LECTURE THREE
THE
PHASE OF EVOLUTION beginning in our own time has a very special
character. The same may, of course, be said of each epoch but in
every case it is a matter of defining the particular characteristics.
The present phase of evolution may be characterized in a
general way by saying that all the experiences confronting
humankind in the physical world during the earth's further
existence will represent a decline, a retrogression. The time when
human progress was made possible through the constant refinement of
the physical forces is already over. In the future, too, humankind
will progress, but only through spiritual development, through
development on a higher level than that of the processes of the
physical plane. People who rely entirely on the processes of the
physical plane will find in them no source of satisfaction. An
indication given in spiritual science a long time ago, in the lecture
course on the Apocalypse,
[Twelve lectures given at Nürnberg, 1908.]
namely that we are heading for the
“War of All against All,” must from now onward be grasped
in all its significance and gravity; its implications must not remain
in the realm of theory but also come to expression in the actions,
the whole behavior of human beings.
The fact that — to
use a colloquialism — people in the future are not going to get
much fun out of developments on the physical plane will bring home to
them that further evolution must proceed from spiritual forces.
This can be understood only
by surveying a lengthy period of evolution and applying what is
discovered to experiences that will become more and more general in
the future. The trend of forces that will manifest in the well-nigh
rhythmical onset of war and destruction — processes of which
the present catastrophe is but the beginning — will
become only too evident. It is childish to believe that anything
connected with this war can bring about a permanent era of peace for
humanity on the physical plane. That will not be so. What must
come about on the earth is spiritual development. Its
direction and purport will be clear to us if, after surveying a
comparatively lengthy epoch preceding the Mystery of Golgotha, we
bear in mind something of the meaning of the Mystery of Golgotha and
then try to envisage the impulse of that event working in the future
evolution of humankind.
We have studied the Mystery
of Golgotha from many different points of view and will do so
again today by characterizing, very briefly, the civilization
which preceded it — let us say as far back as the third
millennium B.C. — and then continued for
a time as pagan culture in the period of Christian development
itself. Within this pagan culture, the utterly different
Hebraic-Jewish culture took root, having Christianity as its
offspring.
The nature of pagan culture
can best be understood if we realize that it was the outcome of
knowledge, vision and action born of forces much wider in range than
those belonging to present earthly existence. It was actually through
Hebraic culture that the moral element was first
inculcated into humanity. In paganism the moral element did not
occupy a place separate and apart; this pagan culture was such that
people felt themselves members of the whole cosmos.
This is something we must
particularly bear in mind. Human beings living on earth within the
old pagan world felt themselves membered into the whole cosmos. They
felt how the forces at work in the movements of the stars extend into
their own action, or, better said, into the forces taking effect in
their actions. What later passed for astrology, and does so still, is
but a reflection — and a very misleading one at that — of
the ancient wisdom gleaned from contemplation of the stars in their
courses and then used as the basis for precepts governing human
action.
These ancient civilizations
can be understood only if light is thrown by spiritual science upon
human evolution in its outer aspect some four or five thousand years
before Christ.
We are apt to speak in
rather a matter-of-fact way of the second or the first
post-Atlantean epochs, but we err if we picture human existence on
the earth in the fifth, sixth, or seventh millennia B.C. as having been similar to our present existence. It
is quite correct that people living on the earth in those ancient
times had a kind of instinctive soul life, in a certain respect more
akin to the soul life of animals than to that of present-day human
beings. But it is a very one-sided conception of human life to say
that in those ancient times people were more like animals. In
tenor of soul, the human being then moving about the earth was, it is
true, more like the animal; but those human-animal bodies were
used by beings of soul and spirit who felt themselves members of the
super-sensible worlds, above all of the cosmic worlds. And provided we
go back far enough, say to the fifth pre-Christian millennium, it may
be said that people made use of animal bodies as instruments rather
than feeling themselves within those bodies. To characterize these
people accurately, one would have to say that when they were awake,
they moved about with an instinctive life of soul like that of
animals, but into this instinctive life of soul there shone
something like dreams from their sleeping state, waking dreams.
And in these waking dreams they perceived how they had descended, to
use animal bodies merely as instruments. This inner, fundamental
tenor of the human soul then came to expression as a religious rite,
in the Mithras cult with its main symbol of the God Mithras riding on
a bull, above him the starry heavens to which he belongs, and
below him the earth to which the bull belongs. This symbol was not,
strictly speaking, a symbol to these people of old; it was a vision
of reality. People's whole tenor of soul made them say
to themselves: When I am outside my body at night I belong to the
forces of the cosmos, of the starry heavens; when I wake in the
morning I make use of animal instincts in an animal body.
Then human evolution
passed, figuratively speaking, into a period of twilight. A certain
dimness, a certain lethargy, spread over the life of humanity; the
cosmic dreams receded and instinct gained the upper hand.
The attitude of soul
formerly prevailing in human beings was preserved through the
Mysteries, mainly through the Asiatic Mysteries. But in the
fourth millennium B.C. and until the beginning
of the third, humanity in general — when uninfluenced by
the Mystery wisdom — lived an existence pervaded by a more or
less dim, twilight consciousness. In Asia and the then-known world,
it may be said that during the fourth and at the beginning of the
third millennium before the Mystery of Golgotha, people's life of
soul was dim and instinctive. But the Mysteries were there, into
which, through the powerful rites and ceremonies, the spiritual
worlds were able to penetrate. And it was from these centers that
human beings received illumination.
At the beginning of the
third millennium a momentous event took place. The root cause of this
dim, more instinctive life may be characterized by saying that as
beings of spirit and soul, people were still unable at that time to
make use of the human organs of intellect. These organs were already
within them, they had taken shape in their physical constitution, but
the being of spirit and soul could not make use of them. Thus human
beings could not acquire knowledge through their own thinking,
through their own powers of intellectual discernment. They were
dependent upon what was imparted to them from the Mysteries. And
then, about the beginning of the third millennium, a momentous event
took place in the east of Asia.
A child of a distinguished
Asiatic family of the time was allowed to grow up in the precincts of
the Mystery ceremonies. Circumstances were such that this child was
actually permitted to take part in the ceremonies, undoubtedly
because the priests conducting the rites in the Mysteries felt it as
an inspiration that such a child must be allowed to participate. And
when the being incarnate in that child had reached the age of about
forty — approximately that age — something very
remarkable came to light. It became evident — and there is no
doubt at all that the priests of the Mysteries had foreseen the event
prophetically — it became evident that this man who had
been allowed to grow up in the precincts of one of the Mystery
centers in East Asia, began suddenly, at the age of about
forty, to grasp through the faculty of human intellect itself what
had formerly come into the Mysteries through revelation, and only
through revelation. He was as it were the first to make use of the
organs of human intellect, but still in association with the
Mysteries.
Translating into terms of
our present language how the priests of the Mysteries spoke of this
matter, we must say: In this man, Lucifer himself was incarnated
— no more and no less than that! It is a significant, momentous
fact that in the third millennium before Christ an incarnation of
Lucifer in the flesh actually took place in the east of Asia. And
from this incarnation of Lucifer in the flesh — for this
being became a teacher — there went forth what is described as
the pre-Christian, pagan culture which still survived in the gnosis
of the earliest Christian centuries.
It would be wrong to pass
derogatory judgment on this Lucifer culture. For all the beauty
produced by Greek civilization, even the insight that is still
alive in ancient Greek philosophy and in the tragedies of
Aeschylus would have been impossible without this Lucifer
incarnation.
The influence of the
Lucifer incarnation was still powerful in the south of Europe, in the
north of Africa, and in Asia Minor during the first centuries of
Christendom. And when the Mystery of Golgotha had taken place on
earth, it was essentially the luciferic wisdom through which it could
be understood. The gnosis, which set about the task of grasping the
import of the Mystery of Golgotha, was impregnated through and
through with luciferic wisdom. It must therefore be emphasized,
firstly, that at the beginning of the third millennium
B.C. there was a Chinese incarnation of
Lucifer; at the beginning of our own era the incarnation of Christ
took place. And to begin with, the significance of the incarnation of
Christ was grasped because the power of the old Lucifer incarnation
still survived. This power did not actually fade from the human
faculty of comprehension until the fourth century A.D.; and even then, it had its aftermath, its
ramifications.
To these two incarnations,
the Lucifer incarnation in ancient times and the incarnation of the
Christ which gives the earth its meaning, a third incarnation will be
added in a future not so very far distant. And the events of the
present time are already moving in such a way as to prepare for
it.
Of the incarnation of
Lucifer at the beginning of the third millennium B.C., we must say: through Lucifer, human beings have
acquired the faculty of using the organs of their intellect, of their
power of intellectual discernment. It was Lucifer himself, in a human
body, who was the first to grasp through the power of intellect what
formerly could be imparted to humanity only through revelation,
namely, the content of the Mysteries.
What is now in preparation
and will quite definitely come to pass on earth in a none-too-distant
future is an actual incarnation of Ahriman.
As you know, since the
middle of the fifteenth century we have been living in an era in
which it behooves humankind to come more and more into possession of
the full power of consciousness. It is of the very
greatest importance that people should approach the coming
incarnation of Ahriman with full consciousness of this event. The
incarnation of Lucifer could be recognized only by the prophetic
insight of the priests of the Mysteries. People were also very
unconscious of what the incarnation of Christ and the event of
Golgotha really signified. But they must live on toward the
incarnation of Ahriman with full consciousness amid the shattering
events which will occur on the physical plane. Amid the perpetual
stresses of war and other tribulations of the immediate future, the
human mind will become very inventive in the domain of physical life.
And through this very growth of inventiveness in physical life
— which cannot be averted in any way or by any means —
the bodily existence of a human individuality in whom Ahriman can
incarnate will become possible and inevitable.
From the spiritual world
this Ahrimanic power is preparing for incarnation on the earth,
endeavoring in every conceivable way to make such preparation
that the incarnation of Ahriman in human form may be able to mislead
and corrupt humankind on earth to the uttermost. A task of humankind
during the next phase of civilization will be to live toward the
incarnation of Ahriman with such alert consciousness that this
incarnation can actually serve to promote a higher, spiritual
development, inasmuch as through Ahriman himself humanity will
become aware of what can, or shall we say, can not be achieved
by physical life alone. But people must go forward with full
consciousness toward this incarnation of Ahriman and become more and
more alert in every domain, in order to recognize with greater and
greater clarity those trends in life which are leading toward this
Ahrimanic incarnation. People must learn from spiritual science to
find the key to life and so be able to recognize and learn to control
the currents leading toward the incarnation of Ahriman. It must be
realized that Ahriman will live among people on the earth, but that
in confronting him people will themselves determine what they
may learn from him, what they may receive from him. This,
however, they will not be able to do unless, from now onward,
they take control of certain spiritual and also unspiritual currents
which otherwise are used by Ahriman for the purpose of leaving
humankind as deeply unconscious as possible of his coming; then, one
day, he will be able to appear on earth and overwhelm people tempting
and luring them to repudiate earth evolution, thus preventing it from
reaching its goal. To understand the whole process of which I have
been speaking, it is essential to recognize the character of certain
currents and influences — spiritual or the reverse.
Do you not see the
continually growing number of people at the present time who do not
want any science of the spirit, any knowledge of the spiritual? Do
you not see how numerous are the people to whom the old forces of
religion no longer give any inner stimulus? Whether they go to church
or not is a matter of complete indifference to large numbers of
human beings nowadays. The old religious impulses mean nothing to
them. But neither will they bring themselves to give a thought to
what can stream into our civilization as new spiritual life. They
resist it, reject it, regard it as folly, as something inconvenient;
they will not allow themselves to have anything to do with it. But,
you see, human beings as we live on earth are veritably a unity. Our
spiritual nature cannot be separated from our physical nature;
both work together as a unity between birth and death. And even if
human beings do not receive the spiritual through their faculties of
soul, the spiritual takes effect, nevertheless. Since the last
third of the nineteenth century the spiritual has been
streaming around us; it is streaming into earthly evolution. The
spiritual is there in very truth — only people are not willing
to receive it.
But even if they do not
accept the spiritual, it is there! And what becomes of it?
Paradoxical as it may seem — for much that is true seems
paradoxical to the modern mind — in those people who refuse the
spiritual and like eating and drinking best of all things in life,
the spiritual streams, unconsciously to them, into the processes of
eating and digestion. This is the secret of that march into
materialism which began about the year 1840, or rather was then in
active preparation. Those who do not receive the spiritual through
their souls receive it today nonetheless: in eating and
drinking they eat and drink the spirit. They are “eaters”
of the soul and spirit. And in this way the spirit that is streaming
into earth evolution passes over into the luciferic element, is
conveyed to Lucifer. Thereby the luciferic power, which can then be
of help to the ahrimanic power for its later incarnation, is
constantly strengthened. This must come to the knowledge of those who
admit the fact that in the future people will either receive
spiritual knowledge consciously or consume the spirit unconsciously,
thereby delivering it into the hands of the luciferic powers.
This stream of
spirit-and-soul-consumption is particularly encouraged by Ahriman
because in this way he can lull humankind into greater and greater
drowsiness, so that then, through his incarnation, he will be able to
come among people and fall upon them unawares because they do not
confront him consciously.
But Ahriman can also make
direct preparation for his incarnation, and he does so.
Certainly, people of our day also have a spiritual life, but it is
purely intellectual, unconnected with the spiritual world. This
purely intellectual life is becoming more and more widespread; at
first it took effect mainly in the sciences, but now it is
leading to mischiefs of every kind in social life as well. What is
the essential character of this intellectual life?
This intellectual life has
very little to do with the true interests of human beings! I
ask you: how many teachers do you not see today, passing in and out
of higher and lower educational institutions without bringing any
inner enthusiasm to their science but pursuing it merely as a
means of livelihood? In such cases the interest of the soul is not
directly linked with the actual pursuit. The same thing happens even
at school. Think how much is learned at the various stages of life
without any real enthusiasm or interest, how external the
intellectual life is becoming for many people who devote themselves
to it! And how many there are today who are forced to produce a mass
of intellectual material which is then preserved in libraries and, as
spiritual life, is not truly alive!
Everything that is
developing as intellectual life without being suffused by warmth of
soul, without being quickened by enthusiasm, directly furthers the
incarnation of Ahriman in a way that is after his own heart. It lulls
people to sleep in the way I have described, so that its results are
advantageous to Ahriman.
There are numerous other
currents in the spiritual or unspiritual life which Ahriman can turn
to his advantage. You have lately heard — and you are still
hearing it — that national states, national empires must be
founded. A great deal is said about “freedom of the individual
peoples.” But the time for founding empires based on
relationships of blood and race is past and over in the evolution of
mankind.
[Quote 1]
If an appeal is made today to national, racial,
and similar relationships, to relationships arising out of the
intellect and not out of the spirit, then disharmony among humankind
will be intensified. And it is this disharmony among humankind which
the ahrimanic power can put to special use. Chauvinism, perverted
patriotism in every form — this is the material from
which Ahriman will build just what he needs.
But there are other things
as well. Everywhere today we see parties being formed for one object
or another. People nowadays have no discernment, nor do they
desire to have it where party opinions and party programs are
concerned. With intellectual ingenuity, proof can be furnished
in support of the most radically opposing theories. Very clever
arguments can be used to prove the soundness of Leninism — but
the same applies to directly contrary principles and also to what
lies between the two extremes. An excellent case can be made out for
every party program: but the one who establishes the validity of the
opposite program is equally right. The intellectualism
prevailing among people today is not capable of demonstrating
the inner potentialities and values of anything. It can
furnish proofs; but what is intellectually proved should not be
regarded as of real value or efficacy in life. People oppose one
another in parties because the soundness of every party opinion
— at any rate the main party opinions — can be proved
with equal justification. Our intellect remains at the surface layer
of understanding and does not penetrate to the deeper layer where the
truth actually lies. This, too, must be fundamentally and thoroughly
understood.
People today prefer to let
their intellect remain on the surface and not to penetrate with
deeper forces to those levels where the essential nature of things is
disclosed. It is only necessary to look around a little, for
even where it takes its most external form, life often reveals the
pitfalls of current predilections. People love numbers and figures in
science, but they also love figures in the social sphere as well.
Social science consists almost entirely of statistics. And from
statistics, that is to say from figures, the weightiest conclusions
are reached. Well, with figures too, anything can be proved and
anything believed; for figures are not a means whereby the essential
reality of things can be proved — they are simply a means of
deception! Whenever one fails to look beyond figures to the
qualitative, they can be utterly deceptive.
The following is an obvious
example. There is, or at least there used to be, a great deal of
argument about the nationality of the Macedonians. In the political
life of the Balkan peninsula, much depended upon the statistics
compiled there. The figures are of just as much value as those
contained in other statistics. Whether statistics are compiled of
wheat and rye production, or of the numbers of Greek, Serbian,
or Bulgarian nationals in Macedonia — in regard to what can be
proved by these means it is all the same. From the figures
quoted for the Greeks, for the Bulgarians, for the Serbians, very
plausible conclusions can be drawn. But one can also have an
eye for the qualitative element, and then one often finds it recorded
that the father was Greek, one son was Bulgarian, another was
Serbian. What is at the back of it you can puzzle out for
yourselves! These statistics are taken as authoritative,
whereas in this case they were compiled solely in support of party
aims. It stands to reason that if the father is really a Greek, the
two sons are also Greeks. But the procedure adopted there is just an
example of many other things that are done with figures.
Ahriman can achieve a great deal through figures and numbers
used in this way as evidence of proof.
A further means of which
Ahriman can avail himself is again one that will seem paradoxical. As
you know, we have been concerned in our movement to study the Gospels
in the light of spiritual science. But these deeper interpretations
of the Gospels, which are becoming more and more necessary in our
time, are rejected on all sides, just as spiritual science as a whole
is rejected.
The people who often
profess humility in these matters — and they are insistent
about it — are actually the most arrogant of all. More and more
generally it is being said that people should steep themselves in the
very simplicity of the Gospels and not attempt to understand the
Mystery of Golgotha by entering into the complexities of spiritual
science. Those who feign unpretentiousness in their study of the
Gospels are the most arrogant of all, for they despise the honest
search for knowledge demanded in spiritual science. So arrogant are
they that they believe the highest revelations of the spiritual world
can be garnered without effort, simply by browsing on the
simplicity of the Gospels. What claims to be
“humble” or “simple” today is often supreme
arrogance. In sects, in religious confessions — it is
there that the most arrogant people are to be found:
It must be remembered that
the Gospels came into existence at a time when the luciferic
wisdom still survived. In the first centuries of Christendom,
people's understanding of the Gospels was quite different from what
it came to be in later times. Today, people who cannot deepen their
minds through spiritual science merely pretend to understand the
Gospels. In reality they have no idea even of the original meaning of
the words; for the translations that have been made into the
different languages are not faithful reproductions of the
Gospels; often they are scarcely even reminiscent of the original
meaning of the words in which the Gospels were composed.
Real understanding of the
intervention of the Christ being in earthly evolution is possible
today only through spiritual science. Those who want to study, or
actually do study the Gospels “without pretension”
— as the saying goes — cannot come to any inner
realization of the Christ being as he truly is, but only to an
illusory picture, or, at very most, a vision or hallucination
of the Christ being. No real connection with the Christ impulse can
be achieved today merely through reading the Gospels — but only
a hallucinatory picture of the Christ. Hence the prevalence of the
theological view that the Christ was not present in the man Jesus of
Nazareth, who was simply an historical figure like Socrates or
Plato or others, although possibly more exalted. The “simple
man of Nazareth” is an ideal even to the theologians. And very
few of them indeed can make anything of an event like Paul's
vision at the gate of Damascus, because without the deepened
knowledge yielded by spiritual science the Gospels can give rise only
to a hallucination of the Christ, not to vision of the real Christ.
And so Paul's vision at Damascus is also regarded as a
hallucination.
Deeper understanding of the
Gospels in the light of spiritual science is essential today,
for the apathy that takes hold of people who are content to live
merely within the arms of the denominations will be used to the
utmost by Ahriman in order to achieve his goal — which is that
his incarnation shall catch people unawares. And those who believe
they are being most truly Christian by rejecting any development of
the conception of the Christ mystery, are, in their arrogance, the
ones who do most to promote Ahriman's aims. The denominations and
sects are positively spheres of encouragement, breeding-grounds for
Ahriman. It is futile to gloss these things over with illusions. Just
as the materialistic attitude, rejecting the spiritual
altogether and contending that the human being is a product of
what people eat and drink, furthers Ahriman's aims, so are these aims
furthered by the stubborn rejection of everything spiritual and
adherence to the literal, “simple” conception of the
Gospels.
You see, a barrier which
prevents the single Gospels from unduly circumscribing the human mind
has been erected through the fact that the event of Golgotha is
described in the Gospels from four — seemingly contradictory
— sides. Only a little reflection will show that this is
a protection from too literal a conception. In sects, however, where
one Gospel only is taken as the basis of the teaching — and
such sects are quite numerous — pitfalls, stupefaction,
and hallucination are generated. In their day, the Gospels were given
as a necessary counterweight to the luciferic gnosis; but if no
attempt is made to develop understanding of their content, the aims
of Ahriman are furthered, not the progress of humankind. In the
absolute sense, nothing is good in itself, but is always good or bad
according to the use to which it is put. The best can be the worst if
wrongly used. Sublime though they are, the Gospels can also have the
opposite effect if people are too lazy to search for a deeper
understanding based on spiritual science.
Hence there is a great deal
in the spiritual and unspiritual currents of the present time of
which people should be acutely aware, and determine their attitude of
soul accordingly. Upon the ability and willingness to penetrate to
the roots of such matters will depend the effect which the
incarnation of Ahriman can have upon human beings, whether this
incarnation will lead them to prevent the earth from reaching its
goal, or bring home to them the very limited significance of
intellectual, unspiritual life. If people rightly take in hand the
currents leading toward Ahriman, then simply through his
incarnation in earthly life they will recognize the ahrimanic
influence on the one side, and on the other its polar opposite
— the luciferic influence. And then the very contrast between
the ahrimanic and the luciferic will enable them to perceive the
third reality. Human beings must consciously wrestle through to an
understanding of this trinity of the Christian impulse, the
ahrimanic and the luciferic influences; for without this
consciousness they will not be able to go forward into the future
with the prospect of achieving the goal of earth existence.
Spiritual science must be
taken in deep earnestness, for only so can it be rightly understood.
It is not the outcome of any sectarian whim but something that has
proceeded from the fundamental needs of human evolution. Those who
recognize these needs cannot choose between whether they will or will
not endeavor to foster spiritual science. On the contrary they will
say to themselves: The whole physical and spiritual life of human
beings must be illumined and pervaded by the conceptions of
spiritual science!
Just as once in the East
there was a Lucifer incarnation, and then, at the midpoint, as it
were, of world evolution, the incarnation of Christ, so in the
West there will be an incarnation of Ahriman.
This ahrimanic incarnation
cannot be averted; it is inevitable, for humanity must confront
Ahriman face to face. He will be the individuality by whom it will be
made clear what indescribable cleverness can be developed if
they call to their help all that earthly forces can do to enhance
cleverness and ingenuity. In the catastrophes that will befall
humanity in the near future, people will become extremely inventive;
many things discovered in the forces and substances of the universe
will be used to provide human nourishment. But these very
discoveries will at the same time make it apparent that matter
is connected with the organs of intellect, not with the organs
of the spirit but of the intellect. People will learn what to eat and
drink in order to become really clever. Eating and drinking
cannot make them spiritual, but clever and astute, yes.
Humanity has no knowledge of these things as yet; but not only will
they be striven for, they will be the inevitable outcome of
catastrophes looming in the near future. And certain secret
societies — where preparations are already in train —
will apply these things in such a way that the necessary conditions
can be established for an actual incarnation of Ahriman on the
earth. This incarnation cannot be averted, for people must realize
during the time of the earth's existence just how much can proceed
from purely material processes! We must learn to bring under our
control those spiritual or unspiritual currents which are leading to
Ahriman.
Once it is realized that
conflicting party programs can be proved equally correct, our
attitude of soul will be that we do not set out to prove
things, but rather to experience them. For to experience a
thing is a very different matter from attempting to prove it
intellectually.
Equally we shall be
convinced that deeper and deeper penetration of the Gospels is
necessary through spiritual science. The literal, word-for-word
acceptance of the Gospels that is still so prevalent today promotes
ahrimanic culture. Even on external grounds it is obvious that
a strictly literal acceptance of the Gospels is unjustified. For as
you know, what is good and right for one time is not right for
every other time. What is right for one epoch becomes luciferic or
ahrimanic when practiced in a later one. The mere reading of the
Gospel texts has had its day. What is essential now is to acquire
a spiritual understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha in the
light of the truths enshrined in the Gospels. Many people, of course,
find these things disquieting; but those whose interest is
attracted by anthroposophy must learn to realize that the levels of
culture, gradually piling one above the other, have created chaos,
and that light must penetrate again into this chaos.
It is interesting nowadays
to listen to someone whose views have become very extreme, or to read
about some burning question of the day, and then to listen to sermons
on the same subject given by a priest of some denomination who is
still steeped in the form of thought current in bygone times. There
you face two worlds which you cannot possibly confuse unless you
avoid all attempts to get at the root of these things. Listen to a
modern socialist speaking about social questions and then,
immediately afterward, to a Catholic preacher speaking about the same
questions. It is very interesting to find two levels of culture
existing side by side but using the words in an entirely different
sense. The same word has quite a different meaning in each case.
These things should be seen
in the light that will dawn if they are taken in the earnest spirit
we have been trying to convey. People belonging to definite
religions do also come, in the end, to long in their way for
spiritual deepening. It is by no means without significance that a
man as eminently spiritual as Cardinal Newman, ardent Catholic though
he was, should say at his investiture in Rome that he could see no
salvation for Christianity other than a new revelation.
In effect, what Cardinal
Newman said was that he could see no salvation for Christianity other
than a new revelation! But he had not the courage to take a new
spiritual revelation seriously. And so it is with many others.
You can read countless treatises today about what is needed in social
life. Another book has recently appeared:
Socialism,
by Robert Wilbrandt, the son of the poet. In it the social question is
discussed on the foundation of accurate and detailed knowledge. And
finally it is stated that without the spirit nothing is achieved,
that the very course of events shows that the spirit is necessary.
Yes, but what does such a man really achieve? He gets as far as to
utter the word “spirit,” to pronounce the abstract
word “spirit;” but he refuses to accept, indeed he
rejects, anything that endeavors to make the spirit really take
effect.
For that, it is essential
above all to realize that wallowing in abstractions, however loud the
cry for the spirit, is not yet spiritual, not yet spirit! Vague,
abstract chattering about the spirit must never be confused with the
active search for the content of the spiritual world pursued in
anthroposophical science.
Nowadays there is much talk
about the spirit. But you who accept spiritual science should not be
deluded by such chattering; you should perceive the difference
between it and the descriptions of the spiritual world attempted in
anthroposophy, where the spiritual world is described as objectively
as the physical world. You should probe into these differences,
reminding yourselves repeatedly that abstract talk of the spirit is a
deviation from sincere striving for the spirit and that by their very
talk, people are actually removing themselves from the spirit. Purely
intellectual allusion to the spirit leads nowhere. What, then, is
“intelligence?” What is the content of our human
intelligence? I can best explain this in the following way. Imagine
— and this will be better understood by the many ladies
present! — imagine yourself standing in front of a mirror and
looking into it. The picture presented to you by the mirror is
you, but it has no reality at all. It is nothing but a
reflection. All the intelligence within your soul, all the
intellectual content, is only a mirror image; it has no
reality. And just as your reflected image is called into existence
through the mirror, so what mirrors itself as intelligence is called
into existence through the physical apparatus of your body, through
the brain. You are intelligent only because your body is there. And
as little as you can touch yourself by stretching your hand toward
your reflected image, as little can you lay hold of the spirit if you
turn only to the intellectual — for the spirit is not there!
What is grasped through the intellect, ingenious as it may be, never
contains the spirit itself, but only a picture of the spirit. You
cannot truly experience the spirit if you get no further than
mere intelligence. The reason why intelligence is so seductive is
that it yields a picture, a reflected picture of the spirit —
but not the spirit itself. It seems unnecessary to go to the
inconvenience of penetrating to the spirit, because it is there
— or so, at least, one imagines. In reality it is only a
reflected picture — but for all that, it is not difficult to
talk about the spirit.
To distinguish the mere
picture from the reality — that is the task of the tenor of
soul which does not merely theorize about spiritual science but has
actual perception of the spirit.
That is what I wanted to
say to you today in order to intensify the earnestness which
should pervade our whole attitude to the spiritual life as conceived
by anthroposophy. For the evolution of humanity in the future
will depend upon how truly this attitude is adopted by people of the
present day. If what I have characterized in this lecture continues
to be offered the reception that is still offered to it today by the
vast majority of people on the earth, then Ahriman will be an evil
guest when he comes. But if people are able to rouse themselves to
take into their consciousness what we have been studying, if they are
able so to guide it that humanity can freely confront the
ahrimanic influence, then, when Ahriman appears, human beings
will acquire, precisely through him, the power to realize that
although the earth must enter inevitably into its decline, humankind
is lifted above earthly existence through this very fact. When human
beings have reached a certain age in physical life, the body
begins to decline, but if they are sensible they make no complaint,
knowing that together with the soul they are approaching a life that
does not run parallel with this physical decline. There lives
in humankind something that is not bound up with the already
prevailing decline of the physical earth but becomes more and more
spiritual just because of this physical decline.
Let us learn to say
frankly: Yes, the earth is in its decline, and human life, too, with
respect to its physical manifestation; but just because it is so, let
us muster the strength to draw into our civilization that element
which, springing from humankind itself, will live on while the
earth is in decline, as the immortal fruit of earth evolution.
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