VI
Yesterday we drew attention
to the existence of great leaders of mankind as far back as the epoch
we call the Atlantean period of human evolution. We know from what was
brought forth yesterday that this epoch ran its course on a continent we
call the Old Atlantis, lying between Europe-Africa, and America; we also
mentioned that human life at that time was very different from what it is
today, particularly with regard to the nature of human consciousness.
Our scrutiny disclosed the fact that the consciousness with which man
is endowed today developed only gradually, and that he started from
a sort of dim clairvoyance. We know further that the human physical
bodies of the Atlantean period consisted of a substance far softer,
more flexible, more plastic, than at present; and clairvoyant consciousness
reveals the fact that at that time men were not yet able, for example,
to perceive solid objects such as our eyes see today in sharp outline.
The Atlantean could distinguish the objects of the outer world —
the mineral, plant, and animal kingdoms — but only indistinctly,
blurred. Just as nowadays in a foggy autumn evening the street lights
show a fringe of color, so people of that time saw objects surrounded
by a colored border — an aura, as the term is. The auras
were the indication of the spiritual beings belonging to the objects.
At certain times in the course of the day the perception of these spiritual
beings was very indistinct, but at others very clear, especially in
the intermediate states between waking and sleeping.
If we wish vividly to
imagine the consciousness of an ancient Atlantean, we must think of
it as follows: He did not see a rose, for example, so sharply outlined
as we do today. It was blurred, hazy and surrounded by colored borders.
Even by day it was indistinct, but it became more so and disappeared
entirely in the interval between waking and sleeping. On the other hand,
however, he discerned quite clearly what we must term the rose spirit,
the rose soul. And the same was true of all other objects in his environment.
In the progress of evolution outer objects became ever clearer, while
perception of the spiritual beings associated with them grew dimmer.
But in compensation man kept developing his self consciousness: he learned
to be aware of himself.
Yesterday we mentioned
the period in which a distinct sense of the ego emerged, adding that
the etheric body came to coincide with the physical body as the last
third of the Atlantean age approached. You can imagine that previously
the nature of leadership as well was quite different, for at that time
there existed nothing like a mutual understanding among men resting
on an appeal to reason. In those days of dim clairvoyance mutual understanding
was based upon a subconscious influence passing from one to the other.
Especially was there still present to a high degree something we know
today only in its last misinterpreted and misunderstood survival, namely,
a kind of suggestion, a subconscious reciprocal influence, invoking
but little the collaboration of the other's soul. Looking back to early
Atlantean times we see that a powerful effect was exercized on the other's
soul the moment any image, any sensation, arose in the soul, and the
will was directed upon the other. All influences were powerful, as was
also the will to receive them. Only scraps of all this have survived.
Picture to yourself a
man of that time passing another while executing certain gestures. If
the observer were even slightly the weaker of the two he would have
felt impelled to imitate and mimic all the gestures. The only surviving
remnant of this sort of thing is our inclination to yawn when we see
another person yawning. Formerly a far closer tie prevailed between
human beings, based on the fact that they lived in an atmosphere totally
different from that of today. Only during a heavy rain do we nowadays
live in water-soaked air, whereas at the time of which we speak the
air was constantly saturated with dense moisture; and in the early Atlantean
epoch man was composed of a substance no more dense than that of certain
jellyfish now living in the sea and scarcely distinguishable from the
surrounding water. That was the way man was constituted at that time,
and he solidified only gradually. Nevertheless we know that even then
he was exposed to influences not only of the regular guiding higher
spiritual beings who either dwelt on the sun or were distributed among
the various planets of our solar system, but also of the Luciferic spirits
that influenced his astral body; and we have learned, too, in what manner
these influences took effect. But we found further that those who were
to be the leaders of the Atlantean people had to combat these Luciferic
influences in their own astral body. By reason of the spiritual and
clairvoyant nature of their consciousness all men of that time could
perceive whatever spiritual influences were exerted on them. —
Nowadays one who knows nothing of spiritual science laughs when you
tell him his astral body shows the effects of Luciferic spirits; but
then, he does not know that the influence of these spirits is far stronger
than it would be if he took note of them.
“The Devil your good-folk ne'er scent,
E'en though he have them by the collar.”
That is a very profound utterance in Goethe's Faust;
and many a materialistic influence of today would not exist if people
knew that we are by no means rid of all the Luciferic influences as
yet.
In Atlantis the leaders
and their disciples kept a careful watch for everything that excited
passions, instincts, and desires, for everything emanating from that
quarter which aroused in man a deeper interest in his physical-sensible
surroundings than was beneficial for his progressive development in
the cosmic scheme. The first duty of one who aspired to become a leader
was to practice this self-knowledge, to guard carefully against anything
that might arise in him through Lucifer's influence. He had to study
these Luciferic spiritual beings in his own astral body most accurately,
for by so doing he could keep them at a distance. This also enabled
him to perceive the other divine-spiritual beings, the higher, guiding
ones, and particularly those that had transferred their own sphere of
action from the earth to the sun, or to other planets; and the regions
beheld by men corresponded to that from which they had descended. There
were human souls, for instance, that had come down from Mars; and when
these, in keeping with their development, combatted the Luciferic influences
in their own astral body, they attained to a higher degree of clairvoyance,
to a pure and good seership, and they beheld the higher spiritual beings
of the region from which they themselves had descended, from the Mars
region. Souls that had come down from Saturn learned to see the Saturn
beings, those from Jupiter or Venus, the Jupiter or Venus beings: each
beheld his own region.
But the most advanced
among men, those who had survived the moon crisis, were able gradually
to prepare themselves to envision not only the spiritual beings of Mars,
Jupiter, or Venus, but those of the sun itself, the exalted sun beings.
Having come down from the various planets the initiates were again able
to behold the spirituality of these planets. From this it is clear why
in ancient Atlantis there were institutions, schools, where those who
had descended, for example, from Mars were accepted, when sufficiently
mature, for the purpose of studying the mysteries of Mars; and that
there were other sanctuaries where those who had come from other planets
could learn their mysteries. Applying the later term “oracle”
to these institutions, we have in Atlantis a Mars Oracle, where the
mysteries of Mars were studied, a Saturn Oracle, a Jupiter Oracle, a
Venus Oracle, and so on. The highest was the Sun Oracle; and the loftiest
of all the initiates was the ranking initiate of the Sun Oracle.
Because suggestion and
the influences of will played so important a part, the whole method
of instruction was very different. Let us try to imagine the nature
of the intercourse between teacher and pupil. Assuming the presence
of spiritual teachers who had achieved initiation as by an act of grace,
we ask, How did the later neophytes arrive at initiation in the Atlantean
age? Here we must imagine first of all the mighty impression exercized
by those already initiated — through their whole conduct, their
mere presence — upon those predestined to become their pupils.
The very sight of an Atlantean initiate was enough to start a sympathetic
vibration in the soul of the neophyte, thus disclosing his fitness for
the discipleship. The influences that passed between men at that time
were entirely remote from objective day-consciousness, and the type
of instruction we know today was then unnecessary. All intercourse with
the teacher, everything the teacher did, worked hand in hand with men's
imitative faculty. A great deal passed unconsciously from teacher to
pupil; hence the most important factor, for those sufficiently matured
through their previous life conditions, was that in the beginning they
should merely be admitted to the sanctuaries and remain in contact with
their teachers. Then, by observing what the teachers did and by impressions
made on their feelings and sensations, they were trained — prepared,
indeed, over a very long period of time. Eventually the harmonious accord
between the soul of the teacher and the soul of the pupil reached the
point where everything the teacher possessed in the way of deeper spiritual
secrets passed over of itself to the disciple. — Such were the
conditions in those ancient times.
Now, what was the situation
after the union of the etheric and physical bodies had become established?
Although the two bodies had come to cover completely during the Atlantean
epoch, the union was as yet not very firm, so that by an effort of will
the teacher could, in a certain sense, withdraw the pupil's etheric
body from the physical. It was no longer possible, even when the right
moment had come, for the teacher's wisdom to pass over into the pupil
as of its own accord; but the teacher could easily withdraw the pupil's
etheric body and then the pupil could see whatever the teacher saw.
So the slight or loose connection between the etheric and physical bodies
made it possible to release the former, and the wisdom, the clairvoyant
vision, of the master passed over into the disciple.
Then there occurred the
great cataclysm that swept away the Atlantean Continent. Mighty elemental
disturbances in air and water, terrific upheavals in the earth, gradually
altered the entire face of the globe. Europe, Asia, and Africa, which
had been dry land only to a very slight extent, arose out of the water,
as did likewise America. Atlantis disappeared. Men migrated eastward
and westward, and a great variety of settlements came into being. But
after the mighty catastrophe mankind had advanced another step. Again
a change had taken place in the connection between the etheric and physical
bodies: in the post-Atlantean time the union of the two became much
firmer. The teacher could now no longer detach the pupil's etheric body
by an impulse of will and thereby transmit his power of vision as he
had formerly done. Hence initiation, leading to vision of the spiritual
world, had to take another form which can be described somewhat as follows:
The instruction which
had been based largely upon direct psychic influence from teacher to
pupil had gradually to be superseded by a form slowly approaching what
we know as instruction today; and the farther the post-Atlantean age
advanced, the greater grew the resemblance to our modern method of instruction.
Corresponding to the Atlantean oracles, institutions were now established
by the great leaders of mankind exhibiting similarities to the old Atlantean
oracles: Mysteries, initiation temples, came into being in the post-Atlantean
epoch; and just as formerly those fitted for it were received into the
oracles, so now they were admitted to the Mysteries. There the neophytes
were carefully trained by means of exacting instruction, because they
could no longer be influenced as they were formerly. In all civilizations
over a long period of time we find such Mysteries. Whether you seek
in the culture we knew as the first post-Atlantean, which ran its course
in ancient India, or in that of Zarathustra, or among the Egyptians
or Chaldeans, you will invariably find neophytes being admitted to the
Mysteries which were something part-way between church and school; and
there they underwent a severe training calculated to promote thinking
and feeling as these apply to events of the invisible, spiritual world
— not merely as related to things of the sense world.
And what was taught there
can now be accurately defined: to a great extent it was the same as
what we have come to know today as anthroposophy. That was the subject
of study in the Mysteries; and it differed only in that it was adapted
to the customs of that time and was imparted according to strict rules.
Today people who in a certain sense are ripe can be told of the mysteries
of the higher worlds in a more or less free way and comparatively rapidly.
Of old, however, the instruction was strictly regulated. In the first
grade, for instance, only a certain sum of knowledge was imparted and
all else kept completely secret. Not until the pupil had digested this
was he apprised of anything pertaining to a higher grade. Through this
sort of preparation, concepts, ideas, sensations, and feelings referring
to the spiritual world were implanted in his astral body, a procedure
tending at the same time to combat the influences of Lucifer; for all
that is imparted in the way of spiritual-scientific concepts refers
to the higher worlds, not to the world in which Lucifer aims to stimulate
man's interest, not to the sense world alone.
Eventually, when the neophyte
had been prepared in this way, the time approached for him to be guided
to independent vision, when he himself should see in the spiritual world.
This implied the ability to reflect in his etheric body everything he
had accumulated in his astral body; for vision of the spiritual world
is achieved only when the fruits of study stored in the astral body
are experienced so intensely, through certain feelings and sensations
connected with the knowledge acquired, that not only the astral body,
but the denser etheric body as well, is thereby influenced. If the pupil
was to rise from learning to seeing, all that had been taught him must
have borne fruit.
That is why, throughout
the Indian, Persian, Egyptian, and Greek epochs the training period
closed with the following act. First the pupil was again prepared for
a long time — now not through learning, but by means of what we
call meditation and other exercises designed to develop inner concentration,
inner tranquility, inner equanimity. He was trained to make his astral
body in every respect a citizen of the spiritual worlds; and when the
right time had come the conclusion of this development consisted in
his being placed in a deathlike state lasting three and a half days.
While in Atlantean times the etheric and physical bodies were so loosely
joined that the former could be withdrawn more easily than in later
periods, it had now become necessary in the Mysteries to throw the neophyte
into a deathlike sleep. While this lasted he was either placed in a
coffinlike box or bound to a sort of cross — something of that
sort. The initiator, known as the hierophant, possessed the power to
work upon the astral, and particularly upon the etheric body —
for during this procedure the etheric left the physical body. That is
something different from sleep: in sleep the physical and etheric bodies
remain in bed while the astral body and ego withdraw; but in this final
act of initiation only the physical body remained in place. The etheric
body was simply withdrawn from the greater part, at least, of the physical
body — from the whole upper portion; and this left the candidate
in a deathlike state. Everything that had been learned through meditation
and other exercises was now impressed into the etheric body while in
this condition. During these three and a half days the neophyte really
moved about in the spiritual worlds wherein the higher beings dwell.
Finally the hierophant called him back, meaning that he had the power
to awaken him; and the candidate brought with him a knowledge of the
spiritual world. Now he could see into this spiritual world and could
proclaim its truths to his fellow men who were not yet ready to envision
it themselves.
Thus the ancient teachers
of pre-Christian time had been initiated into the profound secrets of
the Mysteries. There they had been guided by the hierophant during the
three-and-a-half-day period; they were living witnesses to the existence
of a spiritual life and to the fact that behind the physical there is
a spiritual world to which man belongs with his higher principles and
into which he must find his way. But evolution proceeded. What I have
just described to you as an initiation existed most intensively in the
first epoch after the Atlantean catastrophe; but the union of the etheric
and physical bodies grew ever firmer, hence the procedure became more
and more dangerous, because man's whole consciousness accustomed itself
increasingly to the physical sense world. You see, that was the import
of human evolution: men were to become used to living in this physical
world with all their inclinations and propensities. This learning to
love the physical world was a great step forward for mankind.
In the early part of the
post-Atlantean civilization there still remained a living recollection
of the existence of a spiritual world. People said: We, the late descendants,
can still see into the spiritual world of our ancestors. — They
still retained the dim, dull, clairvoyant consciousness and they knew
where lay the world which was their true home. They said, All that surrounds
us in our day-consciousness is like a veil spread over truth: it hides
the spiritual world from us; it is maya, illusion. — They did
not accustom themselves at once to what they now could see, nor could
they readily understand that it was intended that they lose their awareness
of the old spiritual world. That was the characteristic feature of the
first post-Atlantean civilization; hence that was the time in which
men could most easily be guided to the spirit: they still felt a lively
interest in the spiritual world. Naturally matters could not remain
thus, because the Earth's mission consists in man's becoming
fond of the forces of the earth and conquering the physical plane. Were
you able to envision ancient India, you would discover the spiritual
life to be on a tremendously lofty level.
A comprehension of what
the original teachers revealed to mankind is possible in this day and
age only after a study of spiritual science. For others, the teaching
of the great holy Rishis is nonsense, foolishness, for they can make
no sense out of what is told them there about the mysteries of the spiritual
world. From their standpoint they are naturally quite right: everyone
is always right from his own standpoint.
In ancient India spiritual
vision was enormously extensive, but the use of even the simplest implements
was non-existent. People provided for themselves in the most primitive
ways. There was nothing like a natural science of any kind — or
what is so called today — because everything that could be observed
on the physical plane was looked upon as maya, the great illusion;
and only by uplift to the great Sun Being or similar beings was the
real, the true, to be found. But again, matters could not stop there:
among the post-Atlanteans there had to be those as well with the will
to conquer the kingdom of earth; and the first attempt to this end was
made in the time of Zarathustra. In the transition from the old Indians
to the ancient Persians we see a mighty step forwards. In Zarathustra's
view the outer world ceased to be mere maya or illusion: he
showed men that what surrounds them is of value, though he emphasized
the presence of spirit underlying all. While the ancient Indian saw
a flower as maya and sought the spirit behind it, Zarathustra
said, The flower is something we must value, for it is an integral part
of the universal spirit existing in all things; matter grows out of
spirit.
We have already mentioned
that Zarathustra drew attention to the physical sun as the field of
action of spiritual beings. But initiation was difficult; and for those
who wanted not merely to be told of the spiritual world by the initiates
but to see for themselves into the great sun aura, more drastic measures
were called for in connection with their initiation. Furthermore, all
human life gradually changed; and in the next cultural epoch, the Egypto-Chaldean,
the physical world was conquered to a still greater extent. Man was
no longer bent upon a purely spiritual science which studies the realm
that underlies the physical: he observed the course of the stars; and
in their position and movement, in what is outwardly visible, he sought
the language of divine-spiritual beings. In this script co-ordinating
visible objects he recognized the will of the Gods. That is the way
cosmic interrelationships were studied in the Egypto-Chaldean time.
And in Egypt we see arising a geometry applied to external things. Such
is the story of man's conquest of the outer world.
In Greece even greater
progress was made in this direction. There we see come about the union
of soul experiences and external matter. In a Pallas Athene or a Zeus
we sense that into the material substance has streamed what first lived
in a human soul. It is as though everything which man had made his very
own had flowed out into the sense world. But as man became ever more
powerful in the sense world and his soul grew more and more attached
to it, his alienation from the spiritual world increased correspondingly
in the life between death and a new birth. When the soul left an ancient
Indian body and entered the spiritual world, there to pass through the
requisite development before the next birth, it retained a feeling for
the living spirit. Through his whole life the man of that time yearned
for a spiritual environment; and all his sensations were kindled by
the revelations he had heard concerning life in the spiritual world,
even though he was not an initiate himself. So when he passed the portal
of death the spiritual world lay open before him, as it were, in light
and radiance.
But as the physical world
became more and more congenial and men adapted themselves to it ever
more readily, the periods between death and birth were proportionately
obscured. In the Egyptian epoch this had gone so far, as can be established
by clairvoyant consciousness, that in passing from the body into the
spiritual world the soul was enveloped in darkness and gloom, in a sense
of loneliness, of segregation from other souls; and when a soul feels
loneliness and can hold no converse with other souls it experiences
a frosty chill. And while the Greeks lived in an age in which, by means
of such glorious external beauty, men had made the earth into something
quite special, this period was darkest, gloomiest, most chilling, for
the souls living between death and rebirth. A noble Greek, questioned
as to his sojourn in the nether world, replied, “Better a beggar
in the upper world than a king in the realm of shades”. That is
not a legend but an utterance actually in accord with the attitude of
that time.
It can therefore be said
that with the advance of civilization men became more and more alienated
from the spiritual world. The initiates who could see into the higher
regions of the spiritual world became increasingly rare because of the
growing dangers connected with the initiation procedure: it became more
and more difficult to preserve life for three and a half days in a cataleptic
state, with the etheric body withdrawn.
Then there intervened
a regeneration of the whole life of humanity through the impulse already
mentioned in the foregoing lectures, the Christ-Impulse. We have described
how Christ, the exalted Sun Spirit, gradually approached the earth;
we have learned how in Zarathustra's time He still had to be sought
in the sun as Ahura Mazdao, and how Moses beheld Him closer
by — in the burning bush and in the fire on Mount Sinai. Gradually
He entered the sphere of the earth in which a great change was thereby
destined to be wrought. The first concern of this Spirit was that men
should come to recognize Him when He appeared on this earth.
The salient feature of
all the old initiations was the necessity for withdrawing the etheric
out of the physical body. Even in the postAtlantean initiations the
candidate had to be reduced to a deathlike state of sleep, that is,
a state in which he was devoid of physical consciousness. This implied
coming under the control of another ego: it was invariably thus. The
candidate's ego was wholly controlled by his initiator, his hierophant.
He quitted his physical body completely: he did not dwell in it, nor
did his own ego exercize any influence upon it. But the great aim of
the Christ-Impulse is that man shall undergo a wholly self-contained
ego development and not descend to a state of consciousness beneath
that of the ego in order to attain to the higher worlds: and in order
to achieve this, someone had first to offer himself in sacrifice so
that the Christ Spirit itself might be received into a human body. We
have already pointed out that a certain Initiate Who had prepared Himself
through a great many incarnations had become able, beginning with a
definite period in His life, to yield up His own ego and receive the
Christ within Himself. This is indicated by the Baptism in the Jordan,
as told in the Gospel of St. John.
Here we must ask, What
was the real import of this Baptism? We know that John the Baptist,
the Forerunner who told of the coming of Christ Jesus, carried it out
among those whom he had prepared to receive the Christ in the right
way. We will understand what the St. John Gospel tells us of the Baptism
only if we bear in mind that John's purpose in baptizing was the true
preparation for the coming of Christ. A modern baptism, which is but
an imitation of the original symbol, provides no understanding of the
question. It was not a mere sprinkling with water, but a complete immersion:
the candidate lived under water for a certain length of time, varying
according to circumstances. What this signified we shall now learn by
delving into the mystery of the being of man.
Recall to mind that the
human being consists of physical body, etheric body, astral body, and
ego. In the waking state during the daytime these four principles are
firmly knit together, but in sleep the physical and etheric bodies remain
in bed, while the astral body and the ego are outside. In death, on
the other hand, the physical body remains as a corpse: the etheric body
withdraws, and for a short time the ego, the astral body, and the etheric
body remain united. And to those of you who have heard even a few of
my lectures it must be clear that in this moment a quite definite experience
appears first: the deceased sees his past life spread out before him
like a magnificent tableau; spatially side by side, all the situations
of his life surround him. That is because one of the functions of the
etheric body is that of memory bearer, and even during life nothing
but the physical body prevents all this from appearing before him. After
death, with the physical body laid aside, everything the man had experienced
during his lifetime can enter his consciousness.
Now, I have mentioned
as well that a retrospect of that sort also results from being in peril
of death, or from any severe fright or shock. You know, of course, from
reports that when a man is in danger of drowning or of falling from
a mountain height, he experiences his whole past life as in a great
tableau — provided he does not lose consciousness. Well, what
a man thus experiences as the result of some danger, such as drowning,
was experienced by nearly all who were baptized by John. The baptism
consisted in keeping people under water until they had experienced their
past life. But what they experienced in this way was, of course, experienced
as a spiritual picture; and here it became apparent that in this abnormal
state the spiritual experiences linked up, in a way, with the spiritual
world in general, so that after being lifted out of the water again,
after the baptism by John, a man knew: There is a spiritual world! In
truth, what I bear within myself is something that can live without
the body. — After baptism a man was convinced of the existence
of a world to which he belonged in respect of his spirit.
What, then, had John the
Baptist brought about by baptizing in this way? People had become more
and more attached to the physical world as a means of mutual contact,
and believed the physical element to be the true reality. But those
who came to the Baptist experienced their own lives as spiritual: after
being baptized they knew that they were something over and above what
their physical body made them. Human interest had gradually developed
in the direction of the physical world; but John evoked in those he
baptized the awareness of the existence of a spiritual world to which
their higher selves belonged. You need only clothe this utterance in
other words and you have: “Transform your interest that is now
directed toward the physical world.” And that is what they did
— those who received the baptism in the right way. They knew,
then, that spirit dwelt in them, that their ego belonged to the spiritual
world.
It was in the physical
body that this conviction was gained. No special procedure was involved,
as formerly in the initiations: what occurred was experienced in the
physical body. And in addition, the experience of the baptism, as carried
out by John, acquired a special meaning as a consequence of the manner
in which the whole doctrine of the time was received and merged with
the soul — the doctrine established by Moses' revelation. After
baptism, a man not only was aware of his oneness with the spiritual
world, but he recognized the particular spiritual world which was approaching
the earth. He knew that what now pervaded the earth was identical with
what had revealed itself to Moses as ehjeh asher ehjeh in the
burning bush and in the fire on Sinai; and he knew that the word Jahve
or Jehovah, or ehjeh asher ehjeh, or I am the I AM,
was the true expression of that spiritual world. So through the baptism
by John men knew not only that they were one with the spiritual world,
but that in this spiritual world there dwelt the I AM out of
which the spirit in them was born. That was the preparation John imparted
through his baptisms; that was the feeling, the sensation, he aroused
in those whom he baptized. Their number, of course, was necessarily
small, since few of them were ripe enough to experience all this when
submerged; but some discerned the approach of the Spirit later to be
called the Christ.
Try now to compare all
this with what was set forth yesterday. What the ancient spiritual beings
had brought about was love based on blood ties, on physical communion,
whereas the aim of the Luciferic spirits was to render each individual
dependent solely upon his own personality, his own individuality. Lucifer
and the lofty spiritual beings had been working simultaneously. Gradually
the old blood ties had loosened, as can be established even historically.
Think of the conglomeration of peoples in the great Roman Empire! That
was a result of the loosening of the blood ties and of the universal
desire, in varying degrees, to find the center of gravity in personality.
But another result was that people had lost contact with the spiritual
world: they had identified themselves with the physical world and developed
a love for the physical plane. As the ego-consciousness had increased
through Lucifer's agency, man had proportionately coalesced with the
physical world and rendered barren his life between death and a new
birth.
Now, the Baptist had indeed
prepared something that was of great significance for mankind: he had
prepared the way for man to remain within his personality and at the
same time find there, after the submersion, exactly what once he had
experienced as “gods” at the time when he himself still
lived in water, when the atmosphere was saturated with moisture and
fog. That experience in the divine worlds was now repeated. In spite
of being an ego, man, as a human being, could now be reunited with his
fellows, could be led back to love, a love that was now spiritualized.
That is the mainspring
of the Christ event characterized from another aspect. Christ represents
the descent to our earth of the spiritual power of love, though even
today its mission is only beginning to take effect. If we trace this
idea by means of the John and the Luke Gospels we find spiritual love
to be the very core of the Christ impulse through which the egos that
had been sundered are increasingly brought together again — but
now in respect of their innermost souls. From the beginning, men have
been able to surmise but dimly what Christ had come to mean for the
world; and today very little of it has been realized because the sundering
force, the after-effect of the Luciferic powers, is still present and
the Christ principle has been active only for a short time. And though
nowadays people seek to co-operate in certain external activities, they
have not so much as an inkling of what is meant by harmony and accord
between souls where the most intimate and important matters are concerned
— or at best they vaguely sense it with their thoughts, their
intellect, which counts for little.
Truly, Christianity is
only at the beginning of its activity: it will penetrate ever deeper
into the souls of men, will increasingly ennoble their ego. This has
been felt particularly strongly by people of the younger nations: they
feel the need of identifying themselves with the Christ force, to steep
themselves in it, if they are to get on. One of our contemporaries in
eastern Europe, the executor of the great Russian philosopher Solovyev,
once said: “Christianity must unite us as a nation, otherwise
we shall lose our ego, and with it, all possibility of being a people.”
A mighty utterance, emanating as from an intensive intellect for Christianity.
But that again proves the need for Christianity to penetrate into the
depths of the human soul.
Let us examine a certain
very radical case. It will show us that precisely in respect of the
innermost life of the soul even the most high-minded and noble men are
still far from possessing what will one day lay hold on them, when Christianity
shall have filled man's innermost thoughts, his innermost ideas and
feelings. Think of Tolstoi and of his work during the last decades which
seeks to reveal in its own way the true meaning of Christianity. A thinker
of his caliber should arouse enormous respect, especially in the West
where whole libraries are cluttered up with lengthy philosophical manglings
of the same thing that a Tolstoi can say in great and powerful words
in a book like On Life. There are pages in Tolstoi's writings
in which a certain extensive understanding of theosophical truths is
expounded with elemental grandeur, truths, to be sure, which a philosopher
of western Europe cannot hit upon so accurately — or at best he
must write volumes about them, because what they reveal is mighty. It
can be said that in Tolstoi's works there is an undertone we can call
the Christ impulse. Engross yourselves in his books, and you will see
that what pervades him is the Christ impulse.
Now turn to Tolstoi's
great contemporary, interesting if for no other reason than that from
a comprehensive philosophical Weltanschauung he attained to
the very gates of a life of such genuine vision as enabled him to survey
an epoch in full perspective — apocalyptically, so to speak. While
his visions themselves are distorted, due to an inadequate background,
Solovyev nevertheless rises to clairvoyant perception of the future:
he places before us a forecast of the 20th Century. And if we read his
writings with sympathetic understanding we find there much that is great
and high-minded, especially in connection with Christianity. Yet he speaks
of Tolstoi as of an enemy of Christianity, as of the Antichrist! This
goes to show that two men today can be profoundly convinced they are
giving their epoch the best there is, can act out of the very depths
of their souls, and yet fail to understand each other: for each of them
the other is “anti”. Nowadays people do not reflect that
if outer harmony, a life permeated by love, is to become a possibility,
the Christ impulse must first have penetrated to the profoundest depths:
love of mankind must be something very different from what it is today,
even in the noblest spirits.
The impulse that was foretold
and then entered the world is only at the beginning of its work, and
it must be ever better understood. What is it that is lacking, particularly
in our time, among all those who cry for Christianity and declare it
a necessity, yet cannot bring it within reach? Anthroposophy, spiritual
science, that is what they lack: the present-day way of understanding
Christ. For Christ is so great that each successive epoch will have to
find new means of comprehending Him. In former centuries other ways and
forms were employed in the search for wisdom. Today we need anthroposophy;
and what anthroposophy offers today for an understanding of Christ will
hold good through long ages to come, because anthroposophy will prove
to be something capable of stimulating every human capacity for knowledge.
Humanity will in time grow into a comprehension of the Christ.
But even the
anthroposophical conception is a transient one — we are aware of
this; and the time will come when so great a subject, now framed in
ephemeral terms, will call for still vaster conceptions.
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