LECTURE TEN
It might seem at first sight that in the
centuries immediately following the Mystery of Golgotha
mankind had not been touched by the light of spiritual
illumination; that this was the normal condition of mankind
and increasingly so up to the present day. This is not so,
however. If we wish to see these things in perspective we
must distinguish between the prevailing spirit of mankind and
that which occurs here and there in the life of mankind and
may play a decisive part in the different spheres of life. It
would be most discouraging for many today to be told of the
existence of a spiritual world, but that the doors to this
world were closed to them. And there are many at the present
time who have come to this depressing conclusion. The reason
for this is not far to seek. Where there is a clear
possibility of gaining insight into the spiritual world they
refuse to commit themselves unreservedly. Nor have they the
courage to pass an objective judgement on this issue. It may
seem therefore — but in reality it is only apparently
so — that today we are far removed from those early
times when the spiritual world was revealed to the whole of
mankind through atavistic clairvoyance, or from the later
times when the few could find access to the spirit through
initiation into the Mysteries. We must draw together certain
strands which link early periods of human evolution with the
present if we wish to arrive at a full understanding of the
mystery of man's destiny and especially of those
phenomena we have discussed in these lectures in connection
with the nature of the Mysteries. I should like to select an
example from recent times which is accessible to all and
which will lend encouragement to those who are faced with the
decision of choosing paths leading to the spiritual world.
From the many examples at our disposal I would like to take
an example which demonstrates at the same time how these
phenomena are none the less misjudged from the materialistic
point of view of the present day — and will also be
misjudged in the immediate future.
No doubt you
have all heard of Otto Ludwig
(note 1)
who was born in 1813, in the same year as Hebbel and Richard
Wagner. Otto Ludwig was not only a poet — some may feel
perhaps that he was not in the front rank of poets, but that
does not concern us at the moment — but he was a man
given to introspection, who sought self-knowledge and who
succeeded in penetrating into the inner life which is veiled
from the majority today. Otto Ludwig describes very
beautifully what he experiences in the process of poetic
composition or when he reads the poetry of others and
surrenders to its appeal. He then realizes that he does not
read or compose like other men, but that an extraordinary
ferment is set up within him. And Otto Ludwig gives a
beautiful description of this in a passage I will now read to
you because it reveals a piece of self-knowledge of a
typically modern man who, in the course of this
self-revelation, speaks of things which our present
materialistic age regards as the wildest fantasy. But Otto
Ludwig was no visionary or idle dreamer. By nature he was
perhaps introspective, but if we take into consideration the
information we have about his life, we shall find that
alongside this introspective tendency there was something
eminently sane and balanced in his make-up. He describes his
own creative experience and his response to the poetry of
others in these words:
“I
experience first of all a musical impression which is
transformed into colour
(note 2).
Then I see one or more figures in various postures executing
formalized gestures, singly or facing each other, the whole
resembling a copper engraving on parchment, coloured paper
or, more precisely, like a marble statue or sculptural
group on which the sun falls through a veil of that colour.
I experience this colour phenomenon after reading poetry
which has stirred me deeply. If I put myself in the mood
which Goethe's poetry evokes I see a deep golden
yellow passing over into golden brown. When I read Schiller
I experience a brilliant crimson; with Shakespeare every
scene is a particular nuance of the particular colour I
associate with the whole drama. Strangely enough the image
or the group evoked is not usually a representation of the
denouement, sometimes it is only a characteristic figure in
some moving posture which is immediately joined by a
succession of other figures. At first I know nothing of the
plot or content of the drama, but ever fresh miming
figures, seemingly three-dimensional, are rapidly added,
now from the beginning, now from the end of the initial
dramatic situation until I experience the whole drama
complete with all its scenes. The whole passes before me in
rapid succession; meanwhile I remain passive and a kind of
physical anxiety grips me. I can then reproduce at will the
content of the individual scenes as they unfold; but I find
it impossible to condense the narrative content into a
brief account. Next the gestures are accompanied by speech.
I write down what I can recall, but, once the mood forsakes
me, what I have noted down becomes a dead letter. Then I
proceed to fill in the gaps in the dialogue, but for this
purpose I must cast a critical eye over what I have
written.”
Here then we
have the remarkable case of a man who experiences crimson-red
on reading Schiller, or golden yellow passing over into
golden brown on reading the dramas or poems of Goethe, who
experiences a colour sensation with every drama of
Shakespeare; who, when he composes or reads a poem sees
figures like those of a copper engraving printed on a
parchment-coloured background, or three-dimensional miming
figures on which the sun falls through a veil which diffuses
the light that evokes the total mood.
Now we must
understand this experience in the correct way. It is not yet
a clairvoyant perception, but it is a step towards spiritual
vision. In order to have a right understanding of this mood
from the standpoint of Spiritual Science we must realize that
Otto Ludwig was no stranger to spiritual vision. For if he
were to advance further along this path he would not only
experience these visions, but, just as physical objects are
visible to the physical eye, spiritual beings would be
visible to his spiritual eye and he would know them as an
inner experience. Just as we see scattered light when we
gently rub our eyes in the dark, light that seemingly
radiates from the eye and fills the room, so from his inner
life Ludwig radiates impressions of colour and tone. As he
rightly says, he experiences them first as musical
impressions. He does not exploit them in order to gain
spiritual insight; but we perceive that he is mature enough
spiritually to embark on the path leading to the spiritual
world.
It is no
longer possible to deny that there exist people who are aware
that “spiritual vision” is a reality, the vision
that the neophytes learned to develop in the Mysteries in the
way described in earlier lectures. For the real purpose of
these ceremonies was primarily to call attention to the eye
of the soul, to awaken man to the fact of its existence. That
the phenomena which I have just described to you are not
rightly understood today is evident from the observations of
Gustav Freytag
(note 3).
When speaking of Otto Ludwig, he says:
“The
work of this writer and indeed his whole makeup, was akin
to that of an epic poet of the time when, in the early dawn
of nations, the poetic figures were visioned by the poet as
living Imaginations imbued with colour and
sound.”
This
statement is perfectly correct, but has nothing to do with
poetic composition. For the experiences of Otto Ludwig were
not only shared by poets in ancient times, but by all men,
and were shared in later times by those who had been
initiated into the Mysteries irrespective of whether they
were poets or not. These experiences have therefore no
connection with poetic invention. Behind the barrier which
the materialist of today has erected in his own soul there is
to be found that which Otto Ludwig describes. It is found not
only in the poet, but in every man today. The fact that he
was a poet has nothing to do with the phenomenon of poetic
vision, but is something that accompanies it. One may be a
far greater poet than Otto Ludwig and that which one is able
to describe may remain entirely in the subconscious. It is
present in the substratum of the subconscious, but need not
manifest itself. For poetry, indeed art as a whole today, is
something other than the conscious fashioning of clairvoyant
impressions.
I quote the
case of Otto Ludwig as an example of a man — and men of
his type are by no means rare today — who stands on the
threshold of the spiritual world. If one practises the
exercises given in my book,
Knowledge of the Higher Worlds,
that which already exists in the soul is raised
into consciousness, so that one learns to use it or to apply
it consciously. It is important to bear this in mind. The
problem is not so much that it is difficult to reach the
hidden depths of the soul, but that people today lack the
courage to embark upon a spiritual training; and that for the
most part those who would willingly do so from a heartfelt
need to know and to understand, none the less feel
constrained to admit this need, albeit somewhat shamefacedly
in their own intimate circle, but conceal it when they later
find themselves in the company of contemporary intellectuals.
What we should characterize today as the right path, perhaps
because we live in the Michael Age since 1879, need not of
necessity be regarded as the only right path. Looking back
over the recent past it is possible that many may have
attained a high degree of clairvoyance, genuine clairvoyance;
there is no need for us therefore either to recognize fully
or to accept this clairvoyance unreservedly, nor to regard it
as something dangerous and to be rejected.
There are
certainly many factors which for some time have undermined
our courage to accept the validity of clairvoyance, and for
this reason the assessment of Swedenborg (who has often been
mentioned in your circle) has been so strange. He could act
as a stimulus to many, in that people might see in him an
individuality who had lifted to some extent the veils that
concealed the spiritual world. Swedenborg had developed a
high degree of Imaginative cognition which is a necessity for
all who would penetrate to the spiritual world. It was
indispensable to him; it was simply a kind of transition to
higher stages of knowledge. And it was especially his
clairvoyant sense for Imaginative cognition that he had
developed. But precisely because this Imaginative cognition
was stirring and pulsating in him he was able to make
observations about the relations between the spiritual world
and the phenomenal world, observations which are highly
significant for those who seek to clarify their ideas about
clairvoyance by studying the development of particular
personalities. I should like to take Swedenborg as an example
in order to illustrate how he came to self-understanding, how
he thought and felt in order to keep his inner life attuned
to the spiritual world. He was not motivated by egoism in his
search for the spirit. He was already fifty-five years old
when the doors of the spiritual world were opened to him
(note 4).
He was therefore a man of ripe
experience; he had received a sound scientific training and
had long been active in this field. The most important
scientific works of Swedenborg have just been published in
many volumes by the Stockholm Academy of Sciences and they
contain material that may well determine the course of
science for many years to come. But people today have learned
the trick of recognizing a man such as Swedenborg (who was
the leading scientist of his day) only in so far as they
agree with him; otherwise they label him a fool. And they
perform this trick with consummate skill. They attach no
importance to the fact that from the age of fifty-five
Swedenborg bears witness to the reality of the spiritual
world — a man whose scientific achievement not only
compares favourably with that of others — in itself no
mean feat — but who, as a scientist, stood head and
shoulders above his contemporaries.
Swedenborg
was particularly interested in the question of the
interaction of soul and body. After his spiritual
enlightenment he wrote a superb treatise on this subject. The
content was approximately as follows: In considering the
interrelation of body and soul there are three possibilities.
First, the body is the decisive factor; sense-impressions are
mediated by the body and react upon the soul. The soul
therefore is to some extent dependent upon the body. The
second possibility is that the body is dependent upon the
soul which is the source of the spiritual impulses. The soul
fashions the body and makes use of the body during its
lifetime. In this case one must speak not of a physical
influence, but of a psychic influence. The third possibility
is as follows: body and soul are contiguous, but do not
interact; a higher power brings about a harmony or agreement
between them just as two clocks which are independent of each
other agree when they show the time. When therefore an
external impression is made upon the senses, a thought
process is set up within the soul, but both are unrelated; a
corresponding impression is made upon the soul from within by
a higher power, just as an impression is made upon the soul
through the senses from without. Swedenborg points out that
the first and third possibilities are impossible for those
who are able to see into the spiritual world, that it is
evident to the spiritually enlightened that the soul by
virtue of its inner forces is related to a spiritual sun in
the same way as the (physical) body is related to the
physical sun. And he also shows that everything of a physical
nature is dependent upon soul and spirit. He throws fresh
light upon what we called the Sun mystery (when speaking of
the Mysteries), that mystery of which Julian the Apostate had
a dim recollection when he spoke of the sun as a spiritual
being. It was this which was the cause of his hostility to
Christianity because the Christianity of his day sought to
deny Christ's relation to the sun. Through Imaginative
cognition Swedenborg restored the Sun mystery as far as was
possible for his time.
I have placed
these facts before you in order to show what Swedenborg
experienced inwardly in the course of developing his
spiritual knowledge. His reflections upon the question I have
just touched upon were embodied in a kind of philosophical
treatise — the kind of treatise written by one who has
insight into the spiritual world, not the kind of treatise
written by the academic philosopher who is devoid of
spiritual vision. At the conclusion of his treatise
Swedenborg speaks of what he calls a “vision”.
And by this vision he does not imply something he has
conjured up, but something he has actually perceived with the
eye of the spirit. Swedenborg is not afraid to speak of his
spiritual visions. Furthermore he recounts what a particular
angel said to him because he is certain of the fact. He no
more doubts it than another doubts what a fellow human being
has told him. He said: “I was once ‘in the
spirit’; three Schoolmen appeared to me, disciples of
Aristotle, advocates of his doctrine that attributes a
physical influence to all that streams into the soul from
without. They appeared on the one side. On the other side
appeared three disciples of Descartes who spoke of spiritual
influences upon the soul, albeit somewhat inadequately. And
behind them appeared three disciples of Leibnitz who spoke of
the pre-established harmony, i.e. of the independence of body
and soul, of dissimilar monads existing and moving together
in a state of absolute harmony pre-established by God. And I
perceived nine figures who surrounded me. And the leaders of
each group of the three figures were Leibnitz, Descartes and
Aristotle, suffused in light”. Swedenborg spoke of this
vision as one speaks of an event in everyday life. Then, he
said, from out of the abyss there rose up a spirit with a
torch in his right hand and as he swung the torch in front of
the figures they immediately began to dispute amongst
themselves. The Aristotelians defended, from their
standpoint, the primacy of physical influences, the
Cartesians defended spiritual impulses, and likewise the
Leibnitzians defended, with the support of Leibnitz himself,
the idea of preestablished harmony. Such visions may describe
even the smallest details. Swedenborg tells us that Leibnitz
appeared dressed in a kind of toga and the lappets were held
by his disciple Wolf. Such details always accompany these
visions in which such peculiarities are very characteristic.
These figures, then, began to dispute amongst themselves.
They all had a good case — and any and every case can
be defended. Thereupon, after prolonged conflict, the spirit
appeared a second time. He carried the torch in his left hand
and lit up their heads from behind. Then the battle of words
was really joined. They said: “We cannot distinguish
which is our body and which is our soul.” And so they
agreed to cast three slips of paper into a box. On the one
slip was written “physical influence”, on the
second, “spiritual influence” and on the third,
“pre-established harmony”. Then they drew lots
and drew out “spiritual influence” and said:
“Let us agree to recognize spiritual influence.”
At that moment an angel descended from the upper world and
said: “It is not fortuitous that you drew out the slip
of paper labelled ‘spiritual influence’; that
choice had already been anticipated by the powers who in
their wisdom guide the world because it accords with the
truth.”
This is the
vision described by Swedenborg. It is open to anyone to
regard this vision as of no importance, perhaps even as
naive. The salient question however is not whether it is
naive or not, but that he experienced it. And that which at
first sight seems perhaps extremely naive has profound
implications. For that which in the phenomenal world appears
to be arbitrary, the vagary of chance, is something totally
different when seen symbolically from the spiritual angle. It
is difficult to come to an understanding of chance, because
chance is only a shadow-image of higher necessities.
Swedenborg wishes to indicate something of special
importance, namely that it is not he who wills it, but
“it” is willed in him. This vision arises because
“it” is willed in him. And this is an accurate
description of the way in which he arrived at his truths, an
accurate description of the spirit in which the treatise was
written. How did the Cartesians react? They sought to
demonstrate the idea of spiritual influence on purely human
and rational grounds. It is possible to arrive at the spirit
in this way but that seldom happens. The Aristotelians were
no better than the Cartesians; they defended the idea of the
spiritual influence, again on human grounds. The Leibnitzians
were certainly no better than the other two for they defended
the idea of “pre-established harmony”. Swedenborg
rejected these paths to the spirit; he did everything
possible to prepare himself to receive the truth. And this
waiting upon truth, not the determination of truth, this
passive acceptance of truth was his aim and was symbolized by
the drawing of the slips of paper from the box. This is of
vital importance.
We do not
appreciate these things at their true worth when we approach
them intellectually. We only appreciate them in the right way
when they are presented symbolically, even though intelligent
people may regard the symbol as naive. Our response to
symbols is different from our response to abstract ideas. The
symbol prepares our soul to receive the truth from the
spiritual world. That is the essential. And if we give
serious attention to these things we shall gradually
understand and develop ideas and concepts which are necessary
for mankind today, ideas which they must acquire by effort
and which appear to be inaccessible today simply because
people are antipathetic towards them — and for no other
reason — an antipathy that springs from
materialism.
The whole
purpose of our investigations was to study the course of
human evolution, first of all up to a decisive turning-point
— and this turning-point was the Mystery of Golgotha.
Then evolution continues and takes on a new course. These two
courses are radically different from each other. I have
already described in what respects they differed from each
other. In order fully to understand this difference let us
recall once again the following: in ancient times it was
always possible for man without special training of his
psychic life (in the Mysteries this was connected with
external ceremonies and cult acts) to be convinced of the
reality of the spiritual world through the performance of
these rites and ceremonies and thereby of his own
immortality, because this certainty of immortality was still
latent in his corporeal nature. After the Mystery of Golgotha
it was no longer possible for the physical body to
“distil” out of itself the conviction of
immortality; it could no longer “press” out of
itself, so to speak, the perception of immortality. This had
been prepared in the centuries before the Mystery of
Golgotha. It is most interesting to see how Aristotle, this
giant among philosophers, made every effort a few centuries
before the Mystery of Golgotha to grasp the idea of the
immortality of the soul; but the idea of immortality he
arrived at was a most remarkable conception. Man, in
Aristotle's opinion, is only a complete man when he
possesses a physical body. And Franz Brentano, one of the
best Aristotelians of recent time, says in his study of
Aristotle that man is no longer a complete man if some member
is lacking; how can he be a complete man when he lacks the
whole body? Therefore, to Aristotle, when the soul passes
through the gates of death it is of less significance than it
was when in the body here on Earth. This shows that he had
lost the capacity still to perceive the soul, whilst on the
other hand the original capacity to accept the immortality of
the soul still persisted. Now, strange to relate, Aristotle
was the leading philosopher throughout the Middle Ages. All
that can be known, said the Schoolmen, is known to Aristotle
and as philosophers we have no choice but to rely upon him
and follow in his footsteps. They had no intention of
developing spiritual powers or capacities beyond the limits
set by Aristotelianism. And this is very significant, for it
explains clearly why Julian the Apostate rejected the
Christianity that was practised by the Church during the age
of Constantine. One must really see these things from a
higher perspective. Apart from Franz Brentano, one of the
leading Aristotelians of our time, I was personally
acquainted with Vincenz Knauer, a Benedictine monk, whose
relationship to Aristotle as a Roman Catholic was identical
with that of the Schoolmen. In speaking of Aristotle he
sought to discover at the same time what could be known of
the immortality of the soul by purely human knowledge. And
Knauer gave the following interesting summary of his
opinion:
“The
soul, that is, in this connection, the departed spirit
— i.e. the soul of man that has passed through the
gates of death — finds itself, according to
Aristotle, not in a more perfect state, but in a highly
imperfect state, inappropriate to its destiny. The image of
the soul is by no means that which is often employed,
namely, the image of a butterfly which after shedding its
chrysalis takes wing. Rather does the soul resemble a
butterfly whose wings have been torn off by a cruel hand
and now crawls helplessly in the dust in the form of a
miserable worm.”
It is very
significant that those who are well versed in Aristotle admit
that human knowledge could arrive at no other conclusion. And
a certain effort therefore is demanded of us to resist the
consequences of this attitude of mind. The materialism of the
present time is unwittingly influenced by the Conciliar
decree of 869 which abolished the spirit and declared that
man consisted of body and soul only.
Modern
materialism goes even further; it proposes to abolish the
soul as well. That of course is the logical sequel. We need
therefore both courage and determination in order to find our
way back again to the spirit in the right way. Now Julian the
Apostate who had been initiated into the Eleusinian Mysteries
was aware that a specific spiritual training could lead to
the realization that the soul is immortal. This Sun mystery
was known to him. And he now became aware of something that
filled him with alarm. He was unable to grasp the fact that
what he feared so much was a necessity. When he looked back
to ancient times he realized that directly or indirectly
through the Mysteries man was guided by Cosmic Powers, Beings
and Forces. He realized that this may happen on the physical
plane, that it is ordained from spiritual spheres because men
have insight into these spiritual spheres. In Constantinism
he saw a form of Christianity emerge which modelled Christian
society and the organization of Christianity on the original
principles of the Roman empire. He saw that Christianity had
infiltrated into that which the Roman empire had intended for
the external social order only. And he saw that the
divine-spiritual had been harnessed to the Imperium Romanum.
And this appalled him; he was unable to bring himself to
admit that this was a necessity for a brief period. He
realized that there was wide disparity between the mighty
impulses of human evolution and what happened historically. I
have often called attention to the need to bear in mind the
golden age of the rise of Christianity before the era of
Constantine. For at that time powerful spiritual impulses
were at work which had been obscured solely because
man's independent search for knowledge which he owed to
the Christ Impulse had been harnessed to the Conciliar
decrees.
If we look
back to Origen and to Clement of Alexandria we find men who
were open-minded, men still imbued with the Greek spirit: yet
they were also conscious of the significance of what had been
accomplished through the Mystery of Golgotha. Their
conception of this Mystery and of the crucified Christ is
considered to be pure heresy in the eyes of all denominations
today. In reality the great Church Fathers of the
pre-Constantine age who are recognized by the Church are the
worst heretics of all. Though they were aware of the
significance of the Mystery of Golgotha for the evolution of
the Earth, they gave no indication of wishing to suppress the
path to the Mystery of Golgotha, the gate to the Mysteries or
the path of the old clairvoyance, which had been the aim of
the Christianity of Constantine. In Clement of Alexandria
especially we see that his works are shot through with great
mysteries, mysteries which are so veiled that it is even
difficult for contemporary man to make head or tail of them.
Clement speaks of the Logos for example, of the wisdom that
streams through and permeates the Universe. He pictures the
Logos as music of the spheres fraught with meaning, and the
visible world as the expression of the music of the spheres,
just as the visible vibration of the strings of a musical
instrument is the expression of the sound waves. Thus, in the
eyes of Clement, the human form is made in the image of the
Logos; that is, to Clement the Logos is a reality and he sees
the human form as a fusion of tones from the music of the
spheres. Man, he says, is made in the image of the Logos. And
in many of Clement's utterances we find traces of that
supernal wisdom that dwelt in him, a wisdom illuminated by
the Christ Impulse. If you compare these utterances of
Clement of Alexandria with the prevailing attitude today then
the claim to recognize a man such as Clement of Alexandria
without understanding him will appear as more than passing
strange.
When it is
said that the aim of Spiritual Science is to follow in the
main stream of Christianity, to be a new flowering of
Christianity to meet the needs of our time, then the cry is
raised — the ancient Gnosis is being revived! And at the
mention of Gnosis many professing Christians today begin to
cross themselves as if faced by the devil incarnate. Gnosis
for today is Spiritual Science; but the more developed gnosis
of the present time is different from the gnosis known to
Clement of Alexandria. What were the views of Clement of
Alexandria who lived in the latter half of the second
century? Faith, he says, is our starting-point — the orthodox
Christian of today is satisfied with faith alone and asks no
more. Faith, according to Clement, is already knowledge, but
concise knowledge of what is needed; gnosis however confirms
and reinforces what we believe, is founded on faith through
the teaching of Our Lord and so leads to a faith that is
scientifically acceptable and irrefutable. In these words
Clement of Alexandria expresses for his time what we must
realize today. Christianity therefore demands that gnosis,
the Spiritual Science of today, must actively participate in
the development of Christianity. But the modern philistine
protests: “We must distinguish between science (which
he would limit to sense experience) and faith. Faith must
have no part in science.” Clement of Alexandria however
says: To faith is added gnosis, to gnosis love, and to love
the “Kingdom”. This is one of the most profound
utterances of the human spirit because it bears witness to an
intimate union with the life of the spirit. First we are
nourished in faith; but to faith is added gnosis, that is,
knowledge or understanding. Out of this living knowledge,
i.e. when we penetrate deeply into things, there is first
born genuine love through which our Divine inheritance
operates. Mankind can only be the vehicle of the influx of
the Divine as it was in the “beginning” if to
faith is added gnosis, to gnosis love and to love the
“Kingdom”. We must look upon these utterances as
bearing witness to the deep spirituality of Clement.
Difficult as
it may seem we must make the true form of Christian life once
again accessible to mankind today. It is important to see
certain things for what they are today and we shall then know
where to look for the real cause of our present tribulations
(i.e. the War of 1914). The effect of these calamities is
such that, as a rule, no attempt is made to discover what
really lies behind them. When, for example, an Alpine village
is buried beneath an avalanche, everyone sees the avalanche
crash down; but if we want to discover the cause of the
avalanche we must look for it perhaps in an ice-crystal where
the snow-slip began. It is easy enough to observe the
destruction of the village by the avalanche, but it is not so
easy to provide tangible evidence that the disaster was
caused by an ice-crystal. And so it is with the great events
of history! It is evident that mankind is now caught up in a
terrible catastrophe; this is the conflagration that has
overwhelmed us. We have to look for the sparks — and
they are many — which first set the conflagration
alight. But we do not pursue our enquiries far enough in
order to ascertain where the conflagration first began. Today
we are afraid to see things for what they are.
Let us assume
that we wish to form an opinion about a certain field of
science. Usually we rely upon the opinion of the specialist
in that particular field. Why is his opinion accepted as
authoritative? Simply because he is an expert in this field.
Generally speaking it is the specialist or university
professor who determines what is accepted as scientific
today. Let us take a concrete case. I am well aware that it
does not make for popularity to call a spade a spade, but
that is no matter. But unless an increasing number of people
is prepared to get to the root of things today we shall not
overcome our present tribulations. Let us assume that a
leading authority says the following: people are always
talking about man in terms of body and soul. This idea of the
dualism of body and soul is fundamentally unsatisfactory.
That we still speak of body and soul today is due to the fact
that we are dependent on a language that is already outmoded,
which we have inherited from an earlier epoch when people
were far more stupid than today. These people were so foolish
as to believe that the body and soul were separate entities.
When we speak of these matters today we are compelled to make
use of these terms; we are victims of a language which
belongs to the past. And our authority continues: we have to
accept body and soul as separate entities, but this is quite
unjustified. Anyone speaking from the present standpoint and
wholly uninfluenced by the views of ancient times would
perhaps say: let us assume here is a flower and here is a
man. I see his form and complexion, his external aspect, just
as I see that of the flower. The rest must be inferred.
— Now someone might come along and object: that is
true, but the man in question also sees the flower in his
soul. But that is pure illusion. What I really receive from
the perception of a flower or a stone is a sense-impression
and the same is true of the man in question. The idea that an
inner image persists in the soul is pure illusion. The only
things we know are external relationships.
You will say
that you can make nothing of this argument! And a good thing
too, because it is a farrago of nonsense, it is the acme of
stupidity. This crass stupidity is supported by all kinds of
careful laboratory investigations into the human brain and
sundry clinical findings and so on. In short the man is a
fool. He is in a position to provide good clinical results
because laboratories are at his disposal; but the conclusions
which he draws from these findings are pure nonsense. Men of
this type are a commonplace today. To say these things does
not make for popularity. The cycle of lectures which has
appeared in book form by the man I am referring to —
strangely enough his name is
Verworn,
[original note 1]
I take this to be pure coincidence — is
called “The Mechanism of the Spiritual Life”. It
would be about as sensible to write about the
“ligneousness of iron” as about “the
mechanism of spiritual life”.
Now if this
is typical of the intellectual acumen of our most enlightened
minds it is not in the least surprising that if those
disciplines which are far from being accurate at least in
relation to external facts — and in this respect
Verworn is capable of accurate observation because he
describes what he sees, but unfortunately muddies everything
with his own foolish ideas — that if those disciplines
which are unsupported by external evidence such as political
science, for example, are exposed to the scientific mode of
thinking, then the greatest nonsense results. Political
science should be supported by thoughts that are rooted in
reality, but lacks these thoughts for reasons I have
indicated in my last lecture. And people are forcibly
reminded of this fact.
I referred
earlier in this lecture to Kjellén, one of the
leading Swedish thinkers. His book
The State as Organism
is ingenious; towards the end of the book he
puts forward a remarkable idea, but neither he, nor others
today, can make anything of it. He quotes a certain
Fustel de Coulanges
(note 5),
author of
La Cité antique,
who showed that when
we analyse pre-Christian political and social institutions we
find that they are entirely founded on religious rites and
observances; the entire State has a social and spiritual
foundation. Thus people are willy-nilly brought face to face
with the facts, for I pointed out in my last lecture that the
social order stemmed from the Mysteries and had a spiritual
origin. In studying the body politic or political science
people are faced with these questions but are at a loss to
understand them. They can make nothing of what even history
reports when they can no longer rely upon documents.
And still
less can they make anything of the other idea which I
indicated as a new path to the Christ. This idea which we
find especially in the Mysteries and in Plato's
writings, that remarkable echo of the Mystery teachings must
arise once again. The central figure of Plato's
dialogues is Socrates surrounded by his disciples. In the
debate between Socrates and his disciples Plato unfolds his
teachings. In his writings Plato was in communion with
Socrates after the latter's death. Now this is
something more than a literary device. It is the
continuation, the echo of what was practised in the Mysteries
where the neophytes were gradually prepared for communion
with the souls of the dead who continue to direct the
sensible world from the spiritual world. Plato's
philosophy is developed out of his communion with Socrates,
after the death of Socrates. This idea must be revived again
and I have already indicated what form it must take. We must
get beyond the dry bones of history, beyond the mere
recording of external events. We must be able to commune with
the dead, to let the thoughts of the dead arise in us once
again. It is in this sense that we must be able to take
seriously the idea of resurrection. It is through personal
inner experience that Christ reveals Himself to mankind. It
is by following this path that the truth of the Christ can
be demonstrated. But this path demands of us that we develop
the will in our thinking. If we can develop only
such thoughts as are suited to the observation of the
external world we cannot arrive at those thoughts which are
really in touch with the dead. We must acquire the capacity
to draw thoughts from the well of our inmost being. Our will
must be prepared to unite with reality, and then the will
which is thus spiritualised by its incorporation in our
thinking will encounter spiritual beings, just as the hand
encounters a physical object in the external world. And the
first spiritual beings we encounter will, as a rule, be the
dead with whom we are in some way karmically connected. You
must not expect to find guidance in these abstruse matters
from a set of written instructions which can be carried about
in one's waistcoat pocket. Things are not as simple as
that. One encounters well-intentioned people who ask: How do
I distinguish between dream and reality, between phantasy and
reality? In the individual case one should not attempt to
distinguish between them in accordance with a fixed rule. The
whole soul must be gradually attuned so that it can pass
judgement in the individual case, just as in the external
world we seek to pass judgement irrespective of the
individual case. We must develop a wider perspective in order
to form a judgement about the particular case. The dream may
be a close approximation to reality, but it is not possible
in the individual case to state categorically: this is the
right and proper way to distinguish a mere dream from
reality. Indeed what I am saying at the moment may not apply
in specific cases, because other points of view must be taken
into consideration. It is important to develop in ourselves
the power to discriminate in spiritual matters.
Let us take
the familiar case of a person who is dreaming or who imagines
he is dreaming. Now it is not easy to distinguish between
dream and reality. People who study dreams today follow in
the footsteps of Herr Verworn. He says that one can undertake
an interesting experiment. He quotes the following example.
Someone taps with a pin on the window of a house where the
occupant is asleep. He is dreaming at the time, wakes up and
says he had heard rifle-fire. The dream, according to
Verworn, exaggerates. The tappings of the pin on the
window-pane have become rifle-shots. Verworn explains this in
the following way: we assume that in waking consciousness the
brain is fully active. In dream consciousness the brain
activity is diminished; only the peripheral consciousness is
active. Normally the brain plays no part; its activity is
diminished. That is why the dream is so bizarre and why,
therefore, the tappings of the pin turn into rifle-fire. Now
the public is highly credulous. They are first told in the
relevant passage in Verworn's book that the dream
exaggerates and then, later on, they are told (not precisely
in the words I have used) that the brain is less active and
therefore the dream appears bizarre. The reader has meanwhile
already forgotten what was told in the first place. He is
unable to relate the two statements and simply says: the
State has appointed an expert in these matters and so we must
accept his word. Now, as you know, belief in authority is
taboo today. He who does not hold these views about the dream
may none the less feel that the following way of thinking
might well be the right approach. Let us assume you are
dreaming of a friend who is dead. You dream, or believe you
are dreaming that you are sharing some situation in common
with him — and then you wake up. Your first thought on
awakening is of course: but he died some time ago! But in
the dream it never occurred to you that he was dead. Now you
can find many ingenious explanations of this dream if you
refer to Verworn's book,
The Mechanism of the Spirit.
But if this is a dream, and a dream is only a
memory of everyday life, you will have difficulty in
understanding why the foremost thought in your mind, namely
the death of your friend, plays no part in the dream when you
have just experienced a situation which you know for certain
you could not have shared with him when alive. You are then
justified in saying: I have now experienced with X something
I could not have experienced in life, something that I have
not only not experienced, but which would have been
impossible in our normal relationship. Assuming that the soul
of X, the real soul, which has passed through the gates of
death is behind this dream-picture, is it not self-evident
that you do not share his death experience? There is no
reason why X's soul should appear to be dead since it
still lives on. If you take these two factors into
consideration — perhaps in conjunction with other
factors — you will conclude: my dream-picture veils a
real meeting with the soul of X. The thought of death never
occurs to me because the dream is not a memory of everyday
life: in the dream I receive an authentic visitation from the
deceased (i.e. X). I now experience the visitation in the
form of a dream-picture, a situation which could not have
arisen under the normal circumstances of everyday life.
Furthermore the thought of death never occurs to me because
the soul of the deceased persists. And then you have every
reason for saying: when I experience this apparent dream I
inhabit a realm where physical memory does not operate
— and what I am about to say is most
important — for it is characteristic of our physical life
that our physical memory remains unimpaired. This memory does
not exist to the same extent, nor is it of the same nature in
the world of spirit which we enter at death. The memory which
we need for the world of the spirit we must first develop in
ourselves. The physical memory is tied to the physical body.
Therefore anyone who is familiar with the super-sensible realm
knows that the physical memory cannot enter there. It is not
surprising that we have no memory of the deceased; but we are
aware that we are in communion with the living soul of X.
Those who are
acquainted with this fact maintain that what we call memory
in the physical life is something totally different in the
spiritual life. Anyone who has succumbed to the impact of
Dante's great work, the “Divine Comedy”
will never doubt, if he has spiritual discernment, that Dante
experienced spiritual visions, that he had insight into the
world of the spirit. He who comprehends the language of those
who were familiar with the world of the spirit will find
convincing proof of this in Dante's introduction to the
“Divine Comedy”. Dante was well versed in
spiritual knowledge; he was no dilettante in matters of the
spirit; he was, so to speak, an expert in this field. He was
aware that normal memory does not operate in the realm where
we are in communion with the dead. He often speaks of the
dead, of how the dead dwell in the “Light”. In
the “Divine Comedy” you will find these beautiful
lines on the theme of memory:
“O Light supreme, by mortal
thought unscanned,
Grant that Thy former aspect may return,
Once more a little of Thyself relend.
Make strong my tongue that in its words may burn
One single spark of all Thy glory's light
For future generations to discern.
For if my memory but glimpse the sight
Whereof these lines would now a little say,
Men may the better estimate Thy might.”
(Paradiso. Canto XXXIII)
[original note 2]
Thus Dante was aware that it is impossible
with normal memory to grasp that which could originate in the
spiritual world. There are many today who ask: why should we
aspire to the spiritual world when we have enough to contend
with in the physical world; the ordinary man seeks a
practical answer to the problems of this life! — But
have these people any reason to believe that those who were
initiated into the Mysteries in ancient times were any less
concerned with the physical world? The initiates knew that
the spiritual world permeates the physical world, that the
dead are unquestionably active amongst us even though people
deny it. And they knew that this denial merely creates
confusion. He who denies that those who have passed through
the gates of death exercise an influence on this world
resembles the man who says: “Nonsense! I don't
believe a word you say” — and then proceeds to
behave as if he did believe it. It is not so easy, of course,
to give direct proof of the havoc that is wrought when the
influx of the spiritual world into the physical world is not
taken into account, when people act on the assumption that
this interaction can be ignored. Our epoch shows little
inclination to bridge the gap that separates us from the
kingdom where the dead and the higher Beings dwell. In many
respects our present epoch harbours a veritable antipathy
towards the world of the spirit. And it is the duty of the
spiritual scientist who is really honest and sincere to be
aware of the forces that are hostile to the development of
Anthroposophy. For there are deep underlying reasons for this
hostility and they stem from the same sources which are
responsible for all the forces which are today in active
opposition to the true progress of mankind.
Original Notes:
Note 1.
In the German text there is a play upon the word. If
pronounced with an open “0” and a rolled
“R” it gives the word verworren,
i.e. muddle-headed or confused.
Note 2.
Translation by Dorothy L. Sayers and Barbara Reynolds,
Penguin Classics, 1962.
NOTES BY
TRANSLATOR
Note 1.
Otto Ludwig (1813–65). Best known for his realist novels
Der Erbförster
and
Zwischen Himmel and Erde,
genre painting with careful observation of detail. He coined
the term “poetischer Realismus”. His “Shakespeare
Studien” showed preoccupation with dramatic theory.
During his process of poetic creation he experienced a
spectrum of colours and forms, known as
“synaesthesia”.
Note 2.
“Synaesthesia” had first
been foreshadowed by E. P. A. Hoffman in
Kreisleriana.
The hearing of a word or sound
evokes a sensation of colour varying in accordance with the
quality of the sound (cf. Baudelaire's sonnet
“Correspondances” — “les parfums,
les couleurs et les sons se repondent” and
Rimbaud's sonnet “Voyelles” in which a
definite colour-value is ascribed to each of the five
vowels). F. W. H. Myers described synaesthesia as follows:
“When the hearing of an external sound carries with
it, by some arbitrary association of ideas, the seeing of
some form or colour.”
Note 3.
Freytag (1816–95). Author of
realistic novels which extolled the virtues of the German
middle class —
Soll and Haben, Die Ahnen.
Note 4.
Swedenborg (1688–1772), engineer, scientist, philosopher
and theologian. In his
Arcana Caelestia
he wrote: “... it has
been granted me now for some years to be constantly and
continuously in the company of spirits and angels, hearing
them speak and speaking with them in turn. It has been
given to me to hear and see the wonderful things which are
in the other life ... I have been instructed there in
regard to different kinds of spirits; the state of souls
after death ... and especially concerning the doctrine of
faith which is acknowledged in the universal
Heaven.”
Note 5.
Fustel de Coulanges (1830–89).
Originator of the scientific approach to history. His
Cité antique
showed that ancient institutions
derived from religious beliefs common to primitive peoples.
It was a study of the part played by religion in the
political and social evolution of Greece and Rome.
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