The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Today we first have to talk about Jesus' conversation with his foster mother, who had gradually come to an understanding with her son. A tremendous change had taken place in her. The spirit of the other Mary, the physical mother of Jesus from the spiritual worlds, had descended upon her. She now carried it within her. The conversation between Jesus and his mother proves to be of great significance for the real understanding of the mystery of Golgotha from the point of view of spiritual scientific research. The mother understood Jesus better and better. It was a kind of intuitive understanding. Now Jesus was able to speak about the threefold pain he had experienced. What he said was like a kind of summary of what had been going on in his soul since the age of twelve. He spoke to his mother about his experiences from the age of twelve to eighteen. He spoke of the great teachings of Bath-Kol. He spoke of how no one had been able to understand him, how he could not speak of what was pushing him to tell someone. He told his mother that even if the old teachings had been there, the people to understand them would have been lacking.

Then he spoke of the second kind of painful experiences. He spoke of those events before the ruined sacrificial altar, he spoke of how he had penetrated into the old mysteries, in which the divine spiritual beings had descended directly, and how a descent had taken place in this respect as well. Instead of the good old pagan gods, demons were present at the sacrificial feasts. He spoke of the great cosmic events, of the Our Father in reverse, as it were. It was an extraordinary conversation he had with his mother. He spoke of how he had had to recognize how Lucifer and Ahriman fled before the gates of the Essenes and came to the other people who could not follow the strict rules of the order. He spoke of all this. It was like a retelling of his life so far. It was a conversation that was shaped by the fact that the words were not just words of the narrative, that the words did not just contain what usually lies in words, but what he said was the innermost experience expressed in words, pain and suffering expressed in words, transformed into infinite love, pain that had been transformed into love and goodwill. These words flowed over to the mother like realities. It seemed like a piece of the soul itself that passed from Jesus to the mother. In just a few hours, everything that was more than a mere experience came together. It was a cosmic experience in the truest sense of the word. Jesus of Nazareth could only speak words, but a part of his soul lay in these words. And much would have to be related if one wanted to characterize what the Akasha Chronicle gives. So it came about in the course of this conversation that it stood clearly before Jesus' soul at which point the development of mankind had arrived. Now it dawned on him with an ever clearer awareness that the Zarathustra soul was in him. Thus he felt how he, as Zarathustra, had gone through the development of humanity at that time. What I am saying to you now were not the words that Jesus spoke to his mother, but he expressed himself in a way that she could understand. What he felt there made the secret of human development clear to him. The impression of how Jesus feels and experiences this inwardly while speaking to his mother is incomparable. He speaks to his mother about how each human age has its own particular powers and that this is of great importance. There was once a human age, the ancient Indian culture, when people were particularly great because their whole lives were glowing with the childlike, sun-like powers of early childhood. Today, we still have some of these powers in us from our first to seventh year.

Then there was a second period, the ancient Persian time, which was inspired by the forces that now work in humans between the ages of seven and fourteen. Then Jesus turned His attention to the third age, the Egyptian time, in which the forces ruled that now work in man from the age of fourteen to twenty-one, when the sentient soul plays a major role in the individual development. In this Egyptian time, the astronomical and mathematical sciences were cultivated.

And now the question arose in Jesus: In what age do we now live, what can a person experience between the ages of twenty-one and twenty-eight? And he sensed that what dominated the outer life were the forces that had been poured out over Greco-Latin culture, but that these were also the last forces. The meaning of the individual human life stood in its full impact before the eyes of Jesus of Nazareth. From the twenty-eighth to the thirty-fifth year, man then passes the middle of life and begins to live towards his old age. There are no new life forces left; the inherited forces of the gods are exhausted. The ascending forces are there up to this point, they are consumed up to the middle of life. What now? Nowhere was there anything new to be seen from which forces for humanity could arise. Humanity would wither away if nothing new happened. Jesus had to live through this crisis for a certain time, and then the Zarathustra ego, whose possession had only recently flashed before him, dissolved. He had identified himself so completely with the evolution of humanity that the Zarathustra ego left him during his words to his mother. Only the three veils remained, and Jesus became again what he had been at the age of twelve, but with everything that he had been able to absorb through his experiences as Zarathustra. Now it was like an impulse that drew him to the Jordan to John the Baptist. And there descended into Jesus of Nazareth that which had to flow rejuvenatingly into the process of humanity so that humanity would not wither away: the Christ-Being. This Christ impulse moved in at a time when people were least prepared to receive it. With their minds, people could feel drawn to Christ, but there was no longer any of the wisdom and power of the earlier ages. So Christ initially only worked as a power, not as a teacher. But even today, humanity is not particularly far in its understanding of the Christ impulse.

The effectiveness of Christ did not initially depend on the understanding that was shown to him. For three years, the Christ essence descended upon Jesus of Nazareth. That a God entered a human body was not only a matter for human beings, it was also a matter for the higher hierarchies. Until then, no God had experienced being incarnate in a human body. That is the staggering thing: the life of a God in a human body during these three years. But it was necessary for the advancement of humanity to become possible again.

At first the Christ-Essence was only loosely connected with the man Jesus of Nazareth, but more and more densely it united with his body until the crucifixion in a continuous development. Since then, humanity has not increased in understanding of spiritual things. Otherwise, a contemporary event such as Maeterlinck's book “On Death” would be impossible. That is a foolish book. It says: When man is disembodied, then he is indeed a spirit, then he can no longer suffer. — That is just the opposite of the truth. It is always the spirit that must suffer, not the body. As the individuality increases, so do the pains, the feelings. It is therefore impossible for today's man to understand the pain suffered by the embodied God.

One of the women wanted to look for Jesus in the grave. He was a spiritual body. Christ was not to be sought with physical senses. The Crusades in the Middle Ages were a repetition of this search. It was the same vain search. And it was precisely at the time of the Crusades that German mystics arose who sought to reconnect with Christ in the right way. Christ also worked where his teaching was not; he worked as a power in all of humanity. After the baptism in the Jordan, the Christ was still loosely bound to the body of Jesus. The first to meet him was Lucifer. He brought into play all the powers that can be developed in an entity in terms of inciting pride. “If you acknowledge me, I will give you all the kingdoms of the earth.” This attack was quickly repulsed. For the second temptation, Lucifer and Ahriman came together, wanting to evoke fear and anxiety in Christ with the words, “Throw yourself down.”

The third time Ahriman appeared alone with his demand: “Say that these stones become bread.” This question of Ahriman left an unresolved remainder; it was not completely answered. That this could not happen is connected with the innermost forces of the development of the earth, insofar as human beings are part of it.

There is something here like the money question. This is connected with the Ahrimanic question. Ahriman retained some of his power over Christ Jesus. This was shown in Judas Iscariot. This unresolved question is at work in the betrayal of Judas.

It was also mentioned that it was only possible in the darkness for the Christ impulse to communicate itself to Earth at the crucifixion. Whether it was a solar eclipse or whether the darkness came from something else cannot be said with certainty today. Finally, a very urgent request for these revelations to be kept secret.

The minutes of the “Bauverein des Verbandes Stuttgarter Zweige” (Stuttgart Association of Building Societies) on the laying of the foundation stone on January 3, 1911, read as follows: “Today the foundation stone of our own house was laid. Dr. Steiner gave a long speech to the assembled crowd in the lecture hall of the Bürgermuseum. After that, the document for the laying of the foundation stone was read out and signed by architect Schmid, as well as Heim, Arenson, Unger, Völker, Kieser, del Monte, Molt, Schrack, Benkendörfer, von Sivers and Dr. Steiner. Dr. Steiner, Fräulein von Sivers with Mr. Heim, Schmid, and the board members of the three Stuttgart branches as well as the board members of the building association and Mr. Stockmeyer Jr. as guests then proceeded to the new building, where Dr. Steiner performed the laying of the foundation stone.

Of Rudolf Steiner's “longer speech” mentioned above, only the following passage has survived (see also the notes on page 140):

"We should be clear about one thing: as long as we are forced to meet in such halls, whose forms belong to a declining culture, our work must more or less meet the fate of that which is doomed. The spiritual current will only be able to bring about the new culture that it is called to bring when it will be granted to work right down to the purely physical shaping of even the walls that surround us. And spiritual life will work differently when it flows out of spaces whose dimensions are determined by spiritual science and whose forms arise from spiritual science. And you can be sure that spiritual science would come to nothing if it did not find its way into the hearts of people who are willing to make the sacrifices that a building like the one planned in Munich demands."

Address by the architect Carl Schmid-Curtius

As the builder of this house, it is my privilege to address the first words of greeting and welcome to you at today's house dedication.

The abundance of feelings that move me at the handover of this building, our new Theosophical home, should above all find expression in my heartfelt thanks to all those who, with their advice and support, have actually made this building possible. Once I have thus fulfilled the noblest duty of someone who has accomplished a work with the help of others, I may summarize my many wishes for this house, in which Theosophy is to be taught for many generations to come, that I say: In these rooms, the occult motifs have been arranged according to a fundamental idea under higher guidance and approval; we know that everything that surrounds us here is the expression of a spiritual. May these forms all serve to promote Theosophical work and may this building always be dedicated to the spirit in which it was built!

I hereby hand over the keys of the house to the building association of the Stuttgart branch association, and express my heartfelt thanks for their loyal support. I also wish them all the best and much success in their work in these beautiful rooms.

Address by the chairman of the Stuttgart branch association's building association, Jost del Monte

On behalf of the building association, I take over the key of this house.

If you, my dear Mr. Schmid, have addressed words of thanks to all those who have helped you to accomplish this work, we are well aware that these thanks must go above all to the one whose profound knowledge alone made it possible to develop the ideas embodied in these rooms, and each of us shares your sentiments with all our hearts. And as far as these thanks are directed at us, let me tell you that we have regarded it as a very special favor to be allowed to participate in this work. We leave it to our dear guests to judge the extent to which the work has been successful; but let me add one thing: working together with you in harmony has given us great satisfaction, and we fully appreciate the amount of dedicated work this work has required of the builder. We thank you very much and are pleased to be able to say this to you from this point.

Furthermore, we would like to thank all those who have generously contributed to this undertaking, and in particular we would like to mention one of our members who, with a large, fundamental donation, has made it possible to fulfill our long-held wish.

And finally, on behalf of the building association, let me express our joy at being able to celebrate the inauguration of the house together with so many friends from outside. We thank you for your interest in our celebration and warmly welcome you. We have been able to create a stronghold for theosophical life through our loyal cooperation; this house is now complete, and the building association has thus fulfilled its primary task. I now hand over the key to this house to the Stuttgart branches, which may become a place of loyal work for them.

Address by the Chairman of the Association of Stuttgart Branches Adolf Arenson

On behalf of the Association of Stuttgart Branches, I take possession of the key to this house.

It has been designed and built in accordance with spiritual rhythms and spiritual laws that have been transmitted to us by our esteemed teacher.

The forms and designs that confront us, the signs and images that give the room its character, are drawn from those spheres that underlie our earthly one; we should always be mindful of this, and the work we do in this house should strive to achieve harmony with our surroundings. The symbols that look down on us – they shall become inner life through our work.

Sacred is the space in its arrangement - in its holiness it shall be animated by our work. It shall become a home for the Highest, which has become ours through high spiritual powers. And we want to protect with all our strength the good that has been entrusted to us. We solemnly swear this.

In this spirit, we ask our esteemed leader to consecrate the place of our future work.

Consecration speech by Rudolf Steiner

All of us gathered here today feel the significance and consecration of this moment. And perhaps at this hour many a heart here will ask itself what the greater significance and the greater consecration lies in, whether in the fact that we have before us, and whose importance for the theosophical life in our circles we cannot sufficiently feel, or whether in the symbolic meaning, in the symbolic importance of what we are allowed to begin here today. The most beautiful and solemn words at this moment are undoubtedly those that resonate quietly in the hearts of those gathered here, and it is hardly my duty to express these unspoken words that now fill our hearts. We feel the significance of the fact that from now on, for the first time, the spirit that has been maintained for years within our Central European Theosophical Society can be realized in a space that, wherever we we turn our eyes, surrounds us with signs and features of what is so intimately connected with all that we strive for as an impulse for our knowledge, which should lead us into the supersensible worlds. And basically, the full weight of this moment can be summed up in a few words: for the first time we are surrounded by a home, by a space that is ours. A concept can easily be associated with such words, but it must be a distant one. Such a word can be associated with the concept of selfishness; but the word cannot and must not be understood by us in this sense, but solely and exclusively in the sense that we now have a space around us that belongs in an intimate and personal way to what we strive for in the spiritual worlds; and if we allow the weight of these words to weigh on our soul, then the all-embracing feeling of gratitude to all those who have made it possible for us to stand today before such a fact will spring up.

However, if we want to go back to the first sources of this possibility, we have to go back years, we have to look back on the dedicated theosophical work that has been done here in this place for years, and we have to remember the beautiful way in which the most diverse most diverse theosophical impulses have interacted here in this place, how mystical-inner and theosophical-intellectual striving have been lovingly combined here for years, and how harmoniously people with of the most diverse temperaments and working methods, but who were all able to harmonize their working methods, temperaments and characters because the deepest impulse lived in them, which we can express as theosophical love, as a theosophical feeling and striving for peace. We would have to reach far into what has been achieved here on the horizon of our theosophical life if we wanted to characterize everything that has finally been condensed into one impulse. So we can say: born here out of diligent, energetic work in the theosophical field was an understanding of the needs of real theosophical life.

This has captured the heart of one of our dear friends, who was able to turn an idea into reality, which must surely always live in all our hearts. Therefore, our thanks must go to the person who made the basic donation for this building, which was conceived in the noble theosophical spirit and can be entered in the memory of the theosophical development. Thus, relatively early in our theosophical striving, a home for our 'Theosophy' was created here, showing a reflection of our thinking and feeling in every detail. The impulse given by our dear friend is, first of all, an invitation to work in a dignified manner in the home that has been given to us. Thus, we feel, as we have done from the very beginning, that not only what lies before our eyes, what affects our senses, is theosophically ours, but we feel at this moment that space is also, in a sense, morally ours; and we feel this space permeated by theosophical love and theosophical willingness to make sacrifices, the love of those who have worked here for years, devotedly and self-sacrificingly, to give the impulse of theosophical understanding, and the love of the one who first made this room possible. And we may say that we also feel the exemplary nature of this present moment in many respects. It has often been emphasized how Theosophy must find its way into all branches and activities of the human spirit, of the soul life and of the outer life.

Just as everything comes from the spirit, so should all human activity be imbued and inspired by the spirit, and so we must regard it as a fact to be recognized in the true sense as a theosophical result, that we have found in our own midst the man who with what our theosophical spirit is. And you all undoubtedly feel at this moment that our dear Mr. Schmid, who has executed this building, has combined his best theosophical feeling and thinking with what the outside world has given him as his artistic ability. We can feel happy with him about this fact. What do we feel when we take a look at everything that surrounds us! Above all, we feel that not only the skill of a master builder, but also the heart of a theosophical master builder has worked here. As true as it is that we stand in awe of the way our friend Schmid implements what 'Theosophy is' in his art, it must also be true that we are full of gratitude for all the love that he was able to put into this building. I think it has also been a task for you, my dear Mr. Schmid, which filled your heart with joy, with the kind of joy that belongs to the realm of spiritual feeling and that arises when a person is allowed to let his ability to work, his creative urge, his skill flow into the forces of spiritual life. But we consider it a favorable karma of our theosophical movement that we have found precisely this master builder, who — as I, perhaps more than anyone outside Stuttgart, can assure you — has shown a wonderful devotion and understanding for what architecture in this case can offer to spiritual life. And we may be glad if a similar relationship can be achieved in the future.

And now let us, who have come together from the most diverse regions to celebrate this hour with our friends here, remember not only the general, sacrificial and dedicated work that has been done, but also the more specific work that has had to be done in recent years. Just think back to nine and a half months ago, when we were able to lay the foundation stone for this building, and consider all the selfless work that had to be done beforehand. Consider further what had to be done by our friends in Stuttgart, by the inner circle of the Society, which today took possession of this building, so that we can be united within this theosophical new structure. It would be impossible to describe this laborious and devoted work. But one thing in particular should be emphasized about this work. Let me mention a fundamental aspect of such theosophical work! You are all undoubtedly filled with joy and heartfelt satisfaction at how our Theosophical Society has grown; but on such an occasion we should not forget that, although it is the greatest happiness in the sense that one can speak of it here, that it has grown so much, with the growth the difficulties in the management of the affairs of this very Society are also growing considerably.

Things such as those that are now appearing before us, full of significance and laden with meaning, must be accomplished by people who, at the time of their creation, can put their whole hearts into the work. This makes it necessary to speak of the fundamental nerve of such a matter at this moment. The more our Society grows, the more it seems as if such work should be placed in the hands of all theosophists. That cannot be! That is impossible! But something else is possible: that the genuine work on such a project should be carried out in an exemplary manner, almost pedagogically, for all those who profess to be our followers. What will be the best in social terms if our movement is to realize in numerous fruits what it has as a germ? It will not be voting and majority decisions, but the trust that one person can place in another personally and individually; that trust that consists in letting the small groups that have to carry out one or the other work work without hindrance. Then they can work as we have worked here. Let us not disturb those who, sacrificing their hearts, are attached to what should promote our great goal, and let us give them complete freedom to work, let us not surround them with the obstacles of know-it-alls who cannot possibly be there! And when the small circle here has been working quietly for years, demanding that trust, then we may say: If we may judge from the fruit on the germ, then what is in any case in line with the theosophical work has proven itself here in the most brilliant way. The work that we see today is, in the fullest sense, a glorious vindication of the trust that we had in the faithful work of this small building association that has been at work here. With understanding and trust, we express our gratitude for the exemplary work of this building association.

When you leave this room today or tomorrow, take this feeling with you: how different it is to be able to devote ourselves to theosophical thoughts in such an environment than in an environment that we encounter when we have to work elsewhere. Let us feel in this moment how the word can expand for us: This space is ours. What does this mean in yet another sense? What was said at the laying of the foundation stone can be repeated in a modified way: “We have built a temple for the Spirit we serve.” How differently we can feel connected to this spirit within such a building! And we then understand the longing for images of the beautiful, magnificent model that has been given to us here. Perhaps more than any words that could otherwise be spoken, this room itself can speak to those who are able to create afterimages; it speaks in a clearly audible way of the necessity to be surrounded by that which is our spirit's temple. And if there has been talk in Munich of another, similar building, only to be executed on a larger scale, then consider as a beautiful intensification of all these words, which can only be spoken with the mouth, what this room is able to say to you. When we enter it with understanding, dwell in it, and leave it to return to it again and again, does it not emphasize the necessity of such buildings in other places as well?

If we allow our feelings free rein for a moment, we cannot but say that human karma works in the strangest ways. We could be filled with emotion that this building of ours could be placed in this region of this country. Let us remember how much of the intellectual life of Central Europe has sprung precisely from these regions. Think of how, in a quiet, earnest, intimate way, a 18th-century spirit wrote the fervent worship of the spirit that reigns and weaves through all worlds in a friend's book with three words: “One in All.” The unfortunate ZZölderlin, from a sense of the spirit in the universe, wrote the words to his philosophical friend in this very area: “One in All.” The word that was written out of deep feeling in this area has often been repeated. It was written in the family register of a man whose philosophical spirit filled all of Germany and, in fact, the whole of the educated world.

Let us also remember how intellectual life in the 18th and 19th centuries took its starting point from this very area. Theosophy, which could only have existed at that time, originated in this very area. Within the Swabian region, there were theosophical centers in the 18th century from which many colonies originated, some of which are still active today. Let us remember that it was a son of this area who came to an 18th-century seer in Thuringia, Oetinger, who represented the theosophy that was possible at that time. Through his own temperament, he found that seer personality of Central Germany who bore a name that has local significance here. Let us remember that from the vision of the 'Thuringian peoples, the theosophy of this region drew rich sources of seership. Let us remember that the great philosophers were sent to us from the same spiritual substance of this region, let us remember that the one who has become so popular within the spiritual life and who spoke the beautiful word: “Thought is an immeasurable realm, and the word is a winged tool.”

If we bear in mind that we wish to be servants of the spirit through the word in this building, which in symbols and forms is intended to be an expression of the spirit we serve, then in a somewhat modified form, transposed into our theosophical thoughts, a word that long, long ago moved and uplifted countless hearts, which had gathered together everything they had left to build a temple for the Spirit they served. And the one who was allowed to serve with his person in the construction of this temple spoke words that we may translate into our language:

"O Spirit of the Universe, You who proclaim yourself to our true self-awareness, You have graciously kept the word You gave us when You saw our work, as it has been done for years by Your servants; and it is becoming apparent today in this hour. Although the furthest reaches of the spirit are not able to grasp You, great Spirit of the Universe, You who permeate all Your works with Your thoughts, You who want to dwell in the words that may sound from our lips; how much less can these temple walls, which we have built for You, grasp You. But behold, Spirit of the Universe, You who make Yourself known in our true self-awareness, upon our will to understand, upon our yearning for knowledge of Your servants! Behold, Spirit of the Universe, Pervader of every ego, look down upon us, and let Your eyes be open over this structure, where You have decided to dwell! Hear our feelings, which urge us, through our work of letting Your spirit flow into the spaces we have dedicated to You, to show ourselves worthy of You!"

I had to resort to the words of the Old Testament, to the words of Solomon, to express what we ourselves, out of the spirit of human development that has progressed with the world, have to address like a prayer to the spirit of the universe, which dwells in all hearts that strive for true self-knowledge. If we can develop something in us of the devoted feelings that have been invoked in all times by the spirit of a community towards a building, then let us create this feeling in our hearts! As we continue to work in this room, we will see how differently our work can be done than in an otherwise indifferent space.

What, above all, is possible here? There is one thing we need that we can summarize in a single word: concentration of mind, seclusion of soul, while we devote ourselves to theosophical knowledge. We can feel what the voice of the universe itself can tell us if we tune into the spring mood. Even if it is autumn outside, we have spring in this room. Then we can understand from the language of the world spirit in nature how justified it is to seek contemplation and collection. If those who say, “Why do you shut yourselves away with your work, don't carry it out as a labor of love?” should come, then we will not answer, but let us let the great world spirit answer, which speaks from the works of nature itself. How much depends on what happens in spring! What is necessary for the salvation of the plant world that sprouts out of the earth in spring? That the seeds are taken from the full sunlight of outer activity; but in order to flourish, they must enter into the darkness, into the seclusion in which they enter in autumn. Thus, these spiritual seeds of life must be carried into the quiet home of meditation, of knowledge, of love and of peace, in order to work there quietly like the seed in the bosom of the earth; and only then can they be effectively carried out into the full sunshine of life. Such places are necessary for the interaction of human development, and insofar as we ourselves want to be bearers of the best seeds of our cultural life, it is necessary that what can be won from outside, what can only be cultivated and flourish here, be brought into the hiddenness.

Thus it is a wonderful fulfillment of karma that our first Theosophical house has been built on this very ground, like a tribute of the new spiritual life to the old. When the spirit we serve has received this shell, we ourselves feel integrated into the organism of the whole human spiritual life and know that we have a contemporary work in the highest and most sacred sense. It is contemporary because this work is connected to the spiritual current that flows from the source of spiritual life after the karma of all humanity in the present.

Therefore, we can admit it today: we feel that we have been allowed to serve those whom we regard as the source of our work, but also of our opportunity to work, with this work. We were allowed to serve the Masters of Wisdom and of the Harmony of Feelings, in whom lie the sources of our occult knowledge, with our outer work as well, and because we are allowed to feel this, we are also allowed to feel that they help us in our work. May their spirit prevail in this room, which has arisen out of theosophical devotion, which the masters of wisdom and of the harmony of feelings will honor by allowing the forces of the invisible worlds to flow into it, which we need to strengthen and invigorate what our souls themselves are capable of. I visualize the Masters of Wisdom and of the Harmony of Feelings looking down with favor upon this hour and especially upon the feelings that live in our hearts, which are the best when we pledge ourselves to fulfill the work of the Masters in this room that we have built for them. The spirits who have been connected with Theosophy in its best form, as long as it has existed, will send their help into this room; so speaks the feeling that they may do so, but so also speaks a prayer that may be addressed to them in a silent way. When the Masters of Wisdom and Harmony of Feeling, whom we invoke, work in a place where we strive for knowledge, for harmonization, for a foothold in our lives, then this work thrives.

May these good spirits of the theosophical movement bestow their blessings on me when I write out of all your hearts at this hour, not with physical words but only with spiritual words, something like a motto over the door of this house, which is to be written in our hearts , so that we need no physical eyes when we read it upon entering this house, and which we keep in our hearts when we are in this house, when we leave this house, taking with us the longing to gather again and again to cultivate Theosophy. Written over the door shall be:

Those who enter bring love to this home, those who stay inside seek knowledge in this place, those who leave take peace with them from this house.

To me it seems fitting today to speak of something that concerns us very closely; this our home for anthroposophical work in Stuttgart. Perhaps for all of you who have entered this room, and then with a kind of inner vision try to survey the feelings which come to you here, there is a word which may describe what we should like to indicate as the special characteristic of our experience today, namely, mood, feeling; we have doubtless a special feeling, an exalted frame of mind when we are gathered together in this hall. If one follows this feeling further occultly, one may from their standpoint look into the foundation of our life. The most noticeable thing is that we are surrounded by a certain shade of colour which has been used for this room a deep ultramarine. The fact that in many respects combinations of colour play a great part with us, you will also have seen from the way in which we have tried to present the Mystery Plays, and also from the colours of other rooms which we have been able to dedicate to anthroposophical work.

Now it is by no means a matter of indifference to a person in a certain frame of mind what kind of colour he is surrounded by. And further, it is not immaterial what principle shade of colour acts upon a person of this or that temperament, intellectual nature of character. It is also not immaterial for the whole human organisation whether a certain shade of colour acts upon him by being repeated again and again for a long time, or whether it acts only temporarily. You will remember that we covered the hall which served us for the 1907 Congress with a certain shade of red; but from this the conclusion must not be drawn that red is always the right colour for a lecture room. The room here we have covered with a different colour, and if one enquires the reason for these different procedures, the answer is that the hall at Munich was used for a few days for a particular festive occasion, and event which was over in a few days, and was intended to arouse the frame of mind appropriate to this occasion. But here we have a workroom in which our Stuttgart friends will do their anthroposophical work and carry on their classes again and again from week to week. Essentially we are dealing with a room which will be used for oft-recurring classes.

You will best realise the importance of colour if we describe how it affects occultists. For this it is necessary that a person should free himself completely from everything else and devote himself to the particular colour, immerse himself in it. If the person who devotes himself to the colour which covers these physically dense walls were one who had made curtain occult progress it would come about that after a period of this complete devotion the walls would disappear from his clairvoyant vision; the consciousness that the walls shut off the outer world would vanish. Now what which first appears is not merely that he sees the neighbouring houses outside, that the walls become like glass, but in the sphere that opens up there comes a world of purely spiritual phenomenon, spiritual facts and beings become visible. We need only reflect that behind everything around us physically there are spiritual beings and facts. That which lies at the foundation of the physical objects outside in a certain way become visible, what becomes visible is not the same if there are different surroundings. The worlds which surround us spiritually are of many kinds, many different kinds of elementary beings are around us, These elementary beings are not enclosed in boxes or in such a state that they live in various houses. The law of impenetrability only applies to the physical world; penetrability is the law for the higher worlds. But they cannot all be seen in the same way; according to the capacity of clairvoyant vision there may be visible and invisible beings in the same space. When spiritual beings become visible in any particular instance, depends upon the colour to which we devote ourselves. In a red room, other beings become visible than is a blue room, when one penetrates to them by means of colour. We may ask: what happens if one is not clairvoyant? That which the clairvoyant does consciously is done unconsciously by the etheric body of a person if it is not clairvoyantly trained; it enters into a certain relation with the same beings. The consequence of this is nothing less than that, according to our surroundings, we come in touch with one or another kind of spiritual beings. Now, further, it is a case of being able to establish a favourable or unfavourable connection with the beings that surround us. Let us suppose that we use a colour for the room which brings us into connection with beings who disturb us in what we do in this room, then the colour is unfavourable. Conversely, our etheric body may be assisted by spiritual beings though using the corresponding colour; this is then, of course, favourable. Now this room is devoted to repeated study through which we desire to progress in our knowledge. If we have to work in such a room as this, it is necessary that we should be able fully to devote ourselves with our entire human organisation to what is brought before us. We do not wish to be disturbed by anything, we wish to work under the best conditions so that we may take in these things as well as possible; naturally one person will take then in better, another not so well, but the best possible conditions are to be made, so that each one can devote himself—so far as it is possible in accordance with his inner organisation—to the studies which are here brought forward. The colour surrounding us here, brings us in touch with beings in our spiritual environment who come to help us in our etheric body in the spiritual truths within us. In such a building and such a room as this, we are least disturbed, our etheric body is not burdened with fighting against prejudicial influences of certain elementary beings, but the forces of our etheric body are able to work more easily.

Thus we see that for work which is continually repeated and for which there must be a certain calmness of soul as a foundation, exactly this surrounding must be chosen. Let us suppose that we have to deal with something particularly earnest, but which is temporary; in this case if we consider the occult law it is very advantageous—if we are to have not only a festive spirit but also inward strength—to surround ourselves with red. If we have to make a strong decision of the will, we must overcome the spiritual beings which penetrate in. That is to say, on festive occasions we must become strong, so that what we may become a permanent impulse; and unsympathetic weakness of disposition and does not allow earnest decisions of the will to be made, which although roused in a short time, are to remain permanently. The effects of colour are extremely important.

Now you know that under certain circumstances in the general state of our cosmic environment, we see a fundamental colour outspread above us; the blue sky. This blue of the sky is very important to the people of our age, for though the blue expanse of space working upon our souls they continually receive the call to come into touch with the beings in the great world, these beings act upon us through this colour and call upon our etheric body to think of the spiritual. With regard to the blue sky it was not always with man as it is now. The people of the present day think that men have always been as they are now, but the entire constitution of man has changed in the course of time. In those ancient days when man possessed an original clairvoyance there was no blue sky such as exists for present humanity, but at that time when he gazed out into the expanse of space, it was not limited by the blue sky, but he saw into the spiritual worlds which lie out there in space. When our ancient ancestors spoke of heaven beginning there above, that is to say, that the spiritual beings of the Hierarchies are to be found there, they expressed the literal truth.

With these colours which appear transparent (the coloured windows) it is again different from what it is in the case of a colour which is on a wall which we cannot see through. When we observe this shinning bright colour we have to say: Just as through the colour which is on the opaque walls we enter into relation with certain beings, so through the transparent shining colour, we enter into relation with other beings. While the beings with whom we come in touch through the opaque walls are primarily outspread in space, but really have nothing to do with the three kingdoms below us, the mineral, vegetable and animal kingdoms, through shining colours we come in touch with the beings who are directly occupied with bringing the objects of the three kingdoms of nature into being. When we look particularly through shining red, we come in touch with quite a particular type of beings within the kingdom of nature. When shining red forms a kind of window through which to look clairvoyantly into the kingdom of nature, we meet with beings whose work forms the best forces for the future of our earth existence. They have to be there in the kingdoms of nature, so that inner forces may develop in man which make him more and more chaste in his blood, that is to say, in his passion life, and when we look into the kingdom of nature in this way, we are looking upon those beings which, although we may not be aware of it, incite us the most to rouse up and push forward in the purification of our passions.

Besides being surrounded here in this room by certain shades of colour, we see all kinds of tokens and symbolic figures. These are filled with meaning, although I do not mean the meaning which can be found by the intellect. Ingenious persons may discover in them all sorts of curious things, but to occultists explanations such as these mean nothing. The chief point is that these figures are actually here, and if we turn our physical eyes to any one of them, it is not merely the physical eye, but the whole organization, above all, it is the currents of the etheric body which come into motion in quite a special way, they are roused by the course of the lines and by the forms of these figures, so that the etheric body has different movements within it, according as one looks at one figure or another. This means that within the world of etheric substance, which surrounds us, with all the beings incarnated in it, the forms which we see here, are actually present, There are beings who really have these forms in the etheric world; and when we look at one of these figures our etheric body arranges itself in such a way that in its own movements it builds up forms according to these lines, that is, it produces a thought-form which then proceeds from it; and according to the thought-form, will our etheric body be able to make a real union with one or another kind of being. These figures are the means by which this may be accomplished, for when we look at them, we produce within ourselves the thought-forms, that is, the movement-forms in our etheric body. Now these figures are chosen in such a way that when looked at in a rhythmic consecutive order they yield something which is a whole, namely, something which corresponds to a certain stream of development in the outer etheric world, something which through a particular circumstance is favourable to our etheric body; our etheric body has within it the tendency to change, in a certain way it will be different when it is more perfect. The series of forms corresponding to the gradual perfecting of our etheric body will be developed in the consecutive order shown in these figures. When we display these symbolic figures, which are in accordance with certain occult facts, and can let our vision penetrate more deeply, this is a help towards what we are aiming at, and if we produce the corresponding thought-forms in the right consecutive order, we assist our inner being which is to open our understanding for the rhythm which exists when you are speaking of the seven principles of man. We have not placed these figures there merely for decoration, but because they are inwardly connected with what we wish to accomplish here.

We are placed in touch with the surrounding etheric world by means of the thought-forms which we ought to build up in the manner just described; by means of music we are placed in touch with the astral part of our surrounding world. Music acts directly upon our astral body, so that we are made receptive—because this works from within on the etheric body—to all that is incarnated in the astral word, not in the sense in which one speaks of the astral world as contained in kamaloka, but the universal astral world into which the devachanic world also streams down. The revelation through music is a more direct one than when the higher worlds clothe themselves in the forms around us in space; but that which is outspread in space, if it is in accordance with occult results, leaves us independent, whereas music constrains us.

We now come to a kind of action on human beings which affects the etheric body by first stimulating the astral body, also by means of the element of space, and we may also study an example of this in this room. Up above you see two pictures which were contributed to this special occasion by our friend, Stockmeier. These two pictures will later be painted differently, and they will then produce the full effect intended. The effect of these two pictures together, not of each one singly, is somewhat as follows; when first one picture works and then the other afterwards, under all circumstances, whether it is wished or not, the one picture and afterwards the other will together rouse up thought-forms particular formations in the astral body. This remains in the sub-consciousness, and because it is contained in the intention of the pictures—it is only reproduced in an abstract way by means of ideas. Our feeling may perhaps render somewhat more perceptible the thought-forms which our actual body will produce perfectly under all circumstances from these pictures, if Mr. Stockmeier, succeeds in painting them in the right way. The picture on the right; a certain astral form, an kind of dragon is vanquished by a great being who belongs to the higher Hierarchies (Raphael) merely by his magnetic gaze; and when through the development of his will man comes to receive the power of this being into his own will we shall have the powers of which the Greeks thought in connection with the divine powers of Aesclepius with which he healed. All that is contained in the spiritually magnetic gaze, which can have curative effects when it is suitable trained, may be called forth in thought if immediately afterwards we pass over to what belongs to this feeling in the other picture. The optical effects must be conveyed to the phantom, so that with the help of the phantom-forces of the physical body, the effect is strengthened which proceeds from the dragon which is then overcome by the power of Michael. When we acquire the power to feel this thought out of the forces of the universe and think how through the physical body it may receive a vehicle through the will-forces being strengthened, so that a person need no longer say in regard to such forces that the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak, when we have these consecutive feelings and formations of the astral body, we have something which subconsciously can strengthen the moral nature very much. Thus we can draw moral power directly from the consecutive consideration of the two pictures, and still more from three. But it must be expressly pointed out that this applies only to the united notion of such themes, not to one single theme. If it were to depend upon one picture it would have to be differently formed, the two motives would have to act together, as for example, in the Sistine Madonna; in that instance there is a crossing of two motives which can strengthen the moral nature to the highest degree. Up above the clouds out of which the angels heads are formed, and when we look at the child Jesus in the arms of the mother we perceive that it has originated through the consolidation of the same forces which bring the angels only to a cloud existence. That is one motive, in which we perceive the origin of the pure light-being of man out of the cloud-light of the universe, as it were. This motive meets that which in expressed in the mother; she is full of innocence and love, and from that which appears to us as the body, the face, the lines of the mother, we see coming forth, as it were the warmest love. Light from above, condensing into the pure light-body of the child Jesus, and warming love from below, meeting and touching in the position of the arm—the two motives blending together—this gives subconsciously to our astral body, whether it wishes it or not, if a person only has the patience to devote himself to it, the feeling: It is thy duty to bring thy love towards that which can reveal itself to thee from divine heights, so that thou takest it into thine own arms and realisest it in the world, that thou bringest impulses in life from the spiritual world. The Sistine Madonna is an alter picture in which this thought-form works together with a congregation. We have here to do with two motives which are to rouse in us the frame of mind in which we may become capable of holding fast in thought the laws and the principles of action of the spiritual world. That is the essential point in our anthroposophical work. Spiritual things are always in motion and to the untrained seer they are like dreams. It is difficult to hold fast in thought these moving, fleeting peculiarities of being, and, conversely, it is also difficult in thought to give thought itself such an inner consistency that ont receives the feeling: Thou art thinking a reality of the true spiritual world. We can receive this feeling if we allow these pictures to act upon us in the manner described, not be apathetic towards these things, but look at them repeatedly. Then the forces of the astral body are obliged to experience the effect which may be described by saying, that we come more and more to perceive the true content of anthroposophical thought. We are not coerced unawares, but this recognition is quite free; the co-operation of two motives is something which liberates the free powers of man.

Thus you see that in what surrounds us here all the laws are fulfilled which so-called white magic uses, not to work by means of any overruling force upon modern humanity, but to consider that which is to be worked upon in another human being as a sacred thing which must not be touched, which is to allow the forces of the spiritual world to come forth out of itself. If you bear in mind what has been said in this lecture you will realise how important it is to anthroposophical work that it should have its own home, for you will have received the feeling that such a home must be built and arranged within according to the laws of occultism itself, and indeed, according to laws of occultism which at first are somewhat remote. You will also understand what it means on the whole when we possess no such home and are obliged to give our lectures on Anthroposophy and carry on our studies in the ordinary rooms usually at our disposal. Our age has, indeed, very little talent in the domain which has been touched upon today, and the greatest sins are committed in the realms of form and colour. For instance, the way people dress and the colours they use are outrageous, and when one goes through the streets of a large town and looks at the shop-windows with a vision sharpened by occultism, he will be obliged to decide for himself the question whether what he sees comes from sound reason or from something else. And if the judgment as regards colour is bad, it is still worse with form. But this limited talent also exists in regard to the decoration of rooms, and when it takes place in full consciousness it is frightful to be obliged to hold our anthroposophical lectures in conventional rooms. When this fact is considered and then compared with our present surroundings, with all this which has proceeded from our intentions, which surrounds us not in any way from caprice, but as we must be surrounded, if we wish to work under favourable conditions, then we shall be able to realise the importance of what has been done here; and the words that I have said to you today are intended to help us to realise it.

A spiritual movement can be injured very much by one-sidedness; and when we devote ourselves to such a subject as the occult standpoints of the Stuttgart building¹ we must clearly understand that when some single truth is specially emphasised, a strong light falls upon this truth, and one may then easily fail to recognise what should also be observed — the other side of the matter. In order to arrive at an all-round view one should always bear this in mind. For example, to all that was said yesterday² something else must be added. Certainly, a still greater perfection is attained when we are able purely in thought to erect around us such a temple, when we are able to imagine ourselves surrounded in thought by such a home. To this end our thoughts must be so strong that they act like a physical home. This may be achieved by a great power of concentration when, alone by ourselves, we follow rules such as are given in my books, The Way of Initiation and Initiation and its Results.³

But now, in order that we may have the right ideas about the necessity of such a building, we must say that when we devote ourselves to our studies in our lodge work, we require not only that we as individuals shall produce the conditions for our concentration, but also that we shall be disturbed as little as possible by what is around us. As the human being consists not only of the physical organism but also of supersensible principles, and these are active and set up relations with our environment, it is necessary when we exert our physical thought, for us to support the efforts of our will for our etheric and astral bodies. This we can do by providing for our subconsciousness — that is, for our etheric and astral bodies — conditions which may best be set up when we are in occult surroundings.

For this reason such a building is a great benefit and becomes a necessity to us.

We must bear in mind that in a certain way the great truths are at the same time difficulties to a person, something which he must first learn to bear, something which at first may be shocking, which may upset him, because it agrees so little with his everyday life. Therefore, in order to come to the higher truths in as favourable a way as possible it is necessary to provide a building such as this so that the spiritual knowledge which awaits us may indeed come into us — and in our age the Masters of Wisdom and of Harmony of Feeling are able to give us a great deal.

Since the end of the 19th century many doors have opened to the spiritual world, and many streams of spiritual life may be led into us. It may be said that just in the immediate future, towards which humanity is now going, the conditions are becoming more and more favourable for the influx of important spiritual knowledge which can enable us to progress quickly in every respect; but in order to clear away the hindrances which come through people — after they have just slipped out of materialism — not yet being sufficiently mature to receive the great truths, we must develop within ourselves a frame of mind which brings less danger of disturbance. This can be accomplished by means of suitable surroundings; and everywhere where from our standpoint just at this time care should be taken to see all is in order, there everything will really be observed which the occult point of view demands. It is natural that the needs and wishes of one who comes into Anthroposophy should go very far to one side or another, and because on the other hand there cannot be the necessary insight, it is difficult to be obliged to deny things which the other considers right. Very often it is not perceived that the denial is for the other’s welfare, and it is especially the case that some can only await the answer to one question or another with very great difficulty.

Because all knowledge is exoteric, one has grown so accustomed to expect that fundamentally everything that a person may ask can always be answered; but to this belongs two things at least. One is that the person who wants the answer should be in the position to understand it, that is to say, that through his whole anthroposophical or theosophical development he had progressed far enough to understand the answer. Abstract reasons prompt him to put the question much earlier than it is possible for him to understand the answer which is given from occult worlds. The other is that the one asked knows the answer. In regard to certain spiritual knowledge we are just at the stage when a question may be very premature, not only for individuals but for our whole age, although the answer will doubtless be given to us in the right form in the course of time. For this reason I said in the course of lectures at Karlsruhe⁴ that an essential thing in occultism is: to be able to wait. Particularly one who perhaps has undergone a certain development must be able to do this, and most of all one who has reached a certain height of occult development. When a person considers it extremely important to answer a question at a certain time, the intellect, which is always ready to answer, may very easily conjure up an answer, even from the feeling of a trained occultist. This answer is not only false or insufficient, but it takes away for a long time the possibility of a coming to the right answer at all, hence it is necessary to be able to wait until one is favoured with an answer from the spiritual world.

This applies not only to the highest questions, but also to more elementary ones. Even to the trained occultist there is a great temptation to produce the answer out of himself, but then he will be liable to fall into error. These two pictures [in our building here in Stuttgart] are an example. Our friend Stockmeyer has said for a long time that he wishes to finish them. The answer concerning the idea was promised him as soon as it was possible. That went on for a long time. To the despair of the architect the pictures were only finished very late indeed. Where did the fault lie? It was because the answer which was necessary as a kind of occult sketch for these pictures could only be given very late. One had to wait until the intuition came. These ideas might very easily be thought out, but then they would be worthless. What is so necessary is that one should not only go the straight way, as it were, but one should also have the resignation not to excogitate something; only to exercise the intellect upon occult truths when they are there, but not in order to find them. For this purpose the intellect must be absolutely laid aside. When occult truths are there they must then be taken up and established by the intellect, it must give them a logical character. One must make a practice of this if one wishes to progress; just as when one uses details which may perhaps be elementary in order to fit them into a whole. Then what will happen if in Munich we wish to build a great hall and at the right time we have not the idea which is to be embodied? We are Anthroposophists and know that karma works not only in individual beings, but in all connections, and when we have this faith we know that when a thing is necessary it can let us wait, but it will come, and indeed at the right time. We cannot judge when the right time is, for this we need confidence in the future; if it does not come, then it is not the right thing for us. This is not fatalism, for such a faith does not prevent us from making every effort, but it directs these efforts into the right lines. We make no false attempts with our intellect, but prepare ourselves for the moment when we shall be favoured. Instead of worrying oneself in front of a sheet of paper it is better to sink into prayerful meditation and ask of karma that this moment of intuition may come.

With this is also connected what might be called the right view of the Rosicrucian principle. If one who is acquainted with the Rosicrucian Temple⁵ in a pedantic, external manner were to come into this building, and if he were to remember the rules taught him from old traditions, he would say: “You have done it all wrong, that is not Rosicrucian.” We should have to reply: That which you demand we do not wish, and could not wish it, for Rosicrucianism does not mean to carry on certain truths throughout the centuries, but it means to develop the sense for what each age can give to man from the spiritual world. That which in the l4th century might perhaps be wrong is right in our age, and in our age it must be done in this way, for our relation to the spiritual powers around us requires exactly this form. This building, therefore, is not constructed after an old pattern, but it is built in accordance with the requirements of our age.

For what is the demand made of us by the spiritual powers? I give hardly a single lecture without using the word ‘theosophical’, as this is linguistically possible, although it is not grammatically correct. Perhaps many would find our address, “My dear theosophical friends,” blameworthy.⁶ This word is purposely used because the heart of our mission may be characterised by this word. Theosophy, or Anthroposophy is something which has always existed in the world and has been cultivated in all ages in the way in which humanity had to cultivate it according to its requirements — at one time in wider circles and at another in smaller ones, according to the peculiarities of the several ages. It is something which — after all the preceding developments have taken place — may now be given in such a form that, within certain limits, it can enter into each human I, into every feeling and every stage of intellectual maturity.

Today there need be no one who, if he has the goodwill, may not receive Theosophy or Anthroposophy. For this reason it is on the one hand something external and on the other a special task of our age. From this standpoint we must consider ourselves as the vehicles of the world-movement which must be described as the theosophical or anthroposophical movement.

That within this movement, according to the capacities of the individuals, the most varied shades may be found, should be self-evident, and this has been the case in our movement in every age. When Theosophy becomes conviction it provides the ground upon which the most varied knowledge may blossom forth, but they have to be obtained on the paths of actual truth. Among those who understand the heart of occultism it is always the case that they cannot disturb one another; it is impossible for persons to disturb one another who are engaged in occult practice and through proceeding from different starting-points arrive at other formulations. That is a strict law. The occultist may not fight when he sees that other occultists have correct starting-points and are striving rightly, even if he finds their formulation clumsy. The fact that various occultists formulate what they have to say in different ways may depend upon the various starting-points, and according to how they consider it necessary to bring this or that from the higher worlds.

It is different when it becomes evident that other movements are not on the same level, when they simply set to work with more elementary conditions and then assert that this is the final truth. Not to recognise a higher standpoint is wrong. If someone were to say that Christ — whose nature we have tried for years in our spiritual movement to render more and more plain — can incarnate more than once upon the earth in a fleshly body — upon what would this assertion rest? From what you have heard and will still hear you will clearly understand that there is a Being Who works in such a way that He could sojourn but once in a physical body for three years, and cannot come again and again in a physical body. This is a truth which has always been emphasised by Rosicrucianism; and it was also clearly shown in the Mysteries. One who does not know this may arrive at an incorrect formulation from a knowledge which does not extend so far into these regions; incorrect because it uses the name Christ.

On the other hand it is possible to say: Why does the other speak differently? He speaks differently because he is not thinking at all of what we have here called Christ. He designates someone else as Christ, of whom perhaps might be said what he says, but it is not the one who is spoken of in this movement, because it is the unconditional necessity of our age — as the requirements of the Masters of Wisdom and Harmony of Feeling — that we should speak of this high Being whom we call Christ. And when we read the Gospels we may recognise and identify Him with the One who for 2,000 years has been thus described. This is an historical right, not an absolute one, of course! Although the knowledge of Him has been very imperfect for 2,000 years, He has been thus described, and we do the same for historical reasons. On this account this name ought not to be used for other beings. This is something which has always been emphasised and which today can really be quite easily understood by anyone.

It is, however, interesting to notice how difficult for some to understand this matter clearly, but those who from the very beginning have no particular inclination to enter into more detailed explanations will have felt it uncomfortable that we do not by any means make the matter concerning Christ so easy. This one could see again in Karlsruhe (when the preceding course of lectures on the subject of ‘Jesus to Christ’ was given). What was said there was only possible because of everything else which had preceded it. Thus at the present time it is not yet very easy to arrive at the Christ principle, but it is a necessity which is laid upon us by the leaders of the spiritual movement.

It is very remarkable that there has been a certain difficulty in introducing the special investigations of Rosicrucianism into the theosophical movement, and even the position of this movement is very misunderstood here; exactly in how far does this movement merit the name of a Rosicrucian movement? But I shall never say: “My Rosicrucian friends!” You may gather from this that it was never correct to consider what belongs to Rosicrucianism as something exclusive. If someone outside our movement were to say that we were Rosicrucians, that would not only be a misunderstanding, but it would be a somewhat defamatory designation for our movement. This always reminds me of a man in the market place who once said that so and so was a phlegmatic, and a woman said, “Oh, is that what he was? But I know he is a butcher!” It is somewhat similar when in order to distinguish us someone calls us Rosicrucians. This has no meaning. Rosicrucianism has flowed into our movement, it is assimilated and to a certain extent practised. How difficult it is to let this current flow in you may see in the remarkable fate of the personality to whom all we in this movement look up with great respect: Helena Petrovna Blavatsky. If you follow her development from Isis Unveiled to The Secret Doctrine you will see that a great amount of Rosicrucian knowledge has streamed into Isis Unveiled. For reasons which cannot now be discovered she then swerved to one side in The Secret Doctrine, which did not further develop what could have been carried further, but on the contrary took a side path. But how strongly these Rosicrucian principles acted we may see in the third volume of The Secret Doctrine. There one finds the greatest truths next to really impossible things. One who is able to discriminate may connect this with what is being revealed today.

Thus it has come about that Helena Petrovna Blavatsky has very clearly said that it must never be thought that Christ Who is to come again will reappear in a fleshly body, but that the coming Christ must only be understood as an event which a person experiences through a connection with the spiritual world. We take the same ground that she did in this respect, when in a clearer way than was possible to her, we work out what she commenced. When she turns with such severity against the idea that Christ could incarnate again in the flesh it is not easy when the reproach is made against our movement that her most important knowledge, which sometimes is not well formulated, is violated. There is continuity, and there is no need to make this breach with the original starting-point, by coming into conflict with what concerns the coming of Christ. Although we always set what is true in place of what is false, in many things we may go back to the original statements of Helena Petrovna Blavatsky. And we may know that in the form in which she now lives she wished that the continuity should be developed, which should not be an adhesion to the formulas but a working in the spirit which existed at that time. It was not a spirit of standing still, and least of all a spirit of retrogression! We work in the best way when we bring out that which was still closed to Helena Petrovna Blavatsky. The doors have opened in quite a different way, especially since 1899.

Without taking into account anything that has gone before, we try to penetrate into the meaning and importance of the Christ Principle. This leads us naturally to join on to the occult investigations which have been made with special care in Rosicrucian circles since the l3th century.

But those who have heard my various courses and lectures will know that we are not now teaching the Rosicrucianism of the 13th century. We are Rosicrucians of the 20th century! It is our task to join on to the principles which Rosicrucianism possessed, to utilise them in theosophical progress. We cannot do otherwise than recognise that what has thus been found is something higher in every way than anything else in the world with respect to the Christ Principle. We must, however, admit that on account of the energy with which this principle has been worked out the teachings regarding Karma and Reincarnation passed into the background. Therefore we are dealing not with the spirit of an historical epoch, nor with the spirit of Rosicrucianism, but with the Spirit of Truth. It is quite indifferent to us where one faith or another appears, we have to deal with the Spirit of Truth, and on this account all division into categories and forms must always give rise to misunderstandings in our movement; we desire only to serve the Truth, as was described with respect to our small festival. We wish to represent not what this or that age has said, but what comes directly from the spiritual world. That which can be recognised by the human intellect is our concern; in accordance with this we shall lead our movement further, and with respect to all other creeds we may call ourselves theosophists, according to the motto of our movement: No religion is higher than Truth. In this respect we take the most theosophic ground.

For this reason we surround ourselves not with a building modelled according to Rosicrucian pattern but with one that is planned for a particular object. For example, the size of the space is the external condition for this. Perhaps we should have been quite unable to add one thing or another if the space had been larger or smaller. No scheme is of any value, but we have to wait for what comes to us as a gift from spiritual worlds. In other words, our whole effort is to understand something that sounds so simple: To open our hearts to the spiritual world which is always around us, to understand words such as those which Christ said: “I am with you always, even to the end of the world.” If someone were to examine the work we have done in past years he will not be able to say that we present Christianity in a way it was thought in the early centuries. We desire to acquire the spirit which wishes to come close to Christ as He is today; and only when we have recognised that this Christ is a living One we shall illuminate what took place in former times.

In the same way we consider Buddha as a living One, who follows his principle that Buddha does not return any more in the flesh. If someone were to affirm this, we should have to reply that he understands nothing about Buddhism, for one who has risen from Bodhisattva to Buddha does not return. For Buddha lives, and he works in our movement and illuminates what he accomplished 2,500 years ago by what he does today.

Just as only he may speak of Buddha who knows him, so also only he who knows Christ may speak about Him. Therefore if someone says that a very important being will come in a fleshly body, that may be correct, but he has nothing to do with Christ. The fact is that if a person enters deeply into the nature of Christ he comes to understand that the other is making a mistake; it can never be the reverse. This brings difficulties, but it must be borne in mind — especially by one who has occasion to practise theosophical principles in the true sense — that one should exercise tolerance even towards error. But to exercise tolerance means, not to acknowledge error but to deal with it with love, otherwise it would be a sin against the Holy Spirit. We must exercise tolerance precisely because in regard to Christ we represent the Rosicrucian principle.

We can wait until opposition comes, exactly concerning Christ. If you understand this word, the principle of the most real search for truth and on the other hand real tolerance, you will be able to answer for yourselves the question: In what sense are we Theosophists and in what sense are we Rosicrucians?

• 1. The Branch-House in Stuttgart; the first building specially erected and designed for anthroposophical work; opened by Rudolf Steiner in October, 1911.
• 2. Special Building for Anthroposophy at Stuttgart from an Occult Point of View, Stuttgart, 15 October 1911
• 3. The Way of Initiation is an early version of the first half of the book entitled Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and Its Attainment. The book Initiation and Its Results corresponds to the second half of Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and Its Attainment.
• 4. Course of lectures From Jesus to Christ, GA 131
• 5. See description of the Temple of the Holy Grail in The Younger Titurel by Albrecht von Scharfenberg, about 1270 AD.
• 6. This lecture was given prior to the exclusion of the German Section from the Theosophical Society. Since then Dr. Steiner’s movement has continued as the Anthroposophical Society.

The subject we are to deal with today has been a matter of interest at all times. In particular, however, we may describe the relationship between man and woman as a kind of question of our immediate present, as a question that is being discussed with great vehemence today from the most diverse points of view, from the most diverse partisan standpoints. It is not the task or the mission of occult science to become involved in party disputes and conflicts. Therefore, what will be said about this subject today may seem, in some respects, quite out of keeping with the times, for from a higher vantage point, spiritual science has to consider questions such as these with complete objectivity, with complete calm, with the calmness of the narrative tone.

However, it does not have it easy. For such questions stir up the human mind, the whole world of feeling and passion in an extraordinary way, and more than with anything else, it is the case with such a question that one or the other has their answer somehow ready, and that therefore much of what has to be said from a higher point of view, especially in this field, goes against all their judgments and prejudices, that they have to rebel inwardly. But this cannot deter the spiritual researcher, despite all party antagonisms, despite all the stirring up of passions, especially in such a field to fulfill his task towards the present, to be a keen observer and to raise such a question above all party-political views.

Just how difficult this is can be seen from a very small selection of judgments that are being made in this area in our present day. Not only agitators and agitators, not only those who lightly find these or those buzzwords, have talked about our topic, especially about the nature of women, but also those who want to strike a higher objective tone from their own point of view, and it will be instructive to take this little survey. It should be emphasized from the outset that not just any random judgments will be given, but rather, leading judgments.

Scholars and unlearned people have expressed their views on the nature of women. But it is significant how this has happened. There is someone who deals with the nature of man from an anthropological point of view, summarizing the nature of woman in the word: sense of devotion. Mind you, that is not meant as if it were an ideal that women should strive for, but rather he wants to say that, according to a woman's nature, the most salient quality of a woman is the sense of devotion. Another personality, who wanted to describe the nature of women with equal objectivity, summarized what emerged for her and expressed the nature of women with the word: lust for power. A very important pathologist tried to sketch the nature of women from his point of view. He said: Everything in a woman points to one basic quality, which is gentleness. Another said: “Temperance under anger.” Yet another, who believed he could summarize the qualities of women from a higher vantage point, said: “Conservative sense,” and yet another said: “Everything revolutionary comes from the nature of women.” There you have a small selection that can give you a picture of the unanimity of those who want to sketch objectively. A very famous nerve pathologist wrote the little book: “On the physiological imbecility of women”.

If we take such judgments not only from their comic but also from their universal spiritual side, they are highly instructive; for they show us what it means when we are told: What you spiritual scientists say is subjective belief, but when you stand on the field of external observation, only unanimous judgments can come out. — Such are these unanimous judgments! But it is interesting that here, as in so many points of our contemporary judgments, we are confronted with a fact that proves how secret science is something that must seem to us to be called for when it comes to the great, important questions of the present. For even if our time gropes in the dark about such things in many respects, this groping in the dark often points out, in a remarkable presentiment, how necessary it is to speak the right word.

Something that must seem like a caricature of the right idea, spoken out of the spirit of materialism, is to be found in a sensational book that has been published recently, a book by the young Weininger, a brilliant but immature thinker: “Sex and Character”. If we want to appreciate this strange presentiment correctly, we must first bring to mind a fact that spiritual science shows us. Although we have often described the elementary view of the nature of man, today we must once again delve into this nature of man. We understand from the point of view of spiritual science... /gap in transcript

Now we understand the relationship between man and woman when we first express an important fact that spiritual science provides us, a fact that may seem grotesque to some, but that does not matter. Basically, every human being has both sexes within them in some form. The man has the visible male body on the outside; his etheric or life body is of a female nature; and the opposite is true for women, so that a polar contrast is present in humans.

He who tries to appreciate this fact with all the powers of his soul will understand how much of the phenomena becomes understandable. Who would not see how female qualities unite in man in beautiful harmony with his male qualities! At the same time, something else is given, so that one can raise the question: If now in sleep the astral body and the ego are outside the physical and etheric body, what about the sex of the astral body and the ego? They are absolutely neutral in terms of sex; what lives in sex is an organ outwards, just like the senses.

This means that we no longer speak superficially of the male and female from the point of view of the external world, but we realize that we have to return to the invisible worlds, to the etheric body. Sensory observation is an illusion in this area. Outwardly, man is man, but inwardly he has the qualities of his female etheric body, and sensory observation shows us only one part of his being. This fact is caricatured by Weininger, only he speaks of this fact in a grossly materialistic sense. He talks about male and female substances being mixed up in every part of the human being. But it is not possible to make any progress with such a materialistic theory. He then goes on to describe some of the strange characteristics of women. Women have no individuality and no personality and no intelligence and no freedom and no character and no will. The male side also has this essence within it. Every man also has a part of his nature that has no individuality and so on.

If we hold fast to the truth that in every man we have to reckon with the male nature on the outside and the female nature on the inside, then we will understand many of the points of view of men and women. And we will understand the deep foundation of truth from which our male culture speaks, for example: “The eternal feminine draws us up.” This is spoken from the man's point of view. But since our expired culture was a man's culture and only now is the interaction beginning that will bear fruit of which today's world has little idea, we understand that in all mysticism that which strives upwards, the neutrally sexless, is referred to as the eternal feminine. One has only to see what active, positive qualities women are able to produce in the service of war, in the service of love, in the service of charity, and what intrepidity women show in quite different virtues; then one will be able to see the dual nature fully.

But now we need to approach the subject from an even deeper perspective. It has become clear to us that gender, that which expresses itself in the contrast between male and female, belongs to the physical and etheric bodies. What about a contrast that expresses itself here in the world in the higher worlds? Does every contrast cease to exist there? At night, it no longer makes sense to speak of gender. In a world for which one needs the higher senses, the human astral body lives with the ego at night. The human astral body and ego are united with this world of spiritual beings. Does the possibility of speaking of a similar contrast even cease in these worlds, or is there also something of such a contrast there? This question must arise for anyone who adheres to the basic truth that everything physical is the external expression of the spiritual. The contrast of the sexes must be the physical expression of something in the spiritual world. The mystery of the sexual is so deep and significant that when one comes to speak of the truth in this area, one must assert paradox upon paradox for the superficial observer.

There is an opposition in the world into which man enters during the state of sleep, an opposition whose expression here is the opposition of the sexes. This opposition in the spiritual world has been designated in secret science since ancient times as the opposition of death and life. Behind our world lies a world in which higher forces are for death and life. And here in this world, the expression of the opposite sexes is the expression of this power. We will be able to understand this at least approximately.

Let us consider a being of this world, for example, the human being. We must not look at him too straightforwardly and simply; we must see, if we want to understand him, how opposites actually come to expression in this human being. We see how the human being is born, how he grows up, how, up to the age of seven, he first develops the form according to what is firmly determined, how this form continues to grow and become larger for a long time, how he then remains stationary, how consuming forces then take effect from the middle of life. Where the creative forces appear to be concentrated, there is birth; where the destructive forces appear, there is death. In the middle of life we are in balance. But throughout life, these two forces are present in man. With birth, the destructive forces already begin their activity. In the middle of life, they gain the upper hand. And the human being is not possible without the continuous interaction of these two forces. If only the power of life were at work in man, then man would, in a short time, flare up like fire, constantly developing, rushing through life. The consuming forces, which find their sum in death, are at the same time the forces which, as beneficent forces in man, make it possible to bring form and shape into his being. From life comes a forward urge. Life seeks to transform every form into a new one. Death only appears to be something that, by its very nature, is destruction when we look at it in its totality. It is not always what it is as a totality. The same force that encompasses the human physical body is what gives the human being his form and maintains it in a certain state of rest. You can see this when you observe the opposite in an external being, for example, a plant. There you see how shoot after shoot is produced, how the forces of life bring forth leaf after leaf. And there you see a force that maintains the form, that brings firmness and shape into the rushing life. If only the power of life were at work, a leaf could not exist at all, for life would rush on. Life must continually be held back and drawn out of its never-ceasing course. These two forces keep each other in eternal balance. These two, appearing in their highest point as death and life, are the builders of formed life in the outer world.

If we want to examine this contrast in a specific case, it presents itself in yet another form. The spiritual science that has been active in Europe since the fourteenth century has called this contrast: the contrast between formation and decay. In contrast to the rushing life, the forming form, that which is forming. This contrast can be felt everywhere in life, if one does not merely comprehend the world with the intellect. And if we now look for this other expression, we say: That which can be expressed in the decaying forces, when the Juno Ludovisi stands before us, where all life, frozen in the wonderful form, is captured in a moment, there you have the power at its highest tension. In reality, form does not live itself out in a moment like that. Forms change in every moment. The inner life is compressed in a single instant and then it presents itself to us. Beauty is the outward expression of what only the forces of decay can achieve, the forces that stop life. Primordial power, will, that is the other thing that form seeks to overcome in every moment. If we want to see forces, then in the time between formation and formation, action must be taken.

And in yet another respect, this contradiction between form and life, between destruction and eternal becoming, lives in man. If only the forces of life ruled in man, it would be as if there were an overabundance of oxygen. Man would rush. From the astral world comes the power of life and the power of stopping life. And so it is with our life. We must go through death. If we did not go through death, then something would be missing. We know how, in many lives on earth, the human being appears with heightened consciousness and a more complete ego. How does the human being come to fully grasp life? No being would be able to develop its self-awareness ever higher. It could not come to this if it could not experience its opposite itself. Imagine a being that had no idea that there is destruction, that had never sensed a fear of death, that would find it impossible to look death in the face. Such a being could not come to the strong sense of self and life that knows that in the end life conquers death. In contrast, we get to know the strong forces. We owe our ego to the fact that we are able to go through death. And he has the right feeling who has known and overcome the fear of death. Man takes up the forces of death and processes them into an elevated life.

And in the physical world, to whom does man, a being that can go through death, owe this fact, which is so important for his life, to be able to overcome death? To the opposite of the male and female.

For spiritual science, the female represents the creator of form, the male as that which wants to overcome the form over and over again. If only the feminine were able to work in the world, then everything would become rigid in form, even if it were a beautiful form. The feminine could cause life to take place in a closed form. Existence owes the fact that this form is overcome, that it rushes from form to form, to the interaction of the feminine with the masculine. And we human beings owe our form to the female part, and we owe the developing life, the becoming, to the male part. And everything in life is an interaction of these forces. Therefore, male and female work together in every being, and a man is only a human being in whom one pole is particularly pronounced in the physical, while the inner shaping remains more spiritual. And in woman the female form appears outwardly, while the will-like aspect appears inwardly. That is why there is a harmonious complementarity in the relationship between the sexes. That is why one sex finds something in the other that is of the same nature and essence, and why one sex understands the other because one has the other within itself.

Things in the world are so wonderfully interlinked that what sometimes seems so wonderful to us in the mood: the contrast between destruction and becoming, is expressed in the sexual contrast. Destruction, when stopped, means rest in form. When it presents itself to us in our outer life, becoming means at the same time the destruction of form from another side. Thus, when we consider this matter in its totality, nothing more or less sympathetic can ever be attached to one or other of these words. From a spiritual scientific point of view, our life on earth appears to us in such a way that we can say: with the interaction of the sexes, a compromise between form and eternal becoming and destruction of form is implanted in the human being. What must arise in a human being is implanted in that being. We take up these two forces of form and life with our generation because we are called into life from two sides. And so the great laws of the cosmos work that what appears as a contrast in another world as male and female appears in a higher world as a stronger contrast. Only when we see how two forces work together in each being, and that these beings can only stand before us because the balance of these forces is maintained in them, does our contemplation of male and female in all of nature become imbued not only with the concept and idea of the intellect, but also with will, mood and feeling. The world is complex and diverse, and we can only understand it if we engage with its complexity. As wonderful as this derivation of the sexual opposition from the other opposition of a higher world appears, it is a good guide if we follow it everywhere in life. We then know why the opposition of the sexes occurs in the world at all. It is justified because in the world the balance between formation and evolution must prevail. When man, as an initiate, ascends from the physical world to higher worlds, he does not encounter the opposition of male and female in these higher worlds. The saying in the Bible is deeply true: “There is no marrying in the heavens.” (Matthew 22:30; Mark 12:25; Luke 20:35f.) But when we look at the higher worlds with clairvoyance, we see another contrast everywhere. Everything is in a state of perpetual motion. Here this becoming and forming is only slowed down and condensed. It appears to us to be more calm. This can give us a picture of how something that can be perceived in the higher worlds appears in a completely different light. It could look as if this only applies to humans. But it applies everywhere where death and life and a sexual contrast are expressed in the physical world.

Thus, in art, in Juno, all soul, all inner greatness, everything that strides from state to state in the rushing life, appears to us as poured out in a moment into a form and held fast. If this form were truth in real existence, the being would have to die at the same time. Beauty, if it is to be present in form, requires that the being in which beauty is expressed to its full extent is not a real being. Life must come out, then what remains, when what must be overcome in life remains there for itself, is the beauty of form. And if you want to represent the inner becoming, the rushing from state to state, then you will see that it can be captured in a characteristic form, but it is impossible to capture it in a beautiful form. They are not beautiful, the forms of the Laocoon Group. No inner calm is captured. Beauty and life are the same opposites in the field of art that we have outlined in the field of reality. There we look deeply into life. We only have to make such a study of life really alive and practical. At every turn in life we can look deeply into it and gain understanding if we look at things from such points of view. If we see anything that is captured in form, we sense hidden life, and when we see life, we long deeply — and this longing gives us a relationship to the being concerned — for movement. And that which is a spiritual-scientific fact is presented to us in the great religious documents in words. That is the significance of these documents: we understand them only when we have realized the underlying facts within ourselves.

Let us consider female nature. Outwardly, it is the feminine; inwardly, the masculine. Outwardly, it is that which gives form to life; inwardly, it is that which continually seeks to destroy life. Outwardly, it is that which gives the human being his form, placing him on the earth with his feet; inwardly, the female nature contains that which continually seeks to lead the human being to ever higher levels, lifting him from the earth into ever higher spheres. Let us now look at this contrast between the masculine and the feminine in woman. What can we say about this contrast? There is a power in woman that seeks to bind man to earth and that, if it were alone, would crush the striving of his head for spiritual heights. And there is a power, the hidden masculine power, that seeks to lift man up from the earth. Think of this as an image. Think of the serpent as representing the masculine power, and think of the feminine nature as representing the other power. What does the female have to do in its outward expression? To crush the head of that which wants to lift man up from the earth. And what does the male nature have to do? To hurt man where he stands firmly on the earth, to bite into the heel. — “She will crush your head, but you will pursue her heel.” (Genesis 3:15)

Here you have a wonderful expression of spiritual scientific fact in a great symbol. And we can take it literally. It sends shivers down the spine when, equipped with the truths of occult science, we approach religious documents and find the literal expression for great facts of life in their images. And then the word that these documents have a higher origin from a spiritual world becomes for us not a hypothesis but a necessary realization. Can it be the product of a child's imagination, what we recognize by looking deeply into nature? One must ask oneself this question, and it always leads us to show how we can make more and more progress in knowledge and understand the documents of the religions better and better. A seemingly mundane observation such as the relationship between the sexes leads to an understanding of an important word. The esoteric teaching must emphasize the mysterious bond between the sexes from the very sources of life, from the spiritual world itself. The antithesis in the physical world has its antithesis in the spiritual world.

The sexes must work together in all fields, including the spiritual. And if we have left behind us an era of prevailing male culture, an era of cooperation between the two forces is to come. It is precisely the science of the secret that brings us light into the question raised by our topic. Everything in life is explained when we derive this life from its invisible, supersensible foundations. Yesterday we spoke in general terms of the mission of spiritual science. Today we see how it fills something ordinary with light and clarity. Everything in life is the expression of forces beyond the sensual life. Whatever we encounter in life, we must seek its origin in the spiritual world. And the interaction of life and form is explained in a magnificent way. If man lived only in form, he would be destroyed; if he lived only in life, death would be the consequence. True life is possible through the interaction of opposites.

Goethe also sheds light on this in the words he calls the “primal words”, to suggest that they are taken from the secret science. He says in the “Orphic Words”:

Just as on the day you were given to the world,
The sun stood to greet the planets,
[You have flourished ever since,
According to the law by which you came into being.
That is how you must be, you cannot escape it!
So said the Sibyls, so said the prophets,
And no time and no power dissect Form that is stamped, that lives and develops.]

You will allow me to precede the recitation of poems by our most esteemed and beloved member Christian Morgenstern with a few words. On such an occasion, I would like to speak differently than I usually have to speak before you. Otherwise, when I speak, I feel obliged not to touch on personal matters and to let our spiritual-scientific worldview speak. This time, however, I may speak to you as I need to speak when I am not bound by such an obligation. I may speak to you very personally on such an occasion.

I would like to see the souls of our dear friends in a kind of festive adornment on such an occasion, because it seems to me that this is an occasion when we can and may feel something directly human about the value and truth of this our spiritual movement in a certain respect. But we can also know something of the value and truth of our spiritual movement through the fact that we give the reasons and the good evidence for this spiritual-scientific world view. But these are things that everyone must do for themselves, if we understand each other correctly, quite regardless of whether they agree with this or that point of view in our world view or not. But there are other proofs. There are proofs that can speak to our hearts. Let me say it plainly and simply: that this evidence of our worldview can exist quite well. But this plain speaking is meant very warmly. It is the word that gives our worldview some of its inner truth by saying: poets also come to us. And he will understand me best at this moment who, as deeply as it can be felt towards Christian Morgenstern, feels the word: Poets also come to us - especially with regard to the inner truth and the clarification of that which may be the core of our spiritual-scientific worldview.

There are experiences of the human heart that, as far as one looks around in all the worlds of the natural, human and divine, are only right when they are experienced at the side of the soul of the poet. And to feel this is to truly experience what the poet is to earthly life. And there are moments when the poet can give the human soul something everlasting.

As I said, I would like to speak only of a few symptomatic, very personal things, just because in this way we may prepare ourselves for that adornment of the soul that I would so much like to see, when something like Christian Morgenstern's poetry descends on the soul in the leisurely moments that one has. Then one feels something of what I have just hinted at.

For me personally, there has been something very special in connection with these poems in the last few days. I read a few pages that our dear member Christian Morgenstern wrote, and I may confess – perhaps Christian Morgenstern himself will not be offended if I take a few minutes to do so before reciting – , that reading some of the unpretentious, simple words that appeared as “Autobiographical Notes” in the publishing house almanac Piper, Munich, is one of those moments of rare joy, of very inner joy. I may speak personally. One feels, precisely through the touches of Christian Morgenstern's love-awakening community soul with another, immersed in regions where, with this soul, one finds oneself alone but surrounded by the world's powers when reading something like the opening words to the autobiographical note. You feel as if you were being blown towards something strange and mysterious when someone says something like that. Perhaps it will seem strange to some that I am saying this here, but it is so.

“The year 1901 saw me through Paul de Lagarde's ‘German Writings’. He seemed to me – Wagner was estranged from me then through Nietzsche – as the second decisive German of the last decades, to which it might also agree that his entire nation had gone its way without him.”

If you are prepared to take on board an independent characteristic of the poet, then you will be able to draw a lot from such beautiful, seemingly unassuming words.

I would like to suggest this in order to be able to say that in Christian Morgenstern's poetry, something can be felt that I think leads to regions that a human soul can only enter in two ways: either as a creator, or at the side of the soul of a creator. Otherwise, these regions of human feeling and experience, which can be found where poems like “The Star” or many wonderfully beautiful landscape pictures in Christian Morgenstern's work were created, are closed to one. Otherwise, the path to this region is closed.

And the second word that I would like to express, where we get a deeper impression of life, is the word that truly reveals to us what each person is as an individual. There is something in the world for each of us that stands before us as a poet-individual, which is a sanctuary that no other person but only he himself can enter. For the gods have created for each such soul a lonely, isolated place in the vast universe, from which the others are excluded if the person in question does not approach them in such a way that he leads them to his sanctuary, if he does not take them by the hand spiritually and lead them there. That one can feel something of creation, of the inner soul creation that the poet wants to bring into the world, that is what I would like to have expressed to you with these words.

It is not for me to speak about the poems themselves, some of which date from earlier times and some of which were created in recent times, because there is a feeling that tells us: when it comes to poems, in some respects it is not permitted to approach them with words, but only with those depths of the soul, where words no longer speak. These are such depths of the soul. That is something of what I would like to see felt.

And since I am speaking to you personally in these minutes, please allow me to make this comment as well. I have often had the feeling that within our movement there are those who, for one reason or another, have the impulse to please someone. It will always give me personal pleasure when many souls, who have delved into our movement through what our movement can achieve in this area, are able to turn to the right, true, beautiful reception of Morgenstern's poetry. And if I am to speak of a joy that one or the other of you personally wants to give me, then he can actually give it to me best by finding himself ready to penetrate with understanding into something of the kind that we would now like to give you some good samples of. These are the things that allow one to feel personally connected to our movement, and to step out of character for a moment, so to speak, and speak intimately and personally of one's joy, including the fact that among the greatest of these joys is that we have poets like Christian Morgenstern among us, in our midst. The best I can give you is not an introduction to someone who can speak for himself. But what I would like is for joy, much joy, to flow from my soul into yours, my dear friends, so that many of you will feel with me what I myself feel so gladly and will always feel. May our dear friend Christian Morgenstern bestow upon us many, many of the poetic creations that accumulate in his soul. We wish with all our hearts that we may experience much of what he still has to give us, and that we may always find the mood to receive much of it.

With that, I wanted to greet you with a few words about what is to be given to you in the recitation.

The recitation by Marie Steiner followed. The order is not known.

Today we have the great and heartfelt joy of being able to immerse ourselves in the impressions of Friedrich Lienhard's poetic creation. On such a dear occasion for us, it should always be pointed out how we feel most gratefully when the opportunity arises for what the true poet brings up from the spiritual home fields, which are also our home fields, to resonate with the striving that fills our hearts. And we must always emphasize how happy and deeply satisfied we must feel when the true poet brings into our circles what the spiritual power, to which we also profess to belong, as its favorite, inspires in the heart and soul. And we will find ourselves filled with such true inspiration when we turn our spiritual ear to Friedrich Lienhard's creations. We may feel a close kinship with his poetic soul in particular, which draws inspiration from two sources that are so close to us, so very close to us. How many of Lienhard's creations reflect what the most diverse, manifold spirits of the natural world in Alsace whisper, rustle, lisp, and let us hear in the human heart. It may be said that in the course of spiritual development, precisely within this occult current, there will be more and more those who are just a grateful audience for what comes from such a place.

It is a complete misunderstanding to believe that inspiration from the spiritual world, as can be felt by the poet Lienhard, merely pours into the content of the artistic and distracts from the actual artistic form. That is not the case. In truth, one feels much more how the words are carried to spiritual heights and how, in the carrying itself, the most artistic things also unfold in form, when the bearers of the word, when the bearers of the other means of art, are the true masters of spiritual reality. It is this sense of being borne by the true spirit of spiritual reality that is so wonderfully what greets us in Friedrich Lienhard's poetry.

The second source, which is also so close to us, is that the poet has found his way to those sources of spiritual inspiration that flow from the ancient traditions of Germanic prehistory, in which ancient wisdom still resonates and murmurs in such a magnificent way. It is truly as if, at times, something of that mood, of that artistic mood of ancient German times, could be felt in Lienhard's larger poems, which has actually been so thoroughly dispelled that even Wilhelm Jordan's poetry could not conjure it up again. It often seemed to me as if I heard something reverberating from the very poems of Friedrich Lienhard, something that was so vivid in my mind as in the old days when alliterations were still alive, these alliterations that in those times carried the words so that there were words that lived in every soul. The poet then struck up a note, and the congregation echoed in alliteration what the poet had struck up and what the singer brought to a close. When the singer struck up a note, the listeners joined in. This formed the bond of souls for the people. And this is basically echoed in all the congregational singing, which shows a faint echo of what was also done in the mysteries. And so we must be grateful when a poet wants to go back to this source in the most genuine sense possible. A poet who, especially in our time, knew how to emphasize the seriousness of art in such a wonderful way through his connection with the fateful days we are living through.

I would like many of us to read Friedrich Lienhard's writings, his poems, especially “Germany's European Mission,” in which so much warmth lives in relation to the conception of what is , in which so much of the great impulses lives, to which we must rise if we want to live as confessors of spiritual science in the right sense with what pulses through our time. And no less will the soul find uplift when it hears the words of a genuine poet, who has grown together in his heart with Germany's Westmark, in his writing “The German Alsace,” in which he has found such beautiful words about the connection between the German Westmark and the entire German essence.

We will first have the joy of hearing some grateful poems from Friedrich Lienhard himself, taken from the yet-to-be-published collection dedicated to serving our time. We will be able to hear them gratefully, because we will hear a foreshadowing of what may already stand before our souls like a state of the future, a future full of vibrancy. For it may perhaps also be seen as a greeting for what Friedrich Lienhard will now give us when it is mentioned how we feel that in our time there is much, much more poetic material that will emerge, will well up, once a different mood has developed from that tragic mood that must now fill us in view of the fact that for the time being the difficult and often cruel deeds must speak, a different mood will have developed, where the feeling of pain must express artistically much of what now passes by our souls, but which will certainly offer our poets, in a similar way to the poets of the past, much to artistically shape. A picture stands before me, which I believe must contain much inspiration for the future, and which will express more clearly than many other things that are already clearly seen, what lives in the present. Many, many profound impressions could be gained in our time. For me, one impression outweighed many others, an impression that I had in the first days of August. When one looked up at the German Reichstag and its assembled parties with their party leaders – it seems prosaic, but in the midst of the prose the impression is transformed into a poetic image – and then turned one's gaze back to the east, where another assembly was taking place, the Duma assembly. If you don't just take what was going on there, but take the mood that spread like an aura over it, well, it is difficult even today to put this mood into words. Turning our gaze to the German Reichstag: what prevailed like a herald that precedes future deeds? Silence. Silence of the parties. The mood that arises from this silence, truly, in comparison to the other, which arises when we consider in detail what took place almost at the same time as the convocation of the Duma, it must appear to us, because so much, so infinitely much was said from all sides, next to the silent herald - I I say it truly, not with scorn, not with irony, I felt sorrow rising in my heart as I envisioned the image of what took place in the Duma in August - the image that resembles a carnival figure hung with all sorts of tinsel from phrases - which were indeed uttered in a frenzy of enthusiasm. I know I am capable of any objectivity, yet I must present these two images, because they present themselves to my soul. And an art will flourish that knows what it must discuss from these images.

We will gratefully listen to the beginning of the poem, which is intended as a song by Friedrich Lienhard, in which is artistically shaped that which weaves through our time and lives karmically. And then, after we have received this, we will be able to delve further into older, but ever-young creations by this artist, this poet, who wanted to direct his paths to us.

But what we feel, my dear friends, is that there is a particularly grateful audience in the souls that have taken up spiritual science, precisely for the kind of poetry that Friedrich Lienhard brings to humanity.

With these thoughts in mind, we greet Friedrich Lienhard, the poet whom we love so much, whom we hold so dearly in our hearts, and whom we revere as a human being.

Friedrich Lienhard presents his poetry.

Today, we will include a presentation of German poetry in the circle of reflections that we are now cultivating during this time. The first part of this presentation will be dedicated to the poet in whose presence we have the great and intimate satisfaction of seeing him in our midst today: our dear Professor Friedrich Lienhard. And it is in keeping with a deep feeling for the unique life's work of our esteemed friend that I want to express, albeit late, following the feelings that have been expressed to Friedrich Lienhard by the broadest circles of the German people on the occasion of his birthday a few weeks ago. It certainly corresponds to our deepest feelings when I express to him today the complete merging of all our warmth with the festive joys that have surrounded him, which have shown him how much that which he has been able to give to his people from the depths of his gifted nature resonates in the hearts of many.

Certainly, my dear friends, there was a wider circle that is more important for historical development today than our narrower circle, which in a festive mood has approached Friedrich Lienhard in the last few weeks. But with all our hearts we join with our feelings, with our sentiments, with what Friedrich Lienhard was fully entitled to hear in these weeks: the deepest agreement of her innermost feelings with his feelings. Many have spoken to him about it. The highest recognition that science can give to human intellectual endeavor has been bestowed upon Friedrich Lienhard by his, I would say, mother university. This is a source of great joy to us and, I am sure, to all those who are able to feel the deep debt of gratitude that exists towards human intellectual achievement. All those who heard about how Lienhard's mother university awarded the honorary doctorate, the recognition of science for human intellectual achievements, were overcome with the deepest satisfaction and joy. And in the deepest sense, we empathized with everything that has happened around him in the past few days, empathized because what is so infinitely sacred to us, what we cling to with all our love and striving, also seems to permeate his work.

It can be said that more recent human culture has produced much that is significant in the way of poetic art. In many places, what present culture can give to people flourishes in poetic achievements. The future will decide, and the heart of the present can already sense how it will decide, which of these blossoms are so closely linked to the temporality of contemporary culture that they will also fade when that culture, with its sole affiliation to the present, sinks into the past. And what is culture of our time has been brought up from the depths of the human being, that it blossoms, grows and greens towards that which is eternal, which will remain of our culture of the times, as something that carries the seeds of the future and will be a support for the ongoing spiritual culture of humanity. We want to be connected to the eternal in the present, to everything that reaches into the future, with all our hearts. And we hear this in the words of Friedrich Lienhard. When we connect with the wonderful natural moods that sound so uplifting, so enchanting, so delightful, so graceful in Friedrich Lienhard's poetry, then we feel how, behind his work, in his work, the spirits of nature themselves surge and weave. We feel drawn through the word, through the thought, through the feelings, to the creative nature, with which we also want to connect in knowledge through spiritual science. And we feel that these poems arise from what seizes man from the eternal, that they express this eternal in the temporal for the upliftment, the joy, the elevation of the human heart and soul. This makes us intimate with all of Lienhard's poetry. It makes us read and listen to it; it makes us, I would say, live and weave ourselves into it from the very first line, feel connected to its life element, to its creativity, and at the same time feel how the soul's life force, the spirit's air of life, overflows in us when we are allowed to let the impressions of his poetry take effect on us. Then again, when he conjures up the figures of ancient times out of the mysterious fog of existence, in lively activity and lively effectiveness, then we feel that yearning of humanity come to life, which expresses itself in the fact that the human human soul must look beyond everything that takes place historically on the outside, before the eyes and ears and the other senses of humanity, and plays itself up into the mythical, which, as an eternal element, encompasses the historical-temporal. And in this truly mythical element, in this element that connects human hearts with the eternal, we feel the figures that Friedrich Lienhard conjures out of the darkness and yet so full of light of prehistoric times.

On the one hand, Lienhard's poetry elevates us from the sensual to the spiritual and creative side of nature, from the present to the past. On the other hand, in his creations, we feel how they carry us into that which can take hold of us from everyday life in a deepening way can take hold of us in a deepening way, enabling us to live in the here and now as a spiritual and living being, how these poems connect us with everything humanly close and humanly lofty, how they develop heart and mind for everything that lives and moves in the world with man. Immersing ourselves in his poetry, we are able to live through its magic with so much that conquers and elevates human hearts in nature and spirit. And so, living with his poetry, we experience the most intimate happiness, the happiness that is the guide to man's true home.

So I ask you, my dear Professor Lienhard, to accept this greeting, which comes from the faithful search for understanding of the impression of your life's work, your life's work that has incorporated so much meaningful and eternal from the development of humanity and entitles us to greet you for all that we now hopefully expect from you in this incarnation. Please accept these words as a promise that we would like to extend to you, not out of passing feelings, but out of a deeper understanding of your life's work to date. Take them as an expression of our desire for all that we may hope for to come from you. Please accept my words as a prelude to every greeting that we wish to extend to you on your future journey through life. May what we strive for be bound to what you strive for. This bond will be sacred to us and we will always view it in such a way that we feel happy and satisfied to see the poet Friedrich Lienhard in our midst. Every moment that we spend in your company will be a moment of heartfelt joy and satisfaction for us.

I wanted to express this to you as a greeting before we now open our hearts to your work again for a short time.

Recitation by Marie Steiner from 'Poems' by Friedrich Lienhard: Faith; Morning Wind; Forest Greeting; The Creating Light (see page 216 for texts),

Lonely Rock

A rock beckons me in the golden air,
High and alone.
Around its summit is the scent of the heath
And evening glow.
A faithful little bee rings out in the herb
Flower bells, pure and calm.
Whoever looks out from there over the land
The world is his!

ELFENTANZ

Raschelgewänder und seidene Schuh',
Krone, Korallen und Bänder dazu
Rundaradei!
Rauschen und schleifen wir, singen dabei,
Rauschen und singen wir,
we swing our rustling skirts
around the ash tree, around into May,
Rundaradei, eia, rundaradei!

Do you want to catch us?
You have to dance with us!
Do you have feet as silky as ours?
Are you as flexible,
Are you as cuddly,
Are you as fast and as swinging as we are?

The leaves on the bush,
They turn in the breeze
The grass-green skirts and flicker in the process!
And if from the blue
The nights a thaw came,
So dances and sparkles in the morning of May!

Drink the light and dance yourself lively!
Drink the light and then up the hill!
A pearl from the early grass splashes down on you, Imagine an elf leaping at you! Finches, oh, see how they fly, Little clouds, oh, see how they glide, Everywhere, everywhere, faces of the sun, You alone in the midst of it all, a darkened man!

Do you want to grab us?
You have to drag along with us!
Do you also have little feet as silky as ours?
Are you as flexible,
Are you as cuddly,
Are you as fast and as nimble as we are?

He stumbles and lurches,
The clogs of the shaggy bear!

Nimble, buzz around him,
Flirting, confusing him!
Whirlwind, caressing wind, teasing wind: there!
Tousle him fine,
Pluck him fine,
Pluck and pluck and pluck him fine!
Hey, and so we float airily and free!
Down there, you catch me now, catch me, catch me,
Tear the train behind me, kiss my cheek, after all,
Catch me – catch me – catch me –
Gone!

SUMMER NIGHT

Strange night! In the reed and moor,
How the dry reed rustles and slurps!
It embraces as if it were alive,
And sighs as it releases them again.

How sweet the rustling sounds!
I have always loved the night wind:
It breathes voices and souls into the reeds, the birches, the moonlight
It breathes voices and souls into them.

Many ghosts are dancing, the world is loud,
The smallest herb stirs and giggles.
From the old knight's tower,
An owl laughs into the enchanted night...

EVENING RED

I long for a homeland that has no earthly boundaries,
I long for an eternal heavenly city out of human need.
The evening glow shines brightly and clearly, the spring rustles gently in the Wasgenwald
How soon my day on earth will pass, and all my daily work!

Oh, come, thou universal night, which knows no earthly measure,
From whose depths star upon star burns upon our tiny star!
I am not tired of the day's work, and yet I am tired of the day
I long for your vastness, you unlimited heavenly city!

AUTUMN ON ODILIENBERG

1. Autumn bells

Through red forest and bell singing,
Through an autumn day's sparkling dew
I seek on anxious heights
The stronghold of a holy woman,
Seeking sunshine above the clouds!
Oh misty walk,
Oh rugged slope,
I will a proud life long
be a pilgrim!

2. The blue flower

The earth smiles as a garden land
On the pilgrim who found the blue flower.

A lily blooms from the deep forest blue:
The bright monastery of a holy woman.

And though I search always, always, always,
You, silent mountain, are the blue flower.

3. Autumn Walk

How beautiful you are! You're a web of golden hair,
I walk transfigured through a fairy-tale grove.
All my soul soars up to God,
A smoke that lost itself in the blue of the heights.

Am I the one who walks dreaming in the falling leaves,

As this earth is full of colors,

Odilienberg is as beautiful as heaven!
In nothing but light, valley and hill dissolve,
And bliss was mine, which was so full of sorrow
Thank you for everything, you blessed year!

SUNDAY MORNING ON THE ODILIENBERG

What laughter and radiance today in the forest and shimmering meadow?
Odilia walks over the mountain and blesses the sunny valleys.

The early bells awaken far and near from weekdays and worries
There is a wondrous radiance on this Sunday morning!

From Otrott and from Heiligenstein, from Klingental and further:
A holy Jacob's ladder rises from the sound of the bells!

And all the saints who have ever lived in the land of the Alisassen
They gather in the “Heidenstadt”, in invisible lanes!

And all the Celts and warriors who long ago converted to the Lord
They crowd like a forest of flowers around the one who is highly revered.

Oh sea of spirits, oh sea of sounds, oh radiance in forest and meadow
Odilia walks over the mountain and blesses the sunny district!

ST. ODILIA

Patron Saint of Alsace

Her heart was a sun,
her eyes were dead and gray!
And from the clear forehead
of the beautiful woman
flowed the golden hair
in a rich flood —
Oh Holy Woman of Odilia,
make me pious and good!

In a mountain spring
she washed her white hands
and her blind eyes
Then she saw her Alsace
in pure May blossom
standing before her eyes
Oh holy woman of Odilia,
teach me to see!

In the monastery the bells are ringing,
The world is drowning in the fog
But see, the stars are shining brightly
From the summer night sky,
But see, Strasbourg is shining brightly
Over to our heights
Oh Holy Lady of Odilia,
Alsace is beautiful!

We will then connect with what we hear from Friedrich Lienhard's poetry, some of a poet who, like Friedrich Lienhard, shows us that the most Germanic nature finds its way out of its self-conception to the eternal of an ideal world view, who also shows us how the whole intimate empathy with the vibrations of the German being broadens the view to universality, to an all-worldly view, how the German view does not narrow, how it leads out to the great wide plan, where all that is human comes into its own and nothing human is misunderstood.

Wilhelm Jordan is the other poet, of whom we want to hear the piece of his Nibelung poem, especially where he wants to introduce a mood of the human heart, where the heart opens out of the temporal in order to listen for counsel for the temporal out of the eternal. How the German hero seeks counsel not only in the external world, but also from spiritual beings who speak through nature and through the soul's outer being. How the German hero opens his heart to this counsel in order to repel the threat that comes from the Huns in the east and threatens the burgeoning of German culture. This scene, which is so poignantly connected with the innermost German feeling, but with the feeling of world culture, is then inserted into our present performance.

From “The Nibelungs” by Wilhelm Jordan. The Saga of Sigfrid, 18th Song.

Just then spoke to the servants
Of the sanctuary in the grove at Holmgart,
Now already infirm and very old, the seeress Oda:

“I thought to rest from the runic office, The little time that my pilgrimage On earth still lasts; but highly significant Is this message from the reeve of Berne; The noble Ditrich, who has long since been in charge of Ditmar, Tired of age, of the power. His bravest man and armorer, Hildebrant, the son of Herbrant,he sent, together with Siegfried's steward,to the mighty mother of men and his most valiant man and armorer,
Hildebranten, the son of Herbrant,
Sandt' he, together with Sigfrid's carer,
to the mighty mother of men and gods,
to give account, to seek advice
and guiding light from the fall of the lots...

But small is the measure of human wisdom;
So let us now pray for revelation
From the omniscient spirit of the mighty goddess,
Who bears all happenings in her womb,
And sees the shadow cast of what is still uncreated.
Omnipotent mother of men and gods,
Once more in this hour,
Strengthen the mouth of the weary. For the last time,
Before I die, I will ascend
The golden throne on the hollow step
And, with incense clouds swirling around my forehead,
From the disappointing breath from the eternal depths,
boldly gaze into the future. —
So now speak, messenger, Ditrich of the Berners:
What does he ask of the goddess of the Goth leaders ?“

Then the offspring of Heribrant spoke:

”What will help us to salvation
from the Hunnic hordes?
What is the goal of the future for a German?"

Once the question had been asked, she climbed the ladder
weakly and with difficulty. With a golden knife
she cut the rice, came down slowly,
carved the smooth bark with runes,
divided the stick into small pieces,
And turned away, she drew them
On the white carpet... Then she tied on the cloth,
Woven from unbidden, black kid
Wool, bent down, selected,
Reaching blindly, went into the grotto
And bade the princes and witnesses follow her.

Then she mounted the chair. She lined up the rods
On the holy table made of the wood of a fir tree,
Which the storm blast had once split to the root,
And then read the motto according to their position.

Then she sat lost in deep thought,
While the steam in dense clouds
Enveloped her head, to which a hundred winters
Had bleached the hair to a blinding snow.

Now at last she beckons. The incense evaporates,
eyes roll in holy ecstasy
and sparkle with fire, but only into the distance
do they gaze, enraptured, perceiving the future.
And so the divinely gifted began:

"In a surging confusion, shadows of princes and peoples and future strugglesappear to me. But in the space of the searching soul,thousands of yearsdeceptivelymove together in view.

Oh, Ditrich, consider
The envy in the neighborhood!
Otherwise a relative
Will throw you from the throne,
And you seek security
And help to return home
In bitter banishment
With the dreaded enemy.

What threatening urge
From east and west!
There Hun hordes,
Here Merowig's might.
Thus languishes the question
Of rights and realms;
Obey the hero,
That aids to salvation.

Here, the ruling
domestic sovereign
binds the envious neighbors
to a glorious empire;
There lie the corpses,
There rise the cities,
The Lechfeld illuminates
the sun of victory.

Be strong in the West,
Conquer in the East,
And take in the North
The march to the sea,
Only do not seek the concubine
In the south of the mountains,
For spirits and bodies
You poison with your kiss.

Oh King, do you fail to recognize
The meaningful legend
Of the future's salvation
Through domestic discipline?
The fruit tree of the frosty land
Becomes sick and crippled,
Because, to ennoble it,
The palm branch does not fit.

Woe! scarlet red foam
The rivers of blood,
The staggering crowd
Is discouraged and swears.
Then the red beard rages
Hidden in the mountains,
Until the raven pair, waking up,
Calls him to Valhalla.

Then the proud ones pray
And bow their foreheads
Like penitents to the dust
Before the rising star.
What crowns in the manger
The infant victor?
Three kings come
And call him Lord.

Oh, Master of mercy,
The furious, wild
And heartless Hilde
Banishes thy commandment;
Their sword shelters the weak, —
Not again awake —
To the rage of revenge
The envy and the need.

Gone, forgotten
Are gods and heroes,
Inaudible fade away
Their praise and their song.
The fearless fathers
Admired wisdom
Is cunningly slandered
And shamelessly reviled.

Incomprehensible feud
Empties the land,
Sending children and old men
To fight for a grave.
The bearer of the crown,
Struck by the crook,
There he bends barefoot
To the prayer of repentance.

But the magician trembles;
You, little rod, destroy for him
The bulwark of his castles;
His letter is burnt.

Dawn is announced
By the candles of the children's tree:
The time of estrangement
Will soon be over.

Another age of disaster,
Full of doubt and discord?
Brothers are consumed
With an excessive lust for murder.
Like greedy vultures
The Franks estrange
The best of the castles
On the rushing Rhine.

But the flames do not burn for long
The shining embers;
We overthrow the proud
From the defiant throne,
And it repents in exile
On a lonely island
The despot despairing
The disruption of the realm.

Therefore, though the earth
Has more warriors than herbs
To fight the world war,
Be fearless, my people.
Full of proud thoughts
The German endures
The storms with strong patience.

The day of recovery will come,
We will find the leader,
Who remembers our fathers
My people will win.
They will fight the battles,
They will adorn themselves with wreaths
And forge the crown
Of the united power.

The seeress spoke it; then she sank down
And gasped for breath, gasping and groaning,
With a broken look, her head on her chest.
Now she raises her head again as if listening,
With flaming eyes and flying hair.

“O Sigfrid,” she cries, “look at the sun!
It fades, it blackens: the wavering lights,
That shimmer through the shadows of the trees, they form
Not discs as usual, no, sharp sickles.
The toads lament, the owl hoots, So that midday becomes night; the murderous marten Stalks and catches the sleepy birds. As much as you thirst, you dare not drink: For behind you... Help! - wait, Hela! Oh woe - stricken - the world goes to ruin
Dreadful scream - terrible night.

Speech failed her. She leaped up,
As, with an arrow through the heart, the stag leaps up in the air
Plunged to the ground and was dead.

When, deeply moved by the words of the seer
And shaken, stunned by the horrors of death,
Odas' remains surrounded the others,
Then disappeared unnoticed from the threshold of the grotto
And won the expanse of Sibich, the Welsche.

By receiving the Spirit the human soul develops to ever further stages in the course of cosmic existence. The Spirit is eternal, but the way in which it takes effect, how it manifests in what man can feel, love and create on Earth—that is new in every epoch.

When we think in this way of the Spirit and its progressive manifestation in the course of man's existence, the Eternal and the Transitory are revealed to our eyes of soul. And in particular manifestations of life here and there, we can constantly perceive how the Eternal reveals itself, comes to expression in the Transitory and then vanishes again, thereafter to assert its reality in perpetually new forms.

And today too we can feel that the emblems of Christmas around us are reminiscent of past forms in which the Eternal, manifesting in the outer world, was wont to be symbolised. Certain it is that in the second half of December at the present time, when we go out into the streets of a great city and look at the lights that are intended to be invitations into the houses to celebrate the Christmas Festival, our aesthetic sense must be pained by displays of so-called Christmas goods, while inventions out of keeping with Christmas trees and Christmas symbols whiz past—motor cars, electric tramcars and the like. These phenomena, as experienced today, are utterly at variance with each other. We feel this still more deeply when we realise what the Christmas Festival has become for many of those who want to be regarded in the great cities as the representatives of modern culture. It has become a festival of presents, a festival in which little remains of the warmth and profound depth of feeling which in a past by no means far distant surrounded this most significant season.

Among the experiences restored to us by our anthroposophical conception of the world and way of thinking, will certainly be the warmth of feeling that pervaded the human soul at the times of high festival in the ancient Church's year. We must learn to understand once again how necessary it is for our souls to become aware at certain times of the connection with the great Universe out of which man is born, in order that our intellectual, perceptive and also moral forces may be revitalised. There was an epoch when Christmas was a festival when all morality, all love, all philanthropy could be revivified; in its symbols it radiated a warmth undreamed of by the dreariness and prosaicness of modern life. Nevertheless deep contemplation of these symbols could be a means of developing the perceptions, experiences and convictions of which we ourselves can be aware concerning the resurrection of mankind, the birth of the Spirit of Anthroposophy in our souls.

There is indeed a connection between the earlier conceptions of the Festival of Christ's birth and the modern anthroposophical conceptions of the birth of truly spiritual ideas and ways of thinking, of the birth of the whole anthroposophical spirit in the cradle of our hearts; there is indeed a connection. And maybe it is the anthroposophist of today who will most readily enter into what for long ages was felt at the time of the Christmas Festival and could be felt again if there were any hope of something similar emerging from the atmosphere of materialism surrounding us today.

But if we want to experience the Christmas Festival in the truly anthroposophical way, we cannot limit ourselves to what the Christmas Festival was once upon a time or is now. Wherever we look in the world, and into a past however distant, something that can be compared to the thoughts and feelings connected with the Christmas Festival has existed everywhere. Today we will not go back to the very far past but only to the feelings and experiences which men living in the regions of Middle Europe might have had before the introduction of Christianity at the time of the year when our own Christmas Festival is drawing near. We will think briefly of epochs prior to the introduction of Christianity into Europe, when in regions subject to relatively harsh climatic conditions our forefathers in Europe were obliged to make their living by spending the summer as pastoral or agricultural workers, while their feelings and inclinations were intimately connected with the manifestations of the great world of Nature. They were full of thanksgiving for the sun's rays, full of reverence for the great Universe—a reverence that was not superficial but deeply felt. And when the herdsman or cattle breeder of ancient Europe was out on his rough fields, often in scorching heat, he was inwardly aware not only of the outer, physical aspect of Nature, but in his whole being he felt intimately connected with whatever was radiated to him from Nature; with his whole heart he lived in communion with Nature. It was not only that in his eyes the physical rays of the sun were reflecting the light, but in his heart the sunlight kindled spiritual jubilation, summer-like exultation which culminated in the St. John's fires when the spirit of Nature shouted for joy and was echoed from the hearts of men. Intimate community was also felt with the animal world as being under man's guardianship.

Then came autumn, followed by the season of rigorous winter—and I am thinking now of times when winter swept through the land with a bleakness of which modern humanity has little idea. This was a time when, with the exception of what it was absolutely essential to preserve, the last head of cattle had to be slaughtered. All outer life was stilled; it was actually as though a kind of death made its way into the hearts of men, a kind of darkness, in contrast with the mood that pervaded these same hearts throughout the summer. Those were times when the unique manifestations of climate and of Nature, enabled echoes of ancient clairvoyance still to persist in Middle Europe. People who during the summer were full of joy and merriment, as though Nature herself were rejoicing in their hearts—these same people could become inwardly quiescent during the time of approaching winter; their own souls could respond to an echo of the mood that pervades a man when, unmindful of the outer world, he withdraws into his own inner world in order to become aware of the indwelling Divinity.

So it can be said that Nature herself made it possible for these ancient European peoples to descend from life in the external world deep down into their own inmost being. When November came near this descent into death and darkness was felt for weeks to be a solemn season, to be a harbinger of the approaching dawn of what was called the Yuletide Festival. This mood was a clear indication of how long the remembrance of ancient clairvoyant faculties had persisted among all the peoples of Northern and Middle Europe. During the season following the period roughly corresponding to our months of January and February, men felt inwardly aware of the portents of renewed rejoicing, renewed resurrection in Nature. They were aware of a foretaste of what they would subsequently experience in the external world; but when the fields were still covered with snow, when icicles were still hanging from the trees, when outside in Nature nothing indicated a future state of exultation, there was a persistent condition of withdrawal into themselves, of inner repose which was ultimately transformed in the soul in such a way that a man was, as it were, liberated from his own selfhood.

This intermediate state experienced by our forefathers at the approach of the season we now call spring was felt by them somewhat as the clairvoyant feels his astral body, before that astral body is completely cleansed and purified. It was as if the spiritual horizon were filled with all kinds of animal forms. And those men tried to give expression to this. For them it represented a transition from the profound, festival mood of approaching winter to the mood which would again pervade the soul during summer. And they imitated in symbols what the astral body reveals, imitated it in the form of uninhibited games and dances; by donning animal masks they imitated this transition from a state of complete inner repose to a state of exultant abandonment to great Nature.

When we ponder over this, when we reflect that the hearts and minds of peoples over wide areas were completely given up to such a mood, then we understand that there was present on this soil the feeling of sinking down into the outer physical darkness, into the outer physical death of Nature; we also understand the deep, persistent feeling that in sinking down into the physical death of Nature, into physical darkness, the supreme light of the Spirit can be revealed; and how the experience of being submerged in physical death is directly transformed into that mood of unbridled abandonment to which expression can be given by animal masks, unrestrained dancing and music. Admittedly there was not yet any fully developed feeling that if a human being is to find the highest light he must seek for it in the deepest depths of being; but through an inner, loving union with the weaving forces of Nature a soil was prepared into which there could be planted a knowledge to be imparted to men concerning their further evolution through the power of the Christ Impulse. To these peoples living all over Europe it was only necessary to say—not in dry, abstract words but speaking to the heart by means of symbols: ‘Where you plunge into darkness, into the death of outer Nature, there—if you have prepared your souls to perceive and feel rightly, you can find an eternal, imperishable Light. And this Light has been brought into the evolution of mankind through the quickening power of the Mystery of Golgotha, through the events in Palestine’.

It is characteristic of the centuries immediately following, that in Europe the warmest, most intimate feelings for the Christ Impulse were to be kindled by the thought of the Christ Child, by the birth of the Christ Child. And if we believe that mankind has a mission, what conception must we have of that mission? We must conceive that man has a divine-spiritual origin, that he can look back to that origin, but that he has descended farther and farther away from it, has become more and more closely interwoven with physical matter, with the outer physical plane. But we must also be aware that through the mighty Impulse which we call the Christ Impulse, man can overcome the forces that led him down into the physical world and tread the path upwards into the heights of spiritual life.

Having grasped this we must say to ourselves: as the human Ego is today, incarnated in a physical body, it has descended from divine-spiritual heights of existence and feels entangled with the world of the outer physical plane. But this Ego that has become sinful is rooted in another Ego, a guiltless Ego. Where then, does the Ego that is not yet interwoven with the physical world contact us? At the point when, looking back in memory over our life as it takes its course between birth and death, we come to the moment in our early years when consciousness of our Ego dawned for the first time. The Ego is there, although we are not aware that it is living and active within us, even when there is no realisation of Egohood at all. The Ego looks into the surrounding world, is interwoven with the physical plane even before there is any consciousness of Egohood. In its childlike, innocent state the Ego is nevertheless present and may hover before us as an ideal to be regained, but permeated then with everything that can be experienced in this school of physical life on the Earth. And so, although it will inevitably be difficult for the prosaic intellect to find words in which to clothe it, this ideal can be felt by warm human hearts: ‘Become what your Ego is before there is any concept of it! Become what you could be if you were to find your way to the Ego of your childhood! Then that Ego will shine into everything acquired by the Ego of your later years!’—And inasmuch as we feel this to be an ideal, it shines before us in Jesus of Nazareth, in whom the Christ subsequently became incarnate.

Experiences such as these enable us to understand that an impulse promoting growth and development could move the hearts of the simplest people all over Europe when they contemplated the incarnation of the Being who was afterwards able to receive the Christ into himself. So we realise that it was truly a step forward when feelings connected with the Festival of the birth of Jesus were inculcated into experiences connected with the old Yuletide Festival. It was indeed a mighty step forward and may perhaps best be characterised by saying that in those dark days, when souls gathered together in order to prepare for the rejoicings of the new summer—in that darkness the light of Christ Jesus was kindled!

An echo of what took place among European peoples in those early times still persists in the Christmas Plays which during the nineteenth century, or at any rate during its latter half, had become little more than objects of study for learned investigators and for collectors. During the Middle Ages, however, these Plays were already being performed in a characteristic style during the Christmas period. All the emotions, all the vitality kindled in souls living in the regions where, when Yuletide was approaching, people of an even earlier period had experienced what I have been describing—all these feelings were awakened by the Plays. And as we turn from the description of the old Yuletide Festival to the medieval Christmas Plays, we ourselves can realise what warmth swept through the European peoples with the advent of Christianity. An impulse of a unique kind penetrated then into the hearts and souls of men.

Conditions now are, of course, different from those of earlier times, and in the nineteenth century these Plays were regarded simply as perquisites of erudition. Nevertheless it was a moving experience to make the acquaintance of older philologists and authorities on Germanic mythology and sagas, men who with intense enthusiasm devoted profound study to whatever fragments remained of the Christmas Plays that were performed in different regions. I myself had an elderly friend who during the fifties and sixties of last century had been a Professor at a College in Pressburg and while there had devoted a great deal of time to research among the Germanic peoples who had been driven from Western to Eastern Hungary. He also admired the charming customs and the language of the now Magyarised German gypsies and of other folk living at that time in Northern Hungary. It came to his knowledge that early Christmas Plays were still performed in a village near Pressburg. And he—I am speaking of my old friend Karl Julius Schröer—went to the village in an attempt to discover what vestiges of these old Plays still survived among the country people. Later on he told me a great deal about the wonderful impressions he had also received of what was left of Christmas Plays belonging to far, far earlier times.

In a certain village—Oberrufer was its name—there lived an old man in whose family it was an inherited custom when Christmas came near, to gather together those in the village who were suitable to be alloted parts in a Play in which the Gospels' story of Herod and the Three Kings would be presented in a simple way.

To understand the unique character of these Christmas Plays, however, we must have some idea of the kind of life led by simple folk in olden times. It now belongs to the past and must not be repeated. To make the gist of the matter clear, let me just put this question: Is there not a particular time of the year when the snowdrop flowers? Are there not for the lily-ofthe-valley and for the violet particular seasons when they take their own places in the macrocosm? Certainly, under glass they can be made to flower at other periods but it really gives one pain to see a violet flowering at a time other than that which properly belongs to it. There is little feeling for such things in our day but something of the kind can be said about the people of earlier times. What men felt during certain periods of the Middle Ages at the approach of autumn and of Christmas, when the dark nights were drawing on apace, what they felt in such a way that their intimate experiences were akin to the manifestations of Nature outside, akin to the snow and the snowflakes and the icicles forming on the trees—such feelings were possible only at the time of Christmas. It was a mood that imparted strength and healing power to the soul for the whole of the year. It renewed the soul, was a real and effective power. And how deeply one was moved a decade or so ago when the last indications of such feelings were still to be encountered here or there. From my own personal experience on the physical plane itself I can confirm that there were utterly good-for-nothing fellows who would not dare to be dissolute as the days shortened. At Christmastime those who were invariably the most quarrelsome, quarrelled less and those who quarrelled only now and then stopped quarrelling altogether. A real power was active in souls at that time of the year and these feelings abounded everywhere during the weeks immediately before the Holy Night.

What was it that people actually experienced during those weeks? Their experiences, translated into actual feelings, were that human beings had descended from a divine-spiritual existence to the deepest depth on the physical plane, that the Christ Impulse had been received and the direction of man's path reversed into one of reascent to divine-spiritual existence. That is what was felt in connection with everything to do with the Christ Event. Hence it was not only Christian happenings that people liked to present, but just as the Church calendar couples Adam and Eve's day on 24 December with the birthday of Jesus on the 25th, a performance of the Paradise Play was followed directly by the Play presenting Christ's birthday, denoting the impulse given for man's reascent to divine-spiritual existence. And this was deeply felt when the name EVA resounded in the Paradise Play – EVA, the mother of humanity, from whom men had descended into the vale of physical life. This theme was presented on one day and on the next there was a Play depicting the impulse which brought about the reversal of man's path. This reversal was indicated in the actual sounds: AVE MARIA. AVE was felt to be the reversal of EVA: AVE-EVA. People were deeply stirred by words which rang out countless times to their ears and hearts from the fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth centuries onwards, and which were understood.

Ave maris stella (Hail, star of the sea,)
Dei mater alma (Nursing mother of God,)
Atque semper virgo (Virgin for ever and ever,)
Felix coeli porta (Blissful door to the heavens above.
Sumens illud Ave (Adopting that ‘Ave’
Gabrielis ore (Out of the mouth of Gabriel,
Funda nos in pace (Establish us in peace
Mutans nomen Evae! (Altering the name of ‘Eva’.

(Tr. by Owen Barfield)

It was felt that the Paradise Play must be performed in the mood of piety befitting the Holy Night of Christmas. This was a deep conviction, and as anthroposophists, when we hear how the performers in the Christmas Plays rehearsed, how they prepared themselves, how they behaved before and during the performances of the Plays, we may well say: Is this not reminiscent of the attitude to truth adopted in the Mysteries?—although that, admittedly, was a matter of even greater significance. We know that in the Mysteries truth could not be received in any superficial mood of soul. Those who are aware to some extent of the holiness of truth know how absurd it is to imagine that it could be found in the arid, prosaic lectures of modern times, lectures in which there is no longer any indication that truth must be sought by a pure, unsullied, well-prepared soul and that it will not be found by a soul inwardly unsanctified, whose feelings are not duly prepared for its reception. There is no longer any conception of this in our age of materialism when truth itself, in the way it is presented, has become utterly prosaic.

In the Mysteries, truth might be approached only after the soul had passed through probationary tests of purity, inner freedom and fearlessness. Are we not reminded of this when we hear of the old man whom Karl Julius Schröer had known, who while he was assembling his players demanded that they should observe the ancient rules. Anyone who has lived among village people knows what the first rule signifies. The first rule was that during the whole period of preparation none of the actors might visit a brothel. In the village this was a matter of tremendous importance, signifying that the task lying before the actors must be steeped in piety. Nobody, while he was rehearsing, might sing an unworthy song; that was another rule. Further, nobody should desire anything more than a good, honest livelihood. That was the third rule. And the fourth was that he who was the authentic guardian of the traditional Christmas Plays should in all things be obeyed. It was an office not willingly transferred to anyone else.

In the second half of the nineteenth century people collected these Plays, although by then the old feelings associated with them had vanished. Later on I myself came across indications of the piety and fervour of scholars who still had some contact with country folk living in the scattered provinces of Hungary, for example, and were collecting the old Plays and Songs. When I was once in Hermannstadt about Christmastime I found that the teachers at the Gymnasium (Grammar School) there had been busily collecting these Plays and I came across the Herod Play. And so in the second half of the nineteenth century it was still possible to find people who were gathering evidence of old customs in regions which I have mentioned in connection with the Yuletide Festival. Do not let us think of anything theoretical but let us picture this warm, magical breath of the Christmas mood presented in these Plays. We then have a conception of mankind's belief in divine-spiritual reality—a belief acquired through the Christ Impulse.

This deep study of the Christmas Plays was something that could be highly instructive for the present age when the realisation that Art is the offspring of piety, of religion and of wisdom has long since been lost! In these days, when people are apt to regard Art as being detached from everything else, when Art has degenerated, for example, into formalism, much could be learnt from considering how Art in all its aspects was once regarded as a flower of human life. Simple as was the presentation of these Christmas Plays, it nevertheless indicated a flowering of man's whole nature. In the first place, the boys taking part in the Plays must be God-fearing, must absorb into their whole character something that was like an essence of the Christmas mood. They were also obliged to learn how to speak in strict rhythm. At the present time, when the Art of speaking in the ancient sense has been lost, there is no inkling of the vitally important role played by rhythm and rhyme, or of how every movement and gesture of men otherwise accustomed only to handling flails were rehearsed in minutest detail. The actors devoted themselves for weeks on end to practising rhythm and intonation, and were wholly dedicated to what they were to present. For a true understanding of Art, much could be learnt from those customs today when we have forgotten to such an extent how to speak artistically that hardly more than the intellectual meaning of what we have to say is expressed. The essential charm of these old Christmas Plays, however, lay in the fact that in rhythm, intonation and gesture the whole man became articulate. It was indeed a significant experience to have witnessed even the last remnants of these customs.

When the Christmas days were over, the actors taking. the parts of the Three Holy Kings walked through the villages, but at no other time than immediately after Christmas. I still remember seeing the Three Kings going through the villages from house to house. They carried long strips of lattice work attached to shears, a star being fixed to the end of the lattice work. The star shot out when the shears were opened and the lattice work swung back in harmony with the rhythmic movements made by the Three Kings. The Kings wore the most primitive costumes imaginable but their way of bringing the appropriate facts to the notice of the people at the right time of the year and their complete forgetfulness of self, induced a mood of soul that will be utterly incomprehensible to our age unless there can be a spiritual awakening. What should awaken in us as the life of the spirit, transformed through Anthroposophy into Art, can be presented in Plays which transcend the normal standards of the present age. Such Plays will not necessarily be connected with festivals but will be concerned with what is eternal in the human soul, unrelated to any particular season.

The Christ Impulse that was a reality for the souls of a certain epoch could become for us a living experience. True, in a certain sense we are already deeply rooted in an age when materialism in the outer world has taken such a hold in every sphere that if this Christ Impulse is to be renewed, stimuli quite different from the simple methods employed in the Middle Ages are called for. A revitalisation of man's inner life is necessary. The goal of Anthroposophy should be to draw forth the deepest forces of the human soul, forces quite different from those indicated to us by the present Christmas symbols and customs. True as it is that through our Anthroposophy we can become aware of the breath of enchantment which filled men's hearts during performances of the Paradise and Christ-Plays and during all the experiences connected with the festival seasons, it behoves us also to face the other fact—that the eternal Spirit must live in ever new forms through the evolution of humanity. Hence the spectacle of the Christmas symbols should be an incitement to infuse into the Christmas mood the spirit of anthroposophical thinking. Those who have a right feeling of the mysteries of the Christmas night will be filled with hope as they look forward to what will follow the Christmas Festival as a second Festival: they will look forward to Easter, the Festival of Resurrection, when He who was born in the Christmas night will be victorious.

Thus we are convinced that all cultural life, all spiritual life must be pervaded and inwardly charged with anthroposophical conceptions, anthroposophical feeling, thinking and willing. In the future, my dear friends, there will either be an anthroposophical spiritual science or no science at all, only a kind of applied technology; in the future there will either be a religion permeated with Anthroposophy, or no religion at all, merely external ecclesiasticism. In the future, Art will be permeated with Anthroposophy or the various arts will cease to exist, because cut off from the life of the human soul they can have only a brief, ephemeral existence. So we look towards something that shines with the same certainty as Theodora's prophecy of the renewal of the vision of Christ in the first Mystery Play, The Portal of Initiation. With as great a certainty there stands before our souls the resurrection of the anthroposophical spirit in Science, Religion, Art and in the whole life of humanity. The great Easter Festival of mankind is arrayed before our foreshadowing souls.

We can understand that still there are ‘mangers’, still lonely places in which there will be born, as yet in the form typical of childhood, that which is to be resurrected among men. In the Middle Ages people were led into the houses and shown the manger—an imitation of the stable with the ox and the ass—where the Child Jesus lay near his parents and the shepherds, and the people looking on were told: There lies the hope for the future of mankind!

May all that we cultivate in our anthroposophical centres become in the modern age new mangers in which, under the guidance of the Being we call Christ Jesus, the new spirit may come to life. Today this new spirit is still at the stage of childhood, still being born as it were in the mangers which are the centres of anthroposophical activities, and bearing the pledge of victory—the pledge that we, as mankind, will celebrate the great Easter Festival, the Resurrection Festival of humanity in the new spirit which we already anticipate and for which we strive—the spirit of Anthrophosophy.