Foundation Course
Spiritual Discernment, Religious Feeling, Sacramental Action
GA 343
28 September 1921 a.m., Dornach
IV. Anthroposophy and Religion
[ 1 ] My dear friends! Last night I received a letter from Reverend Dr Schairer in Nagold which contains a number of theses regarding how Anthroposophy can conduct itself regarding religion, and religion conduct itself regarding Anthroposophy, and how a way must be found to initiate this behaviour. Dr Schairer thinks a discussion could be based on this. That also seems to be quite right following on from the first part of the letter—I couldn't read the whole thing, I haven't yet read the last pages—because a lot will be clarified in an exceedingly exact manner. Perhaps this could in some respects provide a good basis for a discussion because it will be a priority in our future work, if I may say so, to bring these fundamental issues in order.
[ 2 ] In addition to what I want to say to you today—everything is for the time being still introductory—depends from one side on the main issue of this question, certainly from one specific side. We have to be perfectly clear that Anthroposophy as such must arrive in a positive way at the Mystery of Golgotha so that the manner and way in which this happens regarding this event, can really be ascribed to a concept of knowledge, a knowledge which, if the term is taken seriously, this concept of "knowledge" is also applicable in the modern scientific sense. It is on the other hand right that this special way, first of all—I stress first of all—Anthroposophy needs to get to the Mystery of Golgotha, that at first the Protestant sense of religion from certain foundations need to be brought to consciousness, which can take offence. Only complete clarity about these things can lead to some healing goal.
[ 3 ] I must therefore, even if it appears somewhat remote, enter into what I want to say to you today. Anthroposophy or spiritual science actually creates out of supersensible knowledge, and rejects—in principle rejects—anything from older traditions, let's say, the oriental wisdom or historic Gnosticism, through somehow assembling a content, or expanding the content. Anthroposophy quite decisively rejects this because it focuses above all in its comprehensive task of practically answering the question: How much can a person today, who has in his soul, latent, or in ordinary life, not conscious forces in his awareness, how can he now in full consciousness and with full human discretion, recognise the supersensible world instantly?—Spiritual science would like to proceed with this cognition similarly to a mathematician who wants to prove the theory of Pythagoras. He proves it out of something which one can recognise today, and he doesn't reject purely from historical writers what he had encountered before, when he obviously later, in his historic studies, entered into the way the theorem had been found. If you research spiritual science in this way you will certainly conclude that an abyss lies between the way and manner in which current spiritual science arrives at its results through fully conscious research, and what still remains in Gnosticism or oriental wisdom, which has a more instinctive character on the other hand. Precisely what people want as unmixed knowledge brought to realization, even this, as I've said, needs to be researched. In the course of this research it becomes apparent that something is needed which makes an appearance as if one had reverted back to the old. In the course of research spiritual experiences take place namely for which modern people—the entire modern civilization—the concise words are missing. Our modern language has definitely connected to material thinking patterns; our modern speech has been learnt as linked either to mere outer material or intellectual matters—both these belong together.
Inner intellectualism is nothing other than correlations to the materialistic methods of observation of the external world. What can be recognised about matter is that when one uses the materialistic method, it reflects inwardly as intellectualism. It is like this, that any philosophy which wants to prove its spirit through mere intellect or a spirit comprised from the intellect, will be wafting around in the wind; these would hardly be able to acknowledge that the intellectual is quite rightly spiritual, but that the content of what is intellectual can be nothing other than that of the material world. One must always speak clearly about these things. By expressing a sentence like: "The content of the intellectual can be nothing other than that of the material world," I'm only saying it can be nothing other than the content of the world, which can be viewed as the sum of material beings and phenomena; whether this is what it is, is not yet agreed upon. The intellectual material world could be through and through spiritual and what comprises intellectualism could be an illusion. Therefore, it is important for spiritual scientific discussions there should already be an unusually powerful conscientiousness existing towards knowledge otherwise there will be no progress in spiritual science. This conscientiousness is also noticed by people of the present; they find it necessary to hackle through their sentences in all directions in order to be concise, and people of the present day who are used to the journalistic handling of a style, call this wrestling for conciseness a bad style.
[ 4 ] Such things we certainly must understand out of the peculiarities of the time. So, while current materialism and intellectualism have hassled speech/language to such a degree that language only operates in terms of the material, one can hardly find the right words needed to describe one's experiences and then one grasps for the old words which come from instinctive observation, to express that which needs expression. This results in the misunderstanding: people who cling only to words now believe that in the word one borrows what is contained in the translation of the word. This is not the case.
The words "lotus flower" is a borrowed expression from oriental wisdom but what I have indicated (in my book Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and its Attainment) is certainly not borrowed from oriental wisdom. This is what I'm asking, for you to always take this into consideration, when on occasion I need through necessity to borrow expressions from history, as I have to do today.
[ 5 ] You see, spiritual science first and foremost wants to gain human knowledge through Anthroposophy, modern physiology and biology need to some extent be considered as the most unsuitable instrument for acquiring real human knowledge. Modern physiology and biology unfortunately base their knowledge on what can be seen in man's corpse. Also, when living people are studied, they are unfortunately only studying the corpse. At most they indulge in a certain deception, which extraordinarily characteristically was revealed when Du Bois-Reymond held his famous lecture on the Ignorabimus. He is quite clear that nothing—because he was besides a scientific researcher also a thinker—of this modern manner of research of the soul—he called it consciousness—can be gained; so that one actually through natural science, according to Du Bois-Reymond, can't find out anything about the actual being of man. He is submitting himself to an ever-greater deception; he says that with outer scientific beings we will never be able to recognise conscious people, at most only those who are asleep. When a person lies sleeping in bed, according to Du Bois-Reymond, the sum of all processes is within the person, but at the moment of waking, when the spark of consciousness jumps in, the possibility of observation ends. It would be correct if one was able today, to scientifically understand the life and development of the plant world. The life and development of the plant world is still not comprehensible through science today because the method is not recognised through which this would be understood. So that too, is an illusion, what current science explains about sleeping people; it can only be in their domain to explain sleeping people, the corpse; further than this they don't go. They can only explain those who are sleeping; the ones who are lively they can't explain.
[ 6 ] Anthroposophy doesn't follow philosophic speculation about people, but the way which I outline in my book Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and its Attainment, in the withdrawal of the soul into observation, and then the attainment towards not remaining stuck in the mineral element in man, which is perpetually dead and is incorporated as a dead mineral element in the being of man, but that one gets to, through what could be called the ether body or creative force, observe what the real foundation of the sleeping human being is.
[ 7 ] Now people come along out of the current philosophic consciousness; I can refer to one case. When my Occult Science was published, there was talk about a Polish philosopher, Lutoslawski, in an old German monthly publication. In this discussion it was said, among other things, that it is only an abstraction to divide a human being into members of the physical body, the ether body, the astral body and the I, one can certainly as an abstraction divide man into these, but it goes no further.—As far as Lutoslawski at that time regarded it, he was correct in his assertion, but he remained in the field of abstraction, and this depends on the following: As soon as a one moves up to contemplate the ether body one can't remain in the physical body of the human being; as long as one only contemplates the physical body then one doesn't need anything but to investigate within the human skin and at most go as far as to examine the interaction with the outside world through breathing and so on; but nothing further is examined, basically nothing more than by beginning with the boundary of the human skin.
[ 8 ] This characteristic I'm offering, you will quite rightly find if you only think about it. One can, if one remains confined in examining the physical body only by what is enclosed by the skin, but one can no longer remain in what is contained by the physical skin when one thoroughly looks at the ether body. Obviously, the basic outlines need to be drawn first, as I have done in my Occult Science, so attention can be drawn to man's physical body, ether body, astral body and so on. However, Anthroposophy doesn't remain stuck here; Anthroposophy must now expand these things. As soon as knowledge of the ether body is extended one can no longer remain within the human being, but one needs to observe the human being as a single being in connection with everything earthy. One must examine the human being in connection with the earthly. This means as long as the human being is enclosed in his physical body, he leads a relatively independent life, a relatively independent life. To a high degree man is dependent on everything possible, air, light and so on, for the physical body; man is dependent on these to a high degree. You can see this in the following example.
When materialism was at the height of its blossoming, Wolff, Büchner and Czolbe very often referred to the dependency of man on the physical environment and one of these writers once listed everything, from gravity, light, the climate and so on and concluded that the human being was the result of every breath of air he breathes. He meant by this—the person concerned was a materialist—the physical organism is dependent on every breath of air. Yes, my dear friends, if one considers the depiction of materialism in this reference in all earnest and contemplate how the human being was as depicted by materialism, then one will become aware that the human being at its highest potency could be a hysteric or a cripple. The materialists have already described the material human being but not what happens in the world, a being who at its highest potency would be an hysteric. The hysteric at his highest power would be as dependent on his environment as the materialist has described him.—The actual human being in his highest power is independent on what the physical earth environment offers. One can't say this about the etheric man. As soon as one rises to the etheric in man, one can't observe the etheric body as isolated from the entire earth's etheric which needs to be examined, and here man lives in a far higher—naturally not in the physical sense higher—level as his physical body. When one comes to the realm of the etheric while observing the earth, then one can no longer hold on to concepts of chemistry, or mineralogy and so on, but one must now search for completely different conceptions; now one will be confronted with the necessity of wanting to say what one wants to say, at least prove it with expressions which the Greeks had, because it is not possible to do so in today's language.
[ 9 ] The (ancient) Greek would, if you demonstrated current chemistry to him, express himself in the following way. Just imagine we have on the one hand a really modern chemist and on the other hand a Greek, an educated ancient Greek, who would like to talk to the chemist, and the modern scientist would say something like the following: "You Greeks come from far back, you took the four elements of fire, earth, water and air. Those are for us at most, aggregate conditions: fire as all penetrating warmth, air as aeriform, the water as liquid and the earth in a solid physical state. We acknowledge that from you. However, we have placed some seventy elements in place of your four." If the Greek would study what has been presented as some seventy elements, he would say: "What we understand under the four elements will not touch many of your seventy elements. We have for what you have in your seventy elements, the collective name of 'earth': we call all of that 'earth.' With our four elements we are referring to something else, we indicate through it how some things express themselves from out of their inner being. What you are pouring out regarding your elements, that is for us aeriform and such further conditions of the earth. Something far more internal than what you acknowledge with your elements, describe for us the expressions of earth, water, fire or heat."
[ 10 ] Exactly to these four elements one is guided when one considers everything surging and weaving which has been spun into the earthy etheric and human etheric. Only when you follow this etheric, which lives in the four elements, as an experience within the circling of the earth's weaving existence, will you understand spring, summer, autumn and winter. In spring, summer, autumn and winter which exist as the foundation of the etheric processes of the earth—not merely as the physical processes of the earth—in this etheric weaving of the earth the human ether body is woven so that one, when one in a sense advances to the etheric body, one must find the etheric body rooted in the earthly-etheric.
[ 11 ] What we rediscover again—I have explained this whole relationship in detail in the Hague—sounds like instinctive wisdom of the ancients, which continued right into Greek times. We don't understand the continuity in humanity if we don't, in our way, discover what the content of these instincts were.
[ 12 ] Now we will go further and come to the astral body of the human being. The terminology doesn't mean anything to me; the astral body had been spoken about much later, right into the middle ages and even up to present time, but it must have some formulation. When one rises up into the astral body, the actual carrier of thinking, feeling and will in man, then you again come to realise that man cannot be regarded in isolation. Just as one makes the etheric a member of the etheric weaving of the earth, so one needs to make the astral—in quite a spiritual manner—as basically incorporated in what is expressed in the movement and positioning of the stars. The astral in man is simply the expression of the cosmic, the astral relationships; how the stars move and are positioned to one another, this is expressed in the human astral body. Just like the human being through his etheric body is interrelated to the earthly etheric, so man through his astral body is associated through his astral to the earth's surroundings; it lives further in the earthly surrounding, they continue to live in the events, in the processes of his astral body.
[ 13 ] You see, it is not an abstraction to structure the human being; we are required to structure the human being because in this structuring we rise from human knowledge to cosmic knowledge, quite naturally. Now we can go back in human evolution to more ancient times which had not actually reached into the Greek times any more. Here we find an instinctive awareness of people's relationship to the starry worlds. Not as if Astronomy was carried on in these ancient times, and if it was, that it could be considered serious, but the connection happened as a direct experience. Human beings experienced themselves in certain times of their earth evolution far less as earthlings than as heavenly beings. In our research we easily reach a time where people, certainly inwardly, lived into the growing and flourishing of the plant world, also in the animal world where everything offered in air and in water were experienced, but as being independent. Similar to how the human being in current times experiences inner processes of nutrition and digestion, processes taking place independently, so the human being once took in all that he experienced in the physical world, as independent, but he didn't take what he lived through in his astral body as independent from the influences of the heavenly worlds. That was something that differentiated itself, imposed itself too strongly upon him, to be taken as independently. When winter shifted closer, when nights lengthened and a person found frost had arrived all around him, he sensed in a certain way how he simply depended on his placement in the world, he felt something within him, like a memory of heaven. During winter he felt himself separated from heaven in a way, he sensed something within him which was like a mere memory of heaven. When by contrast spring approached and the warmth of the earth was interwoven with man, then he felt something dissolve within him as when he shares in the experience, I would call it, of a spreading out breath, the events of the heavens. Now he had heavenly reality, not just a memory of heaven which he had in winter. In this differentiated way he experienced the other seasons also; he actually participated in the seasons.
[ 14 ] Today in our inner reflections we have a weak memory of what at that time had been lived through instinctively. We celebrate Christmas and a historic glance reveals to us the connection of the inner memory life of individuals who, during winter, had felt abandoned by heaven, and so nursed their memories in solitude. We still have echoes of experiences, not at one time through astronomical speculation or astronomy, but direct experiences in the determination of the Easter spring celebration according to the relationship of the sun to the moon. What is revealed in our abstract minds and calculations to determine the Easter festival, this was a direct experience for earlier man; it was observed in the heavens after the completion of winter and the time of St John in the soulful feeling of the divine weaving in the heavens, to unite in divine blessedness with the truly Spiritual-Divine which had been only a memory at Christmas time and into which they lived at springtime. The old summer solstice was primarily celebrated as the inner search for the union with the Divine in which man could empathise with how, if the earth would not be enclosed, the earth would be an active being working in the cosmos together with the entire being of humanity towards this cosmic experience.
[ 15 ] In other words, what we refer to in spiritual science as an objective experience when we refer to the astral body, this would have been a direct experience for ancient mankind, but such that it didn't only occur in a moment but that it spanned time; from which one knew the stars worked here in their laws, in their movement. Not that man took much notice of sun and moon eclipses; that only happened when religion was transferred to science. In olden times people looked up to the heavens with religious simplicity, but also sensed the heavens within them, for a certain time.
[ 16 ] You see, my dear friends, consider what one can think when theology comes forward today and says: What human beings primarily experience through the senses can hardly lead over to the super-sensible; what we have in science, can hardly lead over into the super-sensible; something quite extraordinary must happen in a person if he wants to become accessible to the spiritual worlds.—Such an examination of current theology shows that people are advised to justify religion while life, because we participate in life in the outer world, has no religious character; in a sense it needs to be removed out of ordinary life and placed in a special life in order to feel religious. There once was a time on earth where religious feelings were direct, in the present, and independent, and where one had turned life on earth out of religion. Just as we sense materialistically when we look at the plant world, the animal world and the stars and then need to turn within if we want to have religious experiences, just so once upon a time religious life was the given and if one wanted to turn away from what was given, one would go primarily out from the religious life.
[ 17 ] As long as these things are not fully examined, there would be no clarity about the relationship of science, daily life and religious experience. At least once in life one should look at how human evolution is linked to these things, that at one stage in old world imagery there came the appearance of the outer sun, moon and stars which were relatively indifferent, these appearances coming from outside only addressed feeling; but was inwardly experienced. What took place in heaven was an inner experience for man which he could settle with himself, the effect still came from the heavenly realm and that was given to him as a matter of course.
[ 18 ] Of course, there was a time where what lived and weaved in the astral body as the result of star activity was to some extent interlinked with an experience that takes place inwardly, in relation to the earth, which we can penetrate recognizably when we move forward to the ether body today. Human beings felt themselves more in the soul-spiritual when, through their astrality, they experienced celestial processes. Then one sees the human being indeed in the earthly, but he wasn't penetrating it as we do today; he penetrated the etheric, into what ruled in fire, water, air and earth. Here he maintains a relationship of which he is deprived according to today's viewpoint and particularly the view of science. Right in the experiences the human being has in these relationships, refer back to the ritual acts which of course for our confessions are actually only inherited traditions.
[ 19 ] Yesterday I introduced you to how the Ritual Acts can be grasped out of human understanding. It can also be understood through insight into every interplay between possible experiences through the astral body and those through the etheric body; they go back to the sense which one can have when one follows the celestial vitality and weaving in the earthly etheric. What is revealed as a result is that man is placed in a cosmic process, in a cosmic movement which I can express in the following way. You see, when we turn to the tone which rings out of words, when we thus approach them, for example in the Greek Logos, what lies in the words of the Logos—this what I'm saying right now was certainly still experienced in (ancient) Greece and certainly felt in the composing of the St John's Gospel—when one approaches what lives as tone, what rings out as tone and then turn it to the outside, then one is involved in processes which are about to happen, which are revealed in the air. When we hear a tone or the words and the process is created which I indicated yesterday as it entering into the human being, then we are considering the movement of air being breathed in, which then hits the spinal cord and the brain fluid and continues as a movement; we also have this continuation in the air penetrating into the human being here. When we do further research, we don't only have to deal with this, but, because words manifest an effect in the human being, it acts on the human being's state of warmth. The human being becomes inwardly imbued with warmth, he contains the element of warmth differentiated by the sound entering him, of the word entering inward. This means on the outside warmth or cold is at most a by-product of sound, when the tone is too high or too low; remaining with one tone has no meaning. In the human being actually every differentiation in the word and in the tone is differentiated within, through engendering warmth or cooling, so that we can now say: In our understanding of the Word, we find it manifests outwardly in air and we find it manifest inwardly in warmth.
[ 20 ] If we now go from what we learnt yesterday, we now approach the Sacrificial Act. These things, like many others, we later will clarify more, but this will be able to give you an indication. In olden times the actual characteristic could be found in the Sacrificial Act, of people experiencing the Sacrificial Act as a total reality. Actually for the more ancient presentation, the Sacrificial Act obviously connected to the smoke-like, to the airy; it was because, while the Sacrificial Act flows from within the human beings people knew—as one can also today really experience this in a Sacrificial Act—that just in this way, how the word sounds inwardly and lives itself out in warmth, the Sacrificial Act realises itself in air. Inwardly it lives itself out in the air. Towards the outside the true Sacrificial Act can't manifest without it somehow or other appearing through light. However, we will speak about these things again later.
[ 21 ] When we now go to what we called the Transformation yesterday, we find that with the Transformation we refer to something which already penetrates matter, which already strongly approaches substantiality, but which has not yet been configured, which has not yet taken in an outline; this is experienced in the transformation as characteristic and one refers, in the same sense, to how the Word refers to the warmth, the Offering to the air, the Transformation, the transubstantiation to the water.
[ 22 ] What is experienced as living in Communion, in the union, is felt now as through the connection with the etheric and its connection with the earth; one experiences oneself as an earthling, as a true earthling only because one feels so connected to the earthly, that one feels this union as related to the earth.
[ 23 ] In the Old Mysteries this was the result: they had seen how the Word outwardly manifested in the air, and inwardly as warmth. (This was written on the blackboard.)
Word—Air—Warmth
Offering/Sacrifice—Water—Air
Transformation—Earth—Water
Union—earth
[ 24 ] The Offering manifests itself inwardly, as we've seen, as air. When you come to examine the following things, you could later say: I'm taking notice of these things so that I can say that what referred to water in the Sacrificial Mass of the old Mysteries, has now been retained as a residue in the Baptism. How the spoken word referred outwardly to the air and inwardly to warmth, so the Transformation could accordingly refer to the earth, to what is firm, and only inwardly to water; and what had corresponded to unification, one had nothing. In the human being, one could say to oneself, the connection with the elements shifts. However, already in the Transformation to the extra-terrestrial, the earth is available, which man experiences by turning to be united with it. How can he then experience being united with the earthly?—This was the great question of the Old Mysteries. How can one somehow feel anything at all about the truly earthly?
[ 25 ] I've even spoke about it from another point of view. One looks around and it becomes obvious that people take their inner processes for granted, but they don't find anything which they want to take up into their consciousness. Symbolic action took on unification, but on the outside the place remained empty, something was necessary, so people said to themselves, for this place to be filled, if one wanted to turn to something within the earthly element itself it could correspond to the uniting taking place in communion. People felt they could look down on the earth. What presented itself within the earth, this could be fulfilled in the communion, but something outwardly was not possible. This is how people basically felt in the Old Mysteries, when they spoke of communion. They spoke about it this way, but they felt it could not be a concluded event. We basically feel this way when are instructed according to the outer statements of the Old Mysteries, how in images the event of Golgotha was foreseen, how it was symbolically carried out, which current research always refer to when they want to show that the Mystery of Golgotha was only something which can be compared to later developments when various sacrificial acts took place in temples, by presenting a sensory image of the representative of man having died, buried and resurrected three days later. [ 26 ] You know how the real crux of the Christ conception resulted from people noticing some similarities between the symbolic religious practices and the event of Golgotha, that they believed, even theologians believed they must speak about Christ as a myth or as something which had developed and reached fulfillment in the temples. The whole thing has now reached a point where this same way of thinking is appearing in other areas: the Our Father prayer has been examined in the same way and now nearly every sentence can be shown to have existed in pre-Christian times. This is regarded as a special catch for religious research. For someone who admits, truly admits to this way of closed thinking, it would be the same as to draw conclusions about people from their clothes. When a father allows his child to inherit his clothes, one can't say the son has become the father, because the son is someone quite different from the father even when he wears the same clothing. Just so the wording of the Our Father has passed over on to Christianity, but the content has essentially become something new. In order to examine these things, one must first look even deeper into all the connections: one needs to know the foundations from which the Old Mystery priests retained something like an expectation, which resembled something which could not yet have been accomplished on earth.
[ 27 ] So there we will, I'd like to say, be led, in the first element, even through quite careful considerations, to a mood of expectation in the Old Mysteries, certainly out of an instinctive science which was completely permeated by religion, how in all Old Mysteries a Christ-expectation mood was there, and then it was fulfilled though the Mystery of Golgotha. [ 28 ] Tomorrow we will look at the entire problem from another side, when we will enter into it more profoundly. However, you see how Anthroposophy approaches the Christ-problem in what could be called a certain scientific manner, by making a lively observation of the ether and astral bodes and also what results from their cooperation. You see, by discovering, so to speak the Christ-experience in the boundary between the astral and etheric bodies, you must arrive in a positive way to the Christ-experience. I must say to you, my dear friends, this is largely the biggest difficulty of Anthroposophy and its task in the present. You see, the somewhat washed out Theosophy which you find for instance in the Theosophical Society, finds this reference far easier. It doesn't enter into the Christ-experience but stops just before it. Therefore, it's easier. To some extent they laid down all religions as equally valid and seek within it the common human element which of course every science must be based on. [ 29 ] Anthroposophy is determined in its own evolution, through the nerve of its entire being, to approach the Mystery of Golgotha in a positive way, and because it wants to remain scientific, to make the task of the events of Golgotha clear to humanity, as clearly as mathematics states the theory of Pythagoras. All religious confessions are in line with this rejection of the event of Golgotha as such. As a result, the world task of Anthroposophy necessary for our time is not easy. How difficult it is, I ask you to read the in words of a poet from Prague, Max Brod, who writes—he has also written some other things—in "Paganism, Christianity, Judaism" about how these things need to be handled; how out of the re-enlivened Jewish consciousness everything that makes Jesus into Christ must be removed, and only to keep Jesus as what does not make him into Christ. What is at the foundation of this tendency? It is the tendency to make it possible for modern Jews to have a relationship with Jesus, in which Jesus can be admitted but in which it is not necessary to see Him as the bearer of the Christ.
[ 30 ] Anthroposophy is compelled—and we will still talk about this a great deal—to recognise Jesus as Christ. For Jesus to be taken as valid is what the Jews also strive, as well as the Indians; the entire East is striving for this, but they only strive to accept Him as he is, and not for being Christ.
[ 31 ] Now my dear friends, Harnack's book about the Essentials of Christianity and the Weinel's research about Jesus you can take all in a way in which they could be accepted by all non-Christians to a certain degree. I know there can be some objections, so for this reason I say you could take it in this way—of course they are not like this. However, what we have as a task is this: To fully understand Christianity—not to keep Jesus at the expense of the fact that He is the bearer of the Christ.
[ 32 ] Here lies the complete other side of a basis for the true, earnest Christianity through Anthroposophy, because one has to admit, that a communal world task has to be dealt with which encounters the most frightening prejudices. This world task is connected to what we today experience as dissatisfactory in religious experiences. For this reason, this can't be understood in the narrowest sense, but one must allow oneself to enter into what penetrates our religious life as unsatisfactory and look at this from a higher perspective. We will speak further about this tomorrow.
Vierter Vortrag
[ 1 ] Meine lieben Freunde! Ich habe gestern abend eine Zuschrift bekommen von Pfarrer Dr.Schairer in Nagold, die eine Anzahl von Thesen enthält,1Der Brief von Pfarrer Dr. Schairer ist nicht erhalten. welche darauf hinauslaufen, die Fragen zu beantworten, wie Anthroposophie sich zur Religion, und wie Religion zur Anthroposophie sich verhalten soll, und wie die Wege gefunden werden sollen, um dieses Verhalten einzuleiten. Herr Dr. Schairer meint, daß den Diskussionen diese Sache zugrundgelegt werden kann. Das scheint mir auch durchaus zutreffend zu sein nach dem ersten Teil der Zuschrift - ich konnte sie noch nicht ganz lesen, ich habe die letzten Seiten noch nicht gelesen —, denn es wird manches in einer außerordentlich treffenden Weise präzisiert; und es wird vielleicht gerade dieses in mancher Beziehung eine gute Diskussionsgrundlage abgeben können, denn es muß uns ja gerade für Ihr zukünftiges Wirken vor allen Dingen daran liegen, diese prinzipiellen Dinge durchaus, wenn ich so sagen darf, in Ordnung zu bringen.
[ 2 ] Auch das, was ich heute zu Ihnen sagen will - alles ist ja vorläufig noch einleitungsweise —, berührt ja von einer gewissen Seite her das Prinzipielle dieser Frage, allerdings nur von einer gewissen Seite her. Wir müssen uns durchaus klar sein, daß Anthroposophie als solche in einer positiven Weise zu dem Mysterium von Golgatha kommt, so daß der Art und Weise, wie das geschieht, wirklich der Begriff des Wissens, der Erkenntnis zugeschrieben werden kann, wenn man diesen Begriff «Erkenntnis» ernst nimmt, auch in dem Sinne des modernen Naturwissenschaftlichen. Und es ist andererseits ganz richtig, daß an dieser besonderen Art, wie zunächst — ich betone zunächst - Anthroposophie an das Mysterium von Golgatha herankommen muß, daß daran zunächst namentlich das evangelische Religionsempfinden aus gewissen Untergründen heraus, die eben [ins Bewußtsein] gehoben werden müssen, Anstoß nehmen kann. So kann also auch nur die völlige Klarheit über diese Dinge zu irgendeinem heilsamen Ziele führen.
[ 3 ] Ich muß also, wenn ja das auch vielleicht etwas entlegen scheint, durchaus eingehen auf das, was ich Ihnen heute sagen muß. Anthroposophie oder Geisteswissenschaft schöpft ja aus wirklichem übersinnlichen Erkennen, und sie lehnt es ab - prinzipiell lehnt sie es ab -, irgend etwas zu entnehmen aus älteren Überlieferungen, sagen wir, der orientalischen Weisheit oder des historischen Gnostizismus, um gewissermaßen daraus sich einen Inhalt zu geben oder ihren Umfang zu vergrößern; sie lehnt das ganz entschieden zunächst ab, weil sie vor allen Dingen ihrer ganzen Aufgabe nach darauf ausgehen muß, praktisch die Frage zu beantworten: Wieviel kann der gegenwärtige Mensch, wenn er die in der Seele latenten, im gewöhnlichen Leben nicht bewußten Kräfte ins Bewußtsein, ins volle Bewußtsein und bei voller menschlicher Besonnenheit heraufführt, wieviel kann er von der übersinnlichen Welt unmittelbar erkennen? — Die Geisteswissenschaft möchte bei diesem Erkennen so vorgehen wie etwa, sagen wir, der Mathematiker vorgeht, wenn er heute den pythagoreischen Lehrsatz beweist. Er beweist ihn aus demjenigen heraus, was man heute wissen kann, und er entlehnt ihn nicht etwa bloß historisch von den Schriftstellern, wo er zuerst aufgetreten ist, wenn er auch natürlich nachher, beim Studium des Geschichtlichen, auf die Art eingeht, wie der Lehrsatz gefunden worden ist. Man kommt ja dann, wenn man in dieser Art geisteswissenschaftlich forscht, allerdings dazu, sich zu sagen, daß ein Abgrund liegt zwischen der Art und Weise, wie diese heutige Geisteswissenschaft zu ihren Ergebnissen kommt durch vollbewußtes Forschen, und demjenigen, was auch noch im Gnostizismus oder gar in der orientalischen Weisheit erhalten ist, was aber doch einen mehr instinktiven Charakter trägt. Aber gerade um dasjenige, was der heutige Mensch vermag, unvermischt der Erkenntnis zuzuführen, muß eben so, wie ich gesagt habe, geforscht werden. Man findet dann allerdings, daß man im Verlaufe dieses Forschens etwas braucht, was dann neuerlich den Schein hervorruft, als ob man zu Altem zurückginge. Im Verlaufe des Forschens stellen sich nämlich geistige Erlebnisse ein, für die dem modernen Menschen, der ganzen modernen Zivilisation, eigentlich die prägnanten Worte fehlen. Unsere moderne Sprache hat sich nämlich der materialistischen Denkungsweise ganz angeschlossen; unsere moderne Sprache hat die Worte durchaus zu beziehen gelernt entweder auf das bloß äußere Materielle oder auf das Intellektuelle — beides gehört ja zusammen. Der Intellektualismus im Innern ist nichts anderes als das Korrelat der materialistischen Anschauungsweise nach außen. Man wird einfach intellektualistisch, wenn man Materialist ist; beides gehört zusammen. Dasjenige, was man von der Materie aus erkennen kann, wenn man nach materieller Methode vorgeht, das spiegelt sich einem eben im Innern als Intellektualismus. Es ist so, daß etwa eine Philosophie, welche den Geist beweisen wollte aus dem bloßen Intellekt heraus oder das Geistige aus Intellekt bestehend, in der Luft schweben würde; sie würde zwar anerkennen können, daß das Intellektuelle mit Recht ein Geistiges ist, aber der Inhalt dieses Intellektuellen kann kein anderer sein als der der materiellen Welt. Man muß in solchen Dingen immer genau sprechen. Indem ich diesen Satz ausspreche: «Der Inhalt des Intellektuellen kann kein anderer als der der materiellen Welt sein», sage ich nur, er kann kein anderer sein als der Inhalt der Welt, welche als eine Summe von materiellen Wesen und Erscheinungen angesehen wird; ob sie das auch ist, das ist damit noch nicht ausgemacht. Diese intellektuelle materielle Welt könnte ja durch und durch Geist sein, und dasjenige, was den Intellektualismus ausmacht, könnte ja eine Illusion sein. Also es handelt sich darum, daß für geisteswissenschaftliche Erörterungen schon eine außerordentlich starke Gewissenhaftigkeit gegenüber der Erkenntnis vorhanden sein muß, sonst kommt man überhaupt in der Geisteswissenschaft nicht vorwärts. Diese Gewissenhaftigkeit wird ja von den Menschen der Gegenwart auch bemerkt; sie sehen, wie man genötigt ist, seine Sätze nach allen Seiten hin durchzuhecheln, damit sie prägnant werden, und diese Menschen der Gegenwart, die heute gewöhnt sind an die journalistische Handhabung des Stils, nennen dieses Ringen nach Prägnanz einen schlechten Stil.
[ 4 ] Nun, man muß solche Dinge eben durchaus aus der Eigenartigkeit der Zeit heraus verstehen. Und deshalb, weil die Gegenwart aus ihrem Materialismus und Intellektualismus heraus auch die Sprache in einer gewissen Weise so bedrängt hat, daß die Sprache, indem wir sie handhaben, nurmehr sich bezieht auf Materielles, kann man schwer die Worte finden, die man zuweilen braucht, um dasjenige zu bezeichnen, was man erlebt und muß dann greifen zu älteren, noch aus dem instinktiven Schauen herausgeholten Worten, die einem viel mehr die Möglichkeit geben, dasjenige auszudrücken, was man ausdrücken will. Darauf beruht dann wieder das Mißverständnis, daß die Leute, die nur am Worte haften, nun glauben, daß man mit dem Worte dasjenige entlehnt, was in der Übersetzung des Wortes enthalten ist. Das ist nicht so. Das Wort «Lotosblume», das ist ein aus der orientalischen Weisheit entlehnter Ausdruck, aber dasjenige, was ich schildere [in meinem Buch «Wie erlangt man Erkenntnisse der höheren Welten?»], ist durchaus nicht aus der orientalischen Weisheit entlehnt. Das ist es, worauf ich bitte, immer Rücksicht zu nehmen, wenn ich mich notgedrungenerweise aus der Geschichte entlehnter Ausdrücke bedienen muß, wie ich das heute werde tun müssen.
[ 5 ] Sehen Sie, Geisteswissenschaft kommt nämlich dazu, indem sie zunächst als Anthroposophie Menschenerkenntnis gewinnen will, die moderne Physiologie und Biologie gewissermaßen als das ungeeignetste Instrument zur wirklichen Menschenerkenntnis ansehen zu müssen. Diese moderne Physiologie und Biologie baut ja ihre Erkenntnis lediglich auf demjenigen auf, was sich auch am Leichnam des Menschen konstatieren läßt. Auch wenn sie den lebendigen Menschen studiert, studiert sie eigentlich nur den Leichnam des Menschen. Und höchstens gibt sie sich dann einer gewissen Täuschung hin, die außerordentlich charakteristisch einmal zutage getreten ist, als damals Du Bois-Reymond seine berühmte Ignorabimus-Rede gehalten hat, Er ist sich ja schon klar darüber, weil er neben dem Naturforscher auch ein Denker war, daß auf diese moderne Art des Forschens man über die Seele — er nannte sie Bewußtsein — nichts gewinnen kann; so daß man also eigentlich durch Naturwissenschaft über das eigentliche Wesen des Menschen auch nach Du Bois-Reymond nichts wissen kann. Aber er gibt sich noch einer gewaltigen Täuschung hin; er sagt, mit der äußeren Naturwissenschaft seien wir eigentlich niemals imstande, den wachenden Menschen zu erkennen, höchstens den schlafenden. Wenn der Mensch schlafend im Bette liegt, hält er das für eine Summe von Prozessen, die da im Menschen vorgehen, in dem Augenblicke aber, wo beim Erwachen [des Menschen] der Funke des Bewußtseins einschlägt, hört die Möglichkeit des Begreifens nach Du Bois-Reymond auf. Das wäre dann richtig, wenn man heute erwa in der Lage wäre, wissenschaftlich das Leben und Werden der Pflanzenwelt zu begreifen. Aber das Leben und Werden der Pflanzenwelt ist ja immer noch nicht wissenschaftlich begreifbar, weil man die Methode nicht anerkennt, durch die es begriffen werden kann. Und so ist auch das eine Illusion, daß die heutige Wissenschaft den schlafenden Menschen erklärt; es kann ihr Bereich nur sein, den toten Menschen zu erklären, den Leichnam, bis zu dem dringt sie, weiter dringt sie nicht. Auch den schlafenden Menschen, der ein lebendiger Mensch ist, kann sie nicht erklären.
[ 6 ] Anthroposophie geht nun nicht auf dem Wege der philosophischen Spekulation an den Menschen heran, sondern auf dem Wege des in meinem Buche «Wie erlangt man Erkenntnisse der höheren Welten?» geschilderten in die Seele hereingezogenen Anschauens, und dann gelangt man dazu, nicht mehr stehenbleiben zu müssen bei dem, was im Menschen Mineralreich ist, was also fortwährend tot ist und was als totes Mineralreich eingegliedert ist der menschlichen Wesenheit, sondern man gelangt dazu, in dem, was man Ätherleib oder Bildekräfteleib nennen kann, dasjenige zu sehen, was eigentlich der menschlichen Schlaflebewesenheit zugrundeliegt.
[ 7 ] Nun kommen die Leute, die von dem gegenwärtigen philosophischen Bewußtsein ausgehen; ich kann Ihnen auch da einen Fall angeben. Als meine «Geheimwissenschaft» erschienen ist, da wurde sie besprochen von einem polnischen Philosophen, Lutoslawski, in einer alldeutschen Monatsschrift. In dieser Besprechung wurde unter anderem auch gesagt, das wäre ja nur eine Abstraktion, wenn man den Menschen gliedere in physischen Leib, Ätherleib, astralischen Leib und Ich, man könne durchaus durch Abstraktion den Menschen so gliedern, aber es führe einen nicht weiter. — Soviel Lutoslawski dazumal von der Sache eingesehen hat, hatte er mit seiner Behauptung recht, aber er blieb im Felde der Abstraktion stehen, und das beruht auf folgendem: Sobald man nämlich aufrückt zur Anschauung des Ätherleibes, kann man nicht mehr [nur] beim [Physischen des] Menschen stehenbleiben; solange man [nur] den physischen Leib betrachtet, hat man nichts nötig, als bei der Untersuchung innerhalb der menschlichen Haut stehenzubleiben und höchstens die Wechselwirkung mit der Außenwelt im Atmen und. so weiter zu untersuchen; aber man untersucht ja auch da nichts anderes als das, was eben im Grunde genommen an der Hautgrenze des Menschen nach innen zu beginnt.
[ 8 ] Die Charakteristik, die ich gebe, werden Sie schon ganz richtig finden, wenn Sie nur richtig darüber nachdenken. Man kann, wenn man den physischen Menschen betrachtet, stehenbleiben bei dem, was in der physischen Leibeshaut eingeschlossen ist, aber man kann nicht mehr stehenbleiben in der physischen Leibeshaut, wenn man vollständig den Ätherleib betrachtet. Gewiß, man wird zunächst die Grundlinien ziehen, wie ich es in meiner «Geheimwissenschaft» getan habe, da wird man darauf aufmerksam machen, daß der Mensch aus physischem Leib, Ätherleib, Astralleib und so weiter besteht. Aber Anthroposophie bleibt dabei nicht stehen, sondern Anthroposophie muß dann die Dinge weiter ausbauen, und sobald man die Erkenntnis von dem Ätherleib ausbaut, kann man nicht innerhalb des Menschen stehenbleiben, sondern man muß den Menschen im Zusammenhang mit allem Irdischen als eine einzelne Wesenheit betrachten; man muß den Menschen im Zusammenhang mit dem Irdischen betrachten. Das heißt, insofern der Mensch in seinem physischen Leib eingeschlossen ist, führt er ein verhältnismäßig selbständiges Leben, ein verhältnismäßig selbständiges. Man ist in hohem Grade abhängig von allem möglichen, von Luft, Licht und so weiter im physischen Leib, allein man ist auch in hohem Grade davon unabhängig. Das können Sie einfach aus dem folgenden ersehen: Als die Hochblüte des Materialismus war, Wolff, Büchner, Czolbe, da wurde sehr häufig gerade auf die Abhängigkeit des physischen Menschen von der physischen Umgebung hingewiesen und eine Stelle bei einem dieser Schriftsteller zählt ja alles auf, wovon der Mensch abhängig ist, von der Schwerkraft, vom Licht, von dem Klima und so weiter und schließt dann damit, der Mensch sei in seinem Leibe ein Ergebnis von jedem Hauche der Luft. Er meint damit — der Betreffende war ja Materialist —, die physische Organisation sei abhängig von jedem Hauche der Luft. Ja, meine lieben Freunde, wenn man die Schilderung der Materialisten in dieser Beziehung ganz ernst nimmt und sich die Sache so ausdenken würde, wie sie da geschildert ist, wenn der Mensch also so wäre, wie ihn die Materialisten schildern, dann würde man gewahr werden, daß dieser Mensch die höchste Potenzierung eines Hysterikers oder Neurasthenikers wäre. Die Materialisten haben schon den materiellen Menschen geschildert, aber nicht den, der herumgeht in der Welt, sondern einen solchen, der eine Hochpotenzierung des Hysterikers wäre. Der Hysteriker in höchster Potenz würde so abhängig sein von der Umgebung, wie ihn die Materialisten geschildert haben. - Der wirkliche Mensch ist schon in einem hohen Grade unabhängig von demjenigen, was die physische Erdenumgebung ist. Aber nicht mehr kann man das so sagen von dem ätherischen Menschen. Sobald man zum ätherischen Menschen aufrückt, kann man den ätherischen Leib nicht gesondert für sich betrachten, sondern man muß die Ätherizität der ganzen Erde betrachten, und der Mensch lebt einfach in einem viel höheren — natürlich nicht im physischen Sinne höheren — Niveau, als er mit seinem physischen Leibe lebt. Und wenn man zu dem Bereich des Ätherischen kommt bei der Betrachtung der Erde, kann man nicht mehr sich halten an [Begriffe der] Chemie, der Mineralogie und so weiter, sondern man muß ganz andere Vorstellungen aufsuchen, und da wird man dann in die Notwendigkeit versetzt, das, was man sagen will, wenigstens mit den Ausdrücken zu belegen, die die Griechen gehabt haben, weil eben die gegenwärtige Sprache nicht mehr die Möglichkeit gibt, sich auszudrücken.
[ 9 ] Der Grieche würde, wenn wir ihm die heutige Chemie vorführen würden, sich in folgender Weise äußern. Denken wir uns einmal, wir hätten auf der einen Seite einen richtigen modernen Chemiker und auf der anderen Seite einen Griechen, einen gebildeten alten Griechen, der sich unterreden würde mit dem Chemiker, da würde der moderne Naturwissenschaftler etwa folgendes sagen: Ihr Griechen wart ja weit zurück, ihr habt vier Elemente angenommen: Feuer, Erde, Wasser, Luft. Das sind für uns höchstens noch Aggregatzustände: das Feuer die alles durchdringende Wärme, die Luft der luftförmige, das Wasser der flüssige, die Erde der feste Aggregatzustand. Wir wollen euch das zugeben. Aber wir haben etliche siebzig Elemente an die Stelle eurer vier Elemente gesetzt. — Der Grieche, wenn er studieren würde, was da vorliegt in den etlichen siebzig Elementen, würde sagen: Was wir unter den vier Elementen verstehen, das wird von euren etlichen siebzig Elementen nicht berührt. Wir haben für das, was ihr da in den etlichen siebzig Elementen habt, den Sammelnamen «Erde»; das bezeichnen wir alles mit «Erde». Mit unseren vier Elementen bezeichnen wir etwas ganz anderes, wir bezeichnen damit etwas, was in Zuständen sich äußert, etwas, was innere Wesenheit ist. Und dasjenige, was ihr über alle eure Elemente ausgießt, das ist auch für uns luftförmiger und so weiter Zustand der Erde. Etwas viel Innerlicheres, als ihr anerkennt mit euren Elementen, bezeichnen wir mit den Ausdrücken Erde, Wasser, Luft, Feuer oder Wärme. —
[ 10 ] Aber gerade zu diesen vier Elementen wird man eben geführt, wenn man all das Wogende, Webende betrachtet, in das aus dem IrdischÄtherischen das Menschlich-Ätherische eingesponnen ist. Und nur wenn man dieses Ätherische, das sich in den vier Elementen darlebt, bei sich verfolgt, versteht man den Erdenkreislauf des webenden Daseins, versteht man Frühling, Sommer, Herbst, Winter. Und in Frühling, Sommer, Herbst, Winter, denen in ihrer Verwandlung zugrundeliegt das Ätherwirken der Erde - nicht bloß das physische Wirken der Erde -, in dieses Ätherweben der Erde ist eingesponnen der menschliche Ätherleib, so daß man, wenn man gewissermaßen zum Ätherleib vorschreitet, den Ätherleib eingewurzelt finden muß im Irdisch[-Ätherisch]en.
[ 11 ] Das, was wir so wiederfinden — ich habe das ganze Verhältnis einmal ausführlich dargestellt und zwar im Haag -, das klingt an das instinktive Wissen der Alten, das noch bis zu den Griechen gereicht hat, durchaus an. Und wir verstehen die Kontinuität in der Menschheit nicht, wenn wir nicht auf unsere Art wieder daraufkommen, was der Inhalt dieses Instinktiven war.
[ 12 ] Nun gehen wir weiter und kommen zum Astralleib des Menschen. An der Terminologie liegt mir nichts, vom Astralleib wurde viel später noch gesprochen, bis in das Mittelalter hinein, ja sogar bis in die Neuzeit herauf, aber man muß eben eine Terminologie haben. Wenn man heraufsteigt bis zum Astralleib, der der eigentliche Träger des Denkens, Fühlens und Wollens im Menschen ist, dann kommt man wiederum dazu, den Menschen nicht abgesondert betrachten zu können. Ebenso wie man sein Ätherisches eingliedern muß in das Ätherweben der Erde, so muß man das Astralische eingliedern in dasjenige, was — nun schon in geistigerer Art — zugrundeliegt dem, was sich in dem Gang und in der Stellung der Sterne ausdrückt. Das Astralische im Menschen ist einfach der Ausdruck der kosmischen, der astralen Verhältnisse; wie die Sterne sich bewegen und zueinander stehen, das ist ausgedrückt im menschlichen Astralleib. Geradeso wie der Mensch durch seinen Ätherleib mit dem Irdisch-Ätherischen zusammenhängt, so hängt der Mensch durch seinen Astralleib mit der Erdenumgebung zusammen; es lebt die Erdenumgebung in seinem Astralleib weiter, sie lebt in den Geschehnissen, in den Prozessen seines Astralleibes weiter.
[ 13 ] Sie sehen, das ist keine Abstraktion, wenn wir den Menschen gliedern, sondern wir sind genötigt, ihn zu gliedern, weil wir, wenn wir aufsteigen von dieser Gliederung des Menschen, von der Menschenerkenntnis zur Welterkenntnis kommen, ganz naturgemäß. Nun können wir zurückgehen in der Menschheitsentwickelung, aber jetzt in noch ältere Zeiten, die nicht mehr eigentlich in die griechische hereingereicht haben; da finden wir auch ein instinktives Bewußtsein dieses Zusammenhanges des Menschen mit der Sternenwelt. Nicht als ob in diesen alten Zeiten Astronomie getrieben worden wäre, oder soweit sie getrieben worden ist, wichtüg gewesen ist, sondern es war ein unmittelbares Erleben [dieses Zusammenhanges]. Der Mensch erlebte sich in gewissen Zeiten der Erdenentwickelung viel weniger als ein Erdenbürger, denn als ein Bürger der Himmel. Wir kommen forschend schon in eine Zeit zurück, wo der Mensch zwar durchaus innerlich miterlebte das Wachsen und Gedeihen des Irdischen in der Pflanzenwelt, auch in der Tierwelt, wo er miterlebte alles, was in der Luft, im Wasser sich darbot, wo aber das alles von ihm wie eine Selbstverständlichkeit erlebt wurde. So wie der Mensch etwa in der heutigen Zeit seine inneren Prozesse, seine Ernährungs- und Verdauungsprozesse erlebt und sie als eine Selbstverständlichkeit hinnehmen kann, so nahm er einmal alles dasjenige, was er im Zusammenhang mit der physischen Welt erlebte, noch wie ein Selbstverständliches hin, aber nicht nahm er das als ein Selbstverständliches hin, was er in seinem astralischen Leibe erlebte durch den Einfluß der himmlischen Welten. Das war etwas, was sich herausdifferenzierte, sich ihm zu stark aufdrängte, um es so selbstverständlich hinnehmen zu können. Wenn der Winter herannahte, wenn die Nächte lang wurden und Frost um die Erde herum war und der Mensch in diesem Frost sich befand, dann fühlte er in einer gewissen Weise, wie er einfach durch sein Hineingestelltsein in die Welt darauf angewiesen war, in seinem Innern etwas zu fühlen wie eine Erinnerung an die Himmel. Er fühlte sich im Winter in einer gewissen Weise getrennt von den Himmeln, er fühlte etwas in sich, was wie eine bloße Erinnerung an die Himmel war. Wenn dagegen der Frühling herannahte und Wärme die Erde umgab und der Mensch hineinverwoben war in diese Wärme, dann fühlte er, wie wenn etwas in seinem Innern sich aufschlösse, wie wenn er miterlebte, ich möchte sagen, in einem ausgebreiteten Atem die Geschehnisse der Himmel. Da hatte er die himmlische Wirklichkeit, nicht bloß die Erinnerung an die Himmel, die er zur Winterszeit hatte. Und so differenziert erlebte er auch die anderen Jahreszeiten; er erlebte den Jahreslauf tatsächlich mit.
[ 14 ] Wir haben heute, ins Innere reflektiert, eine schwache Erinnerung an das, was dazumal lebendig von den Menschen instinktiv durcherlebt worden ist. Wir begehen das Weihnachtsfest, und ein geschichtlicher Blick enthüllt es uns in Zusammenhang stehend mit dem inneren Erinnerungsleben des einzelnen Menschen, der sich gewissermaßen zur Winterszeit verlassen fühlte von den Himmeln, damit er seine Erinnerung in Einsamkeit auf der Erde pflegen konnte. Wir haben noch Anklänge an das, was einstmals nicht astronomische Spekulationen oder astronomische Wissenschaft, sondern unmittelbares Erleben war, in der Festsetzung des Osterfestes im Frühling, das sich ja nach der Beziehung von Sonne und Mond richtet. Was heute unserem abstrakten Verstand sich enthüllt durch Berechnung und was wir benutzen, um das Osterfest festzusetzen, das war ein unmittelbares Erleben für den früheren Menschen, es war ein Wiederaufgenommenwerden in die Himmel nach dem Abgeschlossensein [im Winter], und zur Johannizeit ein seliges Sichfühlen in dem in den Himmeln webenden Göttlichen, in göttlicher Seligkeit die Vereinigung mit dem wirklich Geistig-Göttlichen, von dem sie zu Weihnachten nur die Erinnerung hatten und in das sie sich hineinlebten zur Frühlingszeit. Die ältere Sommersonnenwende war ja zunächst so, daß sie gefeiert wurde wie ein inneres Aufsuchen der Vereinigung mit dem Göttlichen, bei dem man mitfühlte, wie wenn die Erde nicht in sich abgeschlossen wäre, sondern wie wenn die Erde nun ein im Kosmos wirkendes Wesen wäre und der Mensch mit seinem ganzen Wesen mit dazugehörte zu diesem kosmischen Erleben.
[ 15 ] Mit anderen Worten, dasjenige, worauf wir in der Geisteswissenschaft hinweisen als auf etwas objektiv Erlebtes, das wir als astralischen Leib hinstellen, das wurde von einer älteren Menschheit als ein unmittelbares Erleben empfunden, aber als ein unmittelbares Erleben, das nicht nur im Augenblick da war, sondern das ausgespannt war in die Zeit, und von dem man wußte, darin wirken die Sterne mit ihrer Gesetzmäßigkeit, mit ihrer Bewegung. Nicht als ob man viel gegeben hätte auf das, was Sonnen- und Mondfinsternisse darboten; das ist erst geschehen, als die Religion übergegangen ist in die Wissenschaft. In alten Zeiten hat man in gläubiger Einfalt zum Himmel aufgeschaut, aber den Himmel auch zu einer gewissen Zeit in sich gefühlt.
[ 16 ] Sehen Sie, meine lieben Freunde, was muß man denken, wenn heute Theologen auftreten und sagen: Das, was der Mensch zunächst in der Sinneswelt erlebt, das kann unmöglich zum Übersinnlichen führen, und das, was er durch seine Wissenschaft hat, das kann auch unmöglich zum Übersinnlichen führen; es muß etwas ganz besonderes im Menschen eintreten, wenn er für die übersinnliche Welt sich erschließen will -? Eine solche Auseinandersetzung heutiger Theologen zeigt, daß der Mensch heute darauf angewiesen ist, Religion zu rechtfertigen, weil das Leben, das er in der Außenwelt führt, zunächst keinen religiösen Charakter hat; er will sich gewissermaßen herausstellen aus dem gewöhnlichen Leben in der Außenwelt und in ein besonderes Leben hineinstellen, um religiös zu fühlen. Es gab aber einmal eine Erdenzeit, wo das religiöse Fühlen das unmittelbar Gegenwärtige, das Selbstverständliche war, und wo man sich für das Erdenleben herausstellen mußte aus dem Religiösen. So wie wir heute materialistisch fühlen, wenn wir zur Pflanzenwelt, zur Tierwelt und zu den Sternen aufblicken und dann Einkehr halten müssen in uns, wenn wir religiös erleben wollen, so war einmal religiöses Erleben für den Menschen dasjenige, was für ihn als das Gegebene da war, und gerade dann, wenn er sich von diesem Gegebenen abkehren wollte, ging er aus dem religiösen Leben erst heraus.
[ 17 ] Solange man diese Dinge nicht völlig durchschaut, wird man überhaupt nicht Klarheit gewinnen können über das Verhältnis von Wissenschaft, alltäglichem Leben und religiösem Erleben. Man muß schon einmal im Leben wenigstens den Blick auf diese Dinge der Menschheitsentwickelung hingelenkt haben, daß einmal ein altes Weltbild dagewesen ist, dem die äußeren Erscheinungen von Sonne, Mond und Sternen verhältnismäßig gleichgültig waren, wo diese von außen kommenden Erscheinungen nur zum Gefühl gesprochen haben; aber im Innern wurde etwas erlebt. Was Wirkung war der Himmel, das war inneres Erlebnis des Menschen, das er mit sich selbst abmachen konnte, das aber doch Wirkung war des Himmlischen und in ihm wie eine Selbstverständlichkeit gegeben war.
[ 18 ] Nun gab es ja selbstverständlich dann eine Zeit, wo gewissermaßen das ineinandergefügt wurde, was lebt und webt im Innern des astralischen Leibes als ein Ergebnis des Sternenprozesses und dasjenige Erleben, das im Innern sich abspielt im Zusammenhang mit der Erde, das wir erkennend durchdringen können, wenn wir zum Ätherleib heute vordringen. Der Mensch fühlt sich mehr im SeelischGeistigen, wenn er astralisch die Ergebnisse der Himmelsvorgänge in sich erlebt. Dann sieht der Mensch wohl auf das Irdische, aber er dringt noch nicht bis zu dem, was wir heute sehen; er dringt bis zum Ätherischen, bis zu dem, wo Feuer, Wasser, Luft und Erde walten. Da gewahrt er dann ein Verhältnis, das sich heute dem Blick des Menschen, insbesondere dem wissenschaftlichen Blick, eigentlich völlig entzieht. Aber bis in die Empfindungen, die man über dieses Verhältnis hatte, gehen die Kultushandlungen zurück, die ja für unsere Bekenntnisse eigentlich nur Überlieferungen sind.
[ 19 ] Ich habe Ihnen gestern dargestellt, wie die Kultushandlungen verstanden werden können aus dem Menschenverständnis heraus. Sie können aber auch verstanden werden aus einem Einblick in jene Wechselwirkung, die da statt hat zwischen dem, was erlebt werden kann im astralischen Leib, und dem, was erlebt werden kann im ätherischen Leib; sie gehen zurück auf eine Empfindung, die man haben kann, wenn man das Leben und Weben des Himmels in dem Irdisch-Ätherischen verfolgt, und da stellt sich dann heraus, daß der Mensch hineingestellt ist in eine kosmische Wirkung, in eine kosmische Bewegung, die ich Ihnen durch folgendes ausdrücken möchte. Sehen Sie, wenn wir uns an den Ton wenden, der dann im Worte lautet, wenn wir uns also dem nähern, was zum Beispiel im griechischen Logos, im Worte Logos liegt — das, was ich jetzt sage, wurde durchaus noch empfunden in Griechenland und durchaus noch empfunden bei der Abfassung des Johannes-Evangeliums —, wenn man sich dem nähert, was als Ton lebt, was als Ton lautet und mit dem sich nach außen wendet, dann hat man es mit Vorgängen zu tun, die sich ankündigen, die sich offenbaren durch die Luft. Wenn wir aber den Ton oder das Wort hören und jene Wirkung entsteht, die ich gestern geschildert habe als nach dem Inneren des Menschen gehend, dann haben wir es da zwar auch zunächst mit dem zu tun, was Bewegung der eingeatmeten Luft ist, die dann an das Rückenmark und Gehirnwasser stößt und sich da als Bewegung fortsetzt; wir haben es also auch mit der Fortsetzung des in der Luft Vorgehenden in den Menschen hinein zu tun. Wenn wir aber weiter forschen, haben wir es nicht bloß damit zu tun, sondern, indem das Wort seine Wirkung in den Menschen hinein äußert, wirkt es auf den Wärmezustand des Menschen. Der Mensch wird innerlich von dem Element der Wärme durchtränkt, er erhält das Element der Wärme differenziert durch den nach innen gehenden Ton, durch das nach innen gehende Wort. Das heißt, im Äußeren ist Wärme oder Kälte höchstens Nebenerscheinung für den Ton, wenn der Ton zu hoch oder zu tief ist, aber es hat, wenn wir beim Ton stehenbleiben, zunächst keine Bedeutung. Beim Menschen drückt sich in einem innerlich differenzierten Warm- oder Kaltwerden tatsächlich jede Differenzierung des Wortes und des Tones aus, so daß wir sagen können: Indem wir das Wort erfassen, finden wir es sich manifestierend nach außen in der Luft, wir finden es sich manifestierend nach innen in der Wärme.
[ 20 ] Gehen wir jetzt zu dem, was wir gestern als zweites kennengelernt haben, gehen wir zu der Opferhandlung. Diese Dinge werden ja später, wie so manches andere, klarer hervortreten, aber sie werden Ihnen einen Anhaltspunkt bieten können. Da wird Ihnen zunächst in der Opferhandlung dasjenige gegeben, was charakteristisch eigentlich war in den Zeiten, in denen man die Opferhandlung in ihrer vollen Realität empfunden hat. Eigentlich hängt für ältere Vorstellungen mit der Opferhandlung durchaus zusammen das Rauchartige, das Luftartige, und das ist deshalb, weil die Opferhandlung aus dem Inneren des Menschen hervorfließt und man wußte — wie man es auch heute bei einer Opferhandlung wirklich empfinden kann -, daß geradeso, wie das Wort nach innen tönt und sich auslebt in der Wärme, die Opferhandlung sich auslebt in der Luft. Nach innen lebt sie sich aus in der Luft. Nach außen kann die wahre Opferhandlung eigentlich nicht erscheinen, ohne daß sie irgendwie durch das Licht sich offenbart. Aber auf diese Dinge werden wir später zu sprechen kommen.
[ 21 ] Wenn wir nun zu dem gehen, was wir gestern die Wandlung genannt haben, da finden wir, daß bei der Wandlung wir hingewiesen worden sind auf dasjenige, was schon in die Materie eingreift, was sich schon dem Materiellen stark nähert, was aber sich noch nicht konfiguriert, was noch nicht Kontur angenommen hat; das empfindet man bei der Wandlung als das Charakteristische, und man bezog deshalb, in demselben Sinne, wie man das Wort auf die Wärme, das Opfer auf die Luft bezog, die Wandlung, die Transsubstantiation auf das Wasser.
[ 22 ] Und in demjenigen, was man erlebte in der Kommunion, in der Vereinigung, fühlte man sich nun verbunden durch das Ätherische hindurch mit dem Irdischen; man fühlte sich als Erdenmensch, als richtiger Erdenmensch nur, indem man sich mit diesem Irdischen so verbunden fühlte, daß man die Vereinigung bezog auf das Element der Erde.
[ 23 ] Das aber ergab für die alten Mysterien nun das folgende: Sie sahen, nach außen hin gesehen manifestiert sich das Wort in der Luft, nach innen als Wärme. (Während der folgenden Ausführungen wird an die Tafel geschrieben):
Wort — Luft - Wärme
Opfer — Wasser — Luft
Wandlung — Erde — Wasser
Vereinigung — Erde
[ 24 ] Das Opfer manifestiert sich nach innen gesehen als Luft. Warum sie für ihr Anschauen zu den folgenden Dingen kamen, werde ich später sagen, ich mache aber darauf aufmerksam, daß in älteren Mysterien die Opferhandlung äußerlich ebenso auf das Wasser bezogen worden ist, und daß noch die Taufe ein Rest davon ist. Wie das Wort nach außen auf die Luft bezogen worden ist und innerlich auf die Wärme, so wurde die Wandlung demgemäß äußerlich auf die Erde bezogen, auf das Feste, und nur innerlich auf das Wasser; und für dasjenige, was der Vereinigung entsprach, hatte man ja nun nichts. Im Menschen, so sagte man sich, verschiebt sich der Zusammenhang mit den Elementen. Aber schon in der Wandlung ist ja für das Außerirdische die Erde vorhanden, die der Mensch erlebt, indem er sich zur Vereinigung wendet. Wie kann er also die Vereinigung mit dem Irdischen erleben? — Das war die große Frage in den alten Mysterien. Wie kann man überhaupt irgend etwas fühlen über das wahrhaft Irdische?
[ 25 ] Ich habe es eben von einem anderen Gesichtspunkt besprochen. Man wendete den Blick rings umher, nahm es selbstverständlich, wie man heute seine inneren Vorgänge als selbstverständlich nimmt, aber man fand nicht irgend etwas, was man aufnehmen wollte in sein Bewußtsein. Für die symbolische Handlung hatte man die Vereinigung, aber es blieb nach außen der Platz leer, es mußte erst etwas kommen, so sagte man sich, wenn dieser Platz erfüllt werden sollte, wenn man sich im Irdischen selber zu etwas wenden konnte, was der Vereinigung, der Kommunion entspricht. Man fühlte es, man konnte hinunterschen zur Erde. Was einem im Innern die Erde gab, darin konnte sich die Kommunion erfüllen, aber ein Äußeres war nicht da. So fühlte man im Grunde genommen auch in den alten Mysterien, wenn man von der Kommunion sprach. Man sprach darüber, aber man fühlte so, als ob sie durchaus nicht ein vollendetes Ereignis sein könne. Und wir fühlen im Grunde genommen das nach, wenn wir in den äußeren Mitteilungen über die alten Mysterien unterrichtet werden, wie im Bilde das Ereignis von Golgatha vorgeahnt wurde, wie es symbolisch vollzogen wurde, worauf die heutigen Forscher immer wieder deuten, indem sie darauf hinweisen wollen, als sei das Mysterium von Golgatha nur etwas, was einen späteren Entwickelungszustand darstellt gegenüber dem, was in den verschiedenen Opferhandlungen früher geübt wurde in den Tempeln, indem man das Sinnbild hinstellte, den gestorbenen Menschheitsrepräsentanten begrub und ihn nach drei Tagen auferstehen ließ.
[ 26 ] Sie wissen, wie wirklich eine Crux in der Christus-Auffassung dadurch entstanden ist, daß man aufmerksam geworden ist auf etwas, was in den alten symbolischen Religionshandlungen dem ganzen Vorgang von Golgatha so ähnlich sah, daß die Leute geglaubt haben, selbst Theologen, sie müßten nun bloß von dem Christus als einem Mythus reden oder als von etwas, das eben entstanden ist aus dem, was früher in den Tempeln vollzogen worden ist. Das ganze hat jetzt einen Gipfelpunkt erreicht dadurch, daß dieselbe Denkweise nun auf einem anderen Gebiete hervorgetreten ist: man hat das Vaterunser [in derselben Weise] angesehen und kann nun nachweisen, daß fast jeder Satz des Vaterunsers schon in der vorchristlichen Zeit da war. Das hat man angesehen als einen ganz besonderen Fang für die moderne Religionsforschung. Für denjenigen, der erkennt, wirklich erkennt, ist diese Denkweise ein solches Schließen, wie wenn man von den Kleidern auf die Leute schließen wollte. Wenn der Vater ein Kleid anzieht und es dann auf den Sohn vererbt, so darf man daraus nicht schließen, daß der Sohn wieder der Vater ist, denn der Sohn ist etwas ganz anderes als der Vater, wenn er auch dasselbe Kleid anhat. So kann auch das Vaterunser seinem Wortlaut nach übergegangen sein auf das Christentum, seinem Inhalt nach ist es etwas wesentlich Neues geworden. Aber um diese Dinge zu durchschauen, muß man eben tiefer in die ganzen Zusammenhänge hineinsehen; man muß die Untergründe kennen, aus denen heraus im Grunde genommen für die alten Mysterienpriester etwas geblieben ist wie eine Erwartung, das ihnen erschien wie etwas, das auf der Erde noch nicht erreicht werden konnte.
[ 27 ] Und da werden wir, ich möchte sagen, in einem ersten Elemente dazu geführt, wenn auch durch ganz behutsame Erwägungen, wie eine erwartungsvolle Stimmung in den alten Mysterien waltete, durchaus aus instinktiver Wissenschaftlichkeit, die aber ganz und gar religionsdurchtränkt war, wie in allen alten Mysterien eine Christus-Erwartungsstimmung war, die dann erfüllt worden ist durch das Mysterium von Golgatha.
[ 28 ] Das ganze Problem müssen wir morgen noch von einer anderen Seite betrachten, wo wir dann viel tiefer in die Sache hineingeführt werden. Aber Sie sehen, daß Anthroposophie auf eine durchaus wissenschaftlich zu nennende Weise an das Christus-Problem herantritt, indem sie lebendig macht die Anschauung des Ätherleibes und des Astralleibes und wiederum dasjenige, was sich aus dem Zusammenwirken beider ergibt. Sie sehen, daß sie, indem sie gewissermaßen entdeckt das Christus-Erlebnis an der Grenze zwischen Astralleib und Ätherleib, dadurch in einer positiven Weise zum Christus-Erlebnis stehen muß. Ich muß schon zu Ihnen sagen, meine lieben Freunde, darin ruht ja zum großen Teil die ganz besondere Schwierigkeit der Anthroposophie mit ihrer Aufgabe in der Gegenwart. Sehen Sie, die etwas verwaschene Theosophie, wie sie zum Beispiel in der Theosophical Society vorliegt, hat es in dieser Beziehung viel, viel leichter. Sie geht nicht bis zu dem Christus-Erlebnis, sondern sie macht vorher halt. Daher hat sie es leichter. Sie statuiert gewissermaßen allen Religionen die gleiche Geltung und sucht darin das Allgemein-Menschliche, das natürlich jeder Wissenschaft zugrundeliegen muß.
[ 29 ] Anthroposophie wird durch ihren eigenen Fortgang, durch den Nerv ihres ganzen Seins an das Mysterium von Golgatha in einer positiven Weise herangerückt und hat, weil sie nun wissenschaftlich bleiben will, die Aufgabe, das Ereignis von Golgatha aus wissenschaftlichen Untergründen heraus für die Menschheit geradeso klarzumachen, wie die Mathematik den pythagoreischen Lehrsatz klarzumachen hat. Dem stehen alle diejenigen Religionsbekenntnisse entgegen, die das Ereignis von Golgatha als solches abweisen. Die Weltenaufgabe der Anthroposophie, die aber notwendig ist in unserer Zeit, ist daher nicht ganz leicht. Wie schwierig sie ist, das entnehmen Sie bitte aus einer Schrift, die eben erschienen ist von einem Prager Dichter, Max Brod - er hat auch manches andere geschrieben — «Heidentum, Christentum, Judentum», in welcher auch diese Dinge behandelt werden und wo aus dem wiederauflebenden jüdischen Bewußtsein heraus alles dasjenige von Jesus weggenommen wird, was ihn zum Christus macht, um nur dasjenige zu behalten, was den Jesus nicht zum Christus macht. Und was ist die Tendenz, die hier zugrundeliegt? Das ist die Tendenz, es dem modernen Juden möglich zu machen, ein Verhältnis zu dem Jesus zu gewinnen, durch welches er den Jesus zugeben kann, aber nicht genötigt ist, ihn als den Träger des Christus anzusehen.
[ 30 ] Anthroposophie ist genötigt - und wir werden darüber noch viel zu sprechen haben —, den Jesus als Christus anzusehen. Den Jesus gelten zu lassen, danach strebt heute auch der Jude, danach strebt auch der Inder, danach strebt der ganze Orient, aber sie streben danach, ihn nur so gelten zu lassen, wie er ist, wenn er nicht der Christus ist.
[ 31 ] Nun, meine lieben Freunde, Harnacks Buch vom Wesen des Christentums und die Forschungen Weinels über Jesus, Sie können sie alle so gestalten, daß sie auch von den Nichtchristen überall bis zu einem gewissen Grade angenommen werden können. Ich weiß, daß sich da manches einwenden läßt, deshalb sage ich, Sie können sie so gestalten —, sie sind natürlich nicht so. Aber dasjenige, was wir als Aufgabe haben, ist: Christentum zu begreifen, Christentum zu verstehen -, nicht Jesus zu behalten auf Kosten dessen, daß er der Träger des Christus war.
[ 32 ] Und hier liegt von einer ganz anderen Seite her eine Begründung des wahren, des ehrlichen Christentums durch die Anthroposophie, weil man einsehen muß, daß eine gemeinsame Weltenaufgabe zu lösen ist, die auf die furchtbarsten Vorurteile stößt. Diese Weltenaufgabe hängt mit alle dem zusammen, was heute als unbefriedigend empfunden wird in dem religiösen Erleben. Deshalb darf man nicht in engherzigem Sinne diese Dinge auffassen, sondern man muß sich darauf einlassen, dasjenige, was heute als unbefriedigend in unser religiöses Leben eindringt, von einer höheren Warte zu betrachten. Davon wollen wir morgen weiter sprechen.
Fourth lecture
[ 1 ] My dear friends! Yesterday evening I received a letter from Pastor Dr. Schairer in Nagold, which contains a number of theses,1The letter from Pastor Dr. Schairer has not been preserved. which amount to answering the questions of how anthroposophy should relate to religion and how religion should relate to anthroposophy, and how the paths should be found to initiate this relationship. Dr. Schairer believes that this matter can be used as a basis for discussion. That seems to me to be quite accurate after the first part of the letter - I couldn't read it all yet, I haven't read the last few pages - because some things are stated in an extraordinarily apt way; and it will perhaps this in particular will provide a good basis for discussion in some respects, because it must be of primary importance to us, above all for your future work, to put these matters of principle, if I may say so, in order.
[ 2 ] What I want to say to you today – everything is still preliminary and introductory – touches on the principle of this question from a certain point of view, but only from a certain point of view. We must be quite clear about the fact that Anthroposophy as such comes to the Mystery of Golgotha in a positive way, so that the way in which this happens can truly be ascribed to the concept of knowledge, if one takes this concept of 'knowledge' seriously, also in the sense of modern natural science. And on the other hand it is quite true that this particular way in which anthroposophy must approach the mystery of Golgotha, especially at first, can offend the Protestant sense of religion, because of certain underlying factors that must be brought to consciousness. Thus only complete clarity about these things can lead to any salutary goal.
[ 3 ] I must therefore, even if it seems somewhat remote, thoroughly address what I have to say to you today. Anthroposophy or spiritual science draws from real supersensible knowledge and it rejects - in principle it rejects - taking anything from older traditions, say, from oriental wisdom or of historical Gnosticism, in order to, as it were, gain content from them or increase its scope. It rejects this quite decidedly at first because, above all, it must be based on answering the question in a practical way: How much of the supersensible world can the present human being directly cognize when he brings up the forces latent in the soul and unconscious in ordinary life into full consciousness and with full human reflection? — Spiritual science would like to proceed in this cognition in the same way as, say, the mathematician proceeds when he proves the Pythagorean theorem today. He proves it out of what can be known today, and does not borrow it merely historically from the writers where it first appeared, although of course, when studying history, he later goes into the way in which the theorem was found. When one undertakes spiritual scientific research in this way, one does indeed come to realize that there is an abyss between the way in which present-day spiritual science arrives at its results through fully conscious research and that which is still preserved in Gnosticism or even in Oriental wisdom, but which bears a more instinctive character. But precisely in order to bring what the modern human being is capable of to knowledge unmixed, research must be carried out in the way I have described. One then finds, however, that in the course of this research one needs something, which then again gives the appearance of going back to the old. In the course of research, spiritual experiences arise for which modern man, the whole of modern civilization, actually lacks the appropriate words. Our modern language has in fact fully embraced the materialistic way of thinking; our modern language has learned to refer either to the merely external material or to the intellectual – the two belong together, after all. Intellectualism within is nothing more than the outward corollary of the materialistic way of looking at things. One simply becomes intellectualistic when one is a materialist; the two belong together. Whatever can be known from the standpoint of matter, when one proceeds according to material methods, is reflected inwardly as intellectualism. It is the case that a philosophy which wanted to prove the spirit out of mere intellect or the spiritual consisting of intellect would be left hanging in mid-air; it would be able to acknowledge that the intellectual is rightly a spiritual, but the content of this intellectual cannot be other than that of the material world. In such matters one must always be precise in one's speech. In saying: 'The content of the intellectual cannot be other than that of the material world', I only say that it cannot be other than the content of the world as it is seen as a sum of material beings and phenomena; whether it is that is not yet established. This intellectual material world could be spirit through and through, and that which constitutes intellectualism could be an illusion. So it is a matter of the fact that for spiritual-scientific discussions, an extraordinarily strong conscientiousness with regard to knowledge must already be present, otherwise one does not make any progress at all in spiritual science. This conscientiousness is also noticed by people of the present day; they see how one is obliged to pant through one's sentences in all directions in order to make them concise, and these people of the present day, who are accustomed to the journalistic use of style, call this struggle for conciseness bad style.
[ 4 ] Well, such things must be understood in the context of the peculiarity of the time. And because the present, out of its materialism and intellectualism, has also so beset language in a certain way that language, in that we use it, now only refers to material things, it is difficult to find the words that are to describe what one experiences and then has to resort to older words, still derived from instinctive observation, which give one much more the possibility of expressing what one wants to express. This is the source of the misunderstanding that people who only cling to the word now believe that one borrows with the word that which is contained in the translation of the word. That is not the case. The word “lotus flower” is an expression borrowed from Oriental wisdom, but what I describe [in my book “How to Know Higher Worlds”] is not borrowed from Oriental wisdom at all. I ask that this be always taken into consideration when I am forced to use borrowed expressions from history, as I will have to do today.
[ 5 ] You see, spiritual science comes to this because, in its initial endeavor to gain knowledge of the human being through anthroposophy, it has to regard modern physiology and biology as the most unsuitable instruments for real knowledge of the human being. Modern physiology and biology base their knowledge solely on what can be observed in the human corpse. Even when it studies the living person, it is actually only studying the corpse of the person. And at most, it then indulges in a certain deception, which came to light in an extraordinarily characteristic way when Du Bois-Reymond gave his famous Ignorabimus speech. He is well aware, because he was not only a natural scientist was also a thinker, he realized that through this modern method of research nothing can be gained about the soul — he called it consciousness; so that actually, according to Du Bois-Reymond, one cannot know anything about the actual nature of man through natural science. But he still succumbs to a tremendous delusion; he says that with external natural science we are never really able to recognize the waking person, at most the sleeping person. When a person is asleep in bed, he regards it as a sum of processes that take place in the person. But at the moment when the spark of consciousness strikes upon awakening, the possibility of understanding according to Du Bois-Reymond ceases. That would be true if one were today able to scientifically understand the life and development of the plant world. But the life and development of the plant world is still not scientifically comprehensible because the method by which it can be understood is not recognized. And so it is also an illusion that today's science explains to the sleeping person; its realm can only be to explain to the dead person, to the corpse, it penetrates to that point, no further. It cannot explain even the sleeping person, who is a living person.
[ 6 ] Anthroposophy does not approach man through philosophical speculation, but through the path of contemplation drawn into the soul, as described in my book 'How to Know Higher Worlds'. This means that one no longer has to remain with what is in man's mineral kingdom, what is therefore continually dead and what is incorporated as a dead mineral kingdom in the human being, but one comes to see in what one can call the ether body or body of formative forces that which actually underlies the human being in sleep.
[ 7 ] Now we come to those people who start from the present-day philosophical consciousness. When my 'Geheimwissenschaft' was published, it was discussed by a Polish philosopher, Lutoslawski, in a Pan-German monthly. In this discussion, it was also said, among other things, that it would be mere abstraction to divide the human being into physical body, etheric body, astral body and I. One could certainly divide the human being in this way by means of abstraction, but it would not lead one any further. As much as Lutoslawski understood about the matter at the time, he was right in his assertion, but he remained in the field of abstraction, and this is based on the following: as soon as one advances to the view of the etheric body, one can no longer stop at the [physical] human being; as long as one looks at the physical body, one has no need to stop the examination at the human skin and, at most, to examine the interaction with the outside world in breathing and so on; but even here one examines nothing more than what, fundamentally, begins at the skin boundary of the human being and extends inwards.
[ 8 ] You will find the characterization I give to be quite correct if you just think about it properly. When you look at the physical human being, you can stop at what is enclosed in the physical body skin, but you can no longer stop at the physical body skin when you look at the etheric body as a whole. Of course, one will first draw the basic lines, as I did in my “Occult Science”, where one will point out that the human being consists of a physical body, etheric body, astral body and so on. But Anthroposophy does not stop there. It must then develop the subject further. As soon as one develops the knowledge of the etheric body, one cannot stop at the human being, but must consider the human being in connection with all earthly things as a single entity. One must consider the human being in connection with the earthly. That is to say, in so far as man is enclosed in his physical body, he leads a relatively independent life, a relatively independent one. One is highly dependent on all kinds of things, on air, light and so on in the physical body, but one is also highly independent of it. You can see this simply from the following: When materialism was at its peak, Wolff, Büchner, Czolbe, very often pointed out the dependence of the physical human being on the physical environment. One of these writers even lists everything that a human being depends on, from gravity to light, from climate and so on, and then concludes that the human being in his body is a result of every breath of air. He means by this – and the person in question was, after all, a materialist – that the physical organism is dependent on every breath of air. Yes, my dear friends, if one takes the materialists' description in this regard very seriously and imagines the thing as it is described, if man were as the materialists describe him, then one would realize that this man would be the highest potency of a hysteric or neurasthenic. The materialists have already described the material man, but not the one who goes around in the world, but one who would be a high potency of the hysteric. The hysteric in the highest potency would be as dependent on his surroundings as the materialists have described him. The real human being is already to a high degree independent of the physical environment of the earth. But this can no longer be said of the etheric human being. As soon as one advances to the etheric human being, one cannot consider the etheric body separately, but one must consider the ethericity of the whole earth, and the human being simply lives in a much higher level, of course not in the physical sense higher, than he lives with his physical body. And when one comes to the realm of the etheric when considering the earth, one can no longer rely on [concepts of] chemistry, mineralogy and so on, but one must seek out completely different ideas, and then one is forced to express what one wants to say at least with the terms that the Greeks had, because the present language no longer allows one to express oneself.
[ 9 ] If we were to demonstrate modern chemistry to a Greek, he would express himself in the following way. Let us imagine that we have a real modern chemist on one side and an educated ancient Greek on the other, who would talk with the chemist. The modern scientist would say something like this: You Greeks were far behind, you assumed four elements: fire, earth, water, air. For us, these are at most aggregate states: fire is the all-pervading warmth, air is the gaseous state, water is the liquid state, and earth is the solid state. We will grant you that. But we have put some seventy elements in the place of your four elements. The Greek, if he were to study what is contained in the several seventy elements, would say: What we understand by the four elements is not affected by your several seventy elements. We have a collective name for what you have in the several seventy elements: we call it all 'earth'. With our four elements, we describe something completely different, we describe something that expresses itself in states, something that is an inner essence. And that which you pour over all your elements is also for us an airy and so forth state of the earth. We describe something much more inward than you recognize with your elements with the expressions earth, water, air, fire or warmth.
[ 10 ] But one is led straight to these four elements when one beholds all the surging, weaving into which the human etheric is interwoven out of the earthly etheric. And only when we follow this etheric aspect, which manifests itself in the four elements, do we understand the cycle of weaving existence on earth, we understand spring, summer, autumn and winter. And in spring, summer, autumn and winter, which are based on the etheric activity of the earth in its transformation - not just the physical activity of the earth - the human etheric body is woven into the etheric weaving of the earth, so that, when one advances to the etheric body, so to speak, one must find the etheric body rooted in the earthly (etheric).
[ 11 ] What we rediscover – I once presented the whole relationship in detail in The Hague – resonates with the instinctive knowledge of the ancients, which extended as far as the Greeks. We do not understand the continuity of humanity if we do not rediscover, in our own way, the content of this instinctive knowledge.
[ 12 ] Now we go further and come to the astral body of man. I am not concerned about terminology. The astral body was not spoken of until much later, not until the Middle Ages and even up to modern times. But one must have a terminology. When one ascends to the astral body, which is the actual carrier of thinking, feeling and willing in man, then again one comes to the conclusion that one cannot consider man separately. Just as one must integrate the etheric into the etheric web of the earth, so one must integrate the astral into that which — now already in a more spiritual way — underlies that which is expressed in the course and position of the stars. The astral element in man is simply an expression of the cosmic, of the astral conditions. The way the stars move and relate to one another is expressed in the human astral body. Just as the human being is connected to the earthly-etheric through his etheric body, so the human being is connected to the earthly environment through his astral body; the earthly environment lives on in his astral body, it lives on in the events and processes of his astral body.
[ 13 ] You see, it is not an abstraction when we divide the human being, but we are compelled to divide him because, when we ascend from this division of the human being, we come from knowledge of the human being to knowledge of the world, quite naturally. Now we can go back in the development of mankind, but now to even older times, which no longer actually extended into Greek times; there we also find an instinctive awareness of this connection between man and the world of the stars. Not that astronomy was practised in these ancient times, or, to the extent that it was practised, was considered important, but rather that there was a direct experience of this connection. At certain times in the evolution of the earth, human beings experienced themselves much less as citizens of the earth and much more as citizens of the heavens. We come back to a time when man indeed experienced the growth and prosperity of the earthly in the plant world, and also in the animal world, and when he experienced everything that was present in the air and in the water, but where all this was experienced by him as a matter of course. Just as a person in this day and age experiences his inner processes, his nutritional and digestive processes, and can take them for granted, so too did he once take for granted everything he experienced in connection with the physical world. But he did not take for granted what he experienced in his astral body through the influence of the heavenly worlds. It was something that differentiated itself, that imposed itself on him too strongly for him to be able to take it for granted. When winter approached, when the nights were long and frost surrounded the earth and man found himself in this frost, then he felt in a certain way how he simply, through being placed in the world, was dependent on feeling something in his inner being, like a memory of the heavens. In winter, he felt in a certain way separated from the heavens; he felt something within himself that was like a mere memory of the heavens. When spring approached, however, and warmth surrounded the earth and man was interwoven in this warmth, then he felt as if something within him opened up, as if he experienced, I would say, in an extended breath, the happenings of the heavens. There he had the heavenly reality, not just the memory of the heavens that he had in winter. And he experienced the other seasons in a similarly differentiated way; he actually experienced the course of the year.
[ 14 ] Today, when we reflect inward, we have only a faint memory of what was once instinctively experienced by people in a lively way. We celebrate Christmas, and a historical view reveals it to us in connection with the inner memory life of the individual human being, who felt abandoned by the heavens at the time of winter, so to speak, so that he could cultivate his memory in solitude on earth. We still have echoes of what was once not astronomical speculation or astronomical science, but direct experience, in the determination of Easter in spring, which is based on the relationship between the sun and the moon. What is revealed to our abstract minds through calculation and what we use to determine Easter was an immediate experience for early man. It was a resumption of the heavens after the closure [in winter], and at the time of St. John, a blissful sense of being at one with the divine that permeates the heavens, in divine bliss the union with the truly spiritual-divine, of which they had only the memory at Christmas and into which they lived themselves in the springtime. The older summer solstice was celebrated as an inner seeking of union with the divine, in which one felt as if the earth were not closed in on itself, but as if the earth were now a being active in the cosmos and the human being with his whole being belonged to this cosmic experience.
[ 15 ] In other words, what we point to in spiritual science as something objectively experienced, which we present as the astral body, was felt by an older humanity as an immediate experience, but as an immediate experience that was not only there in the moment, but that was stretched out into time, and of which one knew that the stars, with their laws, with their movement, were working in it. Not that much was given to what solar and lunar eclipses offered; that only happened when religion passed into science. In ancient times, people looked up at the sky in devout simplicity, but they also felt the sky within them at a certain time.
[ 16 ] You see, my dear friends, what must one think when theologians appear today and say: What man experiences first in the world of sense cannot possibly lead to the supersensible, and what he has through his science cannot possibly lead to the supersensible either; something very special must happen in man if he is to open himself up to the supersensible world? Such a discussion of today's theologians shows that people today are dependent on justifying religion because the life they lead in the outer world has no religious character at first; they want to stand out, as it were, from the ordinary life in the outer world and enter into a special life in order to feel religiously. But there was once a time on earth when religious feeling was the most immediate and natural thing, and when one had to stand out from the religious for one's life on earth. Just as we feel materialistically today when we look up at the plant world, the animal world and the stars and then have to reflect within ourselves if we want to experience religion, so too was religious experience for man once that which was there for him as a given, and precisely when he wanted to turn away from this given, he only then emerged from religious life.
[ 17 ] Until one has thoroughly understood these things, one will not be able to gain any clarity at all about the relationship between science, everyday life and religious experience. At some time in life, one's attention must have been drawn to these things in the development of humanity, that there was once an ancient world view that was relatively indifferent to the external appearances of the sun, moon and stars, where these external appearances only spoke to the feelings; but something was experienced within. What effect was the sky, that was the inner experience of man, which he could settle with himself, but which was nevertheless an effect of the heavenly and was given in him as a matter of course.
[ 18 ] Now, of course, there was a time when what lives and moves within the astral body as a result of the stellar process and the experience that takes place within in connection with the earth were, as it were, interwoven. We can penetrate this experience cognitively when we penetrate to the etheric body today. A person feels more at home in the soul-spiritual realm when they experience the results of celestial processes within themselves in the astral realm. Then the human being may look at earthly things, but they do not yet penetrate to what we see today; they penetrate to the etheric, to where fire, water, air and earth prevail. There he perceives a relationship that today is actually completely hidden from the human eye, especially from the scientific eye. But the cultural practices that our confessions actually only regard as traditions go back to the feelings that one had about this relationship.
[ 19 ] Yesterday I showed you how the cultic acts can be understood from the understanding of man. But they can also be understood from an insight into the interaction that takes place between what can be experienced in the astral body and what can be experienced in the etheric body; they go back to a feeling that one can have when observing the life and activity of the heavens in the earthly etheric, and then it becomes clear that the human being is placed in a cosmic effect, in a cosmic movement, which I would like to express to you through the following. You see, when we turn to sound, which then takes the form of words, when we approach what lies, for example, in the Greek logos, in the word logos — what I am saying now was still felt in Greece and still felt when the writing of the Gospel of John — when one approaches that which lives as sound, that which sounds as sound and turns outwards, then one is dealing with processes that announce themselves, that reveal themselves through the air. When we hear a sound or a word and the effect arises that I described yesterday as going to the inside of the human being, then at first we are also dealing with what is the movement of the inhaled air, which then comes into contact with the spinal cord and cerebral fluid and continues as a movement there; so we are also dealing with the continuation of what is happening in the air into the human being. But if we continue our research, we find that we are not just dealing with that, but that, as the word expresses its effect in the human being, it also affects the human being's state of warmth. The human being is imbued inwardly with the element of warmth, he receives the element of warmth differentiated through the inward-going tone, through the inward-going word. This means that on the outside, warmth or cold is at most a by-product of the tone, when the tone is too high or too low, but if we stop at the tone, it has no significance at first. In the human being, every differentiation of the word and the tone is actually expressed in an inwardly differentiated warming or cooling, so that we can say: By grasping the word, we find it manifesting itself outwardly in the air; we find it manifesting itself inwardly in warmth.
[ 20 ] Let us now turn to the second thing we learned about yesterday: the sacrificial act. These things, like many others, will become clearer later, but they will give you a starting point. First of all, in the act of sacrifice, you are given what was actually characteristic in the times when the act of sacrifice was felt in its full reality. Actually, for older ideas, the smoke-like and the air-like are closely connected with the sacrificial act, and this is because the sacrificial act flows from within the human being and one knew — as one can truly feel even today in a sacrificial act — that just as the word resounds inwardly and lives out in warmth, the sacrificial act lives out in the air. Inwardly it lives itself out in the air. Outwardly, the true act of sacrifice cannot actually appear without somehow revealing itself through the light. But we will come to speak about these things later.
[ 21 ] If we now turn to what we called transmutation yesterday, we find that in the transmutation we have been pointed to that which is already penetrating into matter, which is already strongly approaching the material, but which has not yet configured itself, which has not yet taken on contours; this is felt to be the characteristic in the Transubstantiation, and therefore, in the same sense as the word was applied to warmth, the Sacrifice to air, the Transubstantiation was applied to water.
[ 22 ] And in what one experienced in communion, in union, one now felt connected through the etheric with the earthly; one felt that one was an earthly human being, a true earthly human being, only by feeling so connected with this earthly that one related the union to the element of the earth.
[ 23 ] This now resulted in the following for the ancient mysteries: they saw that outwardly the Word manifests itself in air, inwardly as warmth. (During the following explanations, the following is written on the board):
Word – air – warmth
Sacrifice – water – air
Conversion – earth – water
Unification – earth
[ 24 ] The Sacrifice manifests itself inwardly as air. I shall explain later why they came to the following things through their contemplation, but I would draw attention to the fact that in older mysteries the sacrificial act was outwardly related to water as well, and that baptism is a remnant of it. Just as the word was outwardly related to air and inwardly to warmth, so the transformation was outwardly related to earth, to the solid, and only inwardly to water; and for that which corresponded to union, one had nothing. In man, it was said, the connection with the elements shifts. But in the transformation, the earth is already present for the extraterrestrial, which the human experiences by turning to union. So how can he experience union with the earthly? — That was the great question in the ancient mysteries. How can one feel anything at all about the truly earthly?
[ 25 ] I have just discussed it from a different point of view. One turned one's gaze all around, took it for granted, as one today takes one's inner processes for granted, but one did not find anything that one wanted to take up into one's consciousness. For the symbolic act one had the union, but outwardly the place remained empty. Something had to come first, so one said, if this place was to be filled, if in the earthly one could turn to something that corresponded to the union, to communion. One felt it, one could look down to the earth. What the earth gave one inwardly, in that the communion could be fulfilled, but there was no outward expression. In the same way, when one spoke of communion in the ancient mysteries, one spoke of it, but felt that it could never be a completed event. And basically we feel the same when we are taught about the old mysteries in the outer communications, how the event of Golgotha was anticipated in the picture, how it was symbolically carried out, which today's researchers repeatedly point out, as if the mystery of Golgotha is only something that represents a later state of development compared to what was practiced in the various sacrificial acts in the temples in the past, by putting up the symbol, burying the representative of humanity who had died and resurrecting him after three days.
[ 26 ] You know how a real crux arose in the conception of the Christ, in that people became aware that something in the old symbolic religious acts resembled the whole process of of Golgotha so similar that people, even theologians, believed that they must now speak of the Christ merely as a myth or as something that has just emerged from what was formerly performed in the temples. The whole thing has now reached a climax in that the same way of thinking has now emerged in another area: the Lord's Prayer has been examined [in the same way] and it can now be shown that almost every sentence of the Lord's Prayer was already there in pre-Christian times. This was seen as a real find for modern religious research. For the person who recognizes, really recognizes, this way of thinking, drawing conclusions is like trying to tell a lot about people by their clothes. If a father puts on a garment and then passes it on to his son, one should not conclude that the son is the father, because the son is something quite different from the father, even if he is wearing the same garment. In the same way, the Lord's Prayer may have been passed down to Christianity in its wording, but in terms of content it has become something essentially new. But to see through these things, one must look more deeply into the whole context; one must know the foundations from which something remained for the ancient mystery priests, like an expectation that appeared to them as something that could not yet be achieved on earth.
[ 27 ] And here we are led, I would like to say, in a first element, albeit through very careful considerations, to how an expectant mood prevailed in the ancient mysteries , which was entirely based on instinctive science, but which was completely steeped in religion. There was a Christ-expectant mood in all ancient mysteries, which was then fulfilled by the Mystery of Golgotha.
[ 28 ] Tomorrow we will have to look at the whole problem from a different angle, where we will then be led much deeper into the matter. But you see that anthroposophy approaches the Christ-problem in a thoroughly scientific way, by bringing to life the perception of the etheric body and the astral body and, in turn, that which arises from the interaction of the two. You see that, in a sense, by discovering the Christ experience at the boundary between the astral body and the etheric body, it must have a positive relationship to the Christ experience. I must say to you, my dear friends, that this is where the greatest difficulty of anthroposophy lies in relation to its task in the present day. You see, the somewhat watered-down theosophy, as it exists, for example, in the Theosophical Society, has it much, much easier in this respect. It does not go as far as the Christ-experience, but stops short of it. That is why it has it easier. It gives, as it were, equal validity to all religions and seeks in them what is universally human, which of course must underlie all science.
[ 29 ] Anthroposophy, through its own development, through the nerve of its entire being, is drawn in a positive way to the mystery of Golgotha and because it now wants to remain scientific, it has the task of making the event of Golgotha clear to humanity from a scientific basis, just as mathematics has to make the Pythagorean theorem clear. All those religions that reject the event of Golgotha as such stand in the way of this. The world task of anthroposophy, which is, however, necessary in our time, is therefore not that easy. How difficult it is can be seen from a recently published work by the Prague poet Max Brod, who has also written many other things. It is called Paganism, Christianity, Judaism, and deals with these matters. From the resurgent Jewish consciousness, it takes away everything from Jesus that makes him the Christ, in order to retain only that which does not make Jesus the Christ. And what is the underlying tendency here? It is the tendency to make it possible for the modern Jew to gain a relationship to Jesus through which he can admit Jesus but is not compelled to see him as the bearer of the Christ.
[ 30 ] Anthroposophy is obliged – and we will have much to say about this – to see Jesus as the Christ. To recognize Jesus, that is what the Jew strives for today, that is what the Indian strives for, that is what the whole of the Orient strives for, but they strive to recognize him only as he is, if he is not the Christ.
[ 31 ] Now, my dear friends, Harnack's book on the essence of Christianity and Weinel's research on Jesus, you can shape them all in such a way that they can be accepted to a certain extent by non-Christians everywhere. I know that many objections can be raised, that is why I say you can shape them that way – they are not like that, of course. But our task is to comprehend and understand Christianity, not to keep Jesus at the expense of his being the bearer of the Christ.
[ 32 ] And here lies a completely different justification for true, honest Christianity through anthroposophy, because one must realize that a common world task is to be solved, which encounters the most terrible prejudices. This world task is connected with everything that is felt to be unsatisfactory in religious experience today. Therefore, one must not understand these things in a narrow-minded way, but one must be open to looking at what is unsatisfactory in our religious life today from a higher perspective. We will talk about this further tomorrow.