The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Today it is my task to speak of a very deep historical impulse. As far as anthroposophical spiritual science is concerned, we are already familiar with the fact that spiritual forces, spiritual intentions, spiritual goals stand behind everything which occurs in the world. The anthroposophical spiritual scientifically schooled view is able to see more directly the spiritual processes which stand behind historical occurrences. In order to understand what is going on we must know not only the material historical facts, but we must be able to complete then by knowledge the sort of facts which we are going to present to you today.

We will start by indicating a personality whom you all know, namely, H. P. Blavatsky. You all know that H. P. Blavatsky was a particularly psychic person in a time when materialism was at the high point in external life and she stood in a very special way in the spiritual movement of the second half of the 19th century. H. P. Blavatsky was not a personality whom one can designate in the ordinary sense as a medium, but she had, in the deepest sense, very striking psychical properties, she was a psychic personality. If you want to understand this you must realize the milieu out of which she proceeded. She came out of the Russian milieu, out of how the spiritual and physical can work together in a life in such a way that it is not normal, but abnormal. And to understand that, we must cast our attention on the special folk characteristics of the Russians, how that is different from the Central and Western Europeans.

The Middle and Western Europeans are indeed, in a certain sense, the continuous and also the newly creative configuration of that culture which proceeded out of the 4th post-Atlantean period, the Greco-Latin cultural period. What lived in this Greco-Latin cultural period is continued in Central and Western Europe, through the fact that in this West and Middle Europe the physical bodies specially develop themselves, also become special instruments for spiritual working, for thinking, feeling and willing. That which thinking, feeling and willing can bring together through the Instrument of the physical body, that should come out in a very primary way in West and Middle Europe. However, the situation is different with the Slavic peoples in Eastern Europe and in particular with the Russians. One can say that the way in which the physical body is mechanized through as is the case in West and Central Europe cannot occur with the Russians in so far as this people remains in its national quality. You cannot understand the Russians with West European science. You can only understand them when you know that an ether body exists. The precise characteristic of the Russian people consists in the fact that the most important activity of life does not enter into the physical body as it occurs in West and Middle Europe, but more into the ether body and therefore does not permeate the physical body so much. In the Russian people the ether body has a much greater significance than it now has for the Western and Central Europeans and especially for the American people. Hence, within the Russian people, within the folk people, not the ruling classes, a direct strong ego as is the case in West and Central Europe can never be developed in the same way. However, the “I” is always veiled over by a certain dreaminess, it almost has something of a dreamy nature in it, because just as the “I” now lives in the 5th post-Atlantean period, so it is conditioned by a special development of the physical body. During this 5th post-Atlantean period, the Russian people are not advanced far enough for the building of the “I” directly as such. That which lives and weaves in the ether body should not imprint itself into the physical body. Hence, one can say that that which is predisposed in the Russian folk, in the main, cannot at the present come to external manifestation.

Now, H. P. Blavatsky grew in part out of the Russian people, to the greatest part she has grown out of the Russian Folk Soul. It will be understandable from that that with her, the ether body in a high degree in its activity is able to be much more powerful than all physical activity in so far as we are dealing with a cognitive activity. Hence, we have in H. P. Blavatsky, in the main, a personality who can experience a large amount of her ether body, but naturally that is quite different from what one can experience through thinking and cognition with the help of the brain. Because Blavatsky has grown out of the Russian folk, she can experience an immense amount in her ether body. However, connected with that is the fact that she lacks certain qualities which West Europeans cannot be without if they want to have revelations from the spiritual worlds. H. P. Blavatsky lacked the possibility of thinking logically. This is the faculty which the Western European must have to obtain proper revelations from the spiritual world, but H.P. Blavatsky lacked this possibility of grouping together her knowledge. Nevertheless, that which permeated her ether body, which was contained in her etheric cognitive ability, did not prevent her from receiving significant revelations. Therefore precisely at the time when mankind was at the height of materialism, such a personality coming out of the East European people is present who in her stream of heredity, in her blood, still had, I might say, a dose of the Central European aspect. So there was present in her, but it was overpowered by the East European element, that which in Middle Europe leads to a logical nature and which in particular leads to will initiative which the Russian as a belonger of his folk does not have. Now what actually happened?

When we put together these two extreme poles, then we can say—of course you know that we have English books written by Blavatsky—that which occurred came as a result of her roots in the Russian nature which came out of her ether body, that was taken hold of by the English being, and it appears that her books are worked out in English. However, the most important thing is what lies between; and to understand what does lie between one must become clear that in Western Europe, particularly from the British beingness, an extensive working in of occult science proceeds which always was present as far as one can speak of the English history. Through its whole evolution of its spiritual culture, Middle Europe actually did not have the slightest idea of how incisive occult working has always come out of the British land and spread itself over Western Europe, also over Southern Europe, and so on.

When one wants to know how things stand, one must at least understand this British colored occultism. This British colored occultism is absolutely present. That which people know of as all sorts of high grades of Scottish Freemasonry and so on is actually only the external side which is shown to the world. However, comprehensive working occult schools actually stand behind this external side and they have taken up the ancient occult traditions and the ancient occult stream into themselves in a much higher degree than is the case in Middle Europe. In Central Europe, however, one must strive more and more to permit a knowledge of the spiritual world to rise up out of one's own spirituality. In the British aspect, they have preferred to lean on that which has been traditionally handed down from the more ancient occult schools. Actually we are able to go back to the beginning of the 17th century and find particularly in England, Scotland and Ireland (less in Ireland but over Scotland) such occult societies spread out in which they have continued to propagate that which was occult knowledge in the ancient times, which however they transformed in a certain way.

If one wants to find the reason for this transformation, then one must know that the 4th post-Atlantean cultural epoch which was comprised of Greekdom and Romandom lasted until the beginning of the 15th century and the task of this 4th period was to work over in itself in a purely human way that which in earlier epochs was there as spiritual revelations. What man received in revelations, that was supposed to be spiritually worked over in this Greco-Latin period. Then came the 5th period which begins with the beginning of the 15th. century. Man was supposed to focus more upon the external, more upon the physical world and not to work out new concepts. All the concepts which you have in the world today have come over from the Greco-Latin period. There have not been any real new concepts developed since the 15th century; the ancient concepts were only applied in a new way upon the processes. Darwinism never brought in one single new concept of evolution; it only applied it to certain processes. Thus, not one single new concept has arisen since the beginning of the 15th century. All of these arose previously in the Greco-Latin period. The 5th post-Atlantean period was supposed to direct its glance at the external physical plane and the British people were especially prepared for this task. They were especially adapted for this task, because the British characteristics were developed later in the British Isles.

Now, at the beginning of the 15h century something was threatening. What threatened to arise was a kind of confusion; the purely physical striving of the Britishdom threatened to be confused with a much more spiritual life, with a spiritual life which was fructified from ancient times. This took place when English dominion crossed over the channel into France. The fact that a real separation occurred was effected from the spiritual world through the appearance of Joan of Arc who precisely from the spiritual world itself had to create order in the beginning of the 15th century. The whole of external Western Europe depends, as we have said before, on this appearance of Joan of Arc. At that time there was a complete separation between the French nature and the British nature. This British being originally arose from the Angles and Saxons who had the occult sagas of Hengis and Horsa when they migrated over towards the British Isles. Now, at the time of Joan of Arc, this Anglo-Saxon layer was ruled by the Norman-Roman element and formed a lower caste. That particular British beingness which today is the superior, only happened since the 17th century, at the time when the French element was still working, and the Anglo-Saxons were the lower layer and the French spirit was the aristocratic spirit. They despised everything coming from the Angles and Saxons. For example, there was a very common expression in the 10th, 11th, 12th centuries used as a curse by the aristocracy still living in France in whom there still lived French Normanhood which went as follows: “God damn me to become an Englander”. This curse was often heard. You were not supposed to be an Englander if you wanted to be well regarded. However, this thing changed fundamentally after the separation occurred through Joan of Arc and then the Englander aspect began to develop.

There are many different processes playing about here and it would take too much time if I were to describe them completely, but deep spiritual forces held sway behind the civil war of the Red and the White Roses. But the important thing is that in the beginning of the 17th century, a certain soul incarnated in the British kingdom who did not work in a very significant way externally, but worked further and in a very stimulating way. This person incarnated in a British body in whom there was more French and Scottish blood working together and very little British blood. There actually proceeded from this soul that which gave the impulse not only for the external British spiritual life but also to the occult British life. Naturally there were certain intermediate processes which if described would cause us to go far off our theme which also formed this occult British spiritual life .

I have told you that this spiritual life was a continuation of the occult streams of the 4th post-Atlantean period. One knew an immense amount precisely because physical bodies had the most significance. There in the British occult life they knew the significance of the physical body, that the ether body was made least active, and that the physical body was regarded as an instrument of all spiritual life; and precisely because of that there was no possibility in these occult schools themselves to experience very much from the spiritual world. However, one preserved the ancient traditions in the occult schools; one preserved that which was handed down through what the ancient clairvoyant observed and they sought to permeate that with concepts. Therefore an occult science arose which worked only with the experiences of what had been handed down from what had been seen by clairvoyance in the 4th and even in the 3rd post-Atlantean period. However, that which came into existence through clairvoyance was worked through with purely physical concepts, with that conceptual material which you have when you think through the physical body. Therefore, an actual occult science arose which, however, stretched itself out over all domains of life.

Above all it is interesting to realize that in this chapter of occult science there are facts which actually were taught in these British occult schools about the destiny of the European people. That formed a very important chapter in these occult schools. I will attempt to characterize what was taught there about the destiny of the European peoples. They said the following. There was a 4th post-Atlantean period. This is what they had out of tradition. This 4th post-Atlantean period abounded with spiritual life. This 4th post-Atlantean period has brought forth the conceptual world for man, the perception about social organization. This 4th post-Atlantean period brought forward all possible things; it abounded with spiritual life. It had developed itself in Southern Europe on the Greek and Italian Peninsulas and it radiated out from there. Now, the people of Central and Western Europe were in their infancy in reference to spiritual connections at the time of the flowering of the 4th period. I am now telling you just what was taught there. Thus, the Central and Western Europeans were infants in reference to the spiritual life, infants in relation to that which could radiate out from the cultural results of the 4th post-Atlantean period. These Central AND Western Europeans very gradually worked themselves up out of their infancy until the time of the Renaissance and the Reformation, and they became maturer and maturer. When we say the Reformation, we do not mean the German Reformation but the English Reformation under James I, and so on. The central and Western Europeans were able to separate themselves in a sense and now a quite definite dogma arose within these occult schools, a dogma which was very strongly held, the dogma that just as the Greco-Latin peoples were the leading peoples of the 4th, now in the 5th post-Atlantean period the Anglo-Saxon culture has to take the lead. This was impressed again and again. The Anglo-Saxondom has to reign spiritually through the 5th postAtlantean period, and everything that was thought in reference to mankind's development had to be so arranged that this dogma of the superiority of the Anglo-Saxon as the leaders of the 5th had to be effected.

They taught the following in these schools. There lives in East Europe today the people who are in the same condition in which the Central and Western Europeans were at the time of the Greco-Latin period; the Slavic people who are now in their infancy are in the East of Europe. They realize that these Slavic peoples must develop out of their infancy in a similar way as did the Central and Western Europeans. And just as the Romans were the wet nurse in spiritual connection in the West and Middle Europe, so must the Anglo-Saxon be the wet nurse for the East European peoples and lead them over to their later spiritual life period. It was also taught that just as the Germanic peoples differentiated themselves into Gothic and other tribes in the course of European history, so to speak, so do the Slavic peoples also differentiate themselves. Therefore they depicted how the present forces point to certain future configurations.

For example, in Russia itself, there were a number of different communities which were gathered together spatial aspect just as once numbers of people were gathered in Central and West Europe, and these people who are gathered together in Russia, so to speak, are artificially held together by a state bond. On the other hand, a folk like the Poles were held together by their religion and in spite of their attempts to become independent, these Poles had to be inserted into the Russian beingness. One had confidence in these schools that the whole of Polishdom has to be shoved in turn into the Russian being and they said that they are of the Dornau there are single Slavic peoples who exist in isolated kingdoms. And the following was repeated again and again in these schools: Such independent Slavic folk states are forming. However, these will only last until the next great European war which was going to bring everything into disorder. And they said: The independence of the Slavic States would only last a while and in the future a quite different way of being held together in reference to these East European peoples who are at present in their infancy state, must take place. This was the teaching that was given; it was not just theory but was repeated again and again in these occult schools. Therefore numerous people attempted to configure the external life to influence it in different ways so that the actual facts could form themselves in the sense of what their dogma said. People do not realize what enormous attempts were made by their occult brothers in the British Isles who had other groups in Western Europe and Italy. They knew what one person must do, what another must do and how to work in life in order to achieve their aims. For example, there was one English statesman who became friendly with a certain statesman from a small state in the Dornau which was part of Austria. A friendly arrangement was set up between them. It was so artfully arranged that, for example, on the one side they made friends, but on the other side they tried to put forth all sorts of criticism about this same state. The situation is of great significance when you methodically follow a path in which you develop friendship on the one side in order to win a certain people over and on the other side begin to show the shadow side of these people and attack them.

This is a very devilish thing, but it is an Ahrimanic trick which you can use. One member of such a brotherhood would write a book which would cause a rightful movement to be called forth, for example, and another person would write a book in order to develop friendship. That is how they work between the lines of life; all this so that the British aspect could become the ruling aspect: let us look at how the personality of H.P. Blavatsky works in this occult brotherhood situation. These occult brothers have become aware of her. These ahrimanic occultists knew very well when there was such a person who is configurated as is H. P. Blavatsky, there are all sorts of developmental forces occurring. And here we have H. P. Blavatsky in whom the ether body is active in a special way and they wanted to utilize her so that certain spiritual truths could come forward which could be favorable to their dogmas of the superiority of the Anglo-Saxon people. Therefore the tendency arose in the 60's and the beginning of the 70's with these occult brothers of the West to utilize Blavatsky so as to place spiritual truths before the world of which one can say the following. Here is a person whose ideas do not come out of an ordinary human brain, but come out of an ether body and in addition to that one who can predict future elements from such an ether body, a future that holds a foundation for the 6th post-Atlantean period. And, since the 6th post-Atlantean period has not yet arrived, they can then make certain preparations in the 5th. In the case of Blavatsky who was not an ordinary medium, they could so influence her mediumistic forces that she would say what the British brotherhoods wanted. They themselves could not come before the world and say Britain shall be the rulers, but they could say: Look here, here is a person who we are not influencing in any way; she brings a quite new knowledge out of her own ether body. Their goal was that this new knowledge should be placed in the service of the Anglo-Saxon brotherhoods. These brotherhoods related themselves to her so that they were a sort of wet nurse and she was the infant. The intention of these brothers was to put a certain new occult science into the world which would be very suitable for the special aims of these Western brothers.

They would have succeeded in their intentions if Blavatsky had been a pure Russian. However, as I mentioned earlier, she had a certain dose of Central European nature in her. She had an independent nature and very soon became aware of what lived in her ether body and then she did not want to go along with what these occult brotherhoods, who wanted to develop Earth as a higher medium, wanted. After a certain time, H. P. Blavatsky developed many things on very good paths, then she entered into a high order in Paris. However, this Parisian order was dependent on the British occult streams and they tried to prepare her so that what they wanted could come out of her soul. but, as I said, she had much of this Germanic element in her and insisted on certain conditions in this order which were impossible to fulfill and the consequence was that she was excluded from this order. In the meantime she was able to take up into herself many significant secrets which were present in these orders and she began to acquire a very special taste for the whole role; she wanted to play the foremost occult role. She did not want to be just a higher medium; she wanted to direct the thing herself. She entered an American order where they told her many secrets which were only given to those in high grades. Nevertheless, this American order had a very definite intention and in time she received into her consciousness a great deal of knowledge. A whole new situation was now created. Here was a personality who knew much of the occult knowledge which the secret orders had preserved and protected. Here was a situation which had never occurred before. In America she again tried to set up certain conditions to which the American order could not agree, because if they had done so terrible confusion would have come about.

Therefore, through very dubious means, they put her in what is called occult imprisonment which one achieves through certain ceremonial magic in which the soul which you are imprisoning can have ideas which go to a certain sphere and then are reflected back. Everything that develops in the person can be seen by themselves but it is not possible to share it with the external world. It only works within itself; it is an occult imprisonment. This particular ceremonial magic leading to occult imprisonment was done in order to try to make H. P. Blavatsky harmless. In the year 1879 there was an association of occultists of various lands and it was decided that an occult imprisonment was to be placed over Madam Blavatsky and she then lived for a number of years in real occult imprisonment. It then came about that certain Indian occultists freed her from this occult imprisonment and now begins the time when Blavatsky enters into the Indian influence. Everything which I told you up to now is a kind of pre-history of Blavatsky.

We now have the development which everyone knows about. All the difficulties and problems which Blavatsky had are connected with all this pre-history. Certain Indian occultists who strove to save themselves from the British now applied certain means to release her from her occult imprisonment, and this actually was done with the consent of those who had put her in this imprisonment. The consequence was that there streamed into her soul that which was connected only with the Indian occultism. All these goings on are effected by the British brotherhoods completely rejecting that which applies to Central Europe. These brotherhoods tried to utilize Blavatsky for their political objects, but in Paris and America she objected; the inner opposition of her Russianness objected and there was opposition against making the Russians dependent upon West Europe and America. When she was in Paris, she set forth a special stipulation which could not be fulfilled because it would have necessitated a political transformation in France. In America she herself did not put forth the stipulation, but she allied herself with a man named Olcott who was interested in producing all sorts of political machinations. These people originally wanted to guide her into a certain channel failed because she was released from this and went into a different channel in which the mahatma was not what Blavatsky thought he was.

You can see in the well known novel of George Sand how occult societies and particular movements occur in Western Europe, people have a sub-role and are not externally visible. I mentioned all these things in the public lecture on Friday, all the occult streams which produce conspirators resulting in the assasination of Jure (sic), also the murder of Franz Ferdinand. Here you have the whole source of the conspiracy of which the outside world knows very little. It begins in London, it spins over into Western Europe, goes into Southern Europe, goes into the Balkans and finally goes over to St. Petersburg and plays into the whole circle in St. Petersburg. I tell you all these things because you must know that so much of what is happening is produced by causes that you know nothing about.

Our Society has a special task of freeing itself from the influence of these Western European brotherhoods. For example, remember how I was attacked in 1909, how I was accused of wanting to become president of the whole Theosophical Society, of wanting to go to India in order to influence certain political activities. On the one side you have the Berlin-Bagdad Railway and an the other side Anthroposophy. I was trying to work for the Pan-Germanic tendency, to separate India from England. In 1909 in Budapest, Mrs. Besant's intentions was to make Krishna Murti the carrier of the Christ and I would be the reincarnated St. John, the Evangelist in order to get my recognition. Actually I would not go along with that sort of thing. There were many other Theosophists against all this, in fact the International Society of Honest People was formed, really noble people and among them was Keightley who was used earlier by Mrs. Besant to correct the mistakes in her books. This International Society asked me to become its president. And in 1909 I told Mrs Besant that I did not want to connect myself with any other occult movements, only that which works with German culture within Europe. At that time I asked her what she thought about the mighty German occultism which appeared at the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th century in connection with German culture. And this is what she said: “Ah, that which appeared in Germany was an unsuccessful attempt in occultism that took other forms, and because that failed England must now take the situation in hand and occultism must be brought to Europe from England.” Now you can see how the situation stands. I tell you all these things as students of esoteric wisdom, you have to know these things.

Today I would like to pass over to the occult side of the lecture which I gave eight days ago. In the first place, we have seen that certain occult streams are significant for human life, these occult streams which bring themselves to expression in certain occult brotherhoods. You will have seen from the more externally presented ideas of the last lectures that in a quite special coloring in West Europe, particularly in the British lands, such occult brotherhoods are used in order to achieve certain external goals.

That which is designated by the name occult brotherhoods is a very complicated situation. However, this complicated situation builds itself on a foundation which educates human beings in a certain direction through the fact that it unites them in a kind of cult and certain symbols are given over to them and in this way they are united, as it were, in a service which comes to expression in certain symbols. Many people today think in a very light-hearted manner about the significance of the ceremonies and symbolic matters which are connected with certain occult brotherhoods, and they tend to dismiss them as a laughing matter. However, some people, for example Goethe, attached a great deal of importance to the fact that something of a definite nature exists in such ceremonial situations. Goethe knew this very well and he brought it to expression in one way or another. He was grateful that in the course of his life he did not go through a normal school system, but achieved a later education through being connected with certain orders.

We know that since the beginning of the 15th century we lived in the 5th-post-Alantean period and this was preceded by the 4th which started in 747 B.C. and ended in 1413 A.D. In this period people were so configured that their ether body was much more receptive than it is in the time since the 15th-century. This ether body could perceive much more of that which was around it. When the ether body perceives, then it sees the elementary world, that which is of an elemental nature, elemental beings in plants, animals and minerals. When people in those centuries were still able to speak of cobbies and gnomes which they could perceive in certain mountains and which approached them from certain mines, today's people, when they hear about it call this situation just poetical. However, to the people in these centuries, this is not poetical; they still knew something about the presence of an elementary world behind the physical world. You can see from external documents that people in past ages did possess a different sort of perception. In the Hamburg Museum, for example, you can find a certain picture which presents the original first chapter of Genesis in which you have the Fall into Sin, the Expulsion from the Garden of Eden.

We know from our studies that the tempter was Lucifer and Lucifer is not a being who can be seen with present day physical eyes, but must be seen with the awakened etheric body, with the awakened clairvoyance, and then he manifests himself as that particular being who was left behind during the Moon Evolution. We already had our physical body during the Moon evolution, but it was not physically visible but etherically visible. In reference to this, present day man is a reflection of that which was already present as head upon the moon, but the rest of the human body was not attached to the head as it is today but was attached in the form of a spinal column coming from the head and presented as serpent-like form. If one wants to represent Lucifer as he is left behind from the Moon development, one has to represent him with a human head and with a spinal column attached to it, namely, in the serpent form. This is exactly how the painter, Master Bertram, represented Lucifer in his Hamburg picture in the 13th, 14th century. We can see that at that time human beings still had a perception of the elementary world.

Those symbols which form the foundation for certain occult brotherhoods also arose in the 4th post-Atlantean period. At that time these symbols were perceived in a living way. Goethe realized that this type of symbolism could be made fruitful for external life. In his book Wilhelm Meister you can read how the education was so led that the human being grew up in a certain type of symbolism. Goethe wanted people to learn about the four reverences which human beings should experience through symbols: the reverence for the spiritual world, the reverence for the physical world, the reverence for other people and the reverence which can then be built up out of these three reverences, namely the reverence for oneself.

Now, the question is: How does Goethe want to develop people for the reverence of the spiritual? He wants to teach them certain gestures: crossed arms over the breast with the gaze turned upwards. In this position they should acquire a reverence for that which can have an influence upon human beings from the spiritual. He intended to combine this gesture with the acquisition of the feeling for reverence for that which is above. Now the question arises: why does this have a certain significance? That has a certain significance because when the human being really experiences the reverence of the spirit, which he receives; and when he, himself, puts his physical hands together behind his back, then the ether hands cross themselves in the front. And when he directs his physical glance downwards, then his ether eyes turned upwards. The natural gesture for the ether eyes is turned upwards and for the ether hands, crossed in front. And this is something which the ether body actually carries out when this reverence for the spiritual is present.

In the 4th post-Atlantean period, people knew about this because they were themselves able to perceive the movements of the ether body; and as far as Goethe was concerned, this was the way of growing into the spiritual life. In a similar way, when he wanted to have reverence for the bodily aspect, the earthly aspect, there was another position; and again for the third aspect if he wanted to have reverence for other people, then the gesture was: outstretched hands and the gaze directed left and right and this would bring to expression reverence for every similar configurated soul; after that he could acquire for himself reverence for his own soul. Now, this direct knowledge of these gestures is correct. It is not just something arbitrary, but is something connected with the spiritual organization of man. This has, in the main, been lost since the 14th century.

What follows from that? Previously, before the 14th century, one could lead these people to gestures of that nature and also more complicated gestures. They would only need to accompany that with something which they could easily awaken to an inner life. After that, in our 5th post-Atlantean period, the situation is such that gestures as Goethe wanted to present can be brought to young people if you give them the corresponding instructions and Goethe also wanted this. However, the complicated gesture language which is involved in sign, grip and word is spread out within the secret brotherhoods, and the realities in them could not be brought to people since the 14th and 15th century; that could no longer happen. However, this process which belonged to the 4th period continued into the 5th post-Atlantean period through the brotherhoods. In the three subsequent grades, they have come among other symbolical things, the grip and word however this continued among souls who were differently invigorated from those souls in the earlier periods. These people could no longer combine anything real with the sign, grip and word, because they could not bring to themselves that which was corresponding in the ether body. It was merely an external aspect as far as the soul was concerned. Previously in the age of the Intellectual Soul, there was a possibility of it having a real substantial content, but when man began to develop the Consciousness Soul, he began to focus upon the physical brain intellect and the sensitivity of the ether body receded.

Now, the question is: What occurred? I ask you to pay attention to what results from this You find that the occult brotherhoods continue these practices into the 5th post-Atlantean period. They take in people and familiarize them with certain corresponding symbols. These people learn certain signs through the fact that they bring their body into a certain position; they learn certain grips by taking hold of someone else's hand in a way that is not the usual way; they learn to express certain words which signify a certain activity of the ether body, etc. I only want to mention the elementary aspects. Thus people have learned sign, grip and word since the 15th, 16th century, but they are so configurated now that their Consciousness Soul is the active aspect and the sign, grip and word do not work into this Consciousness Soul; it remains as an entirely external sign. However, you must not believe that when sign, grip and word are transmitted to people, that they do not have an action upon the ether body. They do have an action. With sign, grip and word, a man does take up that which was once united with sign, grip and word. You instruct a number of people in sign, grip and word and through that you bring something into their unconscious which they cannot have in their consciousness, but this is not appropriate for our present stage of evolution which requires that one imparts that which can be understood by the intellect through the intellect to human beings. First you must bring it to the intellect and this actually is the content of spiritual science. In the 1st place you must stand within the spiritual scientific movement some way and then after certain time has elapsed after being in the spiritual scientific movement, then you can be led to receive sign, grip and word. Then one is prepared to see something which one knows about, something which one can at least understand. However, as a general rule, this is not done in these occult brotherhoods. People are taken up in the first grade or any other occultism and sign, grip and word and many other things are transmitted to them. In that way one is able to work upon their unconsciousness. Now what is the consequence of that?

The consequences that you can adapt these people to become tools for all sorts of plans, because when you are able to work over the ether body in such a way that be does not understand what is going on, you eliminate those forces which would otherwise be present his understanding. In the case of these brotherhoods can become a tool for those who want to execute their own plans. Those brotherhoods continue to further certain political goals or to set up a dogma such as Krishna Murti Alcione being the physical carrier of Christ Jesus. And those who are prepared in this way become instruments to carry this out into the world. However, those who have been able to study my book Theosophy or Occult Science and are able to grasp it, can never be damaged through any transmission of symbols. We see that in a very extensive way in the British lands there is no sort of explanation given or instruction which proceeds the symbolic aspect. When I say explanation it does not mean saying: ‘this symbol indicates this and that symbol indicates that’, because you can give all sorts of nonsense in that way. But this instruction must be so arranged that the mysteries can be revealed from the study of the whole process of earth and human development, and then one can permit the symbolism to arise out of that.

A great deal of damage has occurred in France through the occult literature of Eliphas Levi, whose books Dogma and Ritual of the Higher Magic and Key to the Higher Magic surely contained great truths beside terrible errors. However, these books are so arranged as can be done with our spiritual science, but they have to be taken up in a symbolic way. Just read Eliphas Levi. Now you can read them without danger because you have been specially prepared. You can read his book Dogma and Ritual of the Higher Magic and then you will be able to see how the whole methodology of symbolism is entirely different. Indeed, my dear friends, when one is instructed in symbols in a way that is found in this book, then you have prepared people so that you can use them in any way you see fit. Actually after Eliphas Levi, the situation became much worse through Dr. Onkaus, through Papus, who had such a terrible influence on the Court of St. Petersburg where he played a very fateful political role. Now, the situation is not to refute Papus—this may seem paradoxical because there are terrible things there—because you have a great deal that is also correct. However, the terrible danger lies in the way in which this is given to people. That which you find in Papus' books penetrate into the soul of weak people and that means preparing them to become complete sleepers in their intellect and then you can use them in whatever way you wish. At the present time, such people have a certain influence.

The teaching of Jacob Boehme, of which we have often spoken, was implanted in France in the 18th century by St. Martin, who is called the Unknown Philosopher. St. Martin translated Jacob Boehme's works into French and this was then translated back into German in a way which made his works much easier to understand than they were in the original German. St. Martin's book Errors and Truth was very beautifully translated by a very worthy German poet, Matthias Claudius. So you see that one can experience much of a curious nature in this field. Actually I have to mention the frivolous grasping of Christ in connection with the book entitled The Feet of the Master which Krishna Murti was supposed to have written, and how they thought that that was one of the greatest things that was ever presented. So you see that all sorts of things happen, this hypocritical deceit, the spreading of that spiritual stream which goes out from Papus and those people who call themselves Martinists. Actually one would like to protect the Unknown Philosopher who really strove very honestly after truth all that he tried to do which was necessary the service of the 18th century. All that is entirely different from the terrible nonsense and deceit which the followers of Papus are using when they take his name in vain just to further their ends. He was alright, but these people are terrible people, full of deceit, doing all sorts of things in the service of that which they themselves did not even know.

There are many things we have to know. We have to know that every occult brotherhood builds itself up on the basis of three grades. In the first grade when symbolism is used in the correct way, the souls advance so far that they acquire an inner experience of the fact that there is a knowledge which can be acquired independently of ordinary physical knowledge. Now, in the 1st place, when I say: correctly presented, I obviously mean that which is appropriate for our fifth post-Atlantean period. And in the first grade you must be able to acquire a certain totality of such knowledge independent of the physical. In our fifth period, everyone in the first grade ought to know something of that which exists my book Occult Science, and in the second grade everyone must know, that means, they must have an inner living knowledge of that which stands in my book How Does One Acquire Knowledge of the Higher Worlds. Then the person in the third grade who receives the significant symbols of sign, grip and word really knows what it means to live outside his body. This is the whole procedure which should be carried out. This actually was achieved right into the 8th and 9th centuries in certain areas in Europe. For example, this was completely reached by a large number of individuals in Ireland. This is also true in other areas of Europe, but not to the extent that it happened in Ireland. However, the preparation was different at that time because it was impossible to acquire what people today can acquire as a real science of the spirit. The science of the spirit can only appear to us now for many reasons, however, there always has been occult brotherhoods, and they work particularly out of pure symbolism.

Now, I would like to point out that it is especially significant when pure symbolism is worked in a community which in fact has not arrived at its complete maturity; and that is how these terrible evil conditions occur. Under the Empress Catherine of Russia something was received from Voltairism by the followers of Paul and others in Russia who attempted to implant certain secret brotherhoods into Russia from the West. That has had a great influence upon the whole spiritual development of Russia since that time; a much greater influence than you would believe. Naturally such influences group themselves in various directions. For example, these influences work in literature through novels and politics through political writings. However, those influences become very significant for the subsequent development through certain channels which are always present. And everything which is significant in the spiritual life of Russia right up to Tolstoy leads, in the main, back to that which occurred in the time of which I just spoke, to the implanting of certain occult brotherhoods towards Russia from Western Europe.

Now, I have told you that a certain foundation is present, the foundation is that which the occult brotherhoods accomplished through these three grades. However, there are people who advanced to the so-called higher grades. Here we have a domain which is subject to a great deal of vanity, because there are brotherhoods in which people can be brought to the 90th degree or higher. Just imagine what it means to carry such a high order in yourself. The idea of the 33rd degree, however, results from a mistake springing from complete ignorance in a so-called Scottish high grades which are based upon three grades which follow in the way in which I just described. Thus you have the three grades which have their deep significance. However 30 others follow after these three grades. If you are already in the third grade and you are able to achieve the experience of living outside your body, then just imagine where you would have advanced when you are able to go through 30 more grades. This rests, however, upon a grotesque ignorance, because they do not know that in occult science things are not read in the decimal system, but in the following way. When you write the 33rd degree, in reality that signifies, according to the system of memory which is applicable there, that 33 really means 3x3=9. This played a great role with Blavatsky. In her Secret Doctrine you will find a long debate about the number 777. There are people who have fantasized all sorts of things about what this number 777 means. However, it actually is 7x7=49, 49x7=343, 7x7x7=343. That is what it really means. Because the people could not read 33 correctly, they read it as 33 instead of reading it as 9.

Now, let us forget all these vanities and continue. First you have the three grades as a foundation. Then there are six more degrees which follow after the first three degrees. And, when you pass through these six additional degrees, then you have experienced something of great significance. However, in our present age, these additional six degrees cannot be completely fulfilled; it is a pure impossibility. They cannot be completely fulfilled because human beings in our 5th post-Atlantean period are not advanced enough to experience all that can actually be experienced; that will come later, that will come gradually. You must know that since the year 1413 we stand in the 5th post-Atlantean period. This will last 2160 years and will be ended in the year 3573. Hence we really stand in the beginning of our period and in the course of this 5th period a great deal will happen. This must occur through the development of spiritual science. This, however, can only reveal itself gradually step by step. Today we can impart only the great lines of it and we can also learn many details about it, but a great deal will only come when it has strengthened itself on the resistances; and these resistances will become greater and greater.

Today we live in a relatively idealistic spiritual age compared with that which will come in the future. We are living at the end of the 2nd post-Christian Millennium and it will not be long until we reach the year 2,000 and then mankind will have to experience something of a special nature. Things which are preparing themselves very gradually right now are so prepared that there are two polarities which we are going to meet as time goes on. Two polarities are being prepared, one pole from the East and another from the West. In the East things will gradually develop in such a way that another kind of thinking will dominate. Whenever a child is born, one will attempt to say: “What comes of this child? We have to deal with a hidden spiritual being who wants gradually to develop this child.” You will want to solve the riddle of this child, and in the first place you will unite a kind of cult dealing with the growing up of this child. This sort of thing prepares itself in the East. Naturally it will pass over towards Europe and the consequence will be that an immense reverence will develop for that which one calls genius, a seeking for genius. This is what will come from the East. However this will affect only the smaller portion of mankind. The larger part of mankind will be influenced from America, from the West, and this proceeds along an entirely different line of development.

We might say that the present time is doing very well compared with that which will come in the future when the Western development blossoms more and more. Very shortly, when one will have written the year 2000, there will come from America not a direct prohibition, but a kind of prohibition against all thinking, a sort of law which will have the aim of suppressing all individual thinking. On the other hand there is the beginning achieved in this direction of suppressing all individual thinking into pure materialistic thinking where one does not need to work upon the soul on the basis of external experiments, in which the human being is handled as if he were a machine. Now, I hope you will not misunderstand me, my dear friends, because in this domain a great deal is precisely sinned against on the so-called spiritual side. For example, you can experience the following: People will come and say: “Yes, I have been exposed to all sorts of things in medicine and I was not healed; so I went to a healer who treated me quite spiritually.” Then I asked him what the healer did with him and he answered: “There are evil spirits in my body and I must pray them out of myself.” I asked if this helped. “No, I became worse and worse.” I ask you to just imagine how the situation stands. Do not just imagine that this person has said something incorrect. It is quite correct that there were spiritual beings in him that were the cause of what happened to him. But precisely because that healer told him something correct, this damaged the human being.

Now, just think of it in this way. A scamp destroys a machine. He is the cause of the machine no longer running. How can I bring this machine back into proper working order? According to the method of your spiritual healer, I must get hold of this scamp and give him a thorough thrashing so that he will run away and then everything should be in order. Obviously the spiritual healer told you that as soon as the evil spirits have gone away your machine is in order. However, just as little as the machine is now in order because the scamp was thrashed and has run away, so now I must work putting machine back order. And so it is with the person who was sick. Of course, this spiritual healer was able to drive the evil spirits out, but the damage had been done and now you must heal the body. You can see that so much has been sinned against from this other side, because today people have lost the ability to think. For example we have machines today which add and subtract; everything is convenient. Now, in the Future you will not get a law passed which says you must not think. No. What will happen is that things will be done the effect of which will be to exclude all individual thinking. This is the other pole to which we are proceeding. This is connected with the development of the West.

You have to develop a certain counter weight against this tendency in the world development; and Anthroposophical Spiritual Science is this counter-weight. What do we have instead? We have these brotherhoods in which these people take up in the first grade and were given symbols. Then they were promoted to the second grade, then into the third where they actually learn the symbolic without any spiritual science being taken up by them. And if you were to ask these people if they are satisfied that they have learned certain ceremonies, hand grips, certain signs and that certain symbolic activities occur in the temple room; they will say: “Ah, we are very happy with that. We do not need to do any more thinking; each person can interpret it for himself in the way he wants.” However, the situation is that we ask by real knowledge into the ether body and people are produced in such a way that in their ether body they have a comprehensive knowledge, not in their physical body, not in their conscious knowledge but in their ether body. They have an immense knowledge particularly when I have been brought to the third degree; they have an immense unconscious knowledge, a knowledge which has been transmitted to them through symbols can be applied honestly or dishonestly in a significant way.

You really have two occult directions, one pole carries the cosmic Christian character, the other carries the Church Christian character. Just as with the Freemasons you have to reckon with the cosmic Christian character of the symbolic brotherhoods, so with the Jesuits you have to reckon with the Church symbolic branch, because the Jesuits are led through three grades with a certain symbolism and learn to acquire precisely through this symbolism a great effect in their speech. Hence the Jesuit speakers are so very effective because they know how to build a speech up in such a way that one can work upon the uneducated masses. They gradually learn to insert certain intensities one after another into their presentation. These people go through their three grades in their own way.

Now, all occult brotherhoods are not Freemasons. There are all sorts of varieties such as the Illuminatum in Germany, and in addition to the three lower grades, you have the three upper grades. In certain brotherhoods you have members who are in the upper grades forming a sort of communion with members in the upper grades of other brotherhoods. You know that the Jesuits battle against the Freemasons and vise versa. However, the upper orders of the Freemasons and the upper orders of the Jesuits build a special brotherhood; they build a state within a state. Just imagine what you can work in the world where on the one side you have the upper grades of a Freemason community which serves as an Instrument in order to produce certain work, setting up an understanding with the upper grades of a certain Jesuit community and and then working together in order to produce certain objectives. Such an apparatus was set up in the land which exists Northwest of Europe between Holland and France. This did not happen recently but some time ago special effects went out which used the one stream as well as the other, and was able to produce a great deal of effectiveness.

Now it is getting late so I will end this lecture by saying that in eight days I will give you still more concrete ideas about this field. Today I had to keep the abstract sides of the situation mind. We had to know all about this in order to perceive what is really working in this realm of the external world.

The occult brotherhoods do possess the ancient tradition, but they are not aware of what the spiritual world is trying to reveal to us in our age. There is a universal formula which rules a large number of these brotherhoods. They speak of the creative power which pulses and permeates the cosmos. When they want, in their sense, to direct themselves to these creative powers, namely, to the divine spiritual which pulsates and permeates the cosmos, then they speak about the Grand Architect of the World. This is a very often used formulation: The Elevated Grand Architect of the world.

For those who can understand the development of mankind from spiritual science, it proves the fact that in truth such brotherhoods go far, far back. These brotherhoods, to be sure, had other forms in more ancient times, but, nevertheless, they go far back in an unbroken sequence to the ancient communities which existed with the Greeks and Romans in the 4th post-Atlantean cultural epoch and we can also go back still farther to the ancient Egyptian times, and our present brotherhoods come from these ancient communities. But as we mentioned earlier, they do not stand in a direct connection with the spiritual world as did the earlier communities, but they preserved that which they had as knowledge more as traditional knowledge.

Now, you already find the concept of the primal revelation in the writings of individually illuminated, theological researchers or researchers of ancient times. What do these people mean by primal revelation? This concept of the primal revelation can become clear when you attempt to become familiar with the ancient religious writings. All you need to do is go back to the writings of Gautama Buddha you will see that what is said there is said upon the basis of the great knowledge; however, as far as he was concerned, it was transmitted by tradition which goes back into distant ancient times built up on a primal knowledge. Thus we are led back to a primal knowledge going back through the earliest centuries to that which was known by people, but which for our particular time is considered to be distorted nonsense by those modern intellectuals when they try to read Jacob Boehme, or Paracelsus. Then you come to the time when people did all sorts of alchemistic experiment and then you go farther and farther back and when an unprejudiced person goes back through the Romans, the Greeks and the Egyptians, he comes to a humanity which once had a knowledge which was spread out over the world in a way in which present day man, however, cannot acquire. Now, it is very difficult for present day man to obtain an idea of this particular situation, because when he tries to transplant himself into these ancient times, all he can think of is that man is a type of ape man. However, in spite of all these theories about the ape man, the unprejudiced person must admit that there must have originally been a knowledge which mankind with his present cleverness cannot reach, a knowledge which is infinitely deep and which stretched itself out over the spiritual worlds in such a superior way that in it is contained not only a consciousness of the fact that man can rise up into the spiritual worlds, but that man can find other beings in these spiritual worlds who are not incarnated in fleshy bodies, beings which we call Angels, Archangels and so on. So, we can find in these ancient religious writings that the people knew of these higher beings and they speak of them as beings with whom they were able to interact. As I said, the writings themselves prove this.

What actually is at the basis of this fact? From a certain stage of initiation, one can come directly behind this mystery. We know that the world around us is not only spread out in the way today's sense knowledge speaks of it, but there is a so-called elementary world at the basis of this nature, world which, if we go back into ancient mythologies we find descriptions of these elemental beings. These elemental beings that lie at the base of the mineral kingdom are called gnomes, those at the base of the water plant kingdom are known as undines, those aeroform elementals as sylphs and the warmth elementals as salamanders. These beings which we just described have their special task in the world; they have a great deal to do. External materialistic science says that everything makes itself of itself, but this is not true. Things do not make themselves of themselves. The person whose eyes are open to the elementary world sees how these elementals actually go through a kind of cycle of the year, how there are beings working down from the spiritual world upon these elementals, they work differently in spring, differently in summer, differently in autumn and differently in winter. This means that we have an elementary kingdom spread out around us which lies at the basis of the nature kingdom and there streams down, one cannot say an instruction, but one can say that forces pour down in order that these elementary beings can receive the power in the spring in order to form the plant covering for the earth. The forces of certain spiritual beings are carried down which impart themselves to these elementary beings so that a new world of form can sprout forth in the spring. And as summer approaches, they receive, as it were, a later course of instruction, forces are poured down upon them so that they can effect that which has to come about in summer. An interworking between the spirits of the higher hierarchies and the elementary beings who weave and live in the nature which surrounds us performs itself in the cycle of the year. This means we are continuously concerned with an up and down pouring, with an up and down streaming of spiritual beings of the hierarchies whose students are the elementary beings who provide the enlivening forces for all that which has to sprout and germinate in the course of the year. All that which arises and fades away in the course of the year, that does not simply grow out of the earth, but stands in a direct interworking with the divine spiritual. And it was said that that which germinates and sprouts in the course of the year stands in direct interworking with the beings who permit their forces to stream up and down and they pour these forces into the elementary world. But, my dear friends just as today sylphs, gnomes, undines and salamanders receive their influence from the beings of the hierarchies who stream up and down according to the course of the year, so when man did not have such a solid physical body in those ancient times, he received instructions from the higher hierarchies who streamed up and down. All the sagas and myths that remain tell us that in ancient times man received such instruction from beings who themselves had descended out of the spiritual worlds. These myths absolutely rest upon a truth. Man found himself with those spirits among whom the gnomes, sylphs, undines, and salamanders exist today, and whereas these elementary beings receive those forces through which they are able to effect the forms which sprout out of the Earth during the course of the year, so man in ancient times received his instructions from hierarchies who streamed up and down. And that which he received in ancient time remains as a residue in writings which have still been preserved and from which an unprejudiced person can prove—as we said—that once upon a time such a primal revelation did exist. Thus we see that such a primal revelation really did exist and in those periods which preceded the eighth century B.C. you have the last residue flowing down to mankind from this primal revelation. Actually we can put the year 747 B.C. as the year which mankind, a result of the further development of his physical nature, was excluded from a direct participation in such instruction. Naturally such an exclusion occurs very gradually, step by step. All that which was contained in ancient science flowed down in this way as a direct knowledge from the spiritual worlds into mankind and has been transmitted by tradition, but is no longer understood today.

Let us focus our attention upon the last science which came to the human being in this way. The question is: What did man experience from such a primal revelation that had flowed down in the course of the time from the earliest periods an into ancient Atlantis? He experienced the connection in which he himself as a human being stood within the spiritual worlds since he is a microcosm and all the processes and forces in the microcosm which otherwise occur in the great macrocosmic world play in him. And the last thing which man learned in this way, the last thing which flowed to him from the external is geometry and mathematics. That person who today allows geometry and mathematics to work upon him in a true sense, will still be able to perceive the fact that a different kind of knowledge comes to him in geometry and mathematics, a different kind of knowledge from the other knowledge which he gathers from experience. There is something within geometry and mathematics which one can perceive apart from external experience. No man can prove that the three angles of the triangle are 180° by merely drawing a triangle in a sense sort of way. He can arrive at the fact, but proving it can only be done as a result of an inner experience of thinking. Man does not need to use his fingers to prove to himself that 3x3=9; all he need do is ideate it to himself and in an inward way he will come to the truth that 3x3=9.

But what comes to expression in the forms of architecture is obtained from a much wider basis. That which is at the basis of geometry and mathematics goes back to a much more ancient knowledge than that which is at the basis of architecture art. In the Graeco-Latin times, that which was ancient knowledge in the mysteries was mediated to the human being by one saying the following to him: ‘When you really deepen yourself, then you bring out of yourself that which was revealed to you by the spirits of the higher hierarchies earlier lives on Earth.’ In the Egyptian Mysteries you did not have to do that. The higher beings themselves still came down. Now in the Greco-Latin period the master assembled his students and said the following: “You were there in earlier incarnations and you went through human development in which the spirits of the higher hierarchies took part. This has established itself in your souls. Bring it up.” Thus Masters of the Greco-Latin mysteries were still able in this way to fetch up that which was established in the human soul. Everything is to be found in the human soul, because everything streamed down through spiritual beings into the human beings from the primal revelation. What we once upon a time experienced in instructions from the hierarchies we really bring out of ourselves.

Now came the year 1413 and man can no longer become conscious of what the earlier spiritual instruction was because it has been covered over in his soul by the materialistic age. Since 1413 the soul unites itself thickly with the body and that is able to act as a covering for that which exists within our souls. However, in the whole period from 747 B.C. to 1413 A.D. it was possible to bring up out of the soul that which in earlier times streamed in in the way I indicated. Just imagine how a person, particularly in the ancient Greek Age, actually had to perceive. Precisely in the ancient Greek Age he perceived as I have indicated. he said to himself: “Geometry as it is brought to expression in the form of architecture, flowed down earlier through divine spiritual instruction from the external would.” Man was hemmed in by forms. Now when man wants to draw a triangle, he takes a piece of chalk and draws it, but the ancient Greek did not have to do that. All he needed to do was to meditate upon himself and at the same time he could, as it were, clairvoyantly see the triangle for himself. Thus he was still able to diagram geometry for himself in a clairvoyant way. It was also so with writing in primal ages, but this applies to a still earlier period. There one did not need to write upon papyrus, but one was able to write clairvoyantly for oneself; you wrote for yourself clairvoyantly. At a certain time in the Greek Mysteries, man was told the following: you are able to have thoughts about yourself and meditate clearly upon yourself, you can then recall what lives in you. You can recall the divine being which lives in you when you do not just focus on the transient earth human being but recall the divine being in you, then you would be able to build up an architectural structure around you which is put together from the forms of geometry. You are within all of that. Just as the spider who spins her web is within it, thus such a student of the Greek Mysteries etherically spun geometry around himself, whole geometry and the other human knowledge is presented in itself in this geometrical structure which he spun out of himself. All he needed to do was establish it outside of himself and then he had the Greek Temple. The Greek Temple is nothing other than the filling in with physical material that which presented itself in this way clairvoyantly in geometrical forms around the human being. The Greek Temple only put the stones into that which appeared before the Greek. Hence the Greek always had the tendency to present a figure of the god in the Temple which he actually had to think of to himself as his own divine hunan being. He did not simply build a temple, but he also put in a divine god such as Pallas Athene.

Thus from all this you can see the connection of architecture, the building of the temple with the original clairvoyance. That person felt something in architecture of a divine nature in these times, something which is connected in the highest degree with all the inner revelations of the human being. They felt that one did not build in the way people build today where you learn all sorts of things at the university, but at that time man could perceive the architectural structure as the revelation of the Spirits of Form. For this reason, we can see the rather special way in which Vitruvius, the great architect of the time of Augustus, speaks of the architect, of the moral qualities which the architect must have, of recollecting the divine spiritual of the universe. And why was it necessary that according to Vetruvius' perception, the architect had to know all this? They saw the manifestations of the beings of the higher hierarchies in the forms of the buildings and this is of great significance. It is true that today's architect would make a face if you demanded that he also learn medicine, philosophy, astronomy, etc., besides his studies at the technical university; in other words, he would be a spiritual scientist of sorts.

Now, why was this so? It was so because Vetruvius, himself, was still able to perceive the following: “When I build” he said to himself “this finite human being is not allowed to build, but this finite human being must be a channel so that a being, of the higher hierarchies can work through him.” However, this possibility of coming into connection with the higher hierarchies so that when one puts stone upon stone in the building, not what finite man creates but what the spirits of the hierarchies create, this possibility was received only in the secret places of the mysteries. One had to be initiated into the connection of the divine spiritual with the human. One had to know medicine, because one had to so adapt the forms so that they could actually be an imprint of the human being himself. Note how in a similar way the shell of the snail is an imprint of the snail himself, how the macrocosm injects the forces into the snail enabling the snail to build the shell out of its own beingness. In a similar way man felt the working of the divine spiritual beings in him; a divine spiritual being led his hand, his own spirit and worked into the forms of architecture.

Now, because the forms of the architecture were the last which were revealed, all those spiritual brotherhoods of which I spoke last time, speak of the real architecture and of the soul mood which real architecture must have. Above all, there live in these occult brotherhoods, even if it is in caricature, that which entered from the spiritual world in the way just described. The person who enters the first grade enters into the spiritual world upon this path. He is presented in these occult communities in the second grade and is made familiar not with those external social relationships but with those relationships which pass from one human soul to another. He becomes a brother member in the second grade and finally he learns to feel in himself what it means to say: ‘Here I stand as a human being and I, as a man, feel that I am a sheath of that which lives in me as spirit man to whom beings of the higher hierarchies can speak, down to whom they can descend; that I can speak no word that is not inspired by these spirits of the higher hierarchies.’ Even if only a small consciousness of this is present in those who are in the third grade of such occult brotherhoods, nevertheless they still call themselves masters of the third grade. But because revelations do not occur any longer, because today things do not work so intensively, because today there is no longer a direct connection with the spiritual world, one has to take hold of the traditions of that which was handed down, then one spreads a mystery over it and does not allow it to be imparted to any one else. However, this primal knowledge was continued in such communities from generation to generation, from century to century and sometimes it was utilized in a very bad way as I indicated last time.

I have already indicated that during the whole time from the year 747 B.C. to 1413 A.D. there was a certain connection with the spiritual world. One could at least enliven it out of one's inner being in these years, one could at least enliven it out of memory. That ended in the 14th century. However, beyond the 14th century certain sensitive people did feel that the spirit still plays in, that if, for example, you want to understand the 15th, 16th, 17th century, you must get an idea that those were still times in which the breath of spiritual life still streamed over the earth. However, this gradually disappeared. In the time from the 14th, 15th, 16th, even from the 17th century, there were sensitive natures who knew: The spirit weaves and lives around us.

Now, I want to bring a fact to your attention. The present historian speaks about the time of Savonarola in the 15th century, for example, in such a way that he speaks of Florence as he does of a city today, because he cannot transplant himself into the soul mood of that time, into that mood where one could still experience something of the spiritual. Why was it that at that time in a certain week in Florence every person who you met on the street looked so very sad and walked with his head bent down and his eyes dimmed? This was because Savanarola had given a sermon on the previous Sunday and he had said: “If the moral aspect continues as it is, then the flood will break in.” And he ended it with the words: “I tell you, waters will flow over the earth.” When he spoke these words, they were enlivened with spirit. The spirit streamed out, and for a whole week the people of Florence dwelled under this spiritual influence. It was very sad.

One of the contemporaries of Savanarola was Pico della Mirandola, Count Mirandola, who lived at the end of the 15th century and also experienced the soul mood which lived in Florence. Pico della Mirandola was one of those spirits who belonged to the sensitive spirits and in that year which passes over from the 4th to the 5th period he felt how the spirit was disappearing from the environment and at the same time he received an inner yearning to feel the spirit. There were a number of people in Florence at that time who experienced this in the same way. They felt that the spirit disappears for the normal person, but they must try to receive it into themselves and these Renaissance men called themselves the Neo-Platonists. In the Academy of Florence, there was a reliving of Plato. I wanted to characterize this for you so that you can understand that there was a sudden transition from the 14th to the 15th century in the soul mood in reference to how these men connected themselves with the spiritual world. When you go back into those times, you can see that people yearned to receive impressions of the spiritual world, but these people were single people all over the world and they had to do special ascetic exercises so that they could receive something of the spiritual in a sort of caricature way. You know that modern science says that nature makes no jumps, but that is not true, it does jump everywhere. When the leaf transforms itself into the blossom, that is a jump. So we see that there was a sudden spring from the 14th to the 15th century and this feeling died away.

Our task is to appeal to those forces which we have as a replacement for the ancient way of grasping the spiritual. There are two ways of doing this. One way is to continue to propagate tradition and many secret societies arose from being satisfied with the propagation of what the ancient said through tradition. However, there were people who attempted to reckon with the new soul forces which came in as replacements for it. They attempted to translate that which came in from the ancient way in the form of pictures, of direct perception into the form of intellectual power, this intellect which is bound to the physical body of our 5th post-Atlantean period. One of the people who tried to do this was Amos Comenius.

Very few people today know that Amos Comenius was the actual founder of the modern pedagogy and that he founded the primer in the 16th, 17th century. A book by Friedrich Eckstein entitled Comenius and the Bohemian Brothers was recently published. Friedrich Eckstein is one of those people who was united with me in a small theosophical group in Vienna at the end of the 1880's. Then he went his own way and I had not heard of him until this book about Amos Comenius appeared. These 150 wood cuts from the original edition are given with German and Latin texts. Here you have wood cuts beginning with God, the world, heaven, the elementals, the elements, plants, fruits, animals, the human body and its members, etc., all of which was put in such a way as to appeal to the heart. This sort of presentation still appeals very much to people. Herder and Goethe loved all this in their childhood. The whole way of writing children's books rests upon Amos Comenius. He was connected with many secret brotherhoods all over Europe and he wanted to establish what he called his “Pan Sophia”. In the beginning of our period, in the 16th, 17th century, we have in Amos Comenius a human being who knew that now is the time for a sudden change, that one must transmute all the knowledge from earlier times into the form of external intellect. You do not simply continue it in the form of the ancient tradition. This tradition rests upon that which was the Temple architecture. Amos Comenius had as his task translating in his “Pan Sophia” everything which worked in the 5th post-Atlantean period and he says the following: “Why should the Temple of Pan Sophia be erected according to the ideas, directions and laws of the higher architect Himself? Because we have to follow the primal picture of the totality; measure, number, position and the goal of the paths according to the wisdom of God, Himself, when, indeed, He instructed Moses to erect the Tabernacle, then Solomon to erect the Temple and finally Ezekial to reestablish the Temple. The structure materials of Solomon's Temple were very precious stones, metals, marble and sappy, good smelling trees like spruce and cedar.” And so we want to establish a school of wisdom, a universal wisdom, a “Pan Sophia” wisdom so that one can say that that which is in Goethe's Wilhelm Meister, which was represented in the Wander Years, is a continuation of what Amos Comenius wanted.

In conclusion I want to add some more things. A book has recently been written by Karl Ludwig Sleiss entirely out of natural science. I just want to read something of it to you. (Summary of what was read) He talks about a hysterical young woman sitting on a sofa in a room where an electrical ventilator was running. She became hysterical and said: “Oh, there is a bee that wants to sting me.” She had heard the buzzing of the ventilator. Low and behold, she did produce an inflammation of the eyelid which was quite large. Here is another case where Sleiss talks about a well-known business man who approached him and asked him to cut off his arm because he felt that it was poisoned. Sleiss said that the arm was not poisoned. The man went away and the next day he died. Sleiss said that there was no inflection at all and his diagnosis was death by hysteria. What he wanted to say is that you cannot only cause an inflammation of the eyelid through thought, but you can also kill yourself through thought. What this modern scientist is saying is that thought can incarnate itself, that thought can make itself flesh. However, in the second case of the businessman who wanted his arm cut off because it was poisoned, this was a case of mediumistic clairvoyance where he knew he was going to die. Now, what happened in the case of the hysterical woman who had a swollen eyelid was that the thought that she imagined there was a bee from the sound of the ventilator became imagination and then descended into the astral body, it then came through the ether body and incarnated in the physical body.

In this same book in a chapter entitled “The Myth of Metabolism in the Brain”, Sleiss says that Goethe must have been some sort of clairvoyant, because Goethe had come to the idea that not only are the bones transformed out of the spinal column but also the whole brain has been transformed from it. Now, Sleiss said this in 1916 and he wondered if he could find some indication that Goethe had this idea. However he does not know that in 1892, I, myself, found this indication in the Goethe Archives.

Therefore we can see how certain truths of the spiritual world are penetrating into mankind's consciousness through certain channels. For example, they are talking about Strindberg's play of dream, “Tramspiel” which he produced and they can see the spiritual world breaking in everywhere. Strindberg worked in an extraordinary way and people are saying that there must be some spiritual communication there. Much streamed into Strindberg; however, everything is caricatured. Even that is very interesting for people today. For example, you can read the book Golom by Gustav Merig and you can find something there of which you can say that a stream of spiritual life breaks into mankind in a powerful way; however it is caricatured in forms where it can be more damaging than useful for those people who are not solidly established. Again you get a stream of the spiritual world breaking into the short story entitled “Cardinal Napaloos” (sic). In this story you find certain knowledge about the playing in of the Akashic Chronicle and so forth in a quite wonderful way. You can find indications of how the spiritual world wants to pour into mankind. It is very important to open our eyes to the fact that the spiritual world wants to pour into mankind today. We do not have to warm up ancient traditions, although they are interesting to study. We ought to meet the demands of the present. The spiritual worlds want to pour in. It comes unconsciously and is caricatured. However, when we develop ourselves according to spiritual science, it will not be caricatured; we can actually experience the spiritual world properly. through anthroposophical spiritual science, one can get an understanding for the opening up of our soul, our heart, our head, to the streams of the spiritual world.

We have already spoken of how the cultural development of mankind, in so far as it is spiritual, is permeated by all kinds of brotherhoods which bring to expression in their total content the symbolic actions which have been taken from certain imaginative ideas. The most significant symbol of such brotherhoods is that which is connected with the thought of death and resurrection. Again and again the thought of death and the thought of resurrection is brought together before such brotherhoods. Thus, one can say that as a middle point symbol man is shown how the thought of immortality proceeds out of both of these thoughts. First a man dies and is buried.

Now, in most of these brotherhoods, the personality to which this symbol is attached is called Hiram; this symbol is connected with what is called the legend of Hiram. Thus the name of Hiram, the architect of King Solomon who according to the legend built the Solomon Temple with King Solomon and then as a result of certain of his servants becoming his enemies, Hiram was killed and his death is shown in a symbolic way. It is shown how he is buried and the presentation is brought to a certain resurrection out of the grave, a proceeding of Hiram out of the grave. Through this symbol, they want to carry the thought of immortality to the soul in a much more penetrating way than is possible through mere theories. Through this symbol which takes hold of the unconscious forces of man, through this imagination one wants to show what the situation really is when one passes through death and then is resurrected.

Now, when you consider that the death of Hiram, the resurrection of Hiram is led before the brothers of the lodges, so indeed, we have the connection with the Easter thought. Now you know that in the Catholic cult there is also a symbolic presentation occurring; that the festivities of Maundy Thursday pass over to the Good Friday, and then the Festival is concluded in the symbolic placing of Christ Jesus in the grave. Then you have Christ Jesus lying in the grave from Good Friday through Saturday evening; and as is the modern custom the Resurrection is celebrated, which means that Christ is again taken out of the grave and you have celebration with the Resurrected Christ. When one considers the action which occurs there in the cult, particularly in the Catholic cult, it is just the same as that which occurs in occult brotherhoods as the putting in the grave and the resurrection of Hiram. So you see, the Easter thought stands as the center point in a certain connection in these occult brotherhoods. The meaning which is connected with this ceremony is that the human being, by gazing on this symbolic activity, goes deeper into his soul than he would with the normal forces which are present in his consciousness; it goes much deeper than that. Such a symbolic action would actually have no significance if you could not presuppose that deep down in the human soul you have an activity where the consciousness does not reach. The human soul contains activity below his conscious awareness.

We speak in art of the fact that that which gives the artist power enabling him to produce works of art or to reproduce them cannot originate from the ordinary conscious forces of the soul, but come up out of the unconscious and then enter into the consciousness. Hence, in connection with the artist, it is so that for him any sort of rules to which he might direct himself to, will become a disturbing factor; he cannot regulate himself according to rules; he must direct himself to that which as an elementary consciousness in his soul gives wings to those forces which he needs. He can, if he wants, subsequently to look back and give a certain explanation of that which comes to the surface from the subconscious aspect of his being. Therefore we must assume that many other hidden qualities hold sway in the soul, forces which do not play up into consciousness.

We speak of the fact as we have often spoken about it, that the astral life of man is much broader, much more extensive than the conscious ego life of this human being and these forces play out of the astral life of man into the conscious ego experience. Hence,these forces are present underneath. There is already a large number of people in our time who have so adapted themselves to the external, purely materialistic life and look for their salvation in this external materialistic life so that, in the main, in their soul life they only possess that which is connected with the external material life. You can really notice the difference when you lead a symbol such as the death and resurrection of Hiram in front of human beings who have only been educated for the external material life. They find it very comical, very superfluous. However, those people who have the unconscious soul forces, who are able to perceive the unconscious forces which hold sway in the astral, are taken hold of in the deepest sense by the symbol and call up those faculties out of their soul which are able to understand what is meant by immortality; whereas the ordinary forces which are bound to the physical life cannot understand this immortality.

Something has remained in the Easter Festival of what in the primal consciousness of mankind was connected, in the main, with the thought of this festival. We have often spoken about the question—When do we celebrate this Easter Festival? Well, we celebrate it on the Sunday following the first full moon after the beginning of Spring which falls on the 21st of March. Thus the establishment of the point of time of the Easter Festival is dependent upon the relationship between the sun and moon positions, which means that we upon the earth celebrate the festival which is dependent upon the cosmic connections. What does the human soul say in so far as it has undertaken such an establishment of the Easter Festival. It says the following: Here upon this earth everything shall not be regulated according to purely earthly relationships. However, at least that which touches the soul most deeply ought to be directed according to extra earthly relationships. Man should gaze upon the symbol of immortality; the placing in the grave and the Resurrection; the thought of immortality of the living; the soul going through the Portal of death. That should be carried in front of the human being either in the occult picture as in the Catholic cult or more in thoughts as happens in other confessions—that is not so important at the present time. However, in so far as the human being allows the picture of the placing in the grave and the Resurrection to sway in his soul, this should happen when the sun and the moon come into a corresponding constellation. This is a protest of the human soul, that the gazing upon such an important symbol should not be carried out purely under earthly conditions; it is a recognition that the gazing upon this symbol should be bound up with the cosmic relationships external to the earth.

Here, as I am giving a lecture, certain things are happening to your human soul. Just imagine that so-called Monists were sitting here instead of you. Naturally, there would be an entirely different effect upon their soul than is upon your soul, because you have taken up into your soul certain preliminary ideas from spiritual science. Man is continuously changed by that which he has experienced. You have been exposed to anthroposophical spiritual science; your soul is different from those people who have not been exposed to it. It is not realistic to speak in general terms abut the human being as is done by the academic would. As soon as one goes into the realities, one sees how unrealistic the way the human being is considered by anthropologists.

Now, you see, it is very easy for you not to assess correctly or even to overlook what has happened to your soul in so far as the work of spiritual science has impinged upon it. Much, much more is imprinted upon this soul. Much is imprinted in the human soul, because there is the unconscious, the astral united with the human soul and you will be able to say: That which plays into the human being from the external world and which remains unconscious is nevertheless far more powerful, far more significant, than that which enters consciously. You all know the beautiful love poems which unite themselves with the light of the moon. Here we see that the unconscious soul itself stands in a connection with the non-earthly, that which comes into the earth with the light of the moon. Here you have the moon with its light streaming in and it is something that you have coming from the cosmos, from the extra earthly and has to do with the unconscious weaving and swaying of the human soul. And, if you remember what I said to you on Thursday and again that which I said on Saturday evening at the public lectures about the swaying, the dominating, the ruling and weaving of the Folk Soul element in the human soul life, then, indeed, you must say to yourself that this Folk Soul element comes up out of the unconscious much more than from the conscious. It is really true that that which rules in the depths of our soul and can only echo faintly up into the consciousness, is precisely what rules and weaves in the astral body; that is very important and is of a non-earthly nature. And that person whose soul is open for the impressions of the spiritual world knows that our earth is not only different in spring and in Autumn, that in spring the vegetation shoots up and in autumn there is harvesting, but the portion of the earth which is illuminated by the light of the moon is something different than the earth when it is not illuminated by the light of the moon. After the 21st of March the sun stands in a different relationship to the earth than it had before the 21st of March and that which is reflected back to us as sunlight from the moon upon the earth is therefore something quite different from that which radiated down before the 21st of March. The first full moon after the beginning of Spring gives back to us the first strength of the resurrected sun and this is quite different from any other full moon. Thus our astral nature would not be the same if, shall we say, we would gaze upon the symbol of laying in the grave and Resurrection in December; it is not the same as when we do it in the week after the streaming down of the spring full moon. Our soul is in another condition at this particular time. Now, if our soul is something quite different through the fact that we have taken up spiritual science into it and are not just Monists, so our soul is also something different in the moonlight after the Spring Equinox than, shall we say, after the Winter Solstice. Hence our soul can experience something different at this time as compared with any other time.

Now, when spiritual science appears today, it does so in order that the circle of vision of human beings which has been shrunken by the materialistic development can again be expanded. If you take the thoughts of spiritual science into yourself in a thoroughly correct sense, then you actually are expanding the thinking, the perception, the willing, the feeling of your soul. Today people are not sufficiently clear about the fact that materialistic development has brought not only that which one calls materialism, but this materialistic development has brought something else; it has brought, I might say, short-sightedness of the thought life into all things. The thoughts have become small and now they must be made much larger. The possibility of seeing things in their larger perspective must again arise among human beings.

Just think if the human being were again to become clear about the fact that man actually consists of two parts, out of the head which stands at a much later stage of development and which, one might say, is much more hardened than the rest of the organism and the rest of the organism which stands at a much older stage of evolution. Just think what proceeds from the working together, of this head organism with the rest of the human organism. When we move a hand, the body is at the basis of this movement which participates in this movement. What occurs when I move a hand? I have previously told you about this. The physical hands and the ether hands both move, they move together. When I think, the left and the right lobes of the brain also execute ether movements, that is to say, the ether portion of the left and right brain lobes also execute movements which are quite similar to the hand movements. The ether movements are there, but the physical movements are imprisoned, they are enclosed in the solid skull. It is a bound Promethius and because of this, it is possible to have thinking. If it were not through this external imprisonment, but through the organic fettering of the human being man's arms would now be imprisoned as they will be in the future when the earth will have disappeared and developed into the Jupiter existence just as the brain lobes are imprisoned now. Man's arms will be imprisoned in the future as now the lobes of his brain are imprisoned. Then that which we call thinking will also be left over from the movement of the hands. I will show you what can be made clear with a much more concrete example presicely from the history of our time. It can be clearly shown how the thoughts of the best man of our age are very short.

Now, let us consider Eduard von Hartmann who was the philosopher of the unconscious. As far as his own estimation of himself was concerned, he would never consider hinself to be a materialistic thinker. However, how we think of ourselves does not depend on what we think, but the point is, are our thought habits of a materialistic nature? A person can establish a quite idealistic philosophy and nevertheless can still possess quite materialistic habits of thought; and these habits of thought determine whether he has short carrying thoughts or wide carrying thoughts. Now, as far as Eduard von Hartmann is concerned, among many of his contributions he has also written a great deal about politics, and I want to present Hartmann, the political author, to you, because in his age he was held in the highest esteem as one of the best German, nay, one of the best Prussian patriots as well as being a good political writer. Obviously Eduard von Hartmann's thoughts were so wide carrying that he was able to represent the constellation of the different great powers of Europe to himself: Germany, Austria, Italy, France, England, Russia and in between them the different small neutral states. He continually studied and wrote papers about the different political interest of these single states. Now, he wrote a very significant thesis which came out in 1888 and appeared in book form in 1889, and in it he set forth his ideas as to what represents the best political constellation for Europe.

Now, I have to make the preliminary comment that he was not only a German, but also a Prussian patriot, he spoke so obviously from the standpoint of Prussian patriotism. He attempted to represent what the best thing for Germany and Europe would be as far as alliances which must be developed were concerned, and he saw the salvation of Germany and of Europe in an alliance of common neutrality in the arising of an alliance between Switzerland, Belgium and Holland under English leadership. Just think, Eduard von Hartmann wanted Belgium, Switzerland and Holland under English leadership. You can see exactly what I am driving at from such a concrete example, and the same thing can be seen in other domains of life; When you look back 30 years you can see how ridiculous these thoughts were; how the whole development which one can describe as the age of materialism brings with it short thoughts, thoughts when they relate themselves to time relationships are perhaps valid for 2 or 3 centuries.

Now I will give you an example from the realm of medicine, but things do not go as easily here as in the realm of politics. Nevertheless here is an example from the philosopher Lotse, who had a well developed medical background. He said: “The enthusiasm for any given remedy, as a general rule, is only valid for five years. The enthusiasm for a remedy discovery today disappears and soon as another remedy comes into fashion.” this is noticed far more easily in the medical field than with politics. Gustav Theodore Fechner who really was a very intelligent person wrote a very interesting thesis in the 1820's. At that time iodine, a new medicament, appeared on the scene. Everyone began to claim that it could cure numerous types of illnesses. Then Gustav Theodore Fechner wrote a very neat thesis in which, according to the rules of science, and all you need to do is develop a method of receiving the light of the moon and then this universal medicament could be used in a wonderful way everywhere. Can you see from this that a shortness of judgment, a certain living concepts which cannot be carried very far.

Now, when you entered the domain of folk psychology or race psychology and read what the foremost writers had to say and then placed these side by side, you would be surprised at what you had before you. For example, you could find that men, in so far as they claim to be objective scientists with present ways of thinking, depict the population of Middle Europe as being descended from the Germans. Now, they depict these Germans as having all sorts of qualities. Then the Frenchman, shall we say tries to describe the French and says that they became wise through the fact that France descends partly from the ancient Celts and then he describes the Celts. When you compare and find that person who describes the Germans in Central Europe attributes the same qualities to the Germans which the Frenchman ascribes to the ancient Celts. However, there is much more of a Celtic element living within central Europe than within France. But this the people.

I can repeat numerous examples which will show you how the concepts are so very small that they do not carry very far. You can see what happens today when these so-called secure natural scientific methods attempt to go on into the spiritual life. When you realize all these things, then you will see how necessary it is that the spirit should beat into this realm. How long will it take however until one has such a psychology, a science of the soul of the type which I attempted to give in the lecture last Thursday? Only such a science of the soul can make that which actually rules in Europe understandable, and can also bring that understanding which is necessary if a culture your is to proceed further. One can think of all sorts of domains which are so advanced in materialistic directions, directions which are without any spiritual value. Then we see that this material element—it can be a state or any other structure—can never succeed, can never get better, because the way things are is that everyone needs a soul.

Now, that which we foster, that which we have as our science of the spirit within the Anthroposophical Society cannot be just one society among others. Why not? The answer lies in the following question: what do other societies do when they establish themselves? They set up programs and one unites round a certain program. You print the agreement of this program and when you leave this society, that means you no longer agree with the program. When the whole society dissolves, no one is hurt about these programs. One can get together and then one can also depart. That is the case which happens with every mechanism in the world.

Now, Weissman once attempted to characterize an organism from the natural scientific standpoint. Naturally he could only bring a negative quality, but this negative quality really is correct. He asks the question: how can you tell if something is living? His answer is: that which, when it does, leaves behind a corpse. Now, naturally in this way he is not characterizing that which is living. However, one has to concur that he is quite correct when he says: “The living is negatively characterized by the fact that this living being leaves behind a corpse.” Now, our Anthroposophical Society is a living being through the fact that there are a large number of cycles in the hands of our members of which, in the first place we know as a general rule non-members should not receive these cycles. However, one can now go into second hand stores everywhere and buy these cycles. You see from that that the Anthroposophical Society must be an organism, because just imagine, if the Anthroposophical Society dissolved itself away, then it would leave a corpse behind, and the corpse would be the cycles.

Now, one must be able to think about all these things. Other societies, when they dissolve away, can actually do so without leaving behind a corpse, because they are more mechanistically built. These people depart, the point of the program cannot be called a corpse because nothing is left behind. We are trying to deal in realities. This is something that must enter into our souls. When spiritual science becomes a real perception in us, every thought is felt in such a way that this thought stands in reality; whereas the abstract thinking which corresponds to the materialistic thinking does not bother itself with whether thoughts stand in reality or not. All this, my dear friends, show how limited the thinking is when it only restricts itself to the consciousness; when it is only bound up to the material aspect. Hence we should not wonder when those particular cultural streams in the development progress of mankind they want to take hold of everyday life, must also reckon with other than that which works only upon the ordinary consciousness. And so it has always been with the deep religious cultural impulses.

Why, for example, did something like the cult of Easter enter into the evolutionary history of mankind? Why was this Easter Cult brought into connection with cosmology, with that which occurs in a wide spaces of heaven between the Sun and moon? Because if man were only restricted to the experiences of the Earth, he would fall into the most extreme shortsightedness thinking, feeling and willing. Only through the fact that man is able to receive a greater perspective for his life can his thoughts be made much wider so that not only his physical ego consciousness is inserted in the right way into the earthly experiences but also his astral subconsciousness is membered into the great cosmic events. When the most important thought, the thought of immortality, is attached to the cosmos, it finds its fundamental basis in the religious connection. If man were only to originate out of that which is earthly, he would never be able to grasp the thought of immortality. If man was actually that which the materialistic natural science tries to say he is, if he was merely a highly developed ape, there would be nothing inside of him which would arrive at this thought of immortality.

I can give you a beautiful example from the philosophical aspect about how short the thoughts of natural researchers are in this domain. A few days ago I opened a book in which a person spoke about the connection of man with the apes in the sense that the monists do, in the material sense, not in the sense in which it is justified, but in the sense in which it is quite often expressed. At the beginning of his thesis, he says that he could prove that people who travel in certain districts where the cultural situation of the human being have so deteriorated could see that these people have the same instincts and drives as the apes. Now he says: “If it can be experienced that man can sink down to an ape condition, then it is logical that man can develop out of the apes.” Obviously, that is logical and quite clear. If a person becomes older, then you can get an old man out of the child; you can realize that without having to travel. In the same sense when you say that through cultural decadence man sinks down to ape condition, that is just as logical the same day man can become ape, why shouldn't the eighth also become a man! Therefore with the same logic you can say that if the child can become an old man, why shouldn't a child develop out of an old man; the logic is exactly the same. Material aspect is not that these people develop such logic, but that everyone reads this and no one notices what utter nonsense is being expressed.

If the present type of science, the present type of culture continues as it has, it can give people thoughts and feelings and perceptions only about what is earthly. Nevertheless there lives in man's depths that which is present as super sensible forces. They live there, but they must be repressed. And gradually as a result of this repressed spirituality in human soul, you would get the illness of culture. We cannot sufficiently emphasized the earnestness of our times. If from the heavy trials and tribulations which mankind is going through now, a small number of people can be permeated by the consciousness that what mankind needs is a spirituality, then out of this difficult time of trial something would happen which would be in the sense of the world spirit. But unless we get this spiritualization, nothing will go well for mankind.

We understand spiritual science only when we see in it not just a Christmas Festival but also an Easter Festival; that we understand what actually is meant when we have the thought of immortality for the whole being of man. When we grasp that which is immortal in the human being, only then are we able to understand immortality. Fichte, Hegel, many others knew that the human soul does not only become immortal when it passes through death, it is immortal now; that mortal element can now be found in us. Hence a science must be sought for, which besides taking into view the mortal body, takes into view the immortal soul of man.

It was natural that under the great advances and brilliance of natural scientific development in the last four centuries, that the consideration of spiritual life had to recede and the tendency towards the spiritual was also being eliminated from the external world. However, a time must come again when that Hiram, or shall we say that portion of Christ which always is there and which speaks of the super sensible, when that again resurrects itself after it has been buried in the Good Friday period of cultural development. We grasp the thoughts which at the time when the great Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo are all those who in the first place in a true way and can call that time cosmic Maunday Thursday. This has to be followed by a Good Friday. This view of the immortal element had to be buried. However, now the time has arrived when the cosmic Easter Sunday has to come and when we must celebrate the Holy Resurrection of the human soul and of the spirit knowledge.

Now, it is quite all right if, for example, we celebrate the Good Friday mood of soul in our present age. However, only when we have the power to gird ourselves for the Cosmic Easter Sunday, shall we also be able to perform the cult activity within our soul life which is there externally as the Easter Cult. Black mood of soul—that belongs to the days of Good Friday. The priests wear black clothes, because the corpse of the dead Christ rests in the grave. Then follows the Resurrection in the place of the thought of the grave. Today it is appropriate for us to carry in our soul the sorrow and the tragic. However, we ought to be able to know ourselves that we will be able to carry the spiritual Easter clothes when the times will again be different.

I have spoken in the past lectures of the customs in certain brotherhoods and what happens there. And I indicated that you can find the deeper impulses still present in the dried up structure of modern Freemasonry. And last time I especially spoke about that particular custom which represented itself in the laying in the grave and in the resurrection which, in the main, is that which can be called the Easter Cult. Today I will begin with something else which is connected with these things.

What is actually striven for in these circles can be presented in the following way. One says that you are looking for the lost Word. Now, I cannot permit myself to go into details, because that would lead me too far afield but I will, to be sure, in a certain way, tell you about what is meant by the “Lost Word” and to do this I will remind you of the beginning of the Gospel of John in which it says: “In the primal beginning was the Word. (In Greek, Logos always means Word) And the Word was with God and the God was the Word.” Now, it is obvious that that which we indicate today with the word ‘Word’ is not what is meant there; it is something quite different. You must remember the things which I told you in the last lecture in order to approach what is involved here, that mankind had a primal revelation, a primal wisdom in ancient times.

You must think of this primal wisdom which had to be given in a certain way to mankind, which was in its infancy, and if you think of this wisdom as spread out, you call that the Logos, the Primal Word, then you have an approximate idea of what is meant by the word ‘Word’, the Logos. One is able to say the following: That which was once given as wisdom to mankind which still stood at its infancy, through the mediation of higher spirits and is something which is far more extensive than that which today we are able to know in our spiritual science, you can say that has been lost. It is a beautiful custom when a feeling, a perception is at least stimulated in such brotherhoods that such a thing has actually been lost and must be looked for again.

Now, obviously this will not be found in such brotherhoods, because if that were so, when these people reached a certain degree there they would be just as wise as those people who once upon time were instructed by the Gods. However, in the cult, something is shown which is a picture of this losing of the primal wisdom and the refinding of it. Something should be sunk into the souls of mankind in such a way that they would come into the situation that when they pass through the portal of death, when they then pass the spiritual world and then return to earth, that then they can at least have an understanding of that which was necessary as a wisdom of the earth. Thus we can say: The Lost Word is again searched for, and all our spiritual science is, in the main, a searching for this Lost Word.

Now, to be sure, one cannot say that that which is given by spiritual science today was always absolutely unknown. No. I myself have often openly spoken in public lectures about a lost tone in modern spiritual life, a forgotten stream in which so much has already lived of that which is like a seed, a germinal aspect to spiritual science. When we consider the human being today, we know the following. That which the physical eyes see in the human being, is, as it were, only the external side of this hunan being; it is the physical body. The ether body is working and exists in him in a beingness way within this physical body. However, one does not come very far at all when one knows nothing other than that the man has an ether body. Many people are satisfied when they just know this word and have a vague idea of it, they are satisfied and can say: Well, the ether body is something a little thinner than the physical body, it is mistier and more radiating. But when you know that, you do not have very much. This ether body is actually a very complicated structure.

When you consider the human being as he is today, you know that each one is very different from the other. The European man is different from the African, who is again very different from the Asiatic. You must recognize such differences. However, when we look at the whole of mankind, in spite of all the differences between then, we must admit that the human beings taken together, are much more similar than the animals, because even though we know that the European is entirely different from the African, nevertheless you cannot say that this is as strong a difference as, for example, between the stork and the mouse. Therefore you see that animals are differentiated to a much higher degree than are human beings. The animals are separated from each other by species, and as far as the human race is concerned, you can say that it is one single species. Thus when we sweep our glance over the animal kingdom on the Earth, we find the most manifold differentiations between them.

Let us focus upon the consideration of our ether body. Our ether body is, as it were, held together by the elasticity of the physical body. The ether body is held together through the elastic force of the physical body as long as we are here between birth and death. Now, just represent in an imaginative way, if you can, an experiment which naturally cannot be done, but just imagine that it could be done, that you could remove the physical body on the one hand from the ether body and on the other hand remove the astral body and the ego from the ether body. Then, because the elasticity of the physical body is no longer there, you would discover that this ether body would spring out, separate out into many different divisions showing that the ether body is a manifoldness constituted out of many single factors and is only held together through the elasticity of the physical body.

Now we ask the question: How would these portions which spring out of us appear when we are able to separate the physical body away from the ether body? Indeed, even though it may appear strange to the clever people of our present age, nevertheless the following fact is true. These parts of the ether body would assume forms which would approximately resemble the outspread animal kingdom; that means that all the possible forms of the animal kingdom would appear. It would really be true that a certain part of your ether body, the head, for example, would take on a form similar to a bird, a certain part of the ether body which is in the vicinity of the larynx would take on a very beautiful angelic animal form; and so on. Thus we carry the whole animal kingdom inside us in our ether body. This is absolutely true. Our ether body is the outspread animal kingdom which is held together through the elasticity of our physical body.

Now, in primeval times when evolution was at another stage, the whole human form was distributed among many animals. When you contemplate that, you can understand that which is, in a very coarse way, looked upon as Darwinism. Mankind had, as it were, prepared itself in so far as that which later on it should develop as an ether body through what was separately formed as in the divisions of today's animal kingdom and at that time appeared entirely different from today's animal kingdom. Today's animal kingdom is no longer that which mankind was able to descend from. It was a quite other animal kingdom from the parts that were spread out in space and which were in the future intended to constitute man's ether body. However, the forces which were spread out in this ancient animal kingdom are in a certain sense extracted, as it were, and today these forces are present in our ether body.

Now, just imagine what we have there, in the main, as a totality in us. We have all the instincts, all the different drives of the animals already in us. However, they are only placed into a total relationship through the fact that all of that has been united through the elasticity of our physical body. As physical man, we are human beings and we have received our physical configuration during our earth existence from the Spirits of Form. As physical man we hold all of that which is within us in check. Now, at times one drive comes to manifestation or if one particular part of the ether body achieves the upper hand another drive comes to manifestation. You see what a complicated manifoldness we human beings actually are, and how it is impossible, in the main to approach the human being and understand him with these things which one first sees in the external world. If you focus your attention on the physical body, you first see that the Spirits of Form work there. These Spirits of Form give man his form only during the earth period. The animals have received their inherited form from the ancient Moon Evolution. This animal form is therefore a Luciferically configurated form; it is a form which has remained behind from the ancient Moon Evolution. What was only of an etheric nature at that time today has hardened itself. However, man has received his external physical configuration from the Spirits of Form, but they work in a lesser way in his inner being. Thus these Spirits of Form work less upon the ether body than do the Archai, Archangels and Angels. These Beings work upon the ether body and have something to do with the directing of this manifoldness in the ether body of which I just spoke. When we enter more exactly into the spiritual scientific facts, then we must be clear, for example, that in this our ether body all those forces work which come from the Folk Soul. This national Folk Soul exists deeply in our unconscious. And there exists, in the main, deeper wisdom which as pictures have been imparted to mankind and which can be understood if one exerts the will to do so.

Just assume that we are speaking or singing. Now, it is purely prejudice if you believe that all that happens when you speak or sing is some form of movement in the physical body. The main factors of the movement really occur within that manifoldness in the ether body of which I just spoke. Hence that which comes to consciousness in song or music comes out of the unconscious depths. It is most difficult to grasp this in words. And again we realize how we are related to the rest of the world when we know that that which is spread out as the animal kingdom lives in our ether body in the way in which I just described it.

When a certain impulse wants to be active in us, obviously it must come up in the astral body. If you consider these things in an orderly fashion, they do not contradict each other. Thus when you speak of the presence of drives and instincts in the human being, you must naturally ascribe them to the astral body. However, the form similarity which we have just spoken about in the animal kingdom is at the basis of the situation. And again, when we consider our astral body, if we are able to separate it out imaginatively as I just indicated in the separation of the ether body, then this astral body would fall apart, because it is only held together through the elasticity of the physical and the ether bodies. If you remove that elasticity, the astral body would fall apart and then it would represent something very similar to the whole outspread plant kingdom. Through the fact that we have an astral body, the different forms of the plant kingdom really exist in us as it is spread out in the world in its manifoldness. If you study the whole plant kingdom in the way in which one form is placed beside another, then you have an externally separated picture of that which has been drawn together in the human astral body. This knowledge also belongs to what has been called the Lost Word, because a consciousness of these things was present in the primal wisdom.

We carry the actual ego within the astral body, but when we speak about this which, for example, we have as consciousness in the human being not only during our waking period, but also that which exists when the human being sleeps, when his forces are unfolded outside in the whole universe during sleep, that is pulsated through by the spiritual forces of the cosmos. We carry all that in us unconsciously. If we are able to separate the ego out of the human being as we have just done with the ether body and the astral body, separating it out completely, then we would receive the whole picture of the mineral kingdom with all its differentiated mysteries of the cosmos. That which is actually spread out in the whole cosmos is contracted together into this ego. Thus we carry the mineral cosmos within us.

In this way we get a picture of what man actually is and how he is related with the cosmos. And when we speak of the fact that man consists of the physical body; of the ether body, of the astral body, of the ego, then we must not only take these merely as words, but we must be able to understand what exists behind these words; and you do that through spiritual science when you can focus the whole connection between man and the cosmos in your mind.

That person who today is able to see through these things knows that in the near future mankind will be presented with much more difficult tasks than the hard tasks of the present, tasks of which very few people today can even have an inkling. However, one must not believe that with the mobility, with the elasticity of thinking which human beings today possess, that it would be possible to be able to solve these tasks. It will not be possible to solve these tasks, because one of the characteristics of our age is that we are immersed in deep lies of life.

Now, in order to illustrate this, I will place proof before you which is near to us showing how people live in an untrue way today. Recall that which exists in that cycle an Christian Initiation where I spoke of the First Stage, of the Washing of the Feet which is a symbolic expression for something which man should exercise in his soul. I described how the human being should develop certain feelings, certain perceptions, which go towards perceiving his connection with the rest of the kingdoms of nature. Indeed, as you look down towards the animal kingdom in this connection with deep inner feeling, you say: This animal kingdom must be there in order that we should have a basis for this human kingdom. What would we higher developed creations be if this lower kingdom were not there? Now, making this into a living perception is the beginning of the first Degree of Christian Initiation. And then to be able to make clear to yourself how the animal as belonging to a higher kingdom must look down upon the plant kingdom and must say to it: You plant kingdom, you are indeed standing lower than I am in the row of phenomena, but I must thank you for my existence. Again, the plants must feel themselves down to the mineral kingdom out of which they grow and say: To you mineral kingdom I am thankful for my existence. And in a similar way, the Angelic kingdom, the next kingdom above the human kingdom, has to look down upon the human kingdom and say: We have to thank you, you human beings, who stand upon a lower stage of evolution for our existence. And so it goes further and further upwards in the scale. All these things can be transmuted into a fundamental ground of perception existing in the human soul.

Now, in this connection, my dear friend who is so close and true to our movement, namely, Christian Morgenstern, has brought this Washing of the Feet into a beautiful poem. We now have it among Morgenstern's last poems which appeared after his death. The well-known poem entitled “We found a Path” is also among this group. The poem entitled “The Washing of the Feet” tells of that which in previous years was said in connection with Christian Initiation and has been republished in this group. (Rudolf Steiner recited this poem)

A criticism of Morgenstern's poems recently appeared. Now you know that Christian Morgenstern was very closely attached to our movement; and this critic writes a book about him but he never mentions the fact that Christian Morgenstern was really one of us. This is an example of the sort of life lies existing today. Also what this critic does instead of getting the real spiritual connotation of Morgenstern's poems, is to try to reduce them down to analogies referring more to the human aspect, and he tries to show how this is German lyric poetry. Christian Morgenstern, if he were alive today, would be the first to say that his poems have as their origin not the external materialistic world to which this critic, Ernst Lissour (sic) comes from, but Christian Morgenstern would say that his poems come from another source, namely, from a spiritual source. Here you have an example of the life lies in which we live.

My dear friends, I would really prefer to say something which is in a sense far more elevating as an Easter consideration however, we cannot afford that luxury. We are living in very bloody times and it is necessary that we should inscribe in our souls that we should correctly perceive as the sort of karma development which which we are living now. We are living in very earnest times and we must acquire a real feeling, a real understanding for this. We are living in the 20th century, but we are surrounded by the sort of judgement that belongs to the 19th century. Very shortly after the outbreak of the war, people gave me a poem and they said it was written by Robert Hamerling and was a sort of prophecy of our present time.

Now, all you need do is just live yourself into the artistic style of Robert Hamerling and you will quickly see that not one line of this poem could have come from him, but many papers have printed this poem and they are filled with admiration about this prophecy saying that Hamerling, who died in 1889, was able to see into our present time. Even though it is not true that one single line comes from him, yet they keep on repeating it.

Now, you cannot blame the broad masses of mankind; it is not their fault. The fault lies with these leaders, and I have given you examples of these representative people of our age, the representative media of our age, how they are filled with lies. In order to characterize our present age, we must say to a person who today for example holds a horseshoe magnet in his hand: Look, what you have in your hand is a magnet which has forces in it. But he says: No, that is no magnet, that is a shoe which we put on horses' hoofs. Then he takes the shoe and dismisses you. People have the magnetized iron in their hand and do not know that there is an invisible force in it. This is just a picture analogous to what we talked about in our spiritual science; they will not recognize our spiritual science. The problem today is that things are very complicated, but our thoughts are not sufficiently developed to be able to take these things into our understanding. Therefore everything splits itself apart; people walk by each other, each finding his own methods in his particular domain and have no inkling that the historical necessity demands that all this can actually be illuminated from spiritual science.

Now, I have often mentioned the fact here that every physical event has its spiritual side, how we are related to the world shows itself in so far as we give back things to the world when we pass through the portal of death. That which I said about the ether body relates itself to the time between birth and death. For a few days after death things are entirely different when the ether body is held together by the ego and astral body. After that it is given over to the cosmos and then it works as I have often told you. Many such ether bodies of the very young have gone through the portal of death and are present in the spiritual sphere and remain there with all the spiritual content which exists in them as a result of their sacrificial death. All these ether bodies that are filled with this sacrificial death have the possibility of helping a future spiritualization of mankind. However, in order for that to be possible, there have to be human souls here on the earth who understand this etheric aspect which is streaming around human beings and is the most valuable residue of those people who have gone through their sacrificial death. This is a real, not an abstract memory process and it is those human beings who understand these things on the earth who can become receptacles for these young ether body forces and place themselves in the service of mankind as is wanted by these young people who have gone through their sacrificial death. However, if human souls here upon the earth are not mature enough to do all these things, then these forces which have been set free by the sacrificial death flow into Ahrimanic and Luciferic streams. As far as spiritual science is concerned, we have responsibilities that have been given to us which are related not only to mere knowledge and cognition, but are connected with feelings which should be stimulated in our souls and be made alive. And, in the main, the correct result of such considerations which we have tried to foster here in one direction or another is to help us in learning to acquire a feeling of responsibility for human souls in reference to the events that are going on all around us which has been permeated with so much blood. When we, in an earnest sense are able to edify ourselves through the contemplation of the connection of man in the world that spiritual science can give us, then we understand the words correctly which we have often used here and which call the feelings out of human souls which are so necessary in our age. May souls direct their conscious mood in a spiritual way into the realm of the spirits and as they do that, say:

From the courage of the fighters,
From the blood on fields of battle,
From the grief of the bereathed,
From the people's sacrifice,
There will ripen fruit of Spirit
If souls will torn in consciousness
Towards the realm of Spirit.

From the year 1509 to 1547 Henry VIII was on the throne of England. He had six wives, two of which he executed because they no longer appealed to him; the others he divorced. He would have executed his last wife, but she was cunning enough to talk him out of it. He had difficulty in getting a divorce from his first wife, because the marriage had been performed according to all churchly rules and it was necessary to obtain the agreement of Pope Clement VII in order to divorce her. But the Pope would not grant him one because he could not find any reason for a divorce. As a result, Henry VIII founded a new church and it still continues as the Anglican Church of England which today has twenty million members.

Now, Henry VIII Was not a very intelligent person as is indicated by his conversation with his last wife. All he actually wanted to do was to found a new church, but he did not really want to produce new teachings for it, therefore he continued the old ways in the Church. What he really wanted was that the enlightened members of Parliament should agree to recognize him as head of the English Church instead of the Pope.

Now, Thomas More, 1478–1535, did not agree that such a “holy person” as Henry VIII should be the head of the Church; and as a result, Thomas More was executed. He called his book “Utopia”, and since that time the name Utopia is given to books which deal with the idea of an ideal state—remember the “Utopia” of Belemies (sic). Thomas More indicated in his book “Utopia” that there should be complete freedom of religion, a tolerance of different religions, because the state agreed that religion is a question of one's private conscience. Yet in spite of this fact, we know that the Catholic Church is trying to make Thomas More a saint because of his defense of the Catholic Church against Henry VIII.

Before a person can be raised to sainthood, there is an exhaustive procedure in the Catholic Church. First you have the Advocate who must bring forward everything which would support this sainthood and it is necessary that one should have performed a miracle in order to become a saint. This procedure is quite long. There is the Advocate who brings forward evidence against the candidate for sainthood. Now, just imagine that the miracle which Thomas More was quoted as having performed was the miracle of suggesting religious tolerance in the Catholic Church! This is the sort of thing that the opposing advocate would put forward against him becoming a saint.

Thomas More was really fortune's favourite. He advanced from various state offices, became a member of Parliment, and finally High Chancellor for Henry VIII who had him executed because he would not agree to the Succession Act. This was a sin against the new institution of the English Church. Then the enlightened Lord Justices had to decide what sort of judgement should be meted out to Thomas More. The following is the decision which these enlightened justices reached as the price Thomas More had to pay for his so-called treason of not going along with Henry VIII. He was to be condemned and brought to the Tower by Sheriff William Pinkston and then put in a braided basket and dragged through the City of London to Tiburn. In Tiburn he was to be hanged only until he was half dead, then he was to be taken down form the scaffold and certain of his limbs would be cut off; his body torn open and the entrails burned. Then his body with the exception of the head would be divided into four portions and each would be placed on a pike and set at the four ends of the City of London. His head, however would be put on a high spear and placed on London Bridge in order to serve as a warning for people to go along with the King. This was the sort of judgement that these enlightened lords issued. This was not carried out, however, he was beheaded and the head was placed upon a spear on London Bridge.

We have Thomas More here before us in history and all this occurred in the first half of the 16th century. That is not so long ago. But we should remember that Thomas More who in his Utopia talked about religious tolerance could not be considered the sort of rationalist or free thinker who preached religious tolerance in the 18th century. No, in order to understand his concept of religious tolerance and where it came from, we must examine his book “Utopia” carefully.

This book contains the configuration of a state that was developed on a far away island called Utopia. Utopia was supposed to be ruled by the dry intellect, it was a very rationalistic state. All the houses would be in squares on streets that were all parallel. Every house was strongly regulated by the police stating how many young men and young women could live in a certain house. If there were too many people in one house, then some had to be shifted 'to another house. It was a very exact division of human beings in different houses. Private possessions were not allowed; it had a certain communistic economy. There was a set order at meals, older people setting here, younger people there; who had to serve, and so on. Everything about the people who dwelt in Utopia was a result of the very intellectual, rationalistic organization of the state; they were educated so that they became completely freed of any of the lower passions, desires and instincts. Here is an example: One was not to eat simply for the taste of the food or for any satisfaction. However, when they ate, they ought to feel thankful that there was a pleasant feeling united with the eating of the food. During their meals a lecturer sermon would be given by one of the enlightened spirits in Utopia. Things were so arranged that everything was governed by these enlightened people who were at the same time priests. Everyone was permitted complete religious freedom; however there was a presupposition that no man could be in Utopia who denied the existence of God or denied the immortality of the soul or denied the fact that after he died he would enter into some sort of judgement. This would be the common ground for all religions, but apart from that there would be religious tolerance. The whole thing was arranged in a very realistic, sober, intellectual way; this was Thomas More's Utopia.

Let us speak about Thomas More himself. We must not forget that Thomas More had been very religious even as a young child and he also carried out spiritual exercises incessantly; he was a man who took his meditations in the deepest earnestness. He spent many hours every day in meditation. On the last day before his execution, he sent those secret practices which constituted his spiritual exercises from the Tower to his daughter so that the people who led him away would not find them in his cell. You can see that he continued his spiritual exercises right up to the point of his execution. He was very earnest about the development of his soul. Remember that we spoke about a time before the expansion of Protestantism and we find that Thomas More wanted nothing more than to be a true son of his Church, the Roman Catholic Church, in the sense of his age. And because of his loyalty to the Roman Catholic Church, he allowed himself to be executed.

Let us now continue to focus upon Utopia, this distant island which was supposed to have no geographical connection with Europe. Once upon a time, wise old people landed an this island, Romans and Egyptians who were then responsible for the establishment of Utopia. These people developed a certain alphabet which consisted of right angles and other geometrical shapes; this was the alphabet of Utopia. Take the person who today can see a resemblance between the sort of alphabet in certain Freemasonry books and Thomas More's description of the writing of Utopia. Besides that there were certain maxims which were guiding principles for all actions an Utopia, and you could put Latin, Greek and Hebrew texts together in a very remarkable way and again be reminded of certain formulations which are present in the occult brotherhoods today even though these things are very mach hidden. It is also expressly stated in this book “Utopia” that Roman and Egyptian wise men landed upon that island, but nothing is said about Christianity.

Now this makes for a very curious situation. Remember that Thomas More is a religious Catholic, one who does spiritual exercises. He writes a book entitled “Utopia”, describes an island in all its details and organizations, but nothing is said about Christianity. How can we understand these things? We mentioned that Thomas More was a person who did many spiritual exercises. Also remember that this is a time of transition between the 4th period and the 5th period and how I described the situation in the period when I mentioned people like Pico della Mirandola, Savanarola and others. We also mentioned that around this time there was a disappearance of the ancient occult capacities; how for the ordinary person that actually disappeared. However, these occult capacities were accessible through spiritual exercises, the very exercises which Thomas More did.

When such spiritual exercises are correctly done today, the person is able for example to see the connection between the ordinary everyday thinking and that which draws up out of the depths of the soul as a perception of a higher spiritual world. However something else can also make its appearance, and in the case of Thomas More this happened. Through his spiritual exercises he was transplanted during his sleep state into the astral world in such a way that he was able to have quite different experiences from the ordinary person. Although he had these experiences in the astral world, he was not able to bring them directly into his consciousness. He could experience certain things in an exhaustive way in the spiritual world, but he could not bring them over consciously, but he brought them over in such a way that he was able to write these experiences down in his book of“Utopia”.

Now we can very quickly realize that when you study this book “Utopia”, which most of the intellectuals of today might consider as pure fantasy but for one who knows about these things can be understood as a result of a spiritual experience which exists between the ordinary thinking and the spiritual experience, a connection does not come to consciousness and these experiences which do not come to consciousness are all the more compelling. One can be a martyr for Catholicism as was Thomas More, a very religious Catholic such a religious Catholic that subsequently they speak of making him a saint. However, when you have such spiritual experiences as he had on the astral plane, then you write them down. You have experienced them and this experience works with elementary force. When one actually enters the astral world, the first thing one experiences there is that the three dimensional space rules which we experience here on the earth no longer apply. Those laws which we learn in geometry only have validity for the external sense world. One can speak symbolically but one realizes that in reality this symbolic expression signifies something different. It is impossible to speak in the same way of that which one experiences on the astral plane as we speak here of things and beings of the sense world. As you know, when we speak of things of the sense world, we can say: This woman sits here, that woman sits there. However, this has no meaning when you consider the astral world. In the astral world one soon realizes that you are in a world of non-place, something which denies that which is of a spatial aspect in the sense physical world. Therefore a correct translation of Utopia would be non-place. So the word Utopia refers to the quality of the world. It is a world which has no spatial elements. Now we ask the question: When he entered this world, what is it which especially confronted him?

Now you can very easily realize that these occult brotherhoods also draw their particular practices from the astral world, so you will not be surprised when you see a resemblance between what Thomas More inserted in his “Utopia” and the customs of the occult brotherhoods. These customs which are projected from an occult wisdom, from an ancient observation of this astral world, but this ancient observation of the astral world had disappeared and lives further in the different brotherhoods as tradition. People who themselves had no opportunity could not look into the spiritual world; however, through the fact that such people as Thomas More did certain spiritual exercises; they were transplanted into the spiritual world and were confronted by similar-things which were present in the brotherhoods. Naturally it is no wonder that that which lives in many occult brotherhoods are teachings which are not affected by Christianity. We also find in the case of Thomas More that everything which permeates the organization of the state on the island of Utopia goes back to ancient Egypt and ancient Rome, but does not involve Christianity. These occult brotherhoods place great emphasis on the fact that they go back to Egyptian and still earlier orders.

Now put what I have just said together with what we have learned about that which is essentially the basis of the Christian world view. I have often mentioned that Christianity rests upon the fact that that spiritual power which we designate with the name of Christ descended and spiritualized the body of Jesus in the 30th year of his life which gradually was able to acquire this ability because it developed and passed through the souls of the two Jesus boys. Now, what actually happened? A spiritual power which up to the time of the Mystery of Golgotha had not been involved in earth evolution had interwoven itself into earth evolution from the Mystery of Golgotha onwards. In so far as this spiritual force lived in the body of Jesus of Nazareth and then went through the Mystery of Golgotha, it was able to pass deeper and deeper into earth development and continuously united itself more solidly with the further development of the Earth We have often expressed this. Thus this power descended on the physical earth plane from spiritual heights in which it had dwelt earlier.

Thus when an ancient clairvoyant lifted himself into the spiritual worlds in the time before the Mystery of Golgotha, naturally he met the Christ Being in the spiritual heights. Hence those people who were prophets and so on, were able to speak about the future coming of Christ. They could prophesy it, because they found Christ in the spiritual worlds and saw Him on His path towards the earth. They regarded HIm as the Sun Spirit who gradually descended in order to become an Earth Spirit. These prophets were able to see into the future development of the earth evolution in so far as they perceived in the spiritual heights that which ultimately was to unite itself with the earth development. Therefore you would not find the Christ in the earth before the Mystery of Golgotha. Obviously those people who lived before the Mystery of Golgotha could not have the Christ in their earth science, because Christ was not present on the earth at that time. However, when the initiates of these Mysteries had achieved a certain degree, they were able to announce the coming of the Christ upon the earth.

You must bear in mind how everything is entirely different since the Mystery of Golgotha; an entirely reversed position holds true since then. When you investigate the earth development, you find the Christ interwoven in the whole history of those people who are permeated by Christianity; and to present a historical thesis without speaking about Christ is actually not right. The historical Ranke perceived this and when he was quite old he presented the question: Can one know anything about history if you do not show how the Christ Impulse lives and penetrates into every single phenomena? However, when one rises up into those worlds from which Christ has descended in order to unite himself with the earth, then the Christ is not directly there. One must descend from those heights upon the earth to see how he has united Himself with the earth.

This is a real fact, and it is the basis for the terrible anxiety which certain religious confessions have in reference to occultism. Naturally they do not understand the real occultism; they do not understand how Christ can be found through the real spiritual science. All that these religious orders know is that shallow occultism which says the following: Christ is now to be found upon the earth and when you lift yourself up into the higher worlds, the Christ is no longer there. Thus we have anxious priests working against the spreading of this occultism. It is for this reason that here in our movement we have often indicated that when one is able to cross over the borders and enter into the spiritual worlds, we are not permitted to forget that which can be occultly experienced about the Christ within the earth. This is what real spiritual science teaches; whereas these shallow brotherhoods either tell people that the Christ is only present for earthly perception or they talk about the Christ incarnating Himself in Krishna Murti, whom they called Alcione.

Let us now transplant ourselves into Thomas More's situation. He had done exercises which enabled him to come into complete clarity in reference to the Christ. Now, the Jesuits try to guard against all sorts of distortions and errors in reference to the Christ which occur in the world and through their Jesuit exercises they guard against these distortions. Thomas More did not do such Jesuit exercises; the spiritual exercises he did do did not enable him to enter with full consciousness into the spiritual world. If he had been able to enter into the spiritual world with full consciousness, naturally he would have perceived how Christ descended onto the earth; but he could not maintain a complete consciousness. The consequence was that he actually wrote down that which he experienced in half consciousness in the spiritual world; hence you find that Christianity did not exist on his island of Utopia.

Now we can understand that if he had really written his book “Utopia” from the standpoint of ordinary consciousness, he would never have inserted the idea of religious tolerance. But he wrote something down which did not enter completely into his consciousness. Religious tolerance was emphasized in that which he perceived in Utopia; the emphasis was not placed on a single form of worship. In a higher sense the following could have been said by Thomas More: Alas, two souls live in my breast; one soul here in the physical world, the other soul which lives in a quite different world between going to sleep and waking up, a world into which the Christ Impulse cannot be carried. If we speak of this fundamental feeling which can permeate a person such as Thomas More, then we find that he did not have a full occult experience of the spiritual world even though he struggled to get into it. When you get the sort of entry into the spiritual world which Thomas More had, there are certain anxieties there, but they are not perceived by the soul as such, but that which actually is a feeling of anxiety is more or less suppressed in the unconscious. And then one looks for other reasons to explain what one experiences and does. A masked anxiety transforms itself into something quite different for the consciousness. Now in the case of Thomas More, he transformed this suppressed anxiety into something different through the working of his occult experiences. The working of these occult experiences caused Thomas More to receive anxiety in his soul, but what would this anxiety be if it had drawn up in a conscious way in his soul? What would Thomas More then have said to himself?

Let us hypothesize something which can never be possible, namely, that the following entered into Thomas More's complete consciousness. You see that which he wrote down later in “Utopia” he saw in the astral world and he wanted to describe it. Why? If he had grasped the anxiety completely and had written out of this anxiety, then he might have had the following thought: One must do everything in the present world period in order to penetrate into the Christ Impulse and to maintain it with all the phases of one's soul in a correct sense for human development. However, if men are able in some way to return to the ancient clairvoyance, then they would see why his “Utopia” contains no Christ Impulse. If he had really perceived the anxiety, he would have said: “Protect yourself from wanting to depart from the Christ Impulse.” However, he had not really experienced this anxiety, it remained in his unconscious and the consequence was that he wrote down that which came from his inner being. This presents a riddle to us when we see the apparent contradiction of the whole nature of Thomas More.

After we have set all this before our soul, let us transplant ourselves into the position of those people who belonged to certain occult brotherhoods. Here we have Thomas More; he wrote his “Utopia” that is not such a terrible thing. The writing of his “Utopia” would not have justified that awful punishment which these Lords had placed upon him. Even without this, he was a suspicious person because he was acting against the intentions of Henry VIII. However, let us just assume that there were people who formed the majority of those judges who at the same time belonged to occult brotherhoods. They then studied what was written in “Utopia” and realized that here is something which they wanted to preserve as mysteries and it was betrayed. All sorts of indications are given in this book; not only was it a betrayal, but it showed how this then continues to work into external human culture. Therefore, when they considered Thomas More, they see that an oath had been betrayed and this betrayal carries a certain sentence with it. If one investigates the sentence for the betrayal of occult mysteries, one finds it identical with the sentence which we indicated previously—those awful things which were not carried out.

So you see, my dear friends, in order to understand history, it is not enough to focus upon the so-called fable convenue which is really what present day history is; but in order to learn history properly you must be able to penetrate deeply into the development of mankind and be able to see into what actually is occurring in the souls of human beings. Thus you see that the death of Thomas More is a great signal and you must understand the existence of this signal in order that you can decipher many mysteries of history. These mysteries can only be deciphered when one is able to learn how such super-sensible impulses play into these facts; and you can only learn these things through spiritual science. It is also so in many cases of historical development. Much of that which is called history and is seen from the outside is merely an external fable convenue. You learn the truth of it when you are really able to investigate what actually is occurring in those souls who take part in the particular processes which we are examining. This belongs to the great demands,which the present time places upon us, that we eliminate the thoughtlessness, the lack of thought which occurs in certain connections, because ultimately no one can objectively evaluate the value of the Anglican Church which he does not know that in the soul of this co-called “holy man” who established this Church there was the possibility of executing two wives. When things are placed in the correct light so that we can learn many things of the times in which we live, then one can exercise a true contemplation of such things. Then the soul can be impelled to investigate that which needs more investigation, because these significant facts which can be revealed to us in connection with his whole life and the writing of “Utopia” by Thomas More is something which is intimately connected with historical events.

Now, my dear friends, the Advocate Diabolo might set forth much against Thomas More becoming a saint, but his opponent, the good advocate could also reply: “All occultism is the work of the devil.” And when one is able to prove that Thomas More has fetched his “Utopia” up out of occult foundations, then he becomes all the more holy, because he resists all the devilish things which exist in occultism.

It is necessary in our times which are so filled with destiny, to understand what spiritual facts and conditions play into the external historical events. You have to understand these things because what I am giving you now is the fundamental motifs of all the lectures in order that you can understand the importance of how spiritual acts can throw light upon external historical indications.

With the teaching of the Resurrection as I have indicated it, with the teachings of the Lost Word and the Word that has to be found again, with certain cultic activities as they are customary in such occult brotherhoods, how is it possible with all that to be able to work upon the human soul in a quite special way? How does that happen? To understand this I must first draw your attention to how one works upon the human soul in this 5th post-Atlantean period. All the strivings of mankind which proceed to exclude certain things in this 5th post-Atlantean period which were natural to human beings earlier.

Let us take an example of something which does not lie very far back, a natural scientific work by Albertus Magnus from the 13th, 14th century. You will see that the way which he regards nature is quite strange to present day man. Why is that? Man at that particular time absolutely reckoned with all that which as nature surrounded him. Even if he did not speak of beings, nevertheless, he was aware of certain elementary forces, forces of a spiritual etheric nature. The essential aspect of modern perception is that everything is thrown out of human ideas which cannot be seen with the senses; anything of a spiritual etheric nature is eliminated. Only when one presupposes that such books as those of Albertus Magnus in the 13th century do reckon with the fact that overall there are still spiritual forces in our physical environment, then you understand them. The significant thing in the modern scientific age which not only exerts its influence upon natural scientific conceptions but exerts its influence upon all human thinking right into the simplest mass of people, is the characteristic that man, in the first place, takes in that which falls into the realm of his sense from the external world. When someone from today's external academic world speaks of esthetics, artistry, sociology and even history and calls those spiritual science, they are incorrect because you can only call that which is spirit, that which does not occur in the sense world, spiritual science. However, as far as today's history goes, everything is concerned with what has occurred in the sense world. thus you do not deal with a spirit science but in truth with a sense science. The characteristic of our 5th post-Atlantean period is in the first place to take up into our ideas that which is only given to us by the external sense nature.

Since this 5th post-Atlantean period is precisely there in order, in a certain connection, to develop materialism and, as it were, to throw out human all that which does not come in from the sense world man can devote himself to an external world which excludes the elementary forces for 2000 years; through that fact man can acquire the possibility of completely developing his freedom, of developing an actual spiritual activity out of his own inner being. The spreading out of materialism in this, the first third of the 2000 year period, depends upon the fact that we are standing just at the beginning of this epoch, but the flood of the senses has fallen, as it were, over mankind and man has not yet been able to drive the spiritual out of his inner being; and the spiritual must come out to produce a real spiritual science.

Now, the previous period, the Greco-Latin Period, had a different task. The etheric-spiritual could still be perceived in the environment and was also able to work upon men after they perceived it. One also worked from human beings to human beings in such a way that one was still predisposed to the fact that the elementary spirit wove around them just as the atmosphere does around us. In these 2,160 years which preceded our 5th post-Atlantean period, the human body was first prepared to become a tool for our present thinking, of purely grasping of external sense reality. The work which was done upon man during this Greco-Latin period was something which went more on his body. This work formed his body so that in our present epoch we are able to think about that which is imparted to us by the sense world. Thus, one did not teach people in the way things are presented today where the human beings can come to their own conclusion as to whether they will accept the teachings or not. No. In this Greco-Latin period, the task was to impart forces to human beings which would work directly upon the physical body. Today man does not want his physical body influenced in any way and correctly so. It belongs to the characteristic of our soul that we should not work directly upon our body, but only upon our soul nature. Everything also is not permissible magical working. But a working which today is impermissible was valid for the Greco Latin period and belonged to it. The bodily tool of the human being was, as it were, much more flexible, more soft and then one could still work upon it. The physical body has now become much harder and whenever teaching occurs, it must be imparted to the soul.

However, if you want to enter straight-forwardly into the still softer body of the human being, you cannot do that with things that are acquired from the purely external sense world. The Greco-Latin epoch did not have as its task to fill man with the content of our natural science. If you gave them Copernican astronomy or Darwinism instead of preparing the soft physical man for the 5th post-Atlantean period, you would have absolutely dried them up, you would have formed them in a false way. Therefore you had to have a quite different science at that time and that is the science which instead of photographing the external world as our present day science does, instead of that you give symbols; and instead of the experimenting as is done today, you give cults or sacramental aspects, then with the sacramental aspects, with the cults, with symbolic mythical presentations, one is able to take hold of quite another region of the human being than with that which today occurs in our present Copernican natural scientific Darwinistic world conception.

Now those brotherhoods which I previously indicated, still maintained the ancient symbolism, the sacramentalism, the cult activities, and these push into our age and are able to work in the way in which I described. They work especially upon one member of the human nature, upon that member which in our time should not be worked upon. However, when you use symbols, sacramentalism, cults, that works deeper into man, that works into the etheric body, which means that you directly influence the whole disposition of the thought direction of man. If you rely upon people absorbing symbols and cults from their environment, that works into the ether body and brings the thinking into a certain direction. This is usually the situation in these occult brotherhoods of which I have already spoken.

However, another type of occult brotherhood which follow the same thing but in another way understand how to work much more deeply into the human forces. The Jesuit Orders belong to such occult brotherhoods. Jesuitism absolutely rests upon occultism. I once told you about that in a lecture cycle in Karlsruhe, where I described the exercises which the students had to do in order to become Jesuits. These exercises rest upon the fact that the human being who takes part in the cult, instead of being affected in his ether body, these things take hold of his astral body. All Jesuit educational training goes toward giving the Jesuit forces which enable him to present his works or actions in such a way that he is able to steer himself, I might say, into the astral impulses of man.

Jesuits can work in places when they are not present there. There are certain channels in human life through which one can work, so the Jesuits can even work in those places where they are not allowed to exist. I will give you an example of how Jesuitism performs when it is able to work in an unhindered way and follow its impulses; when the Jesuit can execute everything which his methods are adapted for in order to work into the astral body of man. We have a very fine example precisely at the turning point of the 4th to the 5th post-Atlantean period in the establishment of the Jesuit State in Paraguay.

In 1610 this Jesuit State was founded in Paraguay. Now, how did this happen? My dear friends, you know that after America was discovered, European civilized mankind went to America as a result of their lust for gold, etc., and they felt very happy there. However, the original people were not very happy. There is much written about the so-called civilized European treatment of these original Americans. However, in a domain in South America, Paraguay, a large number of Jesuits appeared one day with the decided intention of handling the Guaranies, an indian tribe in Paraguay, better than the Europeans handled the original indians of North America.

Naturally the Jesuits did not know the language of the Guaranies nor had the Indians the Latin of the Jesuits. What did these Jesuit Fathers do? Well, they traveled on the rivers by boat to the wild regions where the Indians lived, and they played beautiful music and mixed all sorts of things into this music which they knew very well from their training. This was able to spread itself out between the waves of the sound and the music in order that one could produce a certain type of cult or sacrament. The consequence was that the Indians, of their own accord, came together in great numbers and the Jesuit Fathers had gathered many Indians from different regions in a short time. They entered single villages and organized these villages in a way which produced a state. Therefore, the State of Paraguay arose in the year 1610.

Churches were built, a church was built at a place called San Savarius, for example and was able to hold 4000 to 5000 human beings. Everything in this Jesuit State was strongly regulated, regulated, however, so that above all you have the permeation of the cult. They had musical stimulations in the smallest settlements—not influences but stimulations, suggestive stimulations. The cult occurred. The time was thoroughly divided up; everything the people did, all their actions were regulated according to the ringing of church bells. A bell rang for one activity, then a bell rang for another activity. They did not allow the people to wake up in the morning, wash themselves and then go to work in the fields, for example. No. The church bells rang and people knew that the day begins. They arose, then gathered in the village square and listened to music. Either the picture of the Holy Virgin or some other saint stood in the middle of the square; the Jesuit priests had already imparted certain explanations about them to these Indians. When they had gathered together, a divine service was held. The people looked up to the heavens in prayer; then they formed a procession and carried the picture of the Holy Virgin Mary or saint in front of them and traveled in this way to the fields. After enough work had been done, they again took hold of the picture and went in a procession back to the market place. The people were then released by the sound of the church bells. The cult permeated all activities; even the work done in the fields was accompanied by cult activities for which certain definite Jesuit Fathers had been trained. Everything was permeated by the cult activity. Therefore we see that the whole inter-working between the Jesuit Fathers and the Indians was such that it went directly into the astral body. All the astral bodies of these Indians were prepared in a corresponding way and the whole Jesuit State in Paraguay was permeated by an astral aura which was a consequence of the symbolism, the sacramentalism, the cult which the Jesuits directed exactly the way they wanted it; they became quite proficient at it.

Just imagine that you are concerned here with wild Indians who actually had done nothing other than hunt and so on, before that time. Now what did one achieve? In a short time these Indians became very intelligent, actually intelligent in the sense of the Jesuits. These people could accomplish all that was necessary in a short time. This Jesuit State caused a great deal of resentment among the other Europeans, so the Jesuits established an army. They gathered this army together in a short time whole officers were partly Indian and partly European. It successfully repelled a blockade that was established by England against Paraguay.

Now the Guaranies learned to produce muskets and canons, also musical Instruments such as organs, certain painting techniques, stone sculpture that was so good that every Spanish Church would have liked to have had one. Just imagine this astral aura in which all this was immersed. Those who actually had the direct interaction with the Indians, those who showed them what they had to do were intermediaries set up by the fathers. These Jesuit Fathers, however, separated themselves off from the Indians; they directed them through other people. The only time they were seen was when they were dressed in their beautiful gold robes and were surrounded by incense when directing the ceremonies at the Mass. Therefore these Jesuit fathers were looked up to as gods.
All this was accomplished because the Jesuits knew how to work directly into the astral body. But, the moral condition of this Jesuit State was actually not too bad. Whenever punishment had to be meted out, the Jesuit Fathers took care that those people on whom the punishment was to be inflicted, agreed with the fact that they deserved the punishment.

Now, something else was accomplished by these Jesuits. They examined the problem of how much work was needed, they then arranged the situation so that the Indians would work for two days to produce all that they needed for themselves that week. Then they worked an additional two days to produce what was needed by the Jesuits and this was then given over to the State. So you see how the Jesuits set up the work schedule lasting four or five days; Sunday the people could rest and also attend the ceremonies. With this sort of situation the Jesuits could build up a fairly good economy. It certainly was not a capitalistic economy. However, the Europeans who were in the beginning of capitalism did not like this Jesuit State with their sort of economy. Therefore on July 22, 1768, a large number of calvary regiments appeared and captured the Jesuits and put an end to this Jesuit State. This Jesuit State had lasted from 1610 until 1768 and developed the sort of activity which I have just described.

I wanted to tell you this in order to show what one can reach when one develops methods which are able to penetrate into the astral body. Naturally these methods were more easily applied to the Indians than they would be to other races, because these Indians were, relatively speaking, primitive people. The further back we go into human evolution the more one is able to work upon the astral body and ether body of man. And these wild Indians had maintained something of their earlier susceptibility; they still retained above all the ability of being able to be worked on through their physical body. One would work first upon the astral body, then the astral body in its vibrations
would work down upon the physical body and the physical body was the one that was actually affected. When speaking to a European, you send words to his ear; his brain however vibrates according to the whole education in which he has been placed. This was not so with the Indians. There one worked into the astral body and the astral body then took the brain with it. Through the musical and other cult handlings, these Indians were taken hold of by all the vibrations which went out from these ceremonies. etc. They were, in the main, only members in a common astral aura, but we Europeans have it better, because our heads are much thicker and not as easily influenced.

You cannot work upon highly cultivated people in Europe in the way I just described; however, there is a possibility of working in a lesser way upon the ether body and astral body of man and this would then carry into the physical body by way of the vibrations. All this is the working in of the ahrimanic method, ahrimanic forces which weave in invisibly among us and have their own methods as compared with these which the Jesuits used in the State of Paraguay in the 17th and 18th century. One could work upon the astral body of these Indians as their physical body was soft. Now, one must work differently; one must take into consideration the fact that you influence the thinking of man as such, that it is very important that one is not able to work into man's thought directions in such a way that man does not notice it. I am not saying that human beings do that. No, but ahrimanic beings do it through human beings. These human beings are tools for the ahrimanic beings. So many people believe that when they acquire some judgment, that they have arrived at their decision out of their own conviction. It might be correct in a superficial way, but you can see that it is not correct when you go deeply into the situation and then the situation changes itself. Today people have the opinion that they do not believe in authority. They will not take anything up from authority, but they do not realize how things are able to steal into their soul; they do not notice that.

Now, how does this occur? Thinking habits develop themselves in the course of time in a scientific direction; in other words, people today conclude things because science says so. Science is their authority. They get their ideas from some mysterious place, but they do not know what goes on in this mysterious place. This mysterious place is the universities. That which they get from all this goes into the thought patterns of mankind. People think they are using their own independent judgment, but actually this is a good opportunity for Ahriman to allow his forces to flow in, because Ahriman cannot enter into conscious life, into a really conscious life. If a person maintains good control of his consciousness, Ahriman cannot enter. However, when one is not awake and alert, then Ahriman can insert himself in the stream of our thought habits and one is little protected from this sort of working, particularly if you have been trained to look upon science as your authority since early childhood. These streams are there and are the streams which can mix themselves into the thought habits of men in an ahrimanic way and produce an opinion in human beings that this is something of a scientific nature that that forms the direction of judgment.

Now, if you will forgive me for being humorous, I will relate something to you which an exact philological person has written as an extensive thesis which was published in the Prussian Yearbook. In this thesis he investigated whether he could find proof that the Greeks suffered from lice in the same way that mankind suffers today. And he investigated the whole of Greek literature from Homer right up to Aristophanes to see what role lice played there. This is quite humorous; however he was very serious. This thesis was developed in a very strongly scientific way and it can be found in the Prussian Yearbook. This sort of thing can show you exactly what is going on underneath the present life. These are much more important than one can, in the first place, imagine.

It is very important to know that in our time we need a spiritual scientific stream, this stream which is feared by those people who are under the authority of their thought habit patterns. You see, spiritual science provides human beings with a knowledge which one is unconsciously afraid of. Hence a scientific connection such as ours, for example, strives to develop these feelings of brotherhood at the side of the spreading of spiritual science. This must be the necessary counter-picture, otherwise the passions would be released. However, on the other side it is necessary to look into the configuration of many men in our time in order to evaluate things.

One always has to develop a certain rule in this domain, which, I might say, is compared with the preservation of privacy. You know very well that if you were to find a letter addressed to someone else, you would not think of looking into it. In a similar way one should not want to look into the soul life of someone else unless there is a very special reason for it. There can be a special reason when, for example, one sees a certain personality who has this or that significance for his contemporaries; then one must penetrate into his soul with the means available to spiritual science to illuminate this personality for his contemporaries. For example, the case I mentioned earlier of Herr Lowenstein who had a type of psychology dealing with the announcement of marriage and emphasized the fundamental character of that which is truly scientific. Nevertheless, he spreads the most absolute nonsense, trivial stuff, tries to cloak it with the scientific. We must then talk about his soul life. Nevertheless you must know that the soul of the human being is a very, very complicated thing. And you cannot learn about man unless you are prepared to enter into complications.

Just remember that if we look at the human being and put aside man's upper members—he has four members. The physical body, for example, can still have something of the flexibility of the 4th post-Atlantean period, however, at the same time it can have a good receptivity for all that is produced by the thought life of the present time. Thus a man can appear who has the following properties. He has an organism which on the one side goes back to the leftover qualities of the Greco-Latin period; however, at the same time he can have a head which is able to take up the thoughts of our present age and reproduce them again, share them, talk about them, lecture about them with a very sharp sense. That can absolutely be present. You can consider such a person to be very intellectual, very clever, but besides that, he can be very weak-minded because of the special quality of his soft body of which I have spoken as a hangover of the Greek period. When you know that man is a complicated being, then there is no contradiction when you say: This person is weak-minded and he is also clever at the same time. Spiritual science is something which casts a certain light in order that we may be able to find our way properly through mankind's complicated relationships of the present time.

I told you that a man can have a body which can be influenced as was a Greco-Latin body; hence his body has not reached the development of our present corporeal nature. Nevertheless at the same time one can take into himself all the ways of judgment which are appropriate to our present age, and he can thus be a very clever man; one can be a weak head and at the same time a very clever man. However, one does not need to work as a clever man in the culture of our present age in order to stand with the spiritual life at present, but one needs to be very sharp in order to take up the thought forms of the present and the to have a body as I have just described. There you have the phenomenon of a journalist of the present who reaches into and influences future decades in a wide-spread way. We are talking about Maximillian Hardenz. You know what forces work in our present age and you have to know how today's public opinion is created and how one can lead all this back to human nature. You have no means to know about this if you do not enter into the knowledge of man who proceeds from spiritual science. Only through that are you preserved from being taken up by that stream that I have described which produces those thought habits that make people believe that they are not succumbing to authority. However, they believe everything that is in this newspaper called the Zukuft (sic).

At least we do not live in those regions in which people such as the Indians just described live, those Indians who looked up in reverence to the priests in their golden mass robes surrounded by incense. No. That we do not do, but we have other altars. What are our altars? The newspapers and things of that sort are what we look up to. The chaotic thing is people who are supposed to have developed away from authority have it working more strongly in them. Indeed, my dear friends, the difficulties which spiritual science has in order to be able to penetrate into life in the way she must, are not really small, because spiritual science must be able to take hold of the different domains of life. And one must be able to work gradually from one domain to the other.

In our spiritual science we have developed an art of Eurythmy. You may think what you like about it; however, it is very important that it should be brought to people in a very worthy way. Just a few days ago we read that one of our members, yes one of our members, appeared in Munich; a very skinny human being who recited poems, then disappeared and donned white hose and cloak—this is all described in the newspaper. He reappeared and the audience burst out laughing. Then this fellow made all sorts of contorted movements, recited further while moving a veil which he held in his hand. He then disappeared and reappeared again in a blue costume with yellow things hanging all over it and the audience laughed at him. Nevertheless, he went right an reciting. This whole thing was done by one of our members under the title of “The Recitation Art of Eurythmy”. Our Eurythmy has been brought into the public and made a laughing stock, so much so that an article appeared in the Munich paper entitled “Eurythmy and Other Diseases of the War”. From all this you can see how difficult it is to lead spiritual science over into life, because those who work with us do not have the proper spirit. It is very necessary, my dear friends, that we be much more earnest than we have been up to now, to be able to realize the significance of our spiritual scientific movement. Of this we shall speak further.

It is possible for us to imagine that the whole process of the spiritual development of Central Europe during the last centuries could have proceeded differently from the way it did. When one has the view that something which has occurred in the world could have also occurred differently, that is not a rejection to the comprehensive law of Karma, since the law of Karma does not exclude the existence of freedom in the world. Fatalists who represent everything which has occurred in the world as having had to occur in so far as external sense observation is concerned, follow a line of approach which cannot be followed by those who as students of spiritual science are familiar with the law of Karma on the one hand and on the other are familiar with that which occurs in the external world. Something of a spiritual element always occurs at the same time as that which occurs in the external world. Both streams proceed together and the law of Karma applies to both streams, so that it is actually quite valid that things could proceed in a different form in the external world from which it manifests there and nevertheless that which is necessary could occur.

Now I am just presenting this is a preliminary way, but I am going to develop this theme further. I want to mention another process of the spiritual development of Central Europe which occurred, that aspect of spiritual development which depends upon knowledge could have proceeded differently as viewed by external observation from the way it did proceed. It is certain, my dear friends, that in most circles Schiller and Goethe are looked up to very much in recent times; Fichte also has begun to be reverenced. Many people who look up to Goethe and Schiller do it without really having made the effort to investigate what they have written about their ideas. The whole spiritual development of the 19th century could have proceeded in such a way that people actually could have taken up into themselves the total world conception of Goethe, Schiller and these around them. However things did not work out that way.

How did it happen that things were different? What would have happened had those sleeping germs which appeared in the great period of classical knowledge at the turning of the 18th and 19th century, what would have happened had these germs really developed themselves in a living way? Spiritual science would have been produced in a straight line from these germs. This is what I want to demonstrate in my book which should appear very shortly and will carry the title The Riddle of The Human Being, The Thinking, the Perceptions And The Thought Of German and Austrian Personalities. Why had that which exists in germinal form in the Goethe, Schiller world conception not been taken up? It was not taken up because man had fear for the following reasons. Spiritual science to be sure demands a much more fundamental, a much more intensive thinking than most of today's learned people are able to bring up and it is the fear of these difficult concepts and ideas which represent the reasons for the resistance factors. The way in which people today are actually looking up to Goethe and Schiller, is done so as to cloud over their ideas much more than to clarify them. This difficulty of understanding the ideas of Goethe and Schiller existed even in Jena when the spirit of Goethe dominated, when Schiller taught, when Fichte taught, when Schlegel taught, when Schelling taught, all those personalities of whom we have spoken this past winter and of whom I am going to refer to in this book which will appear very shortly. You can find much in Schlegel and Fichte, Goethe and Schiller which harmonizes with our spiritual science. However, it is possible to take extracts out of context from these people's works, and then represent them in such a way that as to make their ideas appear foolish; and this has been done by a number of people. All this clouds over the essential elements in these personalities.

In a similar way, people have difficulty in trying to understand that which ought to be understood in our present age in reference to the Mystery of Golgotha. You know from my lectures that in order to understand the phenomenon of Christ Jesus, we must be able to call up in our minds three worlds. We have, for example, the Jesus Child who carries the individuality of the great Zarathustra. He lives in that body until his 12th year, then leaves it and goes into the body of the other Jesus Child in which a soul dwelt which did not participate in the whole earth development, but had been left behind in the earth soul substance in so far as that part remains above while the other part descended into the human body. And this other part that remained above then entered into that body which was born in the second Mary as the second Jesus Child. I have brought to your attention the fact that spiritual scientific knowledge shows that this Jesus Child actually was able to speak immediately after his birth; when he was born, he said what he really was.

This Jesus Child now grows with the soul of Zarathustra from the 12th year, then in the 30th year the Christ Individuality incarnated Itself in him and lived in this body. This body has been prepared by the great spirit of Zarathustra also prepared by that soul which did not participate in earth evolution but was left behind at the particular time when the earth had not yet achieved its present materiality. The Christ Individuality lives for three years in this body. So you see that we must call up three worlds into our cognition in order to understand this great mystery of human evolution, the Mystery of Golgotha. The highest spiritual worlds out of which the Christ descended; that world which was there before an earth existed, and that world through which human beings develop, to which Zarathustra belongs in his incarnations. So we have the higher worlds in which Christ lived and the world in which Zarathustra lived, Zarathustra who experienced it all in a human incarnation.

When the outside world became aware of these ideas which I have expressed, they did not like it; they were very, very fearful about it. They called them unchristian ideas and said: Let us not have those ideas, just have faith in the sort of Christ that we teach about from the New Testament. They are not satisfied when we go to them and say: Yes, we believe everything that you believe, but in addition to that we believe some more things. They do not like that. You can see that they are not interested in knowledge; all they are interested in is expanding their power and their influence. Anything that shows that they do not have the complete knowledge is a threat against their power. Therefore they would rather reject it than examine it. So we see on the one side that we are attacked by official Christianity and also on the other side we do not receive understanding from the intellectual scientific people of our age.

You know, for example, that in Occult Science and other books, we talk about the fact that our earth developed itself out of an ancient Moon existence. What today we call the mineral kingdom was not present in that ancient Moon existence. This mineral kingdom only gradually crystallized itself out. We have in us, as human beings, the animal qualities, the plant qualities and we also have the mineral kingdom in us. We are permeated by the mineral kingdom and this enables us to be perceptible to the senses. If we look back into the ancient Moon period we have the predecessors of our present human beings there; those people who were not permeated by a mineral kingdom. Just read in my Occult Science how this Moon existence appeared, this Moon existence in which the mineral kingdom was not present. You read how everything was a soft, almost watery substance, and how that which sort of grew out of the water looked like spongy fungus material. Thus you must also assume that you were swimming in water which developed on the Moon. When you realize that situation, you will be able to understand that there was a quite different kind of perception living in the human being on the Moon evolution.

One could also perceive the sounds of the Music of the Spheres on the Moon, the echoing and waving of the Music of the Spheres. You had these sounds outside and they continued to work down into the water. There was an apparatus in us from which our present larynx has been formed and this apparatus which had at that time harmonized sympathetically, it co-operated, it vibrated in harmony with that which was sounding in the old water. We had a certain swimming-moon brain in the old water in which all these sounds harmonized sympathetically. You can just imagine that all the Music which was weaving through the cosmic ocean would transform itself into pictures of imagination through an apparatus out of which our present larynx has developed; and these pictures of imagination would appear in the ancient Moon dream consciousness. But today the Music of the Spheres is silent. Our larynx has developed which is surrounded by the lungs that which was taken up in the Moon Sphere Music and our brain is now enclosed in a solid sheath. However, you have a reminder of the ancient Moon situation when you know that our brain actually swims in fluid. You know, for example, that the brain has a weight of 1350 grams and if that were allowed to rest on the veins it would crush them. We already know from Archimedes' Law how the weight is lightened and therefore does not crush the veins in the brain. So you see the brain is still in the position in which it was upon the ancient Moon. In its present form it is an imitation except that there has been a transformation as a result of what has been developed according to the earth laws. Nevertheless the communication with the external world is still there.

When we breathe in, then we lift up the diaphragm. Now, through the fact that the diaphragm lifts itself up, it sort of presses on the whole vein system and on the ganglian system, and as a result of that, that which has gathered itself together as liquid in the spinal canal is pushed up into the brain. Therefore when you breathe in, liquid rises up out of the spinal canal into the brain and when you breathe out the diaphragm goes down and then the fluid descends out of the brain into the spinal column. So you see that we are continuously in connection with the wave movement which occurs in our relationship in our environment. With every out-breathing, the brain water sinks down, with every in-breathing it rises up. You have a rising up and a descending of the brain fluid and the brain swims within that.

You have the complicated process through which man today is more now than he was upon the ancient Moon, who today as a human being, not as a mechanical tool, is in the position not only to have imaginations but also to be able to think. That which continually occurs in us is suppressed in the consciousness. Indeed, my dear friends, the following occurs continuously: We always have Imaginations. However, they are toned over by our waking concepts, a strong light overpowers this week light. The Imaginations are always there and are continuously in connection with the breathing out and the breathing in.

It is only because of the solid mineral permeated brain that it opposes itself to Imagination, and through the beating up of the solid brain mass on the brain fluid substance, you have an extraction out of the Imagination of our conscious ideas.

So you see that one must be able to learn to think differently than do our colleagues in the academic world. Nevertheless, they have a certain anxiety, a fear which stimulates them to work with the complicated thoughts. They prefer to focus themselves on something that is much more comfortable and convenient.

(Many extracts of German authors have been deleted from this lecture which illustrate Rudolf Steiner's point as to the sort of attitude which the German intellectuals are taking to spiritual science.)

If you take the concept of Jesus from the Koran, for example, and consult from 19th Surah, you will see that it specifically mentions that the Nathan Jesus Child actually spoke immediately at his birth. This is what the Koran says: “Jesus spoke and said:‘See, I am the servant of God. He has given me the book and He has made me to a prophet and He has blessed me wherever I am, and He has given me His blessings so long as I live, and love to my mother and peace upon the day of my birth and the day when I die and the day when I am resurrected again to life. This is Jesus, the son of Mary, the Word of truth’ ”. This actually appears in the Koran.

In the ancient Jewish teachings as they are contained in the Talmud and other writings apart from the Old Testament, you learn that which is more of a conceptual nature, but on the other hand the Haggadah is the name given to that which modern people would call legends and tales. However, these legends and tales in the Haggadah refer more to actual perception in the spiritual world; they go back to imaginative knowledge.

I am going to share a portion from the Haggadah about Solomon with you. It says: “Rabbi Joachin says: The feet of man guarantee for him that they bring him to that place where he is supposed to go. And they tell about those Moors who are the sons of Shesher named Elacoraf and Akia who are the scribes of Solomon. One day Solomon saw the Angel of Death who was very sad and he asked: Why are you sad? The Angel of Death replied: Because I require these two Moors. As a result of that Solomon gave his Moors to the Seherem (Seherem are those demons who for imaginative vision look like goats and fly through the air) and sent them into the City of Loos. When these two Moors arrived there, they died. A few days afterwards, Solomon again saw the Angel of Death and this time the Angel was laughing. And Solomon said to the Angel: Why do you laugh? The Angel of Death replied: You sent them precisely to the place where I wanted them to go. So at that time Solomon said the following: The feet of the human being guarantee for him that they bring him to the place where he is supposed to be. Thus Solomon had an experience with the Angel of Death, an experience which confirmed the truth of that which Rabbi Joachin said, namely, the feet of man guarantee for him that he is taken to the place where he needs to be.”

Now, my dear friends, you will see that a number of questions are raised in this story from the Haggadah. The feet of the man guarantee that he is brought to the place where he is supposed to go. Why are the feet spoken of so precisely? In such ancient imaginative legends, nothing of an arbitrary nature is there, everything has its definite deep significance. So we have the first question which one can ask. Then we also have another: Why was the Angel of Death sad when he appeared before Solomon with the statement that he is going to take the two scribes away? It seems ridiculously trivial to say that the Angel was sad; he was going to do his job. Then Solomon asks him: “Why are you sad?” What is the significance of this question? The Angel of Death says he is sad because he demands the two scribes. But Solomon gives them to the demons who carry them into the City of Loos.

Now, you see the question about the city of Loos can be more easily answered. The city of Loos was so organized that no one was allowed to die within the city, hence those people who were ready to die were carried outside the city. It was the only city which had this organization. Therefore when Solomon heard that the Angel of Death was going to take his scribes, he sent them to the city because he believed that if they were in the city, the Angel of Death could not get hold of them. This is the story given in the Haggadah. However, these stories are found in many other places in Jewish tradition. There it is related in this way: They had only arrived at the gates of the city because they fell down during their flight. And because they were not able to enter the city, the Angel was able to get hold of them. However, the next day you have the Angel of Death standing before Solomon and laughing. This is very strange; the Angel is laughing because he was able to get hold of these two scribes for death. Solomon recognizes the truth of Rabbi Joachin when he says: “The feet of human beings are a guarantee that he is brought to the place where he is supposed to be.”

Now, it is important to understand that both scribes, both Moors, are the sons of Shesher, who himself was the scribe for David. Thus, this indicates that these two scribes of King Solomon were very special. we must put all these things together if we want to perceive the whole significance of the questions which surface when we speak about this very significant cognitive moment in the life of King Solomon. Now, remember that King Solomon was not wise because he was clever in the sense that modern man is clever, he was called the wise Solomon because he was able to have real vision into the spiritual world; the spiritual world was open to him. Therefore Solomon was to experience that truth which Rabbi Joachin imparted, namely, the truth in connection with the feet of human beings.

When you consider the human being in comparison with the animal, then you see a very important difference. Through the fact that man has a vertical spine, he is at right angles to the surface of the earth. The spine of the animal, however, is parallel to the surface of the earth. Now I hope that no one here is going by object to telling us about the kangaroo. These are exceptions which can be explained if we go into the details of the situation. But let us put that on the side for the moment. We know man has an upright spine and the spine of the animal is horizontal. Now, when we draw a line through the spine of the animal—it is not a straight line, but a curved one—then we have a line curving parallel to the curvature of the earth which means when we draw a circle parallel to the earth then that passes through the spine of the animal. However, when we draw the same curve for the human being, then we find that this curve has a middle point. In the case of the animal we have seen the middle point of the curve was the middle point of the earth. However in the middle point of the curve that we draw through the spinal column of man, there you have the middle point of the moon. Why? Because that particular stage of development which the animal is going through at present, man already went through in the ancient Moon period. Therefore, at the present time man still has a connection with the moon insofar as the curve passing through his spine has its center point in the moon, just as the curve passing through the animal has its center point in the earth. Therefore man is connected with the moon in a similar descriptive way as the animal is connected with the earth.

Now, man has torn himself away from the earth; man is not as united with the earth as is the animal kingdom. As far as his external physical nature is concerned, man has torn himself loose from his earth planet. However, he has only torn himself loose in one aspect of his nature; he has another aspect through which he is attached to the earth, and that is with his feet. Man has to stand upon the earth with his feet. However, passing over from the Moon development to the earth development, he has torn himself away from the earth with his hands. His feet, however, are still connected with the earth. If you understand the human form as it has developed itself in the transition from the Moon evolution to the Earth evolution, so you must say: In so far as man belongs to the earth, the earth has been able to attach itself to him in his feet. What guarantees does man have to come to the earth? This is guaranteed by man's foot situation. Hence we have the explanation in the Hebrew: The feet guarantee him. The word ‘guarantee’ in the Hebrew is the same as the word you use in reference to guaranteeing someone an amount of capital, the word guarantee indicates that as far as his feet are concerned, it is guaranteed that he has a connection with the earth. That does not mean that the feet of the human being carry him to the place of his death, but the whole secret of the human form lies in this sentence as Solomon has recognized it through the fact that he is able to look into the spiritual world.

Now, I have yet to describe that which Solomon revealed when he had words with the Angel of Death. We will see this from the example of how we have a wisdom present in humanity which we previously called the primal wisdom. This primal wisdom passed away in order that man could have an opportunity during the Earth evolution to develop this wisdom again, but to develop it out of himself in complete freedom.

Now, there is another riddle in this story about the Angel of Death. At one time he is sad and at another time he is laughing. We can just think about the true nature of laughing and weeping. You know very well that if you see a person walking along the street who is laughing to himself, you would say that he is crazy. You see that laughing is something which you expect one to participate in with other people. On the other hand, when it comes to crying, you know that usually you cry when you are alone. To explain this phenomenon of weeping and laughing, we have to remember that we generally think that what we are as human beings is only enclosed within our skin and we forget the fact that the air is outside us and when we breathe it in, it becomes part of us and then we breathe it out again. Therefore we are part of our whole environment. And when we go to sleep, we breathe out our ego and astral body, we breathe it in again when we wake up. So we see that there is a flowing life between us and the spiritual world. Actually when we laugh, we spread out our ego and astral body outside us. You stretch out, you expand your astral body and your ego when you laugh. And this expansion of the astral body goes out to the ether body. The invisible man spreads himself out elastically. That is the process when you laugh. The reverse process takes place when you weep. There you have the astral body contracting together with the ether body and pressing itself an the physical body which then presses out tears.

Now we go back to Solomon. When Solomon looked at the Angel of Death, he did not see a physical body, but he saw a spiritual being. What he really saw when the Angel laughed was the Angel spreading himself out. The first time he saw the Angel, he was weeping, that means the Angel was drawing himself together. Here we see how spiritual beings fulfil their activities. Laughing and weeping is an accompaniment of life with us human beings through which we only express our inner being; we show how our inner being is constituted. In the case of spiritual beings, they show their actions. As far as we are concerned, when we laugh and cry, it has very little significance for other people. We do not produce activities through our laughing and crying. These are accompaniments of our life. However, in the moment when we approach certain spiritual beings who with their actual self are occupied more in working than we are, there you have the significance of the expanding out and the contracting in. The Angel of Death, because he was in the position of having to fetch these two Moors to death, had to hold his forces together, he had to condense himself in order to give support for his forces because he was about to perform some activity which expressed itself in the fact that he was sad. That is only an indication of how he is drawing himself together. The next day when he had accomplished his task, then the elasticity expressed itself again, he spread himself out and you had the appearance of laughter.

Now we come to the next question: Why were they led to the City of Loos and what is the meaning of this whole process with Solomon? In the first place we must contemplate the fact that Solomon was a person who stands in connection with the spiritual world. I told you that it is very significant that both scribes were the sons of Shesher who had been the scribe of King David. Thus they are very valuable personalities and scribes at that ancient time signified something different from what it means today. Scribes in Egypt, for example, were people who were able with all sorts of inner fervor to paint letters in the sense of the ancient Egyptian script, and when someone painted a false letter, he stood under the penalty of death, because he was dealing with something of a holy nature. There was something of a holy nature in the letters; this applied to the scribes of King Solomon who also stood in connection with the spiritual world. They stood in communion with Solomon who imparted his knowledge of the spiritual world to them. And the City of Loos points out the fact to us that there was something in these scribes which enabled them to have a feeling of their immortality even during their life, they had this connection with the spiritual world. We ought to bring our attention to the fact that they knew of their soul-spiritual kernel which passes through the portal of death. They knew this not only theoretically, but they belonged to those who, as it were, were initiated in a certain degree into these mysteries.

Hence the Angel of Death had some difficulty here, because it was necessary to put himself in a certain connection with King Solomon, which means that both scribes, as well as King Solomon, lived in the consciousness of their immortality. Therefore it was necessary for the Angel of Death to enter into the whole process which he had to execute because a consciousness was present of the death which was involved here. This did not mean that King Solomon wanted to protect his scribes from death and therefore sent then to the City of Loos, but it was supposed to indicate that here we are dealing with death which was completely conscious, that the knowledge of death was part of their knowledge. Here the main emphasis was that Solomon was conscious of the death of his scribes and when it is said that he sent then to the city of Loos, that should only indicate to us how the Ahrimanic force represented by the Angel of Death is represented by its agent as the demonic goat which enters into the situation. Thus the whole process which occurs consciously is supposed to be explained to us through the story in the following way: A death once occurred in such a way that a wise man was conscious of it. That is what Rabbi Joachin wanted to indicate. The whole process is connected with the spiritual world. This arising of knowledge of the super-sensible world in King Solomon is indicated by this story. Rabbi Joachin said: “Man is bound to the earth through the form of the feet and its relationship to the earth, and it is expressed that man is connected to the earth in a one-sided way, that only his feet are guarantee for the fact that man belongs to the earth. The upright posture of man is a guarantee for the fact that he is given over to the spiritual world with his essential kernel. And because Solomon was able to believe him, he was able to be made consciously aware of the death of his scribes who were dear to him.

Therefore we see that the idea of these ancient traditions can only be understood with the aid of spiritual science. You learn from that that Solomon's wisdom is connected with the fact that he was able to look into the spiritual world and discover the mystery of death. In the line of the generations which descends from King Solomon, you have the physical preparation, as it were, for this clairvoyance in so far as it is able to enter the portal of death. Therefore we see the body of Jesus descending from the Solomon line of the House of David, but the soul is that of Zarathustra. We have to be clear about the soul being that of Zarathustra and why it had to enter into a body which descended from someone who was permeated with clairvoyance.

Now, I have often spoken about that which came with the soul of Zarathustra. Today I only want to emphasize the fact that that which came later was mostly removed from the teaching of Zarathustra and then passed over into the teaching of Mani, and further on into the teaching of Manichaeisn. We know the deepest questions of the riddle of man belongs to the question of the relationship of good and evil, and we know that we can understand it when we have insight into the working of Lucifer and Ahriman. But this working of Lucifer and Ahriman leads us back to Zarathustra. Lucifer and Ahriman are already present as a fact of the spiritual world in the teaching of Zarathustra. And let us try to bring the Zarathustrian teaching of the good and evil into connection with the teaching of predestination which is connected with the Islamic religion.

Let us consider the import of this teaching of predestination. On the one side it says: Everything which occurs has been predetermined, so that even taking a step in front of my door was predetermined. Even when I die that was predestined. Everything is strongly predestined, which means that for the consciousness of the Islamic person, everything that occurs was already previously written in the Book of God. However, every time this Islamic person is confronted with something, he says: “If it is the will of God.” He is completely convinced of the fact that everything is written in the Book of God; however, he says: “I will only do this thing if it is the will of God”. A Westerner would say to this Islamic person: “If you say that everything is predestined, then it does not make any sense to say I will do it if God wills it. Why do you say: ‘I will do it if God wills it?’ There is no doubt about it since everything is already determined from the beginning.” Here we have an insoluble contradiction; it really is an insoluble contradiction. Look at Western philosophy, at Spinoza, Descartes, Kant, Fichte, Hegel, Schelling and so on, and you will find the after-working of this insoluble contradiction, but it appears in a particularly crass way in the teaching of Kismet, of everything being predestined. Here we have a teaching which, in this connection, is different from the teaching of Zarathustra, that the people who know Zarathustra know about Lucifer and Ahriman. At first we have the teaching of primal wisdom which did not contain any contradictions and this transforms itself into teaching which does carry a contradiction. A person who does not recognize that life is filled with contradictions will really never understand life. Life, when it is only approached with the human understanding is bound to give many contradictions.

First we have the age of Zarathustra and then this is followed by a time when man is confronted by contradictions. But through these contradictions he should be stimulated to develop his real inner life. Now, you have something happening in the earth evolution where something which did not belong to the earth evolution comes in in order that man can resolve these contradictions. Here we have the Nathan Jesus coming into earth evolution and with this Nathan Jesus you have something which helps to solve all the earth contradictions, because the Nathan Jesus comes from the spiritual world and is not attached to the earth. In the Nathan Jesus we have a healing of the contradictions which occurs in human beings during the earth sojourn. So we find where you have this contradiction of the predestination and the idea ‘If God wills it’ in the Koran, and you have in this very same Koran the allusion to the Nathan Jesus which I quoted earlier, who spoke immediately at birth. You see, all these things are very complicated.

It requires courage, courage in order to think things toward the end. And this is the sort of courage that we get from spiritual science. Too often today people are apathetic, but in spiritual science we want to replace apathy with calmness. With apathy you do not care; with calmness you are able to absorb these things in a mood of equanimity.

We speak in the correct sense, as it were, of the spiritual forces which are driving forward; we speak of the different hierarchies and we know that certain of the beings of these hierarchies remain behind. Then when they reach a later stage, in so far as they remained behind at an earlier stage, they do not unfold that activity which they would have unfolded if they had progressed in the right way, but they develop an activity which corresponds to an earlier stage of world development. We call those beings the Luciferic and Ahrimanic beings, beings who exercise their activity for the earth, and beings who in a normal way exercised their activity during the Moon existence. From various points of view, we have mentioned what the significance is of the inter-weaving of such Luciferic and Ahrimanic beings in the whole world development.

You see, my dear friends, centuries before the Mystery of Golgotha occurred, there was something very immense which proceeded from ancient India, a teaching which is indicated in the Bhagavad Gita and in other writings of the Orient. At that time you had something great, something full of significance, and nothing of our spiritual science ever attempted to belittle the immense significance of such phenomena. You can realize this from the cycle I gave about the Bhagavad Gita in Helsingfors where I pointed to the immensity of the deep truths which exist in the Bhagavad Gita. It is also very good for present day man to deepen himself in that which at that time was very great and important for mankind. However, since then, the Mystery of Golgotha has come over mankind and the importance of this Mystery of Golgotha is indicated by the fact that we divide history into two parts, that which preceded the Mystery of Golgotha and that which came afterwards. But the Orient does not possess this historical concept, because it is unable to acquire a real understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha. As far as the Orient is concerned, you have one absolute truth which is valid for all age, and they do not ascribe to an evolution of truth.

It is still very difficult in our time for human beings to understand and think about the development of knowledge. This proceeds from the fact that we have not yet been able to completely permeate ourselves with the meaning of the Mystery of Golgotha. Let us assume that someone appeared in our time and wanted to speak in the same way as the author of the Bhagavad Gita spoke or as Buddha spoke in his time; that person would do something which would be perfectly valid for a time dating back centuries before the Mystery of Golgotha. One could say that if the person in question said that at that time when the Bhagavad Gita was brought forward, then it would be a correct deed in the evolutionary sense. However, if he appears today and tries to speak in the same sense as the Bhagavad Gita speaks, that is a Luciferic act and something which really was valid for an earlier period has been brought over into our time. A person who does that would extinguish the whole development of the intellect, of the power of conceptualization which has developed in the evolution of thinking. Now, I am not speaking about something abstract, but about all this because I want to bring a very significant concrete phenomena to your attention. A book appeared in 1912 entitled The High Goal of Knowledge, The Aranada Upanashad written by a man who signs his name as Omar al Rashid Bey. This Omar al Rashid Bey is really a very good German. We see that this book really belongs to the centuries before the Mystery of Golgotha and therefore today we have to grasp it as a Luciferic phenomenon.

Now, in the very near future a book by me will appear which contains a great many of the ideas which I have put forth in the public lectures over the last two winters. There will be much in this book. However, of that which goes beyond what one can find in ancient India, because it belongs to the world conception idealism appropriate to the times after the Mystery of Golgotha. As a matter of fact, my dear friends, that which Fichte, Hegel, Schelling and the others who I have mentioned in this book, what they have done is far superior to that which is contained in the oriental wisdom, contained in Brahmanism and the fact that human beings today do not recognize it is the result of the following. Usually it is very difficult for people to grasp the ideas in this book, and for that reason I have written about it in my book, The other reason is that we, in the main, do not have a talent to appreciate and look up to knowledge in the way possessed by the oriental. In this book entitled The High Goal Of Knowledge you will find not only that knowledge is imparted, but from the beginning to the end people are made to remember that what is being dealt with here is an elevated knowledge, and you have to reverence this knowledge highly and realize that it is available to specially selected people and is known by the highest masters of wisdom who have deigned to stoop down to enable you poor people to have this knowledge available to you. This sort of approach is what people like to get hold of, they think this is really good, especially when it starts off with something like this: “Peace and blessings be to you, oh dear ones.”

When you compare this with the writings of the German classical philosophers who you will read about in this book which will appear shortly, you will find those people who have developed the new world conception idealism and that they put the main emphasis an man's ability to live in the ego, to experience the ego; for this is what it must be after the Mystery of Golgotha. But the oriental wisdom goes not only towards being able to experience the ego, but actually to overcoming it, to extinguishing it. This selbstsucht, this egotism, this searching for the self, this actually exists before the finding of the ego. As long as a person is looking for his “I”, so long does he develop this selbstsucht, this egotism and in order to free himself from this seeking for the self, this egotism, he must find the ego. Once you have found the ego, then you are no longer afflicted by the seeking for the self, therefore finding the ego is the only real possibility of overcoming this egotism. That person today who after the Mystery of Golgotha wants to flee away from the ego and says that which was said in ancient India, that all that is thrown back out of the ego into the seeking of the ego, that person is really fostering egotism. Hence, such books make an egotistical impression on us today, an impression which shows us that those very people want to draw away from the world, and do not really want to seek for their immortal part; they do not in reality want to seek for the spiritual, but want to withdraw from the reality of the spiritual in order in an egotistical way to try in their own dreamingness try to seek for knowledge. This is egotism of knowledge and this egotism of knowledge which does not notice itself is the worst form of egotism. Hence the book entitled The High Goal of Knowledge written by Omar al Rashid Bey, who really is a very good German, is reproducing all that ancient Indian stuff which is the worst type of egotism.

Before the Mystery of Golgotha when the ego had not entered into the development of mankind through Christ, then the way that the oriental spoke was not too dangerous, but to speak in that way today is to try to push the ego away and you really get sucked in by Lucifer and do not notice that you get, into an egotistical state of mind. This same book furthermore states: “The person who seeks for salvation in this world remains a victim of this world.” Now, on the other hand we say that since the Mystery of Golgotha, the person who does not seek for his salvation in the spiritual of the world but wants to draw himself from the world, actually falls victim to the world, he falls a victim to that part of the world which is dreaming in him. We say that after the Mystery of Golgotha, the person who unites himself with the eternal nature of this world and seeks the eternal within the time aspect, does not fall a victim to this world. One can take every sentence in this book and reverse it and then you will find the right thing. I have noted the following in the margins of this book: The person who flees from the ego falls a victim to the search for the ego, since the search creates the “I” for itself. The finding of the ego frees you from the searching for the ego, frees you from egotism. That person who is able to see through this world can win this world, whereas the book itself says: “Whoever is not able to lift himself out of this world lives and falls a victim to this world.” Today, after the Mystery of Golgotha we say that the person who today is able to see through this world is the person who can become a victor over this world. You can see from all this how such a book is a very Luciferic book. These people are trying to teach something in the present which really was valid thousands of years ago; hence we can call it Luciferic.

The person who has vision permeated with reality is passed by by most of our contemporaries; they are not able to come to terms with people who are trying to share reality with them. A person who, from a certain point of view, could be called a real seer is Robert Hammerling, the great modern poet of Central Europe. Now I will not speak of Robert Hammerling's poetry nor about his philosophy in general. You can read about that in the book I have recently written. What I would like to bring to your attention is Hammerling's seer vision, how he really is able to see through what is happening in this world and therefore wrote the great satire entitled Homunculus shortly before his death. Homunculus typifies the people of today who say everything that exists is subject to and stands under mechanistic materiality; also all spiritual phenomena and experiences are subject to mechanistic materialistic laws of force and substance. Hammerling responds to this question with a real artistic poetical power in so far as he presents a person to us such as Homunculus which mankind must become if they consider the world purely in this materialistic way.

Now this Homunculus achieves a great deal. The brain, in a certain sense, is really a mechanical tool and can itself be produced out of mechanical action; therefore the brain can produce a very, very strong wisdom. So Homunculus, Hammerling is very wise and is able to know what exists in the world and combines it all together, he founds a universal newspaper and becomes a billionaire. You can do that sort of thing in a world in which the spiritual is neglected. But he goes further. He produces a school of apes, because naturally materialistic Darwinism has the idea that man descended from apes. Therefore, all they have to do is handle the apes in a very pedagogical way and naturally they would turn into men. This school of apes is a very fine chapter in Hammerling's Homunculus. He also shows the type of people who write rubbish in their articles. In the 1880's Hammerling really had a good sense of seership and wrote his Homunculus out of the reality of his seership. Homunculus finds a soulless woman and Homunculus, whose knowledge is not accessible to soul and spirit, becomes the typical man without a soul.

Hammerling had an inkling that in the future people would come along and say: “Thank God we have overcome all this Goethean classicism and everything connected with it. We have overcome this belief in homo sapiens, this belief of the wise man who can find something in his spirit and therefore establishes human ordering. However, we know that all of human ordering is purely conditioned by external economic relationships; therefore man depends only upon these external economic relationships and fortunately we have overcome this ancient classicism which emphasizes and looks upon men as men of wisdom, as homo sapiens and replaces that by homo economicus. Actually today we have a real homunculism which Hammerling prophesied in the 1880's. We have homunculism in our philosophical world conception; Homunculus becomes not only a billionaire; he establishes a universal newspaper; he writes the book The Renewal of Austria Political Programs by Dr. Karl Renner. Hammerling was a seer. He could visualize what was going to come. It is very important for us to realize that and to obtain an understanding of the greatness of such an artistic creation as Homunculus. The greatness of such a creation consists in the fact that without spiritual science, Hammerling said to himself: What would happen to the human being if he considered that all he has is a physical body? Therefore he depicted Homunculus as a person who, in the main, brought nothing with him as heredity from Saturn, Sun and Moon developments, but only has that which Earth evolution has given him. The significant parts of the ego, astral body and the ether body are lacking. Therefore we can understand Hammerling's Homunculus correctly precisely from the point of view of spiritual science.

The last time I told you that the science of the spirit brings together three things in order to understand the Mystery of Golgotha. First Jesus as He is incarnated as Zarathustra in the Solomon Jesus Child and how he brings through this Solomon Jesus Child that which mankind has experienced through its historical development since he himself has passed from incarnation to incarnation. I have told you about the Nathan Jesus Child who has within him that which was actually predestined for the earth but never went through this earth evolution; it was held back. I have showed you how the Nathan Jesus Child was completely described in the Koran to the point where it says that the Nathan Jesus Child actually spoke when he was born. The Christ Being incarnates in the Nathan Jesus Child with the Solomon Jesus Child, the Christ Being Who comes from beyond the super-earthly, Who draws into the personality of this Solomonic Nathanic Jesus in the 30th year so that we can recognize in Christ a union of the spiritual worlds external to the earth with that which has occurred upon the earth. And I have brought to your attention the fact that it is necessary in our time to become able to understand the concept of the immensity of the greatness of the Jesus figure, and with that the greatness of the Mystery of Golgotha, since our time has certainly developed the intellect, the intellectual thinking in its 5th post-Atlantean period. However, the spiritual comprehension of the would has to be added to this intellectual thinking. Then it will be possible to understand the Mystery of Golgotha again as it was understood many, many years ago but understood now in a very advanced way. I might say that before the understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha could have been acquired, that which was inserted into human understanding through the Ahrimanic powers had to occur. As a matter of fact, I can say that all the good spirits are really waiting for mankind to understand the Mystery of Golgotha; yet in spite of that people are fighting against this understanding. They do not want to enter into the understanding of this Mystery of Golgotha and therefore deny it in an unconscious way. They also unconsciously deny the figure who stands in the centerpoint of this Mystery of Golgotha. You know that when a very intellectual person tests the Gospels in a critical way, he finds contradictions in them which show that these refer at the most to the fact that a good man lived in Nazareth. He says that a reasonably intelligent man cannot believe that other things are contained in the Gospels, only a weak-minded person can say: I follow the Christ Jesus.

I would like to bring a book to your attention entitled The Fool in Christo Emanual Quint, a novel by Gerhard Hauptmann which contains what I have just indicated to you. Now, I am not going to say that Gerhard Hauptmann had not written a very fine drama at an earlier time, however our time is ripe for that which this great poet of the present applies as a weak mind in order to represent Christ. I know very well that many will come to me and say: You are condemning this Fool in Christo Emanual Quint by Gerhard Hauptmann because you are looking at it from the religious or philosophical aspect and do not have any understanding for the purely esthetic. But I might say this: From the purely esthetic point of view, this work is just an imitation, a very bad reproduction of Dostoevski's Brothers Karamasov. I prefer to read Dostoevski and I advise everyone to read him rather than reading this weak imitation of his work which Gerhard Hauptmann has written. (Rudolf Steiner reads portions from this book to show that it resembles the things found in the Brothers Karamasov, but not in an artistic way.)

This book, The Fool in Christo Emanual Quint by Gerhard Hauptmann is highly praised by the critics and they say that because of its popularity many editions will have to be printed, also it will be translated into many languages. Both young and old will appreciate it; it will become a classic. It really is a novel of the religious battles of our age in which a person who was a son of the people rises up to become a son of God. Every religious person will be able to appreciate what is involved in this novel. This can be an example of how we are permeated by sick thought and this is why I emphasized time and again in the course of the winter's lectures how one of the functions of the spiritual science is to make our thinking healthy, to enable our thought forms to be constructed along the correct paths. When one abstractly states that today the classical time of homo sapiens is passed and that we must put homo economicus in its place, then you should be sufficiently awake to see that this man is an idiot even though he does not think so. He thinks he is the great culture bringer of our age who is solving the great riddle of our life. So much around us is trying to prevent people from developing the sort of thinking that deals with reality. You will be able to find what I mean when I say “Thinking according to reality” when you read my book in which these ideas are clearly presented. The book which will appear shortly.

Remember that we have Emanuel Kant who has written the book The Critique of Pure Reason in which he makes very clear that everything is only an appearance, that one can never arrive at the reality of the thing in itself behind the phenomena. We also have a Critique of Language who wants to foster the fame of this Critique of Language. You get all sorts of journalists who consider it to be the monumental world of the present time; whereas it is nothing more than frightful philosophical dilettantism. Fritz Mauthner cannot advance to a single real concept. All he can do is to say that the word has nothing in it. All the word is is just a gesture, a pointer. Mauthner does not have the slightest inkling of language of words. He criticizes the word, believes that people themselves have created words and that the words are really hiding reality. Indeed, you cannot criticize reality because you are criticizing the word. I will try to make this clear to you through a drastic example.

Just think what this Fritz Mauthner does. He has written Critique of Language which comprises three thick volumes, a Dictionary of Philosophy comprising two think volumes in which he has gathered together the concept of existence, the concept of knowledge, and so on. All of this is handled according to the words: Where words proceed from; where words first appear; how one word changes from one language into another. And in so far as he does all this describing of how the word changes itself from one language into the other, then he believes that he can say something about these things. I will try to make this clear with a drastic example. Let us assume that Fritz Mauthner traveled through Austria and found a word which has been formed there, the word Boehmishe Hoffrat—Bohemian privy counselor. This word is used all over Austria; every other person is a Boehmishe Hoffrat. What would this critic of speech, this Fritz Mauthner make out of this word using his method? Naturally he would look under ‘B’ in his philosophical dictionary, analyze the word Boehmishe in an orderly way and discover that it is a part of the concept berman. Then he would look under the letter ‘H’ to find Hoffrat and would then take that concept and analyze it in an orderly fashion and in this way he tried to discover the reality of what Boehmishe Hoffrat means. However, the singular fact is that in Austria, a Boehmishe Hoffrat is neither a Bohemian nor is he a privy counselor. On the contrary, most of the Boehmishe Hoffrate in Austria are neither one nor the other. It is only an accident when one is a privy counselor or a Bohemian. In Austria, a Boehemishe Hoffrat indicates a person who is an intriguer, who has the talent for displacing those above him, climbing the ladder into their place at the top. It has nothing to do with the Bohemian nor with the privy Counselor. A person can be an office attendant born in the Steimark and still be a Boehmishe Hoffrat. So you see how words are formed and how they relate to reality. All words are formed that way. When you want to seek the reality behind words, then you find very little of it behind the word Boehmishe Hoffrat if you do not have the ability to penetrate deep within the words and find out how there content was arrived at and what the word signifies.

You see, my dear friends, our present age has reached this degree of confusion and people have arrived at a point in their confusion where they look on a book such as Fritz Mauthner has written as an epoch making creation. It is not really without significance to know that the tasks of people arise out of works in which the fantasy of human beings is poisoned as is done by Gerhard Hauptmann in his book The Fool in Christo Emanual Quint. It is not really an arbitrary thing when the thinking of the human being is confused by a book such as Fritz Mauthner's Critique of Language or something like it. These are the outflow of the intellectual pride which places itself against acquiring a real understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha, that understanding which is so necessary for the present time. I might say the following: Just as the crucifixion had to enter for Christ Jesus, so also must the concept of Christ as it appears at the present time in mankind also be crucified. And this concept of Christ is crucified through books such as The Fool in Christo Emanual Quint by Gerhard Hauptmann. Surely Gerhard Hauptmann feels himself especially clever because he points to the fact that bishops, pastors and officials have thrown out the fool, Quint when he came and announced that he was Christ. But Hauptmann in an eloquent way adds that eventually this fool could actually be Christ, then the people would have thrown Christ out.

There is so much of what is happening in the present time which prevents people from penetrating to the threefold understanding of the Christ, to the historical Christ, to the Zarathustra Child in which the Christ Being entered, to the earthly Christ, namely, to the Nathan Jesus Child who, however has not worked into the earth; to the Christ understanding, to that Power which descended out of the spiritual heights and has fructified all earth life. This threefold understanding must be acquired, my dear friends. It will be acquired when spiritual science is able to permeate through all the egotism and pride of those who say that they have reached the highest goal of knowledge. In spite of all that, there will be people who are able to enter to an understanding of this threefold Christ. When we come together again, I will be able to attach something else to what I have said today.