The Mysteries of Light, of Space, and of the Earth

Contents

1. The connection of the Dornach Building with the inner spirit of human evolution, with what anthroposophically-orientated Spiritual Science wills to be. The fundamental problem of the present: the chasm between practical life and spiritual endeavors. The creative spirit must be woven into the social life through human agency. A second dualism: contrast between heaven and hell. The mystery of the trinity consisting of the Luciferic, what pertains to Christ, and the Ahrimanic. The striving toward balance; and in form-shaping, toward union with the vital forces, the wellsprings of human creativeness.

   December 12, 1919.

2. The relations of the forms of our new building to the Word expressed therein. Historical transitions in human evolution are expressed in architectural styles. The Greek temple was the dwelling of a god; the Gothic cathedral encloses the longing, seeking congregation, over which the spirit of the Word holds sway; the Middle Ages created the ideal representation of the Grail-temple for the souls and spirits of humanity striving together from all directions toward a mysterious central point. — The individual human being of the present is a seeker for balance between two poles of force. Three experiences of the Threshold. A complete awakening of man from group consciousness to individual consciousness is being prepared.

   December 13, 1919.

3. Degeneration and downfall of our culture. Necessity for a fructification of science and art through the science of initiation. The relation of this world to the spiritual world must be established through thought; otherwise neither scientific nor social problems can be solved; new forces must be brought forth from the depths of the soul. Experiences of the Threshold: the canceling of time and space. Thinking as force comes from life before birth; willing as force points to life after death. In earthly life human thinking is illusion; as force, a reflection; willing is a germ of something to be completed after death. Reciprocal penetration of these forces. They are revealed in ancient pagan culture, with continuation in our conception of nature; and in ancient Hebrew culture continued in our present social views. — Man is today involved in a bewildering dualism between natural necessity and freedom. Content of future consciousness. Influence of the so-called dead on the physical world. The significance of thought. Responsibility.

   December 14, 1919.

4. The anthroposophical foundation of the social problem. How has the interaction in the spiritual, legal, and economic spheres come about in our civilization? Three streams with different origins are chaotically entangled. Our present abstract culture comes from the Greco-Latin spiritual life, which, despite significant transformations, goes back to the Orient. In the time of universal atavistic clairvoyance, among some human groups of central Asia there appeared the inner light, the thinking-power, which resulted in social revolutions. In their three types of sculpture the Greeks have artistically portrayed the development of the intelligent human being from the rest of humanity. From the impulsive force of the Mysteries of the Spirit, with a later impetus from the Egyptian Mystery culture, the rights life is founded in theocracies, which also regulate the economic life. This culture, becoming abstract, is theology in the Middle Ages, — in our time unproductive ideology. Herein our social chaos developed. The important thing now is to find the way from the merely imagined spirit to the creative spirit by developing a free spiritual life. Our rights life and political life, our jurisprudence derived from the Romans, and going back to the Egyptian Mysteries of Space, has its ultimate derivative in the bourgeoisie; while in the customs of the economic life is to be seen the final consequence of that which developed among the ancient European peoples from the Mysteries of the Earth as wisdom-filled life. This met and became entangled with the other two streams. — Goethe's science of nature: the first advance toward a free spiritual life. Humboldt's The Sphere and Duties of Government: the first beginning toward the construction of an independent rights or political life. The economic life can only arise when it is developed from independent roots, and a free rights life and a free spiritual life come to meet it. Our degenerated civilization threatens to sink into three abysses if the present tangle is not unraveled by turning to the Threefold Social Order.

   December 15, 1919.