Lecture 4
The Nature of the Christ Impulse
and the Michaelic Sprit Serving It — 1
Berlin, January 17, 1915
Dear
friends, as on other occasions when I have been able to
speak to you since the serious events of the present time
took their beginning, let our thoughts go out at this
moment to those who are at the front offering their souls
and their bodies in sacrifice for the tremendous demands
made in our time and having to take up, with the whole of
their physical existence, the challenge of the time:
Spirits of your souls, guardian
guides,
On your wings let there be borne
The prayer of love from our souls
To those whom you guard here on earth.
Thus, united with your might,
A ray of help our prayer shall be
For the souls it seeks out there in love.
And the
spirit who has gone through the Mystery of Golgotha, the
spirit we have long been seeking in our movement, may he
be with You and guide you to the goals that you have to
seek.
Spirits of your souls, guardian
guides,
On your wings let there be borne
The prayer of love from our souls
To those whom you guard here on earth.
Thus, united with your might,
A ray of help our prayer shall be
For the souls it seeks out there in love.
My
particular intention with the words I spoke here on the
last occasion was to let a truth flow into your minds, a
truth to be found through spiritual science, that the
great and serious events in life really enable us to see
how outward appearances have to be regarded in the light
that comes to us from spiritual science. It is only then
that they will no longer appear to us as Maya, the great
illusion, but in their profound truth. This is not to say
that these outward appearances in themselves are Maya or
illusion — that is an erroneous view people often
pick up from a philosophy with a more oriental
orientation — but that our senses and our intellect
err in the interpretation, in their comprehension, of
outer events unless we illumine those external events
with the light that comes to us from an understanding of
the spiritual world.
Today I
want to take certain individual facts that have already
been touched on during the years of our anthroposophical
work and present them in a perspective that is somehow in
accord with our time.
We are
fully conversant with the thought that since the Mystery
of Golgotha intervened in events on earth, the impulses,
the forces and entities that have gone through this
Mystery of Golgotha have played an active role, as living
forces, in all that happened in human evolution on earth.
In other words, and to put it more concretely, I want to
say: In all major events, in all the important and
essential things that have happened, the Christ impulse
has been active through those who are his servants, his
spiritual helpers. At the present time the term
Christianity is generally understood to cover only what
men have been able to comprehend. But, as I stressed on
many occasions, what has come into the world through
Christianity is so great, so tremendous, that human
reason, the human intellect, is in no position, or has
not been in a position to the present moment, really to
grasp even the most elementary aspects of the powers of
the Christ impulse. If Christ had worked only on the
basis of what men have been able to grasp of him, he
would have been able to achieve little. But what matters
is not what has entered into mankind through human reason
and understanding, what concept men have been able to
form of the Christ, but rather the fact that he has been
present since the Mystery of Golgotha, active right among
men and in their ways of doing things. It is not a
question of how far men have understood him but that he
has been present as a living entity and has entered
wholly into all significant events in evolution.
Of course,
our spiritual science enables us to grasp only a little
of the profundity of the Christ impulse even today.
Future times will come to understand and see more and
more. There is no reason to feel pride in such
understanding of the Christ impulse as we have so far
achieved. Spiritual science will grasp a little more
today than it has been possible to grasp of the Christ in
the past. In past times people were able only to reflect
on the Christ by using the means available through
external intellect, external reason, external research.
Now we have spiritual science as well, and with this we
see into the supersensible worlds, and out of the
supersensible worlds we are able to provide many answers
concerning the significance of the Mystery of Golgotha.
Immediate comprehension of what the Christ is, and what
the spiritual powers are that serve him as folk souls and
the like, has been least possible for the peoples living
in regions where the Christ still had to enter, as it
were. Yet the Christ impulse had to come in, for instance
in the Roman world. And there is one particular example
which we have already considered in another context that
will be the best way of demonstrating how the Christ is
at work as a living power, directing his spiritual
servants when events have to be brought about that are
essential in evolution, to bring real progress for
mankind.
The event I
mean is one I should like to mention again. It happened
in AD 312 that the man through whom Christianity became
the official state religion, Constantine,
[ Note 16 ]
son of Constantinus
Chlorus, entered the field with his army against
Maxentius, then the ruler of Rome. Of course, if one
considers those two armies facing each other one would
have to say that the situation was the worst possible for
Constantine, his army being five times smaller than that
of Maxentius. It is possible to imagine, however, that
considering the state of the art of war at the time, both
armies had a number of outstanding generals. Yet what
mattered particularly at that time was not the the skill
of men but that opportunity was given for the ongoing
Christ impulse to influence mankind in a way commensurate
with the needs of the time.
It is
possible to see how much of the Christ impulse could be
understood at the time, how much of that Christ impulse
human hearts had been able to absorb in the state of
consciousness then prevailing if we consider what
happened a few decades later around Rome and out of Rome.
Julian the Apostate
[ Note 17 ]
fought Christianity out of honest conviction, on
the basis of what could be gleaned from human knowledge
in those times. Anyone considering the way Julian and his
followers fought Christianity can say to himself:
‘There is no doubt that as far as human knowledge
was concerned, Julian and his followers were very
advanced for their time; they were much more enlightened
in this respect than the Christians of their day,
although they had reverted to worship of the old
gods.’ They stood for what might be considered to
represent human knowledge at that time. Yet in AD 312 it
was not the stand of human knowledge that determined the
issue; it was rather that the potential had to be there
for the Christ and his servants to intervene in the
historical evolution of mankind. However much Maxentius
and his army were able to rely on the skills of their
generals and on anything else human knowledge and human
wisdom may have achieved at that time, if nothing else
had happened, then, undoubtedly, something destined to
emerge at that time would not have emerged. And what did
happen?
What
happened was the following. The continuing Christ impulse
flowed into soul activities that were not within men's
consciousness, into activities men were not aware of. And
it did indeed guide men in such a way that what had to
come about did come about. The battle between Constantine
and Maxentius was fought by the Red Rock, the Saxa
Rubra, on 28 October 312. It was decided not by
human skill, but — and enlightened minds may refuse
to accept this as much as they like — by dreams;
that is by what is generally called ‘dreams’,
though they are not just dreams to us. For through their
dreams there entered into the souls of the two army
leaders what could not enter into them out of human
reason. Maxentius had a dream before the battle that he
would have to leave his city. He consulted the Sibylline
Oracle and was told that he would achieve what was to
happen if he dared to join battle outside the city and
not within it. It was the most unwise thing he could have
done, particularly as his army was so much more powerful
than Constantine's. He should have known that anything
received from the higher worlds first had to be
interpreted and that the oracle would mislead him.
Constantine in his turn was told in a dream that he would
win if he led his troops into battle under the sign of
Christ. He acted accordingly. What had entered into the
souls of these men by the roundabout route of a dream
became deed, and as a result the world was greatly
changed at that time. We need only reflect a little to be
able to say: What would have become of the Western world
if supersensible powers had not taken a hand in events in
a way that is indeed perfectly apparent.
Let us now
look at those events in more details. At the time souls
had incarnated in the West and South of Europe who were
destined to be bearers of Christianity. Even the most
enlightened souls were unable to become bearers of the
Christ impulse at the time by using their minds, their
intellect, because the time for this had not come. They
had to find the way to Christianity through what had been
created around them, externally. We may say they assumed
Christianity like a garment. Their deeper nature was not
greatly affected by it. They became serving members
rather than receiving the Christ impulse into their
innermost being. Fundamentally speaking, that was to hold
true for the best souls in the western parts of Europe
for a long time to come, into the 8th and 9th centuries
and beyond. They needed to assume Christianity as a
garment, to wear this garment of Christianity in such a
way that they wore it in their ether bodies and not in
their astral bodies. You can judge what it means when I
say they bore Christianity in the ether body. It means
they assumed it in such a way that they were Christians
when awake but were unable to take their Christianity
with them when outside their physical and ether bodies.
The way they went through the gate of death also was such
that we can say: they were able to look down from the
realm through which man has to pass between death and
rebirth, look down at what they had been in their last
earth life. But one thing that was not immediately
possible for them at the time was to take the Christian
impulses arising from their former life into their future
life. They wore Christianity more as a garment.
Because of
something I will come to shortly, let us hold on to this
way in which the souls accepted Christianity in their
outward lives and the way Christianity was not part of
what souls were able to take with them through the
spiritual world, when passing through the gate of death,
to prepare for a new life on earth. Let us remember that
these souls were only able to enter into a new earth life
having forgotten Christianity. For we do not in a later
earth life remember what we merely wore as a garment in
our former life. If it were otherwise our children would
not have to learn Greek again at grammar school, for many
of them did once incarnate in Greece. They have no memory
of their Greek incarnation, however, and therefore have
to learn Greek again. Those souls who had incarnated in
the West of Europe were unable to carry their
Christianity through the life they had to go through
between death and rebirth because they had not integrated
these impulses inwardly with their ego and astral body.
That was the particular way in which those souls lived on
into later incarnations. Let us remember this and now
move on to another fact, one I have also mentioned
before.
We know
that the time we live in now, the fifth post-Atlantean
epoch, began mainly around the 15th-16th centuries. That
was the time when preparation was to be made for the
European world for elements that were predominantly to
lead to the development of the spiritual soul. That is
really what our fifth epoch of civilization is about.
Whatever had to be achieved there had to be achieved with
regard to the fact that in the external aspect of earth
life, too, conditions were arising on earth that were
particularly favourable for the evolution of the
spiritual soul — the soul able to develop by
directing itself towards material earth life, the
external facts of physical existence. That had to take
its beginning and it did take its beginning. We merely
need to recall how horizons expanded in Europe as the
great discoveries were made and with everything they
brought with them. The spiritual soul, therefore, had to
develop primarily under the influence of the material
world. We merely need to think of one thing, and again
reference has already been made to this: the evolution
and development of the spiritual soul is the special
mission, the one-sided mission, of that which belongs to
the sphere Of the British folk soul. Considering all the
details, one could hardly imagine anything proceeding
more according to plan than the way the British folk soul
was directed towards these material roles in life. This
was definitely predestined in the evolution of
mankind.
Let us
imagine, for instance, that during the 15th century
England had been deflected from its propensity for those
regions of the earth towards which it had been directed
as the vast lands outside Europe were discovered, and
that the British folk soul had instead experienced large
territorial gains on the Continent of Europe. Let us
imagine that the map of Europe had been changed to this
effect. Then it would have been impossible in the first
place to achieve what had to be achieved in the sphere of
material civilization and, secondly, to achieve what had
to be achieved in Europe by developing the inner life.
This inner development proceeded specifically from that
point onwards, overcoming all kinds of obstacles, with a
role played also by Protestantism which in turn was
influenced in many ways by German mysticism. Intervening
in the process of evolution the Christ impulse had to
ensure that the British Isles were kept away from the
region where souls still had to be prepared to become
outward, external bearers of the Christ impulse.
The Christ
impulse had to flow into the deeds done on the Continent
of Europe. It had to act in such a way that it achieved a
great deal more than could come about through mankind,
through the arts and skills of man. And what
happened?
The
marvellous thing happened that a poor shepherd girl from
Orleans, Joan of Arc, [16 January 1412–30 May 1431]
did everything those who were very advanced for their
time had not been able to do. At that time it was indeed
the Christ impulse acting in Joan of Arc, through its
Michaelic servants, that prevented a possible merging of
France and England, causing England to be forced back
onto its island. And this achieved two things: first,
France continued to have a free hand in Europe. This can
be seen if we study the history of France over the
following centuries — the essential element of the
French spirit was able to influence European culture
entirely without hindrance. The second thing which was
achieved was that England was given its domain outside
the continent of Europe. This deed, brought in through
Joan of Arc, was a blessing not only for the French but
also for the English, compelling them to take up their
domain.
If we
consider this in connection with what is implied by the
advance of the Christ impulse on earth, the deed of Joan
of Arc achieved something about which the following may
be said: The degree to which she understood those things
in a genuine human intellectual way was as good as zero
compared to the deed which has given the map of Europe
its present form. Events had to take that course so that
the Christ impulse could spread in the right way. There
we see the living Christ erupting into historical events
out of the subterranean depths of human nature. That is
not the Christ men think they know, for the Christ
impulse may be seen in two ways. On the one hand we may
ask ourselves: What did the people of that time
understand of the Christ impulse? If we open our history
books and study the history of mankind we find that over
the centuries theologians were in dispute, defending or
contending all kinds of theories, attempting to show how
human freedom, the Holy Trinity and other things should
be understood. So we see countless theologians fighting
each other, acknowledging each other as orthodox
theologians or else accusing each other of heresy. We
observe how Christian doctrine spread entirely in accord
with the situation as it was at the time. That is one
side of it. But it is not the thing that matters, just as
now it does not matter what people are able to do with
their ordinary intellect. What matters is that the Christ
lives among men, unseen but a living entity, and is able
to stream up from depths beyond our perception and enter
into the deeds of men. And he has done so at a point
where there was indeed simply no need for him to come in
through the human intellect, through a reasoning mind,
but where he was able to come in through the soul of a
girl of simple mind, through the soul of the Maid of
Orleans. And when he came in like this, what was the
attitude of those who were able to grasp Christianity in
form of the orthodox doctrine? Well, they found they had
to burn the girl who bore the Christ impulse at the
stake. It has taken some time for official doctrine to
take a different view. There may have been a point to it
where official doctrine is concerned, but canonizing Joan
of Arc is not exactly the right response to the events of
that time.
This is a
real example of how the Christ intervened in human
evolution through his servants. As I said, he acted
through his Michaelic spirit in the case of the Maid of
Orleans. He intervened as a living entity, not merely
through whatever men were able to understand of him. This
particular example also shows something else, however.
Christianity did exist. The people who were there around
the Maid of Orleans, as it were, did call themselves
Christians. Their Christianity did mean something to
them. But all we can say about their understanding is: He
whom you seek is not here,
[ Note 19 ]
and the one who is here is not the one you seek, for you do
not know him.
It must be
clearly understood, however, that it was essential for
Christ evolution to proceed within the evolution of
Europe also in the form of an external garment. Souls
were part of this development that were able to assume
Christianity exactly as such an outer garment, who were
able to wear it on the outside as it were. They were
souls trailing behind, souls that had been incarnated
there earlier and still did not take the Christ into
their ego, merely into the ether body. The great
difference between Joan of Arc and the others was that
she had taken the Christ impulse into the very depths of
her astral body and was acting for the Christ impulse out
of the deepest forces of her astral body. This is one of
the points where we can gain a clear understanding of
something that really must become clear to us: the
difference between the progressive evolution of nations
and the progressive evolution of individual human
personalities.
If we
consider the French as they are today, for example, it is
of course true that a number of individual human
personalities exist within the French nation. These
individual personalities were not, of course, part of the
nation in their previous incarnation, part of a nation
that had assumed the outer garment of Christianity there
in the West of Europe. It was because a number of people
had to assume Christianity as an outer garment in the
West of Europe that they were in a condition on passing
through the gate of death that necessitated their being
united with Christianity in their astral body and ego in
their next life, under different conditions. It was
because they had been incarnated in the West of Europe
that the necessity arose for them to have their next
incarnation somewhere else. It is indeed very uncommon
— note that I am saying uncommon, though it does
not always have to be so — that a soul belongs to
the same community on earth through a number of
consecutive incarnations. Souls pass from one earthly
community to another.
We have one
example, however — and I am saying this without
wishing to rouse sympathies or antipathies, and with no
intention of flattering anyone — we have one
example of souls actually assuming the same nationality a
number of times. That is the case with the people of
Central Europe. These Central European people include
many souls that are incarnated among them today and have
also been incarnated in the Germanic tribes in the past.
This is a fact we are able to trace. It cannot always be
fully explained with the means now available in occult
science, but it exists nevertheless. A fact like that
presented in last Thursday's public lecture on The
Ancient Germanic Soul and the German Spirit,
[ Note 20 ]
for example, is illumined when we know that souls make repeated
appearances within the Central European community. The
fact is that cultural epochs were cut short within this
particular community.
We only
have to realize what it means that there was an epoch at
the dawn of Germanic culture when the writers of the
German poem the Nibelungenlied lived, or Walther
von der Vogelweide (German lyric poet, minnesinger, c.
1170–12301 and others. And we need to realize that
later there was a' time when a new flowering of German
culture began and the first had been completely
forgotten. For when Goethe was young nothing was known,
as it were, of the first flowering of Germanic culture.
It is because the souls return to the same community that
it was necessary to forget what had gone before, so that
the souls would find something new on their return and
could not pick up the threads of what remained from
earlier times. It has not happened with any other people
that a metamorphosis was gone through, as it were, the
way it happened in the case of the Central European
people: from the height that had been reached in the
10th, 11th and 12th centuries to that later height that
came about the time between the end of the 18th and the
beginning of the 19th centuries and which we may hope
will continue. There is no continuous line from the first
to the second of these periods, and this can only be
explained once we know that souls do return particularly
in this culture. It is possible that another deeply
moving fact I have already mentioned to you is also
connected with this, the fact that it was noted how the
Central European fighters of the present continue the
struggle once they have gone through the gate of death,
that soon after they have passed through the gate of
death it is possible to see how they continue to join the
struggle. This fact can raise wonderful hopes for the
future, because one can see how not only the living, in
the physical sense living, but also the dead, those who
have died, are making their contribution to events.
Let us now
pose the question: What is the situation with souls that
were incarnated in Western Europe at the time when
Christianity was assumed like an outer garment, that is
in the 6th, 7th 8th and 9th centuries, and accepted
Christianity there, or also under the Romans, though they
were not yet able to unite it with their astral body and
their ego? What is the situation with those souls?
Grotesque
as it may seem to modern man with his materialistic
thinking, the things spiritual science can teach achieve
real meaning for life if the concrete facts are
considered. People still think reference to repeated
earth lives is a matter of mere fantasies produced by a
handful of foolish dreamers. The idea is one that is not
accepted, though it is once again considered excusable to
make reference to it in view of the fact that in an hour
of weakness even the great Lessing accepted the idea of
repeated earth lives.
[ Note 21 ]
Yet if we take the findings made in occult
research seriously we cease to be fools begging the
forgiveness of greatly enlightened folk. It will be
necessary for us to consider some of the things arising
from occult research in detail, for that will be the only
way of throwing light on something which otherwise has to
remain a great illusion.
It is a
strange thing that a great many souls that lived to the
west of us towards the end of the Roman epoch, when
Christianity was slowly gaining influence, finally
becoming the established church, now come from the East,
as souls growing up in the East, souls now among Russia's
fighters. I said we must remember the fact I referred to
earlier. For among the people killed in the East, those
who are fighting there and being taken prisoners, are
souls who towards the end of the Roman epoch lived in the
western part of Europe. They now come towards us from the
East, people who in those past times allowed the
Christian faith to flow into their ether bodies and now,
in a civilization that is relatively speaking at a lower
level, take Christianity into their souls in a waking
state and do so in such a way, due to the peculiarities
of life in the East, that they have an emotional,
instinctive bond with it. They are thus linking
themselves to the Christ impulse in their astral bodies,
doing now what they had been unable to achieve in their
previous incarnations. This is a very strange fact
brought to light by occult research in the present day.
Many facts that deeply move the soul may come within the
occult horizon triggered by the events of our time and
this is one among them. What, then, can we learn from
these facts?
We have to
be clear about the following. We have to remember that is
it part of the direct progress of the life of the spirit
in Central Europe that the soul life of the German
peoples is very consciously linked with the Christian
faith, that it is taken upwards to the heights of a
straight Christian culture. The streams, the paths,
leading to this have been most marvelously laid out in
advance over centuries. We see it all taking shape. It is
specifically when we look at our own age with all its
errors and mistakes that we see how the seed is there in
Central European culture, how preparations have been made
and no effort spared in the German folk spirit, the folk
soul of the German-speaking peoples, so that now the
Christ impulse may be taken hold of in conscious
awareness.
That is a
fact of infinitely greater importance than the 15th
century event when Joan of Arc had to save France because
that country had an important mission at that time. We
therefore have before us the significant fact that the
German spirit is called upon to take in the Christ
impulse more and more consciously in future, take it in
with the elements that have come into the life of the
spirit in German countries and do so in a state of full
waking consciousness. This Christ impulse had to announce
itself in what went on at subconscious level over the
centuries, as we have consistently shown. In the future
it will have to unite with souls in such a way that there
will be people — and in Central Europe there will
have to be such souls — who in full awareness unite
also their ego and astral body with the Christ impulse,
exerting the powers of their conscious mind and not only
the powers inherent in their physical and ether bodies.
We can see efforts being made among the best. Let us take
the best of them all: Goethe. We may quote Goethe as an
outstanding example, but all souls have the potential
within them, so long as they strive for it, however
darkly.
Goethe
showed Faust, the representative of mankind, to be
striving for the highest.
[ Note 22 ]
In Part 2 of the play he
transports him to Greek civilization to share the
experience of nations, guiding him into this in such a
way that Faust has a significant experience of the future
when he desires to wrest land from the sea and establish
something that to him lies in the far distant future. And
where does Goethe take Faust in the end? Goethe himself
once expressed it like this in conversation with
Eckermann: he had to make use of the vivid images of
Christianity
[ Note 23 ]
to show Faust ascending into the spiritual world. And if
you consider the profoundly beautiful picture of Faust's
soul being received by the Mater gloriosa. you
see it as the opposite image to that which led Raphael
[1483–1520] to paint his famous
Sistine Madonna,
where the virgin mother is bringing the
soul down. In the last scene of Faust we see the
virgin mother upwards. That is the birth of the soul in
death. And so we see a deeply inward striving arising
from the human spirit in full conscious awareness. It is
striving always to gain all that can be gained from
Christianity in such a way that it may be borne through
the gate of death and into the life man is going to live
through in the new earth life that will follow
preparation between death and rebirth. What we see there
in Goethe himself is a character trait of the German
people. It can give an indication as to the mission given
to human beings. The mission is, and we can present this
very clearly to our souls, that true benefit for the
progress of mankind will arise only if within a certain
group of people a harmonious relationship is established
between Central Europe and Eastern Europe.
It is
possible to visualize Eastern Europe expanding westwards,
across Central Europe, by brute force. It is possible to
visualize this happening. That, however, would be
equivalent to a situation where Joan of Arc had not done
her deed in the 15th century and England had annexed
France in those days. If it had come to that, and I state
this emphatically, something would have come about that
would not only have brought calamity to France but would
have meant calamity also for England. And if German
culture were now to suffer through what may come from the
East, this would be to the detriment not only of German
culture but also of the East. The worst that can happen
to the East is that it might expand for a time and have
an adverse effect on German culture. For as I said, the
souls formerly incarnated in Western Europe or on the
Italian peninsula and now growing up in the East unite
with the Christ impulse as though instinctively, in the
unconscious depths of the astral body. Yet the Christ
impulse that is to grow within them can never arise
through linear progression of the instinctive element
that lives in their souls under the name of orthodox
catholicism which, on the whole, is Byzantine of course,
for this is a name not an impulse. It is just as
impossible for this to evolve into what it is predestined
to become as it is impossible for a woman without a man
to have a child. What is preparing in the East can only
come to something if Central Europe strongly and
consciously — that is in a state of full awareness
— unites the force of the human ego and human
powers of insight with the Christ impulse' out of what
souls are striving for out of egoic nature.
What has to
come about for the civilization and culture of the future
will only come about if the German folk spirit finds
souls that transplant the Christ impulse into their
astral body and ego the way it can indeed be implanted
there in a state of full conscious awareness' It has to
come about through harmony being established, by uniting
with that which is consciously achieved in Central Europe
— more and more consciously.
This will
need not just one or two centuries, but a very long time.
The time needed will be so long that we may reckon on
about two thousand years, I would say, counting from the
year 1400. Adding two thousand years to 1400 we get the
approximate time when something will emerge in the
evolution of the earth that has had its seeds in the
German life of the spirit, ever since there has been such
a life of the spirit. We therefore realize that we have
to consider a future lying not just centuries ahead but
more than a thousand years. And the mission of the
Central European, the German folk spirit, a mission
already before us, is that there will have to be more and
more of that nurturing of the life in the spirit through
which men take op in conscious awareness — right
into the astral body and ego — a comprehension of
the Christ impulse that in earlier times moved through
the peoples of Europe as a living but unconscious
impulse. Once evolution takes this course then the East,
too, will gradually, by twining upwards, reach the level
reached in Central Europe because of what is already
inherent there. That is the intention of the cosmic
intelligence. We only interpret the intention of the
cosmic intelligence rightly when we say to ourselves: It
would be the greatest misfortune also for the East of
Europe to harm the very spiritual power it needs to use
as a support in twining upwards, a power the East should
indeed revere, revere in friendship, foster and cherish.
It will have to come to this. For the moment the East is
very far indeed from achieving this. The very best of
them still fall far short. Short-sightedly. they still
refuse to accept what Central European culture in
particular is able to give.
I went into
this already in my first public lecture here in Berlin.
[ Note 5 ]
Tonight you can
see the deeper occult reasons behind what in the public
lecture I was able only to put exoterically. in an
extraneous way. This is of course something one always
has to be careful about, to speak in terms close to the
understanding of one's listeners in public lectures. The
real impulses to say one thing and omit another, looking
for the one context or the other, always have their
occult reasons. At all events it is possible to see from
what has been discussed today that when we look at things
in an external way they present to us the great illusion,
Maya. It is not that the outside world in itself is Maya.
It is not. But we only gain understanding for it if we
illumine it with the truths derived from the spiritual
world. In the present case, the truths streaming from the
spiritual world show that it is essential for Central
Europe not to be overcome by Eastern Europe today, just
as in 1429–1430 it was essential for France not to
be overcome by England. It will of course be obvious,
from what has been said, that for those in the East of
Europe it is quite impossible to understand the crux of
the matter and that, fundamentally speaking, this can be
understood only in Central Europe. Surely this is
understandable. In all humility, therefore, without any
feeling of superiority, we must take on this mission, and
we shall have to accept that it will be possible to
misunderstand us. We must find that perfectly
understandable. For what is preparing in the East will
only be rightly understood in the East itself in time to
come.
That is the
one thing arising from what I have to say. The other is
that we consider the great transition occurring in human
evolution in our time exactly on a basis such as this. On
previous occasions we have considered it from many
different aspects. Now we consider it in such a way that
we are able to see how the element which entered into
man's evolution on earth through the Mystery of Golgotha
needs to be understood in increasingly greater conscious
awareness in our day, by those who are able to do so
after this incarnation. In the days of Constantine or of
Joan of Arc, for instance, it would have been impossible
for the Christ impulse to bring about at a conscious
level what it had to bring about at an unconscious level.
But the time will have to come when it will be able to
act at a fully conscious level. That is why we receive
out of spiritual science what we are able to take into
our soul in increasingly greater conscious awareness.
Again it is possible to point to a particular fact
— honestly, without getting worried about any
sympathies or antipathies that may arise and with no
intention of flattering anyone. After all, it is always
better to base one's views on facts rather than on what
they are so often based on today. For if we look out into
the world a little bit we shall see that opinions really
and truly are not always based on facts but on passion,
on strong national feelings. Yet it is also possible to
base the views that determine the attitude of the human
mind on facts.
Anatole France
[ Note 24 ]
was a man who considered Joan of Arc from the rationalistic
and materialistic point of view now current. In the cultural
sphere of Germany it has been quite natural to understand
Joan of Arc out of a supernatural context since
Schiller's great deed.
[ Note 25 ]
There are people even in Germany today who think
Schiller made a big mistake; but those are the literary
historians and in their case that is understandable.
After all, it is their function to 'understand' art and
literature — which is why they are unable to
understand it. No, the essential thing is for us to let
arise before our eyes, from the depths of spiritual life
as though glorified, the figure of which Schiller said:
‘The world indeed loves to blacken all that is
radiant and drag down into the dust all that is
sublime.’
And so it
is indeed that acknowledgement of the fact that the
Christ impulse intervened in a human individual in a
situation not affecting our own nation can bring us the
confidence to accept what I have put forward in my public
lecture: that it is possible to perceive in the life of
the spirit in Germany how it tends towards spirituality
the way it has evolved, tends towards spiritual science.
We can see that it is its special — though not
exclusive — mission to take all that has been
achieved and aimed for the life of the spirit in Germany
and carry it upwards to perception and understanding of
the spirit in the spirit. That is the mission of the
German people. The other missions, being the same soul
mission expressed in bodily form, as it were, have to
serve it. What has to come to pass, out of cosmic wisdom,
will come to pass. But, as I have said before, it will be
necessary for the twilight we live in today to evolve
into a true Sun-age for the future. To make this
possible, there will have to be people in the future who
have a connection with the spiritual worlds in order that
the soil now being prepared with the blood and suffering
of so many will not have been prepared in vain. The
existence of souls capable of bearing within them their
connection with the spiritual worlds justifies everything
that happens, even the most horrific, terrible and
fearsome, events, so that the Central European mission in
spiritual life may be achieved. This, however, will
depend on individual souls being able to get in touch
with this spiritual life through their karma, and taking
it wholly into themselves. Then, when the sun of peace is
once again shining over the fields of Central Europe,
they shall bear perception of things spiritual, a feeling
for things spiritual, within them. Then the inclination
developed in a few souls that are capable of this in
their present incarnation will make it possible for that
to happen which I want to condense in the following
words. These words sum up all I wanted to put to you, so
that we write the device into our souls under which souls
will be able to grow in the right way towards the
potential for the future that may arise out of these
difficult times:
Out of courage shown in
battle,
Out of the blood shed in war,
Out of the grief of those who are left,
Out of the people's deeds of sacrifice
Spirit fruits will come to grow
If souls with knowledge of the spirit
Turn their mind to spirit realms.
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