initiate considers the course of events that take place between birth and death and sees the human being in flux, taking the rigidity of what is Below and bringing it into flowing movement.

On the other hand, when an initiate considers the fluidity of thinking, feeling and willing, he brings this movement to a halt, and what is bound to the physical body apparently happening in time, he views in the sphere of eternity, the region of spiritual juxtaposition.

People strive towards initiation wisdom, and openly admit that the perceivable environment is maya, a great deception, an illusion. But when it gets serious, then they don’t accept it, and would rather describe the region Above with the same idea of maya that they use for the region Below. One should make beautiful schematic drawings based on the ideas of maya, and move about the spiritual world with them, up or down, above or below consciousness. People say to me: “Yes, but you’re not describing things so that I can understand”. But behind this lies “You challenge me with ideas and thoughts that are different from the ones in maya; you challenge me to come to grips with ideas which are in the sphere of reality.”

As another objection, someone might say: “Yes, but in the end, what concerns me in all this is what happens here below! If we just use the concept of time seriously in relation to human development, or we gaze out from life into the sphere of eternity, then one can get by quite well, thank you very much”. You could say this if you remained in maya, and if you formed concepts from what is all mixed up; and yes, you can survive, you can of course continue to live albeit asleep by remaining only in the sphere of eternity.

But here my first point is this. If you form concepts like these, which are sharp and which can stand up to modern scholarship, then you can just about live with them, but really only just live. What you cannot do with concepts like these is die. Nobody can die with concepts like these. And as soon as one touches upon this mystery, the full import of spiritual scientific knowledge begins to dawn on one, because concepts which are formed without initiation knowledge lead after death into an unlawful ahrimanic region. And if you spurn forming concepts like those in initiation wisdom, then after death you will not arrive in the region of humanity to which you are really predestined.

In former times higher spiritual beings taught those people with an atavistic clairvoyant predisposition the concepts of initiation in supersensible ways. In those days, and essentially up until the year 333 after the Mystery of Golgotha, there was a kind of supersensible instruction available to people, which made them not only fit for life, but also fit for death. However, since that time the human being has had to prepare his soul, through his own effort here on earth, with concepts so that he can cross the threshold of death in the right way.

For initiation wisdom there is nothing more frivolous than the comment: “Well, we can wait until we enter the region after death, then we’ll see what’s there”. The answer to this is: “Whoever waits, sins against life”, because you would be utterly terrified if, per impossibile, an initiate showed you what deformed creatures you would be if, throughout your life between death and rebirth, you had had the same attitude and said: “I’ll wait until I’m born on earth to see what kind of being is clothed with flesh and blood”. There, higher beings take care of you, and because of their benevolent influence, you cannot avoid preparing for yourself those forces which before your birth protect you from becoming a misbegotten creature. And those beings that teach us say: “This spiritual life between death and new birth is not merely here for our region, it is also here in order for the region Below to be lawfully prepared so that finely formed people can come into being there, and not mis¬begotten creatures.”

Likewise life here on earth is not simply for the earth, but is here so that a person can die in the correct human way. And by adopting concepts from the higher region the human being can prepare his lower nature for this so that he does not enter an inappropriate ahrimanic region. There are of course appropriate ahrimanic regions, but those that are not in accordance with one’s humanity would be inappropriate.

That is the first point. The second point is this. If you disregard the sphere of eternity, you can just about survive as an individual person – although in reality nobody can live in isolation – but you would not be able to live within the human social order which is led and directed by beings of the higher hierarchies. When you enter into even the most trivial relationship with another person – and our whole life consists of inter-personal relationships – and if what streams into this relationship does not flow from a consciousness of what lies in the spiritual sphere of eternity, then you ruin social integrity, and you contribute to catastrophic manifestations of destruction on the planet. In addition, any social or political point of view that does not stem from the spirit, will also work in this destructive way. Only a point of view that reckons with the sphere of eternity, that is alive to what is becoming, can be effective in political, social, and especially in inter-personal life. This is the great serious truth which must increasingly confront humanity through initiation wisdom. And the signs of the times confirm this, that those days up to 333AD are long past, when higher beings supersensibly taught a humanity that did not need to participate consciously, because it could be educated mostly in sleep or in dimmed consciousness. But today people can only receive what they need so much by experiencing it person to person within humanity itself. People must simply put aside that arrogance which lets them say they can always form their own opinions. In the sphere of transitoriness we should recognise that the old have something to say to the young which only the old can tell them. If we understand this, then why should we not also understand that there is an initiation wisdom which we take in inter-personally? This is a kind of leaven of the social life which must develop in the future, so that at any moment – we are speaking of the sphere of time here – if someone cannot recognise what he needs, then he will receive it from others.

Yesterday I told you that our individual development in time makes it unnecessary for us to accept things merely by believing in authority; instead when we form an idea we can have it as a kind of conviction that flows from one’s own inner being. I have emphasized in a number of my books that belief in authority has no place in spiritual science. But it also needs to be clearly understood by all who are really grounded in spiritual science that someone cannot be initiated at any time of life simply by blowing his own trumpet and following his own convictions as is the fashion today. If that were the case people could draw up all manner of programmes that they believed in, that could rule the world, but which could never deliver the kind of wisdom that really flows into the life and workings of the world which increasingly need initiation knowledge.

In past times initiation was a kind of thinking that was given to humanity. But in the future people must use their own willpower to turn towards what comes into the world through initiation, even though this counters many subconscious desires. It is very difficult for people to find the right way to summon up the required degree of seriousness to engage with everything that I have been talking about.

It is becoming really hard to tell modern human beings how much goodwill they must have, because they often think that this goodwill is actually rather heartless. Whoever correctly penetrates the meaning of spiritual science knows that as we move towards the future, there is no alternative to the study of initiation wisdom for forming the soul substance that enables us to pass through the gate of death in the right manner, and which also allows us to stand properly within the social life of humanity. One can live into this, but then comes the contradictory thought: “Here’s someone in whose life there are people whom he loves for one reason or another, but they do not want to know anything about this great requirement of our time to turn towards the spiritual life. When he wishes that these people should also attain salvation, it seems to him heartless if the whole truth is spelled out”.

But whoever really has goodwill towards these things knows that it is not goodwill at all to close one’s eyes and say: “Oh well, although they don’t want to know anything about the spiritual life, they can attain salvation anyway”. Instead one should say: “Every effort should be made to bring the spiritual life to the earth”. It is not about giving in to the thought which is so closely connected with our own wishes for dealing with those who don’t want to know anything about spiritual life. Rather we should positively strive towards dedicating ourselves with goodwill to the spiritual life, attempting to bring it into the world so that people can be – if I might use the expression – brought to blessedness.

Behind what is often called a loving attitude, lies hidden not only superficiality, but also a misjudgment of the whole situation. Today if someone speaks out of initiation wisdom, he does so not to teach people theoretical knowledge, but with a warm heart, out of love of humanity, because he knows how much the signs of the times indicate that the next great task is to bring spiritual life to the soul, and to incorporate it into human life so that the spirit draws near to the soul. But it is also necessary to courageously face up to the challenge of humanity’s development in time. The views from Above and from Below which must be brought into the open today and clearly understood, if at all possible also need to be incorporated in the human soul.

If life is looked at as it is today – in a prejudiced and illusionary way – then one is not speaking about the whole of life but only about a tiny part of it. I tested this in the following way. I know the various biographies of Goethe, which provide information about many of the things that Goethe did, what he was motivated by, considered, and thought about, between his birth and his death. But as soon as Goethe’s soul passed through the gate of death, what is described in these biographies with their illusionary point of view, has not the slightest significance for the region which the soul enters after death, and constitutes another mixing up of the sphere of eternity with the sphere of transitoriness. It is indeed transitory when, through a new birth, the human being again steps into existence,

Everything that is recorded about life between birth and death in an illusionary biography based on an illusionary world view is of no use for the sphere which one enters through the gate of death. What matters is only the question: “How has the soul spoken to the cosmos?” Whatever somebody said to his neighbour, even if it was the most beautiful thing on earth, if it did not flow from spiritual knowledge, then it was not spoken to the cosmos.

However, what Goethe lived through was spoken to the cosmos, when one considers his life described in seven-year periods. How Goethe changed from one seven year period to the next! How remarkable was that great change in his life which happened at the end of a seven-year period when he went to Italy, or at least decided to go there! Whatever happens from one seven-year period to the next, beneath the sphere which forms normal biographies, this is what speaks to the cosmos; and something can be done with this once the human soul has passed through the gate of death. What Goethe said that was influenced by beings of the sphere of eternity, described as I have been doing today, this too has a connection to the sphere that one enters after death. Picture to yourselves Goethe’s life from the point of view of yesterday’s consideration of successive seven-year periods – what he felt when he wrote maxims above particular chapters of his works, such as “What youth desires, age receives in abundance”. Looking at Goethe’s life from the point of view of transitoriness, of evolution, if you run across words like these used as a motto above that one chapter, and you meet these words with knowledge of spiritual science, then to a certain extent you will have encountered the eternal Goethe. And if again with a spiritual scientific attitude, you come across something that Goethe said, resounding with what flows from the sphere of eternity where the hierarchies have their interplay, there too is the eternal Goethe. By accepting initiation wisdom, the task that accrues to humanity from now onwards is to get to know not just what is temporal in the world but also what is eternal; this can only be learned by turning to spiritual science. What in former times was freely offered, must be seen by modern humanity in the light of what approaches us from modern initiation wisdom.

Within the Catholic church today there is something that acts like a red rag to a certain kind of being. When the type of Catholic, who these days might often consider himself to be true-blue, chooses some world-view to twit, it is the doctrine of emanation. Any interpretation of the universe based on emanation is condemned – perhaps for himself personally a little less so – but certainly for those faithful little lambs to whom he is speaking or writing. All that’s needed is to be able to attach the description ‘emanating’ to any philosophy! According to dyed-in-the-wool Catholics, the doctrine of emanation is opposed to creationism, the philosophy of creation out of nothing. So here we have, in a kind of dualistic way, on one side the philosophy of emanation acting like a red rag, and on the other side creationism, the philosophy of creation from nothing. Creationism is accepted and the philosophy of emanation is rejected.

Now the doctrine of emanation became known in Western culture indirectly through the Gnosis. However, the manner in which it became known in the West – the underlying literature has been largely destroyed – means that the doctrine of emanation has become distorted, because within Catholicism only its distortion is known, which gives rise to great misunderstanding. Because what one knows as the doctrine of emanation – the outcome of one eon from another, where the less perfect always stems from the more perfect, which is usually described exoterically as the Gnosis – is in fact already a distortion. It points back to a completely different world view, particularly to ancient times when it was possible for spiritual teachers to instruct mankind directly out of the supersensible. The doctrine of emanation – although a corruption – points back to a wisdom that in its old form referred to the sphere of eternity, to what is Above. As such, one can to a certain extent defend emanation, not in the corrupt form that we know, but in the form where only a perspective within time is described and not from the point of view of true evolution. But if it cannot speak about real evolution, then neither can it speak about creation from nothing, because that too is a kind of evolution, albeit an extreme case. The idea that something stems from something else – as we have discussed today – is inappropriate for describing the sphere of eternity which consists of interrelationships between spiritual beings.

However, if we turn again to the sphere of transitoriness, then we can indeed speak about evolution, even about this extreme case, which basically has been implicit in much of what I have been speaking about these past few days. For when we say that present-day ideals are the seed of the future, and that present-day realities are the fruit of the past, isn’t that a continuous coming into being from what does not exist in the world? Rightly understood, this leads us to true, uncorrupted, creationism. The demand that goes out to humanity today is this: To understand in the correct light what was meant by the doctrine of emanation, and to apply it to the soul- spiritual world; and to rightly understand what is meant by true, uncorrupted, creationism, applying it, not to the creator, but to the created, to the soul-bodily. The salvation and resolution of this philosophy lies not in the nebulous confusion of dualism, but in recognising the duality and seeing through it, and by viewing correctly the spheres of eternity and of transitoriness, and being able to separate them. Then we will be able to say that in beholding reality as it exists before us, we see both a reflection and at the same time an effect; a reflection because it belongs to the sphere of transitoriness and is ruled by evolution, and an effect because it belongs to the sphere of eternity and is ruled by what we acquire when we comprehend the soul-spiritual life as described today. It is not correct to say that creationism is right and emanation is wrong, nor that emanation is right and creationism wrong, but that both are necessary factors for a true understanding of the totality of life. Overcoming dualism cannot be brought about theoretically, only by life itself. If you seek a resolution of what is Above with what is Below, of the sphere of transitoriness with the sphere of eternity, and look for it theoretically in concepts, thoughts, and ideas, then you will never manage it, you will arrive at a confused philosophy, because you would be seeking with the intellect what should really be sought in life itself.

In life one can look for the truth only when one knows that one has to set one’s gaze both in the sphere of eternity, to recognise there what does not otherwise appear in outer reality, and then to consider all human and other beings in the sphere of transitoriness, in a way that actually contradicts outer reality. Armed with both of these, when one comes upon something real, it begins to flow as one experiences reality as alive, as living seeing, arising from the combination of effect in the sphere of eternity and reflection in the sphere of transitoriness. This is the way to grasp reality, if one does not want to hold a theoretical worldview that only lives in concepts and ideas. One can grasp it if one is willing to adopt two worldviews, one for the realm of the soul-spiritual and the other for the realm of the soul-bodily, and in the living interplay of the two, not in a theory, one will have something that nourishes and stimulates life. Only in this way can we escape from dualism.

This is the challenge that faces humanity today. It has nothing to do with founders of religions appearing and teaching humanity about spiritualism; nor does it depend on founders of learned sects appearing and teaching humanity about materialism. But it does depend on us viewing matter as the material of evolution, that spirit is not matter and should be understood spiritually in the sphere of eternity, and that reality should be viewed as both of these. What must flow into a future world view is matter illuminated by the spirit, and the spirit substantiated by matter. It does not depend on philosophers appearing who offer mankind definitions of truth, or who offer definitions that in theory create a so-called monadic consistency, as the academics teach. But it does depend on recognising the duality between truth and knowledge, and actively looking for the relationship between these two in life itself, leading to a living epistemology, not a theoretical one.

It is not truth or knowledge, but truth and knowledge – knowledge borne by the significance of truth, itself illuminated by the light of knowledge – recognising the human being himself as a duality in the world who, in his life and in his becoming, can only surmount what as duality must be surmounted. The future task of humanity is not Kantianism which believes that appearances in the outer world are not the ‘thing-in-itself’, but should be to achieve truth and knowledge in the intellectual sphere too; and that means recognising that what surrounds us is indeed maya; but it is maya because of the way we are placed in the world, and as long as we appear this way, we are a duality. We create maya by our being placed in this way, and we overcome it, not in some idea or theory, but in life itself by bringing our own selves to life.

This is of course contained in my booklet Truth and Knowledge. It also appears in my book The Philosophy of Freedom, which in a few days’ time will appear in a new edition that you can get here. I have made some additions to it, not altering the original text, but considerably enlarging many of the notes.

In conclusion therefore, what is important is to understand the signs of the times, and from them to nurture the spiritual life in the various areas of human endeavour.

• 1. Dr Steiner uses the adjectives geistig-seelisch and seelisch-leiblich on many occasions throughout this lecture. We have chosen to translate them respectively as soul-spiritual and soul-bodily.

I should like to take some of those subjects we have had here this Summer, which have been brought up in the course of our considerations, and to go more deeply into them. To-day, tomorrow, and the day after, I will therefore bring forward certain historical, and also a few objective facts; and to-day by way of preparation, I Should like to point to a few historical facts, and from these, and especially from the revelation of certain historical personalities, we shall then draw conclusions upon which we can base our deeper considerations.

In all ages those who have been initiated into the Mysteries, have always uttered, and correctly, a certain saying. It is this:—“Unless a person knows how to value aright those two streams of world-conceptions which we have mentioned:—Idealism and Materialism,—he either falls through a trap-door into a kind of 'cellar' as regards his view of the world, or he enters blindly along the other paths which one traverses to reach a World Conception.” Now the trap-door through which one may fall and which may very well escape notice in the “Weltanschaumergaleben,” has been regarded by the Mystery Initiates of all as the Dualism which cannot find the bridge between the Ideal—one can also call it the “spiritually-coloured Ideal”—and the Materialistic, that concerned with matter. And the blind alley into which one may stray along the various paths of philosophy if one does not find the balance between Idealism and Materialism, for those same Mystery Initiates this blind alley was Fatalism.

Our recent epoch clearly inclines on the one side to a dualistic outlook, and on the other to a fatalistic philosophy, although these things are not admitted nor even clearly seen.

Now, I should like to-day, to take a personality out of the life of the twilight of the 4th Post-Atlantean epoch with reference to the life of philosophy, and give a brief sketch of him, and his outlook; and we can then consider other personalities more characteristic of the World-Conceptions of our own, the 5th Post-Atlantean epoch. A very, very characteristic personality in the Western life of thought, St. Augustine, who lived from the year 354 to 430 of our Christian era. We will recall certain thoughts of St. Augustine because, as you will see from the dates I have quoted, he lived in the twilight of the 4th Post-Atlantean epoch which came to an end in the 15th century. We can clearly see the approach of this end, starting from the 3rd-6th Post-Xian centuries. Now St. Augustine had to pass through the impressions of the most diverse World-Views. We have often discussed these things. Above all, St. Augustine passed through Manichaeism and Scepticism. He had taken all those impulses into his soul which one gets if on the one hand, he looks at the world and sees everything Ideal, Beautiful and Good, all that is filled with Wisdom, and then on the other hand, ell that is ugly, bad and untrue. Now we know that Manichaeism only “gets on” (this is coarsely expressed, but it can be expressed in this way)—it only gets on with these two streams in the Ordering of the Cosmos, by postulating an eternal, everlasting polarity, an everlasting dualism, between Darkness and Light, Evil and Good; that which is full of Wisdom, and that which is filled with wickedness.

Manichaeism only `gets' on with Dualism, (in its on way quite correctly), by uniting certain old pre-Christian basic concepts with its acceptance of the polarity in World-phenomena. Above all, it unites certain ideas which can only be understood when one knows that in ancient times the Spiritual world was perceived by humanity in atavistic clairvoyance, and perceived in such a way that men's visions of the Spiritual world were in their very content, similar to the impressions made by the Sense-world of perception. Now, because Manichaeism took into itself such ideas of a physical appearance, (sinnlichen schein) of the supersensible, it thereby gives many people the impression of materialising the spirit, as though it presented the spirit in a material form. That, of course, is a mistake which more recent views of the world have made, (as I have explained lately) a mistake even made by modern Theosophy. St. Augustine actually broke with Manichaeism because in the course of his purified life of thought, he could no longer boar this materialisation of the spirit. That was one of the reasons which made him break with Manichaeism.

St. Augustine then also passed through Scepticism, which is a quite justifiable view of the world, in se far as it points man's attention to the feet that through the mere observation of what a person can gain from this Sense-world and his experiences therein, he can learn nothing concerning the supersensible. And, if one is of [the] opinion that one cannot stand for the supersensible, as such, one begins to doubt the existence of any knowledge of the truth itself. It was doubt of the knowledge of the Truth through which St. Augustine also passed; and thereby obtained the strongest impulses.

Now if one wishes to see what led St. Augustine to place himself in western philosophy, one must point to the apex of his perceptions, from which radiated all the light which rules in him, and which was also the apex of the view of the world which he finally developed. That is the point, my dear friends; and it can be characterised in the following ways:—St, Augustine came to acquire that Certainty, the true Certainty subject to absolutely no deception, which can only be acquired by man with reference to what he experiences in his inner soul. Everything else may be uncertain. Whether the things which appear to our eyes, or are audible to our ears, or which make impressions on our other Sense-organs, are really so constructed as they appear to be to the evidence of the senses, that one cannot know. We cannot even know how this itself appears, when one shuts one's Sense organs to it, That is the way in which persons think of the external perceptible world, who think after the way of St. Augustine. They think this externally perceptible world, as it lies before us, can offer no unconditional certainty, can give no unconditioned truth; that man can gain nothing out of it on which he can stand on a firm substantial point. On the other hand, a man is present in what he experiences in his inner soul; quite regardless as to how he experiences it there, he himself experiences those ideas and feelings in his inner being. He knows himself to be living in his own inner experiences. And so, to such a thinker as St. Augustine, the fact is substantiated by his own inner experiences;—that, with reference to what man experiences in his inner sou1 as truth, he gives himself over to no possibility of deception. One can relieve that everything else the world says is subject to deception, but one cannot possibly doubt that what one experiences in one's inner being, as one's ideas and feelings, is the truth; that is certain. That firm basis for the admittance of an indisputable truth, formed one of the starting-points of the Augustinian philosophy.

Again in a striking way, in the 5th Post-Atlantean epoch, Descartes again took up that point; he lived from 1596 to 1650, thus in the dawn of the 5th Post-Atlantean epoch. His assertion:—“I think, therefore I exist,” which remains true even if we doubt everything else, that he takes as his starting point, and in this perception he simply takes the standpoint of St. Augustine.

Now my dear friends, the fact is that with reference to any world-conception one must always say: A man who lives at a particular point of time in human evolution acquires certain views:—only those who come later can see these. One must say that it is always reserved for those who come afterwards to see things in a more radical, true way, than does the person who has to utter them at a certain period of time in human evolution. One cannot get away from this fact; and it would be well, if especially from our Anthroposophical standpoint, as I have often told you, if it were recognised consciously and thoroughly, that even what is said now, even that we acquire as ever such advanced knowledge about Spiritual things, that must not be grasped as a sum of absolute dogmas. We must be quite clear that those who come after us, in future times, will see greater than we ourselves can. On this rests the true Spiritual evolution of mankind, and everything of a hindering nature in the Spiritual progress of mankind rests finally on the fact that human beings will not admit this. They like to have truths presented to them, not as the truths for one definite epoch of time, but as absolute timeless dogmas,

And so, from our point of view, we can look back on St. Augustine and shall have to say: If one stands on St. Augustine's standpoint, one must sharply look to this.—that he assumes uncertainty as to the truths of all external revelations, and true certainty only in the experience of what we carry in our souls. Now, if one gives oneself to such a perception as that, it presupposes that, as a human being, one has a certain courage. One would not perhaps need to mention so decidedly what I am now going to say, unless we had to admit the fact that it is characteristic of the world-view of our present age that it lacks courage, the lack of courage I refer to here is expressed in two directions. The one is this. When a person boldly admits, as did St. Augustine, that you can only find true certainty as regards what you yourself experience in your inner being, then the other pole of this courage should be there which is not there in our present age. One must also have the courage to admit that thin true Certainty concerning reality is not to be found in external Sense-Revelation. It requires real inner courage in one's thought to deny external Reality in its utterances that true Certainty, which is held by modern Materialism as absolutely secure. And, on the other hand, it requires courage to admit that true certainty only comes when one is truly conscious of what one experiences inwardly. Certainly such things are said, even in our times, and there are those who demand this two-fold courage of their fellow-man, if they are anxious to create a world-conception. But one has to things differently about these things to-day, if one wishes to think exhaustively. And herein the whole historical position of St. Augustine is revealed for modern mankind, because one has to think differently about these matters. To-day one must know something which neither Augustine nor Descartes took into consideration. I have spoken of this where I discuss Descartes, in my book “The Riddles of Man.” To-day we must admit: The belief that one can come to a satisfactory philosophy through a grasp of one's immediate inner being as man, as it offers itself to-day,—the belief that one can reach a firm standpoint in one's inner being,—is refuted every time one goes to sleep. Every time a person to-day passes into the unconsciousness of sleep, from him is snatched that absolute certainty of inner experience of which St. Augustine spoke,—the Reality of that inner experience is snatched from him. Every time you go to sleep until the moment of waking, the reality of real experience forsakes you. And the man of our age to-day, who experiences his inner being in a different way from that of the 4th Post-Atlantean age, even from that of the twilight of the age of St. Augustine, has to admit: “No matter how acute a certainty is experienced in one's inner being, yet for man's life after death, there is no certainty at all; for the simple reason that the reality of his experiences sinks into the realm of the unconscious, every time he goes to sleep, and a modern human being does not even know whether it does not pass into Unreality, and so what man apparently experiences securely in his inner being is not made safe from attack. That my not be theoretically refuted perhaps, but the very fact of sleep contradicts it.

Now if we turn attention to whit has just been said, we recognise how, in reality, St. Augustine with a far greeter justification than Descartes later, (who after all only merely repeated St. Augustine in another age) with what right St. Augustine could arrive at his view. Through the entire 4th Post-Atlantean epoch, and even through the age of St. Augustine, there still lived in human beings something of an echo of the old atavistic clairvoyance. History to-day unfortunately notices those things far too little and really knows little of them; but numerous were those persons throughout the whole 4th Post-Atlantean ago who, from their personal experiences knew that there existed a Spiritual life. Because they beheld it. And in the 4th Post-Atlantean age—it was different in the 3rd or in the 2nd Post-Atlantean epochs—in the 4th age they beheld it chiefly because it played into their life of sleep. So that we may say: In the 4th Post-Atlantean epoch it was not the case for human beings, (as it became later in the 5th epoch), that their sleep transpired completely unconsciously. Those human beings of the 4th Post-Atlantean epoch knew that, from sleeping until waking up, there was a time in which all that they had as ideas, as feelings from waking to sleeping, still continued to work, but in other forms. Their waking life of truth dived down, as it were, into a dim, but conscious life of sleep. In that age one still knew that what was experienced as inner truth, was not only truth but also reality, because one knew those moments of sleeping life in which was revealed, not merely as an abstract life but as a real concrete life in the spirit, what one had experienced in one's inner being. It is not a question to-day of proving whether St. Augustine himself could say, from his own experience, “I know myself that during the time between going to sleep and waking, there arises an experience which is true, even if not real inwardly.” The fact that one could grasp ouch a perception, on which one could stand firm, was still absolutely possible in the age of St. Augustine.

Now, you see, if you take what I have just said with reference to the subjective nature of man, and generalise it over the whole Macrocosm, you come to something else. You come to that condition from which subjective nature in an older epoch, and still in the 4th Post-Atlantean period, has really preceded; that from which it really became possible. Let us speak for a moment of the pre-Christian era. You must bear in mind that the Mystery of Golgotha is the dividing line between those ancient atavistic perceptions and the newer ones, which are only to-day in their beginning. In that pre-Christian age one could still cling to certain living Mystery-Truths. The Mystery Truths, to which I am now referring, are those which pertain especially to the great secret of Birth and Death. That is considered by certain Mystery Initiates as a secret which, they think, may not be referred to among the profane. (I have also spoken of this in recent lectures). They consider that those secrete should not be imparted to the world, because the world is not yet ripe to receive them. In that pre-Christian epoch there was in the Mysteries a certain view concerning the connection between Birth and. Death in the great Cosmic Life into which man with his entire being is inserted. In that pre-Christian age, through those Mysteries, man turned his attention specially to Birth, to all the processes of being born into the world. Anyone who is acquainted with the World-views of ancient times, knows also what emphasis was laid on the process of Birth,—of Arising, Sprouting, Growing;—all those processes, all those ancient views, specially concerned themselves with this. I have often emphasised what a gigantic contrast appeared through the Mystery of Golgotha. I have put it in the following way. Just think how, 600 years before the Mystery of Golgotha, Buddha, who stands ever in the evolution of main as the conclusion of the pre-Christian World-Conception, is led to his conceptions because, amongst other things, he beholds a corpse. “Death is suffering.” It becomes an axiom with the Buddha, that suffering must be overcome, A means must be found to be able to turn away from death. The corpse is that from which Buddha turns, in order to come to something which for him, can though spiritualised, can be filled with Sprouting, Growing life.

If we now turn to 600 years after the Mystery of Golgotha, to another part or the world, and other human beings, we see that the vision of the Corpse of Christ on the Cross is not something which man has to turn away from, but to which he has to turn, which is regarded whole-heartedly as the symbol that can solve the riddles of the Cosmos in so far as they refer to man and his development.

There is a wonderful connection within this 1200 years, six hundred years Before Golgotha, the turning away from a corpse gives an uplift to one's concept of the World; 600 years after Golgotha there is developed a symbol, The Image of the Crucifix, a turning towards death, towards a corpse, in order to create those forces from that Corpse, by which one can reach a concept of the world able to throw light on human evolution. Among the many things which show the mighty transformation which appeared in earthly evolution through the Mystery of Golgotha, there is this Buddha symbol, this turning away from the corpse; and then comes the Christ-symbol, the turning towards the Corpse—the Corpse of that Being Who in regarded as the highest Being ever seen on the Earth.

It was really the case that in a certain connection the old Mysteries put the Mystery of Birth in the very centre of their world-conception. But therewith, my dear friends, (since we are talking of Mystery-knowledge and not merely giving forth trivial views) therewith you have before your souls a deep cosmological secret. Your attention is turned to that with which is connected the life of Birth in the World's evolution.

And one does not come to understand this life of Birth in the Cosmos unless one can go beck to the Riddle of the Old Moon. know indeed that the preview: incarnation of the Earth before it became Earth was Old Moon, and in many of the phenomena connected with our present Moon, that camp-follower, so to speak of the Old Moon.—(you can read this up in my “Outline of Occult Science”)—in various phenomena connected to-day with the present Moon, with this straggler, we simply have the after effects of what occurred in the Moon-Incarnation of the Earth, at the time which preceded our earthly development.

Now there would be no such thing as Birth in all the kingdoms of nature, there would be nothing born on the Earth, were it not that the law of the Old Moon prevailed through this straggler, which is the satellite of our Earth. All birth in the various kingdoms of nature and man, is dependent on the activity of the Moon. With this is also connected the fact that the Initiates of the ancient Hebrews regarded Jehovah as the Moon-God, as a Divine Being who arranged the process of bringing forth; Jehovah was honoured as a Moon-Divinity. It was clearly seen that cosmologically, behind all the processes of birth throughout all the kingdoms, there ruled the laws of the Moon. And so one could, I might say, symbolically utter a deep secret of Cosmology by saying: when the Moonlight falls on the Earth, on what is represented through this light, depends everything connected with all the Sprouting, Growing and `being born' on the Earth. In those pre-Christian ages one did not turn in the highest Mysteries to the life of the Sun, one turned to the reflected sunlight, that is, to the Moon, whenever the secret of Birth was alluded to. And the peculiar “Nuances” which were poured over the depths of those pre-Christian conceptions depended on the fact that the initiates knew the Mysteries or the Moon.

They regarded the Sun Mysteries as something quite veiled, something hardly bearable for a humanity not fully prepared, because they knew that it is a deception, a maya, to believe that through the rays of the Sun falling on the Earth those things which Sprout and Grow are enchanted out of the various kingdoms of nature. That is a deception, a maya. It was known that from the life of the Sun did not depend the process of Birth, but, on the contrary, the decaying, decreasing life, the process of Death. These were the secrets of the Mysteries. The Moon causes things to be born, but the Sun causes them to die. And, however highly for other reasons the Sun-life was honoured in those pre-Christian Mysteries, the Sun-life was honoured as the cause of Death. The fact that beings had to die was not to be ascribed to the Sun, the 2nd incarnation of the Earth, but has to be ascribed to the resent Sun, which appears so magnificently on the horizon.

Well, the decay of life, the opposite of birth, is connected with the Sun-life, but, my dear friends, there was something else, not so important in that pre-Christian age, but very specially important in our post-Christian age: and that is, that all conscious life is connected with Sun-life, and that conscious life through which man has especially to pass in the course of his earthly evolution, that consciousness which shines forth especially in the 5th Post-Atlantean age to which we ourselves belong, that is most intensely connected with the Sun-life. Only we must consider this Sun-life Spiritually, as we have attempted to do in the course of lectures given this Summer. For, if indeed the Sun is the creator of Death, of the decaying life in the Cosmos and also of man, yet the Sun is at the same time the creator of conscious life. The conscious life was not so important in the pre-Christian ages, because it was then replaced by an atavistic clairvoyant life, which still remained as an inheritance of the Moon. For our post-Christian age it has however become important, far more important than life. Consciousness has become more important than life, because only through consciousness can the goal of earthly evolution be reached—which is, that this consciousness should be attained in the corresponding way by the humanity on earth. You must receive this consciousness from the giver, the Sun, from which comes the living into Death and not the life of Birth.

Therefore the Mystery of Golgotha appears as that power in earthly development which has now become the most important thing for this evolution:—the Son of the Sun, the Christ, Who passed through the Body of Jesus of Nazareth,—That is connected with the deepest Cosmic secrets. The ancient Mystery Initiates said to their pupils:

“Try to recognise through your sleep-life how the Moon-forces are playing into it. (We know that even waking-man is partially asleep). Try to recognise the MOON-life in your sleep-life, for it plays into your sleep-life, as the Silvery Moon-shine plays into the darkness of night.”

The Christian Initiates on the contrary said to their disciples: “Try to recognise that in your waking-life consciousness shines; for the Sun-Forces pour into your waking-life, just as from morning till evening the Sun shines outside in the life of the Earth.”

You see, this reversal was fulfilled through the Mystery of Golgotha, and, whereas in pre-Christian ages the most important thing was to recognise the origin of Life, it has now become the most important thing to recognise the origin of Consciousness. Only through learning to unite this cosmological wisdom with what man experiences as true certainty in his soul, which means, only by grasping Spiritual Science with one's Inner Being, does man come to see the Spiritual Reality concealed in that which otherwise lacks this reality it his inner being.

Now with those means possessed by St. Augustine, the means possessed by those who stand on an Augustinian basis, one cannot get very far, because every sleep refutes the real certainty of one's inner experiences. Only when its Reality is added to this inner experience does man come to a really firm stand on the basis of his inner experience.

You see, my dear friends, that which we think to-day, that which we feel to-day in our present life on Earth, has not as yet any reality. This is even recognised to-day, by a few scientifically-thinking men. What we think and feel in our inner soul is unreal at present; and that is just the peculiarity—that which we experience most intimately, that which shines indubitably in us as truth, without doubt that at present has no reality. But this is really the fruitful seed for our next earthly life. That of which St. Augustine was speaking, and for which there is no guarantee of its reality, that we may say, is the seed for the next earthly life. We can say:—it is true that the truth shines in our inner being, but it shines simply as a gleam, (Schein). To-day it in still but a gleam, but in our earthly incarnation that which now is gleam, and as such is simply a germ, will become a fruit which animates our next incarnation, as the seed of the plant this year will animate the visible plant of next year. Only when we conquer time can we find in what we now experience inwardly, a reality. Of course we should not be the human being we are and that we should be, if we experienced our inward truth as though it were a reality like the external world. We should never become free. There could be no question of freedom; we should not even be personalities, we should simply be woven into an ordering of Nature, and whatever occurred in us would occur of necessity. We are only personalities and especially free personalities, because from out of the weaving of natural events there arises as a kind of miracle, the gleam (der Schein) of those things which we experience in our inner soul and which will only become external reality, like that of our environment, in our next earthly incarnation.

It is the deceptive nature of our age to which all fantasy still gives itself, that we do not take into consideration the fact that what springs up inwardly as an unreality is one earthly incarnation, becomes a concrete reality in the next. We shall speak further on this point in the next two lectures.

We see hew from the standpoint we have acquired to-day we can look back at the standpoint of St. Augustine, how we can understand him, and to a certain extent can see in him what he himself could not yet see. Thus St. Augustine stands for us as a specially significant figure in the twilight of the 4th Post-Atlantean age, because with especial sharpness he points to the one stream in world-happiness to the stream of the Ideal; and in this stream he seeks to find a firm point. St. Augustine sought that firm point. To-day we only want to bring forward the historical fact.

There had not yet come to people in his age that tremendous swing of the pendulum which came about with the Mysteries of Birth and of Death; for only out of this Mystery of Death of which we shall Speak further tomorrow, can one find a real substantiation of the absolute certainty of what man experiences inwardly as Truth.

We shall now have to make a great jump. Just as we have characterised what reveals itself in St. Augustine as representative of the twilight of the 4th Post-Atlantean age, so we will take certain personalities characteristic of our 5th Post-Atlantean age, and study them according to a certain direction. Of these I will select two.

One of those persons in whom a certain tendency was developed which is characteristic for the 5th age, is Count Saint-Simon, who lived from 1766 to 1825, Another is a pupil of Saint-Simon, Auguste Comte, who lived from 1798 to 1857. If we have in St. Augustine a personality who, with all the means which stood at his disposal, sought through his knowledge, to substantiate Christianity, so an the other hand in Saint-Simon and also in Auguste Comte, we see personalities who are led completely astral [astray?] as regards Christianity. We can best gain a clear idea of what lived in Auguste Comte, as also in a certain sense in Saint-Simon, if we briefly outline the chief thoughts of Auguste Comte.

Auguste Comte is to a great extent representative of a certain world-view in our age; and it is only due to the fact that people trouble so little as to how certain impulses in philosophy incorporate themselves into the life of man, that Auguste Comte is regarded as a kind of rarity, in historical life. These persons do not know how, perhaps not quite everywhere, but still in countless human beings, Auguste Comte exercises a school-masterly influence in the essential directions of their thinking, and one may say that Auguste Comte is representative of a great portion of the philosophical life of the present.

Auguste Comte says that humanity has developed through Three stages, and has now reached the third stage. If one observes the soul-life of men through these three stages, one finds in the first stage that the ideas of man tended mostly towards Demonology. The first stage of evolution in the Comte sense is the demonological stage. Human beings imagined that behind the sensible phenomena of Nature supersensible Spiritual beings were active and operative; spirits were imagined everywhere in trivial life—demons were threatening everywhere, big demons and little demons. That was the first stage.

Then men passed on, as they developed. a little further, from the standpoint of Demonology to that of Metaphysics. Whereas they first thought demons, elementary beings, were behind all phenomena, they then put abstract ideas in their place.—People became Metaphysical when they no longer it wasted to be believers in demons. Thus the second stage is that of Metaphysics. They united certain concepts with their own life, and thought that through those ideas they could come to the basis of things.

But man has now gone beyond this stage. He has entered on the third stage, in which Auguste Comte quite in the sense of his master Saint-Simon, assumes that man no longer looks on demons, no longer looks to metaphysical concepts when seeking the basis of the World, but simply to that which results as the Sense-Reality of positivistic science. The third stage is therefore the stage of Positivism, of Positivistic Science. The revelations to be obtained simply through external scientific experience should be regarded by man as leading to a world-conception. He should explain himself in the same way as the metaphysical explanation given about the orderings of space, as physics explain the law of Forces, Chemistry the ordering of Substances, or Biology the ordering of Life. Just as everything can thus be explained by the different Sciences, so Comte tried to present a like harmony in his great work on Positive Philosophy. Everything which can be experienced through the various positive Sciences is considered by Comte as the sole thing worthy of men in the third stage. Christianity itself he still considers as the highest development of the last phase of Demonology. Then appeared Metaphysics,—which gave man a number of abstract concepts. But a concrete reality which alone can give an existence worthy of man on Earth, that can be given by Positive Science alone, according to Comte. And so he even tries to found a Church on the basis of positive Science, to bring man into such social structures as can be grasped on a basis of Positive Science. It is very extraordinary to see to what things Auguste Comte really came at last. I will only bring forward a few really characteristic features. He occupied himself a great deal with the founding of a Positivistic Church. Now if you just take the various points, you will at once perceive the spirit of it. This Positivistic Church was to bring out a kind of Calendar. A certain number of the days of the year were to be devoted, for instance, to the memory of such people as Newton or Galileo, or Kepler; the bearers of Positivistic Science. These days were to be devoted to their veneration. Other days should then be devoted to the condemnation of such people as Julian the Apostate or Napoleon. All that was to be regulated. Life itself was to be regulated with a great sweep, according to the basic principles of Positivistic Science.

Now anyone who knows life to-day, knows that no great number of human beings would take such ideals as those of Auguste Comte seriously although that Is simply cowardice, because in truth people do think as Auguste Comte did. If one studies the image the Positivistic Church of Comte gives, one actually gets the impression that the structure of his Church accords absolutely and entirely with that of the Roman Catholic Church. Only the Christ is lacking in the Positivistic Church of Auguste Comte, and that is the extraordinary thing. That in just what we must place before our souls as characteristic.—Auguste Comte seeks a Catholic Church without the Christ. That is what he came to, when he took those three stages into his soul;—Demonology, Metaphysics and Positivism. And one can say he took over all the “clothing” of Christianity, as it came to him out of history. He considered the clothing very good; but the Christ Himself he wished to banish out of his Church. That is the essential point round which everything revolves in Auguste Comte. A Catholic Church without the Christ.

That, my dear friends, is infinitely characteristic of the dawn of the 5th Post-Atlantean age, because as Auguste Comte thought, so a spirit had to think who had absorbed in his soul the element of Romanism, and thought from out of this element of Romanism, while at the same time he thought fully in the sense of the 5th Post-Atlantean epoch, with its so absolutely anti-spiritual character. And to Auguste Comte and his teacher Saint-Simon, are in the highest degree characteristic of the dawning of our 5th Post-Atlantean age. But in this 5th age many things have yet to be decided, and therefore other shadings appear which are still also possible. I just want to throw a few historical lights before you to-day, on which we can then build further.

An extraordinary contrast to Auguste Comte is Schelling, who lived from 1775 to 1854; and he also is to a certain extent characteristic of the dawn of our 5th Post-Atlantean age. Of course I cannot put before you even diagrammatically the world-view of Schelling. We have spoken often of it from this or the other point of view—it is most manifold in itself. I cannot even give you any idea now of its structure, but can only point out various characteristics.

I told you St. Augustine takes his stand in the twilight of the 4th Post-Atlantean age with the purpose, so to observe the one stream, the Ideal, that thereby he could get a firm point on which to stand. We now enter on the 5th Post-Atlantean Age. In its dawn we have such spirits as Saint-Simon and Auguste Comte who, in a purely natural materialistic ordering, seek a firm point in positivistic science. Thus we have two streams—Augustine on the one side, Auguste Comte on the other. Schelling seeks to get behind what can be seen in the world with the ordinary means of the 5th Post-Atlantean age; he seeks first abstractly and philosophically for a bridge between the Ideal and the Real, the Ideal and the Material. He tried with infinite energy to find the bridge. (You can find the essential points of this in my book “Riddles of Man.”) He seeks with infinite energy to bridge over that opposition and he came at first to all kinds of abstract thoughts in the course of this bridge-building. While he first built on the same basis as Johann Gottlieb Fichte, he went a little further, and attempted to grasp something in the world as real Being—something which is both the Ideal and the Real at the same time. Then came a time in Schelling's life in which it appeared impossible to him, with the methods of abstractions brought to him in the course of time out of the 5th Post-Atlantean age, to build a bridge between those two. So he said one day: “Human beings have really only acquired on the basis of their modern learning concepts by which they can grasp the external ordering of Nature. But we have no concepts by means of which we can come behind this external Nature to that sphere where one could build a bridge between the Ideal and External Reality.” It is extremely interesting that one day Schelling made the following admission. He said, it appeared to him as though the learned people of the last centuries had concluded a silent contract tending to wipe out everything of a deeper nature,—all that could lead one to a real true life. Therefore he said: “We meet turn to the unlearned people.” That was the time when Schelling started studying Jacob Boehme, and found in him that Spiritual deepening which then guided him to his final and theosophical period of life, from which proceeded his wonderful books the “Freedom of Man,” “The Gods of Samathrace,” the Kabiri Divinities; followed by his “Philosophy of Mythology” and the “Philosophy of Revolution.”

Now what Schelling most sought, especially in the last period of his life, was to understand the intervention of the Mystery of Golgotha into the history of mankind. That he sought especially; and while so doing it occurred to him that, with the ideas at the disposal of modern learning, one could never really understand the life which flows from the Mystery of Golgotha; which means that one could never come to understand the true life of man. Thereby Schelling formed the conclusion, (and that is the tendency which I want to emphasise especially now:—we will build further on this in the next lecture)—which is in complete contrast to that of his contemporary, Auguste Comte. That is the remarkable thing. We may say that Auguste Comte seeks a Catholicism, or I might better say a Catholic Church, without Christianity; Schelling, with his views, sought a Christianity without a Church. Schelling seeks, as it were, to Christianise the whole of modern life, to permeate it with Christianity; so that everything which human beings can Think and Feel and Will is absolutely saturated by the Christ-Impulse. He does not seek a separate clerical life for Christianity, especially not after the type found in historical evolution, although he studied this life very carefully.

Thus we have those two extremes—Auguste Comte's thought, of a Church without Christ, and Schelling's thought, of a Christ without a Church.

I just wanted to place these historical views before your soul, in order to be able to build further on these things. We have seen one spirit who seeks a firm starting point in Idealism—A spirit, Auguste Comte, who seeks a firm starting point in Realism, and then a personality such as Schelling who seeks to build a bridge between them. Both these tendencies preceded the evolution in which we ourselves are engaged.

We may say the following:—we can now survey those things which have contributed through many centuries to the life of World-Conceptions, and then we can turn our attention to the way in which these ideas have developed in the widest circles of human beings. The study of Auguste Comte gives a very important Aperçu, but Comte himself could not attain this, because he stuck so rigidly to his positivistic prejudices. But something which can give us an important starting point for our considerations for the next days results, when we see in an Aperçu the connection between St. Augustine, Auguste Comte, and Schelling, I will just put this at the conclusion of these considerations, because I should like it to have a place in your souls. We shall then have to speak of that which is connected in a significant way with just this. Now, as this Aperçu results from a consideration of what I have told you, I will simply put aphoristically, without giving the foundations for it in detail, the reason why this, which is not to be found in Auguste Comte, is to be found in others. I have told you that it is important not to consider the life of these World-views individually in the abstract, but one must regard them as incorporated into the entire life of humanity. Only thereby does one reach a standpoint of reality, when one can see the incorporation of these things into the collective life of mankind.

It was clear to Saint-Simon and Auguste Comte that they could only come to their positivism in recent times, that it would have been impossible in an earlier age. Auguste Comte feels it especially strongly; he says approximately “My mode of thought is only possible in our Age.” That is something which is of infinite importance in our modern Movement, and in connected with that Aperçu to which I am referring. if one takes what Auguste Comte considers as a starting point for his threefold division, one can say in his sense, that this threefold division is Theology, Metaphysics, and what he calls Positivistic Science.

It in very characteristic that one can put this question: “Who will most easily be a believer in any one of these directions?” I beg you not to misunderstand what I am saying with reference to this Aperçu not even to grasp it as a one-sided radical dogma to be applied very roughly with absolute certainty to our present age, but to take it as applying to the whole evolution of man, as it must be if one will regard what I now say. One can ask: not “who will be a believer?” but “Who will most easily be a believer in any one of these directions? From a very careful consideration, contradictory to facts as it may seem, this results:—The one who most easily becomes a believer in Theology (please, not a bearer, not a theologian, nor a worker, but simply a believer; I am not speaking of religion but of Theology) is the Soldier. The person who most easily becomes a believer in Metaphysics is the Official, especially the legal Official. And the person who is most easily becomes a believer in Positivistic Science is the Industrial.

It is important if one must judge life, not to remain in the abstract, but to look at it quite unprejudiced, and then such questions have to be put.

I just want this quite treated as an Aperçu which results when one intimately studies Auguste Comte, because he was conscious that he was only completely comprehensible to the Industrials; and only In an Industrial Age could he appear on the scene with his views. That is connected with the fact that the Industrial is most easily a follower of Positivistic Science; the Soldier most easily a believer not merely of Christian but of any Theology; and the Official most easily a believer, a follower of Metaphysics.

Aperçu

Theology—The Soldier
Metaphysics—The Official
Positive Science—The Industrial

St. Augustine 354–430
St. Simon 1766–1825
Auguste Comte 1798–1857—A Catholic Church

Demonology
Metaphysics
Positivistic Science

Schelling 1775–1854—Christianity without a Church.