The Rudolf Steiner Archive

My dear attendees! There are certain circles in our present time that claim to be grounded in the latest science and then try to look at Christianity from this point of view, especially in terms of what it could still be for today's people, especially for people in the future. Today, however, we shall not be speaking of these considerations, which sometimes lead to a complete negation, to an obliteration of the Christian conviction, but we shall be considering Christianity from the standpoint of spiritual science or theosophy, as this spiritual research has come to be called, with a view to its effectiveness in the future.

Yesterday we tried to consider the religious development of humanity; today this consideration should culminate in seeing the various religious currents developing and reaching a kind of climax in what is called the Christ impulse.

The misunderstanding that Theosophy is to be understood as a new religion, or as a religion at all, cannot be dispelled often enough. It should be seen as a tool for understanding religions, for seeking the essence in the successive religions. In relation to Christianity, too, spiritual science takes on the role of a tool for understanding it in its full significance.

However, it comes to a different conclusion than that of a negation. That which has emerged as the fruit of religious development has been the most powerful earthly impulse. And the deeper theosophy delves into its inner core, the more it must come to the realization that, despite almost 2,000 years of development of historical Christianity in feeling, sentiment, and interest, Christian development is just beginning within the unfolding of the earth, and that Christianity has within it forces and impulses that point to a broad earthly perspective. This should be the content of our reflection today.

To do this, we will now have to talk about the essence of Christianity. Much of what is distinctive and fundamental, much would have to be said if the whole scope is to be outlined only very briefly, with the intention of one of the characteristic properties of this impulse coming before our soul, which can particularly illustrate this principle.

It is best characterized by the words that describe the contrast between the old law and the new freedom that came into Christianity through the Pauline law. Superficially, this can be characterized as follows: humanity, in its millennia-long development, has gradually become ripe for an ever more intense shaping of its inwardness. In all peoples in earlier stages of development, one finds that the sense of self, the sense of independence, has come very slowly and gradually. Therefore, the basic impulse of Christianity has not always been present in humanity, as it occurred at the beginning of our time. Today's human being can no longer become aware that the way he perceives himself as an independent being, as a being with his own impulses, is something that has only emerged. Among all peoples, however, we have such a starting point that the individual does not feel himself to be an individuality in this intense way, but as a member of a tribe, a people or some other community. Every person of every nation felt this way; he did not say “I” to himself as every person does today. Rather, he said “I” to the whole group, to the whole community, the tribe, the people, as the finger would say “I” to our whole organism, not to itself, if it could speak, would have to consider itself as an organ of a soul-I.

You can still feel this when you read that unique and wonderful product of history, Tacitus' “Germania”. There you can read how the Cheruscan, the Cheruler, knew and felt himself more as a member of his tribe than as an independent ego.

The human soul is only gradually becoming centralized; that is why we also find that in that great culture that prepared for Christianity, within the Hebrew culture, Moses wanted to say something very special with the words: “I and Father Abraham are one”, something with which he pointed to the progenitor of the whole people. For the ancient Hebrew believer, the word meant a great deal: “I and Father Abraham are one.” The blood that flowed from the progenitor of the people was something by which the individual felt supported; he looked in awe and reverence to the source from which he and the other people flowed. It was as if there were a common self, a group self, hinted at in the reference to the father Abraham. I am immersed in it; in the stream of blood flowing down through the generations, I feel as if I am in a continuous one, while in my being between birth and death everything is transient.

What was felt as one in a whole became more and more relaxed, and the result of this was love; and this was therefore connected to feeling one with the whole. What was akin was drawn from person to person. During the education on earth, man should develop more and more in love, and so we see how the individual is more and more separated from the whole. If it had remained only with this separation, if another impulse had not also come into the development of mankind, what would have become of it?

Even within the old Hebrew confession, it was necessary to regulate human coexistence by external commandments, which would have drifted apart more and more if the ego had increasingly separated itself from its whole. The Christ impulse fell into this development of humanity. People no longer reckoned with the old blood ties; they reckoned with the human being as an ego-being. Therefore, Christ substituted for the old Hebrew saying, “I and Father Abraham are one,” the significant saying, “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30); that which lives in me as an I-being is not only one with an earthly being linked to me by blood ties, but one with a spiritual being.

There is a spiritual essence that underlies all physical existence, and every single ego is also one with this essence. Independently of our other connections, each of us has gained a connection with the spiritual Father principle of the universe.

Before Abraham was, the “I am” was (John 8:58),

that is, there is something in man that is eternal, immortal, that was there in each of us before anything visible was there; before Abraham was there, this spiritual was there.

In every individual ego is a source of activity, of action, of understanding of the world. This had to arise in every human being. When the individual is drawn to seek his connection with the Christ, the human being must be given the opportunity to replace the old love with a new love, a spiritual love that is independent of all blood ties, a love that arises from every soul and goes from every soul to every soul.

Through Christ, a new impulse entered into the development of the earth. When this impulse has fully come to life, it will bring love into every soul and enable every soul to find the right relationship to the world, the right love for people. And it is precisely in this sense, in this respect, that we are at the beginning of Christianity. Through this process of coming to life, every ego becomes freer and freer. Paul said:

We must not understand this Christianity in such a way that the old is repealed by the new freedom, by that love, which is a spiritual one; the new love does not want to take something, not dissolve, not destroy the old, but keep the old and still add something new, it should not impoverish the old, but enrich it. The love of one human soul for another is added to blood and kinship ties. This new love, which will ultimately embrace all people when the earth reaches its goal, is the Christ impulse. It is the impulse of the earth-embracing brotherhood and therefore at the same time the content of all that man can conquer on earth.

When Christ appeared, the remnants of ancient wisdom existed; the connoisseurs of religious secrets had a goal. And we find it wonderfully expressed in the early Christian period, when all those equipped with ancient wisdom approach to give expression to Christianity. How did they conceive the relationship between what could be known from the old creeds and Christ Himself? Something quite extraordinary appeared in the Christian being of Jesus of Nazareth. In what the Rishis called Vishva Karman, in what Zarathustra referred to as Ahura-Mazdao, and again in the Egyptian Hermes teaching, where it is said: When the soul passes through the gate of death, it becomes one with Osiris, in that which points to becoming one with Osiris – in all of this, reference is made to the one great being that appeared in the Jesus of Nazareth. And the old sages had the mood in their minds: we must use everything that the old founders of religions have said in order to understand this unique phenomenon.

In that circle, for example, they called Gnosticism whatever was needed to bring together all human perceptions in order to comprehend the Christ. It was far, far removed from today's negating science, which seeks to grasp the uniqueness of the Christ appearance in trivial terms of material life. This was roughly the kind of education that the first Christian teachers gave to the confessors: that no wisdom can reach high enough to comprehend the Christ appearance. This mood also speaks from the Pauline letters and lasts until the fourth and fifth centuries with those who understand Christianity, not with those who corrupt it. What could be taught in this way came into the world as the first fruit of Christianity.

Then came the great phenomena of the Middle Ages. Of course, one could also enumerate the dark sides. But today we want to point out the greatness in the development of the Middle Ages; for the other falls away from the tree of development, the great continues to grow.

What the Christ was, is shown to us in the first stage. In the second stage, the Central European peoples enter into Christianity. A new time begins for Christianity. There we see that much-maligned science of the Middle Ages, which, as a real science, starts from a very definite principle, which one should not mistake. It has the feeling that filled Christianity at the beginning, that the figure of Christ is in harmony with the entire supersensible world in its individual manifestations. The Christian scholars of the Middle Ages regarded it as their task to apply all human ingenuity to understanding what happened in Palestine and how it relates to the entire supersensible world.

An enormous amount of thought has been given to how Christ is connected to the spiritual world and how the other spiritual entities that lie behind this physical world are connected to him, how the good and bad sides of human nature are present in them. So much acumen has been applied to it that modern times consider it far too astute and regard everything that has been applied to it as a scholastic construct, as a fine exercise of the human mind applied to an object that one has accepted as a revelation and to which one should not apply reason. Today, philosophy is so proud to appeal to this intellect and does not go along with this insubstantial scholastic web, and it is regarded as something overcome, which such Christian science of the Middle Ages was. Let us take a moment to consider a point of view – which does not really need to be – to see what is meant by scholastic contemplation. Let us say that it is not at all important to know how Christ relates to the spiritual world, and let us look only at the one thing that cannot be denied historically: that the educated people of the Middle Ages did turn their minds to these problems in the most ingenious way. No matter whether the mind was applied to worthy or unworthy problems, it was educated in the process, educated in something that would not otherwise have developed into human abilities. Let us ask: What has become of it? We see how the intellect of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries was able to initiate the modern progress of the material world. For those who are not caught up in prejudice, it is clear that everything we have of much-admired modern science, practice and culture is due to the intellect trained through the Middle Ages. Why was Copernicus able to think so well, to move this intellect so well that he gained the new view of the heavenly bodies? Because the strength of the intellect emerged from this school. Let us now ask: where did the spirit of Kepler, the ingenuity of Galileo, the reformatory power of Giordano Bruno come from? If we look at what these minds have been able to achieve, we find that their powers have been ignited by the Christian development of the Middle Ages.

What, then, has modern science brought us? Where does today's industry get the possibility to shape itself in its power elements as it is? What has modern trade and commerce brought? It is the thought forms that underlie everything, and they have grown out of the Christian education of the Middle Ages.

We may rightly stand in awe before a technical wonder such as the Gotthard tunnel. Who built it? We ask, not according to outward appearances, but according to the inner essence, for those who built it were guided by those who understand such things. But what must one understand in order to be able to create such a wonder? One must understand what a mind like Leibniz's has laid the foundation for this science. By finding this way of calculating, by incorporating it into all of modern thought, did he not help build the Gotthard Tunnel and all of modern culture? Where else but in the lonely room of the thinker does all this come from? Imagine Leibniz without the entire education of the Middle Ages! If you want to think in real terms; the abilities for all modern culture, insofar as they are intellectual, owe their development to the point in time when Christianity became established in the Central European world.

At first, so to speak, it is spoken to those who are contemporaries, the followers of Jesus of Nazareth, of what is physically present, then of what memory has preserved. Then what has developed as an ability emancipates itself and founds all of modern culture.

But we have only come to ourselves with this. We see, however, that Christianity is, in a sense, internalizing itself, moving into people; first as something external that is unthinkable without someone pointing to Jesus of Nazareth, who lived and died in Palestine. It is said that one cannot prove or come close to him through reason. Attention is drawn to facts, to people who have laid their hands on the wounds. Care is taken to point this out, and to those who still sat at the feet of the apostles, who have had the appearance of Christ. — This gradually disappears and gradually moves into the interior.

With Nicholas of Cusa and in science up to Copernicus, up to Galileo and Kepler, everywhere we find that the human intellect is considered capable of grasping what has happened. And further on, we see how the ability, the keen sense that developed in the Christian object, breaks free and becomes modern thinking, the way of life of our new science.

And let us ask: Where is the arsenal of the sharpness of thought and criticism that enabled, for example, David Friedrich Strauß to fight Christianity so strongly? Where is the arsenal of the acumen that gave rise to the whole of biblical criticism? The Christian development itself is the arsenal for these thoughts. Even the critics who turn against Christianity owe their abilities to Christian development. If you take the modern point of view, you will deny it, but for those who actually go through the development, this development becomes proof that cannot be stronger.

Among all the forces that developed and brought the power and splendor of our culture, something else developed that Christianity was to carry even further into the human interior, into the depths of the human soul. In the middle of the Middle Ages, in people like Johannes Tauler, Meister Eckhart and Angelus Silesius, we see this. We see how these people speak of a Christian manifestation that is no longer based on external facts, nor on memories, nor does it appeal to the intellect, but to the deepest part of the human being: the human ego, by their fervor point out that the Christ impulse can flare up in every ego, that which Paul himself so significantly presented as the Christ in man (Gal 2:20); it can flare up in each and every individual.

We are entering a phase that can prepare a new era for the future. Master Eckhart particularly pointed to the human ego that can experience the Christ within itself. But with such minds, we cannot merely speak of an inner, abstract Christ. Yes, it would suit our moderns to say: We do not care about the outer historical Christ. If he is born within, what do we care about the historical Christ! It is thoughtless to say that he could exist within without the outer Christ.

We need only call another thought before our soul. How often is it repeated today in the subjective school of philosophy: Without the eye, there is no light. Certainly, the blind are not born seeing. Without the eye, the world around us would be colorless; without the ear, there would be no sounds for us. But now let us consider the other side of the matter, the very simple fact that appears again and again when such things are mentioned. There are animals with eyes; they change their way of life, moving into dark caves. There they do not need to see; the eyes atrophy. Other organs become strong, which they need. Only rudiments of the eyes remain. The eyes are reduced by the absence of light.

Likewise, the eyes were only formed in the course of evolution. That is why Goethe, who saw deeply into these things, says: The eye has been formed in the light for the light. From indifferent organs, the light has gradually formed the eye. Once upon a time in prehistoric times, man was such an organism that there were indifferent points; through the light, the eye has been brought out of it. That is why the same Goethe, who spoke the beautiful word:

If the eye were not sunlike, the sun could not behold it,

Just as there is a light-sensitive power in the eye, so in the soul there is a power that is sensitive to Christ, the power that can perceive the mystical Christ. But how can it develop further in the world? — in the historical Christ! For the mystical development of Christ, He had to be there as an objective entity, as the historical Christ. He had to be there first as the historical Christ, because only from the objective spiritual power does the power come from which the Christ-sensation can come, from which the Christ-experience arises.

Just as the eye perceives sunlight, so the Christ-experience is formed through Christ Himself. When the time comes for the Christ-experience to enter into the evolution of the earth, this experience of Christ in the I will be led more and more to the realization of the great historical figure of Christ. He will be experienced as the eye experiences light. This great ideal now stands before us, and it is through this that I can best point to the future of Christianity.

Let us first look back at the foundation of Christianity. How did it come about? Critics like to refer to the first three gospels to see the Christ in human form because it embarrasses them to look up to the higher, the unattainable. But let us look at the one who has seen the Christ in his true form. Who could know best? — Who has experienced it! — We do not want to disparage the first three Gospels, certainly not.

But let us look further. Did what Saul experienced in Palestine turn him into Paul? Only the event of Damascus (Acts 22:6-8), through which he was transported out of the sensual world, enabled him to experience that this Being, who walked, was crucified and died in Palestine, is real. That the same One who bled on the cross can be found by the spiritual eye is what transformed Saul into Paul.

No one who does not truly appreciate the fact that only the Christ is recognized through supersensible perception and knowledge, through beholding into the spiritual world, can comprehend him. The one who develops the slumbering spiritual eyes and ears can do so. In Paul's case, it happened as if by grace, as if by premature birth, that he was called to see into the spiritual world and to see the Christ who lives there.

This is what will be understood again after the internalization of Christianity to the extent that Christianity will be experienced again. Theosophy or spiritual science is nothing other than the knowledge and message of what can be experienced in the spiritual world. What the spiritual researchers see in the spiritual world is put into words, taught. In the spiritual world, Paul once found the Christ, and in the spiritual world, all true theosophy will find the Christ.

If spiritual science has a future, if it penetrates to the hearts and feelings of people, then it will open up this world to them. And so, like a spiritual fluid, the whole world will be permeated by the Christ-being, that being which is at the same time the historical being, and so imperishable! Only little by little can our time fulfill what Christianity has as an impulse: the whole truth, the whole power and whole love of the Christ.

Only gradually can this be absorbed by the human being. But the more the human ego lets the Christ speak through it in its actions, loves and wills, the more it will learn to do so. We envision the time when peace in people, when the Christ principle has been established, as an ideal. The more people in whom it occurs, the more light the impulse brings into each individual, and the more people have the ability to let brotherly love enter the world. Always preach brotherly love! If the practical principle is not there, it is like preaching to the stove; just burn nicely, dear stove, and do not put any fuel in it. No matter how much you preach, it will not get warm. But if you put wood in and light it, then you don't need to say much. It is the same with people: however much you preach about brotherly love – you can't preach morality in that way – give the soul fuel, put the positive into the soul, which can be kindled by contemplating the great Christ-soul, and the spiritual bond will flow from every soul from person to person. In this way you establish brotherhood by making accessible to every soul what the Christ principle is in its essentiality; if we understand Christianity in its spiritual principles, if we take up the Christ in our soul, we bring about that future which we have in mind as the true goal of the earth.

In Christianity we can find much of what it has already given to humanity; but much more we can find. The deeper we shine a light into it, the more can be brought out. It is greater than anything we can teach today. True are the words that the creator of Christianity has said:

I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.

Therefore, we can consider Christianity as a living source, as something that always has something new to teach. If we discover Christianity as Paul discovered it, we recognize the word:

I am with you always.

Let us learn from the Christ who is with us always!

If we immerse ourselves in the spiritual development of the earth, we will find him in all time; then we can learn from the same one who lived on earth, who can still be seen today as a living being in the spiritual world, who for all time on earth has given a principle that can always be found, from which everyone can always learn and always find it. This is the significance of Christianity for all future on earth.

[My dear audience!] There are events in the spiritual life of humanity that, once they have come into existence, never lose their significance for a long, long time, indeed for what, in historical estimation, one will be able to call human becoming. These are events that shine far into the future once they have occurred. One of these events is that through which, in the dim and distant past, that law, or perhaps those laws, was given to man, which then inscribed itself so deeply not only in the human soul as such, but also in all the historical development of mankind, on depends that which is not only engraved in stone tablets in legend and history, but which is engraved above all in those brazen tablets whose material is taken from the soul life of humanity itself.

We shall speak today about an event of this kind, which we call the “Ten Commandments” (Ex 20:2-17; Deut 5:6-21). Only from the spiritual-scientific point of view can we understand why these Ten Commandments have had such a decisive significance for the life of all humanity ever since they came into being. Without exploring the origin and significance of these Ten Commandments from the depths of spiritual life, we still cannot understand their survival and significance for our time. For they are among those events in human history that were only possible at the time they were given in the way they occurred, and acquired their significance from the way they occurred.

This latter significance will never be able to be properly understood by our materialistic view of history. It is one of the many illusions that have been indulged in recently that it has been said: Historical research shows that these Ten Commandments were given to the Hebrew people, but if you look at other peoples, it turns out that they all had similar commandments. Indeed, today people are even glad when they believe that they can weaken the old sacred tradition by showing that such commandments are not only found among the Hebrew people, but also here and there among other peoples.

This point of view completely loses sight of the historical significance of the great moment when those commandments, like the fire of Sinai, also entered into the life of humanity in a spiritual sense. But the profound significance of such an event, as it was the impact of the Ten Commandments in the consciousness of man, one will only be able to understand correctly if one explores the nature of man in such a way that one also draws attention to the supersensible aspects of it.

For those who have heard me speak before, some things will have to be repeated, but we need this so that those who are here for the first time today will also understand. For spiritual science, what is called the essence of man is not as easy to experience as the physical is for external sensory science. What can be perceived with the outer senses of the human being is only a part of his being, and what can be seen with the eyes and felt with the hands is, for spiritual science, only the lowest part of the human being, which the human being has in common with inanimate nature, which is governed by chemical and physical laws.

But the one who has developed the inner spiritual senses, has just as much truth before him as the outer eye has color and light, which for the spiritual scientist is just as perceptible an entity as the physical body, these supersensible members of human nature, which the ordinary person cannot see, but he can at least make them clear to himself through his healthy mind through concepts.

Let us imagine a person standing in front of us: is that all there is, just what the eyes can see and the hands can grasp? Every person knows from their own direct experience that this is not the case. Everyone knows that there is something else there, something that flows through them as joy and pain, pleasure and suffering, and what we know as sensations and perceptions. All this cannot be seen with the outer eyes, but it is nevertheless a reality for the one who experiences it; and its effects are also felt by others. Let us take two primitive experiences of everyday life, the feeling of shame and fear. For example, if something is discussed that offends our aesthetic sensibilities, then the blush of shame rises to our faces. What everyone can see here is that a mental experience triggers a physical process, namely that blood flows out from our center to the periphery. Similarly, but in reverse, when we feel fear or anxiety, the blood withdraws from the body's surface back into the center, which manifests itself in a pallor of the face.

There are people, though, for whom such considerations mean nothing, who want to understand even more tangible consequences in purely materialistic terms, who believe, for example, that if something is going on in our environment, it could cause this phenomenon in us, that the tear water rushes out of our eyes. It is therefore not surprising if, as has actually happened, such a materialistic researcher comes to the strange conclusion: “Man does not weep because he is sad, but he is sad because he weeps.”

For spiritual science, everything material is an effect of the spiritual, except for the substance itself, which is nothing but an effect of the spiritual soul; even the physical body is only an expression of the spiritual soul. Thus, behind the physical, there is another link to the human being, the carrier of pleasure and suffering, drives, desires and passions, and sensations that sink down into a twilight consciousness when falling asleep in the evening and emerge again when awakening in the morning. In spiritual science, this part of the human being is called the desire body or astral body, and humans have this in common with all animals. At night, this astral body leaves the physical body to reenter it upon awakening.

It would be just as nonsensical to claim that what surrounds the skin disappears in the evening and is recreated in the morning as it would to claim that the desires and instincts disappear in the evening and are freshly recreated in the morning.

Why does the astral body, when it leaves the physical body, not perceive what is going on around it in the astral world, just as the physical body perceives what is going on around it in the physical world? This is very easy to understand. Imagine a person without eyes, that person cannot perceive anything that has to do with light and color; it is the same with the ear, with the loss of which all sounds disappear. If all the senses are extinguished, the person can no longer perceive his surroundings.

A person perceives as much of the physical environment as they have organs for. The same applies to our astral body; because at the present stage of development the astral body of the average person has not yet developed organs, it is not possible for him to perceive his environment during sleep, and therefore, during sleep, a person inevitably sinks into unconsciousness, while someone who has already developed these organs also retains consciousness during sleep and lives consciously in this astral world.

Spiritual science, however, distinguishes a second link in the human being, which lies between the physical and astral bodies: the etheric or life body. The physical body has the same powers as the so-called inanimate nature, the mineral world. But only when a person is a corpse does the body follow physical laws; in life, however, it has, like every animal and every plant, a faithful fighter against decay within it, a cohesive force that never leaves it, not even when it is asleep. The physical body would be a corpse at every moment and would disintegrate into its component parts, following the laws of physics, if it did not have this etheric or life body within it, and it alone is what fights every moment to preserve life.

Thus we have three members: the physical, etheric and astral body. In death, the etheric body detaches itself from the physical body; when a person sleeps, the physical body lies in bed with the etheric body. This etheric body is common to humans, animals and plants.

But now man has a fourth element, which elevates him far above all other living creatures and distinguishes him from all others, which makes him the crown of creation: the “I”. This little word has no equal. Any table can be called a “table” and any chair a “chair”, but the word “I” can never reach our ears from a foreign tongue if it is to mean us; only I can say “I” to myself, for everyone else I am a “you”, and that is deeply significant. In the depths of our soul, in our most holy inner being, it must fade away as the expression of what is most hidden in our being.

The mystery that is to be expressed by this has been felt by all religions based on spiritual science, and thus above all by the religion of the ancient Hebrew people. We can therefore only approach the moment when the lightning of the Ten Commandments flashed into humanity by looking closely at this fourth link. It is “the unspeakable name of God” in the human soul, a drop from the ocean of the Divine that floods the world. This is the spark from the Divine that the whole world lives and weaves through. It has often been said that spiritual science makes the world a god with this, but just as a drop of water does not become the sea, this reproach is also not justified. However, just as the drop is of the same substance as the sea, so too is a part of the Divine alive in every human being. Thus the divine lives and moves in the world, and a drop of it is in every human being, and because this divine does not need to penetrate through any senses, it announces itself in the innermost of the holy of holies.

He who is able to feel has always felt something infinitely sacred when he has come to understand what this “I” means. Jean Paul recounts how, as a boy, he stood in front of his father's barn and suddenly realized: You are an “I,” and that from that moment on he knew that an immortal lived in his soul. If people would reflect more on the path that this indicates, they would be able to penetrate ever deeper into spiritual science. Of course, Fichte is absolutely right: most people would rather consider themselves a piece of lava on the moon than an ego.

So we have the human being composed of four limbs of his being; but he has developed to this point over long periods of time. These four limbs were not present in their full sense from the beginning, but have developed little by little into the consciousness of the self. For a long time it slumbered dimly in the other three bodies, and mighty series of development were necessary before it awoke and became conscious of itself.

In this way, we can go back through the centuries in spiritual science and we find that the human soul has also changed, and the further back we go, the greater the change in the soul. The self was not always there either; it was less and less distinct the further back we go, and there was a time when man had developed his astral, etheric and physical body similarly, but the self was still unawakened and slumbering.

Man has developed over time in such a way that he started out from the physical, then the ethereal, then the astral body, and finally his I awakened. The I, which we regard as the divine spark, is the last to awaken in the human being as we see him today. There was once a human being in whom the I had not yet fully awakened. If we want to look for such a person in whom the I was still dormant, we would find such a person in the early days of ancient Greece. It was only with the appearance of the first philosophers that the I awoke, but Greek religion emerged from a time when man was not yet aware of his self, from a world view that was essentially tied to the astral body, and therefore we see the gods of Greece endowed with drives, passions and desires, with perceptions and sensations like those of man himself at that time. What the Greeks strove for and implored spurred them on to recognize the divine in their surroundings, for example the Furies. If we were to go back even further, we would find that man comprehends his surroundings with the etheric body.

Gradually, “I-consciousness” awakened in man, where I-consciousness struck with elemental force into the soul of man. We can eavesdrop on this moment, the moment when the eternal divine is called to him, that moment when he clearly heard the call: “The noblest, divine in you can only be grasped in your I, look into your I and you will find the spark through which you partake in the divine being.” Then there came a moment in human evolution when the God in man spoke: “I, the God, speak to you by giving myself the name you utter when you want to describe the center of your being. That was the great moment in human evolution when Moses, that great sage and initiate, felt this emerging in the course of events in the course of time, when he was in a state of inspiration in which he felt the divine blowing through the world in a completely new form and how this divine wanted to break through into human consciousness. And he asked the God: How can I call You, when I want to tell the people about You? And this Divinity said: Call me Jahve, that is, “I am that I am.” (Ex 3:13-14)

If the Greeks had seen in their gods what man can experience in the astral body, now it was a divinity for which there is only one worthy name, namely, that by which we designate our own innermost being, and the name of Yahweh is nothing other than that which is intended to express the core of our being. And only an individuality such as Moses's could receive that inspiration, which, like a lightning bolt, struck the world with a new knowledge of God.

But it was necessary that Moses should also be able to make this impact effective. The people to whom such a God was to be proclaimed must have no other divinity than this, which arose out of the I.

For an individuality such as Moses, it was not just a matter of receiving that mighty inspiration and proclaiming it to his people, but of permanently consolidating it in the consciousness of that people, and thus completely permeating the soul of the Jewish people with it. How could that happen? Let us ask ourselves how that which we have designated as the four parts of the human being is expressed in the material world. The physical body finds its expression through itself, the etheric body in the glandular system, the astral body in the nervous system, the I in the blood. This is also how Goethe's saying is to be understood: “Blood is a very special juice.”

Hence the importance of blood in all the wide-ranging events of human life. Hence also the great importance of consanguinity among ancient peoples, as it was conditioned by close marriage. For example, the tribal kinship among the Germanic peoples.

Because the same blood flows through their veins, the generations feel they belong together. The I is not only expressed in one's own blood, but it also runs down through the generations, and it is not an individual I as in today's people, but a “group I”. This is also the case with the “group I” of the ancient Jewish people, for example, who could say: “I and Father Abraham are one.” /From here on, other notes]

This divine impulse had to take effect in the blood, reproducing itself from generation to generation. In the past, man had not yet grasped the innermost center of his being. Now he had it. This beyond was translated into laws and commandments. These are the Ten Commandments. Through them, the whole of Yahweh's power had to take effect from grandfather to son and grandson and so on. The right idea had to live in the soul of man.

No ordinary translation is given here. Lexicographic translation does not reflect reality. As the Ten Commandments were understood in those days, so should they now come before the soul.

I. I am the Eternal-Divine. Henceforth you shall not place any other gods above me. I am the Eternal in you and an eternally effective force in you. If you let me work in you, your body will remain healthy, and this will work in you for generations, including children and children's children. Otherwise the body will become desolate.

II. Thou shalt not speak in error of me in thee, for every error in thee will desolate thy body.

III. You shall distinguish between workdays and holidays. That which lives in you as I has formed the world in six days and lives within itself on the seventh day. On the seventh day, your gaze shall find Me in you.

IV. Continue to work in the spirit of your father and your mother, so that the strength they have gathered together and that I have given you may remain in you.

V. Do not kill, that is, do not encroach upon the I of the other.

VI. Do not commit adultery, that is, do not encroach upon the community into which the other person has entered.

VII. Do not steal.

VIII. Do not belittle the value of your neighbor by saying untruthful things about him.

IX. Do not look down on the property of the other.

X. Do not look with envy at the other's wife

Anyone who takes the time to study the four documents about the event in Palestine will soon discover the difference between the first three gospels and the fourth, the Gospel of John. In the first three gospels, the external events are brought closer to people in their minds; in the Gospel of John, more attention is paid to feelings. An infinite inwardness inspired the author, a compassion and empathy for what he felt towards Christ Jesus is expressed here. The personality of the author felt most intensely what took place in Palestine.

This feeling of the author was also complicit in the assertion that, from the critical point of view of a materialistic science, this gospel could be said to be the least truthfully rendered. It was therefore not understood as a historical fact, but as a powerful poem full of deep poetry, as a hymn to Christ Jesus, this powerful, towering personality. But also the spirit of the age in the sense of materialistic thinking contributed to making the first three synoptic Gospels appear closer and more natural to the human mind and feeling of today. The Gospel of John does not fit in well with this, since its Christ cannot be compared with any personality.

This is more readily possible with the first three, and how well our time has profited from the fact that the personality of Christ Jesus as a man among men could be presented as equal to others, like Socrates, Plato and other great men. The “simple man of Nazareth,” how our time likes this saying and how it uses it to try to lower the Christ personality to the human level! This judgment of taste is based on the suggestion of critical science.

In contrast to this is theosophy or spiritual science; it wants to be nothing more than the instrument for understanding these religious documents. Theosophy is completely without preconditions. Today, science does not take the same position as it did 300 years ago, when the teachings of Aristotle applied, and no one looked at nature! [Then] came the great Kepler, and humanity learned to see! On the one side were now the Aristotelians, on the other the unconditional naturalists, and indicative is the statement of the Aristotle student in an argument about the exits of the nerve cords, he believed more in Aristotle than in nature! At that time they had not yet developed the intuitive perception of what lies behind material things, which spiritual science is now trying to emphasize again, not with physical instruments but through spiritual faculties. Theosophy takes the path of first 'looking' and then studying the old records, and it always turns out that both give the same result: what has been seen is proved by the books!

This view will become more and more accepted, however much science may resist it. So we will also examine without prejudice what the matter is with the Gospel of John. It is something like Euclid's geometry; the student listens to the teaching, and through realization it finally becomes his spiritual property and complete fact. In this way, too, we will see how the Gospel of John agrees with what spiritual science has to say about it.

What is the theosophical view of man? We see how man possesses a fourfold nature: first, the physical body; then the etheric body with the principle of growth and reproduction, of fighting against decay. Further, the astral or desire body, the seat of sensations and feelings. When we see the person before us, we recognize that he consists of a sum of pleasure and suffering, of joy and pain. But if we go deeper, we realize that there is a name that is unique in the designation of man. This is the name “I”. Anyone can call an object by the same name, but the name “I” can only be spoken by each person when they mean their innermost being, their self, their individuality. In this sense, the “I” cannot reach our ears from the outside.

So how does the spiritual researcher view the world of matter? Everything physical has its origin in the spiritual. All matter is born of spirit, is condensed spirit, just as ice is condensed water. It is the same with the spiritual realm. It is in our midst. Everything is only the external expression of the spiritual. The physical human being is born out of the spirit. The ego is the divine spark that has flowed out of the spiritual ocean like a drop into man.

Thus we see how, starting from the physical body, the other forms become ever more refined and ethereal. We see how the spirit underlies everything. This spirit, which walks through the world as an infinite being, out of which the physical is born. This spirit, underlying all existence, is described by Christian science as the Logos or the Word, the divine creative Word. Just as certain figures appear on a pure, shiny brass plate when dust particles are stroked with a violin bow, so too can the Logos be described as the creator of everything in the world of phenomena. If we go back to primeval times, we will find the Logos working in all physical bodies, first in the etheric body, then in the astral body, and we see how human beings will emerge from this light. It is only through light that human beings are possible; without light there is no knowledge, no spiritual striving. Only the divine spirit brings about the world realm.

The youngest child of the divine spirit is the “I” in man. This “I” is at first unconscious of its origin, of its divine essence. In the beginning we do not recognize divine wisdom. Christian wisdom therefore refers to it as darkness. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and God was the Word. And the Word was the light of men, shining in the darkness, but the darkness comprehended it not.

This light, which underlies all bodies, is referred to as the life of the Logos. In the beginning, there was the Logos, from which everything came into being; the life of the Logos becomes light and the light shines in the unconscious human nature.

We have seen how the fourfold human nature arises from direct contemplation of the spiritual world. The author of the Gospel of John was an awakened person, a great initiate who is never referred to as anything other than “the disciple whom the Lord loved” (John 21:20). In him, the entire soul content of Christ continued to work; the entire depth of Christ's appearance was reflected in this disciple and allowed him to look deeply into the spiritual world. He recognized what was hidden behind the personality of Christ, that the highest being that had ever walked on earth was embodied in Jesus of Nazareth.

Until Christ came, man was unconscious of his divinity. Only Christ gave him the sense of “his fulness...” (John 1:16). Everything in the Gospel of John is written from the knowledge of the deepest secrets, for example, the eleventh chapter, the resurrection of Lazarus. Everyone senses that something profound underlies this process. After this act had happened, it was said: “This man does great signs.” (John 11:47) Something happened that made people tremble before the power of Jesus Christ's personality. This is an act of initiation, the first initiation that Christ performed, which is clear from the words: “The disease is not unto death, but that God may be made visible.” (John 11:4) He wanted to show that He is the life and the light, and this light should also illuminate Lazarus and lead him to awakening, since he was a friend of the Master. This was to be shown in the Lazarus process.

There have always been people in whom the great event arises, in whom the world of light becomes reality; the world of the spirit approaches them, their spiritual ear and eye is unlocked and opened to spiritual things. The method of initiation is shown in the ancient mysteries. They distinguish three degrees. The first degree is that of sense-free thinking. The senses must be eliminated and only objective observation of things may take place. Second degree: purification or cleansing. The astral experiences of feeling and sensation are transformed; with new organs one can look into the astral world: spiritual ears and eyes.

The third degree is that of enlightenment. When the initiate returns to the physical world after three and a half days, he always has the spiritual world before his eyes, he is born anew. During the three days, the etheric and astral bodies were driven out of the physical body and afterwards the etheric body felt this imprint of the higher worlds throughout the rest of its life.

The first initiation by Christ was the resurrection of Lazarus. Through Christ a new kind of initiation had been introduced by impressing the whole spiritual truth of Christ upon the one being initiated. From this it can be seen how this event of the resurrection of Lazarus has a much deeper meaning than the usual view. It is only in this sense that Goethe's words can be applied: “For as long as you do not have this dying and becoming, you are only a dull guest on the dark earth!”

Deep silence had to prevail about what happened in the sacred mysteries. The betrayal of the mysteries' processes resulted in death. This may also explain the death of Socrates. Aeschylus could only save himself from death by fleeing to the temple. This was done because at that time humanity was not considered ready for initiation. Christ publicly performed the initiation out of infinite compassion for humanity. Thus, what has become known as the theosophical view has also been taken out of the mysteries.

It is only a question of how these initiation abilities are acquired and what the path to them is. In the Christian method of initiation, man must pass through seven stages, as shown in the following consideration.

First: the plant takes root in the dead mineral, in the mineral kingdom; the plant could not be as it is today if the mineral kingdom had not provided the material for its construction. It will therefore bow down in gratitude to the mineral, without which it could not exist. In the same way, the animal will bow down to the plant from which it gets the nourishment for its own development. It is the same with humans. They must bow down humbly to the natural kingdoms below them, for they are the product of them. Those who have reached a higher level of development must always remember that they were once at every lower level. Thus they will be imbued with universal humility, and then one day the image will arise before them that John presented in the 13th chapter as Christ washing the disciples' feet: “The servant is not greater than the master” (John 13:16).

The second step is that of purification and cleansing. He grasps everything with the mind and distinguishes between reality and illusion. He learns to experience what constitutes a person's perception in reality; one learns to evaluate all facts of experience from the right point of view. Come what may, always stand upright in life. Image of the scourged Jesus.

In the third stage, the person being initiated also learns to control their feelings; they learn the ability to persevere even when what is most sacred and sublime to them is met with ridicule and scorn. Crowning of Thorns. Image of the Crowned Christ.

Fourth stage: the crucified Christ. One feels one's own body as something alien, something external. He becomes strong in spirit through this experience; he feels the crucified Christ as an actual experience. Here also the Simon Peter test approaches him, also the blood test.

The fifth stage is mystical death. Everything around him is absorbed, a lethargic state sets in, a complete calm. An equanimity of his mental state towards all external appearances.

The sixth stage is referred to as the entombment; he feels at one with the earth, he is reborn in spirit.

The seventh stage cannot be explained with physical senses, it is the union with the divine, a purely spiritual process, the ascension.

We see how the entire Christ event takes place within the initiate, how he inwardly passes through all the phases of this event in reality. The whole outer Christ event with all its historical details is taken up inwardly. We no longer need any outer proof, just as it happens to us in the Damascus event of Paul, who had taken up the spiritual Christ within himself.

The eyes are formed by the light for the light; without light there is no eye, and without the historical Christ there can be no inner experience of Christ. Thus the Christ event is experienced, but there are initiates of different degrees. Different images arise for the initiates, depending on their point of view. The apostles were also such initiates. The higher their spiritual level, the deeper they could penetrate into the mysteries of the Christ event.

Thus we see John, the apostle whom the Lord loved, as an initiate who had felt Christ most deeply. Goethe says: “If the eye were not sun-like, the sun could never behold it. If there were not in us the power of God himself, how could we be enraptured by the Divine!” One should not only read the Gospel of John, but really experience it, then this Christ event will also shine for us.

Report in the “Bremer Nachrichten” of November 9, 1909

Theosophical Society (Adyar), Bremen branch. Last Saturday, the Secretary General of the Theosophical Society, Dr. Rudolf Steiner of Berlin, spoke before a large audience at the Gewerbehaus on the topic of the higher significance of the Gospel of John. The speaker, as we were told, [among other things] stated the following: The two factors on which today's man relies when he searches for the sources of his religious concepts are, firstly, the abstract ideal that he creates in his heart of the Christ, and secondly, the external documents, the Gospels, to which he turns when he seeks consolation. The first leaders of Christianity had a different attitude to the Gospels than today's. They were not put off by the contradictions, but were glad that their view was opened in four directions. When one knows that each Evangelist wanted to portray a special aspect of the divine Being, then the apparent riddle of the Gospel of John, as the wisdom aspect, is solved. Today there is a new tool for the exploration of the tremendous Christ problem: spiritual research. Just as external science uses instruments to examine physical matter, so spiritual research uses its instrument, the human soul, to enter the spiritual world. With this developed instrument, the past can be fathomed without external records. Not everyone needs to become a spiritual researcher, just as not everyone needs to become a natural scientist. The unbiased person will use his sound reason to test the claims of the spiritual researcher. Critical research frays the fibers, spiritual research brings full light. There is not a single superfluous word in any of the four Gospels. Anyone who approaches them with a developed sense of truth has the impression that no more significant document could ever be created. This is especially true of the Gospel of John, which seems mysterious to people because of its beginning. The Logos (the Word) was called that which permeates the whole world, namely the ideas of wisdom. Man can form a certain idea of the wisdom-filled cause if he seeks to regard his own ego as a drop and the divine being as an ocean in which all ideas are contained. “In the beginning was the Logos” (John 1:1) can be translated as: “Before there was a visible world, there was the spiritual one, in which all the egos of humanity are rooted.” It will take a long development before man can recognize the highest human degree of development of the I, which was embodied in Christ Jesus. Not what was in him as a power was also in John; but the ability to recognize him completely was, for John means “seer”, or more correctly “feeler of God within”; because the forerunner, the Baptist, was such a one, the Evangelist could refer to him as a witness. The evolution of humanity is based on the law of love, which before Christ was linked to blood relationship. With the appearance of Christ Jesus, humanity was faced with the task of striving for the great ideal of universal brotherhood. Understanding from soul to soul, the cooperation of separated egos outside of blood relationship has only become possible with the appearance of Jesus. At the marriage at Cana, the mother was still a partner in the blood bond, which the Samaritan woman, as a stranger by blood, proves that the power of the ego penetrated into the alien soul. The resurrection of Lazarus proves the flowing over of his soul into the other being. The Mystery of Golgotha becomes understandable when one considers the development of humanity. The great Buddha, at the sight of death, gains the conviction that life is suffering; 600 years later, at the sight of the Christian symbol of Golgotha, the disciples gain the conviction of the victory of life over death. The spiritual world is not closed as long as man strives to let the spirit of Christ Jesus flow into him. Every sunrise can be a comparison for the awakening of the developed sense of truth. A forerunner for the understanding of Christ is the Gospel of John. — The speaker was rewarded with warm applause.

Report in the “Dresdner Nachrichten” of December 2, 1909

Christ and spiritual science was the topic of the lecture that Dr. Rudolf Steiner gave on Tuesday to a large audience at Meinholds Sälen. The speaker is a frail, ascetic figure, but has a pleasant, sonorous voice and speaks fluently and quite freely. Spiritual science, he explained, is a science of real spiritual, real life. It wants to open the sources in which the beginnings of the physical world lie, and to give us knowledge of the supersensible spiritual world that lies behind our sensual world. Only in the last ten years has spiritual science slowly and gradually been penetrating people's minds. Some people believe that spiritual science or theosophy has something to do with ancient superstition. But this is not the case. Nor does spiritual science want to replace any other religious beliefs of mankind with a new religion. It serves to understand religious beliefs, it is an instrument with which one can understand the various religious beliefs, but it wants to be science in the most serious sense. Those who stand firmly on the ground of a religious belief are only led deeper into it by spiritual science. Nor is it a matter of introducing an oriental religious belief, such as Buddhism, into our society. Anyone who wanted to undertake such a task would misunderstand the basis of our entire Western culture. This basis is Christianity. Even those who fight Christianity have received their best from it. The speaker then explained the goals and tasks of spiritual science. The aim is to answer the questions of what the soul is, how it relates to the temporary phenomena of human life, and how it is connected to the supersensible world. The sources of knowledge of spiritual science are quite far removed from our present-day thinking and imagination, but we see with open eyes that not only is there more in the world than meets the senses and is grasped by the mind, but there is also a wealth of spiritual facts and entities. Just as one born blind denies our world full of color and light, so does one whose spiritual eye has not yet been opened deny the spiritual world. There is a rebirth of man, after which the spiritual world appears to him. Finally, the speaker addressed the questions: What is the nature of the presentation of spiritual science and how is the evidence for it provided? In a highly poetic form, he presented an imagined conversation between a superior person and a disciple who is to be introduced to the mysteries of spiritual science by that person. “Die and become!” was the watchword. The black cross entwined with red roses was the symbol of the new life. The audience, which was largely recruited from members of the Theosophical Society, listened devoutly and applauded the speaker enthusiastically.

Question & Answer Session [question not recorded in writing]

Rudolf Steiner: The Gospel of John says of Christ that he is the incarnate Logos because he brought the impulse into the world to fully conquer the human ego, to take up this ego into the spiritual world. Man can experience a threefold Christ. The first Christ is the Christ of Intuition. Expressed in mighty images in the Documents, He speaks of that Entity which actualizes the ideal of the individual ego. This Christ is found independently of every document and external tradition when one ascends to Intuition. As spirit, the same as every I, one finds through intuition Christ, the most perfect original I; incarnated at the beginning of our time. A completely new spiritual research has become possible through the fact that the human being can take his I, the Logos, with him into the spiritual world. The event of Golgotha brought the first impulse for the fullest self-knowledge of the human being. Man can behold his own I and therein see an image of the divine. The word of Christ: “Before Abraham was, I am” (John 8:58) – when man has grasped the meaning of this word, then he has grasped in himself the Logos, the divine original I. Thus spiritual science finds the Christ, who said yes:

I am with you always.

This Christ is always there: the first Christ, the Christ of intuition. The second Christ is the Pauline Christ. How did the Christ come into the world as knowledge? Who was the first to give him to humanity as knowledge? Paul. He was the one who did not allow himself to be converted through external physical experience, but through a clairvoyant inspiration, through the event of Damascus. To him, Christ revealed himself from the transcendental world. He believed in Christ and proclaimed him with all his strength.

The third Christ is the one of the gospels. There are naive people who take what is written in the Gospels literally. Then there are the clever people who say: the Gospels are for an imperfect stage of human development. And then there is a third type of person who says: the Gospels mean all sorts of things symbolically; they speak of a Christ myth, a Peter myth, and so on – they interpret the Gospels symbolically and allegorically. Finally, there is a fourth level, the spiritual-scientific view of the Gospels, where one starts from what can be known through spiritual research about the events in Palestine. Then, when you read the Gospels, you say: Now you understand them for the first time. And you know what those who wrote them wrote into them. You discover that the Gospels are the most powerful documents of humanity. And you see into a future where, through spiritual science, people will live more and more deeply into the Christ and the mystery of Golgotha.

Members' Lecture

It could seem to the earnest seeker of truth, and – basically, a certain satisfaction is missing within the /illegible abbreviation, then gap] – it could seem to the earnest seeker of truth as if it were possible truth, the realization, to be recorded in a certain way, proclaimed and then given to humanity; and on the other hand, it could seem as if it would be enough for a person to acquire this realization once and for all.

It may be said that from the very beginning of a way of looking at things, nothing seems more plausible than this, and yet it would be a mistake to believe that the one-time possession of a certain number of words could suffice for human striving. If someone who is embodied today, let us say, in one of the previous incarnations, perhaps within the ancient Egyptian culture, had come to high realizations and today would remember those high realizations, so that he would possess that again, could we then say that the realizations attained at that time would already be beneficial in the present embodiment through mere remembrance? We cannot say that. However strange it may seem to say this, given that there is only one truth, we must say that it is absolutely necessary for human development that different forms of truth come to man in different times, because human nature changes over time. It changes in such a way that the powers of cognition also change. Man does not pass from incarnation to incarnation in vain; he progresses from embodiment to embodiment because, as the world changes, he can absorb something new within himself and give the old a new form.

Therefore, it was necessary at all times for people to work their way up to such a higher level of knowledge in the mysteries, so that they were able to judge how the whole earth, with all its physical and spiritual aspects, has changed compared to earlier times, and how human souls change within this earth development. In occult wisdom, this is expressed in the words: There always had to be people who were able to read the signs of the times.

Now, what is particularly necessary to teach people, to proclaim, to recognize this necessity? This all only arises when one is able to fully survey the overall situation of development in any given time. Times change and actually change in shorter periods than is usually assumed. If we consider the development of humanity, we will be able to admit that the interesting periods for the present human being are those that roughly three millennia before the founding of Christianity and after the founding of Christianity, the first and second before and after / gap ]. We ourselves are at the end of the second millennium of the post-Christian era, and the third is approaching.

These six millennia, in which we are placed in such a peculiar way, are of very special importance. What is beneficial for man? What should the soul take particularly to heart? Much is included in the development of mankind during these millennia. Our souls, which have been embodied several times during this time, well, they will have gone through important things during these periods, and these periods are to be characterized to some extent today.

If we go back to the third millennium before the founding of Christianity, it is the time when the little Kali Yuga, the Dark Age, has just begun for people. What is man of this age like? So that we can say: Before that, for a larger number of people, the last remnants of the old, twilight clairvoyance were still [there]. They could see not only the physical world, but also through it into the spiritual world. They could delve into the soul and find what was spiritually at the root of it. They could get there in two ways. Behind the material world they saw the spiritual beings who were guiding and creating, who had not descended into an earthly incarnation. They knew – as we know – that there is earth, air and water, that there are spiritual hierarchies. And on the other hand, when they descended into the physical world of feeling, willing and thinking, they found the spiritual foundations in a second way.

This ceased before the beginning of the third millennium. Then man was increasingly forced to look into the physical world of the senses. In the past, he had directed his mystical gaze into the world of feeling and will; now he said, “I will, I think, I feel,” and could no longer perceive the spiritual realm behind pure human thinking, feeling and willing, from which everything and he himself has its origin.

But the development of the world took such a peculiarly even course; to the deeper view it proves to be permeated with wisdom everywhere. What had been taken from humanity on the one side was given to it on the other, namely, to find the way back into the spiritual world by applying what was given to it in the sensual world in the right way.

How did this happen? What was actually given to man by being pushed out of the spiritual world? - He was given self-awareness. Especially in the most important states in those times, he was without self-awareness; only when he looked into the sensory world did it come to him, but it was completely silent both in those moments when he could see the spiritual through the outer sensory carpet - everyone was then completely raptured, in ecstasy.

This was especially given to the initiates in the northern countries. In ancient times, we find initiation sites in the areas from Britain and Russia to Persia; in the west, the sites of the Druids; and in the east, the trotters. There was the possibility that they would enter into ecstasy, where they were enraptured but felt they were a link to the whole world. They were guided to follow the path of the stellar world, for example. It was not the case that people were banished to the innermost circle of earthly existence; they experienced the great world events. The sun has a different position around our Christmas time. The sun draws a certain part of its strength from earthly existence. What today's people feel only weakly when autumn comes and the vegetation fades, the melancholy of autumn, was intensified in those people to an immensely intense sensation, so that they experienced what the sun experienced, right down to the sun's lowest point.

All this was not only experienced by the soul as a concept, but also as a deep empathy. When this melancholy reached its highest pitch, it was given a substitute, as it were. The soul learned to feel. The outer world of the senses offered nothing joyful, but something like a counter-blow, which came like an elastic ball when it expands after being compressed on one side. The spiritual senses opened up, man was devoted to the spirit of the sun. He saw into, at least sensed, the hierarchies of existence. And when the sun sent more power to the earth again, the human being lived with /gap]. The sun had a certain symbol, and in the temple sites one could experience how the sun works by the shadow that the sun cast there, so that the service of the spirit was one that integrated itself into the service of nature. Man lived with it when the days made it possible for him to turn his gaze back to the world of the senses. He experienced this in jubilant joy until those days when the sun seemed strongest to him.

There were two moments in the course of the year: first, when he was also devoted to the spiritual in ecstasy, and secondly, when he was jubilantly devoted to the external; people were taught this in the Nordic mystery centers. At one point, he no longer felt the germs of the ego; he was poured out into the whole world.

It became less and less possible for people to put themselves in this mood. But something else was given to them. They could now place their I-consciousness more and more in their I, the ecstasy was taken away, the I was strengthened. The moment was prepared for people when the Being was to come who could not come to man in ecstasy, but could enter into the deepest inner being of man. The Christ-entity took on such a form that man could feel in his ego as if he could pour the entity into his ego. In the past, he was outside of himself, outside of the world from which he was taken. Through the appearance of Christ, it should be made possible for man to become aware of his own ego. When I relive what Christ experienced, I experience something divine within me. This could be prepared. It was prepared by the three millennia before the founding of Christianity. There we encounter Abraham. He had the mission [...] to rise with his I first to the deity that wanted to descend. The deity was only fully recognizable after it had descended. This was usually done by selecting, from the whole of humanity, the physical individual who was capable not of seeing God in ecstasy and not of having to delve into the human soul, but who, through his intelligence, was able to see God with some degree of clairvoyance. He had the physical instrument in his brain that, with the help of the physical instrument, he could summarize the external physical conditions and in this combination he understood: there is something underlying the whole world that underlies the human ego. Abraham was the first to recognize the deity as the world-I. This ability was connected to the physical body. In the beginning it was not connected to the physical instrument, but the person had to come to a body-free vision. That was Abraham's special mission. [His era is the third millennium BC.] The knowledge of God was comprehended to the physical level of the brain. In all ancient times, knowledge of God and the spirit was dependent on leaving the physical. With Abraham, a personality first appeared who could attain knowledge of God with the physical brain. He was able to implant this in the development of humanity.

This is expressed in the records in such a low mood that one is amazed and in awe. For example, we are told that Joseph came to dreams. This is supposed to indicate to us that he was an exception to the rule; they were not supposed to have insight through dreamlike clairvoyance. It was present in him as an inherited trait, so it could not be used in a direct line for development and was therefore rejected by his brothers. Such an ability – to see with the physical brain – could only be passed on through physical inheritance, because it was a physical ability.

The people who had this mission must have felt that this physical property was given by God. They showed those who were to find this mission that it was a gift from God by asking Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. He would have sacrificed the whole nation, because all the Hebrew people were to descend from him. By receiving Isaac back, he was given the opportunity to inherit the physical trait. The mission was given to the people as a gift. These things are so deeply presented in the occult documents. If we go back to the first millennium of the Kali Yuga, we find that through which humanity was given the self-awareness for clairvoyance.

But all this had to be increased. The next step was taken in the second millennium of the dark age, in that now, through special developmental processes, the one who had become able to perceive the external God from the mission through the inherited characteristics from external nature - Moses could perceive the ego-God, which man perceives in his own ego, [directly in the elementary events of the world]. The [second millennium of the Dark Age before Christ – the beginning of the Dark Age, the great Kali Yuga 3101 BC, the end of 1899 AD –] is the age of Moses, when the ego-God is perceived in nature.

Third millennium – [the first millennium BC]: The revelation of the same entity, the entity that gave Isaac back and that appeared in the burning bush, now incarnated in human form, is at the end. Prepared for this event to be understood, humanity was to become through those leaders who connect to the name of Solomon. His wisdom in the last millennium should be there so that humanity could understand how this entity incarnated humanly. So that in occult wisdom we call this millennium the Solomonic.

We have outlined these three ages as the first three in the Dark Ages. Then come ages that can only be understood if you know a certain law of human development. Earlier events repeat themselves in a certain way, but you have to know how. Some events repeat themselves like this: 1, 2, 3, then 3, 2, 1. You can only understand them if you know exactly how they repeat themselves. We must not apply any pattern, because it is precisely the fact that the repetition is different that gives rise to the diversity. The repetition of the first three ages was reversed; for those who were able to assess the overall world situation, it was clear that the first age after the founding of Christianity was a repetition of the age of Solomon. It was also a reincarnation of Solomon: the entire spirit that flowed from the wisdom of Solomon dominates the understanding that is gradually developing for the Christ impulse.

In the second millennium, the Moses impulse: the event at Sinai was actually repeated in reverse. When Moses perceived the I-Godhead in the burning bush, it was the perception of the Godhead outside through the elements of nature. The reverse event took place in the second millennium. It consisted of the I-Godhead now announcing itself through a deep insight into the souls. In the mysteries of the Middle Ages, the individualities who were allowed to experience this by descending into the soul lived. A reverse Moses experience: the ego-deity reveals itself to the Christian mystics in their own soul. Now the deity radiates out of the soul. Just as Moses had a kindred spirit, so he also had the other mystics as kindred spirits.

We live in a special age, in which [one] sees the conclusion of the second millennium approaching. In the third millennium, a repetition of the Abrahamic age will be announced, very slowly and gradually, but it will be characterized by the fact that the Abraham event is happening in reverse. What used to be found only in ecstasy was experienced by Abraham as self-awareness. Man will conquer the old clairvoyant abilities in addition to these abilities. Through the mission of Abraham, what was previously found directly has flowed into the brain. Man will have to step out of the immediate circle of his consciousness, preserving this consciousness to a spiritual knowledge with powers that are bound to the physical body.

In a sense, the fact that we are now in an important epoch brings about a decision for the knowledge of the third millennium. The Kali Yuga expired in 1899. Now we are moving towards the development of completely new abilities.

Humanity is moving in two currents. One goes through the mysteries, not the old ones, but the present ones. Through this current, man has to develop the ability to develop clairvoyant insight. Humanity cannot be without this path, because without it no orientation would be possible. Alongside this, there is another current within which humanity is changing in a natural way.

We must realize that these two currents are present. All the souls that are here today were also present in the past. When a soul in ancient Egypt came into existence through birth, it experienced something very specific and had to experience something specific. You cannot relive in a later age what you should have experienced earlier.

You will say: That is something terribly discouraging. What has been missed would be irretrievably lost. Now you come to the realization and yet you can't change it anymore. — This is so because through all previous incarnations, people were actually not in a position to miss anything. Only now is time beginning; in the past, people were guided from the spiritual world. In the ages that preceded the Kali Yuga, the old impulses were still in effect. Now [man] becomes free, he must take [his] own development into his own hands; in the age when it is only possible for man to miss something, it is also ensured that people become aware that they must not miss anything. With each incarnation, the human being becomes increasingly freer. One experiences two to three incarnations in such a time, and only the fifth is so far that it is irretrievably lost. Those who do not come to Theosophy today, without gaining consciousness, will be able to receive it in the next or the second next incarnation. An example that shows how it is true that it is not enough to communicate general truths, but that there is a need for individuals who can assess the overall situation. They know that a new era is now beginning for the benefit and development of humanity. For each time it is necessary to find the particular form of words. We still have to recognize how these abilities of people develop. These abilities, which people will grow into, will be found in the fact that people develop new soul abilities in addition to the old ones, namely ethereal clairvoyance. A certain number of people will walk the earth who, through natural development, will be able to see not only the physical body but also the etheric body. This ability faded with the approach of Kali Yuga. It is beginning again.

Two:} When people have acquired sufficient understanding, they will be able to judge in due time what is real. They will know how to deal with someone who says they see something that penetrates the physical body. We practice Theosophy because we feel a responsibility to make this understandable to people. It could also be that people get stuck in the materialistic swamp, then it would happen that those who see something like that would be regarded as sick people. They will be crushed by the materialistic view.

The prophecy will be wrong if these abilities are ignored. It depends on people how they can receive and understand an event when people will acquire an understanding of the experience that will develop in the first half of our century as a natural human characteristic. The first foundations of initiation will develop naturally. The first to receive this without initiation will show themselves between 1930, -40, -50. This is how progress manifests itself. For those who cannot yet experience this in such an early time, the opportunity arises to attain it in the next 2500 years. During this time, if humanity proves itself worthy, a sufficiently large number will have acquired this ability. It does not matter whether one lives in the life between birth and death or also in the time between death and a new birth. Because this event means something very important. People will experience a renewal of the event of Damascus and more and more will experience it in the next 2500 years. In the beginning, the Christ was physically incarnated, now the abilities of man are rising and he can perceive the Christ with more highly developed abilities. Once Christ was physically incarnated, and since that time the initiate has seen him in his etheric body. When this event occurs, when the illumination of Christ enters our earth, it means not only something for the time between birth and death, but just as Christ descended at that time to the souls that were between death and a new birth, so the event that we call the Christ event of the 20th century extends – he will descend to those who have acquired an understanding of it in the physical world.

If a person passes by without understanding, he does not bring with him the possibility of understanding Christ and he must wait until he can prepare himself in a new incarnation. Understanding must be developed here. Life here is important.

This understanding is, so to speak, the last thing we have to acquire through the brain from the Kali Yuga era. It will be a peculiar moment when the re-appearance of Christ occurs in the 20th century. Little by little, people are losing sight of the external Christian documents. Efforts are being made from all sides to pick apart the documents and to deny Christ altogether. Those who believe that they can preserve the old are short-sighted. With enormous speed, the view that the [truth of the] gospels cannot be determined will spread among so-called enlightened humanity. Those who resist it, who say: “Let [the] human being stop with [theosophy],” are as short-sighted as possible.

When the crisis has reached its peak, the Christ will be there for people. Then there will be no records for them and they will no longer be necessary. How many incredible things there were, so people will become; how many incredible things were seen, so people will know without historical records what Christ is, who will perceive him in clairvoyance. The theosophists will be tested in this age. It will be the case that in the next few decades simply everything will be proclaimed, and the materialists will be unable to believe anything else. /2 blank pages] It must be a sensual perception. Belief in a physical return will become established. Whether they will be ready to believe in the spiritual, or whether they will only believe it when it comes to them in a carnal form? A number of people will embrace the belief in the return of Christ and present themselves as false messiahs to the world.

People must now consciously take their development into their own hands. There have often been false messiahs in the past, and they have all been believed. At that time, it happened without any particular harm to humanity because people did not yet [have] their destiny in their own hands. Now they must learn to distinguish the real from the Maya.

The era in which the Christ will appear as an ethereal being is the time when the first ethereal clairvoyance will show itself and break off shorthand.]

There are riddles of life, the attempt to solve which has not only a scientific value, but also, in the truest sense, a value for our steadfastness in life, for our hopes in life, indeed a value for our strength to work in life. And without question, one of these riddles of life is that which is contained in the meaningful word of human destiny.

It depends on how we can endure fate. It not only wants to be understood and grasped, but also borne. There we see how, seemingly through no fault of his own, man is led astray by powers.

It is precisely in the face of this most characteristic question that what we call science, research of the human mind, is powerless.

You just need to visualize a few things, but before the eyes of the soul, then you will see that this is not the case, that in a way, to the superficial eye, our destiny is not only very dependent on what happens to us, but on how we are. Compare: a person with a melancholic temperament will feel what is meant by the word destiny quite differently than a choleric person.

We hardly pay attention to the things that confront us in our daily lives and how everything is interwoven. Every person will have been able to have experiences to an extent that they could resent their fate. But there is a reconciliation with fate. It consists in the fact that self-knowledge is true, genuine self-knowledge, an unbiased look into our inner selves.

Goethe: “Know thyself and live in peace with the world.”

Because of the connection /?/, which we have lost /?] with the world and because of a fate full of suffering, which does not always have to be met through one's own fault, through vices /gap].

The question of the [gap].

Sleeping and waking. During sleep, one's own inner being is drawn out into another world.

For our unhappiness, we can be grateful to the powers of fate. Through our happiness, we come to something else. In happiness, we are passive, we accept it. But if we recognize that people's lives follow one another and that each subsequent life bears the fruit of the previous one, then we will learn to use our happiness to sow seeds for future lives.

The luck to use to combine our activities /?).

As on the day you were born into the world,
The sun stood in greeting of the planets,
You immediately thrived [and went from strength to strength],
[...]
Here you must be, here you cannot escape
[...]

Members-only lecture

I would ask you to accept what is said here today as observations and experiences that the occultist can make of the Bible or other ancient documents of human development. In the most diverse records, among the most diverse peoples, one finds myths, sagas and legends that are strikingly similar to one another. Names and individual features of the narrative often, very often, differ; but great similarities can be found in such old legends, for example, among the Greek and Mexican peoples. Today's man of modern education, especially if he is quite clever, says, “These are the childish ideas that early man formed.” But from the point of view of occult research and by observing the Akasha Chronicle, one gains a tremendous respect for these ancient records. The old myths and legends spoke in images, but the nature of these leads us to assume that there was a correct understanding of the spiritual hierarchies that brought about what our earth is today with man. Not a child's imagination, but only a primal wisdom could create such images. ...

All ancient languages tell us through myths that language was given to man by the gods. This is not as fantastic a theory as the one put forward by modern scholars of antiquity. There must have been a primal wisdom that was given to the individual peoples, modified according to their aptitude. ...

But the occultist finds something else in one document, the Bible. An enormous amount of effort and diligence has been expended in order to understand its content; and it seems almost tragic when one realizes that in a certain respect all this was in vain, for whether the Bible is viewed from an orthodox or a liberal point of view, no one finds what is needed – it is all passed over. We must indeed have the greatest respect for the infinite diligence and great erudition; but all this serious and devoted research has been rendered completely useless by the materialism of the method: a harsh fate that befalls science!

I would like to explain what the method is like using an example. As a Goethe scholar, I tried to prove that a much-disputed essay – “On Nature” – was actually written by Goethe. There was sufficient evidence that Goethe had dictated the various sentences to the Swiss Tobler, who had an unusually good memory, during their daily walks, and that he had written them down immediately afterwards from memory. While I was of the opinion that I had clearly established Goethe's intellectual authorship, a respected philologist thanked me profusely for finally proving beyond doubt that it was not Goethe but Tobler who was the author! So for today's philologists, it depends on who dipped the pen in the ink! So they do not seek to explore the spiritual authors of the Bible, but the writers. But we do not need the Toblers, but the Goethes.

It is very difficult, especially in Genesis, to find the actual meaning of the wording; for the ancient peoples had a way of communicating through rhythm and the consonance of vowels, which our modern, so banal language has completely lost. “In the beginning God created heaven and earth.” There is something in this that today's man must first conquer again. The Bible offers the greatest knowledge of the human soul. As an occultist, for example, one discovers the relationship between the individual sense organs, and then one finds: these things are in the Bible; this discovery is one of the most harrowing experiences.

In all other legends there is only knowledge of nature – there are Babylonian tablets and so on where, so to speak, the Lord's Prayer is already written, and the Sermon on the Mount also contains very familiar sentences – but what is important about the Bible is a completely new nuance. For example, it says:

Thy will be done, as in heaven, so also on earth. (Matt. 6:10)

The similarities that can be found with earlier texts prove nothing. But something else peculiar about the Bible comes to light. A special feature of all religious documents is that they have an inspiring effect, so that we ourselves progress – modern literature does not have an inspiring effect, but rather a stifling one. And the Old Testament in particular has an inspiring effect. For a time this inspiration satisfies the occultist, but there remains a residue that can only be removed by a remedy: one of the Gospels or one of the letters of Paul or Peter. These are observations that anyone can make. We must be clear about the reason for the difference.

All the documents, except the New Testament, can be traced back to the original revelation. In the days when the spiritual leaders walked the earth, people could look back on their previous incarnations at the initiation. But the further development progressed, the darker it became around people at these initiations. At the time when the New Testament begins, the disciple no longer really understood what he saw; it remained dark within him. The great pain that lives in such people, who can no longer connect with the spirit, becomes clear to us when we consider the fate of a personality who lived at the boundary between the Middle Ages and modern times in his last incarnation.

This embodiment of this extremely problematic personality was the great philosopher Empedocles, who worked in Sicily for a long time. He is the one who first proclaimed the doctrine of the four elements. If you delve into his soul, you realize that it was far ahead of its time. He presented the elements in their materiality, and he felt so close to them that he could only really be close to the spirit. Empedocles also introduced the mysteries to Sicily and had to taste the tragic fate of the initiates of that time; he could no longer recognize the common origin because the Christ impulse was already approaching. He wanted to become one with the elements and threw himself into the Etna. He would have been ripe to connect with the Primordial Source in a completely different way. If he had been able to find the Christ Impulse at that time, he could have united with it; he came either too late or too early.

Where otherwise darkness would begin, the modern occult researcher finds the Christ impulse; a man of earlier times could not do so. If the modern occultist passes by the Christ when exploring the Akasha Chronicle, he will inevitably fall into darkness.

A true monist today is able to tell you that modern science can confidently refer to Kepler! But it was precisely Kepler who formulated his three laws from the Harmonies of the Spheres! He found the Christ Impulse! His saying is well known: “I have stolen the sacred vessels of the Egyptians” and so on. When such facts are pointed out, the monists are accustomed to behaving very indulgently towards such great minds. The time at that was not yet able to think so sharply, one is accustomed to saying otherwise apologetically. But Kepler found that very special star constellations occurred at the time of the Christ event; that the arrival of the Christ was written in the planetary system. Kepler found that! When we engage in occultism, we first learn to recognize the tremendous significance of this event; we have to find it in the Akasha Chronicle!

Today there are people who claim that it cannot be proven that Jesus lived. This is a very reckless approach. For example, a respected theologian claims that a Petersburg scholar — who, incidentally, does not even have a Christian background — has presented irrefutable evidence that Jesus did not exist. The latter, although now 90 years old and blind, felt compelled to write a small paper to explain that he had asserted the exact opposite of what the aforementioned theologian had attributed to him. But who has read the small paper? The newspapers have not mentioned this contradiction, but the false assertions of the theologian have been in all the newspapers. That is how conscientiously one approaches such matters today; there is not much conscience left in our public writing. Drews's manner could have been used for centuries; it is not about evidence, but about sensations and feelings.

The significance of Theosophy will be that it does not need any documents at all; instead, one explores directly from within oneself. If there were no Gospels, the Akasha Chronicle would guide the occultist to confirmation and knowledge. While the outer world will lose the Gospels, it will bring the theosophical research to life again. — We are facing great decisions! Also in relation to other things, to important questions, for example, the doctrine of blood circulation and heart movement. The current theories about this are very flawed; today's researchers take the heart as a kind of pump that sets the blood in motion; but it is the blood that moves the heart!! Individual scientists have already come to this conclusion, but they think too materialistically. Benedict, for example, says: “The feeling of hunger and thirst and breathing are the...” [gap].

That is something, after all. Theosophy must intervene practically in the epistemological theories of modern times.

In the drama “The Portal of Initiation”, the seer Theodora points to the imminent event of the appearance of the etheric Christ. It is timely to proclaim today, as the Baptist did in his time:

Change your state of mind, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.

We are beggars for the spirit, because we see more and more into the light. Now come the Kingdoms of Heaven; they have come to the human “I”.

In the Sermon on the Mount, we read:

For they will find the Kingdom of Heaven through themselves (Mt 5,3)... [gap] to bring themselves forward – automobiles... [gap]

Little by little, powers will arise in man to see Christ as Paul first saw him, then people will recognize the conclusiveness of the documents in the course of the next 3000 years.

The time has now come to make known in wider circles that which has been spoken of throughout the history of the evolution of mankind under the name of the Mysteries or Mysticism, the so-called Esoteric Wisdom.

For in the soul of man, behind what comes to the light of day lies a deeper wisdom which has hitherto remained unknown to mankind in general.

Let us be quite clear what it is men have always understood by the term “Mysteries” or the “esoteric.” All that has been brought about in the world through civilisation goes back ultimately to a few great personalities, a few leading individuals. For example, a construction like the Simplon tunnel can be traced back to the mental work of great individuals, who were not themselves directly concerned with the building of the tunnel but who made it possible, by their Intellectual discoveries, for others to build it.

The “practical” man would perhaps be of the opinion that such things are accomplished by an activity that is purely external. It would be the very greatest mistake to accede to such an opinion. Neither the engineers who conceived the plan, nor the workmen who carried it out, are the spiritual originators. If it were not for what is called Higher Mathematics as elaborated by Leibnitz, Newton and others, such works could never be there at all. These thinkers were necessary in order to bring into being what is called “technics.” If we go to the root of the matter, we shall find that such works could never have been achieved, nor any goods have been manufactured, without the soul of the Thinker.

If this is so with regard to the outer materialistic culture, it is true in still greater measure of the spiritual currents that flow through human history.

All the Religion and all the Art that has ever been brought to mankind, all the Justice that has ever borne rule in states, all the order and Morality that has lived among men leads back to great Initiates, leads back to hidden sources of Wisdom. This is what we find when we set out to look for the deeper origin of things.

Consider the works of Art which have succeeded each other through the centuries, and you will find that they can all be traced back to deeper sources. Whether we take a poet like Dante, or a mind and spirit like Goethe's, or a painter such as Raphael, or again some great religious event in history—all moral and religious streams, all art and all science, lead back into the hidden places, where was cultivated in secret that which is known as Mysticism or Esotericism.

And as with all other religions so with Christianity too we find its foundations in the esoteric. It is only an evidence of shortsightedness when the objection is raised, that Christianity is for simple hearts and should speak to the feelings and be comprehensible for all. That is a very shortsighted view. All religions, it is true, ultimately clothe their truths in sentences so full of power and impulse that no soul is too simple to receive them. What emerges finally, however, in this simple form, has its origin in the heights, with the so-called Initiates.

Throughout history there have always been Initiates. In ancient India it was the Rishis who taught a primeval Wisdom. In Persia Zarathustra was the teacher of Wisdom. We look to Greece, to Egypt, to Rome, everywhere we find to begin with, a religion of the people, but standing in the midst of the people are always those who may be called spiritual “Giants,” unknown to mankind by name. These are they who formed themselves into occult brotherhoods. Whosoever wished to be accepted into such a brotherhood had to undergo a strict and severe probation. The probation had no immediate relation to the intellectual life. It was far more a question of a man's wrestling his way through to an inner freedom of character, where feelings and passions had no power with him. Then he had to learn not to misuse his knowledge. Men who had passed through severe trials and tests of this nature became missionaries to the rest of mankind. They were not allowed to have any other feeling or purpose in their heart, save only this—to serve and help mankind. They had to be men who would make real the words—“He who would be first among you, let him be the servant of all”—And in intellectual striving also they must never lag behind but always press on to find the Higher Truths.

Today it is frequently said to one who believes in the possibility of knowing the Spiritual Worlds: But we human beings have boundaries to our knowledge. But inside the Mystery circles it was said: Thou has capabilities which slumber in thee; if thou develop them, then canst thou strive through to a Higher Knowledge.

The development a man was enabled to undergo by the training of his inner talents and capacities was called in the Mystery Centres a Second Birth. It was said that such a one experienced on a higher plane what a man born blind experiences here in the world of the senses when he has undergone an operation and can see. This “operation” on the soul, the re-birth in the Spirit, was performed for the Mystics in the Mysteries.

That which was called in the Mysteries the Kingdom of Heaven, into which the Mystic was led, was not in some other place. The Kingdom of the Spiritual World is here where man is. As many worlds are around us as we have ability to realize and grasp. It was no dry and abstract Wisdom that was received in the Mysteries, but a Wisdom which was at the same time Religion and Art.

In the Mysteries of Greece the spiritual eye of the Mystic was opened. It was shown to him how once in primeval times man had been half animal and how the soul had striven upwards to that stage of humanity upon which he now beheld himself. Three stages were shown to him. He saw first forms as they lived in a very distant evolution of mankind, then forms half animal and half man, and finally perfect human forms. These three types of the evolution of mankind stood before him in the Greek Mysteries and they found their expression in Greek sculpture. There was (1) the Zeus type, with the straight nose and with the eyes rounded out upwards; (2) the type of the God Mercury with woolly hair and snub nose; and (3) the type of the Satyr, with quite different eyes, different nose and different corners to the mouth. These three types stand before us in Greek art as an image of the stages of the evolution of mankind. At another time it was shown to the Mystic how the God himself descended into nature, how he evolved upwards through the mineral kingdom, plant kingdom and animal kingdom to the human kingdom and was then born anew out of the human heart. That was called the descent of the God, his Resurrection and his Ascension. The whole process was represented in the Greek drama. All that was represented in the drama came originally from the Mysteries.

Just as the trunk of the tree divides itself into different branches, so did religion, science and art become divided in the Mysteries. The ancient Mysteries which were celebrated in Greece—the Eleusinian—and the Mysteries of the Egyptian Priest-wisdom were called Mysteries of the Spirit. Those who stood high in these Mysteries as teachers and leaders had attained to the spiritual worlds; they associated with Spirits, they had intercourse with Spiritual Beings. Iamblichus shows us how the Gods descended in the Mysteries. Only after moral purification, and only when the intellect had been made clear and lucid, could one obtain admission into these places of wisdom.

This is how it was in the ancient heathen times, in the times of the Mysteries of the Spirit. Never without the most wonderful enthusiasm and the most inward devotion did the Mystics speak of that which could be experienced in the Mystery-schools. Aristides speaks thus: “I thought I touched the God and felt him near, I myself being at the time in a condition between waking and sleeping. My spirit was light, so as none can describe or realise who has not himself been initiated.” And in another passage he says: “It was as if the Spiritual World flowed and poured around me.” Plutarch says, “He who had received initiation in these Mysteries greeted the Godhead with the greeting of eternity.” Whoever had had this experience was called “re-born.”

We must now say a little about what formed the last act in every such Initiation into the Mysteries of the Spirit.

There had first to be the moral purification and the clarifying of the intellect. Then the pupil must learn to see with the eyes of the Spirit. Behind the consciousness which accompanies us through the waking condition, there is another consciousness. This consciousness does not sink into complete darkness when man falls asleep. Man remains conscious at night, he is there present. But the consciousness which accompanies him from morning until evening, that does not remain. There is however a way of overcoming the unconsciousness man has in sleep; there are methods whereby this end can be attained. By a culture of the soul which brings about certain intimate processes in the innermost being of the soul, man can win through to the possibility of finding new revelations in his dream life; he can experience things which he recognises in another way than with the eyes and ears of the senses. It is immaterial whether a man recognizes the truth in sleep or by day when awake; in either case he must learn to carry over into reality the world which he there experiences. When in this way he has come into the position of being able to see the Spiritual in the whole world, then he has attained the first stage of initiation.

At the second stage he has an experience which is like living in a flowing ocean of colour. At this stage there is a higher initiation; a consciousness is developed wherein is revealed to him a still higher Spiritual world. Today in ordinary life man is not capable of awakening the consciousness which lies behind the physical world.

In the last act of the Mysteries of the Spirit the pupil was put into a kind of sleep. Care had been taken in the preparation that when the day consciousness sank down, consciousness did not cease. For three days and three nights the man lay in another state of consciousness in the Mystery temple, citizen and participator in another world. Then he was awakened by the Priest. He received a new name. He was an Initiate, he had been “born again.” One could say of the Mysteries of the Spirit: “Blessed are they who have experienced them, blessed are they who now behold in the Mysteries of the Spirit.”

At the time of Christ Jesus, to the Mysteries of the Spirit were added the Mysteries of the Son, and these have been ever since the time of Christ. The Mysteries of the Father—the Mysteries of the Future—are only cultivated in a very small circle. The Mysteries of the Son are cultivated in the Rosicrucian Mystery which is also Christian, for those who require a Christianity that is armed to meet all Wisdom.

Today we will concern ourselves with the Mysteries of the Son, and see how they differ from the ancient heathen Mysteries. If we would grasp what a mighty step forward has been taken by the coming of Christianity, we must learn to understand two important utterances. The one is: “Blessed are they who believe, even when they do not see,” and the other: “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life.” If we comprehend these utterances in all their depth, then we understand the very foundation of Christianity.

Whilst to the world at large Paul spoke in powerful kindling words, he also gave teachings to his intimate pupils which were transmitted first by word of mouth and then in writing, teachings that are connected with the name of Dionysius, who was known as Dionysius “The Areopagite.” We have here to do with something founded by Saint Paul himself, wherein was proclaimed the deepest wisdom. These teachings of Saint Paul were written down for the first time in the sixth century, in the writings of the so-called Pseudo-Dionysius. It is not so much the historical fact, but the content of these documents which is of interest for us.

An esoteric Christianity does exist. This is not admitted in certain circles, with the result that a peculiar place has been assigned to the Saint John Gospel. The Saint John Gospel is looked upon by theologians as a book which emanated out of poetic genius. They have however no understanding for what the Saint John Gospel means.

Whereas the three other evangelists relate the exoteric. Saint John relates what he experiences as an initiated seer, who could look into the Spiritual worlds. The writer of the Saint John Gospel wrote from the point of view of an initiate. Whoever looks upon it as a book that one should read and understand in the same way as one reads and understands any other book knows nothing of the Saint John Gospel. He alone has knowledge of it who can experience it. Most translators do not render the Spirit of it at all.

The first words of this Gospel, rightly translated, sound as follows:

1. In the primeval beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and with God was the Word.

2. The same was in the primeval beginning with God.

3. All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made.

4. In Him was the Life and the Life was the Light of men.

5. And the Light shineth in the darkness, and the darkness comprehendeth it not.

6. There was a man sent from God whose name was John.

7. The same came for a witness to bear witness of the Light, that all might believe on it.

8. He was not the Light, but a witness of the Light.

9. For the true Light which lighteth every man, was to come into the world.

10. It was in the world, and the world was made by It, but the world knew It not.

11. It came into each individual man (even into the ‘I’ man It came) but the individual man (the ‘I’ man) did not receive It.

12. Those who did receive It, through It they could reveal themselves as Children of God.

13. They who trusted in His Name were not born of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of human will, but of God.

14. And the Word became Flesh and dwelt among us and we have heard His Teaching, the Teaching of the only Son of the Father, filled with Grace and Truth.

These words with their mighty content—one should not take them and speculate over them, but rather allow them to work upon one in the same manner as countless human beings have done through the centuries. Early in the morning when the soul was still virginal, they have let these words resound in their soul, up to the passage: “And the Word become Flesh and lived among us ...” as above.

When a man does this day by day, then something shows itself in the soul which gives him new life, he is reborn, he is spiritually transformed. He sees around him a spiritual world of which he had previously no idea.

Everyone who takes the first verses of the Saint John Gospel and lets them work upon him for the education and training of his soul, experiences the Saint John Gospel itself in mighty pictures.

There before his spiritual sight stands John the Baptist, as he baptises the Christ; there he sees the picture of Nicodemus, as he has his conversation with the Christ. He sees how Christ cleanses the Temple, he has before him all the following scenes of the Saint John Gospel, he experiences the “stations” from the thirteenth chapter onwards.

In order for the pupil to receive aright the influence of these words and find the ‘word’ which is proclaimed by the Saint John Gospel, the teacher spoke as follows: “Thou must fill thy soul for weeks at a time with this one feeling. Think of the plant. It is rooted in the dead stone. If it had consciousness, it would have to bow down to the dead stone and say to it: ‘Without thee I could not live; out of thee I drew nourishment and strength: I owe to thee my being, I thank thee.’ The animal would have to speak in similar words to the plant: ‘Without thee I could not live, I incline myself towards thee in thankfulness, because out of thee I draw that which I require for my existence.’ And it is the same with all the kingdom. Man, who has attained to a higher stage of evolution, must also bow down, as the plant to the stone, to those who work for him, and thank them.” He who would become a Christian Initiate must develop this feeling during a period of many weeks—the feeling that he owes gratitude to him who stands beneath him. Then he experiences in the spirit the thirteenth chapter of the Saint John Gospel where this feeling is given sublime and eternal expression by Christ in the Washing of the Feet. Christ means to say: “Without you I could not be, I incline myself to you as the plant to the stone.” As an outer symbol the Initiate experienced at this stage a feeling as if water were flowing around his feet. It continued for a long time.

When he had gone through this, the Christian Mystic could experience the next stage of initiation. For this he must cultivate the power to endure all the storms and stresses of life. Then he experienced a second picture. He saw himself scourged, and could feel in his own body something like pain at certain points. This went on for many weeks. He experienced the scourging.

Now he could rise to the third stage. The teacher said to him: “Thou must cultivate a feeling which can endure that all thou holdest highest should be treated with scorn and derision.” The scorn and derision must be for him nothing, in comparison with his own inner strength and certainty. Then the pupil experienced two symptoms of Christian initiation. He experienced the crowning with thorns; spiritually he saw himself with the crown of thorns and experienced a kind of pain in the head which is the sign of this stage of initiation. Afterwards, as a fourth experience he had to develop the feeling that his body was no more for him than any other object in the world. He carried the body with him only as an instrument. In many Mystery-schools one learned to accustom oneself to speak in the following way: “My body goes through the door,” and so on. In this way the mystic experienced in himself the Crucifixion. He saw himself crucified. The outer symbol was that during the meditation stigmata appeared at the places of the wounds of Christ—in the hands, in the feet and in the right side. This is the blood-trial of the Mystic, the fourth stage of initiation.

After this the pupil rose to the fifth station which is called the mystic death, a sublime experience of a spiritual nature, of which no more than an indication can be given. There are moments for a pupil when the whole of the physical world surrounds him as with a black veil. In these moments he learns to know the origins of evil. This was called the descent into hell. Then came a strange and wonderful feeling as if the whole curtain were torn asunder. The mystic death—followed by the mystic awakening!

The sixth stage is the so-called Laying in the Grave. All that the earth bears must become as precious to man as his own body. The physical body of man could not exist separated from the earth. If it were removed even a few miles from the earth it would wither, as the hand would wither when separated from the body. What my body is for my finger, that the earth is for men. The independence man attributes to himself is an illusion. And just as man is dependent physically on the earth, so is he dependent spiritually on the Spiritual World. When man comes to feel his unity with the whole planet—then is he “laid in the earth,” then does he undergo the “burial.”

Hereon follows the seventh stage, the “Resurrection” and the “Ascension.” Man experiences here the Eternal. This stage does not admit of description. The Egyptian Priests (who were also their Wise Men) did not make use of the symbols of writing to describe such things. The Mysteries must find a way to tell what cannot be expressed in words. Through the power and might, through the magical power of the Saint John Gospel itself, these things can be experienced.

Such an initiation is the initiation of the Son. It has only been possible since Christ came to earth. The outward Christ who walked in Palestine is related to the inward Christ whom the mystic experiences, as the sun is related to the eye. If there were no eye, then could the sun not be perceived. But the sun produced the eye. Where there is no light, the organ for the light is also lost. The eye was gradually created by the Sun. The eye was created for the light by the light, says Goethe. Whosoever allows the Saint John Gospel to work upon him, develops the inner eye. But, as without the sun the eye would never have come into being, so would spiritual seership never have been there if Christ, the Spiritual Sun, had not walked the earth in person. No Christianity without the personal Christ Jesus: that is the essential and all-important fact.

All other founders of religion could say of themselves: “I am the way and the truth.” All were teachers. Christianity has brought no new teaching. But that is not important. The important thing is that Christians feel themselves bound together with the personal Christ Jesus, as in a family. That is what matters—that He was there, and has lived and has said: “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life.”

Oriental teachers of religion have exoteric teaching and esoteric, in the same way as Christianity has. Christianity differs from them in that exoteric Christianity is more simple and popular, it speaks to the heart, to the feelings; while esoteric Christianity is essentially deeper than all oriental esoteric. The truth is, the Christian esotericism is the most profound which has ever been brought to mankind.

Christian esotericism was brought to the earth by that very Being Himself with whom one must be united. It is a question of belief in the divinity of Christ. In the ancient Mysteries one had to behold personally during the three days of initiation. What formerly was only present in the Mysteries—that is, in the Mysteries of the Spirit—has in Christianity become an historical fact. The events in Palestine are historical fact and at the same time symbol. Christianity is of such a nature that the simplest heart can grasp it; and yet the wisest man will never outgrow it. For the deepest teachings of Wisdom lie therein.

If we understand the Saint John Gospel as a Book of Life, so that we wish to live with it, and let it come to life within us, then we shall come to know esoteric Christianity. Such esoteric Christianity has always existed, it has always been active wherever Christianity has been able to manifest in a worthy and noble way, wherever Christianity has brought the blessings of culture and civilisation to mankind.

Into all those who had experienced union and fellowship with Christ Jesus there streamed such strength as enabled them to know that life will always gain the victory over death, and that death is never a reality.

Goethe said that the great World Powers invented death in order to have “much life” in the world. Christianity is a proof that there can arise in the soul a consciousness of the fact that Life is continually and always the Victor in the world.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

There are world riddles which not only meet us when we turn our attention to the great events of life, but which meet us at every touch and turn in everyday life. We could bring forward many such riddles of life, one such is that which shall occupy us today: the question of the origin of evil. It is one of those riddles which meet us in everyday life but which can only find an answer if we go back to the sources and origin of life. Such a question especially shows us in the way it has been treated by man since ancient times that really it can only fruitfully be approached by what we call spiritual science or the theosophical world view. Without that important insight in the world, without that penetration to the sources of existence which can flow to us through this stream of cultural life, an answer is not possible. Hence you will have to undertake with me a really wide path to the sources of existence in order to penetrate this, in a certain connection, everyday enigma. He who only regards the world with that mood flowing out of materialism which follows the course of actions only with the senses cannot find an answer to this question in the remotest degree.

Evil arises for us, but of course not in its real sense, in the inferior being in human life. The wise person who is also a believer asks how it is reconcilable with a wise ordering of the world which one also calls providence, that this providence lets man sink to what we call evil—that the Godhead lets man become evil in order then to punish him. Not merely the simple believer understands it thus but we hear the same in a poem which the young Goethe composed when he calls these words to a divine spirituality:

Thou let'st the poor man come to grief,
Then leavest him to his pain.

This question becomes really impenetrable to one who stands on less religious ground. Without a soul-spiritual basis we come to no ordered concept of evil, let alone any connection with the cosmic spirit. Since man was able to think, the leaders of man, the thinkers, have tried to solve the question: Whence comes evil? What meaning has it?

We must look back for once into that past age of Persian myths and the continuous conflict of Ormuzd against the evil powers already designated as Ahriman, a continuous fighter against the good. Ahriman is there shown us as the force which in conflict causes a strengthening of the good spirit. If with a great leap we immerse ourselves in the deep meaning of a German thinker, Jakob Böhme, then we find his writings and the continuous course of his life entirely filled with the question as to the origin of evil. Jakob Böhme says that a multiplicity only arises out of a unity, but the multiplicity must be guided however only by the will of the unity, as for example the two hands, which if they are not directed by one will are separate members. Without this guiding unity we can create no great work. These hands can storm against each other, they can mangle each other. The possibility is just then given when that which we call freedom is given to the two. As long as the two hands are determined by the personality, and as long as one will rule them, they will not turn against each other.

And here a feeling already flows into Jakob Böhme that evil has something to do with love. When the Divine Being flowing through the world so loves the world that it extends Being to everything and holds nothing back, in order to give to the multiplicity as great a freedom as possible then the many can strive against each other.

We could speak at length about this if we let the thinkers pass before us, we could bring forward many examples from the great epochs but we would always get only a kind of philosophical answer. Today however we do not want philosophical answers, and so without deviation we would occupy ourselves with the spiritual world in order to get a firm point for the answering of our question. In order not to expand our mode of observation too far I should like at once to go to the heart of the matter, and for this we must bring quite briefly the nature of man before the soul. We are clear that evil must have something to do with human nature.

If we consider man from the standpoint of what the eyes see and the hands grasp then we only have but one part of human nature in the sense of spiritual science. We only see the physical part of man which he has in common with all apparently lifeless beings. Everything to be found in the human body is also existing there, only of course these mineral forces exist in man in quite a special manner. They are so complicatedly interwoven) so manifoldly built up that the physical body would fall asunder through its own physical laws unless something penetrated it like water penetrates a sponge, something which combats in each man in each moment all disturbances in the physical body. We call this fighter the etheric or life body. In each one of you the physical body would be exposed in every moment to decay unless that fighter, that victor which we call the etheric or life body were in you. Man has this in common with the whole of living nature, this fighter is there in everything that lives. In the moment when at death the physical body is separated from the etheric body then it follows physical laws, it decays and passes over into lifeless nature. The etheric body is something that is regarded by science today as something impossible. Yet we cannot enter further into that but must bring forth the matter only sketchily. Besides the etheric body man has a third member of his being. For one whose spiritual eyes are opened this third member is always visible. You can present this third member logically to yourselves.

We ask ourselves—Are the physical and etheric bodies everything? A simple consideration is enough to show that there is really something existing which stands far nearer to man than his bones, muscles, blood and nerves. Something lies quite close as a reality that is the sum of what we call feelings, instincts, passions. That belongs to us in reality and is existing in the same space where blood, muscles, nerves, exist. We have this part of human nature in common only with the animals, not with the plants.

Now there is a fourth member through which man is the crown of creation. The fourth member of his being is that which enables him to comprise everything which is in him, in the name ‘I’. This name ‘I’ is a name which already hides the secret nature of his being in the distinction which it shows compared with all other names which we have in language. Each person can call a chair “chair”, a table “table” etc., yet the name ‘I’ no one can hear from outside, it must come from one’s own soul. Each object can have its name resounding to us from outside, the ‘I’ can only be heard coming from oneself. All world views which were built on what we call spiritual science have always felt this. In the old Hebraic religion you find for this intimate name of the soul the unutterable Name of God. Why is it so called? If the soul is to hear her true name then something speaks in the soul which can be united with the soul without penetrating it through any organ from outside. The ‘I’ must resound from out of the soul itself. A spark of divine being is in the soul in which it utters its own name ‘I’.

That which a distorted philosophy has also wanted to find is the true significance of the word “Jahve”, the unutterable name of the divine soul-part in man. This was also meant when, in ancient Egypt, the veiled image of Sais was referred to. We can read the inscriptions: “I am Who was, Who is, and Who will be. My veil no mortal has lifted.” An investigator, a German romanticist said something correct out of an extraordinary instinct although he did not go deep enough: “No mortal has lifted the veil, we must become immortal.”

It was the view of the great Egyptian priestly magi that the ‘I’ was veiled but that the coverings must fall away. No other can solve the nature of the ‘I’ than the ‘I’ itself when it becomes conscious of its true nature by descending into its own depths where it grasps itself in its own immortality; then it knows what is concealed behind the veil. Of course only the very few today are inclined to gaze into the nature of the ‘I’, the utterance of Fichte still holds good: Most people would sooner regard themselves as a piece of lava in the moon than as an ‘I’. Since Fichte we have seen the coarse materialism flow into the culture of the 19th century. People today are very satisfied when they can partially know something physical and demonstrate it materialistically. They regard themselves as being more like a piece of lava in the moon than an ‘I’. It would be nonsensical to speak of the higher members of man's nature if in the sense of spiritual investigation one were to speak of the fourth member as a mere phenomenon of the physical body. Naturally spiritual investigation must have something in this sphere which must appear very stupid to a person who so often thinks today that everything must rest on the basis of scientific facts. That which occurs in the etheric body, the astral body and the ‘I’ is not the effect of the physical body but the reverse. What transpires in the physical and etheric bodies is the work of the astral body. Only when one gradually raises oneself to this view is one able to answer this question.

Just consider for example processes which meet us every day. Something arouses in us the feeling of shame. There is something in me of which I desire my environment should see nothing—I blush. Another process is the feeling of fear, noticeable through pallor. With shame a stream of blood rises to the head. With fear the blood recedes back from the head into the inner part of the body. What has happened? A soul process works on the body. Each of these events appears as the result of a soul process. They are indications of how soul working plays into the material. These effects in what is material are not so easily perceptible today. They have more or less withdrawn because of the mighty transformations which the physical body has undergone (as compared with earlier forms of existence). But the further we go back in human evolution all the more do spiritual influences get the upper hand.

There are indeed people today who go so far as to deny the working of the soul on the material body. One might not think that people exist with such materialistic views but there is in America a theological school which calls itself pragmatism. They have brought their views to an expression which reveals the grotesqueness of the materialism advocated therein. We need merely bring this utterance for once to our mind: “Man does not weep because he is sad, but he is sad because he weeps.” It is obvious here how the materialistic world view comes into contradiction with the healthy human understanding.

It is a fact that must appear natural to us that such consequences are drawn, and they appear today in numerous spheres; only they do not come to the surface in such grotesque fashion. If we now keep firm that physical processes are effects of the spiritual-psychic then it will no longer appear wrong to us if, going back into very ancient times of human evolution we find these effects are all the more significant the further we go back, so that we have to reckon with far-reaching spiritual influences in ancient times of human evolution which today are concealed.

You know perhaps that the theosophical view says that human existence runs its course in repeated earth lives. We will only bring that forward briefly. Man goes through many earth lives in his evolutionary path to ever higher perfection. We say in spiritual investigation that everything that lives is subject to transformation. Everything in the world is subject to such transformation, not only man but also mighty worlds are subject to continual change. Just as when we regard the single human being and say “That which transpires in the present life between birth and death is the result of former incarnations,” so we can look to a whole heavenly body and we only understand such a body in the sense of spiritual science when we know that it has acquired in former lives that which it has become today. We also say of the earth and planets that they have passed through other incarnations. As the spiritually highly developed man can look back to former earth lives so earlier planetary conditions can be perceived from the standpoint of spiritual science. We point back to the previous planetary condition of the earth, and this pre-earth is called in spiritual science Cosmos of Wisdom.

A glance at what is around you can make clear to you why we look back to this pre-earth as the cosmos of wisdom. Just regard man’s physical body. Look at one piece. Take a piece of the thigh bone which is composed of countless scaffoldings and members. It is an artistically constructed structure built with wonderful wisdom. It is so constructed through engineering art full of wisdom that the thigh bone, in spite of its relatively small strength, is able to carry the upper body. No engineer is able to construct such a bridge-like structure with such wisdom, and whoever looks at this wonderful human structure knows what great wisdom is contained in it. We know however also that other members of man are not yet so wise. We need merely think how the passions and impulses of the astral body work. What we eat and drink often contain heart poisons, and yet the heart is built so full of wisdom that it can bear these attacks for decades. Everywhere we find this Wisdom spread out. In the structure of the body we find this wisdom everywhere, in each blossom, in each animal, and we see how the world is penetrated by this wisdom.

Let us look at the beaver and his dam, building it with marvellous art—if one measures the angles then one will find they are quite exactly measured. So we could observe bit by bit everything that surrounds us. Could we now extract this wisdom from out the world unless it were there within it? The materialistic mood denies that the wisdom which man draws out is in the phenomena. But a natural thinking would tell you that something which man extracts from nature must be contained in it. As little as one can drink water from a glass if none is in it, just as little can one extract wisdom from the world if none is in it. But this wisdom is there and spiritual science knows that this wisdom was in all things at the beginning of earth evolution. Thus in a plant seed for example was a beech; as a proof of this we see a beech tree grows from it and not an oak. The earth carried the wisdom which meets us today already when the things around us were still in germ. Just as truly as the seed comes not from the earth but from the plant, so truly the seed from which our earth was born arose from what the earth was previously. That was the cosmos of wisdom. That which you see today in each leaf, in each organ in man's form, in everything spread out around you, slowly and gradually arose, formed itself member by member and only appeared after wisdom had struggled with wisdom. We had an embodiment on the previous stage of our earth where the wisdom of things was worked out in which, so to say, the things in their wisdom were worked over. What has our earth, to which this Wisdom has come over, for a task? It has its special mission. Just as its predecessor developed the wisdom which surrounds us today bit by bit, similarly our earth today develops bit by hit another cosmic force, and this force is love. Therefore in spiritual investigation we call the earth the Cosmos of Love. The evolution of the earth so runs its course that love appears as a force becoming more and more dominant, and when the earth will have reached its goal then everything will be penetrated by the force of love. Hence we call the earth the cosmos of love. Just as on the previous cosmos the beginning was made with un-wisdom and only gradually was the form of wisdom worked out, so this earth runs its course so that gradually love is worked out. Then when the earth has reached its goal love will be spread out everywhere, everything will be permeated with love, and the earth will have beings on it who will find love just as we find wisdom in everything that surrounds us. Those who will be on the new embodiment of the earth will stand wonderingly before love, just as we stand in wonderment before wisdom. Our earth has the holy mission of letting flow the impulse of love into things. The impulse is here to fulfil this mission, to make it deed. Thus we have to think of the structure of our earth as the cultivation of love going through the entire earth evolution of man. If we see this then we have a handle for understanding today's question, only we must be clear that man is not the only being around us. You know the spiritual investigator does not speak of the spiritual worlds as of something far off in the clouds, but he speaks of them in a natural and self understood way. A person born blind who has his eyes opened suddenly sees everything flooded with light and radiance. He sees a new world around him which was existing before just as light and colours existed before his eyes were opened. In this world which only an unlogical thinking can deny, other beings are existing with other forms of spirituality than man has. We can form an idea of these spiritual beings by bringing to mind that man is in a continual evolution. He must ascend ever higher and higher. In each incarnat-ion he experiences something, he becomes an ever more perfect being.

What perspectives thus open out? We see the great ideals of Man, the Man of the future elevated like a God. We see that as man today stands higher than animal and plant thus will the future man stand to his present existence. Spiritual science knows already today that beings stand above man at his present stage in evolution who are as perfect as we will be in a far future. They are beings highly exalted above man and who long ago passed through the stage we are at today, who have a purely spiritual life and no longer have need to descend to a physical body. Thus we see as man begins his earthly existence, as he leads over what was existing of him from the cosmos of wisdom, then not only he enters the cosmos of love but also higher spiritual guiding beings.

Who are these? The same as those who let their wisdom flow into the cosmos of wisdom. The same as those who built that cosmos of wisdom out of their creative wisdom. What we have finished before us today has been created by these beings. They are the possessors of productive wisdom. They have put in their wisdom. Because previously in the cosmos of wisdom they developed creatively in reference to wisdom, they have acquired the power of letting love trickle as it were on the earth to all earth men, and bit by bit this love flows to the earth. We need merely cast a brief glance at this earth, then we see how love gradually developed. It appears to us in ancient times in the narrowest limits. Who loved each other in ancient times? At first only small groups of those blood-related. Then we see love spread beyond the narrowest blood relationship. The circle love draws together becomes ever wide. At first we see marriage only between those closely related. Then love spreads to a whole tribe, and then in the Old Testament the whole people is loved, and he who does not belong to the people is foreign. The way is far but we have taken the great step where love is led over from the principle of blood relationship into the spiritual, to the great brother-bond which should span the earth to the Christ-Principle. This is referred to in the utterance: Who does not forsake father and mother, brother and sister and follow Me … etc.

This utterance is not to be taken literally. It refers to the fact that love should leave the narrow circle of blood relationship and become spiritual. It should embrace each soul; that is the great mission of Christianity, to make love more and more spiritual until it reaches the form of an all embracing love with which the whole earth should be permeated, so that the beings of the next world will find this love in all things as we have found wisdom. So we see that during earth existence the mission is fulfilled in that what man has brought over from the pre-earth is permeated with love. The assimilation of love is the task man has to develop in the earthly course of the human race. Thus we can see that a whole force which leads men together, progresses ever further into ever widening circles.

That is possible only to love. Let us go back once more from the cosmos of love to the cosmos of wisdom. What was existing of man at the transition? That which I described as the four members of his being making man the crown of creation was not yet existing at the beginning of our earth evolution, only the beginnings of the physical, etheric and astral bodies. But just as a seed decays and yet rises again letting a plant arise, so man disappears at the transition from the cosmos of wisdom to the cosmos of love, to arise again on our present earth and gradually the ‘I’ develops. This I must be there as the counterpart to the force of love. Love has other conditions of existence than wisdom. Wisdom can run where all the single members are dependent on each other. Wisdom can rule where a being in love holds sway. But if love is to pass from one being to another that can only happen where it is a free gift which must be there as a Father force.

Only such beings have the force for love who have the divine force for the ever greater acquirement of freedom.

The I is the counter-pole of love. The I impressed itself in the same measure as love impressed itself. That could only happen gradually in evolution. In the beginning blood speaks, the blood which is related to the loved being. Here love appears to us at the most primitive stage. Love develops more and more to a soul-spiritual force, and therewith the ‘I’ makes itself free. But in order to understand the true evolution of man within the cosmos of love we must keep one thing in mind. We must see that in the cosmos things go on as in a school. Here some always remain behind. similarly this happens in the cosmos. Those beings of whom we have spoken who stand exaltedly above man, those created in productive wisdom could pass over to love. But some remained behind who did not reach the final goal of the cosmos of wisdom, who did not finish their task. They still had to work at wisdom and could not yet stream out love which was not yet given to them.

They are beings who stand between the exalted beings and man. Spiritual science calls them the Luciferic beings under the dominion of Lucifer. One may laugh but just as, for example, magnetic forces are around us, so are the luciferic. They extend into the cosmos of love from out of the cosmos of wisdom. They were the beings who endowed man with their small wisdom. They created the subjective, intellectual wisdom of man in the ‘I’ which first became impregnated as it were therewith. An independence was given to this I which only suited it on the cosmos of wisdom if this love-filled wisdom had reached a definite stage. Thus the ‘I’ got a force which it should now transform in independence. Only in the measure in which the Christ principle illuminated it did the ‘I’ become capable of placing itself in harmony with all the forces of its environment on the earth. Before this approach to the Christ ideal is attained such beings again and again take firm hold in man, who are the opposing powers of the ‘I’. Their force is a separating force which will separate the ‘I’ too soon. The Luciferic beings lead a conflict against everything which brings men together.

This force has also its good task. It hinders man falling into, as it were, a primeval mash of love. Just as man had to be prepared for love, so earlier they had to be prepared for wisdom. Thus this luciferic principle is to be seen as the principle of illumination of independence. So we have two forces which lead humanity in two different directions and therewith we have the principle of the independent I which consolidates itself out of this conflict. Without this independence love would not be possible; without this independence the origin of evil would not be possible; love makes evil necessary. Hence comes the principle of love which arises from the spirits of love, and the principle of wisdom which arises from the spirits of wisdom. Both lead us from soul to soul, spirit to spirit, I to I. Evil rests on this spiritual fact. The possibility of evil was given with the possibility of love. Only because the God of the earth is the God of Love, and beings became independent I-men was the origin of evil possible. Love made evil possible.

Man first attains free love and true greatness through the Luciferic powers, and only thereby he takes the forces of evil into himself. The forces of love must penetrate the whole earth, must have overcome evil, have converted it as it were by the end of the earth's course. We see that what man owes to evil is a good. He owes to evil freedom. The origin of evil lies in the Luciferic principle as lies also the origin of freedom, with which is given the possibility of the development of love.

If we think of the earth without everything evil then only a tiny force of love is necessary to overcome the forces of evil. The forces of love grow because they have the task of transforming the existing evil in love. Thus we really see something of what Böhme felt, that evil strengthens the mission of love. Thus we see together with the origin of evil the meaning of evil, and if we consider evil spiritually scientifically then we see evil justified in a certain way. Then wherever it meets us we regard it with other feelings.

If this penetrates our feelings then it makes quite a different impression on us, not for one who just grasps it speculatively but for one who grasps it theosophically. If we have quiet hours and elevate our spirit to the great riddles then we must experience something so mighty that in evil we yet feel the good. Thus we permeate ourselves with feelings which then go with us in life at every step. We face the whole world thinking, feeling and acting, and that is most essential. Oh, we will become mild if we see what formerly enraged us. These feelings which result as the foundation from those quiet hours constitute the theosophical life. We shall consider this tomorrow even more applied to daily life. Today we have only been able to indicate the function of evil in fleeting outline.

We have attained the view that we are short-sighted if we bring forward as an objection to the evil, the wisdom, the love, the spirit of the world. We have seen that this spirit of love powerfully flows through the world, and is such a good spirit that once it brought evil into the world in order to bring about the most effective, beneficial good.