V
SPIRITUAL
CONDITIONS OF EVOLUTION LEADING UP TO THE ANTHROPOSOPHICAL
MOVEMENT
The members of
the Anthroposophical Society come into the Society, as
indeed is obvious, for reasons that lie in their inner
life, in the inner condition of their souls. And as we are
now speaking of the karma of the Anthroposophical Society,
nay of the Anthroposophical Movement altogether, showing
how it arises out of the karmic evolution of members and
groups of members, we shall need to perceive the
foundations of this karma above all in the state of soul of
those human beings who seek for Anthroposophy. This we have
already begun to do, and we will now acquaint ourselves
with certain other facts in this direction, so that we may
enter still further into the karma of the Anthroposophical
Movement.
Most important in
the soul-condition of anthroposophists, as I have already
said, are the experiences which they underwent in their
incarnations during the first centuries of the founding of
Christianity. As I said, there may have been other
intervening incarnations; but that incarnation is above all
important, which we find, approximately, in the fourth,
fifth, sixth, seventh, or eighth century A.D. In
considering this incarnation we found that we must
distinguish two groups among the human beings who come to
the Anthroposophical Movement. These two groups we have
already characterised. We are now going to consider
something which they have in common. We shall consider a
significant common element, lying at the foundation of the
souls who have undergone such lines of evolution as I
described in the last lecture.
Looking at the
first Christian centuries, we find ourselves in an age when
men were very different from what they are today. When the
man of today awakens from sleep, he slips down into his
physical body with great rapidity, though with the
reservation which I mentioned here not long ago, when I
said that this entry and expansion into the physical body
really lasts the whole day long. Be that as it may, the
perception that the Ego and the astral body are
approaching takes place very quickly. For the awakening
human being in the present age, there is, so to speak, no
intervening time between the becoming-aware of the etheric
body and the becoming-aware of the physical. Man passes
rapidly through the perception of the etheric body —
simply does not notice the etheric body, — and dives
down at once into the physical. This is a peculiarity of
the man of the present time.
The nature of the
human beings who lived in those early Christian centuries
was different. When they awoke from sleep they had a
distinct perception: “I am entering a twofold entity:
the etheric body and the physical.” They knew that
man first passes through the perception of the etheric
body, and then only enters into the physical. Thus indeed,
in their moment of awakening they had before them —
though not a complete tableau of life — still very
many pictures of their past earthly life. And they had
before them another thing, which I shall describe directly.
For if man enters thus, stage by stage, into that which
remains lying on the couch, into the etheric and physical
bodies, — the result is that the whole period of
waking life becomes very different from the experiences
which we have in our waking life today.
Again, when we
consider the moment of falling asleep nowadays, the
peculiar thing is this: — when the Ego and astral
body leave the physical and etheric, the Ego very quickly
absorbs the astral body. And as the Ego confronts the
cosmos without any kind of support, being unable at its
present stage to perceive anything at all, man as he falls
asleep ceases to have perceptions. For the little that
emerges in his dreams is quite sporadic.
This again was
not so in the times of which I am now speaking. The Ego did
not at once absorb the astral body; the astral body
continued to exist, independently in its own substance,
even after the human being had fallen asleep. And to a
certain extent, it remained so through the whole night.
Thus in the morning the human being awakened not from utter
darkness of unconsciousness, but with the feeling: —
“I have been living in a world filled with light, in
which all manner of things were happening.” Albeit
they were only pictures, something was taking place there.
It was so indeed: the man of that time had an intermediate
feeling, an intermediate sensation between sleeping and
waking. It was delicate, it was light and intimate, but it
was there. It was only with the beginning of the 14th
century that this condition ceased completely in civilised
mankind.
Now this means
that all the souls, of whose life I was speaking the other
day, experienced the world differently from the man of the
present time. Let us try to understand, my dear friends,
how those human beings — that is to say you
yourselves, all of you, during that time —
experienced the world.
The diving down
into the etheric and physical body took place in distinct
stages. And the effect of this was that throughout his
waking life man looked out upon Nature differently. He saw
not the bare, prosaic, matter-of-fact world of the senses,
seen by the man of modern times, who — if he would
make any more of it — can only do so by his fancy or
imagination. No, when the man of that time looked out, upon
the world of plants, for instance, he saw the flowering
meadow land as though there were spread over it a slight
and gentle bluish-red cloud-halo. Especially at the time of
day when the sun was shining less brightly (not at the
height of noon-tide), it was as though a bluish-red light,
like a luminous mist with manifold and moving waves and
colours, were spread over the flowering meadow. What we see
today, when a slight mist hangs over the meadow (which
comes of course from evaporated water), — such a
thing was seen at that time in the spiritual, in the
astral. Indeed every tree-top was seen enveloped in a
cloud, and when man saw the fields of corn, it was as
though bluey-red rays were descending from the cosmos,
springing forth in clouds of mist, descending into the soil
of the earth.
And when man
looked at the animals, he had not merely an impression of
the physical shape, but the physical was enveloped in an
astral aura. Slightly, delicately, and only intimately,
this aura was seen. Nay, it was only seen when the sunshine
light was working in a rather gentle way; — but seen
it was. Thus everywhere in outer Nature man still perceived
the spiritual, working and weaving.
Then, when he
died, the experience he had in the first days after passing
through the gate of death — gazing back upon the
whole of his past earthly life — was in reality not
unfamiliar to him. As he looked back upon his earthly life
directly after death, he had a distinct feeling. He said to
himself: Now I am letting go that quality, that aura from
my own organism, which goes out into all that I have seen
of the aura in external Nature. My etheric body goes to its
own home. Such was man's feeling.
Naturally all
these feelings had been much stronger in more ancient
times. But they still existed — though in a slight
and delicate form — in the time of which I am now
speaking. And when man beheld these things directly after
passing through the gate of death, he had the feeling:
“In all the spiritual life and movement which I have
seen hovering over the things and processes of Nature, the
Word of the Father-God is speaking. My etheric body is
going to the Father.”
And if man thus
saw the outer world of Nature differently owing to the
different mode of his awakening, so too he saw his own
outer form differently than in subsequent ages. When he
fell asleep the astral body was not immediately absorbed by
the Ego. Now under such conditions the astral body itself
is filled with sound. Thus from spiritual worlds there
sounded into the sleeping human Ego, — though no
longer so distinctly as in ancient times, still in a gentle
and intimate way, — all manner of things which cannot
be heard in the waking state. And on awakening man had the
very real feeling: It was a language of spiritual Beings in
the light-filled spaces of the cosmos in which I partook
between my falling asleep and my awakening.
And when man had
laid aside the etheric body a few days after passing
through the gate of death, to live henceforth in his astral
body, he had once more this feeling: “In my astral
body I now experience in a returning course all that I
thought and did on earth. In this astral body in which I
lived every night during my sleep,-herein I am experiencing
all that I thought and did on earth.” Moreover, while
he had carried into his awakening moments only a vague and
undetermined feeling, he now had a far clearer feeling. Now
in the time between death and a new birth, as in his astral
body he returned through his past earthly life, he had the
feeling: “Behold in this my astral body lives the
Christ I only did not notice it, but in reality every night
my astral body dwelt in the essence and being of the
Christ.” Now man knew, that for as long as he would
have to go thus backward through his earthly life Christ
would not desert him, for Christ was with his astral
body.
My dear friends,
it is so indeed, whatever may have been one's attitude to
Christianity in those first Christian centuries, whether it
was like the first group of whom I spoke or like the
second, whether one had still lived as it were with the
more Pagan strength, or with the weariness of Paganism, one
was sure to experience — if not on earth, then after
death — the great fact of the Mystery of Golgotha;
Christ who had been the ruling Being of the Sun, had united
Himself with what lives as humanity on earth. Such was the
experience of all who had come in any way near to
Christianity in the first centuries of Christian evolution.
For the others, these experiences after their death
remained more or less unintelligible.
Such were the
fundamental differences in the experience of souls in the
first Christian centuries, and afterwards. Now all this had
another effect as well. For when man looked out upon the
world of Nature in his waking life, he felt this world of
Nature as the essential domain of the Father God. All the
spiritual that he beheld living and moving there, was for
him the expression, the manifestation and the glory of the
Father God. And he felt: This world, in the time when
Christ appeared on earth, stood verily in need of
something. It was the need that Christ should be received
into the substance of the earth for mankind. In relation to
all the processes of Nature and the whole realm of Nature,
man still had the feeling of a living principle of Christ.
For indeed, his perception of Nature, inasmuch as he beheld
a spiritual living and moving and holding sway there,
involved something else as well. All this which he felt as
a spiritual living and moving and holding sway, —
hovering in ever-changing spirit-shapes over all plant and
animal existence, — all this he felt so that with
simple and unbiased human feeling he would describe it in
the words: It is the innocence of Nature's being. Yes, my
dear friends, what he could thus spiritually see was called
in truth: the innocence in the kingdom of Nature. He spoke
of the pure and innocent spirituality in all the working of
Nature.
But the other
thing, which he felt inwardly — feeling when he
awakened that in his sleep he had been in a world of light
and sounding spiritual being — of this he felt that
good, and evil too, might there prevail. In this he felt,
as it sounded forth from the depths of spiritual being,
good spirits and evil spirits too were speaking. Of the
good spirits he felt that they only wanted to raise to a
higher level the innocence of Nature and to preserve it;
but the evil spirits wanted to adulterate with guilt this
guiltlessness of Nature. Wherever such Christians lived as
I am now describing, the powers of good and evil were felt
through the very fact that as man slept the Ego was not
drawn in and absorbed into the astral body.
Not all who
called themselves Christians in that time, or who were in
any way near to Christianity, were in this state of soul.
Nevertheless there were many people living in the southern
and middle regions of Europe, who said: “Verily, my
inner being that lives its independent life from the time I
fall asleep till I awaken, belongs to the region of a good
and to the region of an evil world.” Again and again
men thought and pondered about the depth of the forces that
bring forth the good and the evil in the human soul.
Heavily they felt the fact that the human soul is placed
into a world where good and evil powers battle with one
another. In the very first centuries of Christianity, such
feelings were not yet present in the southern and middle
regions of Europe, but in the fifth and sixth centuries
they became more and more frequent. Especially among those
who received knowledge and teachings from the East (and as
we know such teachings from the East came over in manifold
ways), this mood of soul arose. It was especially
widespread in those regions to which the name Bulgaria
afterwards came to be applied. (In a strange way the name
persisted even though quite different peoples inhabited
these regions). Thus in later centuries, and indeed for a
very long time in Europe, those in whom this mood of soul
was most strongly developed were called
‘Bulgars.’ ‘Bulgars’ — for
the people of Western and Middle Europe in the later
Christian centuries of the first half of the Middle Ages
— Bulgars were human beings who were most strongly
touched by this opposition of the good and evil cosmic
spiritual powers.
Throughout Europe
we find the name ‘Bulgar’ applied to human
beings such as I have characterised. Now the souls of whom
I am here speaking, had been to a greater or lesser degree
in this very mood of soul. I mean the souls who in the
further course of their development beheld those mighty
pictures in the super-sensible ceremony, in which they
themselves actively took part, — all of which
happened in the spiritual world in the first half of the
19th century. All that they had lived through when they had
known themselves immersed in the battle between good and
evil, was carried by them through their life between death
and a new birth. And this gave a certain shade and
colouring to these souls as they stood before the mighty
cosmic pictures.
To all this yet
another thing was added. These souls were indeed the last
in European civilisation to preserve a little of that
distinct perception of the etheric and the astral body in
waking and sleeping. Recognising one another by these
common peculiarities of their inner life, they had
generally lived in communities. And among the other
Christians, who became more and more attached to Rome, they
were regarded as heretics. Heretics were not yet condemned
as harshly as in later centuries. Still, they were regarded
as heretics. Indeed the others always had a certain uncanny
feeling about them. They had the impression that these
people saw more than other folk. It was as though they were
related to the Divine in a different way through the fact
that they perceived the sleeping state differently than the
others among whom they dwelt. For the others had long lost
this faculty and had approached more nearly to the
condition of soul which became general in Europe in the
14th century.
Now when these
human beings — who had the distinct perception of the
astral and the etheric body — passed through the gate
of death, then also they were different from the others.
Nor must we imagine, my dear friends, that man between
death and a new birth is altogether without share in what
is taking place through human beings on the earth. Just as
we look up from here into the spiritual world of heaven, so
between death and a new birth man looks down from that
world on to the earth. Just as we here partake with
interest in the life of spiritual beings, so from the
spiritual world one partakes in the experiences of earthly
beings upon the earth. After the age which I have hitherto
been describing there came the time when Christendom in
Europe was arranging its existence under the assumption
that man has no longer any knowledge of his astral or his
etheric body. Christianity was now preparing to speak about
the spiritual worlds without being able to presume any such
knowledge or consciousness among men. For you must think,
my dear friends, when the early Christian teachers, in the
first few centuries, spoke to their Christians
— though they already found a large number who were
only able to accept the truth of their words by external
authority — nevertheless the simpler, more child-like
feeling of that time enabled men to accept such words, when
spoken from a warm and enthusiastic heart. And of the
warmth and enthusiasm of heart with which the men of those
first Christian centuries could preach, people today, where
so much has gone into the mere preaching-of-words, have no
conception. Those however who were still able to speak to
souls such as I have described today, — what kind of
words could they speak? They, my dear friends, could
say: “Behold what shows itself in the rainbow-shining
glory over the plants, what shows itself as the
desire-nature about the animals, — lo, this is the
reflection, this is the manifestation of the spiritual
world from which the Christ has come.” Speaking to
such men about the truths of spiritual wisdom, they could
speak, not as of a thing unknown, but in such a way as to
remind their hearers of what they could still behold under
certain conditions in the gently luminous light of the sun:
The Spirit in the world of Nature. Again when they spoke to
them of the Gospels which tell of spiritual worlds and
spiritual Mysteries or of the secrets of the Old Testament,
then again they spoke to them not as of a thing unknown,
but they could say: “Here is the Word of the
Testament. It has been written down by human beings, who
heard, more fully and clearly than you, the whispered
language of that spiritual world in which your souls are
dwelling from the time you fall asleep till you awaken. But
you too know something of this language, for you remember
it when you awaken in the morning.” Thus it was
possible to speak to them of the spiritual as of something
known to them. In the conversation of the priests or
preachers of that time with these men, something was
contained of what was already going on in their own souls.
So in that time the Word was still alive and could be
cultivated in a living way.
Then when these
souls, to whom one had still been able to speak in the
living Word, had passed through the gate of death,
they looked down again upon the earth, and beheld the
evening twilight of the living Word below. And they had the
feeling that it was the twilight of the Logos. “The
Logos is darkening” — such was the underlying
feeling in their souls. After their life in the 7th, 8th or
9th century (or somewhat earlier) when they had passed
through the gate of death again and looked down upon the
earth, they felt: “Down there upon the earth is the
evening twilight of the living Logos.” Well may there
have lived in these souls the Word: “And the Word
became flesh and dwelt among us. But human beings are less
and less able to afford a home, a dwelling place for the
Word that is to live within the flesh, that is to live on
upon the earth.” This, I say again, was an underlying
mood, it was indeed the dominant feeling among these
souls, as they lived in the spiritual world between the 7th
or 8th and the 19th or 20th century, no matter whether
their sojourn there was interrupted by another life on
earth. It remained their fundamental underlying feeling:
“Christ lives indeed for the earth, since for the
earth He died; but the earth cannot receive Him. Somehow
there must arise on earth the power for souls to be able to
receive the Christ.”
Beside all the
other things I have described, this feeling became more and
more living in the souls who had been stigmatised during
their earthly time as heretics. This feeling grew in them
between their death and the coming of a renewed revelation
of the Christ — a new declaration of His Being.
In this condition
of their souls, these human beings — disembodied as
they were — witnessed what was happening on earth. It
was something hitherto unknown to them, nevertheless they
learned to understand what was going on, on earth below.
They saw how souls on earth were less and less taken hold
of by the spirit, till there were no more human beings
left, to whom it was possible to speak such words as these:
‘We tell you of the Spirit whom you yourselves can
still behold hovering over the world of plants, gleaming
around the animals. We instruct you in the Testament that
was written out of the spiritual sounds whose whispering
you still can hear when you feel the echo of your
experiences of the night.’ This was no more.
Looking down from
above they saw how different these things were now
becoming. For in the development of Christendom a
substitute was being introduced for the old way of
speaking. For a long time, though the vast majority to whom
the preachers spoke had no longer any direct consciousness
of the Spiritual in their earthly life, still the whole
tradition, the whole custom of their speech came down to
them from the older times, — I mean, from the time
when one knew, as one spoke to men about the Spirit, that
they themselves still had some feeling of what it was. It
was only about the 9th, 10th or 11th century that these
things vanished altogether. Then there arose quite a
different condition, even in the listener. Until that time,
when a man listened to another, who, filled with a divine
enthusiasm, spoke out of the Spirit, he had the feeling as
he listened that he was going a little out of himself. He
was going out a little, into his etheric body. He was
leaving the physical body to a slight extent. He was
approaching the astral body more nearly. It was literally
true, men still had a slight feeling of being
‘transported’ as they listened. Nor did they
care so very much in those times for the mere hearing of
words. What they valued most was the inward experience,
however slight, of being transported — carried away.
Men experienced with living sympathy the words that were
spoken by a God-inspired man.
But from the 9th,
10th, or 11th, and towards the 14th century, this vanished
altogether. The mere listening became more and more common.
Therefore the need arose to make one's appeal to something
different, when one spoke of spiritual things. The need
arose somehow to draw forth from the listener what one
wanted him to have as a conception of the spiritual world.
The need arose as it were to work upon him, until at length
he should feel impelled even out of his hardened body to
say something about the spiritual world. Thus there arose
the need to give instruction about spiritual things in the
play of question and answer. There is always a suggestive
element in questions. And when one asked: What is baptism?
Having prepared the human being so that he would give a
certain answer; or when one asked: What is Confirmation?
What is the Holy Spirit? What are the seven deadly sins?
— when one trained them in this play of question and
answer, one provided a substitute for the simple elemental
listening. To begin with this was done with those who
entered the Schools where this was first made possible.
Through question and answer, what they had to say about the
spiritual worlds was thoroughly brought home to them. In
this way the Catechism arose.
We must indeed
look at such events as this. For these things were really
witnessed by the souls who were up there in the spiritual
world and who now looked down to the earth. They said to
themselves: something must now approach man which it was
quite impossible for us to know in our lives, for it did
not lie near to us at all.
It was a mighty
impression when the Catechism was arising down upon the
earth. Very little is given when historians outwardly
describe the rise of the Catechism, but much is given, my
dear friends, when we behold it as it appeared from the
super-sensible: “Down there upon the earth men are
having to undergo things altogether new in the very depths
of their souls; they are having to learn by way of
Catechism what they are to believe.” Herewith I have
described a certain feeling, but there is another which I
must describe to you as follows: — We must go back
once more into the first centuries of Christendom. In those
times it was not yet possible for a Christian simply to go
into a church, to sit down or to kneel, and then to hear
the Mass right through from the beginning — from the
“Introitus” — to the prayers which follow
the Holy Communion. It was not possible for all Christians
to attend the whole Mass through. Those who became
Christians were divided into two groups. There were the
Catechumenoi who were allowed to attend the Mass till the
reading of the Gospel was over. After the Gospel the
Offertory was prepared, and then they had to leave. Only
those who had been prepared for a considerable time for the
holy inner feeling in which one was allowed to behold the
Mystery of Transubstantiation, only these — the
Transubstantii as they were called — were allowed to
remain and hear the Mass through to the end.
That was a very
different way of partaking in the Mass. Now the human
beings of whom we have been speaking (who in their souls
underwent the conditions I described, who looked down on to
the earth and perceived this strange Catechism-teaching,
which would have been so impossible for them) — they,
in their religious worship too, had more or less preserved
the old Christian custom of not allowing a man to take part
in the whole Mass till he had undergone a longer
preparation. They were still conscious of an exoteric and
an esoteric portion in the Mass. They regarded as esoteric
all that was done from the Transubstantiation onward.
Now once more
they looked down and beheld what was going on in the outer
ritual of Christendom. They saw that the whole Mass had
become exoteric. The whole Mass was being enacted even
before those who had not entered into any special mood of
soul by special preparation. “Can a man on earth
really approach the Mystery of Golgotha, if in
unconsecrated mood he witnesses the
Transubstantiation?” Such was their feeling as they
looked down from the life that takes its course between
death and a new birth: “Christ is no longer being
recognised in His true being; the sacred ceremony is no
longer understood.”
Such feelings
poured themselves out within the souls whom I have now been
describing. Moreover they looked down upon that which
became a sacred symbol in the reading of the Mass, the
so-called Sanctissimum wherein the Host is carried on a
crescent cup. It is a living symbol of the fact that once
upon a time the great Sun-Being was looked for in the
Christ. For the very rays of the Sun are represented on
every Sanctissimum, on every Monstrance. But the connection
of the Christ with the Sun had been lost. Only in the
symbol was it preserved; and in the symbol it has remained
until this day. Yet even in the symbol it was not
understood, nor is it understood today. This was the second
feeling that sprang forth in their souls, intensifying
their sense of the need for a new Christ-experience that
was to come.
In the next
lecture, the day after tomorrow, we will continue to speak
of the karma of the Anthroposophical Society.
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