LECTURE VI
Hebrew - English Bible
URING
these lectures I shall try to throw light
on the Genesis story of creation from many different aspects. Of
course you must never lose sight of our essential preoccupation as
Anthroposophists, which is with the facts of spiritual life. All our
lectures are concerned first and foremost with the circumstances of
spiritual life, of spiritual evolution. So too what is of primary
importance as regards the Genesis story is to ascertain what were the
super-sensible events, the super-sensible facts, which preceded the
visible course of our earth's evolution. Only after that do we think
it specially important to find confirmed in ancient documents of
various ages and various peoples what we have first established
independently of any documents, out of spiritual investigation
itself. It helps us to acquire the proper feeling, the right attitude
of reverence for what resounds in our hearts from far-off ages. We
are able to come to an understanding with those times, which we
ourselves have lived through in other bodies; we are able to form a
link with what must have affected us in past epochs. This is how we
have to understand the underlying purpose of this course of
lectures.
We tried in the
preceding lectures to form an idea as to how spiritual Beings, whom
we know from Spiritual Science, are to be rediscovered in Genesis. We
have already partly succeeded. We have borne in mind throughout that
in what confronts us in the outer world, even in what we meet in the
lower stages of clairvoyant consciousness — and in Genesis we
have to do with facts of clairvoyant consciousness all the time
— we are dealing with maya, with illusion; we have borne in
mind that our usual interpretation of the sense-world, as it presents
itself primarily to our faculty of knowledge, is maya, or
illusion. That is a statement which is familiar to anyone who has
anything to do with Spiritual Science. Moreover, the fact that the
lower region of clairvoyance, all that has to do with the etheric and
astral worlds, in a higher sense also belongs to the sphere of
deception, cannot remain hidden from anyone who has familiarised
himself with the spiritual scientific outlook for any length of time.
We strike, as it were, the true ground of existence — so far as
it is attainable by us — only when we have pushed beyond these
regions to its deeper source. We must always bear this in mind. And
we must not be content to voice it as a theory, but the conviction
must pass over into our flesh and blood, that in clinging to external
existence we are surrendering to illusion. On the other hand, to
ignore external existence, to prize it too lightly, is also one of
the great illusions into which men can fall.
Let us consider the
elementary existence which has been so often mentioned in these
lectures, and which is the nearest realm attainable behind our
physical existence, behind what we perceive with our senses.
Spiritual Science characterises it as the existence lying behind
earth, water, air and fire or warmth, light, sound-ether and
life-ether. We try to acquire ideas about the nature of earth, water,
air, and so on, and to grasp them firmly. We have not done very much
if, with a certain intellectual superiority which can easily become
rife among anthroposophical devotees, we just say “that is all
maya, illusion”; for it is nevertheless through this
maya that the real Beings reveal themselves. And if we scorn
to look at the manifestations, if we scorn to get to know the tools
and instruments through which they reveal themselves, we have no
means of making existence comprehensible. We must be clear that when
we say “water,” “air,” and so on, we are
referring to expressions, to manifestations, of real spiritualities,
but that if we refuse to have anything to do with this maya,
we can acquire no ideas of what lies behind it.
Now let us consider
the nature of the earth element. We know well by now that there was
no question of such an earth condition during the Saturn, Sun or Moon
evolutions. We know that evolution had to wait, we know that it was
not until the time of our own planetary existence that the earth
element could be added to the warmth of Saturn, to the aeriform
element of the Sun, and to the water element of the Moon. We know
that each advance in evolution can only take place through the work
of spiritual Beings. To include what we today call our physical body,
the lowest member of our human being, and to give it its place in
this elemental existence, we may say that from the first rudiments
which it developed on Saturn it too has struggled through all these
conditions. Thus we have in our own outer physical bodies something
of which we can say that it has passed through an existence in pure
warmth, an existence as a body of air, an existence as a body of
water, and has risen to an earth existence. We know too who were the
Beings on Saturn who participated in the first stages of the work on
the human physical body. You will remember that I said in
Occult Science
— and I have frequently said it elsewhere —
that to begin with, certain spiritual Beings worked on Saturn who had
passed through their lower stages of evolution in a long distant
past, and who were already so far advanced that they were able to
sacrifice their own corporeality to supply the foundation, the basic
substance for Saturn. In the order of the hierarchies these spiritual
Beings are none other than those whom we call the Spirits of Will.
Into the substance thus provided, which had been offered as a
sacrifice by the Spirits of Will, the other hierarchies then worked.
Into this substance the Spirits of Personality worked, and imprinted
in it their own “humanity.” It was this will-substance
which worked in Saturn as the warmth element, and it was in this that
the first rudiments of the human physical body were formed.
But you must not
think that such Beings as the Spirits of Will finished their work at
a specific stage. Although they performed their main task on Saturn,
yet they have continued to work during the whole course of
development on Sun, Moon and earth. They have retained a certain
connection with the substance for which they made their
self-sacrifice. We saw that during the Sun evolution the warmth
element transformed itself in the downward direction, that is, in the
direction of densification, into the element of air. Such a process
as the densification of warmth into air, which we can follow in its
external manifestation — such a process is just maya;
it gives us the illusion of densification. Within the process itself
lies spiritual weaving, spiritual being, spiritual activity. And
anyone who wishes to get to the bottom of things has to ask himself
which of the hierarchies has brought it about that out of the more
rarefied warmth-substance, the denser air comes into being. It is
those very Spirits of Will who sacrificed the warmth-substance out of
themselves who have brought this about! We may describe their
activity by saying that during the Saturn evolution they were so
advanced as to be able to allow their own substance to flow out as
warmth, so advanced as to be able to offer their own substance as a
sacrifice, so advanced that their fire streamed into the planetary
existence of Saturn. Then during the Sun evolution they condensed
this, their fire, into the gaseous element. But it was also they who
during the Moon evolution condensed their gaseous element to water.
During the earth evolution they have further condensed their watery
element into the earth element, into solid. Thus, when we look upon
the solid matter in the world, we have to say to ourselves that in
this solid matter forces are at work which alone make its existence
possible, forces whose very being flowed out from Saturn as warmth
and whose effluence has become denser and denser until it has now
reached the solid state, held together by their power. And if we
would know who it is that brings this about, if we would look beyond
the maya of solid matter, we should have to say that behind
all this solid matter which we encounter there work and weave the
Spirits of Will, the Thrones. Thus the Spirits of Will are still
present in earth existence.
What we are told in
Genesis now appears to us in a new light. When we are told that what
is expressed in Genesis as bara is a kind of meditative
activity of the Elohim, we have to say that through their meditation
the Elohim recreated, as out of memory, something which I have
described as a complex of existence. But in a certain way there
happened to the Elohim what happens to us when we try to create
something out of memory, though we, of course, unfold our activity at
a much lower level. Let me give you an example. A man goes to sleep
at night. His world of thought and feeling sinks into oblivion, he
passes into the condition of sleep. Suppose that the last thought he
had before he fell asleep in the evening was of a rose beside him.
This thought sinks into oblivion. In the morning the thought of the
rose emerges again. Even if the rose no longer remained by him, the
thought would be there. You must distinguish between two things. The
one is the calling up in memory of the idea of the rose, which could
occur even if the rose had been taken away. But if the rose is still
there, he also perceives the actual rose. That is the other thing. In
the same way you should distinguish two things in what I have
described as the cosmic meditation of the Elohim. When we are told
that on the third “day” of creation a cosmic meditation
took place, that the Elohim made a division between the fluid and the
solid, that they separate off the solid and call it earth, in this we
must certainly think of the cosmic act of meditation of the Elohim
from whom this creative thought springs; but in what arises to meet
their musing we have to think of the Spirits of Will at work, now
bringing forth once more the objective in its own substantial nature.
Thus work the Spirits of Will, and so they have worked from the very
beginning in everything of an earth nature.
You must make
yourselves familiar with such ideas. You must get used to the thought
that in what lies nearest to us, and which we often regard as very
lowly, we sometimes meet very high and exalted Beings. It is easy to
say of the solid element that it is only matter. Perhaps some may be
tempted to say that it is no concern of the spiritual investigator
— that matter is a low level of existence. Why should we bother
with it? We pass beyond and above matter into the spiritual. Anyone
who thinks in this way forgets that through countless ages high,
exalted spiritual Beings have worked in the object of his contempt to
bring it into this solid state. Actually, when we penetrate through
external matter, through the elementary covering of the earth, to
what has made this earth covering solid, it would be natural to feel
the deepest reverence for the exalted Beings we call the Spirits of
Will, who have laboured so long in this earth element to build up the
solid ground upon which we tread, and which we ourselves bear within
us in the earthly constituents of our physical bodies. It is these
Spirits of Will, whom in Christian esotericism we also call the
Thrones, who have in fact constructed — or rather condensed
— the solid ground upon which we walk. The esotericists who
gave names to what the Spirits of Will brought forth within our earth
existence called these Spirits Thrones, because they built thrones
upon which we are all the time being supported, as upon a solid
ground, and upon which all the rest of our earth existence continues
to base itself as upon firm seats. These ancient expressions contain
something worthy of tremendous respect, something to which our
feeling can fully respond.
If we now reascend
from the solid to the watery condition, we may reflect that it took
longer to build up and densify the earth element than the watery.
Hence we have to look for the fundamental forces of the watery
element in Beings of a lower hierarchy. For the condensation of the
watery element, as it is at work around us in the elementary state,
it needed only the activity of the Spirits of Wisdom, the Kyriotetes,
the Dominions. Thus behind the solid basis we see the Spirits of
Will, and, not behind physical water, but behind the forces of
fluidity, we have to see the activity of the Spirits of Wisdom or
Kyriotctes. When we ascend to the airy element, here we have to see a
still lower hierarchy at work. In the airy formations around us, to
the extent that they are brought about by forces lying behind them,
we have also to see the effect of the activity of certain spirits of
the hierarchies. Just as the Spirits of Wisdom work in the water
nature, so the Spirits of Movement — the Dynameis, the Mights, as
we are accustomed to call them in Christian esotericism — are
at work in the aeriform. And when we come to the warmth nature, to
the next stage of rarefaction, then it is the next lower hierarchy,
the Spirits of Form — the Exusiai — who live and weave
within it, the very spirits whom we have been speaking of for days as
the Elohim. Up to the present we have, from quite a different
direction, characterised the Spirits of Form as the Spirits who
brooded in the warmth element. When we trace the order of the
hierarchies in the downward direction from the Spirits of Will,
through the Spirits of Wisdom and the Spirits of Movement, we come
back to our Elohim, to the Spirits of Form. You see how everything
fits together, if the threads are woven in the right way. If you now
try to bring sensitive and perceptive feeling into all this, you will
say that behind all we see around us through our senses there lies an
elementary existence — an earth element, but within this element
in truth there live the Spirits of Will; a fluid element, in which in
truth live the Spirits of Wisdom; an airy element, within which in
truth live the Spirits of Movement; and a warmth element, wherein in
truth live the Spirits of Form, the Elohim.
We must not think
that we can make a clear separation between these spheres, that we
can draw hard and fast boundaries between them. Our entire earth
subsists in the fact that watery, aeriform and solid are working one
within another, and that warmth permeates everything. We find warmth
everywhere within the other stages of elementary existence. Hence we
can also say that we find everywhere the activity of the Elohim, the
real force behind warmth; it has poured itself out into everything.
Although it necessarily required the activities of the Spirits of
Will, the Spirits of Wisdom, the Spirits of Movement in order to
display itself, nevertheless throughout earth evolution this element
of warmth, which is the manifestation of the Spirits of Form,
permeated all the lower stages of existence. Thus in the solid
element we shall find not just the substantial basis, the body of the
Spirits of Will, but the body of the Spirits of Will permeated and
interwoven by the Elohim themselves, by the Spirits of Form.
Now let us try to find
the outer expression in the sense-world of what we have just been
talking about. We have been describing what is in the super-sensible
— an interweaving of the Spirits of Will, the Thrones, with the
Spirits of Form, the Elohim. That is something which lies in the
super-sensible. But everything super-sensible casts its shadow into
the sense-world. What is the shadow in this case? That which in
effect constitutes the body, the phenomenal existence, of the Spirits
of Will is matter, outspread solid matter. The commonly accepted idea
of matter is illusion. When the seer turns his attention to the
places where matter is supposed to lead its dubious existence, he
does not find the fantastic apparition of physical matter, for that
is an empty dream. Matter as conceived by the physicists is pure
fantasy. So long as these concepts are merely used as calculating
devices it is all right. But when men think that they have discovered
something self-existent and real, then they are dreaming. The
theories of modern physics are in fact dreams. In so far as
physicists take note of facts, describe facts — the real and
actual which the eye can see, and what can be deduced from that by
calculation — they are dealing with reality. But as soon as
they begin to speculate about atoms and molecules, as if these were
simply material entities, then they begin to spin a dream-universe;
and one which reminds us of Felix Balde's ducats in my Mystery Play,
when he says in the temple: “Fancy telling a man from whom you
wanted to buy something: ‘I won't pay for it in solid coin, but
I promise to condense some ducats out of some mist!’”
This crude simile really does give a fair idea of the sort of
physical theory that gaily assumes whole universes to have been
constructed out of cosmic mist. It is pure fantasy to take the
existence of atoms, as envisaged today, to be real. So long as atoms
are looked upon merely as counters, or shorthand notes for what the
senses actually show, we remain on solid ground. If one wants to
penetrate behind the sense-perceptible basis, then one has to rise to
the spiritual, and then one reaches the living movement of a basic
substance which is none other than the body of the Thrones, permeated
by the activity of the Spirits of Form. And how is that projected
into our sense-world? In the sense-world it becomes the expanse of
solid matter, but matter which is at no stage amorphous. The
amorphous, the formless, only results from the fact that all
existence which tends towards form gets crushed or ground down. None
of the dust which we find in the world is dust by natural tendency.
It is stuff which has been worn away. Matter has the tendency to take
form, to become crystalline. Solid matter tends towards the form of
the crystal. So we can say that it is the substance of the Thrones
and of the Elohim which compresses itself into our sense-existence to
become revealed as the solid matter we see around us. In the act of
making manifest what we call matter, it announces itselfas the
essential Being of the Thrones; in so far as this basic substance
takes on form, takes on shape, it announces itself as the external
revelation of the Elohim.
Look with what
spiritual insight names were given in ancient times! The seers of old
said to themselves: “If we look upon the material substance
around us, it speaks to us in the Being of the Thrones; but it is
permeated by an element of force which tries to bring it all into
form, hence the name Spirits of Form.” In all these names there
is a hint of the reality they stand for. If we look at the tendency
towards crystalline form around us, we have at a lower level a
manifestation of the forces which weave and hold sway in the
substance of the Thrones as the Spirits of Form, as the Elohim
themselves. That is their field of action. They are the smiths,
forging in their warmth element the crystalline forms of the
different earths and metals, out of the formless matter of the
Spirits of Will. They are the Spirits who in their activity of warmth
at the same time constitute the form principle in existence.
When we look at
things in this way, we gaze into the living, moving being which stirs
beneath our existence. And in this way we must accustom ourselves to
see maya or illusion in all that we encounter in outer life.
But we must not stop short at the empty theory that the external
world is maya. To say that gets us nowhere. It only has
meaning when we can penetrate through all the details of that
maya to the real being behind it. Then it is useful. So let
us accustom ourselves to see in all that happens around us something
which, though certainly illusion, is at the same time truth. An
appearance is precisely an appearance. As such it is a fact; but we
do not understand it if we stop short at its apparition. We can only
appreciate it and give it its proper value as appearance, if we go on
beyond the appearance.
In our modern
abstract way of looking at things everything gets mixed up. The seers
of old could not confuse things in this way. They could not be
content to see everywhere the same superficial forces as the modern
physicist sees, who insists on embracing meteorology as well as
physics within his sphere. For who today doubts that the same forces
which are at work in elementary life — in the solid, the fluid
and so on — are active too within the atmosphere, when water
masses into cloud. I know quite well that the modern physicist cannot
help assuming that, as physicist, he can aspire to be a meteorologist
too, and that for him nothing makes sense unless he applies the same
laws to the formation of the clouds around our earth as he applies to
things on the earth. To the seer things are not so simple as that. As
soon as things are traced back to their spiritual sources, the same
thing is not seen everywhere. Different forces are at work when a gas
condenses to liquid actually on earth, and when the gaseous, vaporous
tendency in the environment of the earth forms watery cumuli. When
the seer contemplates the way in which water arises in the atmosphere
around us, he cannot say that it comes into being in the same way as
on the ground; he cannot say that the water hovering above us comes
into existence in the same way as the water which condenses in the
soil, on the ground. For the truth is that the Beings who play their
part in cloud formation are different from those who are at work in
the formation of water on the earth. What I have just been saying as
to the participation of the hierarchies in our elementary existence
only applies on the earth from its centre point up to the surface
where we ourselves are; the same forces do not extend as far as the
formation of the clouds. There other Beings are at work. The
scientific theory derived from modern physics is based on a very
simple hypothesis. First it discovers certain physical laws, and then
it says that these laws apply to the whole of existence. It overlooks
all the differences in the different spheres of existence. It acts on
the principle that in the night all cows are grey; but things are not
the same everywhere, they are very different in different
spheres!
Anyone who has become
aware through clairvoyant investigation that on our earth the Spirits
of Will or the Thrones hold sway in the earth element, the Spirits of
Wisdom in the element of water, the Spirits of Movement in the
aeriform element, the Elohim in the warmth, gradually attains to the
knowledge that in the gathering of the clouds, in that unique process
which goes on around the earth wherein the watery vapour becomes
water, Beings belonging to the hierarchy of the Cherubim are at work.
Thus in the solid matter of our elementary earth existence, we see a
co-operation of the Elohim with the Thrones. In the element of air,
in which the Spirits of Movement hold sway, we sec the Cherubim too
at work in order that the water mounting upward from the realm of the
Spirits of Wisdom may be enabled to accumulate into clouds. In the
environment of our earth, the Cherubim hold sway as truly as do the
Thrones, the Spirits of Wisdom and the Spirits of Movement within the
elementary existence of our earth. And now if we look to the moving
being of these cloud formations, we find hidden within them something
still deeper, which only occasionally reveals itself — the
thunder and lightning which bursts forth from them. This is not
something which comes from nowhere. The seer knows that the Spirits
whom we call the Seraphim move and have their being in this
activity.
Within the limits of
our earth sphere, if we include the atmosphere around us, we have now
found every one of the hierarchical ranks. Thus, in what we
experience with our senses we see the manifestation of hierarchical
activity. It would be utter nonsense to regard the lightning flashing
forth from the cloud as the same thing as what one sees when one
strikes a match. Quite different forces are at work when the element
of electricity, which prevails in the lightning, comes forth out of
matter. There the Seraphim are at work.
Thus we have
rediscovered the totality of the hierarchies in the earth's
environment, just as we can find them in the cosmos without. The
activity of these hierarchies is extended to all that we find in our
immediate environment.
When you go through
the pages of Genesis, when you contemplate the mighty course of world
evolution depicted there, you discover that it is a recapitulation of
the previous stages of evolution, a recapitulation of what evolved
during the Saturn, Sun and Moon evolutions, and that finally man
emerges as the crowning achievement of evolution. We have to
understand from this Genesis account that the whole being and
activity of the hierarchies is engaged in what is there taking place,
that all is concentrated upon this last product of creation, upon
this super-sensible being of whom it is said: The Elohim made a
decision, saying Let us make man. In order to do this they wove
together all their separate talents into one common activity. All the
capacities which they had brought over from earlier stages they
combined together, so as at length to produce man. Thus all the
hierarchies which preceded that of man — hierarchies to which
we give the names Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones, Spirits of Wisdom,
Spirits of Movement, Spirits of Form, Archai or Spirits of
Personality, Fire-Spirits or Archangels, and Angels — moved and
had their being in this existence; and if we follow the Genesis
account up to the crowning of the structure on the sixth
“day” of creation with the appearance of man, if we pass
in review the whole of the weaving essence of pre-human earthly
evolution, we find all the different hierarchies already there. All
these hierarchies had to work together to prepare for what at last
emerges in man.
Thus we may venture
to say that the seer or seers who were responsible for the Genesis
account were aware that all the hierarchies we have mentioned had to
work to make preparation for man. But they must also have been aware
that for the creation of man himself, for the crowning fulfilment of
this entire hierarchical order, help had to come from yet another
quarter, from a source in a way still higher than any of these
hierarchies. Thus we look up beyond the Seraphim to a divine Being
unknown, only dimly sensed. Let us follow up the activity of some
member of the hierarchical order, say of the Elohim; so long as they
had not decided to put the finishing touch to their work by
fashioning man, it sufficed for them to work in harmony with the
other hierarchies up to the Seraphim. But then help had to come from
a realm to which we can only raise our spiritual gaze in dim
apprehension, it has to come from a sphere really above that of the
Seraphim. For the Elohim to raise their creative activity to these
dizzy heights, for them to obtain help from this source, something
had to happen of which we must try to grasp the significance. They
had, so to say, to grow beyond themselves. They had to acquire a
greater ability than was theirs during the preliminary stages. To
crown their work they had to unfold still higher powers. The Elohim,
as a group, had to grow beyond themselves. Let us try to get an idea
of how such a thing could happen. Let us start with an illustration
from everyday life, to help us to form some idea of this. Take the
development of a human being.
When we look at a
tiny child on the threshold of earthly life, we know that a unitary
consciousness has not yet been developed in him. It is only after
some time that a child even utters the “I” which holds
consciousness together. It is only then that the contents of his
soul-life become knit together in a conscious unity. The human being
grows to a higher stage through the bringing together of activities
which in the baby are still decentralised. Thus, in the human being
this concentration signifies an advance to a higher level. We can
think of the progressive development of the Elohim as analogous to
this. During the preparatory stages of man's development they
practised a certain activity. This activity has taught them
something, has helped to raise them to a higher stage. They have now
acquired a certain unified consciousness as a group. That is
as much as to say that they have not remained simply a group but have
become a unity, and a unity possessing real being. What I am here
saying is extremely important. Hitherto I have only been able to say
that the several Elohim each had his own special capacity. Each of
them was able to contribute something to the common resolve, the
common picture of the human being they wished to form; and at the
same time this human being was only an idea, upon which they could
co-operate. To begin with, it was not real. Something real was first
brought into existence after they had created the common product. But
in the course of this work they themselves developed to a higher
stage, developed their own unity to a reality, so that they were no
longer seven, but a sevenfold whole. We can now speak of an
“Elohimhood,” which reveals itself in a sevenfold way.
This unity of the Elohim had first to come into being. It is
something to which the Elohim work themselves up. The Bible is aware
of this. The Bible is acquainted with the idea that the Elohim were
first separate members of a group, and that they then form themselves
into a unity; that to begin with they co-operate as members of a
group, and later become directed out of a unified organism. This real
unity, in which the Elohim act as the organs of a body, the Bible
calls Jahve-Elohim.
[ 1 ]
That gives us a much
deeper conception of Jahve, of Jehovah, than has so far been
possible. That is why the Bible begins by speaking simply of the
Elohim, and then, when the Elohim themselves have reached a higher
stage, when they have advanced to a unity, it speaks of Jahve-Elohim.
That is the deeper cause of the sudden emergence of the name of Jahve
at the end of the work of creation.
This shows how
necessary it is to have recourse to occult sources if one wishes to
understand things. What does the biblical criticism of the nineteenth
century make of this? It says: “We find in one passage the name
Elohim, in another the name Jahve. Clearly the two passages derive
from different religious traditions; we have to distinguish between
what has come down from a people who worshipped the Elohim, and what
has been handed down by a people who worshipped Jahve. And whoever
wrote the account of the Creation which we possess merged the two
traditions. We must separate them again.” This line of research
has gone so far that today we have Rainbow Bibles, with what is said
to derive from the one source printed in blue, and what comes from
the other in red. There are such Bibles! Only, unfortunately, the
division has to be so made that part of a sentence has to be blue and
the other part red, because the first clause is said to derive from
one people, and the second from the other. It is astonishing that the
main and subordinate clauses should fit so beautifully together that
it only needed a collator to join up the two traditions! Immense
industry has been expended upon this biblical exegesis of the
nineteenth century, perhaps more than on any other scientific or
historical research; and it fills us with melancholy and a deep sense
of tragedy. The very thing which should enlighten humanity upon the
most spiritual matters has lost its connection with spiritual
sources.
It is as if someone
were to say: “Of course, if we compare the passage where Ariel
speaks in the second part of Faust with the doggerel in the first
part, the style is quite different. It is not possible that the same
man could have written both, and Goethe must therefore be a mythical
figure.” Through being cut off from occult sources, the fruit
of this immense labour, this devoted industry, is worth just about as
much as the conclusion of someone who denied the existence of Goethe
because he could not believe that two such different things as the
style of
Faust
in its first and second parts could emanate
from the same man. Here we get a glimpse into one of the deep
tragedies of human life; here we see how necessary it is that minds
should again turn to the sources of spiritual life. Spiritual
knowledge is only possible when men again seek for the living spirit.
They will do so, for to do so is an irresistible urge of the
human soul. And the whole strength of our anthroposophical
inspiration rests upon our confidence that there is something in the
human soul which draws men's hearts to seek once more for a
connection with spiritual sources and which will lead them to
understand the true basis of religious documents. Let us imbue
ourselves with this confidence and we shall reap the true fruits of a
theme which should guide us into the spiritual life.
Notes:
1.
| Diagram 11 Click image for large view | |
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