IT IS A NECESSITY OF OUR EARNEST TIMES TO FIND AGAIN
THE
PATH LEADING TO THE SPIRIT.
Lecture by Dr. RUDOLF STEINER, delivered at THE HAGUE
on the 27th of February, 1921.
From stenographic notes unrevised by the lecturer.
The times in which we
live are so earnest that at present it is not in any way appropriate
to think of personal matters. Allow me, first of all, to express
briefly my heartfelt thanks to your esteemed president for her kind
words and then to pass on to what I believe I must tell you, for it
is a long time since we saw one another in Holland.
The times in which we
live and its conditions are much more earnest than most people of the
present are consciously aware of.
Here we can speak of
these conditions of our times from those standpoints which result
from a long study of the spiritual science of Anthroposophy. We know
that we live in an epoch whose characteristic peculiarity began to be
evident in the 15th century. It was then that it slowly began to
develop its peculiarities. Those who are initiated into the spiritual
conditions of human evolution and can therefore have an insight into
this course of development, know that the second half of the 19th
century indicates a specially low point of human evolution in the
modern and particularly in European culture. This low point may be
characterised as the rise of a particular inthrust of egoism in all
branches of civilised humanity, an egoism of a kind that was
never there before. This wave of a special course of development then
sent its ramifications into the 20th century, and now these
ramifications undoubtedly continue to hold mankind under their spell.
In saying that a wave
of egoism came over the whole modern civilisation, I do not speak
trivially of what one generally defines as egoism, but I speak of
egoism in a special sense, into which we shall penetrate a little in
the course of this morning's considerations, and in a way that will
be evident to those who are initiated in the true mysteries of more
recent human evolution.
We already know the
members constituting human nature. We know that the soul-members of
human nature have been engaged for a long time in a special process
of transformation, in a special course of development. We know that
when we go back to very ancient times of human evolution we have to
do with a particular forming of man's etheric body, during a very old
time of development in India; a particular forming of the astral body
then began, and a certain intermediate course of development took
place during that epoch of European development which began about the
year 747 in the south of Europe and which closed in the first thirty
years of the 15th century. That time was the beginning of that epoch
of human evolution in which we are still living. In the year 747
before the Mystery of Golgotha, began that phase of human evolution
in which the so-called intellectual and understanding soul
(Verstandes und Gemütsseele) unfolded. Everything that humanity
still prizes to-day as Greek culture; developed through the fact that
at that very time the intellectual or understanding soul was in an
ascending line of development. However, while the wonderful Greek
culture was unfolding, that which we call intellectual or
understanding soul was in an ascending line of development. It had
not yet reached its climax. For such points are always in a certain
way times of probation for the evolution of humanity. For the sake of
their development, the Greeks had to pass through what one might call
the youthful freshness of the intellectual or understanding soul. The
Greek culture, so much admired by posterity, came into being out
of this youthful freshness of an intellect that was not yet permeated
by egoism, out of this youthful freshness of the human understanding.
Of the characteristics pertaining to the intellectual soul, the
Latin and Roman culture then took over something that was in a
descending line of development and decadent. Those who have a deeper
comprehension for that which lived in Roman culture know: There the
intellect already reaches its culmination; there the intellect rises
to a high point. On that account the Romans developed such abstract
ideas; on that account the Romans developed something that did not as
yet exist in the whole ancient East, that did not even exist, in the
sense known in Europe, in the Greek culture: The Romans developed the
ideas of jurisprudence, the juridical concepts.
To-day we consider the
world very superficially and we translate our thoughts on Jus,
on jurisprudence, which, in reality are the outcome only of the Roman
intellectual soul, into something which we assume to have already
existed in the ancient East, for instance in Hammurabi, and so forth.
But that is not the case. The Decalogue, the Ten Commandments as well
as the contents of other documents of that time, were, after all,
something quite different from that which constitutes our modern
juridical concepts. These are something abstract, something that is
no longer so close to the human soul. Everything that thus
constitutes the development of the intellectual soul reached its
climax during a period in the civilisation of Europe which has really
been studied very little from an external historical standpoint,
although it is extraordinarily important and significant for those
who wish to study human evolution in the meaning of spiritual
science.
That striking year to
which we can draw attention as being specially significant for
European development is the year 333 after the Mystery of Golgotha.
The year 333 after the Mystery of Golgotha is the middle of the
fourth post-Atlantean epoch. It is that point of time when a
fluctuating knowledge of the universe lived in Europe simultaneously
with a fluctuating knowledge of humanity. These had nothing of the
penetrating character of the knowledge of the universe that the
Greeks still possessed and no proper comprehension of man's inner
world.
We find instead that
man sways either towards the longing for an extensive knowledge of
the universe, or towards the longing for self-knowledge, knowledge of
his own self. The human soul of the European peoples indeed passed
through a great deal during the fourth post-Atlantean epoch. Roman
life was then entering into its decay; it bequeathed to European
humanity nothing but its language; it left behind its more or less
fundamental material of culture. The life of humanity thus entered
the second half of the fourth post-Atlantean epoch, lasting up to the
15th century, when our present epoch began.
From the preceding
epoch, in which most of us in some way passed through one or more
earthly lives, we brought over partly through physical
heredity, but particularly through the fact that we ourselves
formerly were those incarnated souls into the fifth
post-Atlantean epoch the inheritance of the fourth post-Atlantean
epoch, and we took over this inheritance. This inheritance of the
fourth post-Atlantean epoch lives in everything that constitutes our
present civilisation.
We worked the
intellect, the thinking, into our consciousness soul. That means a
great deal. At the beginning of the fifth epoch, the consciousness
soul enabling man to really permeate, really grasp his ego, first
took hold of his thinking, his life of representations and his
intellect. Humanity thus became intelligent and clever, but clever
within the consciousness soul; within the evolution of humanity, this
implies the finest possible elaboration of EGOISM.
We should not only
rebuke this epoch of egoism, we should not only fall upon it with
criticism, but in spite of the fact that it brings with it so many
temptations and leads man into great soul-dangers and even into
external danger, we should recognise this age of egoism as the one in
which ego-consciousness comes to the fore with special incisiveness.
Man can thus take into
himself a real feeling of freedom. This feeling of freedom is
something that none of us possessed in our previous incarnations, in
the earlier epochs of human evolution. We had to pass through
egoism, that presents so many temptations, in order to reach that
longing for freedom which is the prerogative of modern humanity. One
of the most important things in Anthroposophy is the knowledge that
we had to take in something in order to climb over an important stage
in human evolution: the stage leading to the DEVELOPMENT OF FREEDOM.
For this very reason we should be aware that this crossing over is
connected, with many temptations, with many dangers of humanity, both
soul-spiritually and bodily. A knowledge going in the direction of
Anthroposophy must enable us to take in fully the feeling of freedom,
but at the same time to ennoble it, to permeate it again with a
spiritual knowledge of the universe, which in spite of the
now existing mature ego-feeling, mature ego-consciousness
induces mankind to solve tasks that are not only egoistic tasks, but
tasks pertaining to the whole evolution of humanity, indeed to the
evolution of the whole earth, to the evolution of the whole universe.
In this connection we
are now facing a great turning point in the whole civilisation of
more recent times. The time of probation has indeed come! Great tasks
confront mankind. But the recognition of these tasks is extremely
difficult and is rendered still more difficult through the fact that
we have just passed through the age of the great egoism.
We say that we sleep
from the moment of falling asleep to the moment of waking up. That is
right. We are then in a state of dulled consciousness. Most of you
know sleep only in its negative aspect, that it dulls consciousness.
Yet we do not judge the waking state in the same way. The time of
being awake, the time from the moment of falling asleep to the moment
of waking up, was really quite different in the fourth post-Atlantean
epoch. To-day people believe that they are awake in the same way in
which, for instance, the people living about the time of the Mystery
of Golgotha were awake. That is not the case. Their whole
soul-constitution was different. Man was then awake in a different
way. He was much more strongly conscious of his body.
You see, modern man
really knows very little indeed of his bodily processes. The Greeks,
not the Greeks of a later time, but the Greeks of the pre-Socratic
and pre-Platonic times, still knew a great deal of the processes of
their own body. For example, the really cultured Greek looked up to
the sun. From the sun he received the light. He received at the same
time a feeling that he was drawing in something etheric, that the
light was being led on into his inner being. And when he was
thinking, he said: The light, the sun thinks within me. The Greek of
pre-Socratic times still felt this in a living way. He did not think
so abstractly about thinking as we do to-day. He thought: The sun
thinks within me: it allows its light to be drawn in by me. The light
that shines upon the things outside, that makes the things outside
visible, is active within me, by reflecting itself, as it were,
within its own being, so that thoughts spring up in me. For the
Greek, the thoughts within him were the light of the sun. At the same
time, they were for him that element which lived in the macrocosm
thanks to the influence of divine-spiritual beings. At the same time,
they were for him that which really raised him to the Divine, above
his ordinary dignity as a human being. He felt himself lifted above
the earthly, when he thus experienced the sun's light within him as
thinking. And when a particularly cultured Greek ate, he indeed
considered his food, in which he took in something that he did not
receive directly from the sun, but that came from the earth, as a
necessity of life, yet at the same time he felt himself changing into
the food, that became he himself, as it passed through his mouth, his
oesophagus and digestive organs. He felt that he was one with the
food, in the same way in which he felt that he was one with the
sunlight. While he was digesting, he felt the earth's gravity. He
felt, as it were, similar to the serpent, that he did not as yet
highly appreciate, but that he still observed rather timidly
the serpent that twists away from the earth and digests in a
particularly visible way, after having swallowed its food. That is
how the Greek experienced what went on in his body: whether he
experienced what was thinking within him as the sun's bright light,
or whether he experienced within himself what chained him to the
earth; i.e. the taking in of food. Through the intimate way in which
his understanding was connected with his body the Greek felt with
particular energy that which also lived within him as physical human
being. You may also deduce this from the following:
When we paint human
beings to-day in the ordinary way, as numerous painters of the
present generation have done year after year, decade after decade in
painting portraits, we really lie. We look at people outwardly and
believe that then we bring forth something of what we experience. It
is not true at all that we can experience something in that way! We
could experience it only if we were able to conjure up within us the
whole way of identifying ourselves feelingly with the whole of Nature
as human beings, as it was the case with the Greeks. First of all, we
must learn this anew, along an entirely different path than that of
the Greeks.
Since the middle of the
15th century, we have acquired in an abstract-theoretical way a
soul-constitution that no longer allows us to really penetrate
livingly into our body, but that lives instead in concepts that do
not stand visibly before us, because we have conquered thinking for
the egoity, for the ego. We should realise this. And we should
realise that we must once more take in spirituality from an
anthroposophical spiritual science, so that the ego may once more be
filled with something, and so that that which really lives within us
may once more but now in a different way enter our
life: that which the Greeks experienced in an immediate, elemental
way; but that could not continue.
When the Greek walked,
he walked as if led by a necessity of Nature, like the lightning
flashing through the clouds, or the rolling thunder! He knew nothing
whatever of freedom, but he knew man! Indeed, he knew more about man
than we think he did. For instance, he knew how to coin words clearly
indicating that man still knew something of the connection between
the soul-spiritual and the bodily-physical. The Greek words, or those
derived from the Greek, indicate even to-day far more than those
based on our therapeutic or pathological conceptions, that are no
longer able to understand anything. Hypochondria for instance, means
cartilaginosity of the abdomen. It is a name that the Greeks found
through their full knowledge of the fact that in hypochondric people
the activity of the soul-spiritual gives rise to cartilaginous
formations in certain parts of the body. These names mean far more
than modern men suppose, and more than can in any way be grasped
through modern medicine, with its abstract way of thinking, even
though it experiments, dissects, etc. We must first take up again
everything that is real, that once more enables us to have an insight
into the world! It is the task of a spiritual scientific deepening to
reach once more real facts, realities.
You see, during the
fourth post-Atlantean epoch, in which the human beings passed through
what constitutes, as it were, a physical self-knowledge, an insight
into the human body, during that time one might say
approximately, during the first third of that time, occurs the
greatest event of the earth's evolution: the Mystery of Golgotha.
What is the condition
of the time in which the Mystery of Golgotha occurred? The
further we go back, the more we find in ancient times in the
Greek epoch, the Egyptian-Chaldean, the Persian and the ancient
Indian epoch this immediate knowledge of the whole human
being. Then, this knowledge of the whole human being disappears. The
last remains of that knowledge may be found at the time when the
Mystery of Golgotha appeared. Something of that instinctive, ancient
knowledge of man still existed at that time. For instance, the
personalities described in the Gospels as the Apostles, or the
Disciples of the Lord, still possessed something of that old
instinctive knowledge, which lived in their souls altogether
instinctively, not clearly. Others too possessed such a knowledge. At
that time it was to a great extent decadent, but at any rate it still
existed. It was dying away, burning out, but enough remained of that
ancient knowledge to enable a great number of men of that time to
grasp the Mystery of Golgotha accordingly. This is particularly
evident when the apostle Paul entered the evolution of the times, the
apostle Paul who was initiated by divine powers and to whom the
spiritual world became visible.
All this gave rise to
conditions of time which still enabled man to understand the Mystery
of Golgotha in a certain naive, instinctive way. Many people had
already entered a later phase of development. Particularly the
cultured Greeks and the cultured Romans had concepts that were
already far too abstract in order [to] grasp the Mystery of Golgotha
in a really living way. Yet certain people had preserved the last
remains of an old clairvoyant knowledge, particularly clairvoyant
traditions, and they were still able to grasp that a super-earthly
power, the Christ, had connected Himself with an earthly man, Jesus
of Nazareth.
The year 333 after the
Mystery of Golgotha, was, as it were, the year in which last
stragglers of those who were still able to have a real understanding
of the Mystery of Golgotha could be found in Europe. But these
stragglers could not understand it, for instance, through our
anthroposophical spiritual science, for this did not, of course,
exist at that time. They grasped it through an old knowledge that had
remained from the Gnosis, and such like. A certain spiritual
knowledge still existed. An ancient human inheritance lived in the
human soul and this enabled man to grasp the Mystery of Golgotha.
What has remained of
the Mystery of Golgotha? Intellectual traditions! The Gnosis
became theology, a mere logical way of grasping the divine.
Theo-Logy: a mere logical way of grasping the divine, no longer a
contemplation of the divine!
Since the year 333, the
capacity of contemplating the Mystery of Golgotha in a direct way
became more and more decadent, until the fateful time of the 9th
century, when, in the year 869, the Eighth General Oecumenic Council
at Constantinople gave out the dogma that man does not consist of
body, soul and spirit, but that it is instead a Christian's duty to
acknowledge that man consists only of body and soul, and that the
soul possesses a few spiritual qualities. At that time, the
trichotomy, as it was called, the only possible knowledge of the
human being, according to which man consists of body, soul and
spirit, was done away with dogmatically, and a dogma was enforced,
according to which a Christian who truly believes must acknowledge
that man only consists of body and soul.
Modern philosophers
frequently state that their philosophy is based on an unprejudiced
knowledge, and they speak on the one hand of the body, and on the
other of the soul. They speak of the spirit in a very phraseological
manner at the most, for they do not know the spirit. They would only
know it, if they recognised the spiritual science of
Anthroposophy. The impartial philosophy that is now
being taught to such an extent what is it, in reality?
It is the result of the dogma pronounced by the Eighth Oecumenic
Council in the year 869.
We must see through
this. We must be quite clear that when the modern civilisation arose,
and even in the second half of the fourth post-Atlantean epoch, it
was considered as dangerous to speak of the spirit and to draw
attention to it. But at the present time it is necessary that we
should draw mankind's attention to the spirit, the spirit
that has been declared to be the devil for a long, long time, within
the civilisation of Europe! After the year 333, nothing but
traditions remained of the old Christological knowledge
nothing but traditions!
Everything that
constitutes art shows us even more clearly that it has remained
tradition! Observe, for instance,
Cimabue's
paintings; there you will see a world that took on a completely different
aspect in
Giotto's
paintings. In
Cimabue's
paintings lived something that may also be
seen in Dante, something that could no longer be experienced by the
human beings of a later time! Later on, this living within a
spiritual world, that may still be seen in
Cimabue,
ceased. Later on,
it was a hypocrisy to paint a golden background, but for a
Cimabue
this was quite natural. And now observe a Russian icon; it is not in
any way painted after a model, for it is something in which the old
traditions are still alive, traditions that come from a clairvoyance
still existing at the time of the Mystery of Golgotha and enabling
man to understand the Mystery of Golgotha.
Then came the time in
which the traditions were maintained by using external instruments of
power. And then came the 19th century, in which the ordinary
soul-activity that brought forth such significant results in natural
science and technology, was also applied to theology. But what became
of theology through this? Christ-Jesus, the incarnation of a Being
that does not belong to the earthly became the simple man of
Nazareth, looked upon indeed as the most perfect man, but not
as the bearer of a super-earthly Being. Theology became naturalistic.
The more our modern theologians look upon Jesus of Nazareth as a
human being, the less they feel induced to pursue Christological
ideas, and the happier they are! Even in theology they do not wish to
rise beyond the description of the man, Jesus of Nazareth, they do
not wish to rise to an understanding of Christ as a super-earthly
Being that dwelt in the man, Jesus of Nazareth.
To-day, those who have
an insight into world-events from a spiritual standpoint, must see
many things differently from the way in which they are judged by
people who only see them outwardly. Central Europe, that is now
passing through such a tragic destiny, was able among other
things which cannot be discussed here to accept Adolf Harnack
as a great scientist; the very man who reached the point of saying
that God the Son should not be included in the Gospels! They should
be read, he says, in such a way as to find in them only the man,
Jesus of Nazareth, and this man's teachings concerning God the
Father. Harnack's theology was intended to do away with our feelings
of reverence for the spirituality of Christ. The theology which
Harnack established in Central Europe really signifies the negation
of Christianity, the denial of Christianity; it signifies the setting
up of a world-conception clearly stating that we do not wish to have
anything to do with the spirituality of Christ. It is significant to
observe what has thus swept over modern humanity, with the result
that the most distorted views now exist concerning the most important
ideas of human life.
To-day we know what
sleep is, from the moment of falling asleep to the moment of waking
up. Yet we do not, as a rule, observe the other kind of sleep, in
which we live from the moment of waking up to the moment of falling
asleep, when we walk about in our everyday life, steeped in illusions
and dreams in regard to its most important facts. Indeed, in these
modern times, we do not only sleep when we lie in our bed at night
(this is actually the better kind of sleep), but we are also asleep
in the sphere of egoism, when we lock ourselves up in our inner
being, unwilling to know our human body and, at the same time,
unwilling to progress to a spiritual self-knowledge. We sleep another
kind of sleep during the time from falling asleep to waking up.
In order to understand
this, we must indeed observe the nature of sleep from the moment of
falling asleep to that of waking up. What does then take place with
the human being? Why does the modern intellect believe that as far as
the human constitution is concerned sleep is the same for modern man
as it was for the ancient Greeks? The Greeks were not awake
in the same way as we, and the Egyptians even less so, nor did they
sleep as we do. This soul-constitution in particular should be
studied for every epoch of time.
When, during sleep, the
human soul, that is to say, the ego and the astral body, loosens
itself from the physical and etheric bodies that remain lying on the
bed where does the soul, that is the ego and the astral body,
really dwell while we are asleep?
Superficial
explanations that a cloud may be seen hovering over the physical body
(which is quite true, as far as an altogether external form of
clairvoyance is concerned), do not suffice. This is not sufficient,
for we must observe what takes place inwardly. We must observe what
the soul really experiences from the moment of falling asleep to the
moment of waking up. In these modern times, the human soul then
passes through experiences that are also lived through by the souls
that are not as yet incarnated on the earth. Consider the following:
Take a case that came to my notice just now, before I began my
lecture: A daughter was born to an anthroposophist; one year ago,
this little girl lived in the spiritual world as body and soul, and
has since then made the endeavour to descend to the physical world.
All those decades, that make us so much older than this little newly
born girl, during all those years it lived in the spiritual world.
And while we were asleep, we lived from the moment of falling asleep
to the moment of waking up, in the world in which the little girl
dwelt before conception, or birth. That is the world in which we
dwell, when we are asleep, and there, the souls that are not yet
incarnated pass through many experiences. While we are asleep,
we pass with them through the fifth post-Atlantean age and through
events resembling their own experiences.
From the moment of
waking up to the moment of falling asleep, we live, on the other
hand, in a world that we sleep away during our waking life; we live
in everything that we inherited from our past earthly existences. We
live together with what has remained behind from ancient India,
Persia, or Egypt; we live with what we have experienced spiritually
here on earth, and this is cramped together egoistically in our inner
being. We bring it along with us into our present incarnation. During
the day, we live with all these things, and sleep away the present.
Indeed, the present contains many things that can only be grasped
spiritually. We cramp ourselves egoistically in ideas that come from
the past and adhere to them obstinately even in our language, in our
speech. Languages contain a great store of ancient crystallized
wisdom. Yet we rebel against any kind of influence that may be
exercised upon our souls by this ancient store of wisdom. For
instance, to-day we use the words Messer, knife, or
Schere, scissors. When we use the word Schere,
scissors, we do not as a rule think that it comes from a kind of
Scheren, or shearing, that is announced in every
barber's shop! And when we use the word Messer, knife,
we do not think that it is really based on a moral idea, for it is
connected with Maass, measure, and Zumessen,
to mete out, or cut to measure. When a knife was used in ancient
times, it was really used to mete out a gift for
someone. A store of wisdom lies crystallized in the words we use, and
this ancient spiritual life that is contained in the words now
uttered so thoughtlessly, lives in the depths of our being. Whenever
we speak, we really experience the life of ancient epochs.
Spiritually, we pass
through ancient epochs of the earth, from the moment of waking up to
the moment of falling asleep, but we pass through them in a sleeping
condition. And from the moment of falling asleep to the moment of
waking up, we pass through events that are connected with the descent
of human souls to their life on earth.
You see, these are
realities, these are truths. These realities should be well impressed
upon us, if we do not only wish to become acquainted with the forces
of decay, but also with the forces of growth and progress. It would
be so much better if, before going to sleep in the evening, a greater
number of people were to do other things than those which they are
accustomed to do! Consider what many people generally do, as
last thing, before they go to bed! Yet a modern man should say to
himself: I wish to enter the world that contains the forces of growth
and progress, it is the world in which I can experience those forces
that lead the human souls down to the earth, a world in which I can
experience those forces spiritually.
From the moment of
falling asleep to the moment of waking up we experience the forces
pertaining to the future. For that reason, we should have a kind of
craving for the teachings that speak of a spiritual world and that
enable us to be conscious of the experiences of souls that are in a
condition (but consciously) resembling that of souls who are asleep
here on earth. The impulses for the progress of civilisation, for the
healing of civilisation, must come from that world! The spiritual,
political and economic impulses that should unfold as healing powers
for our civilisation must come from that world! It is necessary, at
the present time, that we should once more acquire the possibility of
grasping the Mystery of Golgotha, of grasping it in a spiritual way.
What is the essential,
or let us say, one of the essential things (for there are, of course,
many essential things in it), in the Mystery of Golgotha?
That a God, a super-earthly Being, took up His abode in the man,
Jesus of Nazareth. Beings of His kind have one characteristic
quality: they cannot die. All those Beings of the higher Hierarchies,
described in my OCCULT SCIENCE, the Angels, Archangels,
etc. up to the highest Beings, the Cherubim, Seraphim, etc. do
not die (read the description of their life's course in my books),
they do not die as men die. What did Christ take upon Himself, Christ
Who came from the higher Hierarchies? He died within a human
body. You see, here we have significant forces that pass over into
the evolution of humanity upon the earth, Christ died in a human
body; he passed through the experience of death, an experience
unknown to the other gods who are connected with the earth. Up to the
year 333, it was still possible to grasp this truth to a certain
extent. Now we must learn to grasp it anew! We should grasp anew that
a super-earthly Being shared with us the experience of death, thus
passing over into the development of the earth. Yet at the same time
we should have the great modesty of recognising that the experiences
of this Being highly surpass what can be experienced through the
soul-constitution of a human being.
The Christ descended
from worlds where death is unknown. What Beings serve the Christ?
Among those who serve Him, there is not one who could make the same
sacrifice, not one who could have come down to the earth, in order to
pass through death. Beings that belong to the hierarchy of the
Angeloi, right up to the higher Hierarchies, Beings connected with
the evolution of the earth, are Christ's servants. We cannot perceive
them, if we do not rise to a super-earthly knowledge of the higher
Hierarchies. Through a knowledge of the spiritual worlds we should
seek that which leads us to Christ. Spiritual science is needed above
all in order to attain a new knowledge of Christ. For Christ is here,
upon the earth, and He is surrounded by the world of the higher
Hierarchies. Man's great temptation in modern times is the modern
natural science with its great triumphs and its admission of purely
external forces of Nature. Yet behind all these forces of Nature live
the spiritual Beings! The assertions of natural science are certainly
right, nevertheless the spiritual Beings that serve Christ live
behind the forces of Nature, thinking and directing them. Christ
lives in everything that constitutes the development of the earth.
Super-earthly Beings serve Him but these super-earthly Beings
can only be recognised through spiritual science. Consequently an
extremely important task evolves upon spiritual science: the renewal
of Christianity.
All this shows you that
to-day we cannot pursue spiritual science merely as a personal
concern. To-day spiritual science concerns civilised humanity as a
whole. Through an inner necessity, spiritual science was from the
very beginning pursued in the circle that afterwards obtained the
name of Anthroposophical Society, in a different way
than in the Theosophical Society. The whole constitution of the
Theosophical Society had, from the very outset, a sectarian
character, something that reckoned with the egoism of modern times.
Anthroposophy therefore had the task of taking into account the
consciousness of modern times, that which constitutes the external
culture of humanity, and of pouring into it the results of a
spiritual manner of contemplation. Little differences and strifes are
of no importance whatever in the face of such a task. It was
essential for me to maintain the purity of a spiritual movement that
reckons with the whole science of modern times. Whether this or that
person may or may not accept one or the other truth, is of no
importance to me. Even though the whole world may abuse spiritual
science and criticize it, I do not consider this as essential,
for the essential thing is that the spiritual science that I advance
should really harmonize fully, with the modern, scientific mentality,
with the moral conscience of modern times. For this reason, I had to
publish my Philosophy of Spiritual Activity before
revealing the truths of Karma. I have often listened with great pain
to theosophists who said: If this or that man suffers, if he suffers
socially and belongs to a lower class or caste, it is his Karma and
he has deserved it. This interpretation of the idea of Karma
corresponded to the egoistical requirements of men who lived in the
19th and 20th century. Yet they did not think that we do not only
live through our present life on earth, but that we shall also live
through a future life. To-day we should not always look back on what
we once possessed in past lives on earth, but we should also consider
that in future lives on earth we shall be looking back on what we are
passing through now and this will then be an entirely new
experience. Freedom fully harmonizes with the idea of Karma ...
Everything that appears in the account-book of life is karmically
connected.
You see, if I reckon up
the debit and credit sides of destiny and strike the balance, I
obtain life's balance; but this does not entail that the single items
are subjected to the necessity of Nature. Just as the single items of
a commercial account book do not depend on diligence, and so forth,
and finally enable us to strike a balance, so freedom can very well
be connected with the idea of Karma. We should not adopt an easy
fatalistic idea when advancing the view of Karma as a fully justified
idea. Spiritual science should therefore be in full harmony also with
the conscience and the moral attitude of modern humanity. For that
reason it was necessary to work more extensively with spiritual
science, also during the time in which the catastrophe broke out in
regard to everything that has been caused by the egoism of modern
humanity, both soul-spiritually and physically.
Would it have been
honest and straightforward to continue preaching that spiritual
science can help mankind, and yet advance no social ideas at a time
when social requirements became as urgent as they are to-day? Would
human love not have progressed in the direction of a social
knowledge? Shall we content ourselves with declamations on human
love? Or should we not rather progress to real social impulses?
The fact that we can
only see Christ's ministering spirits, clearly when we look into the
spiritual world, is a result and a fundamental knowledge of spiritual
science, a result of what I have told you to-day concerning waking
and sleeping, concerning sleeping wakefulness and the awakening from
sleep through spiritual science. Spiritual science will also enable
us to grasp once more the Mystery of Golgotha, in accordance with a
modern mentality. And as a result, spiritual science must not
restrict itself to some sectarian group, but if must be brought out
into the world in the best possible way, according to our capacities
and to our place in life! The centre at Dornach was not intended to
be a sectarian centre, but one that renders fruitful every branch of
science and life, social life and artistic life. Anthroposophy and
its spiritual science must become a concern of the great masses of
humanity, although its most important things and that which
penetrates into the innermost depths of our heart, awakening our
inner forces, are pursued within the narrower circles of our Groups.
There, in those Groups, we gather forces, in order to develop a
certain higher knowledge, which we must first take in there. It is a
knowledge that must be developed, for to-day we live in a time in
which mankind really does not know what it is seeking; it sleeps away
the most important things of life. Nevertheless it is a time in which
mankind seeks after a new knowledge of the spirit! Let us feel this
deeply, as pioneers, I might say, of a spiritual renewal as
Anthroposophists.
For that reason I so
warmly wish that also the Groups in Holland might pursue an
earnest, diligent and untiring study of the knowledge that can be
obtained in our movement, from out the spiritual worlds. I warmly
wish that our Groups should study diligently. These studies should
constitute the point of departure for bringing out Anthroposophy into
the world and each one must do this in his own way so
that mankind's longings may be satisfied through a spiritual
contemplation directed towards Anthroposophy. For that reason, let us
grasp the nature of the longings of modern man. Let us not think that
we become materialistic, when we spiritualize matter! And let us
clearly realise that mankind would face a great misfortune, if it
fails to obtain the true knowledge that is able to avert that
misfortune.
The Eighth Oecumenic
Council of the year 869 drove away from human knowledge the
contemplation of the spirit. Those who have an entirely materialistic
mentality seek to prepare the next stage: they also wish to eliminate
the soul and to establish the general dogmatic knowledge that man
only consists of the body. Certain devilish initiates are now
excogitating means of educating the human being materialistically, of
preparing him materialistically as a body; they seek to attain their
end not by means of psychic influences, but by means of ingredients
and substances taken from Nature. They plan an experimental
psychology and seek to adopt principles that are not those of the
Waldorf School (for the Waldorf School principles are spiritual
protests against modern materialism), and they already undertake all
manner of experiments in order to test man's capacities. This is but
a preliminary stage of what they really aim at. The child is no
longer to be educated psychically, but with the aid of external,
material means, so that its capacities may develop in a bodily way.
Thus man would gradually become an automaton, unless we bear in mind
at the right moment that the path that led to the elimination of the
spirit must not be continued in the direction of the elimination of
the soul as well. We must instead follow the opposite direction of
the Eighth Oecumenic Council; we must once more follow the path
enabling us to find the spirit anew, and to cultivate in human life,
in every sphere of practical human life, only what we can discover
through the spirit.
This is what I wish to
implant into your souls, what I wish to implant into your hearts, my
dear friends, after our long absence. Cultivate spiritual science
first of all as a concern of the heart, in the way in which it should
be cultivated individually, so that we may progress. Cultivate what
you have thus taken in, and then bring it out to humanity in every
sphere of life, bring out what you have thus taken in! You will then
gradually find the path enabling you, in the present difficult and
earnest time of probation, to do the right thing for humanity,
according to your place in life.
|