The Rudolf Steiner Archive

[ 1 ] I should like to make an observation to-day at the beginning of this lecture in connection with the end of yesterday's lecture. I have seen that some of our respected listeners have given a certain importance to the fact — and one can very well understand it — that, in the sketch which I made each planet stood in a line with the Sun, that a sort of general relationship had been drawn, but I must expressly observe to you that this has no importance, and has nothing to do with that which concerns us here. It will be considered later on. We must not get wrong ideas.

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[ 2 ] First, we draw the Sun, in accordance with the Copernican system; then, that which is called Mercury to-day — but which is esoterically called Venus; then Venus — which is Mercury in the esoteric sense. Then (according to the Copernican system), comes the earth, with its moon. Then comes the orbit of Mars, of Jupiter, ending up with the orbit of Saturn.

[ 1 ] This then would be the world system of Copernicus. Now, as I have said, I should like to put the thing before you as it was taught in a school of Zarathustra. Zarathustra however was not always himself the teacher; these are elementary truths which were taught in the Zarathustra schools. [ 3 ] If we suppose that here is the constellation Gemini, we take these points which simply lie in this line (from x or Gemini, to the Sun), and join the Sun with the constellation of Gemini, whether there is such a conjunction or not does not matter. I have drawn this here only to show the orbits of the planets, not the points where they stand. These are the boundary marks for the different Hierarchies. [ 4 ] Now, if we want, for instance, to designate the realm of Saturn, we must think of the earth and not the Sun as the centre, and we must draw a sort of circle — which in reality is not circular but egg-shaped, so that the earth becomes the centre point. We must do the same with the other heavenly bodies. I beg you not to take the things of secondary importance in this drawing for the chief thing. The chief thing consists in getting into your minds the figures, which agree with the corresponding realms of power, of the Hierarchies.

[ 5 ] To-day we shall consider more in detail the nature of those members of the Hierarchies, standing immediately above man. It is good to study this and to begin for once with man. For only if we have quite clearly in our minds all that has been repeatedly said about the nature of man and of his developments, can we rise to the consideration of the nature of the members of the higher Hierarchies.

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[ 6 ] We know that man, as he first appeared upon earth, and as he has developed, consists essentially of four parts. These four members are the physical, the etheric, the astral body and the ‘I.’ We will draw these schematically to-day, as we have need. First we draw the human physical body as a circle, the same with the etheric body, the astral and lastly the ‘I’ or Ego as a small circle. You know how the development of man proceeds. During the course of his earthly evolution man begins to work on his astral body, with his Ego.

Generally speaking we may say: as much of his astral body as man has developed by the help of his ‘I’, so that this refashioned part of his astral body is completely ruled by the ‘I’, so much of it is called Manas or Spirit self, this — as has been often said — must not be looked upon as something new that has entered man, but simply as a transformed product of the astral body. It must be carefully noted that all that has just been said applies to man only. It is important that we should not generalise, but make it clear to ourselves that the Beings of the universe differ very much from each other. [ 7 ] Let us then draw the fifth part of man the transformed astral body, that is to say Manas, as a separate circle: in reality it ought to have been drawn inside the astral body. In the same way we must draw above it the transformed etheric body. The transformed part of the etheric body, we designate Budhi or life spirit: when the whole of it is transformed it becomes completely Budhi. In the same way the physical body is transformed into Atma, when we consider man in his perfected state, which he will attain in the course of his development through Jupiter, Venus and Vulcan. Thus when man will have reached his highest perfection in the Vulcan condition, we might make a schematic drawing of him in the following way: we could say that we have here his Atma, Budhi, Manas, the ‘I’ or Ego, the astral body, the etheric and the physical body. And we would see in Diagram I that the most characteristic thing we have to observe in man is, that with his seven principles he is an entire being, that these seven principles are all within each other. This is the most important thing.

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[ 8 ] When we now turn to the members of the next Hierarchy, the Angels, the case is different. This scheme applies to man, but not to the angels.

Here, in Diagram II, we must say that the Angel has developed physical body (1) etheric (2) and astral body (3). But now the Ego (4) must be drawn as separated from these, then come Manas (5) Budhi (6) and Atma (7). If you want to be clear about the nature of an Angel you must think that his higher parts to which he seeks to develop himself float above that part of him which is in the physical world; at first he has really only Manas completely developed, the other two parts he will develop later. If one wanted therefore to study the nature of an Angel one would have to say that the Angel has not an Ego which dwells on earth as the man has. Nor is he developing his Manas present stage of evolution upon earth. Therefore, that which there is of him upon earth, does not look as if it belonged to a spiritual Being. When you meet a man and you look at him, you see he has his principles in him, therefore all his parts are organised within him. If you want to look for an Angel, you must keep in mind that his physical part is something like a mirrored reflection of his spiritual principles, which are to be found only in the spiritual world. In flowing and running water, in mists dissolving into water, also in the winds and the lightning flashing through the air, in all these, you have to look for the physical body of Angelic beings. The difficulty for man consists in his fixed idea that a physical body must necessarily have a definite outline. It is difficult for a man to say to himself: I see fog rising, I see a stream of water dissolving into spray, I stand in the blowing wind, I see lightning dart from the clouds, and I know that all these are revelations of Angels; behind this physical body, which is by no means so limited as the human one I have to recognise the spirit. [ 9 ] Man has to develop all his principles enclosed within him; because of this he cannot realise that a physical body can be so liquid and evanescent that it does not even have to be enclosed or outlined with precision. You must realise that eighty Angels may be associated with and have the most solid part of their physical body in some one sheet of water. The physical body of an Angel need not be understood as having any boundary; one piece of water may belong to it here, and far away another piece. In short, all that surrounds us as the water, fire, and air of the earth, we have to imagine as containing the bodies of the Hierarchy which stands next above man. One has to look clairvoyantly into the astral world in order to perceive the Angel's Ego and his Manas that gazes down on us from the higher world.

The realm of the solar system which we must investigate when we seek the Angels, is that whose limits are marked by the Moon. With the Angels, investigation is still comparatively easy, for their condition is such, that if for instance, we have an Angel's physical body in a piece of water or the like, and we consider that water or that wind clairvoyantly, we find within it an etheric or astral body. Hence, in the drawing these three are represented together. Of course, we must not only see the material image in the rushing wind, the flowing or broken water, which common perception sees; the etheric and astral parts of the Angels live in the most varied way in water, air, and fire. But if you want to look for the spiritual being, the soul of the Angel, you must seek it in the astral realm, you must seek it clairvoyantly.

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[ 10 ] The next stage, that of the Archangels, is again different. That which we have drawn here as the astral body is, in the case of the Archangels, not at all united with the etheric and physical bodies. The lowest part of them which we can find, we must draw like this: physical body, etheric body (Diagram III – 1,2); this they have separated off, and all the higher principles are above in the higher worlds, so that we can only have a complete image of the Archangel when we look for it in two places, and realise, that it is not the same as with man who unites all in one being. The spiritual part is above, and at the same time it mirrors itself below. A physical and etheric body can only unite when the physical consists of air or fire. For instance you could not perceive the physical bodies of these Archangels rushing along in the water; you could recognise them only in air and in fire, and you would have to find clairvoyantly, and only in the spiritual world, the spiritual counter-part of that rushing wind and that fire. This is joined neither to his physical, nor to his etheric body.

[ 11 ] And then we come to those Beings whom we designate as Archai, Primeval Beginnings or Spirits of Personality. Here below, we can draw only the physical body (Diagram IV); all the rest is above in the spiritual world. Such a physical Body can live only in fire; only in flames of fire can you recognise the physical body of the Archai. Whenever you see the flashing fire of the lightning you may say to yourselves: in it is contained something of the Archai; but in the spiritual world above I shall find the spiritual counter-part which, in this case is separated from its physical body.

It is specially in the Archai or Spirits or Personality that the clairvoyant can accomplish this with comparative ease.

These Spirits of Personality have a realm which reaches up to the astronomical Venus (Mercury in the occult sense of the Mysteries). Let us imagine that someone has progressed so far that he is able to observe what is evolving up there on Venus. (Occult Mercury). There he can recognise these highly evolved Beings, the Spirits of Personality. When he directs his clairvoyant vision to Venus so as there to observe the assembly of the spirits of Personality, and then sees the lightning flash through the clouds, he sees in that flash of lightning the reflection of the Spirits of Personality, for in it they have their physical body.

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[ 12 ] Now we come to yet higher spiritual Beings, to those who reach up to the Sun. These Powers, these Exusiai, or Spirits of Form interest us less at the present time; only it must be kept in view that the beings of Venus and of Mercury are their organs of execution, the beings of Venus who have their physical body in fire, and those of Mercury who have it in air. Translate this so that you say: the Beings who live in the Sun make use of the spirits of Venus (occult Mercury) in the fire flames, and the spirits of Mercury (occult Venus) in the rushing wind as their executive. ‘And God makes flames of fire into his servants and winds into his messengers.’ Sayings such as these found in ancient religious documents are taken absolutely from spiritual facts, and correspond with what the clairvoyant is able to observe.

[ 13 ] Thus we see that the three hierarchies who stand next above us are closely attached to our own existence. Man is the being he is, because he has partaken of solidity from the earth. This separates him from other Beings, it makes him into a self-contained being composed of separate organs. On the Moon, man was still a being like others; there he passed through transformations, just as the masses of water do which have a body that is ever in a state of transformation. On the earth man was for the first time imprisoned, as it were, within his skin; and became a self-contained being, so that it is possible to say, man is composed of a physical, etheric, astral body and an Ego. This isolation really originated not so very long ago. If we return to the first epoch of old Atlantean times, we find a man who did not yet feel his Ego completely within him, who was still waiting to receive his Ego. And if we go still further back in earthly evolution we find that what there is of man down on earth consists as yet only of a physical, etheric and astral body. And if we go back to Lemurian times, we find a man who in his way has no more of a physical, etheric and astral body down here upon earth than the Angels have. From this point of time, with the growth of the Ego the union begins, and continues through post-Atlantean times. In Lemurian times men walked the earth who had only a physical, and etheric and an astral body. But these were not men who could think, in the sense of to-day, or who could develop humanly — in the sense of to-day.

[ 14 ] And now something very remarkable happened upon earth. Those men of Lemuria who had only physical, etheric and astral bodies were helpless, they could not help themselves, they did not know what they had to do on earth. From heavenly regions the inhabitants of astronomical Venus first came down to the earth, to these helpless beings; because they had a certain relationship, to the physical body, they were enabled to send their light through, and ensoul the physical body of the first inhabitants of the earth. Thus, we find some among the Lemurians, who passed among the mass of humanity in quite a remarkable way; they had a different physical body to the others. A man, so particularly graced, had not an ordinary physical body, but a body ensouled by a spirit of Venus, a Spirit of Personality. Because that man of ancient Lemuria moved about with a spirit of Venus within his physical body, he had a powerful influence on all his surroundings. Such Lemurians did not appear different from their companions externally; but because a Spirit of Personality was translated into their bodies, these selected individuals acted suggestively, in the highest sense of the word, upon their surroundings. To-day, there is nothing to compare to the obedience, the reverence and awe that was felt for them. All the attempts at colonisation which were undertaken, to people the different regions of the earth, were led by such Beings, into whom a Spirit of Personality had descended. No speech was needed — for there was no speech then — no signs were needed, but the fact alone that such a Spirit of Personality was there, sufficed. And when it was held necessary that large masses of people should be led from one place to another, those masses simply followed without thinking about it. Thought did not exist, it only developed later.

[ 15 ] Thus the Spirits of Personality came down to earth, as Spirits of Venus, in ancient Lemurian times. And we can say, that the distinctive features of these messengers from Venus — such as the human countenances of that time could wear — signified something quite new with regard to the whole Universe. If we take their cosmic significance, it reaches as far as Venus, and their actions had a meaning, an influence on the whole concatinations of the Solar System. They could lead the people from one place to another, for they knew the connections that can only be known by those, who are acquainted with the surroundings of the earth, and not only with the Earth itself.

[ 16 ] The development of humanity progressed further. The necessity arose that Archangels, spirits of astronomical Mercury, should act upon the human development. These were now obliged to ensoul and give life to that which dwelt below upon earth. This was principally in Atlantean times. At that time the Archangels, or Spirits of Mercury descended upon earth, and inspired the physical and etheric bodies of the men of that period. So in Atlantis there were also men who were not outwardly very different from the others, but whose physical and etheric bodies were ensouled by an archangel. And if you remember what was said yesterday, that the Archangels have the task of directing whole nations, you will understand that a man who had an Archangel within him could actually give to the whole Atlantean race those laws which he received directly from heaven. [ 17 ] The great leaders of old Lemurian times, when it was still necessary to act much more generally, were ensouled by Spirits from Venus. Those who, in Atlantean times had to direct smaller masses of people, were ensouled by Archangels. Those who are called the priest-kings of Atlantis, were in truth — Maya. They were not at all what they outwardly appeared to be. An Archangel lived in their physical and etheric bodies, he was the real active agent..

If we go back to Atlantean times, we can seek out the secret stations of these leaders of mankind. From these hidden centres they worked, there they investigated the mysteries of Space One might ascribe the name of ‘Oracle’ to what was investigated, and commanded from those ancient Atlantean places of the Mysteries, even though this word originated in later times. The name ‘Place of the Oracles’ is quite suitable to these centres of instruction, and government. From them the great teachers worked, so that others might there be trained to become priests and servants of men.

[ 18 ] It is important that one should know that there were men in ancient Atlantis who in reality were Archangels, bearing an Archangel incarnated within their physical and etheric bodies. If such a man had been seen by someone endowed with clairvoyance, the latter would in fact have seen a physical man and behind him an enormous figure, rising high above him, and losing itself in indefinite regions — the figure of the inspiring Archangel. Such a personality was of a two-fold nature, as if behind the physical man, growing out of indefinite Space, was the inspiring Archangel. When such men died, the physical body was destroyed according to the laws of Atlantis. That physical body, which had been naturally ensouled by the Archangel, dissolved, but the etheric body did not dissolve. There is a spiritual economy which demands exceptions to the general truths expounded by Anthroposophy. We say — and in general it is correct — that when a man dies, he lays aside his physical body and after a certain time also his etheric body, which dissolves with the exception of an extract. But this is only generally the case. There is an enormous difference between an etheric body like that of the Initiates of the Atlantean Oracles, which was permeated by an Archangel, and an ordinary etheric body. Such a precious etheric body is not lost, but is preserved in the spiritual world. In the first place, the great leader of the Atlantean Oracles preserved the seven most important etheric bodies of the seven great initiators of these Oracles. These ether bodies were originally built up through being inhabited by Archangels, who, at their death, naturally returned to the higher worlds. Such things are certainly not preserved in boxes, but according to spiritual laws. The Atlantean Initiate of the Sun-Oracle is no other than Manu, who has been often mentioned, and who guided the remnant of the Atlantean nation over to Asia to establish the new post-Atlantean civilisation. He took his little handful of people with him and led them over to Asia. He trained the people through generations, and when the seven most adaptable ones had been bred and educated sufficiently, he wove into their individual etheric bodies the substance of the seven preserved etheric bodies, which had been woven by Archangels in ancient Atlantis. Those seven, who were sent down by the great Leader, to lay the foundation of the first Post-Atlantean civilisation, were the seven holy Rishis of ancient India; they bore within their etheric garment, the etheric bodies of the great Atlantean Leaders, who had themselves acquired these bodies through the Archangels. Thus the past, the present, and the future acted in harmony. Those seven men who are called the holy Rishis would have appeared to you as simple people, for with their astral body and their Ego, they had not reached the height of their etheric bodies.

All that they were capable of was interwoven with their etheric bodies. There were certain hours during which inspiration acted within their etheric bodies, and then they spoke of things which they themselves could never have known. Then from their lips flowed that which had been inspired into their etheric bodies. Thus they were simple, plain people when they were left to their own understanding; but in their hours of inspiration, when the etheric body was active, they spoke of the greatest mysteries of our solar system and of the whole universe.

[ 19 ] In the post-Atlantean times men had not yet advanced so far that they could do without help from above, inspiration was still necessary; and a sort of ensouling still took place from above. We have seen how such ensouling occurred in Lemurian times, because a spirit of Personality ensouled the physical. body; in the Atlantean times the physical and the etheric bodies were ensouled by Archangels, and now the great leaders of the post-Atlantean times were ensouled through an Angel descending into their physical, etheric and astral bodies. The great leaders of humanity in the post-Atlantean times did not possess merely a physical, etheric and astral body, but an Angel also lived within them. Therefore, these great leaders could look back into their former incarnations. The ordinary man cannot do so as yet, because he has not yet developed. his Manas; he must himself first become an Angel. These leaders, who were born out of the ordinary inhabitants, carried an Angelic Being within their physical, etheric and astral bodies, who ensouled and, interpenetrated them. This is again Maya, again we have Beings who are something different from what they appear to be on earth. The great leaders of humanity of grey antiquity were quite different from what they outwardly seemed to be. They were personalities in whom an Angel dwelt and gave what they needed, so that they might become Teachers and Leaders of men. The great founders of religions were men possessed by Angels. Angels spoke through them. [ 20 ] The affairs of the world have to be described indeed as entirely regular, but the processes of development always slide one within the other, they overlap. That which we describe as exhibiting complete regularity does not work itself out with such regularity. It is certainly true that, as a general principle, Spirits of Personality did speak through human entities in the Lemurian times, Archangels in the Atlantean, and Angels in the post-Atlantean times. But such beings arose, also even in the post Atlantean times, who were penetrated by a Spirit of Personality down to their physical body, who, therefore, were in the same position, although they lived in the post Atlantean times, as were those beings through whom in Lemuria the Spirits of Personality spoke. Thus it was possible to have men also in the post-Atlantean times, who bore externally all the characteristics of their nation, but who, because humanity still needed such great leaders, carried within them a Spirit of Personality — and who were the external incarnation of such a Spirit. Then there were also men in the post Atlantean times who had an Archangel, a Spirit of Mercury, within them, who ensouled their physical and etheric bodies. And lastly, a third category of men was ensouled, inspired in their physical, etheric and astral bodies by an Angel Being, one through whom an Angel spoke. [ 21 ] In the spirit of the Eastern Teaching such personalities received particular names. Thus a personality who outwardly resembles a man of our post-Atlantean times, but who really is the bearer of a Spirit of Personality, who is ensouled by that Spirit down to his physical body, is called Dhyani-Buddha in the Eastern Teaching. Dhyani-Buddha is a generic name for human individualities in whom the Spirits of Personality are active, even as far as their physical body.

Those personalities who are ensouled down to their etheric body, who were bearers of Archangels in the post-Atlantean times, are called Bodhi-Sattva And those who are the bearers of an Angel, who are, therefore, ensouled in their physical, etheric and astral bodies, are called human Buddhas

Thus we have three degrees: that of the Dhyani-Buddha, the Bodhi-Sattva and the human Buddha. This is the true teaching of the Buddhas, of the classes and categories of Buddhas, which we have to recognise in connexion with the whole manner and means by which the Hierarchies fulfil their ends. [ 22 ] This is the marvel which meets us, when we look back to earlier undeveloped men, that among these men we find those, through whom the Hierarchies speak The great Hierarchies speak out of the Cosmos downwards into the Planets, and only by degrees do these Spirits of the higher Hierarchies, who were active before the appearance of our earth, emancipate the planetary men who live down here, when they have reached the necessary degree of ripeness. Here we gaze into unfathomable depths of wisdom. And what is of extraordinary importance is, that we understand this wisdom exactly as it was taught in all the ages, when primeval wisdom was taught to men.

[ 23 ] Thus, when you hear of the Buddhas, for they do not speak of the one Buddha only in the Eastern teaching, but of many, among whom there are naturally different grades of perfection — give attention to the fact: a Buddha walks on earth, but behind the Buddha, was the Bodhi-Sattva and even the Dhyani-Buddha.

Matters, however, might be so, that the Dhyani-Buddha or the Bodhi-Sattva did not reach so far as to ensoul the physical body, but that the Bodhi-Sattva descended only as far as to be able to ensoul the etheric body, so that you can imagine a Being who does not reach so far as to ensoul and inspire the mans physical body, but only the etheric body. It can, however, happen when such a Bodhi-Sattva is not physically visible (for when he appears only in an etheric body he is not physically visible, and there were such Bodhi-Sattva who were physically invisible) that he can, as a higher Being, inspire quite exceptionally the human Buddha. So that we have the human Buddha, who is already inspired by an Angelic Being, being further inspired in his etheric body by an Archangel Being. [ 24 ] It is essential that we should look into this wonderful complexity of the human nature. Many Individualities to whom we look back into former times can only be understood, when we accept them as the meeting point of different higher Beings, who proclaim and express themselves through the man. For, in truth, many periods do not possess a sufficient number of great men to be inspired by the Spirits who have to be active. Thus sometimes one single personality has to be ensouled by different individualities of the higher Hierarchies. And sometimes it is not only the inhabitants of Mercury who speak with us, when we have a certain personality standing before us, but the inhabitants of Venus also.

Such ideas lead us to the understanding of human evolution, so that we may recognise the true nature of those personalities who, when met as physical men, represent merely Maya. [ 25 ] To-morrow we shall begin by trying to comprehend the origin of each individual planet, which up to now we have considered only as boundary marks, and then we shall gain an idea of them as the dwelling-places of the corresponding spiritual Beings.²

• 2. EDITORIAL NOTES —
  A Spirit of Personality enters the Physical and the entity is called a Dyani-Buddha in Post-Atlantis.
  An Archangel enters the Physical and Etheric and the entity is called a Bodhi-Sattva in Post-Atlantis.
  An Angel enters the Physical, Etheric and Astral and the entity is called a human Buddha in Post-Atlantis
  But there are different degrees of each, and it is possible for a being to be inspired by all three Spiritual Beings. The student should avoid making hard and fast rules. There is much overlapping and also some departure from diagrams.

The connection between life and death is mostly misunderstood. In theosophical writings one often finds the remark that man's soul and spirit-being could completely disappear. It is stated, for example, that through a certain amount of evil with which the soul burdens itself the human soul could disappear in the course of evolution. It is further emphasized that black magicians who have wrought much evil will encounter this fate.

Those who have already shared in our aims for a longer period will know that I have always opposed such statements. Above all, we must hold fast to the fact that what we term death on the physical plane has no meaning in the super-sensible world. This is even the case for the region of the super-sensible that immediately borders upon our world. I will deal with this matter from a certain aspect.

The science that deals with the physical world has arrived at a number of laws and connections within the physical realm. These laws when applied to the outer phenomena of nature can only tell us something about the structure of external sense perceptible reality. A flower, for example, investigated by means of natural science, will tell us certain facts about the physical and chemical laws operating within the plant, but life itself always eludes such scientific observation. It is, of course, true that in recent times a few specially imaginative scientists have constructed a body of hypotheses to explain how plant life arises from mere dead substances. Such attempts are rapidly recognized as erroneous because in science it remains merely an ideal to grasp the reality of life. Ever more knowledge is accumulated about chemical laws and so forth, but nothing about life itself. The investigation of life is for the natural scientific method a mere ideal because it is something that streams out of the super-sensible realm into the physical world and within this world its laws cannot be fathomed.

Now, similarly, what is true for life in the physical world obtains for death in the super-sensible world, except that there it is a question of the will. In the super-sensible world an act of will, a will impulse, can never lead to what we know on earth as death. At most, a longing for death may arise in the super-sensible world but never death itself. Death does not exist in the realms beyond the physical. This fact is particularly moving for the human soul when it realizes that all the beings of the hierarchies can never know death. It can only be experienced on earth.

Just as the biblical saying is justified that tells that the angels conceal their countenances from beholding the mysteries of physical birth, so it is also correct to say that they hide their faces from beholding the mysteries of death. That being whom we know as the One Who has given the mightiest impulse to earth evolution, the Christ Being, is the only being in divine realms Who learned to know death. All other divine-spiritual beings do not know death. They only know it as a transformation from one form into another.

The Christ had to descend to the earth in order to experience death. Christ is the only being among all the super-sensible beings above man who has become acquainted with death through his own experiences. As I indicated, if one views the problem relating to the death experience in connection with the Christ, it is found to be deeply stirring.

Now it is literally true that man, when he has crossed the portal of death, lives in that super-sensible world in which there is no death. He can enter these realms but he cannot annihilate himself because he is received into worlds where there can be no destruction.

There is something of a similar nature to death in the super-sensible world, yet it is quite different from death as we know it. One would have to call it in human language, loneliness. Death can never mean the annihilation of something that takes place in the super-sensible worlds, but loneliness does arise. Loneliness in the super-sensible world is comparable to death here. It is not destruction but it is far more intense than loneliness as we know it on earth. It takes the form of looking back upon one's own being. One only knows what this fully means when it happens, that is, to know nothing except to know about oneself.

Let us take as an example a person who developed on earth what one may call little sympathy for his fellow men, a person who has lived essentially for himself. Such a being encounters difficulties after death, especially in getting to know other human souls. Such a person can live together with others in the super-sensible world without being in the least aware of their existence. He is filled only with his own soul content. He is aware only of what lives within himself.

It may happen that a person who has avoided any form of human love on earth because of an exaggerated sense of egoism is only able to live in the memory of his last earthly existence when he has gone through the gate of death. He is unable to gain any new experiences because he neither knows nor can enter into contact with any being. He is completely dependent on himself because as human beings on earth we do indeed prepare a particular world for ourselves after death.

Here on earth man does not truly know himself. Science teaches us only what we are when we are no longer because it only knows the corpse. The brain thinks but it cannot think itself. We see a portion of ourselves, a larger portion when we look in the mirror, but that is only the outer aspect. On earth man does not live in himself. He lives together with the surrounding world that impinges upon his senses. Through ourselves, through all that we experience here, we prepare to expand into the macrocosmos, to become a macrocosmos, to become all we see around us on earth.

Here we see the moon. After death we expand in such a way that we become the moon, just as on earth we are our brain. We expand into Saturn so that we become Saturn, just as we are now our spleen. Man becomes a macrocosmic being. When the soul has departed from the body it expands into the entirety of the planetary system so that all souls simultaneously dwell within the same spatial area. They interpenetrate one another but without being aware of it. Spiritual connections only determine whether we know about one another or not. A preparation is made during our life on earth to expand into the whole of the universe that we behold here in its physical reflection. But what in fact is our world?

Just as now we are surrounded by mountains, rivers, trees, animals and minerals, so then we live in the universe. The universe becomes our organism. These are our organs and that world is we, ourselves. We behold ourselves from the surroundings. This process begins in the ether body immediately after death. We then behold the tableau of our life.

If it were not for the fact that a man makes connections with other human beings and, as will happen more and more frequently through spiritual science, with beings of the higher hierarchies, he would have no occupation after death apart from continuously beholding himself. This is not meant trivially because it is truly a shattering fact that to behold only oneself through a number of centuries is not a particularly enviable prospect. We have then become a world for ourselves, but it is the connections that we have made on earth that open wider vistas for the self after death. Earthly life is there so that we develop connections and relationships that can be continued after death. Everything that makes us into sociable beings after death must be prepared on earth. Fear of loneliness is the torment that man experiences in the spiritual world. This fear befalls us again and again because we traverse a number of stages between death and rebirth. Even if we experience a measure of sociability at one stage, we may fall into loneliness during the next.

The first period after death is such that we can only establish a good connection with souls who have remained on the earth or with those who have died about the same time as ourselves. Here the closest connections continue to be effective beyond death. Much can be done by the so-called living who have remained on the earth. Because one has a connection with the departed soul he can inform him of his own knowledge of the spiritual world acquired on the earth. This is possible above all by reading to the dead.

We can perform the greatest service to a dead person by forming a picture of him in our soul and softly reading a work of spiritual science to him, instructing him as it were. We can also convey to the departed thoughts we have made our own, always vividly picturing the one who has passed on as we do so. We should not be miserly in this respect. This enables us to bridge the abyss that separates us from the dead. It is not only in extreme cases that we can help the dead in this way. No, it is true in every case. It provides a comforting feeling that can alleviate the sorrow that is experienced when a person whom one has loved passes on.

The deeper we enter into the super-sensible world, the less do particular relationships obtain. We still find individual relationships in the astral world but the higher we ascend, the more we find that what weaves between separate beings no longer continues. Now there are beings everywhere. The relationships among them are of a soul nature. We need these also in order not to be lonely. It is, however, the mission of the earth that we make contacts from man to man because otherwise we remain solitary in the spiritual world.

For the first phases after death our world consists of the relationships; the friendships that we formed with fellow human beings on earth and that now continue. For instance, if the matter is investigated with super-sensible perception, one finds the departed souls in the vicinity of a person whom it can follow on earth. Many people in our time live with those who have died recently or at some earlier period. One also sees how many come together with a number of their ancestors to whom they were related by blood. The seer often comes upon the fact that the departed soul links itself to ancestors that have died centuries ago but this only lasts for a certain period of time. The person would again feel exceedingly lonely if other connections did not exist which, though far off, yet prepare the person to be sociable in the spiritual world. Within our movement we have found a fundamental principle that stems from a cosmic task that has been entrusted to us. It is to form relationships among human beings in the most varied ways. Anthroposophy is therefore not only cultivated by giving lectures. Within the Anthroposophical Society we seek to bring people together so that personal relationships may also form themselves. These connections have their validity also for the super-sensible world inasmuch as a person who belongs to a particular stream in the Society creates connections for the realm beyond the physical.

The time comes, however, when more general connections are necessary. A phase approaches when souls who have gone through the gate of death without any moral soul disposition, without moral concepts, that is, souls who have rejected a moral disposition of soul during their earthly life, feel lonely. People who are endowed with a moral soul disposition are simply of greater value here on earth than people lacking in morality. A moral human being is of greater worth for the whole of humanity in the same way that a sound healthy stomach is more valuable to the whole man than a sick one.

It is not easy to put one's finger on where the value of the moral human being lies for the whole of humanity, and on the harm created by an immoral person, but you will understand what I mean when I put it as follows. A person devoid of a moral soul disposition is a sick member of humanity. This means that through this immoral soul disposition he alienates himself increasingly from other people. To be moral also means to acknowledge that one has a relationship to all men. That is why love of all humanity is self-evident to all men. That is why love of all humanity is self-evident to all moral people. Immoral people feel lonely at a certain phase after death owing to their lack of morality. The torments of loneliness at this stage can only be dispelled by the moral disposition of our soul.

So if we investigate the lives of human beings spread out in the macrocosmos after death, we see that the immoral individuals are in fact lonely while the moral individuals find a rapport with other of like moral ideas. Here on earth men are grouped in accordance with nationality or in some other way. Between death and rebirth people also group themselves, but according to the moral concepts and soul dispositions they have in common.

This is followed by a phase of development such that even those who are endowed with a moral disposition of soul feel lonely if they lack religious concepts. A religious turn of mind is the preparation for sociability at a particular stage of life between death and rebirth. Here we also discover that those people who are unable to enter into religious feelings and connections are condemned to loneliness. We find people of like religious confessions grouped together.

This is followed by a period when it is no longer sufficient to have lived within a religious community. A phase draws near when one can again feel loneliness. This period is a particularly important one between death and rebirth. Either we feel alone even though we experienced togetherness with those of like religious confession, or we are able to bring understanding to every human soul in its essential character. For this communion we can only prepare by gaining an understanding of all religious confessions.

Prior to the Mystery of Golgotha this was not necessary because the experiences in the spiritual world were different then. Now it has become essential, and the correct understanding of Christianity is a preparatory step toward it. We cannot encounter what constitutes the essential being of Christianity in other religious creeds. It is not correct to place Christianity next to other religious creeds. Indeed, perhaps certain Christian confessions are narrow-minded. Nevertheless, Christianity rightly understood bears within it the impulse to grasp all religious creeds and tendencies.

How has the Westerner grasped Christianity? Consider Hinduism. Only those belonging to the Hindu race can be adherents of it. If a racial religion were prevalent in Europe, for instance, we would still have a Wotan cult today that would be the equivalent of an occidental racial religion. But the West has accepted a confession that did not arise out of its own folk-substance. It came from the East. Something was accepted that could only work through its spiritual content. The Christ impulse cannot be sucked up into a racial or folk religion. Actually, the folk among whom the Christ appeared did not acknowledge Him. That is the remarkable fact about Christianity. It contains the seed enabling it to become the universal religion.

One need not take an intolerant attitude toward other religions. The mission of Christianity does not consist in bringing dogma to people. Naturally the Buddhist smiles at a confession that does not even contain the idea of reincarnation. Such a confession must appear to him as erroneous. Christianity rightly understood, however, presupposes that every man is a Christian in his inner being. If you go to a Hindu and say to him, “You are a Hindu and I am a Christian,” it will be seen that you have not understood Christianity. Christianity has been truly understood only if you say of the Hindu, “Inwardly this Hindu is as good a Christian as I am. He has as yet only had the opportunity to become acquainted with a preparatory confession. I must endeavor to show him where his religion and mine correspond.” The best thing would be for Christians to teach Hinduism to the Hindus and then attempt to take Hinduism a stage further so that the Hindu could gain a point of contact with the general stream of evolution. We understand Christianity only if we look upon each individual as a Christian in the depth of his heart. Only then is Christianity the religion that transcends race, color and social position. That is Christianity.

We enter a new age. Christianity can no longer work in the way it did over the last centuries. It is the task of anthroposophy to bring about the new understanding of Christianity that is needed. In this connection the anthroposophical view of the world is an instrument of Christianity. Among the religions of the earth, Christianity has appeared last. New religions cannot be founded anymore. Such foundations belong to the past. They followed one another and brought forth Christianity as the last flower. Today the task is to form and apply the impulse of Christianity. That is why in our spiritual scientific movement we endeavor to consider all the religions of the world more consciously than heretofore, and in loving participation. In this way we also prepare ourselves for the period between death and rebirth when we experience loneliness if we cannot perceive and have no access to other souls within this realm.

If on earth we misunderstood Hinduism, we might only sense the presence of a Hindu in the world beyond but remain unable to gain any contact with him.

You see, this is the phase during life between death and rebirth when we have also expanded our astral body so far as to become Sun inhabitants. We enter into the Sun realm. We do in fact expand into the entire macrocosmos, and reach the Sun Being when we need the capacity for brotherly love. The encounter with the Sun is shown by the following. Firstly, we lost the possibility of having understanding for all human beings unless we have gained a connection to the words, “Wherever two are gathered in My Name, there I am in the midst of them.” Christ did not mean wherever two Hindus or one Hindu and one Christian are gathered together, there He is in the midst of them, but wherever two are gathered who have a genuine understanding for His impulse, there He is in the midst of them.

This Being was within the Sun sphere until a particular period. His throne was also there. Then He united Himself with the earth. Therefore we must experience the Christ impulse here on earth and thus also carry it upwards into the spiritual world. For if we arrive in the Sun sphere without the Christ impulse we are faced with an unintelligible entry in the Akasha Chronicle. Since the Christ has united Himself with the earth, we have to gain an understanding on earth for the Christ. We have to bring a Christ understanding with us because otherwise the Christ cannot be found after death. As we approach the Sun sphere we understand the entry in the Akasha Chronicle if we have gained an understanding for the Christ on earth. For He left this behind in the Sun sphere. That is the important factor—that the understanding of the Christ must be stimulated on the earth. Then it also can be preserved in higher worlds. Things only become clear if they can be viewed in a certain configuration.

Some theosophical circles are unable to realize that the Christ impulse stands as a fulcrum at the center of earth evolution, the point from which the ascending curve begins. To maintain that Christ can appear repeatedly on earth is like saying that the beam of a balance must be supported at two points. But with such scales one cannot weigh. A conviction of this sort is as senseless in relation to the physical world as the statement made by certain occultists that Christ goes through repeated earth lives. One has gained an understanding of the Christ impulse only if one is able to grasp that the Christ is the only god who has gone through death and hence first had to descend to the earth.

For one who has gained an understanding of the Christ down here, the throne in the Sun will not be empty. This also enables him to recognize the nature of a particular encounter that occurs at this stage. The human being meets Lucifer, not as the tempter but as a legitimate power who has to travel by his side if he is to progress in his journey. Qualities of the same nature in the wrong sphere have a destructive effect. The workings of Lucifer in the physical world are evil, but after death, from the Sun sphere onwards, man needs Lucifer as a companion. He must meet Lucifer and Christ. Christ preserves his soul nature with the total assets that his soul has accumulated in previous incarnations. It is the task of the luciferic power to assist man so that he may also learn to apply the forces of the other hierarchical beings in the right manner for his next incarnation.

Irrespective of when the stage that has just been described occurs, man is faced with the necessity of determining what part of the globe and in which country he is to reincarnate. This has to be determined at the mid-point between death and rebirth. In fact, the first thing that must be determined is the location and the country where the soul is to reincarnate.

On earth man prepares for this stage inasmuch as he acquires a connection with the super-sensible world, but he needs Lucifer's support. He now receives from beings of the higher hierarchies forces that guide him to a certain place at a certain time.

Let us consider an outstanding example. Luther's appearance at a specific moment had to be prepared from the ninth century onward. Already at that time forces had to be directed in the appropriate people. Lucifer has to cooperate to this end so that the time and place of our reembodiment may be determined. Through the fact that an individual harbors Christ in his soul, what he has gained by dint of effort is preserved. But man is not yet sufficiently mature to know where his karma can best be worked out and for this, Lucifer's assistance is needed.

A further period of time elapses and then a major matter has to be decided that involves a deeply stirring activity. By means of our everyday language it can only be described as follows. The question now has to be resolved as to how the parents of the soul that is to incarnate at a certain time and place are to be endowed with their own characteristics so as to give birth to that particular being. All this has to be determined long in advance. But this means that the higher hierarchies, supported again by Lucifer, must work in a preparatory way through the whole genealogical stream long before the incarnation of the particular individual. In Luther's case his ancestors had to be determined as early as the tenth and eleventh centuries so that he might have the right parents.

Science believes that a person takes on the characteristics of his ancestors. Actually he influences the characteristics of his ancestors from the super-sensible world. In a certain sense we ourselves are responsible for the way our great-great-great-grandparents were. Obviously, we cannot influence all their characteristics and yet, among others, those must be present that we ourselves later require. What one inherits from one's ancestors one first has oneself instilled into them.

First the time and place of birth are determined; then the ancestry is chosen. Fundamentally, what is called a child's love for his parents is the emergence of a union with a stream in which he has worked for centuries from the super-sensible world. At the moment of conception the individual receives the forces that cooperate in the formation of his own body, namely, of the head and the general bodily form. We must so picture these forces that from then onwards they are mainly active in the deeper structure of the head, less in the hands and feet, less also in the trunk, but going from the head towards the trunk. We lay the foundation for this, and after birth we continue to shape it. First everything is woven into the astral body. The shape of the head is prefigured astrally. This goes so far that actually only at the final stage is the shape of the cranium incorporated into the astral prototype that then unites with the bodily formation. The shape of the head is individual, and the shape of the brain is chiseled out at the last stage. Then what we receive through the hereditary stream is able to unite with what we bring with us out of the super-sensible world. Picture what comes from the super-sensible world as the chalice. The water that fills it is provided by the hereditary substance. The pure stream of heredity provides only the characteristics of the part of our bodily constitution that is more independent from the system of blood and nerves. Whether we have big and strong or weak and fine bones depends more on heredity than on the forces we receive from the preparatory spiritual powers.

The individuality that is to be born at a particular time and place in order to work out his karma may be the child of parents with strong bones or blond hair, and so forth. This is made possible by the hereditary stream. If the theories of physical heredity were correct, men would appear with deformed nervous systems and a mere indication of hands and feet.

Only super-sensible insight is able to lead to matters that are truly meaningful. Let me relate an actual instance. I met a hydrocephalic child who was different in many respects from the rest of his family. Why was he a hydrocephalic? Because the council of higher powers together with Lucifer had decreed that that particular individuality should be born in a particular place and his parents were the best available for him. But he was unable to work rightly into the ancestral line so he could create what would result in the appropriate substance in order that his head might harden in the right way. Only during his lifetime would he be able to adapt his brain to its general structure. Such an individuality did not find the right conditions enabling him to influence his ancestry so that his head could harden in the appropriate way.

These matters are of considerable importance and also show the technique that has to be adopted in order to go out into the world at large. When the time comes in which such questions will be rightly understood by science, the workings of the higher worlds, also, will be felt.

If we continue our journey with Lucifer and Christ we acquire the right relationship to the progressive stream in evolution.

In conclusion, during life after death one first has to overcome the dangers of loneliness by means of one's relationships to other human beings, by means of moral and religious connections. Then one fashions the new man that is to incarnate in the future. One now has a task that involves facing oneself instead of facing the world.

If a human being goes through the stages during which he could have been sociable but was condemned to loneliness, a longing arises in him after death. He longs for a condition of unconsciousness. But consciousness is not lost; one merely becomes lonely. In the higher worlds matter no longer exists. Everything there is a question of consciousness. This is true of souls who lack a connection to other souls. Death does not exist in the world beyond.

As here we live rhythmically between waking and sleeping, so in the other world life alternates between withdrawal into ourselves and sociable intercourse with other souls. As I have described above, our life in the higher worlds depends on how we have prepared ourselves here on earth.

Dr. Steiner gave the following answer to the question of whether one also could read to children who have died at birth or in early childhood.

One is a child only here on earth. Supersensible vision frequently reveals that a person who dies at an early age is less childlike in the spiritual world than many who cross the portal of death at eighty. The same criterion therefore cannot be applied.

On a previous occasion I have spoken of how we are to understand occultly the painting known as “The School of Athens.” Recently I came to know an individuality who died an early death. My connection with him enabled me to become aware of Raphael's original intention in relation to this painting. This being explained that on the left near the group in the foreground a part had been painted over. It is the spot where something is being written down. Today we find there a mathematical formula. Originally there was a gospel passage. So you see that a “child” can be a highly evolved individuality able to guide one to things that can be discovered only with great difficulty.

I would say therefore that one also can practice reading to children who have died young.

Notes by Mathilde Scholl

We want to remind ourselves today, as in every esoteric hour, that what we are told in these hours comes from the Masters of Wisdom and of the harmony of feelings.

We want to develop, not out of an egoistic longing for development, but to become helpers in the development of humanity, to whose karma ours is linked. We should come out of these hours different from what we were when we entered them, by drawing benefit from the teachings for our esoteric daily work. To always carry out these most intimate soul activities in the right spirit is the main thing that cannot be impressed upon us often enough.

Our meditations primarily take into account the division of the present human being into two parts: the consciousness during sleep and during wakefulness. These two parts have been given to us from ancient, pre-Atlantean times and are tailored to this division of the human being. Why is it necessary for the human being to withdraw his ego and astral body from the physical and etheric bodies at night? The divine beings who built the physical and etheric bodies into such a magnificent, perfect temple move back into them during the night, while the human being's ego and astral body also enter divine realms. If they did not do so, they would completely destroy the physical and etheric bodies, because, in addition to the spiritual-divine beings who were their creators, the luciferic beings also have influence over the astral body. For it was they who made the astral body free and independent. Thus, when man returns to his physical body, he falls into error and guilt during the day. It is not the physical and etheric bodies that are subject to aberrations, but the astral body, which is seduced by the ego, which yields to the whisperings of the satanic entities. The normal person is protected from deeper, more dangerous influences of these Luciferic beings by the spiritual-divine creators, in that they have endowed him with a strong power, but the esotericist should use this power to ascend to higher levels of development.

The esotericist should now say to himself when falling asleep: “I return to my creators,” and when awakening: “I come from where I stayed before my body was created.” And he should consciously dwell in these realms for a few moments in meditation. If he does this with the right attitude, he will ignite the sacred fire, the inner warmth, that is necessary for him. And before he falls asleep at night, he should develop the same feelings during his evening esoteric work, even if it is only the daily review. By letting his day pass before him in pictures, backwards and forwards, he creates spiritual images, the essence of which he takes with him into the spiritual worlds. This must be done backwards and forwards because that is how everything happens in the spiritual worlds, and it creates a transition into them so that they can flow into us more easily and we can enter into them more easily. Through the usual forward thinking, which we transfer to the spiritual worlds, we brace ourselves against them, push them away from us and thereby hinder ourselves and our development.

Just as in the night the luciferic entities influence man from within, so in the day the ahrimanic-mephistophelian influence him from without. What have these entities now brought about in man through their influence? The luciferic ones brought with freedom and self-consciousness the most extreme expression of this, the haf. Man would never have been able to hate if he had not more and more isolated himself in his self. And the Ahrimanic entities shrouded the divine spiritual entities in the smoke of Maya for the human eye, so that man no longer sees what is behind things. This is how fear arose. Man would never have known fear if he could see the divine creators instead of bumping into things in space. A little child learns fear at the moment when it comes into contact with matter and is hurt by it.

These two, hatred and fear, must now be discarded by the esotericist, even in their finest shades, in order to successfully move forward. Zarathustra, one of our mightiest teachers, has therefore left us words that, if we take them up in the right spirit, will help us to successfully achieve fearlessness. He said: “I will speak, now come and listen to me, you who, far and near, desire it. I will speak of him who can become manifest to the spirit, and no longer shall the deceptive mind confuse men, which has caused so much evil in human development. I will speak of that which is the first and greatest in the world, of that which he has revealed to me, the great spirit, which is Ahura Mazdao. But he who does not hear my words, as I understand and grasp them, will experience evil when the earth's course has come to an end in his age.“ ^{13Free rendering of a Gatha passage, Yasna 45.}

With this he wanted to point out to people that the outer sun is only the cover for the great regent of the fire spirits, just as everything physical is the cover for a spiritual, and if we concentrate on this great Auramazda, which stands behind the life-giving sun, fearlessness will be our part.

And much later, to help us achieve freedom from hatred, the great Zarathustra gave us another symbol. He had two disciples. He prepared the astral body of one of them so that he became clairvoyant, and therefore, in a later incarnation, this disciple was able to connect with his prepared astral body that of Zarathustra, who sacrificed his for this purpose. This disciple became the great Hermes, who directed the Egyptian mysteries. Zarathustra sacrificed his etheric body to the second disciple, whose etheric body he had also carefully prepared for this union. This disciple reincarnated in Moses, and that he had received a special etheric body can be seen from

narrative of the Bible, in which he, as a small child, had to dwell for a while, completely closed off from the world, in the water, so that his ego and astral body would not have a confusing effect on these subtle processes through impressions from the outside.

Zarathustra's ego was powerful and strong enough to create a new etheric and astral body for himself during a new incarnation. After being Nazarathos, the teacher of Pythagoras, he finally became Jesus of Nazareth, who could now sacrifice his three bodies, including the physical one, for the Auramazdao, which he had always proclaimed. He descended and dwelt in him, and that is why Jesus could say in this sense: “I am the light of the world.” (In the Gospel of John).

And the symbol of the absence of hatred that Zarathustra left us on this path is the blood that flowed at Golgotha. Hatred is the most extreme expression of the “I”. And where does our “I” reside? In the blood. Even our physical blood changes when this hardening, this withering of the “I”, the hatred, is transformed into a lack of hatred and this into love. If chemists had the appropriate fine instruments, they would be able to detect the difference in the blood of, for example, an old Indian and a Saint Francis of Assisi. This spiritualization is also expressed in the physical. With the blood that flowed for humanity at Calvary, we have the symbol of lack of hatred, through which we can transform every feeling of hatred into love, in order to bring it before the altar of the creative beings. The magic breath that emanates from Golgotha has a transforming effect on hatred and fear, which are brothers, just as Lucifer and the ahrimanic-mephistophelian entities are brothers.

Notes by Mathilde Scholl

The esoteric disciple has only one condition to fulfill when entering the school, namely that he applies his reason, his intellectuality, fully to the teachings he receives, that he asks himself when listening to the teachings: Is it reasonable for me to go this way? That he recognizes and grasps with his reason and mind what is given to him. This is absolutely necessary if the esoteric work we have to do on ourselves is to have the right effect. Only under this condition can our esoteric work bear the right fruit. The school, on the other hand, has to fulfill the condition that everything that flows through it comes only from the great teachers whom we call the Masters of Wisdom and of the Harmony of Feelings. What purpose do they serve in these esoteric schools? A small group of people are to be educated, who are to be endowed with the knowledge of the development of the world and of humanity, and who bring with them the right attitude for the great spiritual truths that lie behind world events. These truths they should then let flow into the development of humanity, for the benefit of the same. How is it that this spiritual movement has emerged just now? This is based on important events in the spiritual worlds, for everything on earth is only a reflection of them. We have seen that great spiritual hierarchies carry out the commands of the Godhead and direct the destinies of humanity. Eight centuries before our era it was necessary to prepare the Mystery of Golgotha from one side, to send hindering forces into the evolvement, and the hosts of a leader, who in occultism is called Mammon, were released for this purpose. They increasingly obscured man's consciousness of his connection with divinity. The old clairvoyance was lost to men and the science and philosophy of Occidental civilization blossomed. The old Oriental philosophy still has its origins in the old clairvoyance, while Greek philosophy grows entirely out of the material. Thales' saying, “All things come from water,” was gradually interpreted in a purely material sense. The spiritual aspect of water was forgotten. But even in these times of darkness, great teachers were active who reminded people of their spiritual origin. But suppose a man of that time had no opportunity whatever to listen to the teachings of a Buddha, a Zarathustra, and so on, what would have become of such a man after death? You know that the life between two incarnations is subject to change just as is the historical life in the physical.

Of course, the darkening of human consciousness had only occurred gradually, as everything only occurs gradually in evolution. These spirits of Mammon had only gradually been able to assert their influence and each time the son was less clairvoyant than the father, the grandfather even more clairvoyant and so on. When a person died whose consciousness of the Divine was completely dark, he took this darkness with him and had to work his way out of this cloud very gradually, by passing from hand to hand, so to speak, figuratively speaking, up the line of his ancestors to the great-grandfather who still had the full, old clairvoyance. In this way the cloud gradually lifted for him. Of course, this took a lot of time, and it could happen that such a person no longer met his ancestor because he had since incarnated again, and so he had to return to a new incarnation in an immature state. This path was called the 'Fathers' Way' or 'Pitri (Fathers) Yana' in Eastern wisdom. But whoever took up the teachings of a Zarathustra, a Buddha, followed a great teacher, was received over there by his hand and the teacher shortened the Pitriyana for him, parted the cloud for him and led him to his divine origin. In Eastern wisdom, this path was called the “Devayana” (path of the gods). In the time of deepest darkness, the Mystery of Golgotha shines forth as the Light. The esoteric disciples know or should know that with the moment the blood flowed from the wounds, the Christ began the journey into the spiritual world, that he appeared in Devachan. That was the spiritual reflection of the physical events below. What the Mystery of Golgotha has brought to Humanity is there; but the understanding of it can only dawn very gradually in human souls; indeed, even today it cannot dawn universally. The guiding power in human destinies had, at the time of the Mystery of Golgotha, passed from the hands of Michael to Oriphiel, who is one of the leaders serving the hosts of Mammon and who has to hold up the obstacles and hindrances to development.

Michael replaced Gabriel, who returned in the 16th century after four other archangels had followed Oriphiel, and took up the reigns again. Gabriel is in charge of human births, which is why he is the one who, for example, announces the birth of John the Baptist. In the 16th century, he prepared the human brain, the forehead, by selecting births in such a way that an organ developed in it that cannot be discovered by the means of material science, but which makes today's brain appear different from that of a person from the 13th or 14th century, for example.

Since the 16th century, the human brain has clearly changed in a way that is perceptible to the clairvoyant, with the purpose of enabling people to gradually learn to understand Christianity in its full meaning.

We have seen that during the 4th to 14th centuries, copies of the etheric and astral bodies of Christ were given to personalities who, in this way, kept the spirit of true Christianity alive. Augustine, who had received an impression of the etheric body, arrived after many aberrations at the mystical realizations that bear so much similarity to our theosophical teachings. The division of man into seven parts, for example, was a well-known fact to him, even though he had different terms for it. All those gifted with the etheric or astral body were characterized by deep humility because they were aware that the great truths they proclaimed came to them like revelations, like a grace, that they could not understand them with their ego. When such cosmic events occur, such as the bestowal of an etheric or astral body of Christ to a human being, they are usually accompanied by natural phenomena that we are inclined to interpret as coincidence, but which are in fact deeply connected with the spiritual events. To cite just one example, when Thomas Aquinas received an astral body of Christ as a young child, a bolt of lightning struck and killed Thomas's baby sister, who was lying in a cradle in the same room, but made the boy's astral body resilient enough to absorb the higher astral body.

Through the preparation of the people in the 16th century by Gabriel to develop a new organ in the forebrain, it has become possible that in the last third of the 19th century, after Gabriel had again ceded the government to Michael, what we call theosophy could flow in from the great masters of wisdom and the harmony of sensations, to gradually bring to humanity the meaning of the mystery of Golgotha in all its effects. When man now passes through the gate of death, each individual can find his great master, who allows himself to be found by every person living in the physical.

I shall Speak to-day of certain matters in a way that could not be used in public lectures but is possible when I am speaking to those who have been studying spiritual science for some considerable time.

The importance of the subject of which we shall speak first, will be evident to all serious students of spiritual science. Reference has frequently been made to this subject but one cannot speak too often of spiritual-scientific concepts, for they must become actual forces, actual impulses in men of the present and immediate future. I shall lay emphasis to-day upon one aspect of what spiritual science must signify in the world, namely, the need to impart soul to our “world-body,” as we may call it.

A comparatively short time ago in the evolution of humanity it would not have been possible to speak, as we can speak to-day, of a “world-body.” Looking back only a little into the historical development of mankind, we shall find that in the comparatively recent past, the idea of a world-body peopled by a humanity forming one whole had not yet come into the consciousness of men. We find self-contained civilisations, enclosed within strict boundaries. Guided by the several Folk-Spirits, the Old Indian civilisation, the Old Persian civilisation, and so on, embraced peoples living a self-contained existence, separated from one another by mountains, seas or rivers.

Needless to say, such civilisations still exist. We speak, and rightly so, of Italian, Russian, French, Spanish, German culture, but as well as this, when we look over the earth to-day we perceive a certain unity extending over the globe—something by which peoples separated by vast distances are formed as it were into a single whole. We need think only of industry, of railways, of telegraphs, of recent inventions.¹ Railways are built, telegraph systems installed, cheques made out and cashed, all over the globe, and the same will hold good for discoveries and inventions yet to be made.

Now let us ask: What is the peculiarity of this element that extends over the globe and is the same in Tokyo, Rome, Berlin, London, and everywhere else? It is all a means of providing humanity with food and clothing, as well as with ever-increasing luxury goods. During the last few centuries a material civilisation has spread over the earth, without distinction between nation and nation, race and race. Greek culture flourished in a tiny region of the earth and little was known of it outside that region. But nowadays, news flashes around the whole globe in a few hours—and nobody would doubt the justification of calling this material culture an earthly culture! Moreover it will become increasingly material and our earth-body more and more deeply entangled in it.

But those who realise the need for spiritual science will understand with greater clarity that no body can subsist without a soul. Just as material culture encompasses the whole body of the earth, so must knowledge of the spirit be the soul that extends over the whole earth, without distinction of nation, colour, race or people. And just as identical methods are employed wherever railways and telegraph systems are constructed, so will mutual understanding over the whole earth be necessary in regard to questions concerning the human soul. The longings and questionings that will arise increasingly in the souls of men, demand answers. Hence the need for a movement dedicated to the cultivation of spiritual knowledge. Something comparable with cultural relations between individual peoples will then take effect on a wide scale, weaving threads between soul and soul over the whole earth. And what will weave from soul to soul may be called a deep and intimate understanding in regard to something that is sacred to individual souls everywhere, namely, how they are related to the spiritual world.

In a future not far distant, intimate understanding will take the place of what led in past times to bitterest conflict and disharmony as long as humanity was divided into regional civilisations which knew nothing of each other. But what will operate on a universal scale over the globe as a spiritual movement embracing all earthly humanity, must operate also between soul and soul. What a distance still separates the Buddhists and the Christians, how little do they understand and how insistently do they turn away from each other on the circumscribed ground of their particular creeds! But the time will come when their own religion will lead more and more Buddhists to Anthroposophy, and Christianity itself will lead more and more Christians to Anthroposophy. And then complete understanding will reign between them.

That humanity is coming a little nearer to this intimate understanding can be discerned to-day in the fact that the science of comparative religion is also finding its place in the domain of scholarship. The value of this science of comparative religion should not be underrated, for it has splendid achievements to its credit. But what is really brought to light when the different teachings of the religions are set forth? Although it is not acknowledged, the basis of this science of comparative religion amounts to no more than the most elementary beliefs, long since outgrown by those who have grasped the essence of the religions. The science of comparative religion confines itself to these elementary beliefs.

But what is the aim of spiritual science in regard to the various religions? It seeks for something that lies beyond the reach of the scientific investigators, namely for the essential truths contained in the religions.

From what does spiritual science take its start? From the fact that mankind has originated from a common Godhead and that a primeval wisdom belonging to mankind as one whole and springing from one Divine source has only for a time been partitioned, as it were, in a number of rays among the different peoples and groups of human beings on the earth. The aim and ideal of spiritual science is to rediscover this primeval truth, this primeval wisdom, uncoloured by this or that particular creed, and to give it again to humanity. Spiritual science is able to penetrate to the essence of the various religions because its attention is focussed, not upon external rites and ceremonies, but upon the kernel of primeval wisdom contained in each one of them. Spiritual science regards the religions as so many channels for the rays of what once streamed without differentiation over the whole of mankind.

When a professed Christian, knowing nothing beyond the external tenets of belief that have been instilled into the hearts of men through the centuries, says to a Buddhist: ‘If you would reach the truth you must believe what I believe’ ... and the Buddhist rejoins by declaring what he holds sacred, then no understanding is possible between them. But spiritual science approaches these questions in an entirely different way.

Those who can penetrate to the essence of Buddhism as well as to that of Christianity through the methods leading to the development of the new clairvoyance, come to know of sublime Beings who have risen from the realm of man and are called Bodhisattvas. Herein lies the central nerve of Buddhism. And the Christian, too, hears of a Bodhisattva who arises from mankind and works within humanity. He hears that one of these Bodhisattvas—born 600 years before our era as Siddartha, the son of King Suddhodana—attained the rank of Buddha in the twenty-ninth year of his life. A Christian who is an anthroposophist also knows that a Being who has risen from the rank of Bodhisattva to that of Buddha need not appear again on earth in a body of flesh.

True, such teachings are also communicated to us by the scientific investigators of religions, but they can make nothing of a Being such as a Bodhisattva or a Buddha; the nature of such a Being is beyond their comprehension; neither can they realise how such a Being continues to guide humanity from the spiritual worlds without living in a body of flesh.

But as anthroposophical Christians, our attitude to the Bodhisattva can be as full of reverence as that of a Buddhist, In spiritual science we say exactly the same about Buddha as a Buddhist says. The Christian who is an anthroposophist says to the Buddhist: I understand and believe what you understand and believe. No one who has come to spiritual science from the ground of Christianity would ever dream, as a Christian, of saying that the Buddha returns in the flesh. He knows that this would wound the deepest, most intimate feelings of the Buddhist and that such a statement would be utterly at variance with the true character of those Beings who have risen from the rank of Bodhisattva to that of Buddha. Christianity itself has brought him knowledge and understanding of these Beings.

And what will be the attitude of the Buddhist who has become an anthroposophist? He will understand the particular basis of Christianity. He will realise that as in the case of the other religions, Christianity has a Founder—Jesus of Nazareth—but that another Being united with him. A great deal could be said about all that has been associated with the personality of Jesus of Nazareth through the centuries. But the Christian's view of the personality of Jesus of Nazareth differs from the Buddhist's view of the Founder of his religion. In the East it would be said: “One who is a great Founder of religion has achieved the complete harmonisation of all passions and desires, of all human, personal attributes. Is such complete harmonisation manifest in Jesus of Nazareth? We read that he was seized with anger, that he overthrew the tables of the money-changers, drove them out of the temple, that he uttered words of impassioned wrath. This is evidence to us that he does not possess the qualities to be expected of a Founder of religion.” Such is the attitude of the East.

We ourselves, of course, could point to many other aspects of this question, but that is not what concerns us at the moment. The really significant fact is that Christianity differs from all other religions inasmuch as they all point to a Founder who was a great Teacher. But to believe that the same is true of Christianity would denote a fundamental misunderstanding. The essence of Christianity is not that it looks back to Jesus of Nazareth as a great Teacher. Christianity originates in a Deed, takes its start from a super-personal Deed—from the Mystery of Golgotha.

How could this be? It was because for three years there dwelt in Jesus of Nazareth a Being, Whom—if we are to give Him a name—we call Christ. But a name cannot encompass the Divine Spirit we recognise in Christ. No human name, no human word, can define a Divinity. In Christ we have to do with a Divine Impulse spreading through the world: the Christ Impulse which at the Baptism in the Jordan entered in Him, into Jesus of Nazareth. The very essence of Christianity lies in the Christ Impulse which came to the earth through a physical personality, the physical personality of Jesus of Nazareth into whose sheaths it entered. The Christ took these sheaths upon Himself because the course of world-evolution is, first, a descent, and then again an ascent. At the deepest point of descent the Mystery of Golgotha takes place, because from it alone could spring the power to lead humanity upwards.

After the Atlantean catastrophe came the ancient Indian epoch of civilisation. The spirituality of that epoch will not again be reached until the end of the seventh epoch. The ancient Indian epoch was followed by that of ancient Persia, that again by the Egypto-Chaldean epoch. When we survey evolution, even in its external aspect, the decline of spirituality is evident. Then we come to Greco-Latin civilisation with its firm footing in the earthly realm. The works of art created by the Greeks are the most wonderful expression of the marriage of spirit with form. And in Roman culture, in Roman civic life, man becomes master on the physical plane. But the spirituality in Greek culture is characterised by the saying: ‘Better it is to be a beggar in the upper world than a king in the realm of the Shades.’ Dread of the world lying behind the physical plane, dread of the world into which man will pass after death is expressed in this saying. Spirituality has here descended to the deepest point.

From then onwards, mankind needed an impulse for the return to the spiritual worlds, and this impulse was given in the Fourth Post-Atlantean epoch through an Event at a level far transcending the physical plane.

The Mystery of Golgotha was enacted in a remote corner of the earth, for the sake of no particular race or denomination. It took place in seclusion, in concealment. Neither outer civilisation nor the Romans who governed the little territory of Palestine, knew anything of the Event. The Romans were no followers of Christ—the Jews still less!

Who were present when the Mystery of Golgotha took place? Whom had he gathered around him who in his thirtieth year had received the Christ into himself? Had pupils gathered around this Being as they had gathered around Confucius, Laotse or Buddha? If we look closely we see that this is not so. For were those who until the Event of Golgotha had been His disciples, already His apostles? No! They had scattered, they had gone away when the One Whom they had followed hitherto entered upon the path of His Passion. Only when having passed through death, He gave them the certain knowledge of the power that had conquered death—only then did they become true Apostles and carried His impulse to the peoples of the earth. Before then they had not even understood Him. Even Paul, the one who after the Mystery of Golgotha achieved most of all for the spread of Christianity, understood Him only when He had appeared to him in the spirit!

So we see that, unlike the other religions, Christianity was not, in essence, founded by a great Teacher whose pupils then promulgate his teachings. The essential, basic truth of Christianity is that a Divine Impulse came down to the earth, passed through death and became the source of the impulse which leads humanity upwards. When the individual personal element had passed through death, had departed from the earth—then and only then did the power which came upon the earth through Christ, begin to work. It is not a merely personal teaching that works on, but the actual Event that Christ was within Jesus and passed through the Mystery of Golgotha, and that from the Mystery of Golgotha a power streamed forth over the whole subsequent evolution of mankind.

That is the difference between what Christianity sees as the starting-point of its development and what the other religions see as theirs. When, therefore, we turn our attention to the beginning of Christianity, it is a matter of realising what actually came to pass through the Mystery of Golgotha. Paul says, in effect: The descending line of evolution was caused through Adam, even before the Fall, before he was man, before he was a personality in the real sense. The impulse for the ascent was given by Christ.

To feel this as a reality, we must go deeply into the occult truths available to mankind. To grasp this stupendous fact, man's understanding must be quickened by the deepest, most intimate occult truths. It will then be comprehensible to him that, to begin with, even in Christendom itself, the loftiest thoughts and deepest truths could not immediately be understood. To grasp the full meaning of this Divine Death and the Impulse proceeding from it, to realise that such an Event cannot be repeated, that it occurred at the deepest point of the evolutionary process and radiates the power which enables mankind henceforward to tread the path of ascent—to conceive this was possible only to a few. And so in the centuries that followed, men clung to Jesus of Nazareth—for understanding of the Christ was as yet beyond their reach. Moreover it was through Jesus that the Christ Impulse also made its way into works of art. Men yearned for Jesus, not for Christ.

We ourselves are still living at the dawn of true Christianity; Christianity is only beginning to come into its own. And when men plead to-day: ‘Do not take from us the individual, personal Jesus who comforts and uplifts our hearts, on whom we lean; do not give us, instead of him, a super-personal event’ ... they must realise that this is nothing but an expression of egoism. Not until they transcend this personal egoism and realise that they have no right to call themselves Christians until they recognise as the source of their Christianity the Event that was fulfilled in majestic isolation on Golgotha, will they be able to draw near to Christ. But this realisation belongs to future time.

There may be some who say: Surely the Crucifixion should have been avoided! But this is simply a human opinion—no more than that. These people do not know the difference between an utter impossibility and what is merely a mistaken idea. For what came into the evolution of humanity through the Mystery of Golgotha could proceed only from the impulse of a god Who had endured all the sufferings and agonies of mankind, all the sorrows, the mockery and scorn, the contempt and the shame that were the lot of Christ. And these sufferings were infinitely harder for a god than for an ordinary human being.

That the Mystery of Golgotha actually took place cannot be authenticated in the same way as other historical events. There is no authentic, documentary evidence even of the Crucifixion. But there is good reason why no proof exists, for this is an Event which lies outside the sphere of the general evolution of mankind. The Mystery of Golgotha—and this is its very essence—is an Event transcending that which has merely to do with the evolution of humanity.

The Mystery of Golgotha was concerned with the descending path which men have taken and with what must lead them upwards again—with the Luciferic influence upon mankind! Lucifer, together with everything belonging to him, is verily not a human being. Lucifer and his hosts are superhuman beings. Nor did Lucifer desire that through his deeds men should be set upon a downward path; his purpose was to rebel against the upper gods. He wanted to vanquish his opponents, not to set men upon a downward path. The progressive gods, the upper gods, and Lucifer with his hosts of the lower gods of hindrance, waged war against each other, and from the very beginning of earthly evolution, man was dragged into this warfare among gods. It was an issue that the gods in the higher worlds had to settle among themselves, but as a result of the conflict, men were drawn more deeply into the material world than was originally intended. And now the gods had to create the balance; humanity had to be lifted upwards again, the deed of Lucifer made of no avail. And this could not be achieved through a man but only through a Divine Deed, the deed of a god. This deed of a god must be understood in all its truth and reality.

If we ponder deeply about earthly existence, we find as its greatest riddle: birth and death.The fact that beings can die is the fundamental problem confronting humanity. Death is something that occurs only on the earth. In the higher worlds there is transformation, metamorphosis—no death. Death is the consequence of what came into human beings through Lucifer, and if something had not taken place from the side of the gods, the whole of mankind would have been more and more entangled in the forces which lead to death. And so a sacrifice had to be made from the side of the gods: it was necessary that One from among them should descend and suffer the death that can be undergone only by the children of earth. This was a deed which created the balance for the deed of Lucifer. And from this death of a god streams the power which also radiates into the souls of men and can raise them again out of the darkness in which Lucifer's deed has ensnared them. A god had to die on the physical plane.

This is not a direct concern of men ... they were here spectators of an affair of the gods. No wonder that physical means are incapable of portraying an Event which is an affair of the higher worlds, for it falls outside the sphere of the physical world.

But the fruits of this deed of a god which had perforce to be wrought on the earth, became the heritage of humanity, and the Christian Initiation gives men the power to understand it. And just as mankind could come forth only once from the bosom of the Godhead, so could the overcoming of what was then instilled into the human soul be achieved only once.

If the Christian who has become an anthroposophist were to speak of the nature of Christ to a Buddhist who has become an anthroposophist, the Buddhist would say: ‘I should therefore misunderstand you were I to believe that the Being Whom you call Christ is subject to reincarnation. He is not subject to reincarnation—any more than you would say that the Buddha can return to earthly existence!’

Yet there is one fundamental difference. The Buddhist points to the great Teacher who was the originator of his religion; but the true Christian points to a deed of the spiritual worlds, enacted in seclusion on the earth, he points to something entirely non-personal, having nothing to do with any specific creed or denomination. No single human being, to begin with, recognised this deed; it had nothing to do with any particular locality on the earth. In majestic seclusion the Divine Power poured from this deed into the whole subsequent evolution of mankind.

The task of the spiritual-scientific conception of the world is to seek for the truths contained in the different religions, and to seek for the kernel of truth in them all is the augury of peace. When an adherent of some creed truly understands his religion in the light of spiritual science, he will never force its particular ray of truth upon adherents of another religion. As little as the anthroposophical Christian will speak of the return of the Buddha—for then he would not have understood him—as little will the anthroposophical Buddhist speak of the return of Christ—for that too would be a misunderstanding. Provided personal bias is laid aside, the truth concerning Buddha and the truth concerning Christ never makes for discord and sectarianism, but for harmony and peace. This is a natural consequence of truth, for truth is the augury of peace in the world. At the highest level of truth, all nations and all religions on the earth can belong to Buddha the great Teacher; and at the same highest level of truth, all nations and all religions can belong to Christ, the Divine Power. Mutual understanding augurs peace in the world. This peace is the soul of the new world. And to this soul, which must reign all over the globe as the science of the Spirit belonging to all men in all earthly civilisations, Anthroposophy should lead the way.

From the 13th and 14th centuries onwards, such knowledge was cultivated in the Rosicrucian Schools. It was known there that together with such knowledge, peace draws into the souls of men. And in these Rosicrucian Schools it was known, too, that many a one who on earth cannot experience this peace, will experience it after death as the fulfilment of his most treasured ideals—when he looks down to the earth and beholds peace reigning among the peoples and nations to the extent to which men open their hearts to receive such knowledge.

As I have spoken here to-day, so did the Rosicrucians speak in their small, enclosed circles. To-day these things can be communicated to larger gatherings of men. Those to whom it has been entrusted to carry into effect through spiritual science what streams into humanity from the Mystery of Golgotha, know that every year at Eastertide, Jesus, who bore the Christ within him, seeks out the places where the Mystery of Golgotha was fulfilled. Whether actually in incarnation or not, every year he visits these places, and there his pupils who have made themselves ready, can be united with him.

A poet—Anastasius Grün—felt the reality of this. He describes five such meetings of the Master with his pupils. The first, after the destruction of Jerusalem; the second, after the capture of Jerusalem by the Crusaders; the third—Ahasver, the Wandering Jew, lingering on Golgotha; the fourth—a praying monk, yearning and pleading for deliverance from his conqueror. For while sects of different kinds scattered over the earth are at strife among themselves, he through whom the greatest of all tidings of peace was brought to the earth, looks again at the places that were the scene of his earthly deeds.

These four pictures are given of past visits of Jesus to the scene of his work on Golgotha. Then, in the poem printed under the title of “Five Easters,” Anastasius Grün pictures another return to Golgotha, in the far future. In this far future of which he gives us a glimpse, the power of peace will then have prevailed on the earth, a peace based, not on denominational Christianity, but on Christianity as it is understood in Rosicrucianism. He sees children who, while they are at play, dig up an object of iron and do not know what it is. They alone who still possess some remote information of the strife waged among men in what is for them the distant past—they alone know that this object is a sword. In that age of peace the purpose of a sword is no longer known—it has been replaced by the ploughshare. Then a farmer digging in the earth finds an object made of stone ... Again it is not recognised. “For a time this was banished from the earth,” say those who still have some knowledge, “for men no longer understood it! Once upon a time they used it as a symbol of strife.” It is a cross of stone,—but now, when the impulse given by Christ Jesus for all future time gathers men together, now it has become something different!

How does this poet, writing in the year 1835, describe this symbol of the mission of the Christ Impulse, when rightly understood? He describes it as follows:

Though known to none, yet with its ancient blessing,
Eternal in their breast it stands upright;
There blooms its seed abroad on every pathway,
A Cross it was—this stranger to their sight.

The Cross of Stone now stands within a garden,
A strange and sacred relic from of old;
Flowers of all patterns lift their growth above it,
While roses, climbing high, the Cross enfold.

So stood the Cross, weighty with solemn meaning,
On Golgotha, amidst resplendent sheen
Long since 'tis hidden by its sheath of roses;
No more, for roses, can the Cross be seen.²

• 1. Since this lecture was given wireless broadcasting has been perfected.
• 2. The whole poem consists of 108 verses, in five parts.