LECTURE ONE
Individuality
and the Group-Soul
MUNICH,
DECEMBER 4, 1909
TODAY
WE WILL consider a
general theme: the question of the meaning and tasks of
anthroposophical spiritual science. Tomorrow we will take up a more
specific theme: the destiny and nature of the individual human being.
We have often emphasized that anthroposophy has a special task and
meaning for human beings in the present age. People who think will
not be able to avoid the question what the aims of this spiritual
movement are and how they relate to other tasks of our time. Such
tasks may be explained from diverse points of view, as we have often
done. Today we will try to describe the evolutionary stage of
contemporary humanity and attempt to look a little into the future.
Then we will consider the task of anthroposophy in reference to our
present evolutionary stage.
We
know that since the great Atlantean catastrophe, which entirely
transformed the earth, there have been five great epochs of
civilization. We designate these as the ancient Indian, the ancient
Persian, the Egypto-Chaldean, the Greco-Latin, and the epoch we
presently live in. The latter was prepared in the eighth, ninth, and
tenth centuries after Christ; we are now actually in the middle of
this epoch. Of course, such divisions are not to be understood as
indicating that each evolutionary epoch abruptly came to an end and
then a new one began. Rather, one epoch gradually and slowly merged
into another. Long before one epoch has run its course, the
next one is already being prepared.
In our own cultural epoch,
the fifth post-Atlantean epoch, the characteristics of the sixth
epoch are already being prepared. Roughly speaking, people in our
time can be divided into two groups: those who live blindly for the
day, have no idea of, and know nothing about the preparation of
the sixth epoch, and those who understand that something new is being
prepared. The latter also know that this preparation must basically
be accomplished by human beings. We find our place in our time either
by passively following the customs of our society and doing what our
parents have taught us to do, or by being aware that to be a
conscious link in the chain of humanity we must work on ourselves and
our environment to contribute, as best we can, to the preparation of
what must come, namely, the sixth cultural period.
How it is possible to
prepare for the sixth epoch can only be understood when we consider
the character of our own period. The best way to do this is to
compare it with others. We know these cultural epochs are different
from each other, and over the years we have presented their various
distinguishing characteristics. We have shown that in the ancient
Indian period people had different soul qualities than they did
later. At that time, human beings were still endowed with a high
degree of clairvoyant consciousness. In later epochs, this
clairvoyance was gradually lost, and perception and
understanding became limited to the physical world. We have seen that
the fourth epoch was slowly prepared; it was in that period that
humanity came to live entirely in the physical world. This made it
possible for the being whom we call Christ Jesus to incarnate
in human form, as a human being on the physical plane. Next we have
seen that since that time a certain stream further strengthened human
capacities in the physical world. Indeed, the materialistic tendency
of our age and the insistence to accept only the physical world as
real are connected with humanity's further descent into the
physical. However, things must not remain like this. We must
ascend again into the spiritual world, bearing with us the
attainments and fruits we have acquired in the physical world. It is
the task of anthroposophy to offer people the possibility of
ascending once again into the spiritual world.
Immediately after the great
Atlantean catastrophe, there were many human beings who knew through
direct perception that they were surrounded by, and lived in, a
spiritual world. Gradually, however, the number of those who knew
this decreased as human perception became more limited to the
physical senses. In our time, the capacity to perceive the spiritual
world has almost disappeared; yet something so significant is being
prepared in our time that a great many people will have quite
different faculties in their next incarnation. Human faculties have
changed during the past five cultural epochs, and they will change
again in the sixth. The capacities of a great number of people living
today will change considerably in their next incarnation, as will be
clear from the whole nature of their soul. Today we will talk about
how different many of these human souls will be already in their next
incarnation; of course, for other people, this change will not happen
until two incarnations from now.
Looking at past epochs of
human evolution, we can also see that the closer we come to the
ancient clairvoyance, the more the human soul has the character of
what we can call “group-soulness.”
I have often pointed out that consciousness of this group-soulness
existed preeminently among the ancient Hebrews. A person who
consciously felt himself to be a member of this people understood,
“As an individual human being, I am a transitory
phenomenon, but there lives in me something that has an immediate
connection with all the soul essence that has streamed down since the
days of our progenitor, Abraham.” In esoteric terms, we can
describe these feelings of the Hebrew people as a spiritual
phenomenon. We will better understand what happened there if we look
at the following.
Let
us consider a Hebrew initiate of that time. Although initiation
was not so frequent among the ancient Hebrews as among other peoples,
we can characterize such a real initiate — that is, one
initiated not just into theories and the law, but one who really saw
into the spiritual worlds — only by taking into consideration
the peculiarity of the Hebrew people as a whole. Nowadays,
historians, who are concerned only with documents, check the Old
Testament against all kinds of external records and find it
unsubstantiated. We will have occasion to point out that the Old
Testament gives us facts more faithfully than external historical
records. In any case, spiritual science shows that the blood
relationship of the Hebrews to Abraham can really be proven, and that
their claim on Abraham as their original progenitor is fully
justified. It was known particularly in the ancient Hebrew Mystery
schools that the individuality or psychic essence of Abraham did not
incarnate only in him, but is an eternal being existing in the
spiritual world.
In
fact, all true initiates among the Hebrews were inspired by the same
spirit that inspired Abraham; they could call upon that spirit and
were permeated by the same soul nature as Abraham. There was a real
connection between every initiate and the tribal ancestor Abraham.
This connection was expressed also in the feelings of the individuals
belonging to the Hebrew people. They felt that what came to
expression in Abraham was the group-soul of the people.
Group-souls
were also experienced in the same way by other
peoples of that time. Humanity in general goes back to group-souls.
The farther back we go in human evolution, the less developed we find
the individuality. Instead, a whole group belonged together as a
unit, as is the case in the animal kingdom. This
“groupness” is more and more pronounced the farther back
we go into ancient times. Groups of human beings then belonged
together, and the group-soul was considerably stronger than the
individual soul.
Even
today human group-soulness is still not overcome. Those who
claim the opposite merely fail to take into account certain subtler
phenomena of life, such as the resemblance of certain people not only
in their physiognomies but also in their soul qualities. In a sense,
people can be divided into categories, and everyone will fit into one
of them. Individuals may differ as to this or that quality but a
certain group-soulness still makes itself felt and not only because
there are still different peoples. The boundaries between the nations
continue to disintegrate, but other groupings are still perceptible.
Thus certain basic characteristics are combined in individuals
in such a way that the last vestiges of group-soulness can still be
perceived today.
We
are now living in a period of transition. All group-soulness must
gradually be stripped off. Just as the differences between
nations are gradually disappearing, and the factions within them come
to understand each other better, so also will other group-soul
qualities have to be shed. Instead, the individual nature of each
person will be pushed to the fore. We have here characterized
something essential in evolution. From another point of view, we can
also say that in the course of evolution the concept of race, by
which group-soulness is chiefly expressed, gradually loses its
significance.
If we go back beyond the
Atlantean catastrophe, we see how human races were prepared. In the
ancient Atlantean age, human beings were grouped according to
external bodily characteristics even more so than in our time. The
races we distinguish today are merely vestiges of these significant
differences between human beings in ancient Atlantis. The concept of
race is only fully applicable to Atlantis. Because we are dealing
with the real evolution of humanity, we have therefore never used
this concept of race in its original meaning. Thus, we do not speak
of an Indian race, a Persian race, and so on, because it is no longer
true or proper to do so. Instead, we speak of an Indian, a Persian,
and other periods of civilization. And it would make no sense at all
to say that in our time a sixth “race” is being prepared.
Though remnants of ancient Atlantean differences, of ancient
Atlantean group-soulness, still exist and the division into races is
still in effect, what is being prepared for the sixth epoch is
precisely the stripping away of race. That is essentially what is
happening.
Therefore, in its
fundamental nature, the anthroposophical movement, which is to
prepare the sixth period, must cast aside the division into races. It
must seek to unite people of all races and nations, and to bridge the
divisions and differences between various groups of people. The old
point of view of race has a physical character, but what will prevail
in the future will have a more spiritual character.
That is why it is
absolutely essential to understand that our anthroposophical movement
is a spiritual one. It looks to the spirit and overcomes the effects
of physical differences through the force of being a spiritual
movement. Of course, any movement has its childhood illnesses, so to
speak. Consequently, in the beginning of the theosophical movement
the earth was divided into seven periods of time, one for each of the
seven root races, and each of these root races was divided into seven
sub-races. These seven periods were said to repeat in a cycle so that
one could always speak of seven races and seven sub-races. However,
we must get beyond the illnesses of childhood and understand clearly
that the concept of race has ceased to have any meaning in our
time.
Humanity is becoming
evermore individual, and this has further implications for human
individuality. It is important that this individuality develop in the
right way. The anthroposophical movement is to help people become
individualities, or personalities, in the right sense. How can it
accomplish this? Here we must look to the most striking new quality
of the human soul that is being prepared. People often ask why we do
not remember our former incarnations. I have often answered this
question, which is like saying that because a four-year-old child
cannot do arithmetic, human beings cannot do arithmetic. When the
child reaches ten, he or she will be able to multiply with ease. It
is the same with the soul. If it cannot remember our former
incarnations today, the time will come when it will be able to do so.
Then it will possess the same capacity initiates have.
This new development is
happening today. There are numerous souls nowadays who are so far
advanced that they are close to the moment of remembering their
former incarnations, or at least the last one. A number of people are
at the threshold of comprehensive memory, embracing life between
birth and death as well as previous incarnations. Many people will
remember their present incarnation when they are reborn in their next
life. It is simply a question of how they remember. The
anthroposophical movement is to help and guide people to remember in
the right way.
In light of this, we can
describe this anthroposophical movement as leading a person to grasp
correctly what is called the I, the innermost member of the human being.
I have often pointed out that Fichte rightly said most people would
sooner regard themselves as a piece of lava on the moon than as an I.
[ see Note 1 ]
To think how many people in
our time have any idea at all of the I — that is, of what they
are — leads to a dismal conclusion.
In this connection I am
always reminded of a friend I had more than thirty years ago and who,
as a young student, was completely steeped in the materialistic
outlook. Today it is more modern to call it the
“monistic” outlook. He always laughed when he heard
someone say that within each human being there was something that
could be called a spiritual being. My friend thought that what lives
as thought in us is produced by mechanical or chemical processes in
the brain. I often said to him, “Look, if you seriously believe
this, why are you lying all the time?” For, in fact, he really
was lying continually because he never said, “My brain feels,
my brain thinks,” but, “I think, I feel, I
know this or that.” Thus, he contradicted his own theory with
his every word — as everyone does, for it is impossible to
adhere fully to a materialistic theory one has imagined. It is
impossible to remain truthful if one thinks materialistically.
If one wanted to say, “My brain loves you,” then one
should not say “you,” but “My brain loves your
brain.” People are not aware of the consequences of their
theories. This may be humorous, but it also shows the deep
foundation of unconscious untruthfulness that underlies our
present spiritual condition.
Now, most people really
would sooner regard themselves as a piece of lava on the moon,
that is as a piece of matter, than as an I. The I can be understood
least of all through science with its materialistic methods and way
of thinking. How can we understand the I? How can we arrive at an
idea or concept of what we feel instinctively when we say, “I
think”? We can do so only through knowing on the basis of the
anthroposophical world view how the human being is constituted and
structured — that the physical body is related to Saturn, the
etheric body to the sun, the astral body to the moon, and the I to
the earth. When we keep in mind the ideas we can gather from the
cosmos, we understand that the I, as the real master, works on the
other members. Then we gradually come to understand what we mean by
the word “I.”
As we learn to understand
this word, we slowly approach the highest concept of this I. We begin
to feel ourselves as spiritual beings not only when we feel ourselves
to be within an I, but also when we can say that something lives in
our individuality that was already there before Abraham. Then we can
say not only, “I and father Abraham are
one,” but also “I and the Father, that is, the spiritual
element weaving through and living in the world, are one.” What
lives in the I is the same spiritual substance that lives and weaves
in the world as spirit. Thus we gradually come to understand the I,
the bearer of human individuality that goes from incarnation to
incarnation.
How
do we understand the I and the world in general through the
anthroposophical world view? The anthroposophical view of the world
develops in the most individual way, but at the same time it is the
most un-individual thing you can imagine. It arises in the most
individual way when the secrets of the cosmos are revealed in a human
soul, when the great spiritual beings of the world stream into this
soul. The content of the world must be experienced in the human
individuality in the most individual way, but at the same time it
must also be experienced completely impersonally. Concerning
the true character of cosmic mysteries, we have to say that as long
as we still value our personal opinion, we cannot arrive at the
truth.
Indeed, it is the peculiar nature of anthroposophical truth
that the observer must not hold any opinion of his or her own about
it and must not have any preference for this or that theory. The
observer must not like this or that view more than any other because
of his or her individual peculiarities. As long as we have our own
opinions, it is impossible for the true secrets of the world to be
revealed to us. We must pursue knowledge quite individually, but our
individuality must be so developed that it no longer retains anything
personal; it must be free of sympathies and antipathies. This must be
taken very seriously. Those who still prefer personal ideas and views
and are inclined to this or that because of their education and
temperament will never know objective truth.
This
summer, we have tried to understand eastern wisdom from the
standpoint of western teaching.
[ see Note 2 ]
We have tried to do justice to
eastern wisdom and to present it truly. It must be emphasized that if
we have independent spiritual knowledge in our time, it is impossible
to decide for either the oriental or the occidental views of the
world on the basis of personal preference. Those who say that because
of their temperament they prefer the oriental or the occidental world
view and its laws do not understand what is essential here. We should
not decide that Christ, let us say, is more significant than what is
to be found in eastern teaching because we happen to incline toward
him through our western education or temperament. We cannot answer
the question how Christ is related to the orient until, from a
personal standpoint, we can accept Christian and oriental teachings
equally. As long as we have a preference, we are unable to make a
decision. We begin to be objective only when we let the facts speak
for themselves and disregard our personal opinions.
The
anthroposophical world view in its true form is closely interwoven
with human individuality, for this world view must spring from the
I-force of the individuality and yet be independent of it. The
individuality as such does not matter. The person in whom
anthroposophical wisdom appears must be completely unimportant
compared to this wisdom; the person as such does not matter at all.
It is only essential that this person has developed so far that his
or her personal likes, dislikes, and opinions do not taint the
anthroposophical wisdom. Then this wisdom will indeed be
individual, because the spiritual cannot appear in the light of the
moon or the stars but only in the individuality, in the human soul.
This individuality, however, must be developed to the point of being
able to disengage from the development of the wisdom of the
world.
What is entering humanity
through the anthroposophical movement concerns every human being
regardless of race or nationality. This movement speaks only to the
new humanity, the new human being — not to an abstract concept
“human being,” but to every individual. This is the
essential point. Anthroposophy proceeds from the individuality,
the innermost core of the human being, and it speaks to and touches
this core of a person's being. We usually speak to each other only as
one surface to another and mostly about things not connected to our
innermost being. Full understanding between individuals is hardly
possible today, except when what is to be communicated comes from the
center of one individual's being and speaks to and is understood
rightly by the center of another. Thus, in a certain way,
anthroposophy speaks a new language. Even if we are still obliged to
speak in the various national languages, the content of what is
said forms a new language.
What is said in the outer
world is really only valid for a very limited sphere. In the past,
when people still looked into the spiritual world through ancient,
dreamy clairvoyance, words indicated something that existed in the
spiritual world. Even in ancient Greece such things were
different from what they are today. The word “idea”
as used by Plato signified something different from
“idea” as used by our modern philosophers, who no longer
understand Plato. They have no perception of what he called
“Idea,” mistaking it for an abstract concept. Plato
still meant something spiritual that he could perceive. Even if
already rarefied, it was nevertheless something quite real. Words
still contained, if I may say so, the juice of the
spiritual.
The spiritual can still be
traced in words. When people today use the word “wind” or
“air,” they mean something external, physical. However,
the ancient Hebrew word for this, “Ruach,” did not only
refer to something physical but also to something spiritual
permeating the universe. Modern materialistic science tells us that
when we inhale, we simply breathe in physical air. In ancient times,
however, people did not believe they inhaled only physical air; they
were aware that they inhaled something spiritual, or at least
something psychic.
In fact, in ancient times,
words designated something spiritual and psychic. That is no longer
true today; language has become limited to the external world
at least people who want to be fully up to date culturally are busy
finding materialistic meanings behind terms that are obviously
derived from the realm of soul and spirit. Physicists, for example,
speak of an “impact” of bodies. They have forgotten that
“impact” is derived from what a living being performs in
its inner nature when it pushes another being. The original meaning
of words is forgotten in these simple things. Thus, our language,
particularly our scientific language, can no longer express anything
but the material. What is in our soul while we speak can therefore be
understood only by those soul faculties that are bound to the
physical brain as their instrument. As a result, when the soul is
disembodied, it understands nothing of all that has been said with
these words. When the soul has gone through the gate of death and can
no longer use the brain, all scientific discussions are quite
incomprehensible to it. It does not hear or
perceive what one expresses in contemporary language, which has no
meaning for a disembodied soul. Our language has meaning only in the
physical world.
We
must consider this in relation to our way of thinking and outlook on
the world because this fact is much more important than a theory.
After all, what matters is life, not theory. Characteristically, one
can see in the theosophical movement how materialism has crept
in. Materialism sneaked even into theosophy and prevails even there,
for example, in the descriptions of the etheric or life body. Rather
than making an effort to understand the spiritual, people often
describe the etheric body as if it were a kind of finer matter, and
they do the same with the astral body. They usually begin with the
physical body, proceed to the etheric or life body and say it is
constructed on the same pattern as the physical body, only finer. And
they continue this way until they reach nirvana. Such descriptions
take their images only from the physical world.
I
have even heard people say that there are fine vibrations in a room
when they wanted to describe the good feeling present in the room.
They do not notice that they are reducing something spiritual to
matter when they think of a room as filled with vibrations as with a
thin fog.
This
is the most materialistic thinking possible. Materialism has taken
hold even of those who want to think spiritually. This is typical of
our times, and it is important that we are conscious of it. We must
be especially aware that language is always a kind of tyrant over our
thinking and has implanted in our souls a tendency to materialism.
Many people today who claim to be idealists express themselves in an
entirely materialistic way because they have been seduced, as it
were, by the tyranny of language. This materialistic language cannot
be understood by the soul when it is no longer bound to the
brain.
There
is yet more to it than this. The method of presentation often
employed in scientific-theosophical writings causes real pain to
those who know occult contemplation, true spiritual perception.
For this way of presentation does not make sense to people who have
begun to think not with their brain but with their soul, now freed
from the brain — people who really live in the spiritual world.
It is all well and good to describe the world materialistically as
long as we still think with the physical brain, but as soon as we
begin to develop spiritual perception, speaking in this way ceases to
have any meaning. Indeed, then it even causes pain to hear people say
that “there are good vibrations in this room,” rather
than “a good feeling prevails.” Because thoughts are
realities, such utterances cause pain in those who can really see
things spiritually. For them the room becomes filled with a dark fog
when somebody expresses the thought “there are good vibrations
in this room.”
It is
the task of our anthroposophical way of thinking, which is decidedly
more important than all theories, to learn to speak a language that
is understood by the soul not only while it is still in a physical
body but also when it is no longer bound to the physical brain. In
other words, this language must be understood by a soul still in the
body and able to perceive spiritually as well as by a soul that has
gone through the gate of death. That is what is important. When we
use anthroposophical concepts that explain the world and the human
being, we are speaking a language that can be understood here in the
physical world and also by those who are no longer incarnated in
physical bodies but are living between death and a new birth. Yes,
what is spoken in anthroposophy is heard and understood by the
so-called dead. They are fully at one with us when we speak the same
language. With this language we speak to all human beings. After all,
in a sense, it is mere chance whether a soul is in a body or in the
condition between death and a new birth. Through anthroposophy we
learn a language that is comprehensible to all human beings,
living or dead. Thus, in anthroposophy we speak a language that is
also spoken for the dead.
We really touch the
innermost core of a person through what we cultivate in
anthroposophical discussions, even if what we say appears to be
abstract. We penetrate right into the human soul, and because of
that, we can free people from group-soulness. Because we penetrate
into their souls, they become increasingly able to really understand
themselves as an I.
Interestingly, the
difference between those who come to anthroposophy and really embrace
it and those who do not is that the I of the former is as if
crystallized into a spiritual being through anthroposophical
thinking, a spiritual being that is then carried along through
the gate of death. The others, who do not practice anthroposophical
thinking, have a hollow space, a nothingness in the place where the I
is now in physical life and after death. Any other concepts we can
take in nowadays will gradually become more and more immaterial for
the true core of the human soul. The central essence of the human
being will be touched and understood only by the anthroposophical
thoughts we take in. These crystallize a spiritual substance in us
that we can take with us after death and that enables us to perceive
in the spiritual world, to see and hear, and to penetrate the
darkness that would otherwise exist there for us. Thus, it becomes
possible that we can take the I we have developed through the
anthroposophical outlook and concepts — the I that is
connected to all the wisdom in the world we can receive — with
us into the next incarnation. Then we will be reborn in the next
incarnation with this developed I, and we will be able to remember
it.
It is the deeper task of
the anthroposophical movement to enable a number of human beings to
enter their next incarnation with an I each remembers as his or her
own, individual I. These people will then form the nucleus of the
next period of civilization. Then these individuals who have been
well prepared through the anthroposophical spiritual movement to
remember their individual I will be spread over the earth. For the
essential characteristic of the next period of civilization is that
it will not be limited to particular localities, but will be spread
over the whole earth. These individuals will be scattered over the
earth, and thus everywhere on earth there will be a core group of
people who will be crucial for the sixth epoch of civilization. These
people will recognize each other as those who in their previous
incarnation strove together to develop the individual I. That
is the proper cultivation of that soul faculty we have spoken of
This soul faculty will be
so developed that more and more people who have not developed their I
will also be able to remember their former incarnations. However,
they will not remember an individual I, but only the group-I in which
they had remained. In summary, people who are working in this
incarnation to develop their individual I will be able to remember
themselves as this or that independent individuality; they will be
able to look back at the individuality they were. People who have not
developed their individuality will be unable to
remember any individuality.
Do
not think that mere visionary clairvoyance will enable you to
remember your previous I. Humanity was once clairvoyant, and if that
in itself sufficed, then everyone would have remembered because all
were clairvoyant. Thus, what matters is not clairvoyance; people will
indeed be clairvoyant in the future. Rather, what matters is whether
we have cultivated our I in this incarnation or not. If we have not
cultivated it, the I will not be there as the innermost human
essence, and we will remember only a group-I, only what we had in
common with others. In that case we will have to look back and admit
that we did not free ourselves from the group-I in this incarnation.
People to whom this happens will experience it as though it were a
new Fall, a second Fall of humanity, a falling back into a conscious
connection with the group-soul. Not to remember oneself as an
individuality and to be hemmed in by one's inability to transcend
group-soulness will be something terrible in the sixth epoch.
To put it bluntly, we can say that the earth and all it can yield
will belong to those who now cultivate their individualities. Those,
however, who do not develop their individual I will be dependent on
joining a group that will instruct them in what they should think,
feel, will, and do. In the future development of humanity this will
be felt as a regression, a second Fall. Therefore, we should not
regard the anthroposophical movement and spiritual life as mere
theory but rather as something that is given to us now to prepare
what is necessary for the future of humanity.
When
we understand our present condition correctly — understand
where we have come from and where we are going — then we must
realize that humanity is now beginning to develop the ability to
remember beyond the limits of the present incarnation. What matters
now is that we develop it in the right way, that is, by developing
our individual I. For we can remember only what we have created in
our soul. If we have not created it, we are left only with the
fettering memory of a group I, and we will feel this as a falling
back into a group-soul of higher animality, as it were. Even if human
group-souls are more refined than those of the animals, they are
still group-souls. People of an earlier age would not have considered
this a regression because they were just in the process of developing
from group-soulness to the individual soul. However, if
group-soulness is retained today, people will consciously experience
this falling back into group-soulness. In the future, this will
create an oppressive feeling in those who cannot catch up with the
development of the individual I either in the present incarnation or
a later one; they will feel their falling back into
group-soulness.
Anthroposophy must help people keep pace with this
development of the I; that is how we have to see anthroposophy and
its place in human life. When we keep in mind that the sixth period
is that of the first complete overcoming of the concept of
race, we have to realize that it would be sheer fantasy to think that
a sixth “race” will also start in a particular place on
earth and develop like the earlier races. After all, that is what
progress is all about: ever new ways of evolution appear, and
concepts that were valid for earlier times will no longer apply in
the future. If we do not realize this, the idea of progress will
remain unclear for us. And we will again and again fall back into the
error of speaking about so and so many cycles, worlds, races of
evolution, and so on. It is unclear why this wheel of cycles,
worlds, and races should keep turning. We must realize that the word
“race” is a term that was valid only for a particular
time. As we approach the sixth epoch, this term loses its
meaning.
In future, what speaks to
the depths of the human soul will be expressed increasingly in
people's outer appearance. What people have acquired as individuals
and yet experienced non-individually will be expressed in their
countenance. Thus, the individuality of a person — not the
group-soulness — will be inscribed on his or her countenance,
and that is what will account for human diversity. Everything will be
acquired individually, although it will only be gained through
overcoming the individuality. Those who are in the process of
developing the I will not form groups, but their individuality will
be expressed in their external appearance. That is what will create
differences between human beings.
There will be people who
have acquired I-hood; they will be scattered over the earth, and
their countenances will be very diverse. Yet, in this diversity the
individual I is expressing itself even in the person's gestures.
However, those who have not developed their individuality will bear
the imprint of group-soulness in their countenances; that is, they
can be grouped in categories that will resemble each other. That will
be the outer physiognomy of our earth: the possibility will be
prepared to bear one's individuality as an outer sign or to bear the
outer sign of group-soulness. It is the meaning of earthly evolution
for human beings to develop more and more the ability to express
their inner being in their outer appearance. That is why the highest
ideal of the evolution of the I, Christ Jesus, is described as
follows in an ancient document: “When two become one, when the
outer becomes like the inner, then human beings have attained Christ
nature in themselves.” That is the meaning of a certain passage
in the so-called Egyptian Gospel.
[ see Note 3 ]
One can understand such passages on the basis of anthroposophical
wisdom.
Today we have attempted to
understand the task of anthroposophy out of the depth of our insight.
Next time we will consider a spiritual problem that is of special
concern to the individual and that can lead us to understand our
destiny and our true nature.
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