Spiritual Science as an Attitude
The
Etheric Body as a Reflection of the Universe
Elberfeld, 13th June 1915
We
are presently within an era of events which call for all the
sensations of the human soul in the deepest, in the most
important sense. We stand in the midst of events which cause
that which is always posed as a riddle for our spiritual
science — death — very often in relatively short
time on earth. We are in a time which spreads out grief and
pains about countless souls, and in a time of which we hope
that it bears important forces in their laps for the future
development of humankind. If so many things are to be born from
pain and grief, and if just spiritual science teaches us that
many things are to be born from pain and grief, just
spiritual-scientific considerations can also stimulate some
strength of confidence, some strength of hope in us in this
destiny-burdened time. Let me today develop some considerations
before you which are not connected directly, but indirectly
with the sensations and emotions which can be aroused in this
stormy and painful time.
What we see occurring so variously in our present is that human
beings leave the physical plane at an early age of their
physical existence. Just this is the peculiarity of such events
like the present ones that they recall youthful lives from the
physical plane. We know that the human being when he goes
through the gate of death has to hand over his physical body to
the elements of the earth that he is still united with his
etheric and astral bodies and his ego at first, while he goes
through the gate of death. We know that after a relatively
short interval this etheric body is separated from the human
being, and that then the human being continues his journey,
which he has to do between death and a new birth, with his ego
and astral body, united with those members of his spiritual
nature that he can get only in the spiritual world.
The
etheric body, however, separates from the human individuality
and goes through its own way. Now it must strike us that the
etheric body of an early deceased human being is in another
condition than that of a dead one who attained a normal age. We
know that the external natural sciences speak about the fact
that forces can change that, however, they cannot get lost. For
the external world of the physical existence the natural
sciences recognise this truth absolutely that forces never get
lost, only change. Spiritual science has to teach to
acknowledge this also for the spiritual world. If an etheric
body frees itself from a human being who went through the gate
of death as young man, then his etheric body could still have
supplied the life of this human being on the physical plane for
many decades.
An
etheric body must be arranged in such a way that it can give
all that vitality which the human being has to take up until
the highest age. If the human being goes through the gate of
death, we say, in his twenty-fifth, twenty-sixth, thirtieth
year, his etheric body goes away from him, but this etheric
body still has forces through which he could have preserved his
physical life up to the sixtieth, seventieth, eightieth year.
These forces are in the etheric body, these forces do not get
lost. We are to be preoccupied with the question — just
in such a time like the present one when so many of such
etheric bodies are entrusted to the spiritual worlds: what
happens with the etheric bodies of those human beings who went
through the gate of death in early youth? — It will be
good if we familiarise ourselves — to answer such a
question rather thoroughly — with the way the etheric
body of a human being goes through, while the human being goes
through the life between birth and death.
The
external physical body of the human being gets older and older.
That it gets older and older does not apply to the etheric body
even if that is hard to understand. But the etheric body gets
younger and younger to the same degree as the physical body
gets older and older. The etheric body arrives at a certain,
one could say, childish level of etheric existence in the time
when the human being goes through the gate of death in a normal
age. So that we must say to ourselves: when we start our
physical earth existence with birth, then that is old which has
been united as an etheric body with our physical body —
we can say comparatively — and gets younger and younger
during life and arrives at its childish level when we go
through the gate of death. We could also say: if a human being
dies in his youth, his etheric body does not get young enough,
but it keeps a certain level of its age. — What does that
mean really? An example can teach us what that means. Some of
you already know this example which I have again to mention
here, a concrete example of the last time which could be
experienced by a number of our friends.
This concrete example concerns, actually, to a very young
child, the little son of a member of ours. It was just at an
evening lecture in Dornach when we got to know after the
lecture that a boy of seven years, the son of our friend Faiss,
was missing. It was soon clear to us that a big misfortune must
have happened. A removal van had come in the late afternoon
nearby the Dornach construction, strangely in an area, in which
long before no removal van has probably gone, and will also not
after. This removal van had toppled over at a particular place.
This had happened towards evening, nothing else had been
noticed; however, the boy was missing. When our friends,
together with others, endeavoured to lift the removal van
between ten and twelve o'clock in the evening which had not
been lifted by the people to whom it belonged — they had
saved themselves it for the next day because the carriage had
fallen very unfavourably and was very heavy. When the helpers
had succeeded in lifting it, it became apparent that, indeed,
the child, the little Theodor Faiss, had passed just at the
moment when the removal van toppled over, and that the carriage
had fallen on the child. This child was only seven years old
— an exceptionally dear child, a child who had
exceptionally nice qualities.
I
would like to remind you of a logical consideration which I
have often done in our circle to show such a fact in the light
of our spiritual science. I have often said that one can
mistake cause and effect using external thinking, untrained
thinking, and that such mistakes of cause and effect appear
exceptionally often. At an example I tried to illustrate this,
an example which should be only a metaphor. Imagine that one
sees a person in the distance going along a riverbank. One sees
him falling into the river, one tries to approach him, and one
sees a stone lying just where the person had fallen into the
water. One tries to pull out the person from the river: he is
dead. What is more obvious than to say: the person tripped over
the stone, fell into the river and drowned? This does not need
to occur at all in such a way, but here the simple physical
investigation may teach us that at the moment when the person
entered this place he got a cariad arrest, without his destiny
having to do anything with the stone or anything else. That is
why he fell into the water, so that the cariad arrest was the
cause of the fall into the water, while one would say if one
makes no effort to come to the cause that the fall into the
water is the cause of his death. One would assume the opposite
of the right thing.
Cause and effect are distinguished more difficultly if one
deals with matters related to the spiritual world. That is why
one has to say: in such a case like in the case of this child
who really finds his death under such extraordinary
circumstances — which were still extraordinary in some
other respect — one does not have to remember from a
higher point of view that now this has happened: that the
removal van came and toppled over and the child got under the
carriage by chance; that the carriage is the cause of the
child's death. On the contrary, one thinks in such a case
correctly spiritual-scientifically that the child's karma had
run off, and that basically the carriage went to that place
because the boy should find his death; that the carriage
brought only about the external conditions to give the boy his
death, which was predestined in his karma. One could say
trivially: the higher ego of the child wanted to go through the
gate of death and ordered the whole situation, all the events
that way. Indeed, it would be something totally crazy for the
human being, who thinks according to our time, to hear of such
an idea. Spiritual science has to show us that something that
the materialistically minded human beings of today consider as
something crazy corresponds to the truth.
However, it is important that just in this case the etheric
body of a seven-year-old child was separated from the
individuality of the child, from that which goes then in
connection with the ego and the astral body through the
spiritual worlds. Now it should not be my object to speak about
the further life of this individuality of the little Theodor
Faiss, but my task is rather to draw your attention to the fact
that the etheric body supplied the physical life with vitality
only for seven years; but it had forces in itself to supply a
long life with vitality between birth and death. These forces
remain in the etheric body. The important matter is that
somebody who dealt with our Dornach construction in any
spiritual relation since the death of the little Theodor Faiss
can now know what came into being from the etheric body of the
little Theodor Faiss. Various things of the construction are to
be accomplished. We still talk immediately about the
Inspirations we have to get down from the spiritual world. One
need supporting forces if everything comes down that should
really come down from the spiritual world. There it becomes
obvious that our Dornach construction is wrapped up by the
enlarged etheric body of this child like by an aura since his
death — up to a far-reaching circumference. It is
possible to really determine the extension of this
covering.
When you see the Dornach construction — those who have
already seen it, know it, it is a double rotunda [see drawing
next page]. Here we have built a heating house in a particular
way according to the principles of spiritual science, and then
here we have built another house where the glass panes are cut
and engraved for the construction. Only by the way, I want to
mention that there is the so-called “House Hansi”
— this is the house in which we live. Now it is strange
that towards the wood, then just along the heating house,
dividing this construction in the middle where the glass panes
are cut, and here along this house, House Hansi, not enclosing
it, this aura of the little Theodor Faiss wraps up the whole
construction. So that one enters this etheric aura if one
enters the building.
(Bau = construction, Heizhaus = house of the heating system,
Haus für Glasfenster = glazier's workshop,
Umgrenzung der Aura = boundary of Theodor's aura, Villa Hansi =
House Hansi, Wald = wood)
I
have often pointed out to you that the etheric body extends if
it becomes free of the physical body. Hence, it does not
surprise us that this etheric body appears enlarged to us. In
this etheric body are the mediating forces through which one
finds certain impressions of the spiritual world one needs for
the forms and artistic decoration of the construction. Somebody
who has to work for the construction knows what he owes to this
etheric aura. Never will I hesitate to admit that since the
death of this little Theodor Faiss the work is thereby made
possible for me that mediating forces are given for the
Inspirations in this etheric body of the boy spread out over
the construction. It would be much easier not to mention such a
matter. One could boast about the fact that one does not have
need of such mediating forces. But it does not concern such
matters but that one recognises the truth.
If
we imagine these just described facts, we get an impression of
how it is with an etheric body which must separate from a human
life if this life is finished by death in youth. Now it is
important to take into consideration that as to us the etheric
body of a human being does not remain only like a nebulous
formation in which the physical body is embedded. We do also
not recognise a physical human body by the fact that we
describe it only like a mass of muscles and bones et cetera,
but by the fact that we look at it as something like a temple
of the godhead, as a microcosm. We only recognise the physical
body correctly if we realise that its forms which are stamped
on it are really taken out of the whole cosmos that the
physical body of the human being is a miracle. Somebody, who
can feel the emotions which are expressed in the first
conversation of the second mystery drama
The Probation of the Soul,
can get an idea in which way an individual human
being is put into his physical existence concerning his
physical body by all kinds of hierarchies; that a whole world
of gods aims at it as their goal to put this human being into
the physical existence. We get to know so surely which
significance this physical body has if we consider the
clairvoyant knowledge a little.
The
clairvoyant cognition is the cognition which comes about by the
fact that the human being pulls out his psycho-spiritual entity
from his physical body and that he can then be conscious and
perceive outside his body in the psycho-spiritual realm. One
cannot recognise any difference between the human being who
perceives clairvoyantly and the sleeping human being who has
also pulled out his psycho-spiritual of his physical body.
However, because the clairvoyant consciousness can perceive
outside the physical body, it can gain an idea what happens
with the human being during sleep. This schematic drawing may
make it easier. We assume that this is the physical body and
this is the psycho-spiritual entity of the sleeping human
being. Of course, the psycho-spiritual entity is in the
physical body when he is awake. We imagine the human being in
his sleeping state. The physical body and the etheric body lie
there in the bed; they do not contain the astral body and the
ego as they contain them when they are awake.
But
one would like to say that what the astral body and the ego
accomplish in the physical body during the waking state is not
stopped completely in sleep. For all that which the human being
can perceive at first the human being lying in the bed is lying
there as lifeless. For the clairvoyant consciousness this
physical human being and this etheric body which lie in the bed
are not as lying there lifelessly. The clairvoyant must say
something completely different of this sleeping physical and
etheric human being. He has to say: during the whole day the
area of the earth on which now the human beings are sleeping
was shone on by the sun. Now it is night. I talk about the
normal circumstances if one sleeps at night and is awake during
the day, not about the modern urban or big-city circumstances.
Darkness spreads out over the area on which the sun has shone
during the day. It is strange, but one notices there that the
earth as a being starts to think and the organs with which the
earth thinks are these sleeping human bodies.
As
well as the human beings think with their brains, the earth
thinks with these sleeping human bodies. It perceives
continually during the day — and the percipience consists
in the fact that it is shone by the sun from the universe, this
is the perception of the earth — and at night it
processes thinking what it has perceived. The earth thinks, the
clairvoyant says, and it thinks using the sleeping human
beings. Every sleeping human being becomes as it were a brain
molecule of the earth. Our physical body is established so that
the earth can think with it if we ourselves do not use it.
But
as well as the earth thinks with the human physical body, it
imagines — you know what an Imaginative knowledge is,
— it imagines everything that is not earthly on earth
that belongs to the earth from the whole universe. It imagines
that in the etheric body. In the sleeping physical body of the
human being one recognises brain parts of the earth, and in the
etheric body of the sleeping human being one sees that cosmos
imagining which belongs to the earth at first. One can behold
this interplay of forces in the etheric body as miraculous
pictures which must flow from the etheric world of the earth,
so that the events of this earth can take place. As true as the
physical human being belongs to the earth, he belongs as an
etheric human being to the heavens. Only so we can use our
physical body for ourselves as a mental organ because it is
created for thinking because, so to speak, the earth gives him
off during the waking state. That is why we can only use our
etheric body in such a way that it gives us the vital forces
because the heavens give it off during the waking state, and
because the forces of Imagination of the heavens are
transformed to vitality in us during the waking state. So that
we will talk not only about our etheric body like about a
nebulous thing, but about a microcosmic thing reflecting the
heavens in it.
Our
etheric body is handed over to us as a particularly perfect
creation at our birth. At our birth our etheric body glitters
internally and gleams from nothing but Imaginations which come
from the big cosmos to it. It is a marvellous reflection of the
cosmos. What the human being can get as education, as
knowledge, as forces of will and soul during his life, while he
grows old between birth and death, this is got out of this
etheric body. The cosmic heavenly forces hand over to us what
they have to hand over to us during the life between birth and
death. Therefore, we are again young as etheric human beings
when we have run through a normal life between birth and death,
because we have then sucked out everything from this etheric
body. If such an etheric body goes through the gate of death
which belongs to a youthful body, then there is still a lot of
unused heavenly light in it. Hence, it becomes a mediator of
such forces as I have told. Completely apart from the fact what
the individuality of such a human soul becomes, like that of
which I talked before, the etheric body becomes something like
a gift of the heavens, a gift of the spiritual worlds. That is
why this etheric body can work inspiring in the described
sense.
It
would go too far to talk about the peculiar karma which has
such a human soul who is able to make such a sacrifice. For
this cannot be brought about artificially, but it must be
connected with the whole karma of such a person. He has to do
something that has to play a role in the spiritual world
process of humankind as we intend it for this Dornach
construction which should surround our spiritual-scientific
efforts.
Now, however, consider that we go towards a time, in which many
such etheric bodies, even if they are not so youthful
concerning their age but their life, are in the spiritual
atmosphere. Those who have gone on the bloody battlefields
through the gate of death go in another way through the gate of
death than somebody who goes in his bed or because of an
everyday accident through the gate of death. They go in a
certain way through the gate of death so that they reckon with
their death, even if more or less in the subconscious —
the astral body reckons with the death in a certain way. One
can say that this death is always a sacrifice. All the etheric
bodies which go up in this way from youthful human beings to
the spiritual world have unused forces. A period of human
development lies ahead to us in which human souls can
consciously look up to the spiritual world and can say to
themselves: a time has passed which has sent many unused
etheric bodies to the spiritual world. In these unused etheric
bodies forces are included, forces of which we can say
spiritual-scientifically already today which significance they
have for the development of humankind.
If
one discusses such a matter, one must expressly point to the
fact that that does not apply to every war which took place in
the development of the human beings on earth. What happens
spiritually and should be considered by spiritual science is
not so simple as natural sciences make it easy to themselves.
Other wars of former times required that one has to talk about
them differently. What I have to say applies to the present
destiny-burdened times. Think once the following: at different
occasions I had to emphasise that it does not arise from
arbitrariness if we cultivate spiritual science today, but that
it really lies in the developmental process of humankind that
the human beings get to know spiritual science gradually. We
know that every epoch of the earth development of humankind has
a particular task. We can gather this from different cycles of
talks. We can recognise that the welfare of the future
development of humankind can only blossom if really the
revelations of spiritual science become mental property of more
and more souls.
I
assume that most of you are warmly enthusiastic for spiritual
science, but take into account which difficulties are there
with reference to the propagation of the spiritual-scientific
truth in the present. Take into account that the human beings
outside in the world oppose against this spiritual-scientific
truth. Take into account that this truth is defamed, that the
human beings consider it as mad, as distorted, as crazy, as a
raving. Really impressive examples could be given, but,
nevertheless, all the examples would be only a small part of
that which basically everybody can feel if he is enthusiastic
for spiritual science and faces the world from which he would
like that it would take up spiritual science — and does
so little today. Now the spiritual scientist may say to himself
the following: what has to be accomplished with the bare earth
forces of humankind seems to be rather weak compared to the
task of spiritual science. But in the immediate future there
are the unused etheric bodies which had to carry soul and life
through the gate of death on the fields of the events in our
time. The etheric bodies with their unused forces become
inspiring forces, supporting forces in the immediate future. We
only need to get the attitude — now not intellectually,
not theoretically, but out of heart and soul — to look up
to the heavenly etheric bodies of those who have gone in early
youth through the gate of death in our destiny-burdened
time.
We
need to turn our souls as it were only in praying mood to these
etheric bodies, and those who are enthusiastic for spiritual
science only need to turn their souls to these forces —
and they will have help from these etheric bodies. So that if
ardent spiritual living together with these etheric bodies is
possible because one is penetrated with a real
spiritual-scientific attitude, one also finds those among the
various fruits which are in the lap of our destiny-burdened
time. For into the souls of the spiritual-scientific
enthusiastic human beings of the future that will stream which
lies in the forces of the sacrificed etheric bodies of our
destiny-burdened time. Through the souls of those who live in
the physical body in the next future the forces of the
sacrificed etheric bodies can flow if these souls are
penetrated with the real attitude. These are heavenly forces,
forces of the spiritual world. Then quite different forces are
able to prevail in the world to bring spiritual-scientific
attitude into the world. We have only to find the possibility
to bear witness of that which happens now in the sense of the
just given explanation, then these destiny-burdened days are
also deeply significant for somebody who stands in spiritual
science.
Marvellous, we have said, are the Imaginative formations of the
human etheric body. Nevertheless, they are different than they
would be unless they had gone through an etheric body of a
human being. But also on this field the sentence holds true:
nothing comes into being from nothing. — This is not an
absolute sentence, but it applies to this field. What a human
soul adds as an etheric body, when it enters in the physical
existence, gathers forces of the spiritual world which are used
up during the physical life. These forces are not from nothing,
they are there in the spiritual world. Indeed, one can find
them also in the spiritual world, but if anybody wants to find
them directly in the spiritual world, it is difficult. One must
use much bigger instruments of power. If they have gone,
however, once through a physical human being who has died early
and show themselves as it were with that which they have in
themselves because of the passage through the human being, it
is easier to use their help.
All
the forces which are in this young etheric body of the little
Theodor Faiss, indeed, would also be in the spiritual world,
but it would be a spiritual Herculean task to pull them,
otherwise. Because they have come along on the detour through
the boy, it was substantially easier to be inspired by them.
Imagine then what a tremendously great significance for the
whole further development of humankind it has that such a big
amount of etheric bodies with still unused forces are given to
humankind in the next future. But because these, I would like
to say that repeatedly, heavenly forces have gone through human
beings, they freed themselves as it were from the laws to which
they are subjected in the universe outside. It is impossible
that in the universe these forces, which are got directly from
the universe, are used in a bad sense. Assuming that all the
human beings who go now because of the military events or other
circumstances through the gate of death, they would not deliver
such a sum of etheric bodies if the war had not come. All these
forces would also be in the universe, of course; then, however,
they could not be used by the human beings, because it would be
too difficult to use them. That is why they could not be used,
because they would be used up in the lives by the human beings
who reached their normal age. This is quite important that
these heavenly forces have gone through human bodies. They
thereby escape as it were from the usual progress of
development. However, this freedom makes that these forces can
be also used in another way than to the welfare of
humankind.
They can also be used in another way. The human life must
develop in the light of freedom. Assuming that Ahriman would
really succeed in darkening the thoughts and reason of the
human beings, so that they all would reject spiritual science.
Then, nevertheless, these etheric bodies would be there, but
there would be no spiritual-scientific enthusiastic souls who
take these forces into the service of the earth progress. Then
Lucifer or Ahriman would be able to intervene and would use
these forces either in the world of Lucifer or in the world of
Ahriman. Consider that I express something tremendously
important with it. I express that it is put as it were into the
hands of the human beings in which way the forces are
incorporated in the earth process which were given to the world
by sacrificial deaths. The fact that these forces can be used
to the progress of earth development inspiring that which was
aroused by spiritual science.
Otherwise, it could be — if materialism seized all minds
or if nationalism spread out in a purely passionate way —
that Lucifer or Ahriman would take these forces into their
service. Then the earth progress could not have anything of
these forces. The deep significance of spiritual science for
the human earth development becomes apparent to somebody who
considers these connections. He learns to say to himself: how
necessary is it that sacrificial forces are used in the right
sense in the development, how necessary is it that individual
human beings can be touched by the spiritual-scientific
attitude. — This spiritual science becomes something holy
if one considers it in the connection with the spiritual
development, as it expresses itself during our destiny-burdened
days. The attitude which can originate from spiritual science
becomes something like a prayer which can be summarised in the
words: spirit of the world, let us rightly be penetrated with
this spiritual-scientific attitude, so that we do not fail to
wring that which can be used to the welfare and progress of the
earth out of Lucifer and Ahriman.
Our
construction should serve like a landmark what spiritual
science should become to humankind as an attitude. Hence, it is
arranged in such a way that its forms express artistically what
spiritual science can give from itself. I would have to speak a
lot if I wanted to explain to you what is put into every detail
of this construction. You experience all that, if you visit the
construction in the course of the years, and join in the
matters which should take place there. Today I will only talk
about one matter in connection with that which I have just
explained.
At
an important place of the construction, where it turns
eastwards, a sculptural group will be. In this sculptural group
should be expressed in particular that which has to penetrate
the consciousness of our time to the right degree. This group
consists of three figures basically, apart from that which will
be added. Three beings find expression in this group. Something
like a rock will be there. This rock has a projection forwards,
and in this projection is a cave. The central figure stands on
the rock projection. You may call it as you want, but you have
to see the representative of the earthly human being in it in
the truest sense of the word. If you want to see the ideal of
the earthly human being in that human being who carried the
Christ being for three years of his life on earth, you may also
see Christ in this central figure. But this must not happen in
such a way that you stand before this group with the
consciousness that this should be Christ, but everything must
be felt artistically. That is, it must not be interpreted
externally as a symbol, but everything must result from the
forms themselves.
Here on top is the second being. This being has a humanlike
head. The head is really formed in such a way that one can say,
a human head reminds of this head. Since this head is so formed
that the skull is extremely developed, in particular the
forehead. While these parts are relatively immobile with the
human being, everything is mobile with this being. Everything
is an expression of soul. As well as the human being can move
his hands with the fingers, but not this part here, this being
can move everything. One notices in the sculptural work that
everything is movable. The lower part of the face recedes very
much with this being. One may say that the mighty skull arches
over the receding face.
I
can only discuss some parts, because every single line of this
figure is very significant. Then, however, it is the peculiar
that a connection exists between that which has atrophied to
the larynx with the human being and the ear of this figure.
That which is as a little larynx in it bends up and constitutes
the lower part of the ears. The upper part is formed by the
forehead. On the other side, two formations, reminding of bird
wings, adjoin between which a body is spread out resembling a
reshaped human face on the whole. Wings and larynx and ear are
formed as a unity, so that one recognises: with the wings the
being lives in the music of the spheres inside, moves through
the space, through the waves of the music of the spheres, and
this is located in the ear. With the human being all that has
atrophied. Because the human representative lifts the left hand
to the figure on the rock, its wings are broken, and it falls
off the rock. — You anticipate: this figure is Lucifer
who falls off the rock with broken wings.
Here at the bottom, in the cave, is another figure. It does not
have bird-like wings, but bat-like wings, a kind of worm-like
or dragon-like body and a head again reminding of the human
head. But what is a mighty forehead with Lucifer recedes in
this lower figure completely, has atrophied. The lower parts
toward the mouth are extremely developed with this figure. This
figure is wrapped with the gold of the earth. The gold of the
earth turns into chains, which tie up this figure therein. This
figure writhes because of the effect which goes out from the
downward showing hand of the human representative, Christ. This
figure at the bottom is Ahriman, who is tied up with the gold
of the earth.
What I have just said is, as it were, the idea of the whole.
But with this idea I have only pointed to that which it
concerns. Never will we adopt the bad habit of the old
theosophists who have always worked with symbols, but
everything that moves from spiritual science to the human
feeling has really to be raised to the artistic realm. Hence,
one must not say: these figures express this and that, —
but they have to show the relation of the human being, or of
Christ, to Lucifer and Ahriman artistically. That is why this
cannot be expressed using the old artistic means. Each movement
of the fingers, the way as the hands are formed, is important,
because something important has to express itself in it. One
could have the idea at first that Christ lifts the left hand up
and would allow to emit forces which break the wings of
Lucifer, so that he falls off. The forces by which Ahriman is
tied up would be emitted by the right downward showing hand
again. One would have imagined something completely wrong if
one had imagined this.
To
explain the especially important aspect of that, I may remind
you of something that really belongs to the greatest pieces of
art up to now:
The Last Judgement
by Michelangelo in the
Sistine Chapel in Rome. There one sees Christ pointing the good
to the heaven, the bad to the hell. One sees in Christ that he
sends the ones to the good world, the others to the bad world.
This Christ, as he is shown there, is not from now on the
Christ whose true being we should only understand by spiritual
science. The Christ who is the true Christ does not condemn,
does not praise, using rage or usual love, but has an effect by
his own nature. Lucifer's wings are not broken, but he breaks
them because of his attitude while approaching Christ. Ahriman
ties up himself because of the soul events while approaching
Christ. Hence, the downward and upward lifted hands must not
have anything that is not pure sympathy with the world. On top,
Lucifer cannot endure on his part that the hand of Christ
approaches him. The experience of this in himself breaks his
wings, Christ does not break them.
That also holds good for Ahriman. Michelangelo did not yet know
how to form Christ as He is in reality. The Christ Being is so
significant, the understanding of the Christ Being is so
difficult that this can only be reached in the course of time.
The Christ Who persuades the beings by His nature, so that they
condemn or release themselves, is understood in future. Christ
in the picture of Michelangelo has something
luciferic-ahrimanic because He leads the bad human beings to
hell in His rage, the good to the heaven: He is engaged with
His passions. In our sculptural group, Christ stands as
somebody impersonal, and the beings condemn themselves who
approach Him.
You
see that the position of the human being in the world is
expressed, in which luciferic and ahrimanic forces are
included, at an important place of our construction. Beings
must find expression that can be found only in the spiritual
world. Any naturalism of art, any tendencies of art just in the
last times when people were seized by materialism must be
overcome by the art we cultivate here. Something novel, also in
the field of art, has to enter the world by spiritual science,
so that the greatest achievement of art is also overcome which
was possible up to now: the Christ figure of Michelangelo in his
Last Judgement.
One
is allowed to express such things, if one emphasises, on the
other side, what must not be forgotten: the fact that of course
this construction can only be a primitive start. Everything is
imperfect, everything is elementary, everything is only a
start, but the start should already be something novel. The
fact that everything is imperfect, this can be known of course,
but one has to point to something that should come as an
impulse in the whole human life.
Take into consideration that it suggests itself to pass a gift
of the cosmic existence indifferently, which consists of the
unused forces of human etheric bodies. Take into consideration
that these forces could become a prey of Lucifer and Ahriman if
the human being did not find the possibility to serve the
welfare of the earthly development. There we have touched a
tremendous secret of our earthly development: the secret of the
relation of the Christ Impulse to the impulses of Lucifer and
Ahriman. This relation of the Christ Impulse to the impulses of
Lucifer and Ahriman can be understood by humankind more and
more in the next future. Lucifer's and Ahriman's forces prevail
in the world, and the human being must become with the help of
his Christ consciousness like a being who sits in a boat which
is always exposed to the storms Lucifer and Ahriman excite. The
boat has to roll from side to side, however, it finds its way
through the sea whose living substance consists of Lucifer and
Ahriman, through which, however, the human being steers his
Christ boat.
We
do not come together in our branches to learn this or that
theoretically what spiritual science can reveal to us, but we
come together that everything that lives in our souls is filled
with an attitude which can flow from this spiritual science. It
does not depend on that which we think of spiritual science,
but how we think, feel and will. Whether the smallest or the
biggest what we can observe in the earth development of
humankind stands before our soul eyes, everywhere can come
before our eyes that it is necessary for the human being of the
future to familiarise himself just with the significance of the
triad of Christ, Lucifer, and Ahriman. Michelangelo could not
correctly see, the past times could not correctly see this
triad existing there in the world. But one will only recognise
Christ properly by His being when one sees Him in His relation
to that which works in the world like the North Pole and the
South Pole: Lucifer and Ahriman.
Some of these matters are to be discussed for those who can be
present still during the next days. Today I wanted to put on
your souls that which allows spiritual-scientific attitude to
appear to us as something very important also for important
matters which can appear in the spiritual world in the next
future to somebody who is able to understand also spiritually
what happens physically.
One
may beg the good gods and spirits guarding the earth and
humankind that they give the human beings strength, so that
that can happen which must happen for the welfare of
humankind.
Above there the unused etheric forces of the human beings are
who went through death in their youth. But human hearts and
human souls have to be here on earth which look up to these
forces, so that these forces can be brought in the correct
direction of development by them. It depends not only on it
that there above the forces are which could also become a prey
of Lucifer and Ahriman, but it concerns that here below human
souls are in physical bodies that send their pious mood to
these sacrificial etheric bodies. It will depend on that in
which sense the forces flow in the human development which are
created on the fields on which the blood runs on which
sacrifices are offered on which pains are suffered.
This shows the contribution of spiritual science to the course
of the human development if that which can be recognised only
by spiritual science is really seized by a number of human
beings.
What can come into being from the present destiny-burdened
days, I would like to express it in the end in some pragmatic
words before your souls once again:
From
the courage of the fighters,
From the blood of the battles,
From the grief of the bereaved,
From the nation's sacrifices
Will grow up the fruits of spirit
If souls aware of spirit turn
Their senses to the spirit-land.
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