LECTURE TEN
If we are to
enter more deeply into the matters which cannot fail to
interest us at the present time, it is necessary to keep
clearly in mind a certain aspect of human consciousness as it
is today. Let us think of certain characteristics of this
consciousness of which we have been speaking during the past
weeks. This consciousness holds us within a domain shut off
on the one side by the veil placed before us by the phenomena
of nature through which, to begin with, our consciousness
cannot penetrate, and on the other side, by the veil of our
own life of soul, of our thinking, feeling and willing. The
nature of our consciousness is such that when we look
inwards, we are able to a certain extent to experience our
thinking, feeling and willing in their human form, to
experience them consciously. But again, we cannot penetrate
behind the veil. Hence we can say: As regards the veil of the
phenomena of nature on the one side, with the objective
reality behind, our consciousness is directed towards a veil
which, to begin with, may not be pierced. On the other side,
there are the manifestations of the life of soul, behind
which lies the subjective reality. We contemplate it but we
cannot immediately break through the veil. Within these
frontiers, within these two parallel lines, as it were, is
our present consciousness, to which, when we look out through
the sense-organs, the world of nature presents itself; when
we look inwards, there is the world of soul. This is how the
consciousness we have as human beings today, is
organised.
We know that
this consciousness differs from man's earlier
consciousness with its heritage of ancient clairvoyance; but
we know too that this inherited clairvoyance faded away and
that our present consciousness, when functioning normally on
the physical plane, is as described above.
The question
may be asked: Why is it that our consciousness today is
constituted as it is? The reason is that during the present
cycle of evolution, as well as everything else that has been
described, we have to develop the true relationship that
should prevail between one human soul and another. Our
present form of consciousness, therefore, has a very definite
task.
During the
earlier periods of Old Saturn, Old Sun and Old Moon we lived
in different states of consciousness, and in the future
periods of Jupiter, Venus and Vulcan, our consciousness will
again be different. We are gradually preparing for these
different forms of consciousness. In our present cycle of
evolution we have to develop in ourselves, through the way we
relate ourselves to the world, the form of consciousness
belonging to this cycle; and besides all that must be
developed in connection with the moral life, there is also
the fact that through this form of consciousness there can
unfold the right relationship of one human soul to another, a
relationship we had not acquired before the beginning of the
Earth-period and without which, if we do not acquire it
during the Earth-period, we shall not be able to maintain our
existence during the periods of Jupiter, Venus and
Vulcan.
In the
periods of Old Saturn, Old Sun and Old Moon preceding the
Earth-period, man had not, in this sense, acquired the right
relationship to other men; in a certain sense he was too
close to them. During the Old Moon period, conditions were
still such that the will of one had a direct effect upon the
other; the other felt, was affected by, the will of his
fellow-being. Moreover, this process was regulated and guided
by the Spirits of the higher Hierarchies.
Had this
guidance by the Spirits of the higher Hierarchies continued,
man would never have reached complete freedom in cosmic
existence. The guidance had at some point to cease. Hence the
necessity of a form of consciousness which as it were makes a
frontier possible between one man and another. The fact is
that on the one side our vision does not penetrate through
nature, and on the other side the world of soul causes the
relation of one soul to another to be such that a certain
frontier is created between them. That this frontier exists
is due to our present form of consciousness, a special
characteristic of which is that what we actually experience
are reflections, mirror-images. This, of course,
applies also to relationships between man and man. Because,
when we meet another human being we have in our present form
of consciousness a mere reflection, we cannot approach him in
so arbitrary a way that we pour the content of our
consciousness into his soul. If, therefore, our consciousness
is normally developed, this prevents us from coming unduly
close to the consciousness of another. I might also put it
like this: the forces of our consciousness and intelligence
are so organised that we can neither exercise too great an
influence upon the other man, nor can he exercise too great
an influence upon us — because the fact that our own
consciousness is mirrored, separates us from him.
This is a
matter of very great importance for the understanding of
human evolution. Whenever there is a defect in the normal
consciousness, what happens is at once evident. Think of a
person whose consciousness is not quite normal, who has a
touch of what we have recently encountered in the form of
“mystical eccentricity” — to use a rather
harsh expression, but one that is often very apt. Suppose
such a person is inclined to all sorts of fanciful delusions,
based upon certain experiences which are abnormal in our day.
You will always find that a person with abnormal
consciousness of this kind has a far greater influence upon
other souls than one with normal consciousness. To put it
rather crudely, a person who is a little mad in one direction
or another can have a far stronger influence upon his
fellowmen than one who is normal; and by strengthening his
consciousness, a normal man must protect himself from the
influence of one who is abnormal. An abnormal man, as long as
he is not recognised, is always a certain danger to his
fellow-men, because they allow themselves to be too strongly
influenced by him and because they are too ready to regard
him as a rare, out-of-the-common phenomenon. Precisely where
there are perforations in the mirror of consciousness, too
strong an influence passes over through these perforations to
the other person.
Thus in the
present epoch of evolution we acquire our particular form of
consciousness in order that the right relationship of one
human soul to another in the world may be established.
Now, from all
that has been said in these lectures, the following is clear:
on yonder side of the veil of nature lies the Ahrimanic world
with all the beings I have described; on yonder side of the
veil of the life of soul lies the Luciferic world with all
the characteristic features I have described. Man is, as it
were, shut in between the Ahrimanic world and the Luciferic
world. If he pierces only a little behind the veil of nature,
he cannot help becoming acquainted with the Ahrimanic world.
If he pierces a little behind the veil of the life of soul,
he will inevitably become acquainted with the Luciferic
world.
We have
behind us a certain epoch during which man was safeguarded
against making too great an advance towards the one side or
the other. But we are now living in a time of transition,
when human souls needs must advance towards the one side or
the other. This must inevitably happen, for again it is
demanded by the present phase of man's evolution.
As you know,
we are now living in the age of the development of the
Consciousness or Spiritual Soul and moving towards that of
the development of the Spirit-Self. Such development has a
long preparation behind it. When, in the Sixth post-Atlantean
epoch of culture, the Spirit-Self is fully developed,
man's life of soul will be different in very many
respects from what it is today. The human intellect will have
a much more objective power than is the case now.
Mankind is already approaching this more objective
intellectual life. Evidences may be seen on every hand and I
have spoken of the matter in many lectures. A life of soul is
approaching of which it may be said that the intellect will
be outspread as a power to which men must submit — as a
power working objectively in a realm outside the souls of
men.
We are still
living in times when many human beings are safeguarded
against this objective power by a strong, assertive
individuality. But this protection will be less and less
possible the nearer we come to the Sixth post-Atlantean
epoch. A time will actually come when phenomena now only in
the initial stages will be far, far more strongly in
evidence. Even now, one who knows how to assess happenings in
the world can form a true judgment in regard to this
phenomenon. It is well known, for example, that writers in
certain newspapers and periodicals are very far from saying
only what springs from their own souls. They represent the
intelligence of certain circles, an objective intelligence
which rides rough-shod and of which they are only the
speaking trumpets. It is extremely important to keep this in
mind, for it is a phenomenon which will become more and more
prevalent.
Now there is
a very definite prospect ahead. When the intelligence of
certain people is objectivised — and it has been so
objectivised ever since public literature has existed —
it becomes more and more possible for Ahriman to take
possession of the intelligence of men. That is a prospect
which Spiritual Science must place before us, for it is
Ahriman's constant and fiercest endeavour to strangle
men's individual intelligence and appropriate it for
himself, so that it may pass into his power and be used to
serve his own purposes. I have told you that there is a
mysterious connection between the higher forces of
intelligence in the beings who serve Ahriman and the forces
of man's lower nature. Ahriman's perpetual
endeavour is to appropriate the intelligence of human beings
and not allow them to realise what they can achieve through
their own intelligence. Think of the last conversation
between Benedictus and Ahriman in the Mystery Play
The Soul's Awakening.
Before Ahriman disappears, he
says:
“It is now time for me to haste away
From his environment, for whensoe'er
His sight can think me as I truly am,
He will begin to fashion in his thought
Part of the power which slowly killeth me.”
A profound
secret is contained here, a secret of which every student of
Spiritual Science should be aware. Men must strive as time
goes on to keep their intelligence under their own individual
control, to keep unceasing watch over it. This is essential,
and it is well that man should know with what enticing and
powerful words Ahriman approaches him, trying to wring his
intelligence from him.
More and more
it will behove men to be alert to such moments. For Ahriman
takes full advantage of moments when, in full waking life, a
man falls into a state of vertigo or dizziness, into a kind
of twilight consciousness, when he feels not quite securely
anchored in the physical world and begins to yield himself to
the whirl of the universe, when he does not stand firmly and
steadily on his own feet as an individuality. These are the
moments when it behoves him to be on his guard, for it is
then that Ahriman easily gets the upper hand. The best way in
which we can protect ourselves is to develop clear, exact
thinking, not simply skimming over things in thought as is
the general custom today. We should go even farther and try
to avoid colloquialisms and current catchwords, for directly
we use such words which come, not from thought but from
habits of speech, we are not exercising thinking — even
if only for a very short time. These are particularly
dangerous moments because they are not heeded. We should
really be careful to avoid using words behind which there is
not sufficient reflection. Such self-training, precisely in
these intimate details, should be undertaken by those who are
in earnest about the tasks of the age. After all that has
been said in these lectures it will not be difficult for you
to realise what is necessary.
But Lucifer,
too, endeavours by way of the will to bring man into a
condition where he does not act out of well-considered
impulses, but out of impulses springing merely from
temperament and inclination. Here again, Lucifer takes hold
and makes us his prey. And it is easiest for him to find his
prey when a large number of people give way to such impulses
which surge in the dark foundations of the life of soul
without rising into the sphere of the individual will. If
impulses springing from temperament and vague inclinations
bring us into connection with groups of human beings in such
a way that we feel ourselves part and parcel of a
group, we are at once caught into a whirl in which
the judgment of the individual will is wrested from us; and
it must not be wrested from us, for if it is, Lucifer gains
too great a power over us. We must strive for objectivity in
this respect.
Again, when
there is some deviation from the sphere of normal
consciousness, these are moments favourable for Lucifer. Very
radical symptoms may appear, but there are also more intimate
phenomena, when, for instance, we allow our actions to be
determined by obscure feelings of affiliation and the like.
The more flagrant, more radical, deviations of consciousness
are those where the will becomes defective or so weak that a
man can do no other than surrender himself entirely to his
life of soul with what amounts to the exclusion of his
will.
Modern
psychiatrists have adopted certain technical terms for these
particularly radical phenomena. For example, they speak of
“imperative” or “insistent” ideas
(Zwangsvorstellungen)
[note 1].
These ideas arise in people whose consciousness is not adjusted
in the way that is right and proper for the physical plane. If
due strength of will is lacking, ideas arise which a man
cannot expel from his consciousness — imperative or
insistent ideas, as they are called.
I will give
an example that has actually been observed in clinics.
— A man once saw another who had a cancerous tumour in
the face; he saw the tumour and as he was a man of very weak
will, he has believed ever since that cancer germs are
everywhere; he is convinced that these germs are present
wherever he goes. In other words, his will is not strong
enough to drive down into the subconsciousness the idea once
aroused in him. That is a particular instance of an
imperative or insistent idea. But the same kind of thing
makes its appearance in very diverse forms among people whose
will is not sufficiently developed, and then it is easy for
Lucifer to get power over them. Another aberration of
consciousness has been called by modern psychiatrists
“a morbid fear of touch”
(Berührungsfurcht). The sign of this condition
is that people in whom the will is insufficiently developed
shrink from every contact with other human beings or objects;
they are frightened of being touched by others or by objects.
The “morbid fear of touch” is another technical
term used in modern psychiatry.
Many other
such aberrations of consciousness could be mentioned. These
very aberrations show what the normal state of our
consciousness should be on the physical plane. But we are now
living at a time when certain beings must inevitably become
known to us, on the one side beings who are behind the veil
of nature, and on the other, behind the veil of the world of
soul. If these beings are not made known, the further
evolution of mankind will be endangered. If the connection of
Ahriman and Lucifer with human evolution is not perceived,
danger lies ahead. For it is just when they are not perceived
that they can operate most effectively. As an example of the
way in which Ahriman works, I will relate an anecdote which
presents the unqualified truth.—
To a village
there once came a stranger who was an acquaintance of the
burgomaster. He arrived on horseback and rode into the
village. This was an interesting event for the villagers and
they ran out into the street to watch him. He put his horse
in the burgomaster's stable and stayed in his house
from the Saturday evening over the Sunday. On the Monday he
wanted to take his departure, and asked for his horse. The
burgomaster said: “You came here on foot; you had no
horse.” — To every protest the burgomaster
replied: “You had no horse.” Finally he said:
“Very well, then, we will ask the people in the
village; they must have seen you when you arrived.”
Thereupon he called the people together and asked them
whether they had not seen the man arrive on foot, and they
all said, “Yes”. When everyone had affirmed this,
the burgomaster said: “Now swear to me, all of you,
that this man came on foot.” And everyone swore that it
was so. The man was therefore obliged to leave the village on
foot, without his horse. After a short time the burgomaster
rode after him, bringing his horse. At this, the man
exclaimed: “What was the purpose of this comedy?”
To which the burgomaster replied: “I only wanted to
present my community to you!”
Naturally,
Ahriman was at the bottom of this and he acted effectively as
an objective power. The anecdote is “truer than
true”, for the same thing is happening among us
continually. The whole of human life tends to increase the
number of people who swear to the non-existence of the
horse.
We must
therefore see to it that we have the greatest possible
exactitude of consciousness, for that alone is fitting for
our present earthly life. If you take all that can be found
in my books,
Occult Science,
The Threshold of the Spiritual World,
A Road to Self-Knowledge,
in
Knowledge of the Higher Worlds. How is it achieved?
as well as in
many Lecture-Courses, you will find that the paths have been
indicated whereby men may penetrate behind nature and behind
the world of soul in the proper way and with the requisite
preparation. The paths are described by which men can
penetrate behind the scenes of existence in the right way.
But the subjective strivings of very many persons do not, in
reality, aim at reaching the goal to be desired. In those
books it is clearly indicated that one who wishes to
penetrate into the other world must transcend the
normal form of consciousness. If the indications given are
faithfully followed, it will be clear that one must emerge
from the normal consciousness into a different form of
consciousness.
It is
important to know this, for there is a tendency among most
people, indeed among many of our friends too, not to leave
the normal form of consciousness at any price but to remain
in it and to bring the spiritual world into the ordinary
consciousness: that is to say, not to let the Ego emerge but
to bring the spiritual world into the Ego. It is
knowledge of the spiritual world that should be
brought into the ordinary consciousness, not the spiritual
world itself. If you faithfully practise what is contained in
the books mentioned, you will bring yourself into conditions
through which you will experience the spiritual world,
conditions through which experiences deriving from that world
can be brought into the sphere of the normal consciousness.
But there are many who do not want this; they want the
experience to be actually in the normal consciousness;
whereas it ought to originate from consciousness that is
different from the normal and passes into the
normal. Many of our friends, however, try to have visions in
the normal consciousness, not something that is a
reminiscence of a different kind of consciousness. If,
however, you have visions in the normal consciousness, that
is to say, if you do not really wish to develop a different
kind of consciousness, but to keep consciousness in its
ordinary form and yet look into the spiritual world, this
means that you do not seriously wish to go beyond but to
remain in the ordinary consciousness, expecting to see forms
and figures there which look like those of the physical
world. Many people try hard to see spirits or the activities
of spirits, but they want to see them just as they see
physical things. They want to see a spirit, but this spirit
is expected to have the form of a man or a woman or perhaps a
poodle, as these are seen in the physical world. In the other
world, however, it is not like this. The process itself lies
outside the ordinary consciousness and what enters into the
consciousness is at most a picture, an image which appears
afterwards. In short, we must not expect the spiritual world
to be merely a kind of finer sense-world, nor that it will
speak in human words, the only difference being that the
words come from the spiritual world. Our friends are often
only willing to listen in this way to voices which seem to
speak to them; these voices are expected to be similar to
those of the physical world, merely giving a different,
subtler version of things of the physical world. These people
would like to enter the spiritual world with the ordinary
consciousness which belongs to the physical world only.
Actually,
most of the visions or voices of which one is told are of the
character just described. At all events, this much is
certain: when we have such visions or hear such voices it is
always easy for Lucifer and Ahriman to have an easy game with
us; they lay hold of these experiences for themselves, for
men are always prone to interpret them incorrectly. If such
experiences are rightly interpreted, Lucifer and Ahriman gain
nothing from them.
As you see,
there are distinctions here which must be kept strictly in
mind. We must be fully alive to the possibility that as soon
as we bring something else into the ordinary consciousness
which is in truth suitable only for the physical world, we
come to Scylla and Charybdis — to Lucifer and Ahriman.
We must learn to recognise Lucifer and Ahriman as real Powers
in this connection. It is for this reason that such emphasis
has been laid on the relationship between Ahriman and
Lucifer, and the statue in the Goetheanum will be a true
representation of this.
Now you might
ask: If this is how things are, might it not after all be
more sensible to act like the scientists who, although
Ahriman is within what they say, are nevertheless unwilling
to acknowledge his reality? Or might it perhaps be better to
act like the Pastors of various religious communities?
— for they present things in such a way that Lucifer is
everywhere, but they will not admit it. They would regard it
as sinful were anyone to realise that the door there is open
for Lucifer. But a person who speaks to this effect today is
not being very clever. To say that it is more sensible to act
like the scientists and the Pastors of various religious
communities would be the same as deliberately refraining from
warning someone who has to cross a chasm for some distance on
a narrow plank, that he is facing danger. It is obvious that
he should be warned. Otherwise it would amount to saying:
certainly the man may be in danger, but it is more sensible
to say nothing to him about it. — Through knowing how
things are — and they will have to be known — the
danger becomes no greater and no less.
A time is
coming when Ahriman will try to take possession of the
intelligence and Lucifer of the will of men. This can be
thwarted only if these things are recognised; and recognition
can be brought about only by a spiritual-scientific
Movement. It is remarkable to see what Ahriman and Lucifer do
and yet are not observed. From this point of view it is
interesting to study modern psychiatry. Modern psychiatry has
actually recognised many things that are facts, but that it
cannot interpret correctly because it takes no account of the
approach of these spiritual Powers behind the veil. Modern
psychiatry regards anything that is not absolutely normal in
man, anything that deviates in the slightest degree from a
certain average norm, as tending towards insanity. In
numerous treatises the Maid of Orleans is held to have been
merely an hysteric. Indeed, writings are accumulating in
which Christ Jesus Himself is regarded as a not quite normal
man. There are also writings which ascribe craziness to
Goethe, and so on.
Here we have
an unmistakable, but false, Ahrimanic science, a science
which is at pains to show that although Goethe was in certain
respects a moral genius, this was entirely due to the fact
that he had an element of madness in his nature. Socrates,
however, knew better; he spoke of his “daimon”,
being well aware that his soul bordered on objective
spiritual Powers. This was quite clear to him. But the modern
psychiatrist sees fit to make out that there was an element
of madness or something of the kind in Socrates too. Ahriman
must be hidden at all costs — which is exactly what
suits him! And the same applies to Lucifer.
The fact of
the matter is that if one were simply to cultivate today what
purports in certain occult Orders to be secret knowledge,
with its accompanying symbolism, it would be very easy to
deliver into the hands of Ahriman everything that has been
pursued hitherto as occultism. And if the mysticism hitherto
pursued were to be encouraged and cultivated in human beings,
it would easily be delivered into the hands of Lucifer. The
ship of Spiritual Science must be steered between these two
dangers. This is extremely important. Spiritual Science must
therefore be so constituted that neither mystical nor occult
aberrations can take root.
I said
yesterday that when man breaks through the veil of nature, he
comes into a region where he encounters beings who have a
will for destruction, and that this will for destruction is
related to the human intellect. I have described what may
become of a man who falls prey to these beings. This must not
happen. I have also spoken of the fevered, ecstatic condition
into which a person may fall in his spiritual life if he
indulges in false mystical experiences. This too must be
avoided.
I said in an
earlier lecture that the esotericists among the occultists
tried hard to compel men to apply their intellect to the
deciphering of symbols, in order that they should not break
through the veil in a wrongful way and become the victim of
the Powers encountered in so terrible a form in these border
regions. These beings can be held at bay if the intellect is
employed in the way it is employed, for example, in
deciphering the symbols. This was formerly the practice but
it no longer meets the needs of the present time, nor is it a
practicable method.
You will find
that by the very manner in which Spiritual Science is
presented, the aberration leading into the region of Ahriman
is avoided in a different way. You must think here about
something that is apt to crop up in the life of our own
society. When one person or another is beginning to study
Spiritual Science, the remark is very frequently to be heard:
“I cannot grasp these things until I have seen them
myself clairvoyantly, so I take them on trust.” I have
emphasised over and over again that, rightly understood, this
is not the case. At the present time human beings have
sufficient intellectual capacity to understand everything
that has been given out. The whole of Spiritual Science in
the form it has been presented is within the grasp of the
intellectual capacities existing in men at the present time.
Spiritual Science cannot, it is true, be discovered
by these capacities, but it can be understood. The
intellectual capacities are there and can be roused into
activity, and those who refuse to admit that it is so are in
error. When what has been given in Spiritual Science is
really worked upon by the intellect, the intellect is being
employed in the right way and it is then impossible to enter
into the Ahrimanic realm by an unlawful path. There are two
eventualities only.— Either men make strenuous efforts
to understand, in which case they are employing the intellect
— which could well be misused by the Ahrimanic
beings—in order to understand Spiritual Science, and
then this intellect cannot be wrung from them. Whatever
Ahriman may elect to do, he will never get hold of the
intellect which men apply, either in the present age or in
the future, to the study of Spiritual Science. Of that you
may rest assured. If men make no attempt to understand
Spiritual Science, they are not applying their intellect to
it — but Spiritual Science cannot be blamed for that!
Laziness alone is responsible.
The region of
destructive spirits into which a man may come, is disclosed
most clearly of all if a soul is observed at the moment of
passing through the gate of death. Then these spiritual
beings swirl forward in their hosts; nor is this surprising,
for they are the spirits of destruction. To work at the
destruction of the physical organism is their regular
function. It is part of their handiwork — only they
must not remain too long.
Men who have
attained spiritual understanding keep these beings at bay.
But these beings have a great deal of power over souls whose
thinking is materialistic, who acquire no understanding of
the spiritual world. Souls who disdain any attempt to acquire
knowledge of the spiritual world have a great deal to suffer
from Ahriman. The Greek myth has depicted this very
graphically in the figure of Tantalus. The Gods placed food
in front of him but out of his reach and then watched the
torments he had to endure.
Many such
figures can be seen in the world today. All of them are
materialistic souls who have no desire to understand the
spiritual world. They are like Tantalus, in the sense that
after death, during the period of Kamaloka when they live
through their life — for a third of its duration
— in backward order, everything is snatched away from
them. Again and again they have the feeling: to what purpose
did I do this or that? For they see one of the spirits of
destruction snatching it away, and then they realise that
they really did it to no purpose! That, of course, is an
illusion; but such souls suffer the torments of Tantalus
because the spirits of destruction are all around them. They
do not realise that the whole of earthly life from birth
until death would be without purpose or meaning if it were
not pervaded by the Spirits of the higher Hierarchies. But
these souls cannot see the Spirits of the higher Hierarchies
and so everything must seem to them to have been
purposeless.
Spiritual
Science avoids false occultism in that it applies the
ever-increasing intellectual capacity now developing in
humanity to the establishment of a science for which more
intellect is required than hitherto. The nature of Spiritual
Science inevitably demands greater intellectual effort than
people have been accustomed to apply. Men like to delude
themselves in this respect. Were they really to apply the
intellectual capacity at their command today, they would
understand Spiritual Science. Through the strong intellectual
efforts that are necessary in Spiritual Science, Scylla is
avoided and mastered on the one side. The spiritual scientist
is well aware why people are disinclined to embark on the
study of Spiritual Science. It is because they are too lazy
to apply enough intellectual effort. That is why I spoke just
now of laziness.
On the other
side, the pitfall of false mysticism must be avoided by
ceasing to grovel within the purely inner life. This tendency
to live and brood continually within one's own soul
must be eliminated. The soul must come out of itself and look
with eyes of love at the deeper connections manifesting in
life outside.
The Mystery
Plays were written in order to help people to perceive such
connections — which can also be observed externally.
Inner processes of the life of soul are portrayed in the
Plays. If you learn to understand and perceive what is
happening, for example to Capesius, how he passes on from one
event to another, the weaving, creative activity there in
evidence will help you to release your own inner life, to
free it. This is also the essential function of our art. The
purpose of our whole Building is that souls shall be set free
from themselves and shall not lapse into false mysticism. It
is necessary to keep this in mind for we shall thus also
avoid the Charybdis of false mysticism.
Every effort
we make to explain to ourselves the mysterious connections in
the lives of human beings in the world outside protects us
from false mysticism. If in this way we follow what happens
to Capesius, we live in a weaving life of soul—but we
are not huddled up within our own. We attain everything that
the mystic attains, but in a different way. So you see, the
ship of Spiritual Science must be steered with clear-sighted
purpose between the two pitfalls. The teachings given must be
of a nature whereby false occultism and false mysticism are
both avoided.
It may truly
be said that our Spiritual Science is in keeping with the
needs and demands of the age. For this reason I have often
been obliged to oppose any false simplification or
popularisation of Spiritual Science which would do away with
the need for strenuous thinking. Equally I have been obliged
to oppose everything that tends towards ecstatic, egoistic
mysticism, which is always an element of such precepts as:
“in your own inmost being you find the reality, the
Divine”— and so forth. For in this there is no
desire to seek the Divine in outer life by following its
phenomena with love and understanding.
I recently
said to someone that Spiritual Science may be regarded as of
eminently practical usefulness. I did not say this in order
to boast about the merits of our Movement but merely in order
to show that in it the positive can always be found. I said:
even if people accept only what they can recognise, leaving
aside what does not interest them, Spiritual Science can
nevertheless be of the greatest usefulness. If you think of
the way in which we have been working for fifteen years, you
will realise that a host of truths belonging to the domains
of natural science, art, the history of art and so forth,
have been included in the purely spiritual-scientific
teachings. Indeed, assuming for a moment that nothing at all
of pure Spiritual Science had been given but only truths
relating to natural science and art — even this by
itself could be of practical use. But whatever is given in
this way is given with purpose and deliberation, for thereby
the human mind is induced to abandon fanciful speculation.
And so in every way we have endeavoured so to form our
Movement that it may go forward in the right and healthy way.
From the very beginning it was conceived as a kind of
organism. And thinking of it as such we may also say that it
must grow and develop like an organism, like a human organism
which about the seventh year gets its second teeth —
and the organism must make use of these second teeth, of the
individual teeth it then has at its disposal.
In earlier
lectures I have shown why we had to link up with the
Theosophical Movement, as we did in the year 1902 by founding
the German Section. At the beginning, progress was possible
because we developed entirely independently, as I have told
you. But then, in the year 1909 (1902 + 7 = 19o9) it was also
necessary to get second teeth. You will remember that those
were the years when the Leadbeater affair threw everything
into the melting-pot. The year 1916 is not far off. We shall
then have the second seven years behind us. If with this
second period of seven years behind us we think of our
Movement as an organism, this organism will then have reached
maturity; it must steer its own course and be able to achieve
something by itself. After all that has been given, it ought
to be possible for the work to go on effectively even without
the teacher.
I have spoken
to this effect on many occasions. Some time ago in Berlin I
said that the “Gesellschaft für Theosophische Art
and Kunst”
[note 2]
ought to be an
organisation that leads a life of its own, apart from me.
This trend will become more and more necessary. The danger
that things go well only as long as something comes from me
week after week, must be surmounted. We have now reached the
years when the Society ought to be able to show that it can
quietly continue to cultivate what has been given, to
cultivate it as if I were no longer there.
This is an
absolutely necessary thought. The teachings which have been
given are of such a nature that if they now work in souls, a
great deal can be done for which I am no longer needed. I am
not saying that I will not remain, but the test will consist
in my becoming more and more superfluous. It is absolutely
essential to obviate the possibility — which actually
exists — of our members not appreciating one another!
For you can realise what ill service would be done to our
cause if it were always being said: “He is the
Director, and he must be followed”, or “He is the
Director and he will see that such-and-such is done”.
— That simply will not do. What would happen if one day
I were no longer there? The Society would at once fall to
pieces! We shall only attain what we ought to attain if,
after fourteen years, we have really come to the point of
having a life of our own which can in turn bring forth new
life. This is not an impossibility if only we are mindful of
our real aims. Certainly, there are some difficult years now,
but we must surmount such difficulties. And a different value
can be placed upon much that I myself have to contribute, if
what I have now indicated is fulfilled. Difficulties of many
kinds exist at the present time. There are certain things
which cannot be said indiscriminately and during the last
four days I should have liked to call together a small,
restricted group of people in order to speak of matters of
which I cannot speak before a whole audience. But I was
obliged to abandon the idea because we are living in days
when such an arrangement is not feasible. In order to see
clearly, what I have been trying to present in these lectures
must be kept well in mind. We must also try to understand the
inner character of Spiritual Science and then it will be
clear to us why on the one side we shall inevitably have
opponents in the learned scientists who would like to base a
view of the world upon their erudition and, on the other
side, in those pastors who desire that what lies behind the
everyday life of soul shall remain completely hidden.
We must hold
faithfully to our teaching and also steep ourselves deeply in
its contents. Let us remember, for example, how the Mystery
of Golgotha has constituted the very core of our strivings,
how it has been stressed that Christ entered into Jesus of
Nazareth in the way so often described, coming from other
spheres of consciousness into the sphere of consciousness
proper for man's physical life on Earth. Christ-Jesus
is a Power on Earth, living on in the earthly consciousness
of men and in earthly happenings. For this reason the New
Testament can be no natural science, for natural science
— the science of what lies behind nature — must,
if it makes for reality, go beyond our normal consciousness.
Neither can the New Testament be Spiritual Science, for
there, too, normal consciousness must have been transcended
in the other direction. The marvellous greatness and
significance of the New Testament lies precisely in the fact
that it aspires neither to be Natural Science nor yet
Spiritual Science — but for all that it must not be
used to support polemics against Spiritual Science.
Here,
however, we perceive the reasons why the representatives of
one or another religious body will always rise up in arms
against Spiritual Science! It is because they will never be
willing to allow man to enter the world they so greatly fear.
They are afraid that one day human beings will discover the
eternal nature of the soul within them. They want people to
realise that only what they already know lives eternally
within them. I said yesterday that if a materialistic view of
the world were to take root, if such a view alone prevailed
and no Spiritual Science were to come into being, things
would reach the point where men would be engulfed in
scepticism and doubt, for something like an ocean would be
created in which souls would inevitably drown. But if it is
desired to hold men back lest they penetrate behind the veil
of the world of soul, then the only thing to do is to keep
them in a state of ignorance. Ignorance which would
eventually suffocate men must inevitably spread if those who
are often the representatives of religious communities today
were to gain their ends. If the scientists were to win the
day, human souls would be engulfed in an ocean of doubt; if
the pastors of religion who think in the way described were
to win the day, human souls would suffocate in an atmosphere
of ignorance. The task devolving upon Spiritual Science is
serious and grave and we must realise its gravity. We must
regard ourselves as individuals who through their karma can
be led to Spiritual Science in order that what they possess
in the way of intellect and intuitive discernment may be
placed at the disposal not actually of Spiritual Science, but
of the general progress of humanity. And such progress is a
dire necessity for the world.
We see, on
the one side, how a materialistic view of the world is trying
to get a firm foothold, and how nothing that offers
resistance is of any avail! And on the other side we see how
efforts are made to spread ignorance, how more and more is
done to efface the truths relating to the spiritual world!
Just think how every communication from the spiritual world
is regarded with downright hatred by the representatives of
certain religious communities!
I have given
these lectures in order to indicate the direction of the path
which must be taken by Spiritual Science, and to help you to
realise the following. We must oppose the materialistic
scientists, although they really cannot help acting as they
do, for Ahriman has them in his power and wishes to hide from
them the real motives underlying their activity. And we must
oppose the othcrs too — although they again cannot act
differently, because they are in the hands of Lucifer. The
right way to work is to come to grips with what Spiritual
Science can give us. Oh, if only there were a number of
people who realised the uniqueness of Spiritual Science, that
it must not be confused with other things! That in itself
would be a great step forward.
One can also
learn a great deal from mistakes, and pay attention to them
from this point of view. That is more important than merely
to criticise them, although criticism is also sometimes
necessary. I said that — to put it in plain words
— Ahriman is out to destroy man's intellect in
the future; but he combines this with something else as well
— because the beings who serve him are related, with
their higher forces, to the lower forces in man and because
he wants to establish an alliance between the higher and the
lower forces. In the normal course, Ahriman has under his
direction those things in the world which give rise to
illnesses; we know that they too are unavoidable for they
bring about death in the physical world. All destruction in
the physical world is allotted to him. But the connection
must be known and understood. If what is in the lower sphere
is taken up into the higher, it is united with these beings
of destruction and then man himself gives many opportunities
to Ahriman and his hosts. And when he does so he will not
fail to notice that certain lower parts of his organism begin
to function as higher parts of the organism otherwise
function.
If a man has
a dread of really exact thinking and yet wishes to enter the
spiritual world, well, he may succeed in doing so—he
crosses the Threshold and lives in the realm of the powers of
destruction. When he comes back again into his body, he has
entered into an alliance with these destructive beings and
knows nothing about it because he has not developed his own
intellect in the right way. He will then feel these beings
within him — and instead of thinking, instead of his
ears hearing and his eyes seeing, all kinds of hidden powers
in the lower organism begin to hear and to see. The body is
no longer his own in the sense it was before. On coming back
again into the body he finds it filled with all sorts of
ingredients. It is something new to him.
This entry
into one's own body as into something unfamiliar and
containing unknown elements is an experience that may befall
those who do not keep faithfully to the right path. For
Ahriman strives to establish himself in the human body and to
transform certain organs into organs of knowledge. Lucifer,
however, incites his fiery spirits of will to take certain
forces out of us in order to make these forces independent.
And so if we cross the Threshold in the direction of
Lucifer's realm and then come back into the body, we
feel as if certain parts are hollow, as if something has been
taken out of us. Ahriman adds something, because as
he enters into us he fills the organs. Lucifer takes
away organs, makes what was otherwise part of our own
organism, independent of us.
This is one
of the aims of Lucifer — to make independent what
belongs to us. And that is why in the pursuit of
unjustifiable mystical experiences it may so easily happen
that mystics, by consolidating and brooding over their own
inner life, prepare it for Lucifer who can then draw it out
of them. It is really so: Lucifer approaches the human being
and draws out something from his brain, namely, the
intellect. The intellect is drawn out as part of the etheric
brain or of the etheric heart, made independent, and then a
man feels that part of him has become hollow and empty. This
is actually an experience associated with intensely egotistic
individuals who have reached a certain high level of
development. It can be seen that certain parts of their
forces have been detached and are then, as it were, outside
them. Lucifer robs man of certain forces with which he then
proceeds to work. This state of things must naturally be
prevented and it is prevented by faithful adherence to the
right path. It is, however, a Luciferic conception to imagine
that something can be taken away from man and then utilised
as though he has no longer any part in it — for
example, if a man's teaching is stolen from him and
then utilised in the world. There you have a hint of the
domain where such things actually happen. A great deal can be
learnt from an error — above all from the error that
teaching can be separated from the teacher. By observing
these facts one can learn more than by merely criticising
them — justifiable though this may well be. It is not
difficult to realise what danger there would be were this
kind of thing to become more general in the future. And the
danger actually exists!
On the other
side man is approaching the danger that in the process of the
independent development of the Spirit-Self, Ahriman may take
possession of it. Already ncw, those who have an eye for such
things perceive how men lose their independence and how
Ahriman is actually guiding their hand when they write. That
is the one side, and the other is that things are taken and
utilised, and it is believed possible to separate them from
their originator. But the legitimate and only right way will
be for men to accept the guiding principles of Spiritual
Science, whereby on the one side the illumination that is
shed upon nature safeguards them when they break through its
veil. A zoology, a botany, a science of agriculture based on
the principles of Spiritual Science must be brought into
being; everything, medicine too, must be enriched by these
principles. But medicine can be rightly enriched only by
those who are not afraid to pierce the veil of nature, to
enter right into the Ahrimanic world where they must battle
against the spirits of destruction. To discover what is
health-bringing for man, one must enter the region of those
spirits who destroy all human life, who bring about illness
and death; for only in the realm where lie the deeper causes
of illness and death can the remedies be found.
Similarly,
one who wishes to learn what will be fruitful for the human
soul, must not be afraid to battle with the Luciferic beings;
he must preserve unshakable moral courage if he wishes to
cross the Threshold, he must realise that he is entering a
region of spiritual beings where his every thought will tend
to produce in him a slight touch of vertigo because it is on
the point of being wrested from him, because it is about to
flit away and he must swiftly take hold of it lest it escape
him. Nobody can penetrate into this region without calmly
battling against everything which, when it is out of balance,
leads the human being to unhealthy, subjective mysticism.
But Spiritual
Science steers us in such a way that, if we understand it, we
actually find the strength to combat the Ahrimanic forces of
destruction wherever they may be at work. And when, as in the
Mystery plays, we apply Spiritual Science to the onflowing
development of human life, and to the unfolding life of
nature when we portray the forces of nature in the forms of
our pillars and architraves, and when we portray the higher
secrets of existence by placing Christ over against Lucifer
and Ahriman as in our statue, when we approach these things
in such a way that the spiritual powers become objective
realities to us, then, my dear friends, we find the strength
which the mystic does not, as a rule, possess — the
strength to battle against the Luciferic powers.
From this you
will realise that Spiritual Science was from the outset
obliged to take the form in which it has actually been
presented, and that what it creates, in addition to its
theoretical teachings, is also essentially part of it. Let us
try more and more to make our thinking conform with the
thinking proper to Spiritual Science, for not until we free
ourselves from the prejudices current in the outside world
can we have a rightful place in Spiritual Science.
Notes:
Note 1.
Note by translator: According to Baldwin's Dictionary of
Philosophy and Psychology, the more commonly-known term
“fixed idea” would not be the correct
translation here. The expression “imperative”
or “insistent” idea approximates more closely
to the example given by Dr. Steiner.
Note 2.
This was the name of a project which did not continue.
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