Today we shall occupy ourselves with a general theme, and indeed with
the question of the significance and the tasks of anthroposophically
orientated spiritual science in the present, and then, on Tuesday,
with a more individual theme concerning individual destiny and being.
We have indeed often emphasised that Anthroposophy has a special task
and significance for mankind in the present age. Whoever occupies
himself with anthroposophy as a thinking human being must put this
question again and again to himself: What aims does this spiritual
movement pursue, and how are they related to the other tasks of our
age? These tasks can be illuminated from the most diverse points of
view, as we have often done. Today we will try to grasp the
evolutionary path of mankind at that point on which we ourselves
stand, to look a little into the future, and then ask ourselves: What
task has anthroposophy with especial reference to the evolutionary
stage of mankind at which we stand at present?
We know that since the great Atlantean Catastrophe, which entirely
transformed the earth as man's dwelling-place, up to our own time,
five great epochs of civilisation are to be distinguished. We have
often designated these five epochs of culture as the old Indian, old
Persian, the Chaldaic-Egyptian, the Greco-Latin epoch, and then the
epoch in which we ourselves stand, the fifth, which prepared itself in
let us say the eighth, ninth and tenth centuries, and in
the middle of which we now are. We must be clear that such divisions
are naturally not meant as if any one epoch of evolution sharply came
to an end, and then a new one began, but that the one gradually and
slowly passes over into the other, and long before one such epoch has
run its course, the new one already prepares itself within it.
Thus we can say of our own epoch of culture, of the fifth
post-Atlantean epoch: there is already now being prepared, and indeed
in a very significant way, that which will constitute the real
characteristic of the sixth epoch of civilisation. And in general,
human beings of our present age will separate themselves into two
parts: those who today form no idea of all this, who know nothing of
the preparation of the sixth epoch, who live as it were blindly, for
the day, and those who form ideas for themselves that something new is
preparing, and who also know that what is being prepared is
fundamentally something which must be accomplished through human
beings, must be prepared by mankind. We can in a certain connection
place ourselves in the time as a human being and say we are doing what
is generally the custom, what the others do, what our parents have
educated us for, or, we can so place ourselves that we know
consciously the following: If you will consciously be a link in
the chain of humanity, then you must do something either in
yourself or in your environment which contributes to what must
come, i.e., to prepare the sixth period of culture as much as
in you lies. The possibility of thus making preparations for the
sixth period of culture can only be understood by entering a little
into the character of our own epoch. For this, the comparative method
offers itself as the best.
We know that these epochs of time are essentially different from each
other, and in the course of years, in our anthroposophical movement,
we have brought forward various characteristics whereby they are
distinguished. We have pointed to the old Indian Period of
civilisation, and have shown that the soul-qualities of man then were
different from what they later were, how man then was still endowed to
a high degree with clairvoyant consciousness. And we have shown that
evolution through the following epochs consisted in man losing this
clairvoyance ever more and more, and having to limit his power of
perception and understanding more and more to the physical world. We
have seen how the fourth epoch of civilisation was slowly prepared, in
which man, as it were, appeared entirely in the physical world, so
that that Being Whom we call Christ Jesus could incarnate in the
physical world as a being, as a human being of the physical world. We
have then seen how since that time, through a certain stream, the
following appeared: how all human powers strengthened themselves still
further in the physical world, how indeed the materialistic tendency
of our age, the whole urge of man only to hold as valid what offers
itself in the physical surrounding world, is connected with a further
descent of man into the physical world. But by no means should things
remain thus in evolution. Humanity must ascend again into the
spiritual world, ascend with all the attainments men have acquired,
with all the fruits of the physical world. And Anthroposophy should be
just that which can bring to people the possibility of again ascending
into the spiritual world.
Now we can say: Immediately after the great Atlantean
catastrophe, there were numerous human beings who knew through their
direct powers of perception: Around us is a spiritual world. We live
in a spiritual world. Fewer and fewer became the human beings
who knew this; more and more were the powers of man limited to the
perception of the senses. But if, on the one hand, today, the power of
perception for the spiritual world is the least conceivable, yet, on
the other hand, something is preparing in our age which is so
significant that already for a great number of people, quite different
faculties will exist in that incarnation which follows the present
one. As the faculties of man have changed during the five epochs of
culture, so they will also change into the sixth, and a great number
of people today will clearly show already in their next incarnation
through their whole mood of soul, that their faculties have
essentially changed. Today, we will make clear to ourselves how
different these souls of human beings will be in the future, with a
great number already in the next incarnation, with others, in the
incarnation following.
We could also look back in another way into past epochs of human
evolution. Then we would see that the farther we go back to the
ancient clairvoyance, at the same time, the more we have united with
the human soul, what one can call the character of group-soulness
[Gruppenseelenhaftigkeit]. It has often been pointed out to you that
the consciousness of the group-soulness was existing in the ancient
Hebrew people in an eminent degree. He who felt himself really
consciously felt himself as a member of the ancient Hebrew people
said to himself especial attention has been drawn to
this As an individual man I am a transitory phenomenon,
but in me lives something that has an immediate connection with all
the soul-being which has streamed down since the racial father
Abraham. A member of the old Hebrew people felt that. We can
indeed esoterically admit as a spiritual phenomenon what was thus felt
by the old Hebrew people. We understand better what then happened if
we keep the following in mind.
Let us consider an old Hebrew initiate. Although initiation was not so
frequent among the ancient Hebrews as among other peoples, we could
not characterise such a real initiate otherwise not merely one
initiated into the theories and the Law, but an initiate really seeing
in the spiritual worlds than by taking into consideration the
entire racial peculiarity. It is the custom today in external science,
which busies itself with documents without any misgiving, to take
everywhere what stands in the Old Testament, to test it by all kinds
of external records, and then find it unsubstantiated. We shall have
occasion to point out that the Old Testament gives the facts more
faithfully than external historical records. In any case, spiritual
science shows that a blood relationship of the Hebrew people can
really be demonstrated back to the racial father Abraham, and that the
assumption of Abraham as racial father is fully justified. This was
something especially known in the old Hebrew secret schools: Such an
individuality, such a soul-being as that of Abraham, was not merely
incarnated as Abraham, but is an eternal being, who remained existing
in the spiritual world. And in truth a real initiate was inspired by
the same spirit, as he who inspired Abraham, and he could testify for
him of himself, that he was permeated by the same soul-nature as
Abraham. There was a real connection between every initiate and the
racial father Abraham. We must hold that fast: that expressed itself
in the feeling of membership of the old Hebrew people. That was a kind
of group-soulness. One felt what expressed itself in Abraham as the
group-soul of the people. One felt group-souls similarly in the rest
of humanity. Mankind in general goes back to group-souls. The farther
we go back in human evolution, the less do we find expressed the
single individuality. That which we still find today in the animal
kingdom: that a whole group belongs together that was existing
among mankind, and appears ever clearer and clearer, the farther we go
back to ancient times. Groups of human beings then belonged together,
and the group-soul was essentially stronger than what constituted the
individual soul in the single human being.
We can now say: Today in our time, the group-soulness of people is
still not yet overcome, and whoever believes that it is completely
overcome does not keep in mind certain finer phenomena of life.
Whoever keeps it in mind will very quickly see that certain human
beings not only appear alike in their physiognomy, but that also the
soul-qualities are similar in groups of human beings: that one can, as
it were, divide human beings into categories. Each person can still
today be reckoned into a certain category; with reference to this or
the other quality, he will belong perhaps to different categories, but
a certain group-soulness is not only valid because the races exist,
but also in other connections. The boundaries drawn between the single
nations fall away more and more; but other groupings are still
perceptible. Certain basic characteristics stand so connected in some
people, that he who will only look, can still today perceive the last
relics of the group-soulness of man.
Now we, in our present age, are living in the most eminent sense, in a
transition. All group-soulness has gradually to be stripped off. Just
as the gaps between single nations gradually disappear, as the single
parts of different nations understand each other better, so also will
other group-soul qualities be shed, and the individual nature of each
single person come to the foreground more and more.
We have therewith characterised something quite essential in
evolution. If we want to grasp it from another side, we can say: That
idea whereby the group-soulness chiefly expresses itself loses meaning
ever more and more in the evolution of mankind, i.e., the idea
of race. If we go back beyond the great Atlantean catastrophe, we see
how the human races are prepared. In the old Atlantean age human
beings were grouped according to external characteristics in their
bodily structure, far more strongly than today.
What we call races today are only the relics of those important distinctions
between human beings as were customary in old Atlantis. The idea of race
is only really applicable to old Atlantis. Since we deal with a real
evolution of mankind, we have never employed the idea of race in the
most eminent sense for the post-Atlantean age. We do not speak of an
Indian race, a Persian race, etc., because that is no longer correct.
We speak of an old-Indian period of civilisation, of an old-Persian
period of civilisation, etc. And it would be utterly devoid of sense
if we would speak of our time preparing a sixth race. If relics of the
old Atlantean distinctions, of their group-soulness, are still
existing in our time, so that one can still say the racial division
continues to work on that which is preparing for the sixth
period of time consists just in the character of race being stripped
off. That is the essential. Therefore it is necessary that that
movement which is called the anthroposophical movement, which should
prepare the sixth period of time, adopts in its basic character this
stripping off of the character of race that especially it seeks
to unite people out of all races, out of all nations, and
in this way bridges over these differences, these distinctions, these
gaps, which are existing between various groups of human beings. For
the old racial standpoint had in a certain connection a physical
character, whereas what will fulfil itself in the future will have a
much more spiritual character. Therefore it is so urgently necessary
to understand that our anthroposophical movement is a spiritual one,
which looks to the spirit, and overcomes just that which arises from
physical distinctions, through the force of a spiritual movement, It
is, of course, thoroughly comprehensible that any movement has, as it
were, its childish illnesses, and that in the beginning of the
theosophical movement, matters were so represented as if the earth
fell into seven periods of time they were called Root-races
and each of these Root-races into seven sub-races, and that
would always repeat itself, so that one could always speak of seven
races, and seven sub-races, etc. But one must get beyond the illnesses
of childhood, and be clear that the idea of race ceases to have any
meaning, especially in our age.
Something else, in addition, is being prepared something
connected with the individuality of man in a quite special way
in man becoming ever more and more individual. It is only a question
of this occurring in the right sense, and the anthroposophical
movement should serve to this end, that human beings become
individualities or we could also say personalities in
the right sense. How can it do this?
Here we must look to the most striking new quality of man's soul,
which is preparing. The question is often put: Well, if reincarnation
exists, why does a person not remember the former incarnations? That
is a question which I have often answered. Such a question appears as
when one brings along a four-year-old child, and because it is a human
being, and cannot reckon, one would say: Man cannot reckon. But let
the child become ten years old, and then it will reckon. It is thus
with the human soul. If today it cannot remember, yet, the time will
come in which it can remember the time when it has the same
powers as he possesses who is initiated today. But just today that
transition is happening. There exist today a number of souls who are
so far on in our time, who stand close to the moment where they will
remember their former incarnations, or at least the last one. A whole
number of human beings today are, as it were, before the self-opening
of the door to that embracing memory, which comprises not only the
life between birth and death, but the previous incarnations, or at
least, the last, in the first place. And when, after the present
incarnation, a number of human beings are reborn, then they will
remember this present incarnation. It is merely a question of
how they remember. Anthroposophical development should give
help and direction to remember in the right way.
In order to characterise this anthroposophical movement from this
point of view, it must be said: Its character is that it leads man to
realise in the right way what one calls the human I, the
innermost member of the human being. I have often pointed out that
Fichte rightly said, most human beings would sooner regard themselves
as a piece of lava on the moon, than as an I. And if you
consider how many people there are in our time who make any idea at
all of what is in the I, i.e., of what they
themselves are, then in general, you would come to a very dismal
result.
When this question arises, I have always to call to mind a friend I
had more than thirty years ago, and who as a quite young student was
completely inoculated at that time by the materialistic mood
today it is more modern to say monistic mood. He was
already injected by it, in spite of his youth. He always laughed when
he heard something was contained in man which could be designated as
spiritual being; for he was of the view, that what lives as thought in
us, was produced by mechanical or chemical processes in the brain. I
often said to him: Look, if you earnestly believe this as a
content of life, why do you continually tell lies? He really
lied, continually, because he never said: My brain feels, my
brain thinks, but: I think, I feel, I know this or that. Thus he
built up a theory which he contradicted with every word as
every man does; for it is impossible to maintain what one imagines as
a materialistic theory. One cannot remain truthful, if one thinks
materialistically. If one would say: My brain loves you, then, one
should not say you, but, my brain loves your brain. People
do not make this consequence clear. But it is something which is not
merely humoristic, but something which shows what a deep basis of
unconscious untruthfulness lies at the basis of our present education.
Now, most people really would sooner regard themselves as a piece of
lava in the moon, i.e., as a piece of compact matter, than as
that which can be called an I And today one naturally
comes least of all to a grasp of the I through external
science, which indeed, as such, must think materialistically,
according to its methods. How can one attain this grasp of the
I? How can one gradually get an idea, a concept of what he
instinctively feels, when he says: I think? Solely and alone through
this, that he knows by means of the anthroposophical view of the
world, how this human being is constituted, how the physical body has
Saturn character, the etheric body Sun character, the astral body Moon
character, and the Ego, Earth character. When we keep in mind
everything we thus get as ideas out of the entire cosmos, then we
understand how the I, as the real Master-worker, labours
at all the other members. And so we come gradually to an idea
[Begriff] of what we profess with the word I. We gradually
struggle up to the highest ideas of this I, if we learn to
understand [verstehen] such a word. We not merely feel ourselves as a
spiritual being if we feel ourselves within an I, but when
we can say: In our individuality lives something which was there
before father Abraham. When we cannot merely say: I and father Abraham
are one, but: I and the FATHER, i.e., the Spiritual,
weaving and living through the world. What lives in the I,
is the same spiritual substance that weaves and lives through the
world as Spirit. Thus we gradually work our way up to understand this
I, i.e., the bearer of the human individuality,
that which goes from incarnation to incarnation. In what way, however,
do we grasp the I? Do we grasp the world at all through
the anthroposophical view?
This anthroposophical view of the world arises in the most individual
way, and is, at the same time, the most un-individual thing that can
be conceived. It can only arise in the most individual way by the
secrets of the cosmos revealing themselves in a human soul, into which
stream the great spiritual beings of the world. And so the content of
the world must be experienced in the human individuality in the most
individual way, but at the same time, it must be experienced with a
character of complete impersonality. Whoever will experience the true
character of cosmic mysteries must stand entirely on the standpoint
from which he says: Whoever still heeds his own opinion, cannot come
to Truth. That is indeed the peculiar [eigenartige] nature of
anthroposophical truth that the observer may have no opinion of his
own, no preference for this or the other theory, that he may not love
this or the other view more than any other because of his own especial
individual qualities. As long as he stands on this standpoint, it is
impossible for the true secrets of the world to reveal themselves to
him. He must pursue knowledge quite individually, but his
individuality must develop so far, that it no longer has anything
personal, i.e., anything of his own peculiar sympathies and
antipathies. This must be taken strictly and earnestly. Whoever still
has any preference for these or the other ideas and views, whoever can
incline to this or the other because of his education or temperament,
will never recognise objective truth.
We have attempted here, this summer, to grasp Oriental wisdom from the
standpoint of Western learning. We tried to be just towards Oriental
wisdom, and truly presented it in such a way that it received its full
rights. (The East in the Light of the West, cloth, crown 8vo,
pp. 222. 7s. 6d) One must strongly emphasise that in our time it is
impossible for independent spiritual knowledge to decide through any
special preference for either the Oriental or the Occidental view of
the world. Whoever says according to his different temperament he
prefers the nature, the laws of the world as existing in the Oriental
or correspondingly in the Occidental view, has not yet a full
understanding for what is here essential. One should not decide,
e.g., for the greater significance of, let us say, the Christ,
as compared with what Oriental teaching recognises, because one
inclines to the Christ through one's Occidental education or one's
temperament. One is only fitted to answer the question How is
the Christ related to the Orient? when from a personal
standpoint the Christian is as indifferent to one as the Oriental. As
long as one has preference for this or the other, so long is one
unsuited to make a decision. One first begins to be objective when one
lets the facts alone speak, when one heeds no reasons derived from
personal opinion, but lets facts alone speak in this sphere.
Therefore something meets us in the anthroposophical world-view, if it
meets us today in its true form, which is inwardly woven with the
human individuality, because it must spring out of the
I-force of the individuality, and on the other hand, must
be independent, so that this individuality is again quite indifferent.
That person in whom anthroposophical wisdom appears must be
unconcerned by it, must be independent of it. This is essential, that
he has brought himself so far, that he forces nothing of his own
colouring into these matters. Then they will indeed be individual,
because the spiritual cannot appear in the light of the moon, or the
stars, but only in the individuality, in the human soul; but then, on
the other hand, this individuality must be so far on that it can
exclude itself in the production of what constitutes the wisdom of the
world. Thus that which appears to mankind through the anthroposophical
movement will be something which concerns each human being, no matter
from what race, nation, etc., he is born, because it applies itself
only to the new humanity, to man as such, not to an abstract, general
man, but to each single human being. This is the essential. As it
proceeds out of the individuality, out of the kernel of man's being,
so it speaks to the deepest kernel of man's being, so it grasps this
kernel of man. As we usually speak from man to man, fundamentally it
is only surface speaking to surface, something which we have not
united with the innermost kernel of our being. Understanding between
man and man, full understanding, is hardly possible today in any other
sphere, than in that where what is produced comes from the centre of
man's being, and, when it is understood aright by another, speaks
again to his centre. Hence in a certain connection, it is a new speech
that is spoken by Anthroposophy. And if today we are still obliged to
speak in the various national languages what has to be announced, the
content is a new speech, which is spoken by anthroposophy.
What is spoken today outside in the world is a speech which is only
really valid for a very limited sphere. In ancient times, when people
still looked into the spiritual world through their old, dreamy
clairvoyance, their word then meant something which existed in the
spiritual world. The word signified something which existed in the
spiritual world. Even in Greece, things were still different from what
they are today. The word idea used by Plato signified
something different from the word Idea, as used by our
modern philosophers. These modern philosophers can no longer
understand Plato, because they have no perception of what he called
Idea, and they confuse it with abstract concepts. Plato
still had something spiritual before him, even if already rarefied; it
was still something quite real. Then also, one still had in the words
the sap of the spiritual, if one may express it thus. You can trace
that in the words. If anybody today uses the word wind,
air, then he means something external, physical. The word
wind here corresponds to something external, physical. If,
e.g., in old Hebrew, the word wind, Ruach, was
employed, one did not merely mean something external, physical, but a
spiritual, which swept through space. When man breathes in today he is
told by materialistic science that he simply inhales material air; in
ancient times, one did not believe one inhaled material air, but then
one was clear that one inspired something of spirit, or at least, of
soul. Thus the words then were absolutely designations for spirit and
soul. That has ceased today; today speech is limited to the external
world, or at least, those who seek to stand at the peak of the age
busy themselves seeing only a materialistic meaning, even behind those
things where it is still obvious they are derived from soul and
spirit. Physics speaks of an impact of bodies. It has
forgotten that the word impact is derived from that which
a living being performs out of its inner living nature, when it pushes
another being. The original significance of words is forgotten in
these simple things.
And so today, our speech and this is most of all the case with
scientific speech has become a speech which is only able to
express what is material. Because of this, what is in our soul while
we speak is only comprehensible to those faculties of our soul which
are bound to the physical brain as their instrument. And then the soul
understands nothing more of all that is designated with these words,
when it is disembodied. When the soul has gone through the gate of
death, and no longer employs the brain, then all scientific
considerations of today are forms quite incomprehensible to the
disembodied soul. It does not even hear or perceive what one expresses
in the speech of the time. This has no longer any meaning for a
disembodied soul, because it only has meaning for what is the physical
world. That again is something which is still more important to
consider in what one can call the mode of thinking, the method of
representation. It is even more important to consider it there than in
theory, because it is a question of life, not of theory, and it is
characteristic that one can see in the theosophical movement itself
how materialism has crept in. Because it is the mode of the time, it
has often crept into the theosophical view, so that real materialism
prevails even in theosophy itself, e.g., when one describes the
etheric or life-body. Whereas a person should exert himself to come to
a grasp of the spirit, one mostly describes it as if it were a finer
matter; and the astral body also. One starts as a rule from the
physical body, goes further to the etheric or life-body, and says:
that is built after the pattern of the physical body, only finer
thus one progresses to Nirvana. Here one finds descriptions
which take their images from nothing else than the physical. I have
already experienced that when one wanted to express the good feeling
present in a room among those present, one did not do so directly, but
one said: Fine vibrations are existing in this room. One did not heed
that one materialises what exists spiritually in a mood if one thinks
the space filled with a kind of thin cloud, permeated with vibrations.
That is what I should like to call the most material way of thinking
possible. Materialism has even got by the neck those who want to think
spiritually. That is only a characteristic of our time, but it is
important that we are conscious of it. And therefore we must pay
especial heed to what has been said: that our speech, which is always
a kind of tyrant for human thinking, has implanted in the soul a
tendency to materialism. And many, who today would so willingly be
thorough idealists, express themselves entirely in a materialistic
sense, misled by the tyranny of speech. That is a speech which can no
longer be understood by the soul as soon as it no longer feels itself
bound to the physical brain.
There is, indeed, something else, you may believe it or not. For one
who knows occult perception, real spiritual perception, the method of
presentation often employed today in theosophical-scientific writings
causes real pain because it appears irrational to him, if he
begins to think, no longer with the physical brain, but with the soul,
which is no longer bound to the physical brain, i.e., which
really lives in the spiritual world. As long as one thinks with the
physical brain, so long can he go on characterising the world thus. As
soon, however, as one begins to develop spiritual perception, then, to
speak of things in this way ceases to have any meaning. Then indeed it
even causes pain if one must hear the utterance: There are good
vibrations in this room, instead of: A good feeling prevails here.
That at once causes pain in anyone who can really see things
spiritually, because thoughts are realities. Space then fills itself
out with a dark cloud, if one forms the thought: Good vibrations are
in this space, instead of: A good mood is prevailing.
It is now the task of the anthroposophical way of thinking and
the method of thought is more important than the theories that
we learn to speak a language, which is really not merely understood by
the human soul so long as it is in a physical body, but understood
also when this soul is no longer bound to the instrument of the
physical brain; for instance, either by a soul still in the body, but
able to perceive spiritually, or by a soul gone through the gate of
death. And that is the essential! If we bring forward those ideas
which explain the world, which explain the human being, then that is a
speech which cannot merely be understood here in the physical world,
but also by those who are no longer incarnated in physical bodies, but
live between death and a new birth. Yes, what is spoken on our
anthroposophical basis, is heard and understood by the so-called dead.
There they are fully one with us on a basis where the same speech is
spoken. There we speak to all human beings. Because in a certain
connection, it is chance whether a human soul is in a body of flesh,
or in the condition between death and a new birth. And we learn
through anthroposophy a speech comprehensible to all human beings,
whether they are in the one or other condition. Thus we speak a speech
within the field of anthroposophy which is spoken also for the
so-called dead. We really contact the innermost kernel of man, the
innermost being of man, through what we cultivate in a real sense in
anthroposophical considerations, even if they appear apparently
abstract. We penetrate into the soul of man. And because we penetrate
to the soul of man, we liberate man from all group-soulness,
i.e., man becomes in this way more and more capable of really
grasping himself in his ego, his I. And that is the
characteristic, that those who come to anthroposophy today, who really
take up anthroposophy, appear in comparison with others who remain far
from it, as if through anthroposophical thoughts, their ego would
crystallise as a spiritual being, which is then carried through the
gate of death. With the others, in that place where the I-being is,
which remains there which is now there in the body, and which
remains after death there is a hollow space, a nothingness.
Everything else which one can take up as ideas today, will become more
and more worthless for the real kernel of man's soul-being. The
central point of man's being is grasped through what we take up as
anthroposophical thoughts. That crystallises a spiritual substance in
man; he takes that with him after death, and with that he perceives in
the spiritual world. He sees and hears with it in the spiritual world,
with it he penetrates that darkness which otherwise exists for man in
the spiritual world. And thereby it is brought about that when through
these anthroposophical thoughts and way of thinking man develops this
I in him today, which now stands in connection with all
the world wisdom we can acquire if he develops it he
carries it over also into his next incarnation. Then he is born with
this now developed I, and he remembers
himself in this developed I. That is the deeper task of
the anthroposophical movement today, to send over to their next
incarnation a number of human beings with an ego in which they
remember themselves as an individual ego. They will be the human
beings who form the kernel of the next period of civilisation. These
people who have been well prepared through the anthroposophical
spiritual movement, to remember their individual I, will
be spread over the whole earth. For the essential in the next period
of culture will be that these people will not be limited by single
localities, but spread over the entire earth. These individual people
will be scattered over the whole earth, and within the whole earth
sphere will be the kernel of humanity, who will be essential for the
sixth period of civilisation. And so it will be the case among these
people, that they will know themselves as those who in their previous
incarnation strove together for the individual I.
This is the right cultivation of that soul-faculty of which we have
spoken. This soul-faculty so develops, that not only those just
described will have this memory. More and more human beings will have
this memory of their former incarnation in spite of their not
having developed the I. But they will not remember an
individual I, because they have not developed it, but they
will remember the group-ego, in which they have remained. Thus people
will exist, who in this incarnation have cared for the development of
their individual I they will remember themselves as
independent individualities, they will look back and say: You were
this or the other. Those who have not developed the individuality will
be unable to remember this individuality.
Do not think that through mere visionary clairvoyance one acquires the
faculty of remembering the previous ego. Humanity was once
clairvoyant. If mere clairvoyance sufficed, then all would remember,
for all were clairvoyant. It is not merely a matter of being
clairvoyant humanity will already be clairvoyant in the future
it is a matter of having cultivated the ego in this
incarnation, or not. If one has not cultivated it, it is not there as
an inner human being; one looks back, and remembers as a group-ego,
what one had in common. So that these people will say: Yes, I was
there, but I have not freed myself. These people will then experience
that as their FALL, as a new Fall of mankind, as a falling back into
conscious connection with the group-soul. That will be something
terrible for the sixth period of time; to be unable to look back to
oneself as an individuality, to be hemmed in by not being able to
transcend the group-soulness [Gruppenseelenhaftigkeit]. If one will
express it strongly, one could say: The whole earth with all it
produces (this holds at least as an image) will belong to those who
now cultivate their individuality; those, however, who do not develop
their individual I, will be obliged to join on to a
certain group, from which they will be directed as to how they should
think, feel, will, and act. That will be felt as a fall, a falling
back, in the future humanity.
So we should regard the anthroposophical movement, the spiritual life,
not as mere theory, but as something which is given us in the present,
because it prepares what is necessary for the future of mankind.
If we grasp ourselves aright in that point where we are now, whence we
have come from out the past, and then look a little into the future,
then we must say: Now the time is come where man begins to develop the
human faculty of remembering backwards. It is only a question of our
developing it aright, i.e., that we train in us an individual
I; for only what we have created in our own soul
can we remember. If we have not created it, then there only remains to
us a fettering memory of a group-ego, and we feel it as a kind of
falling down into a group of higher animality. Even if the human
group-souls are finer and higher than the animal, yet they are but
group-souls. Humanity of an early age did not feel that as a fall,
because they were intended to develop from group-soulness to the
individual soul. If they are now held back, they fall consciously into
it, and that will be the oppressive feeling in the future of those who
do not take this step aright, either now or in a later incarnation.
They will experience the fall into group-soulness.
The real task of anthroposophy, is to give the right impulse. We must
thus grasp it within human life. If we keep in mind that the sixth
period of time is that of the first, complete conquest of the racial
idea, then we must be clear, that it would be fantastic to think that
even the sixth race starts from one point on the earth,
and develops like the earlier races. Progress is made by ever-new
progressive methods of evolution appearing. By progress we do not mean
that what was valid as ideas for earlier times should also hold for
the future. If we do not see this, the idea of progress will not be
quite clear to us. We will as it were fall again and again into the
error of saying: So and so many rounds, globes, races, etc., and it
all goes on revolving round again and again in the same manner.*
(*This refers to the descriptions set forth in the books of the
Theosophical Society, 1909.) One cannot see why this wheel
of rounds, globes, races, etc., should always revolve again. It is a
question of seeing that the word race is a term only
having validity for a certain time. This idea no longer has any
meaning for the sixth period. Races have only in themselves the
elements which have remained from the Atlantean age.
In the future, that which speaks to the depths of man's soul will
express itself more and more in the external nature of man; and that
which man on the one side as a quite individual being has acquired,
and yet, again experiences unindividually, will express itself by
working out even to the human countenance; so that the individuality
of man not the group-soulness will be inscribed for him
on his countenance. That will constitute human manifoldness.
Everything will be acquired individually, in spite of its being there
through the overcoming of individuality. And we will not meet
groups among those who are seized of the ego, but the
individual will express itself externally. That will form the
distinction between human beings. There will be such as have acquired
their egoity; they will indeed be there over the whole earth with the
most manifold countenances, but one will recognise through their
variety how the individual ego expresses itself even into the gesture.
Whereas among those who have not developed the individuality, the
group-soulness will come to expression by their countenance receiving
the imprint of the group-soulness, i.e., they will fall into
categories similar to each other. That will be the external
physiognomy of our earth: a possibility will be prepared for the
individuality to carry in itself an external sign, and for the
group-soulness to carry in itself its external sign.
This is the meaning of earthly evolution, that man acquires more and
more the power of expressing externally his inner being. There exists
an ancient script in which the greatest ideal for the evolution of the
I, the Christ Jesus, is characterised by the saying: When
the two become one, when the external becomes like the inner, then man
has attained the Christ nature in himself. That is the meaning of a
certain passage in the so-called Egyptian Gospel. One comprehends such
passages out of anthroposophical wisdom.*
After we have attempted today to grasp the task of anthroposophy out
of the depths of our knowledge, we will consider something on Tuesday
which as a spiritual problem as a specially individual affair
of man can lead us to his destiny, to his being.
* Cf. Dr. Steiner's Gospel of St. Matthew, lecture 6, published by
Rudolf Steiner Publishing Company.
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