LECTURE NINE
THE MOON-RELIGION OF JAHVE AND ITS
REFLECTION IN ARABISM
THE PENETRATION OF THE BUDDHA-MERCURY STREAM INTO
ROSICRUCIANISM
Today we shall
be bringing to a close for the time being this winter's
rather disconnected studies of St. Mark's Gospel. The
passages quoted in the last lecture, to the effect that we
are living in a period of transition are the key to the ideas
with which we have been particularly concerned. On even a
superficial consideration of spiritual life we must admit
that thoughts and ideas of a new kind are emerging, although
individuals living in the very midst of this new order hardly
realise it themselves. It will be a good thing if we can take
away material for thought which will help us to carry our
ideas further, so this evening I want to give certain
suggestions which will enable you to elaborate the
spiritual-scientific knowledge already communicated to
you.
When we refer
to a period of transition it is well to remind ourselves of
the greater epochs of transition in the evolution of humanity
and particularly of the crucial point reached in the events
in Palestine. From much that has been said we know the
significance of that time. When we try to form some
conception of how the supremely important idea, the
Christ-idea, arose out of thoughts and feelings of the
immediately preceding period, we must remember that the
Jahve- or Jehovah-idea meant as much to the ancient Hebrews
as the Christ-idea meant to those who became His followers.
From other lectures we also know that for those who penetrate
deeply into the essence of Christianity, the Being Jahve or
Jehovah is not to be distinguished from Christ Himself. We
must clearly understand that there is an intimate
relationship between the Jahve-idea and the Christ-idea. It
is difficult to summarise in a few words the vast aspects of
the relationship. The subject has been elaborated in many
lectures and lecture-courses in recent years, but I can
illustrate it by a picture. I need only remind you again of
the picture of the sunlight which can come to us either
direct from the Sun or by reflection at night from the Moon,
especially at Full Moon. After all, it is sunlight that comes
from the Full Moon, even if it is reflected sunlight and this
does indeed differ from sunlight directly received. If we
think of Christ as symbolised by the direct sunlight, we may
liken Jahve to sunlight reflected by the Moon and that would
represent the exact sense in which the two ideas should be
understood. Those who are to some extent conversant with this
subject regard the transition from a temporary reflection of
Christ in Jahve into Christ Himself just as they think of the
difference between sunlight and moonlight: Jahve is an
indirect and Christ a direct revelation of the same Being.
Thinking in terms of evolution, however, we must picture what
is side by side in space as successive in time.
Those who speak of these things from the point of view of
occultism will say: If we call the religion of Christ a
Sun-religion — and there are good grounds for this
expression if we recall what was said about Zarathustra — we
may call the Jahve-religion a Moon-religion — the transitory
reflection of the Christ-religion. Thus in the period
preceding the birth of Christianity the Sun-religion was
prepared for by a Moon-religion. You will only be able to
understand what I am now going to say if you realise that
symbols are not chosen arbitrarily but have deep foundations.
When a world-conception or world-religion is associated with
a symbol, those who use the symbol with adequate knowledge
are aware that it is intimately and essentially connected
with what it represents. People to-day have in many ways lost
sight of the symbol of moonlight for the old Jahve-religion
and to some extent also of the symbol of the Sun for
Christianity.
You will
remember how I have described the course of the evolution of
humanity. First it is a descent, beginning when man was
driven out of the spiritual world and sank more and more
deeply into matter. And if we picture the general path of
evolution, we can think of the lowest point as having been
reached at the time of the Christ Impulse, after which the
descent was transformed gradually into an ascent. The Christ
Impulse began to have its effect at the lowest point and will
continue to work until the Earth has achieved its
mission.
Now evolution
is a very complicated process and certain aspects of it are
continuations of impulses given in earlier times. The Christ
Impulse given at the beginning of our era will go straight
forward, becoming more and more powerful in the souls of men
until the goal of human evolution is reached — when from the
souls of men it will influence the whole of life on the
Earth. All later history will be evidence of the development
and influence of this Impulse at a higher and more perfect
stage. Many such impulses work in the world in the same
way.
But there are
also other impulses and factors in evolution which cannot be
said to advance in a straight line. Some of them have already
been mentioned. In post-Atlantean evolution we have
distinguished seven epochs: the Old Indian, then in sequence,
the Old Persian, the Egypto-Chaldean, the Graeco-Latin —
during which the Christ event took place — and our own fifth
epoch which will be followed by two others. In the fifth
epoch, certain happenings characteristic of the
Egypto-Chaldean epoch are repeated in a different form. The
Christ Impulse was given in the middle epoch (the fourth) and
the third epoch is in a certain sense repeated in the fifth.
There is a similar relationship between the sixth and second
epochs and between the seventh and first. Here we are
concerned with overlapping factors of evolution which will
reveal themselves in such a way that we can apply to them the
Biblical saying: The first shall be last. The Old Indian
epoch will reappear in the seventh in a different but
nevertheless recognisable form.
There is,
however, still another way in which an earlier epoch may have
an effect in a later one. Shorter periods may also occur in
the course of evolution. Thus conditions present in
pre-Christian times during the period of ancient Hebrew
culture reappeared later in post-Christian times: something
that was prepared within the Jahve-or Jehovah-religion,
overlapping the Christ Impulse as it were, appeared again and
played into the other factors which had by then
developed.
If, then, we
try to describe by means of a symbol what pressure of time
prevents our discussing adequately to-day, we may say: Taking
the Moon, contrasted with the Sun, as the symbol representing
the Jahve-religion; we may expect that a similar form of
belief, by-passing as it were the Christ Impulse, would
emerge later on as a kind of Moon-religion. And this is what
actually happened. The old Jahve-religion emerged again after
the Christ Event, in the religion of the Crescent, carrying
earlier impulses into post-Christian times. If you do not
take things superficially, the use of the Moon and Crescent
as symbols for these two faiths will not be something to
smile at, for it is an actual fact that a religion or creed
and its symbol are intimately connected. So in a later time
we have the repetition of an earlier phase which has skipped
the intervening years. This takes place in the last third of
the Graeco-Latin epoch which in the occult sense we reckon as
lasting up to the twelfth and into the thirteenth century.
Leaving out a period of six hundred years, this means that
beginning in the sixth century A.D. and exercising a very
vigorous influence upon all aspects of development, we have
the religion brought by the Arabians from Africa over into
Spain: this represents a re-emergence, in a different form,
of the Jahve-Moon-religion. The intervening Christ Impulse
has been ignored. It is not possible to enumerate all the
characteristics brought over with the religion of Mohammed;
but it is important to realise that the Christ Impulse is
disregarded in the religion of Islam which was actually a
kind of revival of Mosaic monotheism. This idea of the One
God, however, included a good deal derived from other
sources, for instance from Egypto-Chaldean religion, which
had yielded very exact knowledge of the connection of
happenings in the starry heavens with earthly events. Thus
the thoughts and ideas current among the Egyptians,
Chaldeans, Babylonians and Assyrians appear again in the
religion of Mohammed but pervaded by the One God, Jahve.
Speaking scientifically, what we have in Arabism is a kind of
gathering-together, a synthesis, of the wisdom-teachings of
the priests of Egypt and Chaldea and the Jahve-religion of
the ancient Hebrews.
In such a
process there is not only compression but also rejection and
elimination. In this case everything connected with
clairvoyant perception had to be discarded and men were to
depend entirely upon reason and intellectual thinking. Hence
the concepts belonging to the Egyptian art of healing and to
Chaldean astronomy — which in both these peoples were the
outcome of clairvoyance — are to be found in the Arabism of
Mohammed in an intellectualised and individualised form.
Something that had passed as it were through a filter was
thus brought into Europe by the Arabians. Old concepts that
had been current among the Egyptians and Chaldeans were
denuded of their visionary, pictorial content and re-cast
into abstract forms. They reappear in the wonderful
scientific knowledge possessed by the Arabians who made their
way into Europe via Africa and Spain. Whereas Christianity
brought an impulse connected essentially with man's
life of soul, the greatest impulse given to the human
intellect was brought by the Arabians. Without thorough
knowledge of the course taken by the evolution of humanity it
is impossible to form any idea of how much the
world-conception which arose in a new form under the symbol
of the Moon, has given to mankind. There could have been no
Kepler, no Galileo, without the impulses brought by Arabism
into Europe. For the old mode of thinking appears again, but
now denuded of its ancient clairvoyance, when the third
culture-epoch celebrated its resurrection in our own fifth
epoch, in our modern astronomy, in our modern science.
Thus the
course of evolution is such that on the one hand the Christ
Impulse penetrates into the European peoples directly,
through Greece and Italy, and on the other hand a more
southerly stream by-passes Greece and Italy and unites with
the influences brought indirectly by the Arabians.
Only through
the union of Christianity and Mohammedanism during the
important period with which we are dealing, was it possible
for our modern culture to come into being. For reasons which
I cannot go into to-day we have to reckon with periods of six
to six-and-a-half centuries for such impulses as I have been
describing. Thus actually six centuries after the Christ
Event the renewed Moon-cult of the Arabians appears,
expanding and spreading into Europe, and until the thirteenth
century enriching the Christian culture which had received
its direct impulses by other paths. There was an unbroken
interchange of thought. If you are conversant merely with the
outer course of events, if you know how in the monasteries of
Western Europe — in spite of apparent opposition to Arabism
— the Arabian concepts made their way into science, you will
also be aware that until the middle of the thirteenth century
— again a particularly significant point of time — the
Arabian impulse and the direct Christ Impulse were
interwoven.
From this you
will gather that the direct Christ Impulse actually moved
along paths different from those taken by the impulses which
streamed in like tributaries to unite with it. Six centuries
after the Christ Event, as a result of happenings that are
not easy to characterise although they are well known to
every occultist, a new wave of culture arose in the East,
made its way via Africa and Spain into the spiritual life of
Europe and united with the Christ Impulse which had taken
different paths. We can therefore say that the
Sun-and-Moon-symbols merged into each other from the
sixth/seventh century up to the twelfth/thirteenth century —
again a period of some six hundred years.
After this
process of cross-fertilisation had in a certain respect
achieved its goal, something new arose which had been in
preparation since about the twelfth or thirteenth century. It
is interesting that to-day even orthodox science recognises
that something inexplicable passed through the souls of
Europeans at that time. Science considers it inexplicable but
occultism knows that in this period, as though it were
following the Christ Impulse, something yielded by the fourth
post-Atlantean epoch poured, spiritually, into the souls of
men: the fruits of Greek culture constituted a following
wave. We call this period the Renaissance — it was the
culture which during the next centuries enriched everything
already in existence. Here again there was an overlapping
after a period of six hundred years since the influx of
Arabism. At this point in evolution the age of Greece —
which was a kind of centre among the seven post-Atlantean
epochs — underwent a certain renewal in the Renaissance.
Then again there is a period of six hundred years, during
which the Greek wave reaches its culmination; this brings us
to the period in which we ourselves are living. We are living
to-day at the beginning of a period of transition before the
onset of the next six-hundred-year wave of culture, when
something entirely new is pressing in upon us, when the
Christ Impulse is to be enriched by something new. After the
Moon-culture underwent its revival in the religion symbolised
by the Crescent and had reached its conclusion during the
period of the Renaissance, the time has now come when the
Christ Impulse must receive into itself another tributary
stream. With this tributary stream our own age has a
particular affinity. But we must clearly understand what the
influx of this new stream means to our own culture. All these
happenings are entirely in accordance with an occult plan —
we could also say, an occult purpose.
If we think of
Moon, Mercury, Venus, Sun, in the old not the new sequence,
we should expect, after the renewal of the Moon-influence had
reached its culmination during the Renaissance, the influx of
another stream, to which we could legitimately assign the
symbol of Mercury. If our symbolism is correct, just as we
called the wave of Arabism a Moon-culture, so we might say
theoretically that we now face the prospect of an influx of a
form of Mercury-culture.
If we
understand the way in which culture and civilisation have
developed we may justifiably name Goethe as the last
great individual to combine in his soul the full fruits of
science, (that is to say, intellectualism enriched by
Arabism) of Christianity and of Renaissance culture. We
should therefore expect him to represent a glorious union of
the three domains and having studied Goethe as we have been
doing for years we can easily recognise that these elements
do indeed flow together in his soul. But after what has been
said about the cycles of six hundred years we should not
expect to find in Goethe any trace of the Mercury-influence;
we should expect it to appear as something new only after his
time. And here it is interesting to note that Goethe's
pupil, Schopenhauer, already reveals signs of this new
influence. I have said that Schopenhauer's philosophy
contains elements of Eastern wisdom, particularly in the form
of Buddhism. Mercury has always been regarded as the symbol
of Buddhism. So after the age of Goethe there was a revival
of the Buddha-influence — Buddha standing for Mercury and
Mercury for Buddha — in the same way as the Moon-influence
reappeared in Arabism. This side-stream, which flowed into
the direct Christ Impulse at the beginning of a new
six-hundred-year period can therefore be described — within
the limits indicated in my public lecture on the subject —
as a revival of Buddhism.
We can now
ask: Which is the stream of culture that flows straight
forward into the future? It is the Christ-stream. And what
side-streams are there? Firstly there is the Arabian stream
which flows into the main current, then has a pause and
finally passes into the culture of the Renaissance. At the
present time a renewed influx of the Buddha-stream is taking
place. If we are able to see these things in the right light
it will become evident that we have to absorb those elements
of the Buddha-stream which were not hitherto present in
Western culture. And we can see how certain elements of the
Buddha-stream are actually making their way into the
spiritual development of the West, for instance, the teaching
of Reincarnation and Karma. But there is something else that
we must impress firmly upon our minds and it is this: none of
these side-streams will ever be able to throw light on the
central fact of our world-conception, of our Spiritual
Science. To expect from Buddhism or any other pre-Christian
oriental religion undergoing revival in our time any
illumination on the nature of Christ would be no more
intelligent than for European Christians to have expected
this of the Arabians who had spread into Spain. The people of
Europe at that time knew very well that the Christ-idea was
foreign to the Arabians, that the Arabians could say nothing
essential about the Christ. And when they did say anything
the ideas put forward were incompatible with the true
Christ-idea. The various prophets down to Sabbatai Zewi
[Sabbatai Zewi (1626-76), proclaimed
himself publicly in the year 1666 as the Messiah but
subsequently became an adherent of Islam.]
who appeared as false
Messiahs without any understanding whatever of the Christ
Impulse, all sprang from Arabism. Obviously, therefore, the
contribution of this Arabian side-stream consisted of quite
different elements; it could shed no light on the central
mystery of the Christ.
Our attitude
to the stream that is approaching to-day as a side-current
must be the same. It is a revival of an older stream and will
promote understanding of Reincarnation and Karma but cannot
possibly bring any elucidation of the Christ Impulse. That
would be as absurd as if the Arabians, although they were
able to bring to Europeans many ideas through false Messiahs
up to the time of Sabbatai Zewi, had set about giving Europe
a true idea of Christ. Such occurrences will be repeated, for
the evolution of mankind can go forward only if men are
strong enough to see through these things with greater and
greater clarity.
What we shall
find is that the Spiritual Science founded by European
Rosicrucianism, with Christ as its central idea, will
establish itself despite external obstacles and penetrate
into the hearts of men in defiance of all temptations from
outside. From my book,
Occult Science,
you can gather how the central Christ-idea must penetrate into human
souls, how the Christ is interwoven with the evolution not
only of humanity but of the whole world, and you will be able
to recognise along which path progress will be made. The
possibility of following this onward march of Spiritual
Science will be within reach of everyone who understands the
words from the Gospel of St. Mark quoted at the end of the
last lecture: ‘False Christs and false prophets will
appear ... when men say to you: ‘Lo, here is the
Christ, lo, there! — believe them not!’ — But beside
this stream there is another, claiming to be better informed
than Western Rosicrucian Spiritual Science about the nature
of Christ. This other stream will introduce all kinds of
ideas and dogmas which will develop quite naturally out of
the side-stream of oriental Buddhism. But Western souls would
be showing the worst kind of feebleness if they failed to
understand that the Buddha- or Mercury-stream has as little
light to throw on the direct development of the Christ-idea
as Arabism had in its time. What I am saying now is not the
outcome of any special belief, dogma or fantasy; it emerges
from the objective course of world-evolution. If you wanted
to follow this up I could prove by figures or by the trends
of culture that things will inevitably be as occult science
teaches.
But in
connection with all this a distinction must be made. On the
one hand there is orthodox oriental Buddhism in its original
form. The attempt might be made to transplant this as a fixed
and unalterable system into Europe and to produce out of it
an idea, a conception, of Christ. On the other hand there is
Buddhism that has progressed to further stages of
development. There will be people who will tell you to think
of the Buddha just as he was some five or six hundred years
before our era and of the doctrines he then promulgated. But
compare this with what Rosicrucian Spiritual Science has to
say. It will say: The fault lies with you, not with the
Buddha, that you talk as if Buddha had come to a standstill
at the point he had attained all those centuries ago. Do you
imagine that Buddha has not progressed? When you speak as you
do, you are speaking of teaching that was right for his
epoch. But we look to the Buddha who has moved onwards and
from spiritual realms exercises an enduring influence upon
human culture. We contemplate the Buddha as described in our
studies of St. Luke's Gospel, whose influence streamed
down upon the Jesus of the Nathan line of the House of David;
we contemplate the Buddha at the further stage of his
development in the realm of the spirit, who proclaims from
there the truths of basic importance for our time.
Something
strange has happened in dogmatic Christianity in the West. By
a curious concatenation of circumstances a Buddha-like figure
has appeared among the Christian Saints. You will remember
that I once spoke of a legend current all over Europe in the
Middle Ages, namely, the legend of Barlaam and Josaphat. Its
content was more or less as follows. — There was once an
Indian King who had a son. In his early years, far removed
from all human misery and life in the outer world, the son
was brought up in the royal palace, where he saw only
conditions making for human happiness and well-being.
Josaphat was his name, though it has been frequently changed
and has assumed several different forms — Josaphat,
Judasaph, Budasaph. Until a certain age Josaphat lived in his
father's palace, knowing nothing about the world
outside. Then one day he was led out of the palace and came
to know something of the world. First of all he saw a leper,
then a blind man, then an old man. Thereafter he met a
Christian hermit by the name of Barlaam, who converted him to
Christianity.
You will not
fail to recognise in this legend clear echoes of the legend
of Buddha. He too was an Indian king's son who lived
isolated from the world, was later led out of the palace and
saw a leper, a blind man and an old man. But you will notice
that in the Middle Ages something was added that cannot be
attributed to Buddha, namely that Josaphat allowed himself to
be converted to Christianity. This could not have been said
of Buddha. The legend evoked a certain response among
individual Christians, particularly among those who were
responsible for drawing up the calendar of the Saints.
It was known
that the name Josaphat, Judasaph, Budasaph, is directly
connected with Bodhisattva. So here we have evidence of a
remarkable connection of a Christian legend with the figure
of Buddha. We know that according to the Eastern legend
Buddha passed into Nirvana, having handed on the
Bodhisattva's crown to his successor, who is now a
Bodhisattva and will subsequently become the Maitreya Buddha
of the future. Buddha is presented to us in the legend in the
figure of Josaphat; and the union of Buddhism with
Christianity is wonderfully indicated by the fact that
Josaphat is included among the Saints. Buddha was held to be
so holy that in the legend he was converted to Christianity
and from being the son of an Indian king could rightly be
included among the Saints — although from another side this
has been disputed.
From this you
will see that it was known where the later form of Buddhism,
or rather of the Buddha, was to be sought. In hidden worlds
the union has meanwhile taken place between Buddhism and
Christianity. Barlaam is the mysterious figure who brings
Christianity to the knowledge of the Bodhisattva.
Consequently if we trace the course of Buddhism as an
enduring stream in the sense indicated in the legend, we can
accept it only in the changed form in which it now appears.
If through clairvoyant insight we understand the inspirations
of the Buddha, we must speak of him as he actually exists
to-day. Just as Arabism was not Judaism and the
Jahve-Moon-religion did not reappear in Arabism in its
original form, neither will Buddhism — to the extent to
which it can enrich Western culture — appear in its old
form. It will appear in an altered form, because what comes
later never appears as a mere replica of the earlier.
These are
brief, disconnected remarks intended to stimulate thought
about the evolution of humanity, and you can elaborate them
for yourselves. If you will take everything you can discover
in the way of historical knowledge and follow the development
of Europe from the spiritual-scientific point of view you
will see clearly that we have now reached the point where a
fusion of Christianity and Buddhism will take place, just as
in the case of the Jahve-religion and Christianity. Test this
by whatever European historians can tell you: but test it by
taking all the facts into consideration. You will
then find confirmation of everything I have said, although it
would be necessary to talk for weeks if we were to speak of
all that the Rosicrucian Movement in Europe can
contribute.
Nor is it only
in history that you can find proof of these things. If you
set about it rightly you will find proof in modern natural
science and allied fields. If you seek in the right way you
will find that everywhere the new ideas are thrusting their
way into the present; old ideas are becoming useless and are
disappearing. In a certain respect our thinkers and
investigators are working with outworn concepts because the
great majority of them are incapable of assimilating ideas
and concepts contributed by the new cultural side-stream,
particularly on the subject of Reincarnation and Karma, as
well as all the other contributions which Spiritual Science
can make. Our scientists are working with concepts that have
become useless. If you look through the literature of any
field of science you will realise how heart-breaking it often
is for scholars that current concepts are quite unable to
elucidate the innumerable facts that are constantly coming to
light.
There is one
concept — I can only touch on these things to-day — which
still plays an important part in the whole range of science:
it is the concept of heredity. The concept of
heredity as it figures in the different sciences and in
common usage is simply useless. Facts themselves will force
people to recognise the need for concepts other than the
useless one of heredity as currently accepted in many fields
of science. It will become evident that certain facts already
known to-day in regard to the heredity of man and related
creatures, can be understood only when quite different
concepts are available. When speaking to-day of heredity in
successive generations we seem to believe that all a
man's faculties can be traced back in a direct line
through his immediate ancestors. But it is the concept of
Reincarnation and Karma alone that will make it possible for
clarity to replace the present confusion in this field of
thought. Again I cannot go into detail, but it will become
evident that a great deal in human nature as we know it
to-day is entirely unconnected with the influence of the
sexes; nevertheless a confused science still teaches that
everything in the human being originates at the time of
conception, through the union of male and female. But it is
simply not true that everything in the human being is in some
way connected with what takes place in direct physical
manifestation in the union of the sexes. You will have to
think this out more closely for yourselves; I only want what
I have said to be a suggestion.
Man's
physical body, as you know, has a long history. It has passed
through a Saturn period, a Sun period, a Moon period, and is
now passing through the Earth period. The influence of the
astral body began only during the Moon period but naturally
produced a change in the physical body. Hence the physical
body does not appear to us to-day in the form imparted to it
by the forces of the Saturn epoch and the Sun epoch, but in
the form resulting from those forces combined with the forces
of the astral body and the ‘I’. It is only those
components of the physical body which are connected with the
influence of the astral body on the physical body which can
be inherited as the result of the union of the sexes whereas
whatever in the physical body is subject to laws going back
to the Saturn and Sun periods has nothing to do with the
sexes. One part of man's nature is received directly
from the Macrocosm and not from the union of the sexes. This
means that what we bear within us does not all spring from
the union of the sexes; only that which depends upon the
astral body springs from that union. A large part therefore
of our human nature is received — for example by way of the
mother — directly from the Macrocosm and not by the
roundabout way of union with the other sex.
We must
therefore distinguish in man's nature one part that
originates from the union of the sexes and another part that
is received by way of the mother directly from the Macrocosm.
There can be no clarity in these matters until a definite and
precise distinction is made between the individual members of
man's nature, whereas to-day everything is mingled
together in confusion. The physical body is not a
self-contained, isolated entity; it is formed through the
combined workings of the etheric body, the astral body and
the `I’; and again we must distinguish between the
forces that are due to the direct influence of the Macrocosm
and others that are to be ascribed to the union of the
sexes.
But from the
paternal organism too, something is received that again has
nothing whatever to do with the union of the sexes. Certain
laws and organs in no way based upon heredity are implanted
direct from the Macrocosm through the maternal organism;
others come from the Macrocosm by spiritual channels through
the paternal organism. Of what is received by way of the
maternal organism we may say that this organism is the focus
through which it is transmitted; but this combines with
something that again is not derived from sexual union but
from the father. A macrocosmic process thus takes place and
comes to expression in the bodily members and forms.
Consequently when speaking of the development of the human
embryo it is completely misleading to base everything upon
heredity, when in actual fact certain elements are received
direct from the Macrocosm.
Here, then, we
have a case in our own times where the facts themselves far
outstrip the concepts at the disposal of science, for these
concepts originated in an earlier epoch. You may ask: Is
there any evidence to confirm this? Popular literature has
little to say, but occultism is absolutely clear about it.
And here I should like to draw your attention to something,
of which, however, I can give no more than a hint. — A
remarkable contrast between two naturalists of the modern age
has attracted widespread attention and has influenced other
thinkers to a very considerable extent. The characters of the
two naturalists are very relevant here. On the one side there
is Haeckel. Because Haeckel applies ancient concepts
to his really wonderful collection of facts and data, he
traces everything to heredity and bases the whole development
of the embryo upon it. On the other side there is His,
[Wilhelm His (1831–1904).]
the zoologist and
scientist, who keeps very closely to the facts as such and
because of this might possibly be accused, with a certain
justification, of doing too little thinking. Because of the
particular way in which he investigated his facts he was
bound to oppose the concept of heredity as propounded by
Haeckel and he pointed out that certain organs and organic
structures in the human being can be explained only if the
view that they originate from the union of the sexes, is
discarded. To this Haeckel mockingly retorted that His was
attributing the origin of the human being to a virginal
influence independent of any sexual union! But as a matter of
fact this is quite correct. Scientific facts more or less
compel us to-day to admit that what can be attributed to the
union of the sexes must be distinguished from what comes
direct from the Macrocosm — which wide circles of people
nowadays naturally regard as absurd. So you can see that even
in the field of natural science we are being driven towards
new concepts. The present phase of evolution makes it evident
that to have a genuine grasp of the facts presented by
science we must acquire many new concepts and that those
inherited from past ages no longer suffice.
From what I
have said you will realise that a tributary stream must flow
into our present culture. This is the Mercury-stream, the
existence of which proclaims itself in the fact that those
undergoing occult development as described in many of our
lectures, grow into the spiritual world and in so doing
experience new facts and realities. This penetration into
another world may be compared with the way in which a fish is
transferred from water into the air but must first have
prepared itself by turning its gills into lungs. Similarly, a
man whose faculty of sense-perception is developing into
spiritual perception will have made his soul capable of using
certain forces in a different element. The very atmosphere
nowadays is saturated with thoughts which make it necessary
for us to have a genuine grasp of the new facts of science
becoming evident on the physical plane. The spiritual
investigator can penetrate into the real nature of the facts
that press in upon him from all sides. This is due to the
appearance of the new stream of which I have been speaking.
Thus wherever we look, we find that we are living in an
extraordinarily important epoch, in times when it will be
impossible for life to progress unless revolutionary changes
take place in men's thinking and perception.
I said that
man must learn to live in a new element in the same way that
a fish, accustomed to living in water, would have to find its
way into the new element of air. But men must be able, in
their thinking too, to penetrate to the real nature of the
facts produced on the physical plane. If they stand out
against this new thinking they will be in the same position
as fish taken out of the water; later on they will literally
be gasping for spiritual concepts. Those who want to retain
the monism of to-day are like fish who might prefer to
exchange their watery for an airy habitation, but at the same
time want to keep their gills. Only those human souls who so
transform their faculties that a new conception of present
facts is within their reach will grasp what the future has in
store.
So we find
ourselves living, but now with full understanding, at a point
where two streams converge. The first stream should give us a
deeper understanding of the Christ-problem and the Mystery of
Golgotha; the other should inaugurate new ideas and concepts
of reality. The two streams must converge in our time. But
this will not happen without great hindrances being
encountered; for in periods when two such streams of thought
and outlook converge, all kinds of obstructions arise. And in
a certain sense it is the adherents of Spiritual Science who
will find it particularly necessary to understand these
facts.
Some of our
members might counter the exposition I have been giving here,
by saying: What you have told us is very difficult to
understand and we shall have to work at it for a long time.
Why do you not give us something more readily digested, which
convinces us of the spirituality of the world and makes a
greater appeal? Why do you expect so much of our
understanding of the world? How much pleasanter it would be
if we could believe what a Buddhism transmitted exactly as it
was at the beginning, can tell us: that we need not think of
the Christ Event as the single point on which the scales of
world-evolution hinge and that there can be no repetition of
it. It would be so much easier to think that a Being such as
the Christ incarnates again and again like other men. Why do
you not say that here or there this Being will come again in
the flesh — instead of saying that men must make themselves
capable of experiencing a renewal of what happened to St.
Paul at the gate of Damascus? For if you told us that there
will be an incarnation of the Christ Being in the flesh, we
could say: ‘Behold, he is here! We can see him with
physical eyes!’ — That would be so very much easier to
understand.
Plenty of
people will see to it that this kind of thing is said. But it
is the mission of Western Spiritual Science to make known the
truth — the truth which takes full account of all the
factors responsible for the progress of evolution to this
day. Those who look for comfort and ease in the spiritual
world will have to seek for spirituality along other paths.
The truth needed for our times is that to which we must apply
all the intellectual capacity acquired since the fading of
the old clairvoyance; this must carry us on until the dawn of
the new clairvoyance. And I am sure that those who
understand the nature of this intellectual capacity in the
form necessary for to-day will follow the path indicated in
the words I have spoken here now, and so often before. It is
not a matter of saying in what form we wish to have the truth
but of knowing from the whole course of human evolution in a
given epoch, how, at a particular point of time, the
truth must be proclaimed. You may be sure that plenty of
other things will be said, and you must not be unprepared for
them. Consequently in Rosicrucian Spiritual Science we shall
not fail to draw attention again and again to the highest
spiritual knowledge attainable in our time. You need never
accept blindly on trust anything said here or elsewhere, for
in our Movement we never appeal to blind credulity. In your
own intelligence and the use of your own reason you have
adequate means of testing what you hear. And remember, as you
have been told so often, that you must bring the whole of
life, the whole of science and the whole of your experience,
to bear upon what you hear in Rosicrucian Spiritual Science.
Do not fail to put everything to the test. It is precisely
where you come across incongruities or perhaps where the
truth seems to be the very opposite of what is stated, that
on the ground of true spirituality blind faith cannot be
allowed. Everything based on blind faith is bound to be
sterile and stillborn. It would be easy enough to build on
credulity: but those who belong to the stream of Western
spiritual life refuse to do this. They build instead upon
what can be tested by human reason, understanding and
intellect. Those in touch with the source of our Rosicrucian
Spiritual Science know that whatever is said has been
carefully tested. The edifice of Spiritual Science is built
upon the ground of truth, not upon that of easy faith; it is
upon the foundation of a thoroughly tested, though perhaps
difficult truth, that we establish our Spiritual Science; and
prophets of a blind and comfortable faith will not shake that
foundation.
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