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Rudolf Steiner e.Lib
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The Christ Impulse and the Development of the Ego-Consciousness
Rudolf Steiner e.Lib Document
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The Christ Impulse and the Development of the Ego-Consciousness
Schmidt Number: S-2220
On-line since: 4th July, 2002
In the course of the lectures given here last winter we considered the
Being of Christ from many different aspects and we endeavoured in
various ways to point out that what we know as the Christ-Impulse is
the most powerful factor for the development of mankind that we have
ever possessed in the whole evolution of the earth. It is therefore
easy to understand that, in the first place, this subject can never be
exhausted, that there could be no end to all one might do to elucidate
further the Christ-Impulse from all sides, and moreover, when all is
said and done, all that is of profoundest interest to man is really
connected with the appearance of Christ. We saw that the Gospels
themselves attempted to approach the subject of the Being of Christ
from four different sides, and we touched upon several of the secrets
contained in the different Gospels. We were only able up to a certain
point to throw light on that of St. Matthew. It must be left for the
present, and we shall return to the secrets of St. Matthew's Gospel in
lectures to be given at a later time, after which we can venture
further into the depths of St. Mark's Gospel. If we were now, at the
conclusion of our winter lectures in this group, to give more sketchy
indications of what remains to be discussed, it would interfere with
the harmony of the lectures to be given later. To-day, as also in our
next lecture, we shall touch upon questions which in a certain respect
relate to the Christ-Problem; in fact, we shall to-day refer to the
question of the connection between the human conscience and the
intervention of the Christ-Impulse in the development of mankind. In
so doing we also achieve another object. Next Thursday the public
Lectures on The Human Conscience will be given, and we
shall speak on that same subject in our group-meeting to-day. There is
a definite purpose in this one which, as time goes on, will
often be apparent to our Spiritual vision. The object is to show that
the same subject can be spoken of in a different way in a study-group
such as this, from the way in which it must be handled in a public
lecture, intended for persons who are not members of our movement. The
Anthroposophist, among many other capacities which he must acquire,
must also acquire a feeling of how matters concerning the world can be
approached from many standpoints and from many different sides, and
that a man who has already mastered certain basic facts can both speak
and hear of a subject in a different way from one who has not. When we
speak in a study-group we assume that the minds of those present have
to some extent become accustomed to the conceptions of a Spiritual
world, that as regards their thoughts and feelings they are already in
that world and are therefore able, by means of those thoughts and
feelings, to form a concept of the human conscience. The answer to
such questions can be drawn from much greater depths in a study-group
than in a public lecture given to a non-Anthroposophical audience.
Those public lectures have indeed the mission, by means of the
phenomena of the soul-life, introduced in the first place as
external experience, of giving a sort of proof that the truths
known to Spiritual Science are truths indeed. That is a different task
for the Spiritual Scientist, who probably brings with him certain
inner convictions and perhaps even certain opinions about the
Spiritual world. He must gradually learn to become acquainted with
ideas and concepts from all sorts of different sources and sides which
will help him to make certain things clear, and he must leave off
looking at things and speaking of them in one way only, though that
method, of course still prevails in external life.
The question of the human conscience is one that must stir the very
depths of our souls. For centuries philosophers and thinkers the whole
world over, have been more interested in this subject than in any
other. With regard to the phenomenon of conscience one might easily
succumb to the illusion which has often been here described as
such of believing that everything to be found in the human soul
to-day, was always to be found there. Yet, as we know, the various
soul-faculties and processes which man has developed in the course of
thousands of years, were very different in primeval times from what
they are now. Much of what is now most prized and valued in our
soul-life, we did not possess when we wandered on earth thousands of
years ago, in other incarnations. There is a purpose in these many
incarnations of ours, as we have often emphasised. The purpose is that
the soul should in the course of its development from one incarnation
to another, acquire ever-new capacities and forces; that it should
have a history of its own; that its earth-existence should be a time
of learning to realise that the soul was not the same when our
incarnations just began as it is now, and that moreover in the distant
future it will again he different. The human conscience too,
that precious possession of the human soul, which speaks like the
voice of God in each individual man or woman, warning them of good or
evil even this precious gift was not always in man's inner
being. Conscience, too, is something that has developed. And indeed it
is not so very long ago, comparatively speaking, that the human
conscience announced its presence, since when it has developed more
and more. Yet precious as this possession is to us, it is not intended
that it should continue to live in the human soul in all the ages yet
to come, just in its present form. It will develop further, and take
different forms; it will discover itself as something which man had to
acquire, and which will bear fruit. And in later ages, when these
fruits are his, it will be something upon which man can look back,
saying: There once was a time when, in the course of my passage
through the different incarnations, I was able to embody into my soul
that which is now my conscience, and I am now enjoying the fruits of
that! Just as we now look back at a time when our souls were in other
incarnations and did not possess what we call conscience, so in later
times our souls will look back at the present time and exclaim: Hail
to that past! Thanks for the gifts which in the past became our human
conscience! If we had not then been able to develop a human conscience
in our souls, we should now lack what we need for our present life!
From this we see that conscience forms part of the treasures of the
soul at the present time, and if we understand something of the nature
and being of the human conscience it gives us a sort of understanding
of our age, and of its psychic life. Man's conscience came into being;
that is a fact we have often referred to in various connections. In
the public lecture next Thursday I shall state that one can, as it
were, point to the very time when conscience was first discovered in
the human soul. If we go back a few centuries into ancient Greece,
about five hundred years before the Christian era, we come to the
great poet, Ęschylos. When we let the personages depicted by the
mighty genius of the old Greek dramatist work upon us, we do not find
what is to-day called conscience, or at any rate not designated by
that name. Five hundred years before the Christian era the greatest
dramatist then existing had no words to express what we now call the
human conscience. If he wanted to express that process in the human
soul which corresponds to what we now call conscience, he had to do so
in this way: If a man committed the sin of murdering his
mother, he was, through the might of the event made to see into the
Spiritual worlds and there he perceived certain figures, which were
known to the ancient Greek as the Erinyes and later to the Romans as
the Furies. Thus, according to Ęschylos, a man who had committed the
evil deed of murdering his mother, did not, as he would to-day, hear
the reproachful voice of conscience in his inner being; but something
drove him to spiritual vision, and he saw around him figures, the
avengers of his deed.
This is one of the remarkable proofs to be found in the historical
development of man, of what has just been asserted, that in olden
times the capacities of the human soul were quite different. We have
repeatedly emphasised that only gradually has the soul developed to
its present power of perceiving the physical-sense world through the
senses, and of using reason as it is used to-day. We stated that in
olden times the soul possessed a certain clairvoyance as a normal
capacity. At the time of Ęschylos this only appeared in special cases.
For instance, it became clairvoyant when it was to see what it had
brought about in the physical world by its wrong-doing. The soul of
Orestes became clairvoyant after the murder of his mother. He then saw
the spirits he had aroused in the spiritual world by his deed. They
encompassed his soul on all sides. There was nothing of the nature of
conscience in his soul; but a clairvoyant consciousness set in,
enabling him to see the disorder brought about in the spiritual world
by his wrong-doing. In olden times we find that when an evil deed was
accomplished, no voice of conscience was heard, for in those days the
soul was in a clairvoyant condition and could see what came about in
the external world in consequence of a wrong.
What is it then that occurs when a wrong is done? Something is brought
about by ourselves in the spiritual world. It is a purely
materialistic belief that a wrong can take place without anything
taking place in the spiritual world; it produces quite definite
processes therein, effects radiate from us which, though
invisible to sense perception can be clearly seen by spiritual sight.
These spiritual processes, radiating from one who has done wrong,
provide nourishment for certain Spiritual beings who are actually
present in the spiritual world. Such beings cannot approach man at all
times; they can only do so when the radiations resulting from evil
actions emanate from him. It is just the same as with a room if
it is quite clean no flies will enter it; there are no flies in a
perfectly clean room; but if food is left about or dirt of any kind,
the flies come immediately so, the moment a man radiates
certain spiritual emanations as a result of his evil action, he is
surrounded by beings who feed on them. These are the beings whom
Ęschylos, the great Greek dramatist, depicts around Orestes. What we
to-day know as the inner voice, Ęschylos represented in external forms
because he was so conscious of it; for he knew that in special cases,
a certain clairvoyant consciousness which was formerly the common
possession of all men, could still be aroused. There is always
something remaining in later times of what existed previously, but it
appears atavistically, and only in abnormal cases. No blame should
attach to Shakespeare for representing something of the nature of an
objective conscience.
We need only trace Greek Art a little further, from Ęschylos to
Euripides, who in his tragedies shows us that he already had the idea
of conscience. In ancient Greece we can see how the idea of conscience
gradually came into being during the last five hundred years before
Christ. Look where you will in the old Testament for a word
corresponding to what we to-day call conscience: you will not find
one. Conscience, as a quality, drew into the human soul; and if,
instead of contemplating short spans of time we look at great periods,
we see that conscience entered the human soul at about the same time
as the Christ Impulse. We might say that conscience followed close on
the Christ Impulse; it entered the historical development of the world
almost like the shadow of that Impulse. In order to understand this,
we must call to mind much that we have learned in the course of past
years and make it fruitful for our understanding of what the human
conscience really is.
If we wish in a deeper sense to grasp what conscience is, we must call
to mind that particular period of time during which mankind in the
course of its development was approaching the Christ Impulse and in
which it absorbed this Impulse, and then gradually passed into our
own, when development proceeded further. We know that this includes
three epochs of civilisation in the development of man, which we
designate as the Egyptian-Chaldean, the Greco-Latin and our present
period. (The two epochs preceding these we may for the moment leave
out of consideration; for our own souls were then too far removed from
the possibility of having even an inkling of what we mean to-day by
the concept of conscience.) In the Egyptian-Chaldean civilisation we
see a gradual preparation of everything which subsequently rose to the
greatest height possible, so that in the Graeco-Latin civilisation it
might be able to reach and absorb the significant impulse we know as
the Christ Impulse. And in our own age we see the epoch in which this
Impulse will be further developed, and this will be continued
increasingly in the epoch still to come. Now, if we recollect more
closely the development of man from the Egyptian-Chaldean epoch,
through the Graeco-Latin, into our own, it is clear that in each of
these epochs one part of the human soul was developed. Of these, what
we know as the Sentient Soul was developed during the
Egyptian-Chaldean epoch. That means that we had at one time to be
incarnated in Egyptian-Chaldean bodies, so as to be in a position to
acquire aright those qualities which serve for the special development
of the Sentient Soul. We then as souls, took that quality with us into
our next incarnations during the Graeco-Latin epoch, in order then to
develop the intellectual or mind-soul, or soul of higher-feeling. And
we live in our present incarnations with the fruits of what we gained
in that Epoch, so as to be able now, gradually to bring to a higher
stage of development, what we call the forces of the Spiritual-
or Consciousness-soul. (Dr. Steiner has, since 1923, called this the
Spiritual Soul.)
So that our souls as human beings have been developed
throughout these three epochs; and when our own age comes to its
conclusion, our souls will then rise to the development of the quality
of Spirit-Self. That will come about in the sixth epoch of
civilisation. Thus we see, what a profound purpose there is in our
going through successive incarnations, namely, that we may gradually
acquire these faculties with which we, as human souls, are acquainted,
and in a wider sense acquire those also which extend beyond the
mere life of the soul.
Thus, during the Egyptian-Chaldean culture our souls acquired the
forces of the Sentient Soul and brought them to their full
development; during the Graeco-Latin age we developed the
intellectual soul or soul of higher feeling. Man had to develop in a
normal way as far as the intellectual soul; for then only could the
Christ-Impulse be exercised upon him.
Now this development took place in quite a different way in different
parts of the earth. If we were to allow ourselves to believe, in an
easy sort of way, that the development of mankind proceeds in the most
simple way possible, we should never arrive at an understanding of
that development. One must indeed learn much before one can even to
some slight extent grasp the great thoughts of the guiding Cosmic
Beings! When man asserts that the truth is simple, that is great
arrogance on his part; it shows that he wants to twist the truth to
suit his own convenience. It is simply a love of ease which leads him
to assert that the truth must be simple. The truth is indeed very
complicated, and the spirit of the guiding cosmic beings can only be
grasped by us when we make the most intense efforts to plunge into
their thoughts, into their most subtle and intimate thoughts. So we
ought not to believe that we have exhausted everything, when we say
that: our souls have gradually evolved through Egyptian-Chaldean, the
Graeco-Roman, and our own epoch. Let us now for a moment transport
ourselves to that time when there was as yet no Graeco-Latin, but only
Egyptian-Chaldean civilisation.
There were also human beings living then in Greece and in the
countries of the Roman Empire; they lived in the countries of the
Graeco-Romans before that age began. And in our own countries, on the
soil we tread to-day, there were human beings living at the time when
the Egyptian-Chaldean civilisation was playing its part in Asia and
Africa. While certain souls, in Asia and Africa, at the epoch of the
Egyptian-Chaldean period, were more particularly going through all
that was to prepare them to receive the Christ-Impulse, others living
in the regions of the subsequent Graeco-Latins were preparing to bring
something quite different into the collective development of mankind.
In our own countries too, there were people living then who were
preparing themselves for something else. Not only do our souls take up
different qualities in successive ages, but during the same age they
live together side by side.
In this way different influences are brought to bear on the souls and
further complications thus arise in evolution. By this means more is
brought into the development of humanity than if everything went along
smoothly in a straight line. It is indeed a fact that preparations had
to be made in the Graeco-Latin lands, as also in our own, that the
right thing might be brought into the development of civilisation from
various sides. The Asiatic and African peoples had one mission and the
South European peoples another, while the peoples inhabiting
Northern and Central Europe had a different one again. They all had to
bring quite different qualities into the collective development of
humanity, and they were able to do so because both their gifts and
their training were essentially different.
When we turn our gaze towards the Egyptian-Chaldean peoples, to the
souls who reached their zenith in that particular age, we must say:
These peoples developed certain qualities of the Sentient-Soul,
qualities which can be specially developed by the study of the
wonderful teachings which then flowed from the sacred centres of
Egypt, or from the marvellous astrology which could be learnt in a
similar centre in Chaldea. That which flows from the various centres
was sent for the very purpose of aiding the soul's progress. The true
meaning of what thus flows forth is not to be found in the content of
the streams of civilisation, but in what they contribute to the
development of the human soul. The content itself passes away! Only
those who in a deeper sense have not all their wits about them can
believe otherwise than that in a few centuries of time our
contemporary science will just as much have sunk into oblivion, as
certain things connected with the Egyptian-Chaldean civilisation have
done to-day. Anyone who believes that the Copernican conception of the
universe yielded eternal verities, is making a very great mistake;
that will become a thing of the past later on, just as have the
discoveries of old Egypt to-day. As far as the content of these things
is concerned they pass away, like many another thing in the
development of humanity. For instance, in that wonderful picture of
the Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci in Milan, familiar to you all, at
any rate in reproduction, there are only faint outlines to be seen
to-day; and we know that before long nothing will remain of the work
into which Leonardo da Vinci put his best powers. Some day there will
be just as little left of Raphael's works, which so move our souls
to-day, when we allow ourselves to be affected by them. All these
works of art will perish and there will be no memory of them on the
physical plane. The content of these pictures will succumb to death,
like the content of the civilizations themselves. But when we stand
before these pictures we ought to remember that they flowed out of
Raphael's soul, and that his soul was different after he had conjured
them forth from what it was before. Thousands and thousands of people
who are moved and uplifted by these pictures, are made different
through having this experience. And someday, when the whole earth
crumbles into dust as it certainly will, the external
arrangements organised by the various civilisations will no longer
exist. But what the souls have acquired will pass over with them into
eternity. What the civilisations give us, is given for the advantage
of human souls, for into human souls was poured forth what flowed from
the Sanctuaries of Egypt and Chaldea and which for that time
was exalted wisdom. The souls of men were thereby to be brought
a step further; and to the extent that they did advance further, to
that extent were they ripe to encounter new treasures, which then, in
the Graeco-Latin Age helped the human souls a little further still. If
our own souls had not absorbed what they could in the Graeco-Latin
Age, they could not now be living into the spiritual soul. That
constitutes progress in time.
If we recollect various things said in the public lectures, we are
aware that what we call the I, the ego, works in the
three soul-principles. Out of the chaos of soul-experiences that we
encounter in the Sentient-Soul, Intellectual-Soul and Consciousness-
or Spiritual-Soul, the ego gradually develops, crystallising itself
there from: but not in the same way in different parts of the
earth. For instance, while the souls in Asia and Africa, during the
Egyptian-Chaldean Age, had been developed by the influence so long
exercised upon them by the revelations of the Chaldean and Egyptian
Sanctuaries, the peoples in Europe who were far removed from
these as regards distance, had developed in such a way that they were
in a sense ahead of them. In the European countries men had already in
a certain sense developed the ego in the Sentient-Soul, they
had developed a strong feeling for the ego.
Here we come to an extremely important point; those men passed over to
Asia and Africa who could wait with their ego until there should have
developed in the Sentient-Soul that which was to be the result of the
influence of the Egyptian and Chaldean sacred knowledge. Souls were
incarnated in the regions subject to this culture, who, more or less
without any distinct feeling of the ego-nature, absorbed the sublime
teachings and lofty culture. The lofty culture of ancient Chaldea was
poured into a Sentient-Soul as yet unconscious of its ego. Here
in the North, no such lofty culture was sunk into the soul. It
remained more or less uncultivated, but on the other hand, in this
very lack, the Sentient-Soul, which had never experienced the warm
glow of the revelations pouring in from the Sanctuary knowledge,
developed the Consciousness of an ego. We may say that among the
peoples of Egypt and Chaldea the ego-consciousness was late in coming,
it waited till the Sentient-Soul had absorbed a certain culture and
until the later soul-principles had developed. In Europe the ego did
not linger, it developed at once in the Sentient-Soul, but on the
other hand, it waited till the later soul-principles had been
developed before absorbing certain qualities pertaining to the
treasures of civilisation. Thus there were certain souls, incarnated
in Asia, and Africa, who had hardly any consciousness of their ego but
who, in their Sentient-Souls, were granted revelations of a high
order; while in Europe there were souls who, without having any high
degree of culture, were able to emphasise their individual ego; they
could both look upon and feel themselves as men, as human individuals.
The people of the Greek and Latin countries occupied a middle place
between the two extremes and they had the mission of developing the
qualities of the Intellectual-Soul. They developed the ego in the
Intellectual-Soul, while at the same time they were also able
in that soul to absorb certain forms of civilisation. Thus then, the
Egyptian-Chaldean culture waited, holding back the ego for a later
time, while the European culture developed it prematurely; but the
Graeco-Latin culture in a sense kept the balance, for it developed a
certain civilisation at the same time as the ego.
In this way we can divine a great mystery of our human development,
and without knowledge of this we can never understand why the
Christ-Impulse could find so unhindered an entrance into Europe and
why it gained so much influence there. Why was this? Could Christ have
appeared in Europe? Might He not have incarnated there in a carnal
body? No! that would not have been possible. He appeared in the
Graeco-Latin Age, that in which the Intellectual-Soul was developed.
That age was particularly adapted to come forward to meet Christ, as
it were. But Christ could not have made his appearance in Europe,
because of the strong ego-feeling prevailing there. This strong,
individual feeling of self, was not adapted to produce one single
person having the sole prerogative of being able to provide the
vehicle for the highest. A premature ego-feeling, a too great feeling
of the equality of mankind, had developed in the countries of Europe.
It would have been impossible there for one person to tower so greatly
above his contemporaries, as did the one who was to provide the
vehicle for the Christ. If Christ was to find a body fit for Him to
occupy, there must be no premature appearance of the feeling of
I. He had, therefore, to appear on the borders of the
Egyptian-Chaldean and of the Graeco-Latin culture, where it was
possible for a body to be formed not having the premature ego-feeling
within it, but having nevertheless the profoundest comprehension of
the Spiritual world given by the Egyptian and Chaldean cultures. But
if Europe had not the power of preparing a body for the Christ, yet,
just because it had prematurely developed the ego in the very dawn of
the new life, it had also acquired other faculties, which served
after Christ had appeared to bring to mankind a full
consciousness of the ego, to help men to a full understanding of it.
This was possible because the European peoples had acquired the
feeling of the I too early and had as it were grown up
with it.
This must be borne in mind if we wish to understand the newer
civilisation. In Asia and Africa we find people who know much
concerning the world-secrets, and who are skilful in the setting up of
certain symbols who have in fact cultivated their Sentient-Soul
in such a way that they have a rich soul-life; but their Sense of Ego
is weak. In Europe we find people who have received less culture
through revelations from without; but on the other hand we find there
the type of man who looks to himself, who finds the strongest support
in himself. So in Asia the ground was prepared for the coming of
Christ, for there a body could be found into which He could draw in,
and in Europe we find the people best prepared to understand
the bringer of the ego-consciousness. He brought to the peoples of
Europe what they were longing for. Hence it was in Europe that
Christian Mysticism was developed, that wonderful Mysticism in which a
man sought to draw Christ into his own soul, into his own ego.
Thus the wise guidance of the World prepared mankind in different
parts of the earth, so that each epoch of development should find what
is right for that time. It is one of the great assets acquired by
studying the conception of the world presented by Spiritual Science,
that we gain more and more strongly a sense of the wise way in which
the development of humanity and of the whole world has been carried
on. We see how for thousands of years souls were prepared on the soil
of Europe, that they might develop as early as possible a firm centre
in their inner being, and for this very purpose they were actually
kept back from acquiring the forces so highly evolved in Asia.
Therefore, the stream of culture flowed across from Asia, while the
strong sense of the personal ego was being developed in Europe. Again,
we can actually point out how the Adriatic almost constituted a
boundary between a rather weaker sense of self in Greece, where a man
did not so much feel himself to be a separate individual as an
Athenian, a Spartan, a Theban, a member of his city, and the
Roman culture on the other side, where the strong ego-feeling was
developed in the consciousness of the Roman citizen, who stood firmly
on his own ground as an individual person. In Greece we still find the
ego somewhat of a retiring nature; man still took in more from the
outer world, in such a way that the ego need not be present. If we
cross the Adriatic and come to Rome we find the Roman citizen standing
firmly on his feet already conscious of his ego. All this is
connected with deep and significant sub-depths. These things do not
occur on the physical plane without corresponding events taking place
in the Spiritual world. We see that in the culture of Greece there was
still a strong influence of the ego that was withheld. Much in Greece
was still taken impersonally. The Greek did not feel himself to be a
separate citizen, but a member of the organism of Athens, Sparta, or
Thebes. This had to be done away with. The longing of man to draw
things into himself from without must disappear, and as he becomes
more and more a Westerner he must learn to find entrance into the
inner part of his soul. What is to be formed by the masses, must be
lived and experienced in advance by the Great Leaders, the Great
Individualities of humanity. Let us keep before our minds the fact to
which we have often referred that the Greek still had a strong
consciousness that what was given him from without, apart from his
having greatly developed his inner personality, was of particular
value. Once more I would remind you of the saying of a very cultured
Greek, which gives us a deep insight into the longings of the Greek
people. Better be a beggar in the upper world than a king in the
realms of shades! The great value of the invisible, of the
super-sensible life, had not then been realised. That which could be
drawn from the environment without the help of the ego, is drawn from
that environment. It is profoundly moving to perceive how at this
juncture, at the turning-point of the times, a great Leading
Personality stands like a sign-post, to cast off the disposition
towards the earlier and to put on the disposition for the new; to ring
forth far and wide, speaking as it were for the spiritual-world:
A time is now coming when men must no longer take into
themselves that which can flow into their personality apart from the
ego, but rather that which enters it through the ego!
This deed was accomplished by one of the great Sages of ancient
Greece; it was in part fulfilled in Empedokles, in the island of
Sicily. In many of the legends which to-day are only told as tales,
great depths lie concealed. Empedokles, the great Sage who was
not only a great philosopher but an Initiate into the deep mysteries
of his time, who was both one of the greatest statesmen of all times
and also a sacrificial priest, of him the legend (which in an
occult sense is true) relates as follows. Having completed his task in
Sicily, Empedokles threw his body into Etna, that his external sheaths
might be united with the soil of Sicily, thereby to record that
firm faith in the ego would follow, now that the outer had
disappeared! The sacrifice of the outer sheaths of Empedokles
was accomplished when he surrendered them to Etna. There is a deep
occult truth behind this. Among the Spiritual experiences in Sicily
to-day is the following. If spiritually one breathes the air of Sicily
one can still trace in it the after-effects of the deed of Empedokles!
His soul has continued to incarnate; but his body attained a
special significance by having been consciously given over to the
elements, so that it can still be found in the spiritual atmosphere of
Sicily to-day. The body of Empedokles forms a considerable part of the
spiritual atmosphere of Sicily. It was a very important moment to me
such things can be discussed within our groups when a
few days ago I was able to tell our Palermo friends in their actual
presence, that if anyone wanders in Sicily with a spiritual
consciousness, he certainly still breathes spiritually, even to-day,
that which has permeated the air of Sicily ever since the death of
Empedokles!
So now we see that the boundary between East and West, which
we, speaking in an external and spatial sense, have referred to as the
Adriatic Sea, was indicated by a great Leader of Humanity, who,
as he was to work on further in the West, stripped off the principle
by means of which man could grow in the East, desiring to preserve for
the future development of man that which is exalted above all the
elements of the external physical plane.
It is a very great thing to become aware of these distinctions for
they show how, in regions widely separated in space, different effects
are being prepared in order that in this variety the greatest may be
attained. It is through the co-operative effects of differentiation
that the goal of the collective development of mankind must be
attained. By this we can see that Christ, after having appeared in the
East, went across to the West, there to be accepted by those who were
made ready for this by a strong ego-consciousness; that they might
thereby understand the Bringer of that consciousness. That is the
secret of Christ's entrance into the West, that He there found souls
prepared for Him, and that those souls accepted Him. Thus in the East
we see humanity doing everything possible to prepare a body or a
corporality, consisting of physical body, etheric body and
astral body into which could penetrate the Christ, He who,
together with the ego-consciousness and by means of it, brings the
impulse of Love to the earth. Love is that which, in its most psychic
and spiritual form, came to the earth with Christ, appearing in its
psychic and spiritual form in the East, for thus we first see
it and then flowing on further, to the West, where it is
understood. In this way do we see development progressing further.
In what way was the ego-consciousness able so to work in the West that
it felt itself related to Christ? What had happened to the souls who
had prematurely taken up the ego-consciousness?
The Egyptian-Chaldean people waited for the spiritual or Consciousness
Soul before they developed the ego; the Graeco-Latin peoples developed
it in the Intellectual-Soul or soul of higher feeling; the culture of
Northern Europe had prematurely developed the ego in the
Sentient-Soul. That was in the human soul early in those countries;
thus the Sentient-soul and the ego-consciousness worked together there
in a different way than anywhere else in the world. In Northern Europe
they first made themselves felt in the development of mankind. What
was the result of the Ego-consciousness being firmly established in
the Sentient-Soul in the European peoples, before a Christ had entered
into the development of mankind, and before the latter had taken up
what had been developed in Asia?
Because of this a force had been developed in the soul of man,
together with the Sentient Soul, which could only have been developed
through the Sentient-Soul being permeated with the ego-feeling while
still quite virginal and uninfluenced by other civilisations. This
permeation of the Sentient-Soul with the sense of self (the ego-sense)
has grown into man's conscience. This accounts for the wonderful
innocence of conscience! How does it speak? It speaks in the same way
in the simplest and most primitive of men, as it does in the most
complex soul. It says quite simply: that is right! that is wrong!
without any theory or dogma. When it says: that is right, or that is
wrong, what it tells us works with the might of an instinct or an
urge. You will only find it developed in this way in the West.
Therefore it throws its first rays like a rosy dawn, towards Greece
and from thence towards Rome, where indeed we find it very strongly
developed. We first meet with the word conscience, conscientia
in the works of the Roman writers. Whereas among the Greeks we
only find the first sporadic hints of it in Euripides, we find the
Romans quite familiar with it, it had then become a word in general
use. This is because of the influence of that strain of culture which
came into being through the mutual inter-permeation of the
Sentient-Soul and ego-feeling; for the ego-feeling, which lifts men up
from the lowest to the highest, already speaks in the Sentient-Soul,
in which hitherto nothing spoke but instincts, desires and
passions, and speaks there like a voice from God, urging man to
do what is right that he may press up to the higher ego.
In this way we can trace the first rise of conscience among the
peoples of Europe. From thence it spreads its rays abroad to the other
peoples of the Earth. Thus through a wise world-guidance, the humanity
in one part of the world was so prepared that conscience could be
added as a contribution to the whole collective development of
humanity. We have now mentioned everything that can throw light upon
conscience. We mentioned that indefinable attribute of conscience, its
pressing forth from the depths of the soul. Conscience speaks like an
urging impulse; but it is not an impulse. Those philosophers who so
describe it, are far from hitting the mark. It speaks with the same
power as does the Spiritual-Soul itself when it appears; but yet with
elemental, original forces.
So, we see: Love appears on the earth in the East; Conscience in the
West. The two belong together; as Christ appears in the East, so
Conscience awakens in the West, that through it Christ may be
accepted. In the simultaneous occurrence of the fact of the
Christ-Event and the comprehension of it, and in the preparation for
these two things in different parts of the Earth, we see the ruling of
an infinite Wisdom guiding our development. We have thus indicated the
past history of Conscience.
If we recollect what has often been emphasised, that now, after
the conclusion of Kali-Yuga, we are going through a transition in
which new forces will have to be developed, we shall easily
understand that we are now faced with important questions regarding
the further development of conscience. In the last lecture we strongly
and clearly emphasised the fact that we are advancing towards a new
Christ-Event, in that the soul will become capable of perceiving the
Christ by means of a certain etheric clairvoyance, and of
re-experiencing, in itself, the Event of Damascus. We are therefore
justified in asking the question: What will happen as regards the
parallel experience, that of the development of conscience, in the
epochs towards which we are advancing? We will go into this question
next Sunday (8th May), for the best way of celebrating our White Lotus
Day will be to point out the living nature of the movement of
Spiritual Science, and to explain that the conscience of man is in a
state of transition. We shall see that light can be thrown upon it
from many different sides. The public lecture will treat the subject
quite exoterically, but even in these lectures many a thing can now be
mentioned, because they have been going on for a number of years.
Conscience can be spoken of in a deep sense, as we have done to-day,
or quite exoterically as we shall do on Thursday, or it
may be gone into yet more profoundly. But it will be some time before
we can do that.
Last Modified: 07-Oct-2024
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