Christ's Relationship to Lucifer and Ahriman
The
Threefold Being
Linz, 18th May 1915
When once our construction, dedicated to spiritual science, is
finished in Dornach, it contains a sculptural group at an
important place. This group primarily presents three figures.
In the middle of this group a figure stands as, I would like to
say, the representative of the highest human which could
develop on earth. Hence, one can also feel this figure of the
highest human in the earth development as Christ, Who lived in
the body of Jesus of Nazareth for three years within the earth
development. It is the particular task to form this Christ
figure in such a way that one can see, on one side, the
concerning being living in a human earthly body, however, this
earthly body being spiritualised in every look, in everything
that is in it by Christ Who entered from cosmic, from spiritual
heights in the thirtieth year of his life in this earthly
body.
Then two other figures are to be found, one on the left side,
the other on the right side of the Christ figure, if I am
allowed to call this figure the Christ figure. This Christ
figure stands there like before a rock which towers up in
particular on the left side of Christ, so that its peak is
above the head of the Christ figure. On top of the rock is
another figure, a winged figure; but the wings are broken, and
this figure falls, because it has broken wings, into the chasm.
What has to be worked out artistically in particular is the way
how this Christ figure raises the left arm. Because the Christ
figure raises his left arm, it happens that this falling being
breaks the wings. But this must not look in such a way, as if
possibly Christ broke the wings of this being, but the whole
must be artistically arranged so that, while Christ raises the
arm, already lies in the whole movement of the hand that he has
an infinite compassion, actually, also with this being.
However, this being does not endure what flows up through the
arm and hand and what is still visible because the fingers of
the stretched hand hollowed the rock, as it were. What this
being feels in itself, because it comes near to the Christ
being, I would like to dress in the words: I cannot bear
anything pure like that shining on me.
It
is that which lives in this being and lives so substantially in
this being that its wings are broken and it falls consequently
into the chasm. This is one especially significant artistic
task. You notice what could be missed if Christ stood there
plastically and such a force were simply emitted by raising the
hand, so that He breaks the wings of this being so that it
falls into the chasm. Then it would be Christ who would shine
on this being like with hatred and make it fall. However, this
must not be shown that way, but the being should make itself
fall. Since this being who is shown falling down with broken
wings is Lucifer.
On
the other side, toward the right side of the Christ figure
where the rock has a projection the rock will be hollowed out
there. In this hollow is also a winged figure. This figure
turns to the rock cavity on top with his arm-like organs. You
have to imagine: on the right the rock cavity and in this
cavity the winged figure which has, however, quite differently
formed wings than the figure on top of the rock. This figure
has more aquiline wings, the figure in the cave bat-like wings.
The latter figure locks itself up in the cave, you see it in
chains, and you see it working there on the ground hollowing
out the earth.
The
Christ figure in the middle turns his right hand downwards.
Whereas it turns its left hand upwards, it turns the right hand
downwards. It will be a significant artistic task again not to
show this in such a way, as if Christ wanted to put this figure
which is Ahriman in chains, but that Christ Himself has an
infinite compassion for Ahriman. However, Ahriman cannot endure
this; he writhes in pains by that which the hand of Christ
emits. This causes that the veins of gold, which are at the
bottom in the cave, wind like strings around Ahriman's body and
tie it up. Just as that which happens with Lucifer happens by
himself, it also happens with Ahriman. Then we will attempt to
paint the same motive above the sculptural group, but the view
of the painting must be completely different from that of the
sculpture. So that we have this group of three figures: Christ,
Lucifer, and Ahriman as a sculpture group at the bottom and
above them the same motive painted.
We
put this relationship of Christ, Lucifer, and Ahriman in our
Dornach building because spiritual science shows us in a
certain way really that concerning the understanding of the
Christ Impulse the next task is that, finally, the human being
learns to know which relationship exists in the world between
these three powers Christ, Lucifer, and Ahriman. Since, indeed,
up to now one often talks about Christianity and the Christ
Impulse, but that which has entered the world by the Christ
Impulse, actually, as a result of Christ's Death and
Resurrection, this has not yet become completely clear to the
human beings. One speaks probably of the fact that there is
Lucifer that there is Ahriman, but while one speaks of Lucifer
and Ahriman, one speaks very often in such a way, as if one had
to flee them, as if one had to say almost always: I want to
know nothing, nothing at all about Lucifer and Ahriman.
If
the divine-spiritual powers, which are found in the way, as I
have described it in the public lecture yesterday, also wanted
to know nothing about Lucifer and Ahriman, the world would just
not be able to exist. You do not position yourselves in the
correct relationship saying: Lucifer, I avoid him! Ahriman, I
avoid him! You rather have to look at that which the human
being has to strive for as a result of the Christ Impulse like
the equilibrium position of a pendulum. The pendulum is in the
middle in balance; however, it must swing to and fro. That is
similar also in the earth development of the human being. The
human being must tend on one side to the luciferic principle,
on the other side to the ahrimanic principle, but he must learn
and stand firmly on that which Paul said: “not I, but
Christ in me.”
We
have to understand Christ in his effectiveness absolutely as a
reality. That is we must be clear to us that this really
happened which flowed by Christ's Death and Resurrection in our
earth development. How well or how badly people understood this
up to now, it does not depend on it, but on the fact that it
was there that it has worked in the human earth development.
One could say a lot that people have not yet understood of the
Christ Impulse. And spiritual science will contribute a little
piece to the understanding of that what flowed in from
spiritual heights by the Mystery of Golgotha as the Christ
Impulse onto the earth development. To realise Christ's
working, we want to make clear to us, as this has also happened
at other places, two moments of the earth development of
humankind, two moments which became important in the whole
western development.
You
know from history, what an important moment it was, when
Constantine, the son of Constantius Chlorus, defeated
Maxentius, and Christianity was introduced by Constantine
externally in the western development. Constantine had to go
into that important battle against Maxentius through which
Constantine then made Christianity the state religion in his
western empire. The whole map of Europe would have become
different if in those days this battle had not taken place
against Maxentius. But strategic art, that of what people were
capable with their intellects in those days, did not decide
this battle really, but something else.
Maxentius made read up in the so-called Sibylline Books, the
prophetic books of Rome, and got the advice to lead his army
out of the walls of Rome, whereas they would have been saved
well within the walls. So he positioned his troops in the free
field against the army of Constantine. However, Constantine had
a dream before the battle which indicated to him: if you go in
the sign of the Mystery of Golgotha against Maxentius, you
arrive at a big goal. — And carrying the sign of the
Mystery of Golgotha, the cross, Constantine went to the battle
with an army about three quarters smaller than that of
Maxentius. Filled with enthusiasm by the power which came from
the Mystery of Golgotha, Constantine won that important battle
through which Christianity was introduced externally in Europe.
If we remember what people understood of the Christ Impulse
with their intellects in those days, we find an endless
theological quarrelling.
People quarrelled whether Christ is identical from eternity
with the Father and the like more. One must say: it does not
depend on that which people knew about the Christ Impulse in
those days, but on the fact that it was there, the Christ
Impulse, that it induced the necessary events by Constantine,
by a dream of Constantine. It depends on the reality of Christ,
on the real power of Christ. In our spiritual science, we only
begin understanding the Christ Impulse.
Another moment was that when in the fight between France and
England Europe was formed in such a way that one can say: if
France had not been victorious against England in those days,
all the circumstances would have become different. But how had
this happened? — The Christ Impulse has just worked in
the subconscious of the soul up to now, when it has to become
more aware. We see then in the western spiritual development
the Christ Impulse seeking for those conditions in the human
souls through which it can be effective with individual human
beings. Legends have preserved the way how the Christ Impulse
in the western spiritual development can make itself
noticeable. These legends point partly back to old pagan times,
when everywhere understanding of Christianity was prepared just
in paganism.
If
the soul does not strive for initiation consciously in the way
I have described in
How Does One Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds?,
but gets it as it were in natural way, as it was
filled with the Christ Impulse by a natural initiation. The
most convenient time in which this Christ Impulse is able to
inspire the soul is the time of the Christmas Eve up to the
Epiphany day, the time from the 25th December to the 6th
January. We can understand that if we get the following clear
in our mind: for the esoteric knowledge it is unambiguously
evident that our earth is not only that of which the geologists
talk. That is only like the skeleton of the human being. But
our earth also has its own spirituality. And Christ has just
entered the earth aura. This earth sleeps and wakes as we sleep
and are awake in twenty-four hours. We have to realise the fact
that the earth sleeps during the summertime and is awake in the
wintertime. The spirit of the earth is the most awake in these
twelve or thirteen nights from Christmas to Epiphany. In olden
times, in which — as you know from the various
representations in my lectures — the human beings had a
dreamlike clairvoyance and experienced the spiritual principle
of the world that way. The most convenient time was the
summertime. It is quite natural that somebody who wants to rise
in a more dreamlike clairvoyance to the spiritual has it easier
during the sleeping time of the earth, in the summertime.
Hence, it was the St. John's-tide which was the most convenient
in olden times to raise the strength of the soul to the
spiritual. The new, more conscious way has replaced the old way
in which the spiritual was working into the earth; now it is
the best time when the earth is awake.
Hence, the legends tell us that especially gifted human beings,
human beings who are particularly suitable because of their
karma, get a special condition of consciousness at the Yuletide
which is only externally similar to sleep but inspires it
internally, so that the human being was raised to the world we
call the spirit-land. There is a very nice legend, the
Norwegian legend of Olaf Åsteson about whom is told
to us that he goes to the church at the Christmas Eve, falls
into a sleep-like state and wakes up at the sixth January and
can tell what he experienced in this state similar to sleep.
This Norwegian legend actually explains to us that Olaf
Åsteson experienced something that one feels at
first like the soul-world, then something that one feels like
the spirit-land, only just everything in pictures, in
Imaginations.
This time was the most convenient in those epochs in which the
human beings were not yet so advanced as in our time. Today,
the times are over in which the Christ Impulse can flow into
the souls like by a natural initiation. Today, the human beings
have to ascend to initiation as consciously as it is described in
How Does One Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds?
We live in a time in which natural initiations become rarer and
rarer and completely disappear, finally, so that we do not have
to count any more on them. But, basically, one can call a
physical initiation that through which the Christ Impulse
worked on the soul of the simple farmer girl, the Maid of
Orleans, who brought about the victory of the French over the
English. This victory reshaped the European map wondrously. The
human reason could not perform that, but that which guided the
Maid of Orleans in those days and outstripped all the skill of
the military leaders, by which Europe got a new figure. It was
the Christ Impulse, which worked on the unconscious of a single
personality, but worked so that then from this personality
spread out what was efficient in history.
We
would have to notice if anything similar could have taken place
as a natural initiation with the Maid of Orleans if the soul of
the Maid of Orleans had been inspired in the nights from the
25th December to the 6th January. In the course of life it
seems that such a matter cannot be verified that the Maid of
Orleans also was once during twelve or thirteen days from the
25th December to the 6th January in a sleep-like state in which
the Christ Impulse would have worked on her, so that she would
be able to work as a human being only like the cover of the
Christ Impulse on the battlefields of France. Nevertheless, it
was that way. For there is a time which — if the karma of
the concerning individuality makes it possible — can be
filled with such a sleep-like state. This is the time of the
last days in which the human being still lives in the body of
the mother, before he sees the physical earth light. The human
being lives there in a dreamlike state similar to sleep. He has
not yet seen anything by the senses that takes place externally
in the world. If a human being were particularly suitable by
his karma to take up the Christ Impulse during these last days
in which he lives in the body of the mother, these days would
also be days of the natural initiation. Then such a human being
would open his eyes for the first time already strengthened by
the Christ Impulse lying in him after the initiation, that
means in this case, after his birth. And such a human being
would have to be born on the 6th January. The Maid of Orleans
was born on the 6th January. This is the secret of the Maid of
Orleans that she was born on the 6th January that she spent the
time from Christmas up to the Epiphany day in that peculiar
state similar to sleep in the body of the mother and got a
natural initiation. Consider the deep connections which are
behind the external development which one normally calls
history. What is shown externally in history with the help of
documents is as a rule even the most insignificant. The simple
date which is registered in our calendar that the Maid of
Orleans was sent into the world on the 6th January is of
authoritative historical significance. The forces work from the
supersensible realm on the sensory realm that way. We have to
read this occult writing which shows us the forces working from
the supersensible realm on the sensory realm. So the Christ
Impulse flowed into the Maid of Orleans like by a natural
initiation, already before her physical birth.
I
want to explain these matters to arouse a feeling in you that
forces and connections unknown to the external view are
effective behind that what one normally calls history. However,
the Christ Impulse guides history, of the European humankind in
particular, since the Mystery of Golgotha. In the East, in Asia
a world view remained of which one can say: it has not yet
approached the Christ Impulse in its feelings. Indeed, the
European was enticed to call the Indian views particularly
deep. But this is the typical of Hinduism — generally of
the whole Asian religious feeling — that it stands with
all its feelings before the Christ Impulse, but has preserved
the state which was there in the religious feeling of the
earthly humankind before the Christ Impulse. Lagging behind in
the development always means taking up something luciferic.
Hence, the Asian religious development carries a luciferic
element in itself. If we look over at the Asian religious
development, we must notice: indeed, we can see a lot in it
that humankind had already once that it had to leave, however.
But we have partly to purify that all in the western culture
from the luciferic element, to raise it partly in such a way
that the Christ-principle can flow into it.
If
we go from Asia to Europe, we find in the east of Europe, in
the Russian culture, the orthodox Christianity spread out which
has stopped on a former level of the Christian development
which did not want to go along which wanted to keep something
luciferic. Briefly, we look at the East, we have what, I would
like to say, the wise guidance of the world left behind in the
whole development of humankind as the luciferic element.
Let
us look at the West, particularly at the American civilisation,
and then we have another characteristic. The typical of this
American civilisation is that everything is searched for in the
external. A lot of significant things are thereby produced
indeed; but everything is searched for in the outside. Take an
example. If we see in Europe, in particular in Central Europe,
that a human being who did not have any opportunity in his life
at first to turn his soul to Christ and the powers of the
spiritual world and suddenly changes his life because of
something, then interests us what has taken place in his soul.
It does not interest us that he experienced a jump in his
development, we find this everywhere.
Since most inaccurate is the saying which the external science
has stamped: nature does not make jumps
[Carl Linné in his
Philosophia Botanica,
Stockholm 1751].
— From the green plant leaf to the red petal is a big
jump; from the petal to the chalices is again a big jump. It
is an absolutely wrong saying, and the truth of the development
is based just on the fact that everywhere jumps are made. The
fact that a human being if he has lived for a while so externally
is able to tend suddenly to spirituality induced by anything,
in that we are not interested in particular. But the internal
power which achieves such a conversion to spirituality interests
us. We want to look into the soul of such a human being; we want
to know what brought him to such a conversion. We are interested
in the soul.
How
does the American make it? — He makes something very
peculiar. In America, one could often observe such conversions.
Now, the American lets such people write letters who
experienced a conversion. Then he puts all these letters
together on a small heap and says: I received letters from two
hundred people, more or less. Fourteen percent of those who
experienced such a conversion wrote that they were suddenly
attacked by fear of death or hell; five percent because of
altruistic motives; seventeen percent because of striving for
moral ideals; fifteen percent experienced pangs of conscience;
ten percent because they observed teachings given to them;
thirteen percent because they have seen that others were
converted — by imitation; nineteen percent because they
were forced, while they were thrashed at the suitable age, and
so on. One selects the most extreme souls, sorts them and
receives a result which is based on “sure data.”
That is registered then in the books which one spreads as
“psychology” among people. All the other documents
are uncertain to these people, are only based on subjectivity,
they say. There you have an example that something innermost is
made superficial. That holds true in many respects in America.
In the time which demands a particular spiritual deepening the
most superficial spiritualism is rampant in America. One wants
to have everything as something sensory.
Spiritual life is grasped materialistically that way. We could
still give many such examples which would show you that the
civilisation of the West is seized by Ahriman. This is the
other deflection of the pendulum. If we look at the East, we
have the luciferic element, if we look at the West, we have the
ahrimanic element. The infinitely important task we have in
Central Europe between West and East is to find the balance.
Hence, we would like to put the biggest of the spiritual
demands of our time in our Dornach building as a sculptural
group: to find the balance between the relation to Lucifer and
the relation to Ahriman. Then one will only recognise what the
Christ Impulse wanted from the earth development if one puts
outside Christ not so simply, but if one knows correctly that
Christ is that power which shows us the relation to Lucifer and
Ahriman exemplarily.
That the relation of the human being and Christ to Lucifer and
Ahriman is not yet recognised clearly, this may become
illustrative to you by the following. Also the greatest, which
contains the greatest in one respect, is not always free of
that which must still be there as an one-sidedness in time.
Indeed, one cannot appreciate that picture enough which
Michelangelo painted in the Sistine Chapel in Rome,
The Last Judgement,
this miraculous picture. Christ triumphing,
directing the good human beings to one side, the bad human
beings to the other. Let us look at this Christ. He does not
have the features which we would like to give the Christ figure
that should stand in our Dornach construction. It must become
evident that Christ raises the hand in compassion, even though
Lucifer is there above. Lucifer should not be brought down by
the power of Christ, but he falls down because he cannot endure
what shines from Christ in his nearness. Christ raises his eye
and folds the forehead while raising the folded forehead to
Lucifer.
Ahriman is overcome not by the hatred of Christ, but he feels
that he cannot endure what flows out from Christ. However,
Christ stands in the midst as somebody who introduces the
Parzival element in the modern age. He has to get the others to
overcome themselves not by His power, but by His existence, so
that they overcome themselves and not he overcomes them. With
Michelangelo, we still see Christ sending the good human beings
to heaven and the bad ones to hell by His power. This is not
the right Christ in future, but this is a Christ who is still
very luciferic. That does not reduce our esteem of that
picture. The whole significance of this picture is recognised,
but one has to admit that Michelangelo could not yet paint
Christ because the world development was not yet so far. It
must clearly be seen that one has not only to turn the sense to
Christ, but that one has to turn the sense to the threefold
being: Christ, Lucifer, and Ahriman. I can only indicate that.
Only in future, spiritual science finds out everything that
lies in this secret: Christ in relation to Lucifer and
Ahriman.
But
now consider the following: if we look at the East, we look at
luciferic powers even in the near East. In the West, we look at
ahrimanic powers. In spiritual science, we have to get into the
habit of considering the matters not with sympathy and
antipathy and also the peoples and folk-souls not with sympathy
and antipathy, but in such a way as they are in their
characteristics. What one calls the national characteristic of
a human being who stands in his people, depends — above
all — on that which is effective in the physical and
etheric bodies. When we live from falling asleep to waking up
with our soul and mind as an astral body and ego, we live
beyond the normal national element. We live only from waking up
to falling asleep in our nationality when we are in our
physical body. That is why the nationality is also something
the human being overcomes gradually during his stay in
kamaloka. The human being there strives for the generally
human, while he overcomes the nationality in kamaloka to live
then in the generally human for the longest time between death
and new birth. It belongs to the qualities which are taken off
in kamaloka, also that which makes us a national human
being.
The
single nationalities are very different from each other in this
regard. Compare a French human being and a Russian human being.
The French human being has the characteristic that he seizes
that particularly which the folk-soul brings in his physical
and etheric bodies during his life between birth and death that
he lives particularly in it. This expresses itself in the fact
that the Frenchman — not as an individual human being but
as a Frenchman — has an idea of that which is a
Frenchman; the fact that he puts ahead that above all which is,
actually, a Frenchman. But these ideas which the French, also
all the other neo-Latin peoples, have of their nationality
cause that the ideas of their nationality are deeply stamped
into their etheric bodies. When the Frenchman goes through the
gate of death, he already detaches the etheric body after some
days; then this etheric body is a clearly defined figure which
exists in the etheric world for a long time. The etheric body
cannot dissolve because the ideas of his nationality are deeply
stamped on it; these ideas hold together the etheric body. That
is why we see the field of death filled with clearly defined
etheric bodies if we look westwards.
Look at the East now, at the Russian human being. It is the
peculiarity of this Russian human being that he has such an
etheric body in himself that it dissolves relatively quickly
when the soul goes through the gate of death. This is the
difference between the West and the East. The etheric bodies,
which the West-European human beings take off after death, have
the peculiarity that they want to be clearly defined. What the
French calls “gloire” stamps itself to his etheric
body firmly as national gloire, so that he is condemned to turn
his spiritual view to this etheric body, to himself for long,
long times after death. The Russian human being, however, looks
at himself only a little after death. That is why the
West-European human being is exposed to the ahrimanic
influence; the materialisation of the etheric body is again
exposed to the ahrimanic principle. The dissolution of the
etheric body, the quick merging of the etheric body is
accompanied by a feeling of lust, and this is just the
peculiar, an instinctive feeling of lust in the national. How
is this expressed in the East?
Central Europe does not understand that, as it also does not
feel in that. If one pursues Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy or others
who were setting the tone who talk always about the
“Russian human being,” this is a feeling of lust in
the national which cannot define itself. Even with Solovyov, we
find that something sultry is living in his philosophy that is
not compatible with the clearness and cleanness the Central
European human being searches for. What is effective in Europe
as a spiritual power is connected with all that. In Central
Europe another, a middle state exists, namely something that
one could explain even further than it was possible in the
public lecture yesterday. I said: something exists in Central
Europe that is an inner striving nature. Goethe would have
written his
Faust
in exactly the same way in the forties
of the last century: strive again and again. — But this
striving is innermost nature. In Central Europe, the mystics
appeared who did not only want to recognise the
divine-spiritual, but wanted to experience it with their own
souls. The mystics wanted to internally experience the Christ
event. If one takes Solovyov, one thinks that he goes out above
all from that: Christ died once historically for humankind.
This is quite right, but Solovyov sees the spiritual life like
a cloud outside himself, who sees that as it were everything
already has happened, while the Central European human being
demands that everybody experiences Christ in himself time and
again. Master Eckhart would have possibly replied the following
even to somebody like Solovyov. If Solovyov emphasised
repeatedly that Christ must go through death, so that the human
being can be a human being, Master Eckhart would say: you look
at Christ as one looks at something external. It does not
matter that we always look at the historical events only, but
we ourselves have to experience Christ inside, we have to
discover something inside that goes through such states like
Christ, at least spiritually, so that Christ is experienced
spiritually.
It
seems tricky and fantastic indeed if anybody says to the modern
humankind: the whole development, even the folk-soul worked in
Central Europe, so that this connection of the ego with the
Christ principle is expressed in the language: I-CH (= I) =
Jesus Christ. I-CH which is composed in such a way that it
means “I.” While one pronounces I (ich) in Central
Europe, one pronounces the name of Christ. So near one wants to
feel the ego with Christ, so intimately connected with it. One
knows this intimate living together with the spiritual world,
as it must be striven for in Central Europe in any spiritual
field, neither in the West nor in the East. Hence, something
must happen in the twentieth century, so that the
Christ-principle can spread out gradually over the whole
European continent in suitable way. I emphasised it often in
various lecture cycles that in November 1879 that spiritual
being whom we call the archangel Michael ascended to a special
level of development. Michael became, so to speak, the leading
spirit. Now this leading spirit prepares the event which I
indicated in the first of my mystery dramas as the appearance
of the etheric Christ over the earth, the event which must take
place in the twentieth century. Then it will happen that single
souls at first, then more and more souls know: Christ is there
in reality, Christ walks again on earth, but in an etheric
figure, not in a physical figure.
This must be prepared. If in the course of this twentieth
century the spiritual eyes of certain souls were opened
clairvoyantly — and this will happen — for the life
of the etheric world, they would be disturbed by those etheric
bodies which spread out from Western Europe. They would behold
them first, and one would see the figure of Christ wrongly.
Hence, Michael must fight a battle in Europe. He has to
contribute something that these West-European clearly defined
etheric bodies are dissolved in the etheric world. For that he
has to take those etheric bodies which enjoy dissolving, the
etheric bodies in the East, and must fight with them against
the West. This causes that since 1879 a violent struggle
prepares itself in the astral world between the Russian and the
West-European etheric bodies, and this struggle is raging in
the whole astral world. It is actually a violent struggle in
the astral world, led by Michael, between Russia and France.
This forms the basis of the battle in the astral world, raging
in Europe.
As we
are often stupefied by the fact that something that takes place
here in the physical world is the opposite of that in the spiritual
world, it also is here the case. That French-Russian alliance
[agreement by the French president Faure and
Czar Nicholas II in 1897],
managed by Ahriman's seduction, which is based mainly
on the ahrimanic element, namely on twenty billions which
France gave Russia, is the physical expression of a battle that
is raging between French and Russian souls, of a battle in
which Central Europe is put with its striving for meeting the
Christ in its innermost soul element. And Europe is enslaved by
karma that one has to experience just in Central Europe
tragically what the East with the West and the West with the
East has to fight out. The matters which externally the German
element has to fight out with the French element are to be
understood only in such a way that the German is just in the
middle between the East and the West and serves as an anvil for
both sides. Since that which is pushed together by both sides
in Germany is negotiated by these both sides in truth. This is
the spiritual truth which is completely different from the
external events in the physical world. Imagine how different
the spiritual truth is from the external events in the physical
world. Indeed, everything like that sounds absurd to the modern
human beings, but it is the truth. This truth must stupefy
us.
But
another matter is also exceptionally significant. Indeed, it
counters everything that history can show us that England,
after it was always an ally of Turkey against Russia, must
fight now suddenly with Russia against Turkey. One can
understand this gainsay if one does the following occult
observation. While here below on the physical plane England is
an ally of Russia and fights against the Turkish element, the
following presents to the occult observation. If one observes
this struggle clairvoyantly and looks as it were from below up
at the physical plane and then at the astral plane, it becomes
apparent: in the North, Russia seems to be allied with England,
and in the South-East Turkey seems to be allied with England.
This is due to the fact that the alliance between England and
Russia has significance only on the physical plane, but there
is no reflection in the spiritual world, because it is
completely based on material interests. From below one sees
England and Russia united only on the physical plane in the
North. In the South-East, one sees through the physical plane
to the astral plane where the English are allies of the Turks
and are fighting against Russia. On one side, England fights
together with Russia on the physical plane, and on the other
side Russia is combated by England. We have to look at the
external events this way, in so far as they manifest themselves
as external history. Since that which lies behind is something
completely different.
A
time will come in which the human beings talk about the present
events quite differently than it happens now. One must say that
the whole war literature has something rather unpleasant.
Something pleasant is also said, but also a lot of unpleasant
things. Above all one matter is unpleasant. It is always said:
today one cannot yet speak about the question: who is
responsible for the war? Et cetera. — People console
themselves passing over the matters. They say: in future one
finds out of the documents in the archives, who was responsible
for the war. — Concerning the external events the matter,
however, is not hard to be found at all if one judges without
passion. Chamberlain
[Houston Stewart Chamberlain:
New War Essays, Munich, 1915]
is right in his “war articles”
even if he is mistaken in the details, when he says that one
can know the most certain just about this war. This is right
that no doubt exists about that, only one has to put the right
question. A question can only be answered unambiguously, for
example, if it is put correctly. It is the question: who could
have prevented this war?
The
always returning question: who is responsible for this war? And
still many other questions, are not just right. Who could have
prevented the war? — No other answer can be given than:
the Russian government could have prevented the war. —
One will only be able to find the right definition of the
impulses which work in detail. Of course, the war, intended by
the East since decades, could not have come unless a certain
relation had existed between England, Russia, and France, so
that one can ascribe the bigger guilt also — if one wants
— to England. But all these matters do not take into
consideration which causes are behind that showing the whole
world war as a necessity. It is naive to think that the war
could have failed to come. Now the people talk, as if this war
did not need to come. It is the result of the European
karma.
I
wanted to indicate something by the spiritual contrasts between
the East and the West. It does not depend on the fact that we
ask, so to speak, for the outer causes in particular, because
they are not important. We must only know that this war is a
historical necessity. The single causes are not important
there.
But
all the heterogeneous effects to which we will have to position
ourselves correctly are important. One effect can appear to us
as particularly important. It is a great, typical phenomenon
that such a war produces many unused etheric bodies. Because
this is the biggest war which humankind has waged in its
conscious historical development, this characteristic also
exists to a very high degree. Unused etheric bodies are
produced. The etheric body can supply the human being for long,
until the human being is seventy, eighty, or ninety years old.
However, during the war human beings are sacrificed in the
prime of life. When the human being goes through the gate of
death, he takes off the etheric body, as you know, after a
short time; but the etheric body of somebody who was killed in
action is taken off in such a way that it could still have
supplied this human life in a physical body for long, for
decades.
In
physics one accepts that energy does not get lost. However,
that also applies to spirituality. The forces of these etheric
bodies, which early go to the etheric world, remain available.
Think now that countless unused etheric bodies of those are
there who go as young human beings through the gate of death.
Nevertheless, it is something particular with these etheric
bodies. I would like to explain this at an example which is
obvious to our movement and to lead then to the etheric bodies
of the warriors gone through death which are contained in the
etheric world in the next future.
In
this autumn, we experienced the death of the little son of an
anthroposophical family which is employed in the area of our
Dornach construction. This boy, Theodor Faiss, was seven years
old. His father once lived in Stuttgart, and then he came as a
gardener to Dornach in the area of the construction and lived
there with his family. He himself was soon called up to the
army after outbreak of the war and was in a military hospital
at the time of the accident. The little, seven-year-old Theodor
was a real sunny child, a wonderful, dear boy. Now one day the
following happened. We had just a lecture as I give them in
Dornach after the construction work. After the lecture somebody
came and reported that the little Theodor Faiss has not come
back to his mother since the late afternoon. It was ten o'clock
in the evening, and one could imagine nothing but that a big
tragedy has happened. A removal van had arrived in this
afternoon and had gone a way near the so-called canteen where
it had to turn round. This carriage had reached a place in
those days, in which, one is allowed to state this, no such a
big carriage has gone for many decades before, generally maybe
no removal van has ever gone and just as little after. Now the
little Theodor, before this van had turned round, had been in
the canteen. He had been detained there a little bit, otherwise
he would have gone sooner with the provisions he had got in the
canteen for the dinner. Then he went the way home — it is
only a short distance — so that he was just at that place
where the van toppled over and fell on him, the little Theodor.
Nobody had noticed it, even the coachman did not. He had only
got his horses to safety when the carriage toppled over, and
did not know that the child was under it. When the absence of
the child was reported to us, we had to try to lift the
carriage. The friends got tools, and the mobilised Swiss
soldiers helped us. Of course, the child was already dead since
possibly a half past five o'clock in the afternoon. The removal
van had crushed it straight away, it died of suffocation.
There we have such a case to which one can apply what I often
tried to make clear using a comparison that one confuses cause
and effect. Imagine that we see a person going along a
riverbank. The person falls into the river. One runs to him and
finds a stone where the person fell into the river and thinks
that the person tripped, then fell in the river and died this
way. One says that the person has died because he fell into the
river. But if one dissects him, one maybe finds that he
experienced a heart attack and fell consequently dead into the
water. He did not die because he fell into the water, but he
fell into the water because he died. You find such mistakes of
cause and effect in the judgement of life very frequently and
in the usual science even more.
The
karma of the little Theodor had run off in a certain way, so
that one can really say: he ordered the carriage to that place.
I mention this case which is externally exceptionally tragic,
because we deal with the etheric body of a child which could
have supplied through the life of this child still for decades.
This etheric body is passed over with its unused forces to the
spiritual world, the etheric world. Where is he? What does he
do? — Somebody who is obliged to work on the Dornach
construction since that time with artistic intentions,
generally to have thoughts in the area of the construction
knows if he beholds clairvoyantly at the same time: this whole
etheric body and its forces is increased in the aura of the
Dornach construction. We have to distinguish: the individuality
is somewhere else, it goes its own way, but the etheric body is
expelled after some days and exists now in the construction.
Never will I hesitate before saying that among the forces which
one needs to Intuition the forces of this etheric body are,
sacrificed to the construction. Behind life the connections are
often completely different than anybody only suspects it. This
etheric body has become protecting powers of the construction.
Something great is in such a connection.
Consider now, what a big sum of strength goes up to the
spiritual world in the unused etheric bodies of those who go
now through the gate of death as a result of the military
events.
The
matters are connected differently than the human beings can
imagine. The world karma takes place differently. Spiritual
science must be there just to replace fantastic ideas with
spiritually true ideas. We can imagine hardly — to
mention only one example — something more fantastic or
untrue from the spiritual point of view than something that
took place in the last decades. A special “peace
society”
[peace conferences in the Hague from 1899 to
1907, convened on the initiative of Czar Nicholas II]
was founded to put the law at the place of the
war, as one said, “the International Law.” —
In no time of humankind such dreadful wars were waged as since
the “peace society” exists. In the last decades,
this peace movement had a monarch among its particular
protectors who waged the bloodiest and cruelest wars which ever
were waged in world history. So that the installation of the
peace movement from the part of the czar must really appear as
the biggest comedy which was played in world history, the
biggest comedy and at the same time the most hideous comedy.
One has to call that luciferic seduction. This can well be
investigated in details. One can say, it stupefies the soul if
one sees — one may look at the matters as one wants
— in the beginning when these war impulses entered
Europe, Central Europe, where one assembled like in the Berlin
Reichstag, people talking almost about nothing. One has only
spoken a little, but the matters have spoken. A lot has been
spoken in the West like in the East. But one has the most
stupefying impression in a certain way of that what has been
spoken in the St. Petersburg Duma by the different parties. In
the various way the representatives of the Duma have really
brought forward nothing else than the empty phrases with the
biggest fire of enthusiasm. It was stupefying. This is a
luciferic seduction. However, everything shows us that the
fire, which burns during this war, is a warning fire, and that
the human beings have to pay attention.
Everything that happens now points to the fact that at least
some souls must say to themselves: it cannot go on that way as
it has gone in the world, spirituality must flow into the human
development. Materialism has found its karma in this most
dreadful war of all the wars. In certain respect this war is
the karma of materialism. The more the human souls see this,
the more they will get beyond arguing, whether this one or that
one is responsible for the war, and say to themselves: this war
was sent to us in world history that it is an admonisher that
we should turn to a spiritual understanding of the whole human
life.
Materialism makes not only the souls of the human beings
materialistically minded; it also corrupts the logic and makes
the feeling dull. Within Central Europe, one still has to see
something that is connected with that which I have said: that
one has to deal most intimately with the further development of
the Christ Impulse just in Central Europe. But that belongs to
it that one has to start understanding the spirits who have
already laid the germs. Only one example: Goethe wrote a theory
of colours. The physicists look at it as something, about which
they say compassionately smiling: what has the poet understood
of the colours? He was just a dilettante. — Since the
eighties of the nineteenth century I try to help the Goethean
theory of colours on the road to success against modern
physics. This cannot be understood. Why can it not be
understood? Because the materialistic principle, which came
from the British folk-soul, penetrated Central Europe. Newton
whom Goethe had to combat won the victory over that which
issued from Goethe's spirit. Goethe also founded a theory of
evolution in which is shown by grasping spiritual laws how the
beings advance from the most imperfect condition to the most
perfect. This was too hard to understand. When Darwin brought
his theory of evolution, the people accepted it, because they
could understand it easier. Darwin was victorious over Goethe.
The materialistic thinker who was inspired by the British
folk-soul was victorious over Goethe who got everything from
the most intimate dialog with the German folk-soul.
Ernst Haeckel has experienced something tragic. He lived
mentally through his whole life on that which Huxley and Darwin
have given to him. The materialism of Ernst Haeckel is
basically a very English product. When the war broke out,
Haeckel was outraged about what happened from the British
islands. He was one of the first to send back the English
medals, certificates and honourings. What must be sent back,
however, are not the certificates, medals and honourings, but
the English coloured Darwinism and the English coloured
physics. One has to call that in mind, so that one sees what
can be striven for in the Central European area as an intimate
being together with the laws of the world.
One
can corrupt the childish soul mostly if one already pours out
in it that which develops then in only materialistic colouring.
The centuries have worked towards it. Among the Britons over
there, Ahriman inspired a great author, so that this author
wrote a work which was completely intended to influence the
soul materialistically from the childish age on in such a way
that one does not notice it, because one does not consider it
preparing materialism. This is Robinson Crusoe. The
whole way, as Robinson is described, is so clever that these
ideas of Robinson Crusoe if they are taken up prepare the mind
in such a way that it can later think only materialistically.
Humankind is not yet cured of inventors of such Robinsons; they
always existed and exist even today. I could give many
examples.
I
talk about these matters not to say anything against the
peoples of the West who have to be as they are, but to show how
in Central Europe the human beings have to find the connection
with the big, only germ-like values of the future development.
The role of Austria is also significant in particular. In the
last decades, one could see some spirits striving for high
ideals like Hamerling
[Robert Hamerling (1830–1889), cf.
The Riddle of the Human Being
and
Autobiography,
Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works volumes 20 and 28]
in poetry, like Carneri
[Bartholomäus von Carneri (1821–1909), cf.
Methodical Foundations of Anthroposophy, Rudolf Steiner's
Collected Works volume 30.2.29]
who wanted to
deepen Darwinism concerning moral, and like Bruckner
[Anton Bruckner (1824–1896), Austrian composer]
and other artists in all kinds of fields. It matters such a
self-reflection of the people
Now
we look at the unused etheric bodies which exist there. These
etheric bodies were taken off by human beings who learnt during
a big event to sacrifice themselves for something that there is
no longer for them, not as anything sensory at least: for the
people. If somebody talks today as a spiritual scientist about
the fact that there a folk-soul is as an archangel et cetera,
then they laugh at him. What one calls folk-soul in materialism
is only the summary of the qualities which the human beings of
a people have. What the materialist calls people is only the
sum of the human beings who live together and look similar in
an area. We speak about a people in such a way that we know:
the folk-soul exists as a real being of the archangel's rank.
Even if anybody who sacrifices himself who goes through death
for his people has no clear idea of a real folk-soul on the
field of the events, nevertheless, he confirms by the way he
goes through death that he believes in a further effectiveness
after this death that he believes that there is more than that
which the eyes see in the people: its connection and its
keeping together with the supersensible realm.
Everybody who goes through death, whether he knows it more or
less, goes through this death, confirming that there is a
supersensible world; this is stamped to his etheric body. So
that in future except those who will live on the physical earth
when peace has taken place again, the unused etheric bodies
will live for ever sending these tones to the music of the
spheres: there is more in the world than that which can be seen
only with physical eyes. Spiritual truth sounds into the music
of the spheres by that which the dead leave behind in their
etheric bodies, apart from that which they take with their
individualities which they carry through the life between death
and new birth.
However, one has to listen to that which will live and sound
from these etheric bodies. For these etheric bodies were taken
off by human beings who, confirming the truth of the spiritual
world, went through death. The biggest sin of humankind will be
if it does not listen to that which the dead call to it by
their warning etheric bodies. How much is the view to the
spiritual world enlivened if one has to imagine that the
fathers and mothers, the sisters and brothers, sons and
daughters, who lose dear relatives and friends, must say to
themselves: what was there sacrificed, lives for the whole
humankind, admonishing that which has to come.
If
one relied on the events of the physical world, one could not
have a lot of hope for the prosperous progress of the spiritual
movement which should be cultivated in our spiritual-scientific
world view. When recently a good, loyal co-worker died, in the
thirtieth year of his life, there was in my words, which I
directed to this soul after he has gone through the gate of
death, the entreaty that he would like to co-operate as
faithfully and courageously on our spiritual-scientific field
as he co-operated here faithfully and devotedly, using
everything that he knew. He co-operated diligently here on the
physical plane, this co-worker. I gave him this as a message
for his life between death and new birth that he may co-operate
after death as he done it before death, because we count on
these dead, the so-called dead, as on the living.
Our
spiritual-scientific world view must be vivid, so that the
abyss is overcome between the so-called dead and the living
that we feel the dead among us like living human beings. We
want not only theory, but life. That is why we also point to
the fact that a living bond exists between those who live on
earth when peace is again, and those who went through the gate
of death. The human beings will be able to learn from the dead,
will have to learn how these dead help in the big spiritual
progress which must seize the earth.
Sometimes one recognises in life that the human logic does not
suffice. I would like to give you an example, not for personal
reasons, but to characterise the way people position themselves
to our movement. Some years ago, one could read an article
about our spiritual science in a South German very serious
magazine written by a famous philosopher of the present.
Spiritual science was treated there in such a way that it could
make a certain impression on the people because the article was
written by a great philosopher. The editor of the magazine
prided himself in particular that he could publish an article
on spiritual science by such a famous man. Of course,
everything was shown badly and erroneously; a totally askew
picture of spiritual science was given. What did the editor
need, however, to see what a judgment about our movement he had
delivered, actually, in his monthly magazine?
Then the war came. That man who had written the article wrote
some letters to the editor. These letters contain the most
repellent things one can generally say about the Central
European culture. He ranted and sneered terribly about this
Central European culture. The editor printed these letters as
an example of how brainlessly one can think about this culture.
Now he says: this person writes, nevertheless, as only a person
can write who should be in the lunatic asylum. — The fact
is that such a thing was necessary for a good editor to see
that the man should be in the lunatic asylum who wrote this
article about spiritual science some years ago and wreaked much
havoc outwardly. If the man had to be in the lunatic asylum, he
should already be there at that time. But at that time he wrote
an article about spiritual science.
Such matters happen in the world. Quite different supports have
to come to get a judgment than those the human being has today.
However, the spiritual scientist stands firmly on the ground
that shows clearly that truth finds its way. But spiritual
science must have an effect on the development of humankind, so
that the necessary matters take place. Like in that time, when
the emperor Constantine had to complete his task, the Christ
Impulse had to work from the spiritual world on the
subconscious, like with the Maid of Orleans the Christ Impulse
had to work, so that happened what had to happen, the Christ
Impulse has to go on working, only now more in the
consciousness. There must be souls in future who know: up there
in the spiritual world are those who sacrificed themselves with
their individualities and request us to follow them and believe
in the effectiveness of spirituality they got through death.
But also the forces of the unused etheric bodies call into the
future what one only needs to understand to take up it in our
own souls. On earth, however, must be the souls who hear this.
Souls must be there who prepare themselves by the right and
living understanding of our spiritual science. Our spiritual
science has to create souls here on earth that are able to have
premonitions of what the etheric bodies of the dead up there
speak in future. The souls who know: there up are the forces
which can admonish the human beings who had to be left to their
own resources on earth. If here below souls aware of spirit
direct their senses to the hidden tones of the spiritual world,
the right fruits will originate from all the blood that flowed,
from all the sacrifices that were accomplished, from all the
grief that had to be endured and must still be endured. Looking
at the hope which may be expressed that a lot of souls may be
found by spiritual science who can hear these voices which
sound from the spiritual world in particular as a result of
this war, I would like to speak, to sum up, the last words of
this consideration, words which should express only as a
feeling what I would like to stimulate in your souls:
From
the courage of the fighters,
From the blood of the battles,
From the grief of the bereaved,
From the nation's sacrifices
Will grow up the fruits of spirit
If souls aware of spirit turn
Their senses to the spirit-land.
With such emotions in the heart we always want to penetrate
ourselves with the sense of the rose cross, so that this rose
cross is considered rightly by us as the slogan of our working
and weaving and feeling. Not the black cross only. Somebody who
tears the roses from the black cross would only have the black
cross, would be enslaved by Ahriman. The black cross is the
life striving for the bare matter. And anybody who tears the
cross from the roses and prefers only to have the roses does
not find the right. Since the roses, separated from the cross,
would raise us to life, but this life would strive egoistically
for spirituality and not reveal something spiritual in the
material. Not only the cross, not only the roses, but the roses
on the cross, the cross bearing the roses, both in harmonious
interaction: this is our right symbol.
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