LECTURE ONE
You will have
realised from lectures given recently that in our times a
materialistic view of the world, a materialistic way of
thinking, is not the outcome of man's arbitrary
volition but of a certain historical necessity.
Those who
have some understanding of the spiritual process of human
evolution know that, fundamentally speaking, in all earlier
centuries and millennia man participated in spiritual life to
a greater extent than has been the case during the last four
or five hundred years. We know with what widespread phenomena
this is connected. At the very beginning of Earth-evolution,
the heritage of the Old Moon clairvoyance was working in
mankind. We can envisage that in the earliest ages of
Earth-evolution this faculty of ancient clairvoyance was very
potent, very active, with the result that the range of
man's spiritual vision in those times was exceedingly
wide and comprehensive. This ancient clairvoyance then
gradually diminished until times were reached when the great
majority of human beings had lost the faculty of looking into
the spiritual world, and the Mystery of Golgotha came in
substitution. But a certain vestige of the old faculties of
soul remained, and evidence of this is to be found, for
example, in the nature-knowledge which was in existence until
the fourteenth and fifteenth, and indeed until the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries. This nature-knowledge was very
different in character from modern natural science. It was a
nature-knowledge able to some extent still to rely, not upon
clear, Imaginative clairvoyance but nevertheless upon
vestiges of the Inspirations and Intuitions which were then
applied and elaborated by the so-called alchemists. If an
alchemist of those times was honourable in his aims and not
out for egotistic gain, he still worked, in a certain
respect, with the old Inspirations and Intuitions. While he
was engaged in his outer activities, vestiges of the old
clairvoyance were still astir within him, although no longer
accompanied by any reliable knowledge. But the number of
people in whom these vestiges of ancient clairvoyance
survived, steadily decreased. I have often said that these
vestiges can very easily be drawn out of the human soul today
in states of atavistic, visionary clairvoyance. We have shown
in many different ways how this atavistic clairvoyance can
manifest in our own time.
From all this
you will realise that the nearer we come to our own period in
evolution, the more we have to do with a decline of old
soul-forces and a growth of tendencies in the human soul
towards observation of the outer, material world. After slow
and gradual preparation, this reached its peak in the
nineteenth century, actually in the middle of that century.
Little as this is realised today by those who do not concern
themselves with such matters, it will be clear to men of the
future that the materialistic tendencies of the second half
of the nineteenth century had reached their peak in the
middle of the century; it was then that these tendencies
developed their greatest strength. But the consequence of
every tendency is that certain talents develop and the really
impressive greatness of the methods evolved by materialistic
science stems from these tendencies of the soul to hold fast
to the outer, material world of sense.
Now we must
think of this phase in the evolution of humanity as being
accompanied by another phenomenon. If we carry ourselves back
in imagination to the primeval ages of humanity's
spiritual development, we shall find that in respect of
spiritual knowledge, men were in a comparatively fortunate
position. Most human beings, in fact all of them, knew of the
spiritual world through direct vision. Just as men of the
modern age perceive minerals, plants and animals and are
aware of tones and colours, so were the men of old aware of
the spiritual world; it was concrete reality to them. So that
in those olden times, when full waking consciousness of the
outer, material world was dimmed during sleep or dream, there
was really nobody who would not have been connected with the
dead who had been near him during life. In the waking state a
man could have intercourse with the living; during sleep or
dream, with the dead. Teaching about the immortality of the
soul would have been as superfluous in those primeval times
as it would be nowadays to set out to prove that plants
exist. Just imagine what would happen at the present time if
anyone set out to prove that plants exist! Exactly the same
attitude would have been adopted in primeval times if anyone
had thought it necessary to prove that the soul also lives
after death.
Humanity
gradually lost this faculty of living in communion with the
spiritual world. There were, of course, always individuals
who used whatever opportunity was still available to develop
seership. But even that became more and more difficult. How
did men in olden times develop a particular gift of seership?
If with insight today we study the philosophy of
Plato, or what exists of that of
Heraclitus, we must realise — and this applies
especially to the still earlier Greek philosophies —
that they are altogether different from later philosophies.
Read the first chapter of my book
Riddles of Philosophy,
where I have shown how these ancient
philosophers, Thales and Parmenides,
Anaximenes and Heraclitus, are still
influenced by their particular temperaments. This has not
hitherto been pointed out; the first mention of it is in my
book. Inevitably, therefore, some time must elapse before it
is accepted — but that does not matter. Of Plato, we
can still feel: this philosophy still lays hold of the whole
man. When we come to Aristotle however, the feeling
is that we have to do with an academic, learned philosophy.
Therefore to understand Plato requires more insight than a
modern philosopher usually has at his command. For the same
reason there is a gulf between Plato and Aristotle. Aristotle
is already a scholar in the modern sense. Plato is the last
philosopher in the old Greek sense; he is a philosopher whose
concepts are still imbued to some extent with life.
As long as a philosophy of this kind exists, the link with
the spiritual world is not broken, and indeed it continued
for a long time, actually into the Middle Ages. The Middle
Ages did not develop philosophy to further stages but simply
took over Aristotelian philosophy; and up to a certain point
of time this was all to the good. Platonic philosophy too was
taken over in the same way.
Now in days
of antiquity, as long as at least the aptitude for
clairvoyance of a certain kind was present, something very
significant took place when men allowed this philosophy to
work upon them. Today, philosophy works only upon the head,
only upon the thinking. The reason why so many people avoid
philosophy is because they do not like thinking. And
especially because philosophy offers nothing in the way of
sensationalism they have no desire to study it. Ancient
philosophy, however, when received into the human soul, was
still able, because of its greater life-giving power, to
quicken still existing gifts of seership. Platonic
philosophy, nay, even Aristotelian philosophy, still had this
effect. Being less abstract than the philosophies of modern
times, they were still able to quicken faculties of seership
inherent in the human soul. And so it came to pass that in
men who devoted themselves to philosophy, faculties that were
otherwise sinking below the surface were quickened to life.
That is how seers came into existence. But because what had
now to be learnt about the physical world — and this
also applies to philosophy — was of importance for the
physical plane alone, and became increasingly important, man
alienated himself more and more from the remnants of the old
clairvoyance. He could no longer penetrate to the inner
depths of existence and it was increasingly difficult to
become a seer. Nor will this again be possible until the new
methods indicated as a beginning in the book
Knowledge of the Higher Worlds. How is it achieved?
are accepted by mankind as plausible.
We have heard
that a period of materialism reached its peak — one
could also say, its deepest point — in the middle of
the nineteenth century. It is certain that conditions will
become more and more difficult but the threads of connection
with the earlier impulses in the evolution of humanity must
nevertheless not be broken. The following diagram indicates
how seership has developed:
Here (yellow) seership is still present in
full flower; it vanishes more and more completely until the
lowest point is reached in the middle of the nineteenth
century, and then there is again an ascent. But understanding
of the spiritual world is not the same as seership. Just as
in regard to the world, science is not the same thing as mere
sensory perception, clairvoyance itself is a different matter
from understanding what is seen. In the earliest epochs men
were content, for the most part, with vision; they did not
get to the point of thinking to any great extent about what
was seen, for their seership sufficed. But now, thinking too
came to the fore. The line a–b, therefore, indicates
seership, vision; line c–d indicates thought or
reflection about the spiritual worlds.
In ancient
times man was occupied with his visions and thinking lay, as
it were, in the subconscious region of the soul. The seers of
old did not think, did not reflect; everything came to them
directly through their vision. Thinking first began to affect
seership about three or four thousand years B.C. There was a
golden age in the old Indian, Persian, Egypto-Chaldean and
also in very ancient Greek culture when thinking, still
youthful and fresh, was wedded with vision in the human soul.
In those times, thinking was not the laboured process it is
in our day. Men had certain great, all-embracing notions,
and, in addition, they had vision (e in diagram) . Something
of the kind, although already in a weaker form, was present
to a marked degree in the seers who founded the Samothracian
Mysteries and there gave the monumental teaching of the four
gods: Axieros, Axiokersos, Axiokersa and Kadmillos. In this
great teaching which once had its home in the island of
Samos, certain lofty concepts were imparted to those who were
initiated in the Mysteries and they were able to unite with
these concepts the still surviving fruits of ancient
seership. It may be possible on some other occasion to speak
of these things too in greater detail.
[note 1]
But then
seership gradually sank below the threshold of consciousness
and to call it up from the depths of the soul became more and
more difficult. It was, of course, possible to retain some of
the concepts, even to develop them further; and so finally a
time came when there were initiates who were not necessarily
seers — mark well, initiates who were not necessarily
seers.
In different
places where there were assemblies of these initiates, they
simply adopted what was in part preserved from olden times,
of which it could be affirmed that ancient seers revealed it
— or what could be drawn forth from men who still
possessed the faculties of atavistic clairvoyance. Conviction
came partly through historical traditions, partly through
experiments. Men convinced themselves that what their
intellects thought was true. But as time went on the
number of individuals in these assemblies who were still able
to see into the spiritual world, steadily diminished, while
the number of those who had theories about the spiritual
world and expressed them in symbols and the like, steadily
increased.
And now think
of what inevitably resulted from this about the middle of the
nineteenth century, when the materialistic tendencies of men
had reached their deepest point. Naturally, there were people
who knew that there is a spiritual world and also knew what
is to be found in the spiritual world, but they had never
seen that world. Indeed, the most outstanding savants in the
nineteenth century were men who, although they had seen
nothing whatever of the spiritual world, knew that it exists,
could reflect about it, could even discover new truths with
the help of certain methods and a certain symbolism that had
been preserved in ancient tradition. To take one example
only. — Nothing special is to be gained by looking at a
drawing of a human being. But if a human form is drawn with a
lion's head, or another with a bull's head, those
who have learnt how these things are to be interpreted can
glean a great deal from symbolical presentations of this
kind—similarly, if a bull is depicted with the head of
a man or a lion with the head of a man. Such symbols were in
frequent use, and there were earnest assemblies in which the
language of symbols could be learnt. I shall say no more
about the matter than this, for the schools of Initiation
guarded these symbols very strictly, communicating them to
nobody who had not pledged himself to keep silence about
them. To be a genuine knower a man needed only to have
mastered this symbolic language — that is to say, a
certain symbolic script.
And so the
situation in the middle of the nineteenth century was that
mankind in general, especially civilised mankind, possessed
the faculty of spiritual vision deep down in the
subconsciousness, yet had materialistic tendencies. There
were, however, a great many people who knew that there is a
spiritual world, who knew that just as we are surrounded by
air, so we are surrounded by a spiritual world. But at the
same time these men were burdened with a certain feeling of
responsibility. They had no recourse to any actual faculties
whereby the existence of a spiritual world could have been
demonstrated, yet they were not willing to see the world
outside succumbing altogether to materialism. And so in the
nineteenth century a difficult situation confronted those who
were initiated, a situation in face of which the question
forced itself upon them: Ought we to continue to keep within
restricted circles the knowledge that has come over to us
from ancient times and merely look on while the whole of
mankind, together with culture and philosophy, sinks down
into materialism? Dare we simply look on while this is taking
place? They dared not do so, especially those who were in
real earnest about these things.
And so it
came about that in the middle of the nineteenth century the
words “esotericist” and “exotericist”
which were used by the initiates among themselves, acquired a
meaning deviating from what it had previously been. The
occultists divided into exotericists and esotericists. If for
purposes of analogy, expressions connected with modern
parliaments are adopted — although naturally they are
unsuitable here — the exotericists could be compared
with the left-wing parties and the esotericists with the
right-wing parties. The esotericists were those who wanted to
continue to abide firmly by the principle of allowing nothing
of what was sacred, traditional knowledge, nothing that might
enable thinking men to gain insight into the symbolic
language, to reach the public. The esotericists were, so to
speak, the Conservatives among the occultists. Who, then
— we may ask — were the exotericists ? They were
and are those who want to make public some part of the
esoteric knowledge. Fundamentally, the exotericists were not
different from the esotericists, except that the former were
inclined to follow the promptings of their feeling of
responsibility, and to make part of the esoteric knowledge
public.
There was
widespread discussion at that time of which the outside world
knows nothing but which was particularly heated in the middle
of the nineteenth century. Indeed the clashes and discussions
between the esotericists and the exotericists were far more
heated than those between the Conservatives and Liberals in
modern parliaments. The esotericists took the stand that only
to those who had pledged themselves to strictest silence and
were willing to belong to some particular society should
anything be told concerning the spiritual world or any
knowledge of it communicated. The exotericists said: If this
principle is followed, people who do not attach themselves to
some such society or league will sink altogether into
materialism.
And now the
exotericists proposed a way. I can tell you this today: the
way proposed by the exotericists at that time is the way we
ourselves are taking. Their proposal was that a certain part
of the esoteric knowledge should be popularised. You see,
too, how we ourselves have worked with the help of popular
writings, in order that men may gradually be led to knowledge
of the spiritual worlds.
In the middle
of the nineteenth century things had not reached the point at
which anyone would have ventured to admit that this was their
conviction. In such circles there is, of course, no voting,
and to say the following is to speak in metaphor.
Nevertheless it can be stated that at the first ballot the
esotericists won the day and the exotericists were obliged to
submit. The society or league was not opposed, because of the
good old precept of holding together. Not until more modern
times has the point been reached when members are expelled or
resign. Such things used not to happen because people
understood that they must hold together in brotherhood. So
the exotericists could do no other than submit. But their
responsibility to the whole of mankind weighed upon them.
They felt themselves, so to speak, to be guardians of
evolution. This weighed upon them, with the result that the
first ballot — if I may again use this word — was
not adhered to, and — once again I will use a word
which as it is drawn from ordinary parlance must be taken
metaphorically — a kind of compromise was reached. This
led to the following situation.
It was said,
and this was also admitted by the esotericists: it is
urgently necessary for humanity in general to realise that
the surrounding world is not devoid of the spiritual, does
not consist only of matter nor is subject to purely material
laws; humanity must come to know that just as we are
surrounded by matter, so too we are surrounded by the
spiritual, and that man is not only that being who confronts
us when we look at him in the material sense, but also has
within him something that is of the nature of spirit and
soul. The possibility of knowing this must be saved for
humanity. On this, agreement was reached—and that was
the compromise.
But the
esotericists of the nineteenth century were not prepared to
surrender the esoteric knowledge, and a different method had
therefore to be countenanced. How it came into being is a
complicated story. Particularly on occasions of the founding
of Groups I have often spoken of what happened then. The
esotericists said: We do not wish the esoteric knowledge to
be made public, but we realise that the materialism of the
age must be tackled. — In a certain respect the
esotericists were basing themselves on a well-founded
principle, for when we see repeatedly the kind of attitude
that is adopted today towards esoteric knowledge we can
understand and sympathise with those who said at that time
that they would not hear of it being made public. We must
realise, however, that over and over again it can be seen
that open communication of esoteric knowledge leads to
calamity, and that those who get hold of such knowledge are
themselves the cause of obstacles and hindrances in the way
of its propagation. In recent weeks we have often spoken of
the fact that far too little heed is paid to these obstacles
and hindrances. Most unfortunate experiences are encountered
when it is a matter of making esoteric knowledge public. Help
rendered with the best will in the world to individuals
— even there the most elementary matters lead to
calamity! You would find it hard to believe how often it
happens that advice is given to some individual — but
it does not please him. When the outer world says that an
occultist who works as we work here, exercises great
authority — that is just a catchword. As long as the
advice given is acceptable, the occultist, as a rule, is not
grumbled at; but when the advice is not liked, it is not
accepted. People even browbeat one by declaring: “If
you do not give me different advice, I simply cannot get
on.” This may come to the point of actual threats, yet
it had simply been a matter of advising the person in
question for his good. But as he wants something different,
he says: “I have waited long enough; now tell me
exactly what I ought to do.” He was told this long ago,
but it went against the grain. Finally things come to the
point where those who were once the most credulous believers
in authority become the bitterest enemies. They expect to get
the advice they themselves want and when it is not to their
liking they become bitter enemies. In our own time,
therefore, experience teaches us that we cannot simply
condemn the esotericists who refused to have anything to do
with popularising the esoteric truths.
And so in the
middle of the nineteenth century this popularising did not
take place; an attempt was, however, made to deal in some way
with the materialistic tendencies of the age. It is difficult
to express what has to be said and I can only put it in words
which, as such, were never actually uttered but none the less
give a true picture. At that time the esotericists said: What
can be done about this humanity? We may talk at length about
the esoteric teaching but people will simply laugh at us and
at you. At most you will win over a few credulous people, a
few credulous women, but you will not win over those who
cling to the strictly scientific attitude, and you will be
forced to reckon with the tendencies of the age.
The
consequence was that endeavours were made to find a method by
means of which attention could be drawn to the spiritual
world, and indeed in exactly the same way as in the material
world attention is called to the fact that in a criminal the
occipital lobe does not or does not entirely cover the
corresponding part of his brain. — And so it came about
that mediumship was deliberately brought on the
scene. In a sense, the mediums were the agents of those who
wished, by this means, to convince men of the existence of a
spiritual world, because through the mediums people could see
with physical eyes that which originates in the spiritual
world; the mediums produced phenomena that could be
demonstrated on the physical plane. Mediumship was a means of
demonstrating to humanity that there is a spiritual world.
The exotericists and the esotericists had united in
supporting mediumship, in order to deal with the tendency of
the times.
Think only of
men such as Zöllner, Wallace, du Prel, Crookes,
Butlerow, Rochas, Oliver Lodge, Flammarion, Morselli,
Schiaparelli, Ochorowicz, James, and others — how did
they become convinced of the existence of a spiritual world?
It was because they had witnessed manifestations from the
spiritual world. But everything that can be done by the
spiritual world and by the initiates must, to begin with, be
in the nature of attempts in the world of men. The maturity
of humanity must always be tested. This support of
mediumship, of spiritualism, was therefore also, in a certain
sense, an attempt. All that the exotericists and esotericists
who had agreed to the compromise could say was: What will
come of it remains to be seen. — And what did, in fact,
come of it?
Most of the
mediums gave accounts of a world in which the dead are
living. Just read the literature on the subject! For those
who were initiated, the result was distressing in the utmost
degree, the very worst there could possibly have been. For
you see, there were two possibilities. One was this. —
Mediums were used and they made certain communications. They
were only able to relate what they communicated to the
ordinary environment — in the material elements of
which spirit is, of course, present. It was expected,
however, that the mediums would bring to light all kinds of
hidden laws of nature, hidden laws of elemental nature. But
what actually happened was inevitable, and for the following
reason.—
Man, as we
know, consists of physical body, etheric body, astral body
and ego. From the time of going to sleep to waking,
therefore, the real man is in his ego and astral body; but
then he is at the same time in the realm of the dead. The
medium sitting there, however, is not an ego and an astral
body. The ego-consciousness and also the astral consciousness
have been suppressed and as a result the physical and etheric
bodies become particularly active. In this condition the
medium may come into contact with a hypnotist, or an inspirer
— that is to say, with some other human being. The ego
of another human being, or also the environment, can then
have an effect upon the medium. It is impossible for the
medium to enter the realm of the dead because the very
members of his being which belong to that realm have been
made inoperative. The mediums went astray; they gave accounts
allegedly of the realm of the dead. And so it was obvious
that this attempt had achieved nothing except to promulgate a
great fallacy. One fine day, therefore, it had to be admitted
that a path had been followed which was leading men into
fallacy — to purely Luciferic teachings bound up with
purely Ahrimanic observations. Fallacy from which nothing
good could result had been spread abroad. This was realised
as time went on.
You see,
therefore, how an attempt was made to deal with the
materialistic tendencies of the age and yet to bring home to
men's consciousness that there is a spiritual world
around us. To begin with, this path led to fallacy, as we
have heard. But you can gather from this how necessary it is
to take the other path, namely, actually to begin to make
public part of the esoteric knowledge. This is the path that
must be taken even if it brings one calamity after another.
The very fact that we pursue Spiritual Science is, so to say,
an acknowledgment of the need to carry into effect the
principle of the exotericists in the middle of the nineteenth
century. And the aim of the Spiritual Science we wish to
cultivate is nothing else than to carry this principle into
effect, to carry it into effect honourably and sincerely.
From all this
it will be clear to you that materialism is something about
which we cannot merely speculate; we must understand the
necessity of its appearance, especially of the peak —
or lowest point — it reached about the middle of the
nineteenth century. The whole trend had of course begun a
long time before then — certainly three, four or five
centuries before. Man's leanings to the spiritual
passed more and more into his subconsciousness, and this
state of things reached its climax in the middle of the
nineteenth century. But that too was necessary, in order that
the purely materialistic talents of men might develop
unhindered by occult faculties. A materialistic philosopher
such as Kant, a materialistic philosopher from the
standpoint of the Idealists of the nineteenth century —
you can easily read about this in my book
Riddles of Philosophy
— could not have appeared if the occult
faculties had not drawn into the background. Certain
faculties develop in man when others withdraw, but while the
one kind of faculties and talents develops outwardly, the
other kind takes its own inner path. These three, four or
five centuries were not, therefore, a total loss for the
spiritual evolution of mankind. The spiritual forces have
continued to develop below the threshold of consciousness,
and if you think about what I have indicated in connection
with von Wrangell's pamphlet
[note 2]
on the subject of what he there calls the
“dreamlike”, you will be able to recognise the
existence of occult faculties which are merely waiting to
unfold. They are present in abundance in the souls of men; it
is only a matter of drawing them out in the right way.
It was
necessary to say these things by way of introduction, and
tomorrow we will pass on to the question of the relation
between the Living and the Dead, bearing in mind that in one
respect the wrong path resulting from the compromise between
the exotericists and the esotericists has actually been
instructive. To understand the nature of this compromise we
must study the questions of birth and death and then show
what effect the materialistic methods have had in this
connection.
Notes:
Note 1. See
Mystery Knowledge and Mystery Centres, Lecture XII.
Fourteen lectures given in Dornach, 23rd November to
21st December, 1923. (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1973)
Note 2.
Published in Leipzig in 1914, with the title,
Wissenschaft and Theosophie.
|