LECTURE THIRTEEN
September 17, 1924
I
have already shown that the Apocalypse is built up on the
number principle — one of the occult principles —
from a certain view point. Prom my explanations about the
fundamental rhythmic numbers in the universe and in man earlier
today you may have seen how deeply numbers are grounded in the
universe, to the extent that they can disclose rhythmical
things.
The
buildup in accordance with numbers is quite natural with occult
revelations which are written in the way that the Apocalypse of
John is. According to the modern principle of initiation the
visions that the Apocalypticer speaks about arise if one has
Imaginations before one and Inspiration speaks into them. Then
one sees the Imaginations spread out before one in a pictorial
way and Inspirations speak through them. However, when this
occurs one has a number principle whereby the number 7 is
always the most perfect one for all occultists. This is
practically a tenet of occultism: 7 is the most perfect number.
The number principle enables one to follow things up. You
shouldn't think that this number 7 has much content or that its
content is very important for one. But it is of very great
importance when one is listening to Inspirations. If one lives
in the number seven one can understand Inspirations in many
different ways. I will give you an example. Let's suppose
someone feels that there are important spiritual backgrounds
behind his own age. Of course most people around the world feel
the spiritual backgrounds in their own time; this is only
natural from a human point of view, but it is rather arbitrary
nevertheless. For if I am an observer in 1924, the observation
year is 1924, whereas if someone else is an observer in the
year 1905, that is the observation year, and so on. However, if
I am the observer at any time and I know what I'm observing,
and I'm able to go 7 impressions back from any given
impression, then according to the laws of the spiritual world
whatever makes the seventh impression explains the first one,
and the fourteenth one explains both of these. So this is
really a methodic principle to find one's way into what
something can tell one. Just as one has to know the language
which someone is speaking in order to understand him, so the
main thing is to be able to live in this number seven.
This is the way one has to look at these things. For this
revelation of the number seven is very complicated. All kinds
of things in the universe are arranged in accordance with the
number seven, and to a lesser extent according to twelve and
other numbers. One can follow up the events which explain
things from every point through multiples of 7.
We
can do this precisely in connection with the fact that we
indicate such an important point yesterday, which really seems
to be extremely important in our age where Michael is
regulating things in the world. We pointed out that John's
significant vision of the woman clothed with the sun, the
dragon under her feet, giving birth to a little boy will appear
to men in a particular form in the near future. Therewith we
have gained an extremely important point of departure; and from
this point of view an apocalypse, every apocalypse and
especially John's Apocalypse is the most impressive if one
grasps what one is standing in in this way.
When I tried to interpret the Apocalypse in Nuremberg in 1908
it was an entirely different time in the entire
Anthroposophical movement. The main thing then was to interpret
Anthroposophy by means of the Apocalypse, as it were. One can
interpret a great deal through the Apocalypse, and the events
in the world which it was important to mention at that time
could already be seen in the Apocalypse. However, as I already
mentioned a number of times, you should identify yourselves
with the Apocalypse and realize that the Apocalypse describes a
large number of events which proceed in accordance with
multiples of seven. Since I pointed to the events which are
connected with the woman clothed with the sun and the dragon
under her feet, you will be able to tell in which Apocalyptic
point of time we're living from the point of view of the
experiences of the consciousness soul.
My
lectures in 1908 dealt more with the evolution of mankind in
general, and with the evolution of the astral body, but with
respect to the consciousness soul which doesn't rim parallel
with the other evolutionary processes, but pushes into them
we're really living in the age of the trumpet sounds today.
We're standing at the beginning of the development of the
consciousness soul, and we only hear the trumpet sounds if this
consciousness soul elevates itself to the point where it can
have supersensible visions, because people do not interpret
what goes on down below in a supersensible way to day. The
significant thing today is that people accept things
indifferently and that they do not interpret them in a
supersensible way. In Anthroposophical lectures I have often
referred to a particular point in the 19th century in this
connection, namely to the beginning of the 1840s. I said that
the beginning of the forties is a significant incision into the
development of the civilized world, from a spiritual viewpoint.
It is the culmination of materialism, as it were. Everything
that is connected with materialism was already decided in
1843/44. What happened after this until now is basically only
an after effect of this, and everything that happens in the
future will also be an after effect. This point in time at the
beginning of the forties is really extremely important for what
has happened to the civilized population of Europe and its
American appendage, for the breaking in of Ahrimanic powers
into human affairs was a tremendously intensive one. You can
say: yes, but there were even worse events after the years
1843/44. However, this only seems to be the case. You have to
remember that Ahriman is smarter than human beings. Ahriman did
his most important work in 1843/44, and he arranged things in
the way that he does this in accordance with his intelligence.
This is the low point in the materialistic path, or the summit,
if you prefer. Then men continued to go about their business,
and the things they did later on are sometimes seemingly
nastier, but they are not as terrible for the totality of human
evolution. If one looks at them from a spiritual viewpoint,
they are the after effects of what was projected at the
beginning of the forties. The sixth angel began to blow his
trumpet at the beginning of the forties and he will continue to
sound until the events of which I spoke yesterday will begin at
the end of the 20th century, when the seventh trumpet will
begin to sound.
We
are definitely in the midst pf the three woes. This is the
second woe that civilized humanity is going through in the age
of the consciousness soul, which was precede by the fifth
trumpet back to 150 years earlier. And if we follow the
trumpets back with respect to the seven-foldness of the
consciousness soul, we arrive at a somewhat earlier point in
time. The consciousness age begins in 1413 down below here on
earth; but things have shifted, and earlier times work into
them. The trumpet sounds go back to about the age of the
Crusades. In real occult centers one always looked upon this
time of the Crusades up to our time as the age of the trumpet
sounds, in ä certain sense. You will be able to connect
the stages which are described in the Apocalypse' with outer
events. For instance, when Copernicanism takes hold and when
materialism sets in one third of the human beings are killed,
that is, they stop developing their full spirituality. And the
plague of locusts which is described in the Apocalypse is
really very shocking.
Here one comes to something which one doesn't like to talk
about, although of course it belongs to the things that priests
must deal with. This plague of locusts is with us in a very
prominent way from a purely consciousness standpoint. Of course
such things should not be discussed when we speak in a
theoretical way or when we speak to humanity in general, where
cures for sick conditions can always occur. But if it's a
question of priestly activities, then of course one must know
with whom one is dealing, just as one has to know this for
normal humanity.
As
a rule, the people who call themselves liberals or democrats
are very glad if they can point to evidence that the number of
people in a particular region on earth is increasing
tremendously. An increase in the population is something which
is very much desired, especially by politically minded
democratic and liberal people, and also by people who think
that they are free thinkers and intellectuals.
Now
first of all this is not quite correct, because the statistics
are based on errors; people usually look at one part of the
earth and they don't realize that the other parts of the earth
were more densely populated in previous times than they are
today. It is not quite correct; however, on the whole it is
correct in the sense that there is a kind of a surplus of human
beings who are already appearing in our time who have no egos,
who are not really human. This is a terrible truth. They walk
around and are not incarnations of an ego; they enter into the
physical line of heredity and receive an etheric body and an
astral body. In a certain way they are equipped with an
Ahrimanic consciousness, and they look human if one doesn't
look too closely, but they are not human beings in the full
sense of the word.
This is a terrible truth, which is present, it's a truth, and
when the Apocalypticer speaks about the plague of locusts
during the trumpets epoch he is referring directly to human
beings. Here again one can see how good the Apocalypticer's
vision is, for such men in their astral body look exactly the
way the Apocalypticer describes them — like etheric
locusts with human faces. One definitely has to think about
such supersensible things in this way, and priests must know
about such things. For a priest is a minister. Hence he must
also be able to find words for everything that happens in such
a soul. They're not always bad souls; they can just be souls
who get to the soul stage but are lacking an ego.
One
will certainly realize this when one runs into these human
beings. A priest has to know this, for after all there is
fellowship among men with regard to such matters. People with
normal souls suffer through their association with such persons
who really go through the world like human locusts. The
question can and must arise: How should one behave towards such
human beings? It is often very difficult to relate to such
people because they feel things deeply, they can feel things
very deeply, but one notices that there is no real
individuality in them. However, one must of course take care to
keep the fact that they have no individualities from them,
otherwise insanity will necessarily result. But even though one
has to conceal this from them, it's a question of arranging
things for such souls — after all they are souls, even
though they're not spirits — in such a way that these
people can develop in the company of others, that they can make
connections with others and go along with them, as it were.
These human beings display the nature and essence of human
beings fairly closely until their 20th year. The intellectual
or mind soul only emerges around age 20, and this makes it
possible for the ego to live out its life on earth.
Anyone who says that one shouldn't act in a sympathetic way to
such ego-less, individuality-less people, since they won't
incarnate again and because they have no individuality —
is very much mistaken. He would also have to say that one
shouldn't behave in a sympathetic way towards children. One
must decide what is really inside such men in each individual
case. Sometimes such men contain posthumous souls, that is,
posthumous with respect to the actual or normal human souls
that arose at a particular time in evolution and which
incarnate repeatedly as men. These are souls which remained
behind, or they are souls which returned belatedly from other
planets, to which almost all human beings went during a certain
age. Such souls may be present in such human bodies. Thus we
must consciously educate such men like permanent children.
All
of this is really secreted in the Apocalypse. And if one takes
these ideas in the Apocalypse that are given as Imaginations,
they sometimes cut into one's heart in a terrible way. It's
really horrible the way he talks about all kinds of suffering
that will befall mankind on earth with regard to our age we
can only say that a great deal of this is already here as far
as the spiritual aspects go.
Then of course there are mildly grand ideas like the angels who
come down with incense and a censer. There's a reference to the
smoke of incense. Then our gaze immediately falls upon a great
deal which happened at the time of the Crusades. The trumpets
go back to the Crusades. What we see in the sphere of the
consciousness soul enters the consciousness soul of humanity
during the Crusades epoch.
Here one finds that consciousnesses of individual personalities
arise during the time of the Crusades and what is connected
with this, who really had tremendously strong impressions from
their experiences of the spiritual world. Here we really meet
what I would like to call geniuses of piety. It's very
important for us to realize that we meet geniuses of,
religiousness there.
If
we go further back, we find that for the consciousness sphere
the period between the Mystery of Golgotha and the time of the
Crusades and everything that is connected with this is a
smaller epoch that corresponds to the opening of the seven
seals. One can only understand this completely if one realizes
the following. Just think of how many personalities arise
during the time of the Crusades who direct almost all of their
religiousness into their depths, into their intensity of
feeling, into an inner mystical experience. This begins at that
time, whereas previously one looked up into the whole universe
when one wanted to perceive the divine world; the previous
state of affairs also existed in tone-setting places, although
there was a continual battle with the stream that proceeded
from Rome. They had an understanding for the God who lives,
weaves and works in the sensory phenomena to which they looked
up. However, at some point everything was more or less directed
within. The great geniuses of mysticism appear. Previously one
received divine revelations through the perception of the
universe; afterwards we have a feeling of the, inner kindling
of light which the human heart can feel, so that divine things
can be illuminated from within men.
The
stages which the Apocalypse describes are also present here. We
have the first, quiet, victorious advance, where the spreading
out of Christianity depends on the victorious spirit and word,
where Christianity spreads out in the sub-depths of the social
life at that time. Then we have a second epoch, where the
spread of, Christianity takes away a lot of what one could call
peace from the world. Christianity participates quite a bit in
the wars which take place in a second epoch. Then we see an
epoch where a gradual dying out of the inner impulse of
Christianity occurs, where Christianity becomes the state
religion, which of course is a dying of the real Christian
impulse. Then we have the period which corresponds to the
fourth seal, when Islam breaks in in the way I described. And
so it goes; seal after seal is opened, and then what occurs
under the influence of significant religious geniuses and under
the influence of the Crusades is something that one can observe
if one follows up what really happened more exactly. In this
respect all the history books are really a falsification of
history.
Up
till the Crusades the spread of Christianity in a good sense
through the repeated efforts of countless members of monastic
orders and also in a more external and bad sense, occurred
through the direct inspiration of the Palestinian stories. Of
course, the gospels were only referred to by priests and not by
laymen, but the things that happened were definitely influenced
by what the priests learned from the gospels. The priests had
the gospels and the cultic rites; the cult gradually became
something that reflected the supersensible world in a sensory
way. The priests looked upon the sacrifice in the mass as a
direct portal to the supersensible world, and therefore they
looked up to the starry heavens less and less for their divine,
spiritual inspiration. All of the wonderful prophecies and
wisdom which I mentioned this morning in connection with
ancient astrology and astrosophy disappeared almost entirely by
the time of the Crusades.
During the time of the Crusades we suddenly see people
appearing who travelled from east to west. Some of them are
coming back from the Crusades, and others who came a little
later had taken a deep interest in the secrets of the Orient. A
large number of writings were brought from the east that were
later lost or destroyed. They were definitely brought, but not
many of them survived because people didn't watch their
literary possessions as vigilantly then as one does today.
However, the cosmic Christianity which they contained was
handed down by word of mouth from about the time of the
Crusades. People began to develop a deep interest in this at
the time of the Crusades.
A
kind of 7th seal is opened here. And one could say that things
have really changed with regard to people's respect for written
things. For instance, it's still uncertain at the moment, but
if this Italian professor really did find handwritten things by
Livius, you can imagine what a storm the Italian state will
kick up in order to acquire them. And yet you wouldn't have to
go back too far to get to a time when the state would have been
quite indifferent to whether or not this or that had been
found. This is something which has only developed rather
recently.
I
once witnessed a find like this. When I was at the Goethe and
Schiller archives we received a letter by Goethe which looked
rather odd; it was dirty and terribly torn. To us this was a
real crime; that was no way to treat Goethe's letters. We tried
to find out what was behind this. And we discovered that the
letter had once been in the possession of Kuno Fischer, and he
had simply sent Goethe's original letters to the printers with
his notes and comments in the margins, without bothering to
copy them. It was a bit miraculous that this letter had
survived, since one generally doesn't keep manuscripts.
Thus it's not too surprising that the Christianity that was
still alive in the Orient, or the orientalism that helped to
explain Christianity were spread by the Crusades. What we would
call cabalistic truths spread and a few people who might have
known much more than Jakob Boehme lived at a time when no one
thought that this was strange, whereas during Jakob Boehme's
time the fact that someone like him existed created a
sensation.
It
is the time of the Crusades, where we want to point to what was
going on in men's consciousnesses, and not so much to the outer
events that are described in history books, — it's the
time when the seal age gave way to the trumpet age. People with
a little depth to them have always had a feeling about the time
of the Crusades which made them say: Ah yes, the trumpet
sounds; if I look at the thing from supersensible viewpoints
it's really terrible what is going on there with respect to
human souls. However, men on earth don't hear the trumpets,
even though they're there.
A
great many people should be aware of this trumpet period, since
we're living at the time of the 6th trumpet, and you know what
the most important effects and characteristics of this
trumpet are. We're told that a third part of the men are
killed, as I mentioned. Of course this doesn't happen all at
once. But this killing refers to the absence of an ego in those
men who had already been prepared previously through their
locust forms.
These are things which force priests to look more deeply into
the structure of what actually occurs. After all, priests are
supposed to be dealing with supersensible things. We are
surrounded by supersensible things in all directions, and what
one can observe in human beings through the fact that they have
a physical body is only one segment of human life. As soon as
we press into the supersensible world we see that people do
things of which they are often not aware. It could be that it's
in someone's karma to behave in a particular way towards
another human being in this earth life; and one can sometimes
not know what it does to the other person's life if he goes by
him without paying any attention to him. Of course later on
karma will exert much more force and the thing will be
adjusted; but maybe it could have been adjusted in this
lifetime already. Someone who should have had something to do
with another human being in this life cannot be moved to do it
and he passes him by. One doesn't necessarily have to notice
this in outer life on the physical plane. No real objections to
this can be made, since the person concerned has done all of
his duties, from a conventional outer viewpoint, but perhaps he
did something that can strike terribly deep wounds into
something which is connected with world evolution. Then one
cannot say that one is dealing with super-terrestrial things,
but with supersensible things, for supersensible things are
constantly happening on earth.
It
will be necessary to understand the Apocalypse in a serious
way, to the extent that the one whom I called the etheric
Christ will make himself visible within humanity. Therefore, it
was due to a very healthy feeling which came up out of your
deepest sub-consciousness that you wanted to make the
Apocalypse into the object of these studies. Perhaps you
initially had a different idea about what I can give about the
Apocalypse at this time, but that you wanted to hear something
about the Apocalypse from me was definitely the voice of the
times in your hearts. And one can say that the fact that the
need arose in you to understand the Apocalypse shows that you
have a certain relationship with John the Apocalypticer, since
you priests belong together and have become united in such
tendencies. Since this permeation with the spirit of the
Apocalypse is very necessary for you, you will not find any
contradiction in the fact that one can find various sevenfold
epochs, that one can really begin them anywhere and that one
then discovers how things proceed; but if one cannot look upon
the number principle as the methodic thing one won't find any
connections in world evolution at all. Therewith we have really
touched upon the productive side of the Apocalypse for our
time.
Now
we usually find other events sprinkled into the Apocalypse at
the places where one set of seven goes over into the next one.
that we run into here is very much in need of an explanation.
If one only reads the Apocalypse in an external way one might
think that there are so and so many numbers of human beings who
have the seal of God on their foreheads in a particular epoch,
so that they are among the fortunate ones who are rescued, or
saved, or, however one wants to put it, whereas the others
cannot be saved. This, is something which can be depressing if
one reads the Apocalypse in a thoughtful way.
However, one should realize that there is always a difference
between racial development and individual development in
ancient writings. One should realize that no one felt at all
depressed in earlier times when one said that so and so many
will be saved in a particular race, whereas the others will be
destroyed. No one included himself among these because one
thought in a realistic way. It's just like today, where
everyone is anxious to have his life insured.
Here one calculates how long one will probably live. Insurance
companies don't accept people who will probably die soon
because if they insured a lot of people who will soon die,
their cash boxes would soon be empty. They want to have people
who live a long time and make a lot of payments. Hence one must
calculate the insured's probable life expectancy on the basis
of past experience through probability calculus, which is a
very interesting method of calculation. I have never found that
anyone felt that he had to die at the moment he was supposed to
according to the no doubt correct methods of the insurance
companies. There's no such thing. One doesn't feel obliged to
die. And this is based on a reality. As soon as one gets into
numbers one is not grasping the stage of spiritüality at
which a particular human individuality is.
When one says such things, one is touching upon a certain
mystery and an occult secret. This is based on the fact that
one thinks that if one has 1,2,3,4,5 individualities and one
counts them and then uses the number — already in
counting them — that this must also be of importance for
the spiritual world. But it is not important in the same way.
Numbers enter in at the moment when the spiritual world breaks
through and becomes manifest. As for instance when it becomes
manifest in the world year or in breathing, or wherever the
spiritual world breaks through. So that if one ascends to a
spiritual consciousness, one needs the number at the boundary
or threshold into the spiritual world. One doesn't get further
there if one doesn't have a number or something similar to a
number. But once on has crossed the threshold and one wants to
do something with numbers, nothing fits. Therefore, when an
occult writer like the Apocalypticer speaks of racial
development which takes place on earth, he can very well say
that there are so and so many people in this category —
and we v/ill see next time what these numbers mean — but
a single human individuality cannot feel that he is affected by
this, because these numbers refer to the development of races
and not to human individualities. We will go into how all of
this is possible the next time.
|