LECTURE
ELEVEN
WHAT
IS THE POSITION IN RESPECT OF SPIRITUAL INVESTIGATION
AND THE UNDERSTANDING OF SPIRITUAL INVESTIGATION?
Blackboard Drawing 12, August 22, 1924
A great deal
of course could still be added to all that I have touched upon in
these lectures, but we shall endeavour today to conclude them with a
summary of the whole subject.
The approach
we have taken throughout these lectures raises an important issue:
What is the attitude to Anthroposophy, to spiritual
investigation as presented by Anthroposophy? What is the
position in regard to the understanding of anthroposophical teachings
seeing that few today can have immediate access to spiritual
exercises and practices which enable them to perceive and test
thoroughly for themselves the anthroposophical descriptions of other
worlds? This is a question that lies close to the hearts of those who
feel an urge and even a longing to take up Anthroposophy. But
this question is always seen in a false light, and is the more likely
to be misinterpreted precisely because they are unable to grasp the
right procedures such as I have advocated in these
lectures.
People may
ask: what is the use of all these descriptions of the spiritual world
if I cannot look into that world myself? I should like, therefore, to
touch upon this question in my cursory analysis today.
It is not
true to say that one cannot acquire an insight into anthroposophical
teachings and an understanding of them unless one can investigate the
spiritual world oneself. It is essential to distinguish, especially
at the present time, between the actual discovery of facts relating
to the different worlds and the comprehension of those facts. This
distinction will be clear to you when you recall that man, as
we know him today, belongs in fact to different worlds and that his
experiences are derived from different worlds. Man as he is
constituted today acquires his stock of knowledge and his
consciousness of everyday existence in the course of his day to day
experiences. During his waking life this consciousness which was the
starting-point of our enquiry gives him a certain perspective
over a limited field, over that aspect of the world that is
accessible to sense-observation, and which can be grasped and
interpreted by means of the intellect which he has developed in the
course of evolution.
With his
understanding man penetrates in his dreams into this world concealed
behind the phenomenal world, in a vague, indefinite way as I have
already pointed out. In his psychic life man contacts the world
through which he passes between death and rebirth only in dreamless
sleep, where he is surrounded by spiritual darkness and where he
lives out a life which normally he cannot recall.
Man knows
three states of consciousness — waking, dreaming and deep
sleep. But he does not live only in the worlds to which this
threefold consciousness gives access, for he is a being whose kingdom
has many mansions. His physical body lives in a different world from
his etheric body, his etheric body again in a different world from
his astral body and both live in different worlds from the
Ego.
And this
threefold consciousness — clear waking consciousness,
dream consciousness and sleep consciousness (one would like to say
absence of consciousness but one can only describe it as diminished
consciousness) — belong to the Ego as it is today. And this Ego
when it looks inwards has also three states of consciousness. When it
looks outwards, it knows waking (day) consciousness, dream
consciousness and sleep consciousness. When it looks inwards, it
knows clear intellectual consciousness; a sentient consciousness, a
sentient life, though this is far more opaque and dreamlike
than one usually imagines; it knows also a sentient life and
finally the dim, twilight will-consciousness that resembles the state
of deep sleep. Normal consciousness can no more explain the origin of
willing than it can explain the origin of sleep. When a man performs
an act of will it is accompanied by a thought which is clear and
lucid. He then shrouds this thought in feeling which is more
indefinite. The thought that is imbued with feeling passes down into
the limbs; the process cannot be experienced by normal consciousness.
To the kind of investigation of which I spoke yesterday and the day
before, willing presents the following picture: whilst a thought
wills something in the head and is then transmitted to the whole body
through feeling, so that a man wills in the whole of his body,
something akin to a delicate, subtle and intimate process of
combustion sets in meanwhile.
When man
develops Initiate-consciousness he is able to experience this life of
will which is subject to the influence of warmth, but it remains
wholly subliminal to ordinary consciousness. This is merely one
instance which shows how what lies in the subliminal consciousness
can be raised to the level of Initiate-consciousness.
When the
information in the book I mentioned yesterday is made progressively
more accessible to the public, people will realize that when we
contemplate with Initiate-consciousness an act of will
performed by man, we have the impression that we are watching the
lighting of a candle or even the kindling of a warmth-giving light.
Just as we have in this instance a clear picture of the external
phenomenon, so we shall be able to see the thought as it is
precipitated into the will. We then say: the thought develops feeling
and from feeling — it follows a downward direction in man
— proceeds a sensation of warmth, a flame in man. And this
flame wills; it is kindled by degrees. We can represent schematical1y
this normal consciousness in the following way:
Inner
Clear thinking
Life of feeling
Will consciousness
|
Outer
Waking day-consciousness
Dream consciousness
Sleep consciousness
|
Now
although, in order to investigate the spiritual world, we must of
necessity direct our consciousness to that world which we seek to
apprehend cognitively, none the less, if the fruits of our
investigations are to be communicated honestly, the ideas
communicated verbally must be expressed in the language of other
forms of consciousness.
You can now
understand, perhaps, that this is a twofold process. In the first
place, for example, we investigate the world of the human organs as I
explained yesterday. We investigate the phenomena in question by
utilizing the emergent forces in man as he draws near to the
spiritual world during the course of his life. We then discover the
relevant facts as they are revealed to the understanding. And there
are men in the world who are aware of these facts and who communicate
them to the world. When they are imparted to the world by such men
they can be comprehended by normal consciousness if we look at them
with the necessary objectivity. In the course of human evolution
there has always been a minority who devoted themselves to
investigation of the facts relating to the spiritual world and
who then communicated to others the fruits of their
investigations.
Now one
factor today militates against the acceptance of such knowledge,
namely, that as a rule people grow up in a social environment and
under an educational system that conditions their habitual responses
to such an extent that they can believe only in the world of fact, in
the sensory world, and the rational information derived from the
world of the senses. This habit is so strongly ingrained that people
are inclined to say: At the university there are graduate members of
the teaching faculty who, in addition to teaching, investigate
certain factual aspects of the phenomenal world or confirm the
findings of other research workers in this field. Everyone accepts
their findings. Even though one does not investigate the facts
oneself, one still believes in them. This boundless credulity is
reserved especially for modern science. People believe things which,
to those who have insight, are not only problematical, but definitely
untrue. This situation stems from centuries of education. I would
like to point out that this form of education was unknown to men of
earlier centuries. They were far more inclined to believe those who
made researches into spiritual facts since they still preserved
something of the old insight into, and participation in the spiritual
world that was consistent with their will and feeling. Today
people are strangers to such knowledge. They are accustomed to an
outlook which on the Continent is more theoretical and in England and
America more practical, and which has now become firmly
established.
On the
Continent there exist detailed theories about these matters whilst in
England and America there is an instinctive feeling for them
which is by no means easy to overcome. During the course of centuries
mankind has become inured to a scientific outlook that is related to
the phenomenal world and has come to accept the findings of
astronomy, botany, zoology and medicine, for example, in the form in
which they are presented in recognized schools or centres of
learning. A chemist, for example, undertakes a piece of research in
his laboratory. People have not the slightest understanding of the
technique involved. The work is acclaimed and they unhesitatingly
declare: “Here is truth, here is knowledge that makes no appeal
to faith.” But what they call knowledge is, in effect, an act
of faith.
And amongst
the methods adopted for investigating the phenomenal world, for
ascertaining the laws of the phenomenal world through the
instrument of reason, not a single one gives the slightest
information about the spiritual world. But there are few who can
afford to dispense wholly with the spiritual world. Those who do so,
are not honest with themselves, they persuade themselves into it.
Mankind feels an imperious need to know something about the spiritual
world. As yet men ignore those who can tell them something about the
spiritual world as it is known today, but they are prepared to listen
to historical traditions, to the teachings of the Bible and sacred
scriptures of the East. They are interested in these
traditional writings, because otherwise they cannot satisfy their
need for some sort of relationship to a spiritual world. And in spite
of the fact that both the Bible and the Eastern scriptures have been
investigated only by individual Initiates, people claim that they
reflect a different kind of outlook, which bears no
relationship to the knowledge of the phenomenal world, scientific
knowledge, and depends upon faith and appeals to faith. And so a
rigid line of demarcation is set up between science and belief. Men
refer science to the phenomenal world and belief to the spiritual
world.
Amongst the
theologians of the Evangelical Church on the Continent — not
amongst the theologians of the Roman Catholic Church who have
retained the old traditions, and who do not accept the dichotomy of
the Evangelicals or the natural scientists — there exist
innumerable theories showing that there are definite boundaries to
knowledge and thereafter faith steps in. They are convinced there can
be no other possibility.
England is
less hag-ridden because theorizing is unpopular. Here the
traditional attitude is, on the one hand, to listen to what science
has to say, and, on the other hand, to live reverently — I will
not go so far as to say sanctimoniously — in faith and to
keep the two spheres rigidly apart.
For some
time past, laymen and scholars have adopted this point of view.
Newton laid the foundations of a theory of gravitation, i.e. of a
conception of space which, by its very nature, excludes any
possibility of a spiritual outlook. If the world were as Newton
depicted it, it would be devoid of spirit. But no-one has the courage
to admit it. One cannot imagine a divine-spiritual Presence that
lives and moves and has its being in the Newtonian world.
But not only
the devotees of these ideas ultimately accept a conception of space
and time that excludes the spiritual, but also those who undertake
independent research work. Newton offers an excellent example of the
latter, for he not only laid the foundation of a world-outlook which
excluded the spiritual, but at the same time in his interpretation of
the Apocalypse he fully accepted the spiritual.
The links
between knowledge of the phenomenal world and knowledge of the
spiritual world have been severed. Today the theorists set out to
give solid proof of this dichotomy and every effort is made to
inoculate the thoughts and feelings of those who distrust theory with
this idea, so that ultimately they become conditioned.
On the other
hand, man's intelligence, power of comprehension and ideation,
his capacity for ideas, have today reached a point where, if he keeps
them under conscious control, he can grasp by reason, though he
cannot investigate by reason, the teachings of Initiation
Science.
It is
essential that the following point of view should find wider
acceptance: that investigations into the spiritual world must be
undertaken by those who, in their present life on Earth are able to
call upon forces from earlier incarnations, for it is these
forces which release the necessary powers for spiritual
investigation; and further, that the results of these investigations
shall be accepted by increasing numbers of men and incorporated into
ideas which are comprehensible; and that, when the results of
spiritual research are accepted by healthy understanding, a way is
prepared for these other men, by virtue of this understanding, to
have real experience of the spiritual world. For I have often said
that the healthiest way to enter the spiritual world is first of all
to read about it or to assimilate what we are told about
it.
If we accept
these ideas, they become inwardly quickened and we attain not only to
understanding, but also to clairvoyant vision in accordance
with our karmic development. In this respect we must give serious
thought to the idea of karma. Today man is not concerned with karma;
he believes that just as we analyse sulphur in the laboratory, so we
can analyse by laboratory techniques the origin of so-called
trans-normal phenomena; and that, as with sulphur, we must subject
the individual who manifests abnormal forms of knowledge to
experimental tests.
But mineral
sulphur has no karma. Only the sulphur associated with the human body
has karma, for only human beings are subject to karma. We cannot
assume that it is part of man's karma to be experimented upon in a
laboratory which would be a necessary prerequisite if the
investigations were to have any value.
For this
reason we have need of Spiritual Science. It would first of all be
necessary to enquire into the karmic conditions which enable us to
gain knowledge of the spiritual world through the agency of
another. I have explained this clearly at the end of the later
editions of my book
Theosophy.
But mankind today is not yet
ready to accept this idea, not from incapacity, but from
conservatism; but it is of immense significance.
It is
essential to realize that we must not immediately undertake
investigations into the spiritual world; but on the other hand if we
do not adopt undesirable practices, such as experimenting with karma
when there is no karmic necessity, or with mediums whose
procedure we do not understand; and if we rely upon the
everyday consciousness, which is the right condition of consciousness
for this world, then we will attain to a perfect understanding of the
communications of Initiation Science. We are greatly mistaken
if we imagine that we cannot have such an understanding without first
being able to experience the spiritual world for ourselves. To say,
“what avails the spiritual world, if I cannot experience
it for myself?” is to encourage yet another of the errors
commonly committed today. This is to commit one of the greatest, most
dangerous and most obvious of errors and must be clearly recognized
by those who are associated with a Movement such as the
Anthroposophical Society.
Man's
existence here on the physical plane is bound up with existence in
other worlds. To the unprejudiced mind this can be explained by the
fact that man's experiences, as seen in the light of total human
experience, are such that, in relation to the most vital questions in
life they meet with incomprehension on the part of the ordinary daily
consciousness because they appear unrelated, whereas in certain
instances they are in effect closely associated.
In this
brief account, therefore, I should like first to speak of man's
entrance into the physical world and his exit, of birth and
death.
Birth and
death, the two most momentous events of our life on Earth, appear to
ordinary consciousness to be isolated phenomena. We associate all
that precedes birth, all that is related to human incarnation, with
the beginning of our life on Earth, and death with its end. They
appear to be dissociated. But the spiritual investigator sees
them drawing ever more closely together. For if we take the path
leading to the Moon mysteries and woo the night into the day in the
manner described yesterday, then we perceive how, during the
processes of birth, the physical body and etheric body
progressively grow and flourish: how they develop out of the
germ, gradually assume human form, and how during earthly life their
vitality progressively increases up to the age of thirty-five, when
it gradually decreases and a decline sets in. This process, of
course, can be observed externally. But he who follows the lunar
path, which I described yesterday, perceives that whilst the cellular
life of the physical and etheric bodies grows, develops and assumes
embryonic form, another form of life, which in Anthroposophy we call
the astral body and Ego, is subject to the forces of decay and
death.
When we
uncover the hidden recesses of life — I gave a concrete
description of this yesterday — we become aware of the birth of
the physical and etheric and the death of the astral and Ego. We
perceive death interwoven with life, the winter of life allied to its
springtime.
And again,
when we observe man with Initiate-consciousness, we are aware
that, as his body declines, there is a burgeoning of the Ego and the
astral from the thirty-fifth year onwards. This burgeoning life
is retarded by the presence of dying forces in the physical and
etheric being. Nevertheless a definite renewal does take place. And
so by means of spiritual investigation we come to recognize the
presence of death in life and life in death. Thus we prepare
ourselves to trace back that which is seen to be dying at the time of
birth to its pre-earthly life where it is revealed in its full
significance and greatness.
And because
we perceive the gradual burgeoning of the astral and Ego within the
declining etheric and physical (for they are imprisoned within the
etheric and physical), we prepare ourselves to follow them into the
spiritual world after their release from the physical and etheric
bodies at the moment of death. Thus we see that birth and death are
interrelated, whilst to ordinary consciousness they appear to be
isolated events.
All this
information which is revealed by spiritual investigation can be
grasped by ordinary consciousness as I indicated in the first
part of today's lecture. At the same time one must be prepared to
abandon the demands of ordinary consciousness for factual or
scientific proof.
I once knew
a man who maintained that, just as a stone falls to the ground, so if
I pick up a chair and let go, it also falls to the ground since
everything is subject to gravitation. Wherefore if the Earth is not
supported, as it is claimed, it must of necessity fall. But he failed
to realize that objects must fall to the ground because they are
subject to the gravitational pull of the Earth, that the Earth
itself however moves freely in space like the stars which mutually
support and attract one another.
Those who,
like the modern scientist, demand that proof must be supported by the
evidence of the senses resemble this man who believed that the Earth
must fall unless it is firmly underpinned. Anthroposophical truths
are like the stars which mutually support each other. People must be
prepared to see the whole picture. And if they can do this by means
of their normal understanding they will begin really to grasp
anthroposophical ideas such as the interrelationship of birth
and death.
Let us go a
little further and take the case of the man who is well grounded in
the principles of modern science, but whilst alert and receptive to
anthroposophical ideas has not yet learned to take the whole man into
consideration, but only the separate organs in the manner described
yesterday.
Through this
knowledge of the organs acquired in the course of Initiation we are
not only aware of birth and death, but of something quite different.
In the light of this knowledge of the organs, birth and death have
lost their usual significance, for it is only the whole human being
who dies, not his separate organs. The lungs, for example, cannot
die. Science today dimly realizes that when the whole human being has
died, his single organs can be animated to a certain extent.
Irrespective of whether a man is buried or cremated, his separate
organs do not die. The individual organs take their path into that
sphere of the Cosmos to which each is related. Even if man is buried
beneath the earth, every organ finds its way into the Cosmos through
water, air or warmth, as the case may be. In reality they are
dissolved, but they do not perish; only the whole human being
perishes.
Death, then,
can only have meaning in relation to the whole human being. In the
animal the organs die, whereas in man they are dissolved into the
Cosmos. They dissolve rapidly. Burial is the slower process,
cremation the faster. We can follow the individual organs as they
take their path towards the infinite, each towards its own sphere.
They are not lost in infinity, but return in the form of the mighty
cosmic being whom I described to you yesterday. Thus, as we observe
the organs with Initiate-consciousness, we see what really befalls
the organs at death, namely, this streaming out of the organs
into those regions of the Cosmos to which they are severally related.
The heart takes a different path from the lungs; the liver from lungs
and heart. They are dispersed throughout the Cosmos. Then the Cosmic
Man appears; we see him as he really is, integrated in the Cosmos.
And in the vision of this Cosmic Man we become aware of what is the
source of successive incarnations, for example. We need this vision
which has its origin, not in the whole man, but in the perception of
the several organs, in order to be able to recognize once more,
clearly and distinctly, the karmic return of former Earth lives
in the present life.
It is for
this reason that those who approached the spiritual world
through the Moon path, mystics, theosophists, and so on, perceived
the strangest phenomena — human souls as they had lived on
Earth, gods and spirits — but could neither recognize nor
decide what they were, nor give any definite assurance whether they
were in the presence of Alanus ab Insulis, Dante or Brunetto Latini.
Sometimes the entities were given the most grotesque appellations.
And they were unable to determine whether the incarnations they
contacted were their own or other people's, or what they
were.
Thus the
spiritual world is associated with the realm of Moon consciousness
that has been wooed into the day; then, under the influx of the Venus
impulses, this vision is lost and we now behold the spiritual world
in its totality, but without that clear definition which it should
possess. It is in this realm that we first begin to realize man's
situation in the world as a whole and his position as a cosmic
being.
In this
connection, however, we cannot escape a tragic realization. For if
man were simply the complete physical man he appears to be
here on Earth, what a virtuous, docile and noble being he would be!
Just as little as we can investigate death with normal
consciousness — we can always understand death in the sense
already suggested — just as little can we discover by means of
the ordinary consciousness why human beings, with their candid faces
— and there is no denying they have candid faces — have a
capacity for evil. It is not the whole man who can become evil. His
outer tegument, the skin, as such is noble and good; but man
becomes evil through his individual organs; in his organs lies the
potentiality for evil.
And thus we
come to recognize the relationship of the organs to their respective
cosmic spheres and also from what spheres obsession with evil
originates; for fundamentally, obsession is inherent in the slightest
manifestation of evil.
Thus our
knowledge of the total man reveals first, birth and death; secondly,
a knowledge of his organization reveals his relationship to the
Cosmos in health and disease, namely, evil.
And so we
can only perceive spiritually that Figure who experienced the Mystery
of Golgotha when we are able to behold Cosmic Man through human
organology. For it was as Cosmic Man that Christ came from the Sun.
Until that moment He was not earthly man. He approached the Earth in
cosmic form. How can we expect to recognize Cosmic Man if we have not
first prepared ourselves to understand Cosmic Man as he really is! It
is precisely out of this understanding of the Cosmic Man that
Christology can grow.
Thus you see
how true paths lead into the spiritual world, to a knowledge of birth
and death and of the relationship of the human organism to the
Cosmos, to the recognition of evil and to knowledge of Christ, the
Cosmic Man. All this can be understood, when it is presented in such
a way that the various aspects are shown to support each other. And
the best means of finding one's own way into the spiritual world is
through understanding and by meditating upon what is understood.
Other rules for meditation then serve as additional supports. This is
the right path into the spiritual worlds for human beings today. On
the other hand, all experimenting with other paths which fail to use
and maintain the normal channels of consciousness, all
experimenting with trance conditions such as mediumism, somnambulism,
hypnotism and so on, all investigation into world-events that cannot
be apprehended by a consciousness that is a travesty of modern
natural science — all these are false paths, for they do not
lead into the true spiritual world.
When man is
sensitively aware of the findings of spiritual investigation, namely,
that through knowledge of the organs the Cosmic Man returns, that
this “return” can to some extent lead to an understanding
of Christ when all that is disclosed to occult investigation and
insight is admitted into the Initiate-consciousness and becomes an
integral part of his sentient life, then, through feeling, the Divine
manifests in the terrestrial. And this is the province of
art.
Through
feeling, art embodies half consciously that which man receives from
the spiritual world along those paths of return of which I have
spoken. In all ages, therefore, it was those who were predestined to
do so by their karma, who clothed the spiritual in material
form.
Our
naturalistic art has abandoned the spiritual approach. Every high
point in the history of art depicts the spiritual in sensuous form,
or rather raises the material into the realm of the spiritual.
Raphael is valued so highly because, to a greater degree than any
other painter, he was able to clothe the spiritual in sensuous
representation.
Now in the
course of the history of art there existed a general movement which
tended more to the plastic or graphic arts. Today we must once again
inject new life into the plastic arts, for the immediacy of the
original impulse was lost years ago.
For
centuries the impulse towards music has been growing and
expanding. Therefore the plastic arts have assumed a musical
character to a greater or lesser extent. Music, which includes also
the musical element in the arts of speech, is destined to be the art
of the future.
The first
Goetheanum at Dornach was conceived musically and for this
reason its architecture, sculpture and painting met with so little
understanding. And for the same reason, the second Goetheanum will
also meet with little understanding because the element of music must
be introduced into painting, sculpture and architecture, in
accordance with man's future evolution.
The coming
of the figure of Christ, the spiritually-living figure, which I
referred to as the culminating point in human evolution, has been
magnificently portrayed in Renaissance and pre-Renaissance
painting, but in future will have to be expressed through
music.
The urge to
give a musical expression of the Christ Impulse already existed. It
was anticipated in Richard Wagner and was ultimately responsible for
the creation of
Parsifal.
But in
Parsifal
the introduction of the Christ Impulse into the phenomenal world where
it seeks to give expression to the purest Christian spirit, has been
given a mere symbolic indication, such as the appearance of the Dove and
so on. The Communion has also been portrayed symbolically. The music of
Parsifal
fails to portray the real significance of the Christ Impulse in the Cosmos
and the Earth.
Music is
able to portray this Christ Impulse musically, in tones that are
inwardly permeated with spirit. If music allows itself to be inspired
by Spiritual Science, it will find ways of expressing the Christ
Impulse, for it will reveal purely artistically and intuitively how
the Christ Impulse in the Cosmos and the Earth can be awakened
symphonically in tones.
To this end
we only need to be able to deepen our experience of the sphere
of the major third by an inner enrichment of musical experience
that penetrates into the hidden depths of feeling. If we experience
the sphere of the major third as something wholly enclosed within the
inner being of man and if we then feel the sphere of the major fifth
to have the characteristic of “enveloping,” so that, as
we grow into the configuration of the fifth, we reach the boundary of
the human and the cosmic, where the cosmic resounds into the sphere
of the human and the human, consumed with longing, yearns to
rush forth into the Cosmos, then, in the mystery enacted between the
spheres of the major third and major fifth, we can experience
musically something of the inner being of man that reaches out into
the Cosmos.
And if we
then succeed in setting free the dissonances of the seventh to echo
cosmic life, where the dissonances express man's sentient experiences
in the Cosmos as he journeys towards the various spiritual
realms; and if we succeed in allowing the dissonances of the seventh
to die away, so that through their dying fall they acquire a certain
definition, then in their dying strains they are ultimately
resolved in something which, to the musical ear, resembles a musical
firmament.
If, then,
having already given a subtle indication of the experience of the
‘minor’ with the ‘major,’ if, in the dying
strains of the dissonances of the seventh, in this spontaneous
re-creation of the dissonances into a totality, we find here a means
of passing in an intensely minor mood from the dissonances of
the seventh, from the near consonance of these diminishing
dissonances to the sphere of the fifth in a minor mood, and from that
point blend the sphere of the fifth with that of the minor third,
then we shall have evoked in this way the musical experience of the
Incarnation, and what is more, of the Incarnation of the
Christ.
In feeling
our way outwards into the sphere of the seventh, which to cosmic
feeling is only apparently dissonant and that we fashion into a
‘firmament,’ in that it is seemingly supported by the
octave, if we have grasped this with our feelings and retrace our
steps in the manner already indicated and find how, in the
embryonic form of the consonances of the minor third, there is
a possibility of giving a musical representation of the Incarnation,
then, when we retrace our steps to the major third in this sphere,
the “Hallelujah” of the Christ can ring out from
this musical configuration as pure music.
Then, within
the configuration of the tones man will be able to conjure forth an
immediate realization of the super-sensible and express it
musically.
The Christ
Impulse can be found in music. And the dissolution of the
symphonic into near dissonance, as in Beethoven, can be
redeemed by a return to the dominion of the cosmic in music. Bruckner
attempted this within the narrow limits of a traditional framework.
But his posthumous Symphony shows that he could not escape
these limitations. On one hand we admire its greatness, but on the
other hand we find a hesitant approach to the true elements of music,
and a failure to achieve a full realization of these elements which
can only be experienced in the way I have described, i.e. when we
have made strides in the realm of pure music and discover therein the
essence, the fundamental spirit which can conjure forth a world
through tones.
Without
doubt the musical development I have described will one day be
achieved through anthroposophical inspiration if mankind does
not sink into decadence; and ultimately — and this will
depend entirely upon mankind — the true nature of the Christ
Impulse will be revealed externally.
I wish to
draw your attention to this because you will then realize that
Anthroposophy seeks to permeate all aspects of life. This can be
accomplished if man, for his part, finds the true path to
anthroposophical experience and investigation. It will even come to
pass that one day the realm of music shall echo the teachings of
Anthroposophy and the Christian enigma shall be solved through
music.
With these
words I hope to have concluded what I could only indicate in these
lectures, to indicate the purposes I had in view.
I should
like to add, however, that I hope to have succeeded in
awakening in your souls some recognition of anthroposophical truths;
and that these truths will grow and multiply and fertilize ever wider
fields of human life.
May this
cycle of lectures be a small contribution to the far-reaching aim
which Anthroposophy sets out to achieve.
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