Lecture III
6th January 1918.
We have been endeavouring in these lectures to understand something
of the course of mankind's evolution; we have sought to follow up the
deeper foundations of such Myths as the Osiris-Isis Myth; we have
further sought to find our way again, from a certain aspect, in the
world of the Greek Gods. We have lightly touched upon the inner
meaning of the concepts which perhaps do not come to clear
expression, but which underlie the poetic myths of Egypt and Greece,
and have sought to study, at any rate to indicate, the connection
between the basis of these myths and the Old Testament doctrines.
These Old Testament doctrines have sprung from a different spirit
from that of the mythology of the Egyptians and the Greeks. We have
seen that the Egyptian and Grecian mythologies in the manner of their
structure, are derived from certain ancient experiences of mankind.
They are based on a certain consciousness that humanity once
possessed atavistic clairvoyance, and through the atavistic
clairvoyance had stood in the same inner relation to the spirit
pervading Nature, as later on man is related between birth and death
to the things of the senses. We have seen that for this old atavistic
knowledge the far-reaching world-conception, which was an inner
experience, signified more than the mere sense-perception knowledge
of the transitional humanity to which we still belong.
All that had arisen as
pictures in the Egyptian and the Greek mythology, or better to say,
contemplation of the Gods, is to be found in the Old Testament
as actual doctrine, with the key-note of morality. In fact,
the day before yesterday, as I spoke of the important difference
between the mythology of Egypt and Greece and the Old Testament, I
told you that the divine spiritual Beings who stand at the
beginning of the Old Testament, the Elohim, Jahve, can only be
thought of as together creating mankind. We can only think of
them as producing through their deeds what we call earthly humanity.
In fact the whole evolution of earthly man is only accomplished
according to the fundamental deed of the Elohim, of Jahve. I said
that that is not the case in Egyptian or Greek mythology. There men
looked back into ancient times and said to themselves: the Gods
Osiris, Isis, Zeus, Apollo, Mars, Pallas, who are now connected with
the guidance of human destiny, they have arisen from other
generations of Gods, but men were already in existence. The
Egyptian and the Greek mythology traced man back to older times in
which those Gods were not yet creating and ruling who were recognized
in their own times. Thus men in Egypt and Greece ascribed to
themselves a greater antiquity than that of the Gods then in power.
This is so fundamental
and significant a difference that one must bear it well in mind. In
the course of these studies we shall see to what an infinitely
important and significant fact this conception points. In the
Old Testament doctrine the Gods who were revered were at the same
time the Gods who created the human race. Only because the Old
Testament doctrine makes the Divine the creator of man, only through
this was it possible for the Old Testament doctrine to insert at the
same time the moral element, moral impulse, into the divine
order and hence into the whole ordering of mankind, into Providence,
one might say.
This is important for
an understanding of the present-day world conception. For the world
concepts of today are not derived in any very definite way from a
uniform source; they have very different origins, and we bear much
within us in which we believe, which we profess as modern men, that
is directly rooted in Greek ideas. We bear much within us, especially
the immediate present bears much in it, that points back to the Old
Testament. The search of many human beings to find their right way
among these often contradictory concepts and ideas, comes through the
impulse that proceeds from the Mystery of Golgotha. This all
lies as yet in our programme and we shall have to build it up in the
time we are still vouchsafed to be together.
It is above all
important that we can lay one thing as a foundation; I have
already referred to it yesterday. We have often related that we are
living, since the 15th century, in the fifth Post-Atlantean epoch,
and in a certain connection, I said, certain impulses of the
third Post-Atlantean epoch, the Egypto-Chaldean must reappear in the
fifth, just as in the sixth Post-Atlantean epoch, certain impulses of
the second, the Zarathustra, the Old Persian epoch will light up, and
as in the last Post-Atlantean epoch, the seventh, certain impulses of
the original Indian epoch will light up again. That is a law in the
course of human evolution which points in a significant manner to the
essentials standing spiritually before mankind up to the new
catastrophe that is to come like a catastrophe of nature.
Now we have seen in
part what immense depth of human consciousness in ancient times
is expressed in the fact that these ancient ages evolved the
Osiris-myth. We have seen that this early age meant to say: there
once lived a perception among men through which man could still
directly experience the spiritual in his natural surroundings in
his atavistic imaginations. That was the age in which Osiris ruled.
But the new perceptions, the Typhon perceptions, those perceptions
that have made the letter-script from the picture-script, those
perceptions which from the primeval sacred language which men used to
speak in common have formed the individually sounding languages,
these perceptions of Typhon, they have slain what lived in humanity
as the Osiris-impulse. So that since then Osiris is a Being at the
side of men only when they are between death and a new birth.
We have then followed
the Osiris-Isis Legend in its essentials, have seen how Osiris was
regarded as a primeval ruler of Egypt who brought the Egyptians the
most important of their arts, who ruled in Egypt throughout long
ages, who also traveled from Egypt into other lands, and not by the
sword but by persuasion brought them the benefits of the arts
taught in Egypt. During his absence upon journeys, as he conferred on
other lands the benefits with which he had instructed the Egyptians,
Typhon, his wicked brother, introduced innovations into his own land
of Egypt. And then as Osiris returned he was slain by Typhon despite
the watchfulness of his consort Isis. Then Isis sought everywhere for
Osiris. Through boys so says the legend it was
revealed to her that the coffin had been carried away by the sea; she
discovered it then in Byblos in Phoenicia and brought it back to
Egypt. Typhon cut up the corpse into fourteen pieces. Isis
collected the pieces; with the use of spices and by other means she
was able to give each piece the appearance of Osiris again. She then
induced the priests to accept a third of the land from her, and by
being in possession of a third of the land, on the one hand they
should keep the grave of Osiris secret, on the other hand institute
the Osiris cult that is to say, a memorial service of
the ancient Osiris-time, to keep in memory that there had once been a
different perception in humanity. This remembrance was thenceforward
to be preserved and all sorts of secrets surrounded it. The time in
which Typhon had slain Osiris was indicated to be the time in the
November days of autumn when the sun sets in the seventeenth degree
of Scorpio, and opposite in Taurus the moon appears in the Pleiades
as full-moon.
Then it was related
that Osiris once more betook himself from the Underworld, where he
rules over the dead and judges them, to the Upperworld in order to
instruct his son Horus, whom he had had by Isis. It is further
related by the legend that Isis let herself be induced to set free
Typhon, whom she had held imprisoned. Her son Horus, instructed by
Osiris, grew so angry at this that he came in conflict with Isis his
mother and seized the crown from her. Then it is related that either
he himself, or, in other versions, Hermes, set cow-horns upon her
head in place of the crown, and since then she has been portrayed
with these.
Now you see Isis in
ancient Egyptian myths standing there at the side of Osiris. And for
the feeling of the old Egyptians she was not only a mysterious deity,
a mysterious spirit-being who stood in inner relation with the
ordering of the world, but one could say that Isis was the epitome of
all the deepest thoughts the Egyptians were able to form about the
archetypal forces working in nature and in man. If the Egyptian was
to look up to the great mysteries in his surroundings, then he must
look up to Isis who had a statue in the temple at Sais which has
become famous. Beneath this statue, as is well known, stood the
inscription that should express the being of Isis: ‘I am the
All, I am the Past, the Present and the Future; no mortal has yet
lifted my veil.’
Especially in the later
period of the Egyptian civilization that was a central thought. And
in gazing at the mysteries of Isis, one remembered the other
mysteries of the ancient Osiris age. And in connection with Isis,
with the Isis at the sight of whom the pious Egyptian trembled when
he let the words work upon him: ‘I am the All, I am the Past,
the Present and the Future, no mortal has yet lifted my veil;’
when these words worked upon him the Egyptian remembered at the same
time that Isis was once united with Osiris, when Osiris still
wandered upon earth. The laity looked at it as legendary. In the
mysteries the Priests explained that the ancient Osiris time was
that in which the old clairvoyance united man with the spirit of
nature all about him.
For an understanding of
the Osiris-Isis legend or myth at the present day, one must view it
with the sensations and feelings which were in the soul, in the
heart, of the Egyptian. We have done so in a few characteristic
features to begin with. And through these characteristic features
there is to stand before our soul's gaze that which once sounded over
from ancient times into newer times, which lost its meaning through
the Mystery of Golgotha, but must be again unriddled today
precisely for the better understanding of the Mystery of
Golgotha. There must stand before our soul's gaze all the mystery
that at first could only be divined when the Egyptian felt the words
that gave the description of Isis: ‘I am the All, I am the
Past, the Present and the Future; no mortal has yet lifted my veil.’
For, my dear friends, we will set opposite this Osiris-Isis myth
another Osiris-Isis myth, quite another one. And in the relation of
this other Osiris-Isis myth I must count upon your freedom from
prejudice, your impartiality in the highest degree, in order that you
do not misunderstand it. This other Osiris-Isis myth is in no way
born out of foolish arrogance, it is born in humility; it is also of
such a nature that perhaps it can only be related today in a most
imperfect way. But I will try to characterize its features in a
few words.
It is in the first
place left to each one though that can only be provisionally
to fix the time when this Osiris-Isis myth was related in a
way that I can only relate today approximately, superficially, even
banally. But, as I said, I will try to relate this other Osiris-Isis
myth disregarding as much as possible many prejudices and calling
upon your unbiased understanding. This other Osiris-Isis myth then
has somewhat I say ‘somewhat’ the
following contents. ‘It was in the age of scientific
profundity, in the midst of the land of Philisterium. Upon a hill in
spiritual seclusion was erected a Building which was considered to be
very remarkable in the land of Philisterium.’
(I should just like to
say that the future commentator here adds a remark that by ‘the
land of Philisterium’ not merely the very nearest environment
is meant.)
If one wanted to use
the language of Goethe one could say that the Building represented an
‘open secret’. For the Building was closed to none, it
was open to all, and in fact everyone could see it at convenient
times. But far the greater number of people saw nothing at all. Far
the greater number of people saw neither what was built nor what this
represented. Far the greater number of people stood to use
Goethe's words again before an ‘open secret’, a
completely open secret.
A statue was intended
to be the central point of the Building. This statue presented a
Group of beings: the Representative of Man, then Luciferic
and Ahrimanic figures. People looked at the statue and did not know
in the age of scientific profundity in the land Philisterium that the
Statue, in fact, was only the veil for an invisible statue. But the
invisible statue was not noticed by people, for it was the new
Isis, the Isis of a new age.
Some few persons of the
land of scientific profundity had once heard of this remarkable
connection between what was visible and what, as Isis-image, was
concealed behind what was open and evident. And then in their
profound allegorical-symbolical manner of speech they had put forward
the assertion that this combination of the Representative of Man with
Lucifer and Ahriman signified Isis. With this word ‘signified’,
however, they not only ruined the artistic intention from which the
whole thing was supposed to proceed for an artistic creation
does not merely signify something, but is something but they
completely misunderstood all that underlay it. For it was not in
the least the point that the figures signified something, but that
they already were what they appeared to be. And behind the figures
was not an abstract new Isis, but an actual, real new Isis. The
figures ‘signified’ nothing at all, but they were in
fact, in themselves, that which they made themselves out to be.
But they possessed the peculiarity that behind them there was the
real being, the new Isis.
Some few who in special
circumstances, in special moments, had nevertheless seen this new
Isis, found that she is asleep. And so one can say: the real
deeper-lying statue that conceals itself behind the external statue
is the sleeping new Isis, a sleeping figure visible
but seen by few. Many persons then turned in special moments to the
inscription, which is plainly there at the spot where the statue
stands in preparation, but which also has been read by few. And yet
the inscription stands clearly there, just as clearly as the
inscription once stood on the veiled form at Sais. In fact the
inscription stands there: ‘I am Man, I am the Past, the Present
and the Future. Every mortal should lift my veil.’
Another figure, as a
visitor, once approached the sleeping figure of the new Isis, and
then again and again. And the sleeping Isis considered this visitor
her special benefactor and loved him. And one day she believed in a
particular illusion, just as the visitor believed one day in a
particular illusion: the new Isis had an offspring and she
considered the visitor whom she looked on as her benefactor, to be
the father. He regarded himself as the father, but he was not. The
spirit-visitor, who was none other than the new Typhon, believed that
he could acquire a special increase of his power in the world if he
took possession of this new Isis. So the new Isis had an offspring,
but she did not know its nature, she knew nothing of the being of
this new offspring. And she moved it about, she dragged it far off
into other lands, because she believed that she must do so. She
trailed the new offspring about, and since she had trailed and
dragged it through various regions of the world it fell to pieces
into fourteen parts through the very power of the world.
Thus the new Isis had
carried her offspring into the world and the world had dismembered it
in fourteen pieces. When the spirit-visitor, the new Typhon, had come
to know of this, he gathered together the fourteen pieces, and with
all the knowledge of natural scientific profundity he again made
a being, a single whole, out of the fourteen pieces. But in this
being there were only mechanical laws, the law of the machine. Thus a
being had arisen with the appearance of life, but with the laws of
the machine. And since this being had arisen out of fourteen pieces,
it could reproduce itself again, fourteen-fold. And Typhon could give
a reflection of his own being to each piece, so that each of the
fourteen offspring of the new Isis had a countenance that
resembled the new Typhon.
And Isis had to follow
all this strange affair, half-divining it; half-divining she could
see the whole miraculous change that had come to her offspring. She
knew that she had herself dragged it about, that she had herself
brought all this to pass. But there came a day when in its true, its
genuine form she could accept it again from a group of spirits who
were elemental spirits of nature, could receive it from nature
elementals.
As she received her
true offspring which only through an illusion had been stamped into
the offspring of Typhon, there dawned upon her a remarkable
clairvoyant vision: she suddenly noticed that she still had the
cow-horns of ancient Egypt, in spite of having become a new Isis.
And lo and behold, when
she had thus become clairvoyant, the power of her clairvoyance
summoned some say Typhon himself, some say, Mercury. And he
was obliged through the power of the clairvoyance of the new Isis to
set a crown on her head in the place where once the old Isis had had
the crown which Horus had seized from her, that is to say, on the
spot where she developed the cow-horns. But this crown was merely of
paper covered with all sorts of writings of a profoundly
scientific nature still it was of paper. And she now had two
crowns on her head, the cow-horns and the paper crown embellished
with all the wisdom of scientific profundity.
Through the strength of
her clairvoyance there one day arose in her the deep meaning, as far
as the age could reach, of that which is described in St. John's
Gospel as the Logos. There arose in her the Johannine
significance of the Mystery of Golgotha. Through this strength the
power of the cow-horns grasped the paper crown and changed it into an
actual golden crown of genuine substance.
These then are the main
features, my dear friends, that can be given of the new Osiris-Isis
Legend. I will not of course make myself the commentator who explains
this Osiris-Isis Legend. It is the other Osiris-Isis Legend. But it
must set one thing definitely before our souls: Even though the power
of action which is bound up with the new Isis statue is at first only
weak, exploring and attempting, it is to be the starting point of
something that is deeply justified in the impulses of the modern
age, deeply justified in what this age is meant to become and must
become.
In recent days we have
spoken of how the Word has withdrawn, as it were, from the
direct soul-experience from which it originally gushed forth as from
a spring. We have seen how we live in the age of abstractions, where
men's words and concepts have only an abstract meaning, where man
stands far away from reality. The power of the Word, the power of
the Logos, however, must be laid hold of again. The cow-horns of
the ancient Isis must take on quite a different form.
It is difficult to say
such things with the modern abstract words. For such things it is
better if you try to bring them before the eye of your soul in such
Imaginations as have been brought before you, and to work over these
Imaginations as Imaginations. It is very important for the new Isis,
through the power of the Word which is to be regained through
spiritual science, to transform the cow-horns, so that even the paper
crown which is written upon in the new deeply profound scientific
method, that even the paper crown will become a genuine golden crown.
‘So one day
someone came before the provisional form of the statue of the new
Isis, and up above at the left was placed a figure of humorous
deportment, which in its world-mood had something between
seriousness, a serious idea of the world and, one might say, even a
chuckling about the world. And lo and behold! as once upon a time
someone stood opposite this figure in a specially favourable moment,
the figure became alive and said quite facetiously: Humanity has only
forgotten the matter, but centuries ago something was placed before
the new humanity about the nature of the new humanity, in so far as
this new humanity is still only master of the abstract word, the
abstract concept, the abstract idea and is far removed from the
reality. This new humanity keeps well to words and always asks: Is it
a pumpkin or is it a flask? ... when it happens that a flask has been
made from a pumpkin ... always clings to definitions, always stops
short at words! In the 15th, 16th, 17th centuries so said the
chuckling being mankind still had self-knowledge about this
peculiar situation of taking words in a false sense, not relating
them to their true reality, but taking them in their most superficial
sense. Today, however, men themselves have already forgotten what was
put before them for the benefit of their self-knowledge, in the 15th,
16th, 17th centuries.’
And the being went on
chuckling and said: ‘What modern humanity should take as a real
recipe for its abstract spirit is depicted on a tombstone in Mölln
in the Lauenburg district. Because a tombstone stands there and on
this tombstone is drawn an owl (Eule) which holds before
itself a looking-glass (Spiegel). And it is related that Till
Eulenspiegel, after he had wandered through the world with all sorts
of buffoonery and pranks, was buried there. It is related that this
Till Eulenspiegel existed, that he was born in the year 1300, went to
Poland, even reached Rome and in Rome even had a wager with the
Court-jesters over all sorts of odds and ends of wisdom, and
committed all the other Till Eulenspiegelisms, which indeed are
to be read in the literature about Till Eulenspiegel himself.’
Learned men and
the men who are scholars, are indeed very learned today and
take everything with extraordinary gravity and significance
these have naturally discovered they have discovered various
things: for example, that there was no Homer, etc. the
scholars have naturally also discovered that there never was a Till
Eulenspiegel. One of the chief reasons why the actual bones of the
actual Till Eulenspiegel, who was only the representative of his age,
are not supposed to lie beneath the tombstone in Lauenburg, on which
is depicted the owl with the looking-glass, was because another
tombstone had been found in Belgium upon which there was likewise an
Owl with a mirror. Now the learned men naturally have said
for that is logical is it not, and logical are they all how
does it go in Shakespeare for they are all honourable men
all, all, all! logical are they all! They have said: if the
same sign is found in Lauenburg and Belgium then naturally no
Eulenspiegel existed at all.
Generally in life if
one finds a second time what one has found a first time, one takes
this as a reinforcement but it is logical, is it not, in
these things to take matters so. Well, we say, if I have one franc,
then I have one franc. I believe it. So long as I only know that I
have a franc, I believe it! But then I get another and I now have
two. Now I believe that I have not one at all! that is the
same logic. This is the logic in fact that is to be found in our
science if I were to recount to you how everywhere it is to
be found wry frequently! But what is the essential point of
the Eulenspiegel-buffoonery? Read it up in the book: the essential
thing of the Till Eulenspiegel-buffoonery always consists in the fact
that Eulenspiegel is given some sort of commission, and that he takes
it purely literally and naturally carries it out in the wrong way.
For obviously if, for instance to exaggerate somewhat
one were to say to Eulenspiegel (whom I now take as a representative
figure) ‘Bring me a doctor,’ he would take the word
literally and would bring a man who had graduated as doctor from a
University. But he would perhaps bring a man who was excuse
the strong language a perfect fool, he only went by the sound
of the word. All the fooleries of Till Eulenspiegel are like
this, he only goes by the wording. But this makes Till Eulenspiegel
precisely the representative of the present age. Eulenspiegelism is a
keynote in our modern times. Words today are far removed from their
original source, ideas are often still farther removed, and people do
not notice it, but behave in an Eulenspiegel way to what civilization
happens to serve up. It was therefore possible for Fritz Mauthner in
a philosophical dictionary to take all the philosophical
concepts that he could find and convince one that all these
philosophical concepts are actually merely words, that they no longer
have a connection with any kind of actuality. People have no notion
how far they are removed from reality in what today they call ideas,
and even ‘ideals’. In other words: mankind does not know
at all how it has made Eulenspiegel into its patron saint, how
Eulenspiegel is still wandering through the different lands.
One of the fundamental
evils indeed, of our time, rests on the fact that modern humanity
flees from Pallas Athene, that is, from the Goddess of Wisdom, and
clings to the symbol, the owl (Eule). And mankind no longer
has the least idea of it but it is true, as I have often
shown, that the foundation of external knowledge is only a reflection
but, my dear friends, in a mirror one sees that which one is!
And so the owl ... I mean the modern scientific profundity, sees in
the glass, in the world-maya illusion just simply its own face.
Over such matters as
these the being at the left above the modern Isis Statue chuckles and
sniggers, and over many other matters which, out of a certain
courtesy towards mankind, shall not be mentioned at the moment.
But, a feeling should
be called forth that with the peculiarity of this presentation of
human mysteries through the real existence of the Luciferic,
Ahrimanic, in connection with the Representative of humanity
itself, a state of consciousness is to be roused in mankind which
wakes those very impulses in the soul which are necessary for the
coming age.
‘In the Primal
Beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was a
God.’ But the word has become phrase, it has withdrawn from its
beginning. The word sounds and resounds, but its connection with
reality is not sought for; there is no endeavour among men to
investigate the primary forces of what goes on around them. And one
can only investigate these fundamental forces, in the sense of
the present age, if one realizes that the essentiality which we call
Luciferic and Ahrimanic, is really bound up with the microcosmic
forces of man. And one can only understand reality today for the man
living between birth and death, if one can form a few ideas of the
other reality, which indeed we have often studied, that lies for man
between death and a new birth. For the one reality is only the pole
of the other reality, the inverted pole of the other reality.
We have spoken of how
in ancient times, when human beings entered on the age of maturity,
they not only experienced a change such as still occurs today in the
change of voice or some other part of the bodily organism, but they
also underwent an alteration of the soul. We have indicated how the
ancient Osiris-Isis myth was in fact connected with the vanishing of
the alteration of the soul. What then arose in humanity through
those essences and forces of which we spoke yesterday, must come
again differently, inasmuch as men experience the force of the word,
the force of the thought, the force of the idea in a new form. It
must not now be as if something arises through the forces of nature
from the depths of the bodily organization as in the change
of voice in the boy something which embellishes man with the
power of the animal organization and functions invisibly upon his
head as cow-horns. No, there must be a conscious grasping by
man of what is meant by the Mystery of Golgotha, by the true
power of the Word. A new element must draw into the human
consciousness. This new element is radically different from the
elements which people still enjoy describing today. This new
element, however, has its significance for the social life, for the
pedagogy of humanity, when pedagogy, or the theory of Education,
comes out of the tragic state in which it exists today.
What does the deeply
profound Eulenspiegelism I should say ‘natural
scientific profundity’ speak of principally when it
speaks of man? Of what does even a great part of modern fiction
speak? It speaks of the physical origin of man in connection with
physical beings of the line of descent. Fundamentally the so-called
modern, the much renowned modern theory of evolution is nothing
but a conception placing the doctrine of physical descent in the
centre. For the idea of heredity plays far the greatest role in the
theory of evolution. It is a onesidedness. Men are thoroughly
satisfied with such onesidedness, for people think nowadays that in
this way one can be very learned. So one can, with quite arbitrary
explanations of things, drawn apparently from deep logic, but in
reality from misty vagueness.
Yesterday we saw an
example of how whole literatures are written because men have lost
the connection of a concept with the original experience from which
the concept proceeded: the Cross-symbol. A whole literature has been
written about it, the cross has been related to everything
imaginable. We saw yesterday to what it must be related. The
same has been done in regard to many other things and people think
themselves very profound when they do it.
I will remind you of
one case, my dear friends. Just think how infinitely important many
men think themselves nowadays when they believe that they are
speaking as we have spoken here today! There are a fair number of
people who say in fact they very frequently use the words
Oh, one can read it any moment in the papers (with respect be it
spoken) ‘the Letter kills, but the Spirit gives life’.
And with this, one thinks one has said something most profound. But
one should inquire about the origin of such a saying. It goes back to
those times when one had living concepts which indeed still had a
connection with what had been undergone and experienced. When one
talks today there is little connection especially between the
word and its place of origin. If you want to have a right connection
between words and sentences and their origins, then I advise you to
read the little book in which ‘Swiss-German Proverbs’
have now been collected. For one still finds in these popular
proverbs an original harmonizing of what is said with the direct
experience. The letter ... by this is meant, as you know, the
letter-script in contradistinction to the ancient kind which the
Imaginative life drew out of the spirit, as we described yesterday.
This ancient spirit gave life, and the livingness in that epoch of
human evolution resulted in the Imaginative atavistic clairvoyance.
But there was a consciousness that this epoch must in turn be
succeeded by another, that the letter must come which kills the
ancient livingness.
And now bring that into
connection with all that I have said about the actual nature of
consciousness in connection with death. For it is the letter that
kills but that also brings the consciousness which must be
overcome again through another consciousness. The sort of
disdainful rejection that modern journalistic folly attaches to the
proverb ‘the letter kills but the spirit gives life’ is
not what is meant, but the sentence is connected with impulses of
man's evolution. It implies approximately: In ancient times,
Imaginative times, Osiris times, the spirit kept the human soul in a
state of dulled livingness, in later times the letter called forth
consciousness. That is the interpretation of the sentence, that is
what it originally meant. And in many instances, Just as in this one,
men today are very ready with opinions, with arbitrary explanations,
because they do not connect anything with them.
This does not prove
that it is false what the modern profound scientific method has to
say about the idea of heredity, it is only that the other pole must
be added when one speaks of heredity. If man points to his childhood,
and back from childhood to birth, if he asks himself ‘What do I
carry within me?’ then the answer is: what parents and
ancestors have carried within them and transmitted to me! There is,
however, another way of looking at the human being which
present-day man does not as yet practise, which the man of the future
must practise, and which must be put in the centre of pedagogy, the
art of Education. This is not the looking back at having been
younger, but the right consideration of the fact that with every day
in life one becomes older. As a matter of fact modern mankind only
understands that one has once been young. It does not really
understand how to grasp realistically that one gets older with
every day. For they do not know the word that must be added to the
word heredity when one sets the becoming-older opposite the
having-been-young. If one looks to one's childhood one speaks of what
one has inherited; in the same way, when one looks towards the
getting-older one can speak of the other pole; as of the Gate of
Birth, so one can speak of the Gate of Death. There arises the one
question: What have we gained through our forefathers by
entering this life through the Gate of Birth? There arises the other
question: What perhaps do we lose, what becomes different in us
through the fact that we are approaching coming times, that we get
older with every day? What is it like when we consciously experience
the becoming-older-with-every day?
That, however, is a
demand on our age. Humanity must learn to become older consciously
with every day. For if man learns consciously to become older with
every day, then this really means a meeting with spiritual beings,
just as it means a descent from physical beings, that one is born and
possesses inherited qualities.
I will speak next of
how these things are connected: of that important inner impulse which
must draw near the human soul, if the soul is to find what is so
necessary for the future, what alone can round out and complete the
one-sided teachings of Natural Science.
Then you will see why
the new Isis Myth can stand beside the old Osiris-Isis Myth, why both
together are necessary for the men of today; why other words must be
combined with the words which resound from the Statue of Isis at Sais
in ancient Egypt: ‘I am the All; I am the Past, the Present,
the Future; no mortal has lifted my veil’ ... Other words must
sound into these; they may no longer echo one-sidedly into the human
soul today but in addition must resound the words: ‘I am Man, I
am the Past, the Present and the Future. Every mortal should lift my
veil.’
Today I have set before
you more riddles than solutions. We will, however, speak of them
further and the riddles will then be solved in manifold ways.
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