| 158. Olaf Åsteson: The Dream Song of Olaf Åsteson
01 Jan 1912, Hanover Rudolf Steiner |
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| I already referred to this Dream Song in my Christmas address to you a few days ago. There I was able to say that the establishment of Christmas is by no means an imaginary one, one that has arisen from thought, but that the establishment of Christmas arises during the course of the year from very specific inner processes that can take place in the human soul when this soul comes to clairvoyant visions as the highest fruits of the soul, either through certain powers inherent in the natural course of things or through trained clairvoyance. |
| All the plants, all the sprouting and sprouted growth that sunlight and solar warmth conjure up in spring and allow to flourish throughout the summer, all this, as it were, enters into a winter sleep, into winter darkness, on a kind of winter path at the time when Christmas was moved from the historical consciousness of humanity. The time in which Christmas is celebrated seems to us like sleep, like the darkness of the natural world. |
| Of him I will sing. He went to rest on Christmas Eve. He slept for so long! He could not wake Before the thirteenth day The bird spread its wings! |
| 158. Olaf Åsteson: The Dream Song of Olaf Åsteson
01 Jan 1912, Hanover Rudolf Steiner |
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The so-called “Traumlied” (Dream Song), which will be performed today, requires a few remarks to be made beforehand. I already referred to this Dream Song in my Christmas address to you a few days ago. There I was able to say that the establishment of Christmas is by no means an imaginary one, one that has arisen from thought, but that the establishment of Christmas arises during the course of the year from very specific inner processes that can take place in the human soul when this soul comes to clairvoyant visions as the highest fruits of the soul, either through certain powers inherent in the natural course of things or through trained clairvoyance. We can best understand what may actually lie at the root of the human soul by visualizing the following thought. All the plants, all the sprouting and sprouted growth that sunlight and solar warmth conjure up in spring and allow to flourish throughout the summer, all this, as it were, enters into a winter sleep, into winter darkness, on a kind of winter path at the time when Christmas was moved from the historical consciousness of humanity. The time in which Christmas is celebrated seems to us like sleep, like the darkness of the natural world. It is the opposite with the human soul as it is with the natural world. While the beings of nature descend into darkness and accompany the human soul into this realm of outer eclipse, it becomes, or can become, lighter in the human soul. She can, through the natural course of things, which we have often hinted at as a certain inherited clairvoyance, or through trained clairvoyance, dive straight into the brightest spiritual world, where the secrets of the spirit, hidden behind the outer sensual things, then dawn on her. And just as this descent of the plant world around the time of the winter solstice is subject to a regular law, so too the spiritual blossoming of human beings is subject to such a law, so that it coincides in its luminous brightness with the natural darkness into which the Christmas festival is placed. It might seem as though such things are only being expressed out of today's schooled clairvoyance, or, as our opponents say, out of mere fantasy. But there will always be a living, fully valid proof of what people and nations experience outwardly. Therefore, it was extremely interesting for me that, after I had spoken about this Christmas clairvoyance within our movement for several years, which introduces us to the meaning of the Christ-being, to the arising of the Christ-being precisely when the human soul is most strongly immersed in clairvoyance , and I once again came to Norway, which is spiritually related to us, for a lecture cycle — that a remarkable vision was brought to me up there, of which, however, anyone who is familiar with such things must immediately say: Yes, it is reminiscent of many similar visions that have always been experienced by Germanic peoples, visions that many people have seen with their clairvoyant vision during the period of the thirteen nights from Christmas Eve to Epiphany, January 6. There the human soul can look into the spiritual world and see the fate of the human soul in the disembodied state, when it goes through Kamaloka and it then becomes clear to it how a relationship is established between the higher spiritual worlds and the deeds of people here on earth. And it is interesting that the person of whom we are told in this dream song and to whom these visions in this Nordic region are attributed through this dream song is a person who bears the name Olaf Åsteson. It is said of him that during these thirteen nights he underwent in a kind of clairvoyant experience what the Nordic man can feel as a vision in his way. He first learned how human deeds continue to unfold after the human being has passed through the gate of death, but he also learned how that which we call the Christ-being , how the office of judge of Jesus, the Christ, enters into the Nordic spiritual order of life after death, as the old world judge, the so-called face of Jehovah, the archangel Michael. So that, in addition to everything else that appears to the clairvoyance of Olaf Åsteson, the penetration of Christianity into the north can be heard, and that everything becomes clairvoyantly clear to him during the period of the Jesus birthday festival in the thirteen nights that he sleeps through. Which consciousness becomes clear? It is now strange that this is already hinted at in the name, which quite obviously originally meant in the north such a human consciousness, which is inherited from the forefathers, from the ancestors. Olaf is truly himself in those times when the ancient, clairvoyant ancestral consciousness arises again in him. He who has inherited his consciousness, his inner being, from his ancestors: that is contained in the name Olaf. And Äste means love, the love that is passed down in the blood from generation to generation. Olaf is the son of this love, Åsteson, is the consciousness that has been passed down from generation to generation from the old clairvoyant times, is like resurrected ancestry. Olaf, who is born with this clairvoyant consciousness, recognizes the destiny of the human soul, and at the same time sees the intervention of the being we celebrate in Jesus' birthday festival as his entry into earthly existence. And strangely, while such visions have certainly always been experienced, especially in Germanic countries, this dream song seems to have been forgotten. In 1850, the preacher Landstad set out to collect folk songs in Telemarken, a lonely mountain valley where few people lived at the time. And among the many folk songs, he did not know since when, he did not know for how long, the song of Olaf Åsteson was alive in the vernacular – the song of Olaf Åsteson, who in the thirteen nights saw the destiny of the human soul after it had passed through the gate of death, and the coming into the world of Christ Jesus. He did not know when this song of initiation of the human soul came into being, for it was always recited in the vernacular, leaning on a musical mood. The few people in the lonely mountain valley enjoyed it, and there it was read by the preacher Landstad, in that it spoke to him of the secrets that had been uncovered – as if from the folk mind itself – about initiation in ancient times. And so it came to be that Landstad found it in the vernacular. Many people naturally believe that it alludes to Saint Olaf, who introduced Christianity in 1030 AD and whose mother was called Love. This is the case with many things that have both a historical and a spiritual significance. Furthermore, it is interesting that this dream song has now quickly penetrated a large part of the Nordic people and lives in the hearts of the Norwegian people. There is, after all, a great movement in Norway to bring the old days back to life, and with that to revive the old language, which is very close to the ancient Germanic language, the Nordic language, in contrast to the Danish language, which was introduced later. Now this song is in a language that echoes the oldest language that has been preserved there, and the people who want to revive their antiquity in the first place, to whom this song spoke to the heart, and in the last ten to fifteen years it has not only penetrated into the hearts of the people, but also into the schools. It is sung and recited everywhere, and everywhere you hear, so to speak, where the soul awakens to the old folkways, the dream song of Olaf Åsteson, who in the thirteen nights from Christmas to January 6, so to speak, was naturally initiated into the sacred secrets of humanity. And for this reason, we would like to present this dream song of Olaf Åsteson to you today. Miss von Sivers will recite it. I tried to make a provisional arrangement so that it could be recited in German. Mrs. Lindholm helped me to make the peculiar language in which the song lives and now lives more and more and has become an aria of folk song possible in German. So we will now hear it in this provisional arrangement, which I was able to create in a few days.
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| 165. The Ancient Christmas Plays and a Forgotten Spiritual Current in Humanity: Lecture Two
27 Dec 1915, Dornach Rudolf Steiner |
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| Basically, one can say of the first forms of this Christmas play: People were trying, out of a completely profane mood, to take part in what the people had seen for centuries in a way that was incomprehensible to them. |
| In the early centuries, when the story of the appearance of Christ on earth at Christmas was told, the first chapters of the creation story were read first. The Christmas mystery was directly linked to the creation story, the beginning of the Bible. Now only one thing remains in connection with it: if you look at the calendar, you have Christmas on December 25, Adam and Eve on December 24. That this appears in the calendar in direct connection is the last remnant of what was present in consciousness: that people thought together when Christmas was once established for a certain season of the year, the story of creation with the Christmas mystery. |
| 165. The Ancient Christmas Plays and a Forgotten Spiritual Current in Humanity: Lecture Two
27 Dec 1915, Dornach Rudolf Steiner |
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Yesterday I pointed out to you how the fact of Jesus' birth has only gradually conquered the hearts and souls of men, and how the Christmas play, as we have been able to let it affect us, has basically only gradually developed into this noble and beautiful form and at the same time with all the spirit of consecration with which it had been imbued during the times in which it had flourished. Basically, one can say of the first forms of this Christmas play: People were trying, out of a completely profane mood, to take part in what the people had seen for centuries in a way that was incomprehensible to them. The Christ Child only gradually won the hearts of the people. And it even took quite a long time to win the hearts of humanity. When we see in the 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th centuries that what the priests had gradually done was to involve the people, then this involvement is, as I indicated to you yesterday, not yet of the noble form that these Christmas plays had later, of which we have just seen two examples. But I tried to make you aware that these two games are quite different in origin, and that this is clearly visible. The first game has something simple and folksy about it, so that you can see that the main thing in this game is to The main thing about it is to show how the child, in whom the great world spirit was later embodied and worked within earthly existence, how this child entered the world, how it was received on the one hand by the hosts, the two innkeepers, and on the other hand by the shepherds. And basically, this Christmas play, the first one we saw yesterday, shows very clearly how different the reception was with the innkeepers and with the shepherds. That is what particularly stands out for us. The other Christmas play is quite different. There we are led straight to the fact that wise men – who at that time were wise kings for the peoples involved – read in the stars about the significant fate that awaits humanity. So we see occult ancient wisdom poured out into the action of the play at the same time. And then, as the story unfolds, we see how the being who now, in the sense of this occult wisdom, this wisdom divined from the stars, enters into earthly events, is confronted by the one at whose side we clearly see evil, the retarded principle, the devilish, the Ahrimanic-Luciferic principle — Herod. We see how the Christ principle and the Luciferic-Ahrimanic principle are set against each other. But we also see how that which is revealed out of spiritual spheres asserts itself in the course of events. As if proclaiming that they are guiding us from spiritual spheres, the angels appear and guide and direct the events so that what Herod wills does not come to pass, but something else happens. Human beings are permeated in their will by what comes from the spiritual worlds. So we have a play that, in terms of the forces it contains, points us beyond mere earthly events. When we consider how these two plays face each other, the one steeped in primitive folk-watching, the other steeped in a wisdom that really refers us back to an ancient wisdom of the evolution of the earth , we are led to let many thoughts arise in us about what has happened in the course of time and what is connected with the full significance of the Mystery of Golgotha for the evolution of the earth. Let us consider that at the time when the Mystery of Golgotha took place, in a broader sense, there was a deep, profound wisdom in certain circles about spiritual matters. This wisdom is called Gnosis. In the outer world, in the progress of European spiritual culture, one can positively say that this gnosis, this gnostic science of the secrets of the spiritual world, had disappeared within European culture for the outer world. In the third, fourth, fifth and sixth centuries, within spiritual life, there was really still very little awareness of what this science contained. Those who knew something – I mean those who knew what one could easily know if one was a Christian priest or a Christian scholar – knew about this gnosis because there were opponents of this gnosis in the first centuries of Christianity and these opponents fought against the gnosis. Imagine that today all the books that we consider to be our literature and all the cycles were to be eradicated, burned, so that nothing of them remained, and only what the opponents had written – and in a few centuries someone would come across these books of the opponents that remained and would have to form an idea from them of what was written in our books: That was the case with Gnosticism! | One of the most important church writers was Irenaeus, who was a student of Bishop Polycarp of Asia Minor, who himself was a student of the apostles. But Irenaeus wrote as an opponent of Gnosticism. Over the centuries, the only way to learn what the Gnostics taught was to see what Irenaeus stated and recorded in his book in order to refute it. So everything of this ancient wisdom had to be accepted, which was caused by the fact that this wisdom had only been handed down by an opponent. You see from this that the whole development of the Occident was actually based on the fact that something that came up from the old times was eradicated, properly eradicated. Outwardly, you can simply see from this fact how new the beginning was for Western culture, which was given with the Mystery of Golgotha; how basically it began with something completely new everywhere. I would say that just as a buried city is buried in the ground, so the ancient literature was buried for that which emerged from the ancient church fathers through Ambrose, Augustine, Scotus Erigena and so on. A new beginning! And just as a new city rises on what appears to be new ground, so the new rose — a new city, but on ground in which the old city lay submerged, without any hint of what it had looked like. Such was the case with the development of European civilization. Hence it can also be seen that in our time, if there is to be a spiritual deepening again, it is necessary that this spiritual deepening be achieved from the original strength of human beings, that human beings themselves again find what they have not received from outside, at least within the course of European spiritual development. And – I cannot speak of this today because it would lead too far – there can be no question of the fact that, for example, obtaining Oriental documents could be a substitute for what has disappeared in the way of external documents in Western intellectual life, for the simple reason that the Oriental documents actually give something much, much more primitive than what has become of it in the world that extended over Asia Minor, North Africa, Southern Europe and even partly over Central Europe. What spiritual knowledge had developed to in the first centuries of Christian development had been thoroughly eradicated; it only survived thanks to the writings of opponents. Now in these writings, which have been eradicated, we have not only the knowledge, the spiritual knowledge that related to the spiritual worlds, apart from the Christ, but in these writings the application of all the old comprehensive spiritual wisdom to the mystery of Christ Jesus has also been lost. These Gnostics wanted to understand in their own way – if we may call them that – the process of evolution on earth and the nature of the Christ. The time had not yet come to understand the matter in the way we understand it now, by drawing from the original spiritual worlds truths that need not be written down because they are directly present in the spiritual world in a living way. It was not possible to extract the knowledge of the nature of Christ Jesus in this way. This is only possible in our time. But in the older way, certain things were known about Christ in a knowledge that has really been lost. Only recently have a few scant remains been found: the Pistis Sophia writings, then the writings on the “Secret of Jeü”, which are now there as if to draw people's attention to the fact that the knowledge of Christ, which is now being sought in our way, is not as foolish as the opponents of our movement would have us believe. The Book of Jeü — little of it remains, in Coptic script, but what little there is is as if to say: Look at what is in the Gospels — it is not the only thing that filled the minds of people in the early centuries of Christianity. This book Jeü contains messages about how the Christ spoke after the resurrection, after he had gone through the mystery of Golgotha, to those who could understand him at the time, who had become his disciples. The remarkable thing is that this book Jeü - I mean the small fragment that is there - speaks about the Christ and what he is in a completely different way than even the Gospel of John. The remarkable thing is that in this book one word recurs again and again, which clearly indicates to us that it is meant to draw attention to something. And this, to which attention is to be drawn, I would like to explain in the following way. Suppose someone at that time had wanted to make clear why Christ Jesus actually entered into the development of the earth, he would have spoken like this, he would have said to those who could understand: Behold, the time is coming when men will advance in the evolution of the consciousness soul. The time is coming when men will have to comprehend the world through the outer, physical organs, through the organs that are essentially anchored in the physical body. The time is past when men had original revelations through original primitive clairvoyance. The time is past when people knew something not only by applying their physical body with its tools, but by using their etheric body independently of the physical body for knowledge. People will now only have to use their physical body as a tool. But in the future it will also be possible to know something of what has so far only been known through the etheric body. In the outer world there will only be knowledge that is tied to the physical body, which is subject to death. But knowledge about the spiritual world cannot be had through the tools that are tied to the physical body. A helper must come who kindles in people that which only the etheric body can know. Someone must come who does not kindle the dead of the physical body, but who kindles the living in man, the etheric-living, who is with the living, who is with that which is not earthly in man on earth. There must be someone who can tear out of this inert, dead physical body the mind that can understand the spiritual world, the mind that is in man and is connected to heaven – the mind that cannot be crucified by the world because it belongs to heaven, which itself crucifies the world, that is, which overcomes the world. One must imagine that in the past, before they could see the Christ in his true essence, when they went through the mystery of Golgotha, people felt connected to the spiritual world with their etheric body in primitive clairvoyance. How the physical body has become more and more hardened and hardened and has thus become an instrument; how one had to come, precisely the Christ, to bring out the living from the inert instrument of the physical body. This is what one must imagine. And now let us consider this book Jeû: How the Christ, after going through the Mystery of Golgotha, speaks to those who have learned to hold to Him, to hold to the wisdom contained in His words: “I have loved you and desired to give you life.” We hear it from the sentence: “and desired to give you life”; he desired to bring this inert physical body out of its inertia and to give what only the etheric body can give. “Jesus the Living One is the knowledge of the truth.” The Living One - that is, the One who has gone through the Mystery of Golgotha - speaks, presenting Himself as the Representative of the Living One. The text continues: “This is the book of the knowledge of the invisible God by means of the hidden mysteries,” that is, the mysteries that are hidden in man, “showing the way to the chosen essence of man, leading in silence to the life of the Father of the World, in the coming of the Redeemer, the Savior of souls, who will receive the Word of Life, which is higher than all life , in the knowledge of Jesus, the living one, who came forth from the aeon of light in the allness of the pleroma, that is, of other aeons, of all spiritual beings, in the teaching, except for which there is no other, that Jesus, the living one, taught his apostles, saying, “This is the teaching in which all knowledge rests.” So then, we have to imagine that the Risen One, who through the mystery of Golgotha has gone, speaks to the disciples who have learned to belong to him. “Jesus, the living one, spoke to his apostles: ‘Blessed is he who has crucified the world and has not let the world crucify him’”, who can thus grasp in man that which is not overcome by matter, by external physical matter. “The apostles answered unanimously, saying: ‘Lord, teach us this way of crucifying the world, so that it may not crucify us, and we may perish and lose our lives.’” Jesus, the living one, answered and said: “He who has crucified the world is he who has found my word and fulfilled it according to the will of him who sent me.” And the apostles answered, saying: “Speak to us, Lord, that we may hear you. We have followed you with all our hearts, leaving father and mother, leaving vineyards and fields, leaving goods, leaving the glory of the outward king, and have followed you that you may teach us the life of your Father who sent you.” And now, at this invitation of the apostles, the Christ Jesus, the Living One, responded with what He has to say to them: “Christ, the Living One, answered and said: ‘My Father's life is this, that you receive your soul out of the human being of that understanding, which is not earthly’”. So the Living One wills that His disciples learn to understand that there is an understanding of spiritual things in man that can be torn away from the physical body, that is not earthly. When they stir this up within themselves, then they understand His word in truth. «‹This essence of all souls, which becomes understandable through what I tell you in the course of my word. And that you perfect it and before the Archon›», before the being of this eon, this age, «‹and his persecutions›», the ahrimanic-luciferic being, «‹and his persecutions, which have no end, so that you may be saved from them. But you, my disciples, hurry to carefully receive my word within yourselves, so that you may recognize it, and that the archon of this aeon, that is, Ahriman-Lucifer, may not dispute with you because he cannot find any of his commands in me. finds his orders outside of the one who has gone through the mystery of Golgotha, “so that you yourselves, O my apostles, fulfill my word with regard to me and I myself set you free, and you become holy through the freedom that is without blemish. As the Spirit of the Holy Spirit is holy, so you too will become holy through the freedom of the spiritual, the Holy Spirit.” And all the apostles answered with one accord, Matthew and John, Philip and Bartholomew and James, saying: 'O Jesus, thou living one, whose goodness is spread abroad among those who have found thy wisdom and thy form in illumination , O Light, that in the light which has enlightened our hearts, we receive the light of life, O true Logos, that through Gnosis true knowledge of that which is alive has been taught to us. Jesus, the living one, answered and said: “Blessed is the man who has recognized this and has been led down to heaven,” that is, who has become aware that there is something in him that is not connected with this earthly body, but is connected with the beings of the heavens, and who introduces what is connected with heaven in him, what is above, into earthly events below. “Blessed is the man who has recognized this and led heaven down and carried the earth and sent it to heaven.” That which is earthly in him has connected with what is heavenly in him, so that when he goes through the gate of death, with the fruits of the earthly, through the heavenly, he can lead the earth back to heaven. "The apostles answered, saying: 'Jesus, Thou Living One, explain to us the manner in which one leads heaven down. For we have followed thee that thou mightest teach us the true light. And Jesus, the living one, answered and said: “The word that exists in heaven,” that is, he means what can be had as wisdom, as knowledge, independently of the physical being of the person. “The word that exists in heaven before the earth came into being, that earth which is called the world. But you, when you recognize my word, will lead heaven down, and the word will dwell in you. Heaven is the invisible word of the Father. But when you recognize this, you will lead heaven down. I will show you what it is like to send the earth to heaven so that you may recognize it; to send the earth to heaven is: the listener of the word of knowledge who has ceased to be the mind of an earth man only, but has become a heaven man, 'who has thus torn away his understanding in himself from the outer physical body, who has ceased to be an earth man and has become a heaven man. His mind has ceased to be earthly; it has become heavenly. "That is why you will be saved from the archon of this aeon, from the Ahrimanic-Luciferic being. They see a piece that has remained, has been rediscovered, and that could make people aware of the infinitely deep knowledge that was once associated with the secret of the Mystery of Golgotha in the first Christian centuries. Theologians in the present day usually get quite angry when one wants to draw attention to these or other similar writings. That they exist, they admit, certainly. Outwardly, historically, they treat them and publish editions of them. But they are convinced, these normal 'theologians of the present', that these writings have been forgotten to a certain extent with good reason, because they contain only all kinds of fantastic fantasies that the rational man of the present should no longer deal with; that this is no longer appropriate to an enlightened mind. But in a certain sense, these are indications that what we are now bringing out of the source of the spiritual worlds is in fact taking up something that was already there in the evolution of the earth, something that had only to flow underground for a time, like certain waters in the Alps flow underground after being above ground for a while; then they disappear into the depths and reappear later. So spiritual knowledge has flowed through the centuries as in underground worlds and is now to come out again. In order that those who cannot believe in such origins of the flowing out of spiritual sources into earthly existence may also receive an external indication, history has preserved some pieces, some scraps of a rich ancient literature that was spread out, that was great and powerful, and that is actually only really known in the counter-writings, for example those of Irenaeus and similar people who only wanted to refute it. So we have to say: under extraordinarily difficult circumstances, the Mystery of Golgotha has been assimilated into Western culture. And the first thing was the result of the tremendous word of Paul, which flowed to him from his appearance of Damascus: the secret of death, of the passage through the Mystery of Golgotha. And then there were those far-reaching discussions about the way in which the Christ was connected to the Jesus, how the divine and human natures were connected to each other, how the three forms of manifestation of the divine, which enter into the development of Western Christian culture as the three persons, relate to each other, and so on. One could say that what was human wisdom receded. The power of knowledge also receded. It was an enormously strong power of wisdom that was present in those people who could come to something like what I have just read to you – a strong power of wisdom. It declined very, very much. And people were much more willing to listen to those who could say: The Jesus, the Christ, was there in person on earth. You know that he was there, because I knew Polycarp, and Polycarp knew the disciples of Jesus! There was an immediate personal tradition. In a certain way, belief in only that which was physically present, in physical development, begins to take hold. As spiritual wisdom gradually seeps away, belief in the merely physical arises. You can say: Irenaeus, for example — what kind of a mind was he? He was a thinker who said: There were Gnostics who claimed to know something through a mind that can work independently of the physical body. All this is wrong, all this is, as they said at the time, heretical, people must not believe in it. And he refuted it. More and more such refuters appeared, further and further afield. And of course there was the power of the Mystery of Golgotha, the power of the fact, the power of tradition. Through what had been handed down, what seemed to be fact, Christianity now propagated itself. What propagated itself as science actually seeped away. And the successor of Irenaeus in our time fights everything that comes from real knowledge of the spiritual world. Who is the forerunner and who is the successor? Irenaeus, the bishop of Lyon, who fought the Gnostics; and the Irenaeus of our time, the bishop of matter in Jena, is Ernst Haeckel — the successor of Irenaeus. That is the line of development, my dear friends! The others are only anachronisms, because the rejection of Ernst Haeckel also stems from the same spirit. In terms of thinking, there is a straight line of reproduction from Irenaeus, the bishop of Lyon, to Ernst Haeckel. These things must be taken objectively and historically, not with any sense of critical sympathy or antipathy, but quite objectively and historically. When we imagine this entire process of spiritual development, we get a feeling for something that has already been touched on from a different angle: that what people could understand did not actually help this Christian development. Understanding, spiritual comprehension, is yet to come. For people had lost the strength to understand something that can only be understood spiritually, like the Mystery of Golgotha. That through which the Mystery of Golgotha conquered humanity was not through the intellect, but through the fact. And this fact actually worked in a very strange way. Now, only a very faint echo of this remains. In the early centuries, when the story of the appearance of Christ on earth at Christmas was told, the first chapters of the creation story were read first. The Christmas mystery was directly linked to the creation story, the beginning of the Bible. Now only one thing remains in connection with it: if you look at the calendar, you have Christmas on December 25, Adam and Eve on December 24. That this appears in the calendar in direct connection is the last remnant of what was present in consciousness: that people thought together when Christmas was once established for a certain season of the year, the story of creation with the Christmas mystery. But not only that outwardly the story of Creation was first told and then the Christmas mystery, but also that attention was repeatedly drawn to one of the most profound legends, which sought to express the connection between the world, the beginning of the earth, and the mystery of Golgotha. Attention was called to the fact that when Adam had been driven out of Paradise, the tree through which he had sinned, the tree of knowledge of good and evil, had also been removed from Paradise; how fruits, seeds of this tree, were planted on Adam's grave, and this tree grew out of it. And then the wood of this tree, the tree of Paradise, came down from generation to generation to the time when the Christ appeared on earth. And then the cross was made out of this wood, out of the wood that had just grown again from the grave that was Adam's grave. The Redeemer hung on the cross. This legend about the connection between the beginning of the world and the Mystery of Golgotha was repeated again and again in earlier centuries to those people who were able to understand such things. They were told: The tree of Paradise, which man had sinned against, was thrown out over Paradise, and seeds came into the soil that was on that grave of Adam. And from these germs arose again the tree, of which man had sinned in Paradise. And this wood of the tree was given from generation to generation and then came in many detours into the time of the Mystery of Golgotha, and the cross on which the Christ hung is made of this wood. This legend also contains the connections between the beginning of the earth and the Mystery of Golgotha. But things are so interconnected, so intimately connected, that there are certain plays that were performed not only at Christmas as plays about Christ, but as plays about Paradise. These are plays about Paradise in which the mystery of Adam and Eve and the Fall of Man was presented to the people directly, when Christmas, or rather, when the Feast of the Epiphany, the Three Kings, approached on January 6. Consider, my dear friends, the deeply spiritual facts to which we are led. We think of the Luciferic-Ahrimanic seduction of man, of what has become of man through the Ahrimanic-Luciferic seduction, and we think that this is represented by the figure of Adam, who succumbed to temptation. When we fully understand this Ahrimanic-Luciferic temptation, we must necessarily think that the evolution of the earth would have been quite different if the Luciferic-Ahrimanic temptation had not approached man. But this Luciferic-Ahrimanic temptation has only one meaning for life on earth in the physical body. It can only gain significance from the moment we enter earthly life from the spiritual world through birth, or, let us say, through conception. The Luciferic-Ahrimanic temptation cannot have this significance for the time between death and a new birth, because it has this significance here in earthly life. Therefore, when we see the child enter into earthly life, we perceive correctly when we say: You appear, you soul, who are here in the flesh, you appear out of a world sphere that is still untouched by the nature of Lucifer and Ahriman. You only enter by growing more and more together with the flesh into the nature of Lucifer and Ahriman. And when we look at the child, we see a spiritual mystery of the world. The moment a human being enters into earthly development, he is already predetermined by his previous incarnations to grow together with the flesh. But people should once feel what it means to enter into the earth without being predetermined for earthly life. That this thought should awaken in man, the thought of what actually dwells in man as an entity through which he is connected with the heavenly, with the solar, that this should awaken in man, for this the Christ-child conquered the spiritual development of mankind. And this Christ-child conquered the spiritual development of mankind in just the way He could conquer it. There were basically two currents in the whole Christian development. We can understand these two currents very well. Through two bodies, the Christ entered the world: through the Nathanic Jesus and through the Solomonic Jesus. I would say that He entered through the Nathanic Jesus as through the earthly child. You can see how I have described it in the cycles and also in the book 'The Spiritual Leading of Man and Humanity'. Through the Nathanic Jesus, the Christ entered the earth in such a way that this Nathanic Jesus was a being, as preserved from the previous development on earth, as the substance from the beginning of the earth. But the Solomonic Jesus: an upward development that has gone through many, many earthly incarnations. So two paths that should then meet in the way I have described. But now imagine that all this is happening at a time when spiritual wisdom is dying out, when there is no possibility of grasping this. Such infinite depth comes into play that two Jesus-children are there through whom the Christ is to come into the world. That infinite depth is entering in, which people who understand nothing of the whole matter, despite being officially appointed to do so, blaspheme and condemn today. That which could only have been understood through that wisdom that has been eradicated is entering in. It is no wonder that this fact has entered in a way that can only be understood little by little through our science. Therefore, the following endeavor was first made. When more of the old wisdom began to seep through, little by little, people wanted to place more emphasis on the appearance of Christ Jesus on Earth, on the onset of the great world events. That is why they established the Feast of the Epiphany, the manifestation of the Lord, on January 6th. This is more closely connected with the Solomon-like Jesus, with the Jesus who appeared as a king, who appeared from a royal line. He was also understood more through what was royal-magical wisdom. In contrast, the other, the Nathanic Jesus, who actually had nothing of what had happened on earth in his substance, was transferred to this deep winter time, which is now Christmas. People have not understood that these two belong together, and have even separated the dates of birth. For in older centuries, the birth of Jesus is still celebrated on January 6. But the fact that two births were celebrated is quite understandable to anyone who can speak of two Jesus boys. Even the way people thought about Jesus is actually available in two versions. One relates more to the Jesus who entered without having previously entered into connection with what human differentiations on earth have brought about through nations and classes and races: the Jesus who can enter, understood by the simplest popular feeling – the Luke Jesus, the Nathanic Jesus. The other Jesus, the Solomon-like Jesus, is more comprehensible through that which is heavenly wisdom, through a wisdom through which that which remains of the old magical wisdom seeps through. It is not wrong to say: First we saw the first Jesus-Play, this simple Jesus-Play, to which the old remnants of the magical wisdom cannot be applied at all: this is the Nathanian Jesus-Child. In the other, there is the wisdom that still remained: the Jesus who entered the world from royal blood — the second play that had an effect on us. People did not know about it, but the two Jesus boys had an effect in that people made such fundamentally different plays out of them. So, first of all, I wanted to give a few hints as to how the Paradise Play grew together with the Christmas Play, so that the whole has a meaning. We will talk about it again tomorrow. Today, however, I would just like to once again commend to you the words that I spoke at the end yesterday and also in the course of the reflections, that these Christmas Plays are at the same time - in a certain sense even the simplest - yet a warning. And they were also a warning to all those who listened. Again, what we have to want should be a kind of world Christmas in a spiritual sense. The Christ should again be born, at least in human understanding, in a spiritual way. All this work within spiritual science is actually a kind of Christmas celebration, a birth of the Christ in human wisdom. The only question is whether people will come in large numbers who are now able to understand. Yes, I would like to say that one could hear many a farmer sitting there when such a Christmas play as yesterday's first play was performed in earlier centuries. The whole community came in and now the farmers were sitting there. Now it was like this: sometimes one of the farmers would say to the other: “Tell me, are you actually a host or are you a shepherd?” Then the other would reflect on whether he was a host or a shepherd. But I think that, in view of what is known about Christ in modern science, one could also ask people: “Are you a host or are you a shepherd?” For one hears the landlords railing quite vividly and saying: What do you want here at my door? Away with you, seek a lodging somewhere else, not with us! The others are the shepherds. There is also a skeptic among them, Mops, who also does not want to understand the appearance, but still lets himself be carried through the coridan by a certain sense of truth. I think it could make us think about the question and the answer in the soul with which some people used to go out after watching the Christmas play, the farmers in the 16th, 17th, 18th centuries: Well, tell me, are you actually a host, or are you a shepherd? – Let us hope, my dear friends, that, little by little, many shepherds will arise in our way, so that the innkeepers, who can be heard from afar, will gradually be silenced. |
| 165. The Ancient Christmas Plays and a Forgotten Spiritual Current in Humanity: Lecture Three
28 Dec 1915, Dornach Rudolf Steiner |
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| Think how far apart what the simple person, the simple eye, sees in the Christmas plays is from the deep mysticism of a Meister Eckhart or a Johannes Tauler. But the beginnings of the Christmas plays fall into the time. |
| Easter and Christmas will only lead the way together if one can understand how Christ and Jesus belong together. And spiritual science will build the bridge between Christmas and Easter. |
| If we try to seek the spiritual in the context of what the Christmas plays showed us, then we will find it in the right sense as shepherds, not as innkeepers, who have already lost — as the Christmas play symbolically suggests — the connection with the Christmas child. |
| 165. The Ancient Christmas Plays and a Forgotten Spiritual Current in Humanity: Lecture Three
28 Dec 1915, Dornach Rudolf Steiner |
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Yesterday I tried to point out an important fact in the context of the whole Christ problem, a fact that is undoubtedly surprising: the fact that a whole body of wisdom has actually disappeared, and is only known today in a few fragments, in a few remnants, some of which were presented here yesterday from one of the remnants, namely the beginning of the Book of Jeô. Now we must ask ourselves: can a body of wisdom that was available simply disappear without a trace? Can there only be external reasons for such a disappearance? I used a comparison: I said that it would be conceivable for everything that has now been printed and remains to be burned, leaving only the opposing writings, from which one could later reconstruct what we said. Now, certainly, the case could arise. But this hypothesis cannot really be put forward just like that. Because if you think that all the writings would really disappear, then many of us would still be around – at least one can assume that – who know what is in these writings and who, without needing the opposing writings, could pass on the matter further, and so the wisdom could well be passed on. For the matter to disappear completely, it would be necessary that in a certain way, little by little, the abilities to understand the matter and to pass it on from generation to generation would also disappear. But that must have happened in the past. In a certain way, it must have happened in the past that people lost the ability to understand something like the Gnosis of Valentinus, like the content of the Pistis Sophia writing, like the content of the Book of Jeû and so on. And that is really the case. We must absolutely imagine that on the broad basis of that old heritage, which was lived out in older times as the most primitive clairvoyance, then gradually petered out and faded away, but that higher knowledge, spiritual knowledge, was also developed. This was, of course, cultivated only by a few who were trained in the mysteries, but it was present in the wider community. And we must further imagine that through the gradual paralysis of the faculties to comprehend such things, the whole matter was not only forgotten but disappeared. People simply no longer had the ability to understand such things within Western culture. As a result, only what was wisdom could be lost. So we can truly say that by looking at the time immediately preceding and following the Mystery of Golgotha, we are looking at a time when, to a large extent, old abilities were disappearing and work was being done entirely from scratch, from the new. It can be said that as humanity developed towards the Mystery of Golgotha, there was a dimming out, a disappearance of a very special way of looking at things and thinking, which was of a spiritual nature and through which one could have understood the coming of the Christ into the world as a spiritual being. Thus, precisely at the time when the Christ connects with the evolution on earth, the knowledge through which the nature and essence of this Christ could have been understood in the actual, deeper sense disappears. This is an important fact. I have already pointed out something very significant in various parts of our reflections. I said: the proclamation of Christ as such is not something that is so completely new, for example, with the event of Golgotha. No, the mysteries already spoke of the Christ as the Coming One. There were teachings in the mysteries that the Christ would come. This Christ Being was understood in the sense of the lost spiritual wisdom. But these mysteries had gradually fallen into disrepair, so that just as the Christ came, the time approached when people were least suited to speak about this Christ. This can be seen not only from everything I have already mentioned, but also from what remains with people who now want to form an idea of the Christ secret that is fresh and new. In the first centuries of Christian development, we have such great minds as, for example, Clement of Alexandria and Origen, two eminent minds. If you want to characterize them from a certain point of view, this Clement of Alexandria, who thus followed the Gnostics, when Gnosticism had already dawned, as did Origen, then you have to say that they strive to recognize: What is the actual truth about this mystery of Golgotha? On the one hand, we are dealing with the Christ – they still knew that. This Christ can only be understood as a spiritual being that has to do with the spiritual, with the supersensible impulses. This Christ descends from cosmic spiritual regions. They no longer knew exactly how the old Gnosticism was able to understand the Christ, but they knew that He must be understood as a spiritual being with spiritual abilities. That they knew about the Christ. On the other hand, Jesus was an historical personality to them. The appearance of Jesus was an historical fact to them. They said to themselves, “So many years ago, in a certain part of the Near East, a personality was born, Jesus, who was the bearer of the Christ, a human being in whom God was present.” This became the riddle for them. They said to themselves, “We are dealing with an historical personality in the historical development, we are dealing with the Christ in the spiritual understanding.” How should one conceptualize the union of the two? And with such eminent, such great spirits as Clement of Alexandria and Origen are, we see a struggle, a fight with it: to be able to grasp how the Christ is in the Jesus, therein is. If we first look at Clement of Alexandria, who headed the Catechetical School of Alexandria, where those who were to be trained and made into Christian teachers were trained, if we look at this significant personality, we find the following among the teachings of this personality. Clemens of Alexandria said to himself: The Christ belongs to those forces that were already active at the creation of the earth, of course he belongs to the spiritual world. He has entered into the evolution of the earth through the body of Jesus of Nazareth. So Clemens of Alexandria first turned his gaze to the Christ as a spiritual being, seeking to understand him in spiritual regions. Now Clement of Alexandria also knew the following, which we have also emphasized several times before. He knew that the Christ was actually always there for people, but not in the earthly region. Only those who developed powers within themselves through the mysteries were able to reach him, by virtue of which they could leave the body. When they, the people, emerged from the body through the powers of the mysteries and entered into the spiritual regions, they recognized the Christ and felt that He was the One Who was to come. This was known to Clement of Alexandria. He knew that in the old mysteries there was mention of the Christ as the Coming One, Who had not yet been united with the evolution of the earth. He expressed it thus: “Certainly, people were inspired to expect the Christ.” And he went so far as to say: “Specifically at two points in the spiritual development of humanity, was there a cultivation of that which could prepare for the coming of the Christ.” Clement of Alexandria said: “On the one hand, it was cultivated by Moses and the prophets.” What came into the world through Moses and the prophets, he said, was a preparation. People should first experience what came through Moses and the prophets, so that with the help of their own intuition they could then have a feeling for it: We have the Christ. That is what they were supposed to imagine. So he knew nothing of the ancient Gnostic wisdom, or at least he did not apply it. But he said that what came through Moses and the prophets to human abilities was “preparation.” And then – this is very significant – as a second thing that was to prepare for the coming of Christ, besides Moses and the prophets, Clement of Alexandria mentioned Greek philosophy: Plato and Aristotle – Greek philosophy. He said, as it were, that Moses and the prophets and Greek philosophy were there to prepare people for the event, for the fact of the Mystery of Golgotha. And again Origen said to himself: We are dealing with the Christ: with the Christ who, as a spiritual being, can be understood by spiritual powers, we are dealing with the historical Jesus, with that personality that once existed as a real personality belonging to the world of the senses. How do the two come together – the god with the human being? How is the God-man created? — And Origen came up with a theory. He said to himself: the God cannot simply dwell in the physical man, but there first had to be a special soul in Jesus, so that this soul can mediate between the God and the man, that is, the God as a pure spiritual being with the physical man. So he added the soul. And so he distinguished in Christ Jesus the God, the pure pneumatic being, the pure spiritual being, then the psyche, the soul, and the physical body of Jesus of Nazareth. He therefore tried to form a concept of how the Christ could be in Jesus of Nazareth. He no longer had the old gnosis to imagine the Christ's dwelling on earth and the Christ's connection with the evolution of the earth. One had to work from the fresh, from the new. One had to make an effort to achieve this. So just when the Christ as a real being had united with the evolution of the earth, people had the greatest difficulty in even understanding this fact. The abilities were present to the very least extent. And why that was, Clement of Alexandria had at least some understanding of it. He said to himself: How then were these old mystery people inspired? It was through the Christ, said Clement of Alexandria to himself, that the Christ also worked through them, but supernaturally, when they came out of themselves. This happened, as Clement of Alexandria very clearly expresses it, because he sent them the angels. So that Clement of Alexandria said it outright: when the Old Testament speaks of the appearance of an angel, it means that the Christ sends that angel. Yes, Clement of Alexandria makes it expressly clear: When Yahweh appears to Moses in the burning bush, it is actually the Christ who appears, who appears through the earthly-soul-spiritual appearance. So that Clement of Alexandria expressly states: In ancient times, before the Mystery of Golgotha, the Christ appeared to people through the angels. If they were able to perceive the message of the angels, then they actually stood face to face with Christ Himself as disembodied, initiated disembodied beings of the higher world. So far went Clement of Alexandria. And then he said – and this is again contained in his work –: In the progress of time development, Christ has passed from the nature of an angel to the nature of a son. He has become a son. He could manifest Himself earlier, reveal Himself through the angels or as an angel, as a multitude of angels, as many angels. When He wanted to appear to one as an angel, when He wanted to appear to another as another angel, He appeared through many forms. Then He appeared through the one form: the Son. Here a very important element comes into play. Please pay attention to this, it is extremely important! Clement of Alexandria still takes the view that the Christ was already present in the spiritual regions before the Mystery of Golgotha. He had reached the point where he could make himself known through angels, through messengers. But he progressed further, he came to be able to express himself as the Son. This is extremely important. What is it that actually enters into human understanding? — If we go through all this old Gnosticism, it has a peculiarity. If, for example, I wanted to draw you a diagram of this Gnosticism, I could say the following: This Gnosticism imagines a person of evolution who emanated from the Father, the Primordial Father, from the so-called Silence or “iyn, from the Primordial Spirit. These ancient Gnostics indicated thirty different levels. They called them eons. So I could mention thirty here. Now, to some extent, a second stream; while the first stream is spiritual, they indicated a second stream that is soul-related. Within this stream, they recognized the two main eons of origin in Christ and Sophia. Then a number of eons came again. And they indicated a third current: the demiurge with matter. And these came together and formed the human being. You can make such schematics from the way these Gnostics thought. These ideas are not entirely unreal, not entirely imaginary, because the human being is a complex creature. When I once explained how many seven-part aspects there are in the human being – you included it in one of the Norwegian cycles, I believe it is called “Man in the Light of Occultism, Theosophy and Philosophy” – our dear friends were quite amazed at how many, many differences actually have to be looked for in the human being. These differences are reminiscent of what the Gnostics already knew from their point of view. But when one approaches this Gnosis, one thing is always the same: the concept of time plays little role in it. One can express the Gnostic through spatial schematics. The concept of time does not play a special role, at least one does not penetrate it with understanding. And in this respect there is progress from Gnosis to Clement of Alexandria. Even if the entire comprehensive wealth of spiritual wisdom was lost, there was still progress in that Clement of Alexandria brought the concept of time into the development of the Christ and said: The Christ revealed Himself earlier, could make Himself known earlier through angels, then as a son, because He Himself had progressed. Development came into it, that is the significant thing. It cannot be emphasized often enough that the Western cultural development was there to then bring the concept of time into the world view in the right way, to understand the idea of development in the right way. This is so important, this is of far-reaching significance, to look at the development and to see how Christ originally could only make himself known through the angels, and then, after he has gone through the mystery of Golgotha, appears as the Son. Through the angels he is the messenger of something that is outside the world and indeed permeates the world, but which, if it is to be recognized, must be recognized from outside the world: Messenger, later, when he appears as a son, he permeates everything. Just as the son of a blood is one with the father within the physical world, so the spirit-son of a being is to be imagined with the father in the spiritual world. Being a son is different from simply being an angel. So when this entity reveals itself as a son, it is an advance over the earlier revelation, where it could only reveal itself as an angel, as a messenger. So in Christianity there was a kind of more advanced understanding than there was within the old Gnosticism. But I would say that the after-effects of Gnosticism were still needed in order to say what Clement of Alexandria said. When Gnosticism gradually disappeared altogether, one could no longer even say what Clement and Origen said. People increasingly came to identify with those impulses that were the impulses of later times, the purely materialistic impulses. And so it came about that Origen's teaching was condemned. It was declared heretical. The element that caused it to be declared heretical consists in particular in the fact that one wanted to renounce such an understanding of the matter, coming from man himself and his powers. One felt: that can no longer be there. But how does the matter appear to us now? How must it appear to us? We see, after all, that an old spiritual wisdom had spread on the basis of old clairvoyance. That was there, it is gradually disappearing. Within this spiritual wisdom, even if it related to an extraterrestrial being, there was a wisdom about the Christ. Just when the Christ descended to Earth, this had disappeared. The real Christ was connected with the earth. The knowledge of the Christ had disappeared in time. There you have another case on a large scale, which I ask you to look at properly. We can look beyond the then known earth, beyond the earth before the mystery of Golgotha. The further back we go, the more knowledge of the Christ we find, even if it is the Christ who must be thought of in supersensible regions. But it is a knowledge that can only be imparted by angels. This is evolution. This knowledge, this idea of the Christ is distributed among many people. The Christ lived as the inspirer of many people: evolution. This knowledge slowly recedes, disappears, fades away, and in the one being, in Jesus of Nazareth, everything that was once distributed is concentrated. Imagine a drop of Christ-inner-self within evolution in one of the mystery priests, a second, third, fourth and so on, in each of the mystery initiates one would find: he has something of the Christ in him when he leaves his body with his spirit. The Christ is multiplied in them. All this disappears. And in a single point, in the body of Jesus of Nazareth, all that was distributed contracts: involution. Precisely that which had been withdrawn from all others appeared in the one body. And so we see that what was distributed, what lived in evolution, must disappear from the earth by concentrating on the one point, on the body of Jesus of Nazareth. That is this important fact. Within the most significant involution, evolution ceases. So now the time is coming when the Christ lives with the earth, but the Christ-knowledge does not live in the earth, the Christ-knowledge must first develop again. Now the great difficulties are there, we have already hinted at them: on the one hand you have the Jesus, on the other hand you have the Christ. And do you think that the old wisdom of the connection in man has been lost at all? All this time, nothing has been known about what it is all about with man. Only now are we again dividing the human being into physical body, etheric body, sentient soul and so on. We are only just beginning to do this again. In the individual human being, we now distinguish again the physical-earthly, which continues in the line of inheritance, and the higher spiritual, which descended again from spiritual worlds. Origen did not know this, nor did Clement of Alexandria. They did not know enough about the spiritual and soul life and the physical life of the individual human being walking on earth. That is why they had difficulty understanding the individual aspects of the essence of Christ Jesus. Knowledge about the human being had been lost, hence this difficulty in understanding the God-man. And so the knowledge about Jesus and the knowledge about the Christ became more and more divergent. And it is of infinite importance for our time that we understand how this, as it were, affects the time again, inasmuch as that which our spiritual science contains must appear in it. It is tremendously important to look precisely at this falling apart of the Jesus and the Christ. This is an extremely serious, an extremely important matter. And it confronts us in so many ways. We have seen these Christmas plays pass before us. In the second play, we felt something of the Christ; in the first, the pure figure of Jesus in the second, the simple and primitive. One can say that gradually the Jesus-child, that is, the starting point of Jesus, has conquered the minds of people. Only in the Middle Ages does one begin to look towards the child. Before that, Christians took part in the sacrifice of the Mass, they heard about the mystery that the Christ had gone through death, the Pauline doctrine and so on. But the Bible was not popular, the Bible was only in the hands of the priests. The faithful had to take part in the sacrifice of the Mass, which was offered to them in Latin. But there was no participation in the proceedings of the sacred action. And that which is contained in the Gospels only gradually conquered minds and souls. And so it was only really from the middle of the Middle Ages that such plays, such representations of the appearance of Jesus and so on, could be offered to people. Today one actually has the idea: The Mystery of Golgotha was, and from then on people would have known something of this Mystery of Golgotha. Yes, what they knew was that the Christ had died on the cross. People were especially aware of the Easter event. But the Christmas event was completely unknown, it crept into people's minds and hearts only very slowly and gradually. That was the external side, how people learned about what had happened in Palestine in pictures. Only gradually, through the dramatic presentation, did people begin to imagine what had happened in Palestine. It was the side of the mystery of Jesus. It was at the same time, just think, it was at the same time when, on the other hand, in mysticism, Tauler, Meister Eckhart and the others were again seeking the Christ through mysticism. So on the one hand we have the first emergence of Christmas plays: Jesus is sought as externally as possible, namely in direct external representation – Jesus is sought – and the mystics seek the Christ, they seek to develop the soul to such an extent that they see the Christ emerging in them, they seek to experience the completely transformed, completely unworldly, purely spiritual Christ in the soul. Mysticism on the one hand, Christmas plays on the other — the Jesus and the Christ are sought at the same time on two different, far-removed paths! What was a theoretical difficulty for Origen, the inability to reconcile the Christ with the Jesus, is encountered in the villages outside. Among the people, Jesus is shown in the form of a child. The deep mystics seek the Christ by wanting to lead their own soul to an inner feeling, almost to an inner sensing of the Christ. But where is the connection? Where is it, this connection? Things go side by side. Think how far apart what the simple person, the simple eye, sees in the Christmas plays is from the deep mysticism of a Meister Eckhart or a Johannes Tauler. But the beginnings of the Christmas plays fall into the time. Mysticism also lives on. And in our time today - think of what the whole mystery of Golgotha has become for many theologians! Suppose: Those who are the most advanced theologians, what do they actually look at? They see that once at the beginning of our era in Nazareth or Bethlehem or somewhere, a chosen person was born, chosen especially to gradually feel within himself the connection between man and the spiritual world, a noble person - the noblest person, so noble that one can already say that he was almost - and even - not true, because the story is a bit patchy! One does not know how to find one's way around, what more can be said about the fact that in the course of Christianity he was after all conceived entirely as a god. And so one twists and turns, and there come all the Euckenisms and Harnackisms, which are so — yes, one cannot grasp it, but one wants in some way to be clever and yet have a way to understand Jesus as something, Christ as some kind of Christ. Well, and so one takes up the Gospels. Of course, as a modern person, one is embarrassed to admit the miracles. So one deletes what one can delete and constructs something highly natural out of it, something that can have happened for reasonable reasons. And then it goes to the event of Jerusalem, to the crucifixion. Up to the point of dying, that is still possible. But after the resurrection, that is no longer possible, and one then ventures into such things as Harnack, for example, ventures into saying: Yes, this resurrection, this grave from which Christ Jesus is said to have risen – the Easter mystery, yes, yes, the Easter mystery: one must indeed to the realization that from the Garden at the Skull this Easter secret has gone forth; the Easter secret has risen there – the thought of the resurrection has come from there, and to that we must cling and look no further for what has actually happened there; the idea of the resurrection has gone forth from there. Now, isn't that something! Read “The Essence of Christianity” by Harnack, and you will find this peculiar resurrection idea! I once pointed this out at a meeting of the Giordano Bruno Society in a town and said: It is a strange idea that people want to deal with the resurrection in such a way that they say they do not want to touch what actually happened, but want to point out that the belief in the resurrection, the belief in the Easter mystery, has risen from that grave. — Then someone said to me: That can't stand with Harnack! That's almost Catholic, that's Catholic superstition. It's as if one should still believe that the Holy Shroud of Trier means something! That's superstition, that can't stand with Harnack. Yes, it is in Harnack after all, and I could do nothing else – I did not have the book at hand – than write a card to the gentleman in question the next day, saying that it was on page so and so. These are things that lead into difficulties. You can't get past them if you are to find the way from Jesus to the Christ. Someone once said to me: We modern theologians can no longer do anything with Christology, we can only use a Jesusology. — He said it, not me: It's a shame that the name Jesuit is already taken, because actually the confessors of modern theology should be called “Jesuits”. — Please, I didn't say it, but a confessor of modern theology! Yes, well, that is one side of the story. The other side is that a number of modern theologians, in turn, adhere more to the Christ. They take the Gospels as their starting point. They do not take certain sayings in the Gospels in the same way as those I have just mentioned take what a reasonable person in the world can believe of a person even if he is a divine person. But when someone is called a “divine man,” it is not clear how far one should go in applying the divine: “Noble man, but more than Socrates” — but, well, it is not right. Now, there are those who are Jesusologists, for theologians, that is a word that is difficult to apply to them. Theology would mean divine wisdom. But the “divine” is to be deleted here. Then there are the others; they take the sayings a little more seriously. With certain sayings, they find: It is not right that the one who said them should be understood only as an ordinary human being. There are sayings in the Gospels that simply cannot be put into the mouth of a human being, a mere human being, in an honest way. And besides, they take the resurrection story seriously and so on. They now turn into Christologists as opposed to Jesus-ologists. But now they arrive at something else. Read the book “Ecce Deus” and other books, and you will come to the conclusion that if you read the Gospels honestly, you cannot say that the Gospels are about a man. It is about a God, a real, true God. These people, in turn, lose Jesus. And they lose him very strongly, because they now say: the Gospels are all about a God; but the God cannot have existed, he cannot have existed, so we have to keep the Christ. The Christ is something that people talked about, but it did not live on earth. Christology without Jesus-ology, that is the other direction. But the two directions cannot come together. And so it is already really the case today: those who speak of the Christ have lost the Jesus, and those who speak of the Jesus have lost the Christ. The Christ has become an unreal god, and the Jesus has become an unreal man. It is imperative that we continue on this path, if nothing is added. That which is added must be spiritual science, which in turn can comprehend how the Christ lived in Jesus. And that is basically one of the most important points of spiritual science teaching, that it can lead to an understanding of how the Christ, through the detour of the two Jesuses, could really become the being that placed itself at the center of the evolution of mankind on earth, because this spiritual science in turn has a view of what man is, how the spiritual, the soul and the physical are combined in man. And so, building on this, one can also understand how the Christ comes together with the Jesus. Of course, it is complicated and not easy to understand, but it can be understood. And so you see how, from the original, that which has been lost for humanity must be restored through spiritual science, also in relation to the understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha. When the Christ appeared in the world, it was not possible to understand Him. This understanding must be acquired little by little. What He has worked, He has worked in actuality. But the starting points are there everywhere. And starting points can be found even in the simplest Christmas play. What is presented? It becomes particularly clear where the Paradiesspiele are still considered, how a person enters the world, from whom it becomes clear only through what happens incidentally that it is Jesus. The human being enters the world as a child. I said: the Paradiesspiel was connected with it - the beginning of the development of the earth - with the Mystery of Golgotha. Why is that? We must take into account the fact that at the beginning of the evolution of the earth, man was exposed to the Luciferic temptation. As a result, he became a different being than he would have become in the regular process of evolution. So when we have Adam, symbolically speaking, outside of paradise, he is a different being than he was destined to be before the Luciferic temptation. How does that come to light? Imagine: Lucifer had not approached the human being, the human being would live without the Luciferic impulse, then he would live quite differently in the etheric body. When the human being passes through the gate of death and still has his etheric body, and then sheds it, that etheric body remains, but in this etheric body is imprinted what the human being does and thinks through the Luciferic seduction. The human being dies, passes through the gate of death. The physical body is given over to the elements. After a few days, the etheric body detaches itself from the human being. The person then goes his or her own way. But in this ethereal body is contained that which this etheric body has become through the fact that the person thinks and feels and acts as he must think and feel and act after the Luciferic temptation. So now imagine the earth. The human physical body goes into the earth, it is handed over to the elements of the earth. But his ether body remains connected to the earth. There we have the ether bodies of human beings, which are now in the earth's atmosphere. They are different from what they would be if the Luciferic temptation had not come. Of course, everything I have said about the ether bodies refers to these ether bodies. But what I am hinting at today also relates to this, so that we can say: A human being is embedded in the earth. That which he leaves behind on earth, what his etheric body has become during his life, is drier, more woody than it would be if the Luciferic temptation had not come. Woody, dry — this difference really exists. Imagine that the temptation of Lucifer had never occurred. In that case, at his death man would leave behind a much more “young” etheric body, as it were a much greener etheric body. He leaves behind a much more withered, dried-up etheric body through the temptation of Lucifer than he would have left behind without the temptation of Lucifer. It is already expressed in the legend that the lignified Paradise Tree grows out of Adam's grave. But that which lives in the earth lived before the Mystery of Golgotha in the Luciferically infected etheric body. That was precisely the element into which the body of Jesus of Nazareth entered in a redeeming way, as a phantom, as I once indicated in the Karlsruhe lectures. Now then, imagine Adam's grave: Adam's physical body consigned to the elements of the earth, emerging from the grave with the sclerotic etheric body, which is the representative of that which is infected with Lucifer in the human being and remains after death. At the same time, this is the wood on which the human being can be crucified. And this crucifixion arises in the lingering of the phantom of Jesus of Nazareth after the Mystery of Golgotha, which connects with the earth precisely with the help of the latter. This is expressed in the legend by saying: This wood passed from generation to generation and formed the wood of the cross of Golgotha. This image is the image that corresponds to a real fact, namely that through the crucifixion the phantom of Jesus of Nazareth united with what lived ethereally in the earth from all the etheric bodies infected by Lucifer, which had naturally scattered and thinned and dissolved, but were still there in their powers. The fact that we have to face here is a very significant and infinitely profound one, shedding light on the secrets of the earth. But how does man become related to this ethereal body infected by Lucifer? By becoming immersed in the physical world, where he becomes a child. It is not yet natural there, where he becomes a child. Therefore, if you look at the child with the right feeling when it enters the world, you really see the man who is free of Lucifer. And if you are able to look at the child with the right feeling as it enters the world, you will already see the man with his relationship to Christ. This is the feeling that should be achieved in those to whom Jesus was handed over in the Christmas play: to feel what I have indicated on the very first pages of the little writing about the progress of people and humanity, where I spoke of the first three years, of this entering. For if what is permeating the human being could penetrate him in the middle of his life – I have hinted at it in it – then one would have an idea of the way in which the Christ lived in Jesus. This ability to look at what is not yet infected by Lucifer in the child is what can happen in the Christmas play. And think what all this ultimately is. It is actually something tremendous when you look at the child in this way. In this little writing, I have pointed out how we are wiser in our youth, even if unconsciously wiser, because we have to build up our body little by little, which we cannot do later. One is cleverer, one is much wiser than one is later, in the inner penetration of the human being, of the human entity, but one does not yet have anything Luciferic. By working inwardly in this way when one is a child, up to the point in time to which one later remembers, one works on the fine chiseling of one's body. One works there according to infinitely wise laws, of which one can never get an inkling later on in the luciferic-ahrimanic permeated knowledge. When one works in this essence, one is still free from everything one later enters into by experiencing the world together with the body. One is free from all differences, even from the great difference of male and female. As a child, one is not yet living in the masculine and feminine. One is not yet in a class, racial or national difference in it. One is human, a mere human being. One is really in it, in which even those who now face each other in war through hatred, through what they only experience externally, have once lived. That people face each other in the world hating as belonging to different nations, that is only developed through those forces in which one lives together with the physical body. Before the child has lived together with the physical body, it still lives in the 'in-between', which is beyond national and class differences. It lives in the in-between, in which souls can truly live, wherever they are born on earth. Just think, people can face each other in terrible fighting, angry fighting, shoot each other dead – and those who shoot each other dead can pass through the gate of death in the community of Christ, in that in which they are when they are not yet afflicted with the differences of people. What faces each other hating, that the human being acquires only in the physical body, that has nothing to do with what is outside of the physical body. The present has much to learn, especially the present, by finding its way back to the worship of Jesus in time, when he is presented as a child, since he has not yet entered into that which differentiates people and causes them to quarrel and fight with each other. It is only through what a person experiences when he becomes something other than the child spoken of at Christmas that war and strife arise. What is played at Christmas is the human being, truly in connection with the cosmic powers, but in such a way that what does not enter into conflict, what those in their hearts can carry in the same way, is revealed externally on the physical plane in a unique form, even though they fight each other to the death. There is an enormous depth to the fact that it is precisely in connection with the Nathanian Jesus-child that this side is presented to humanity, so that the human being touches himself with that side through which he enters the world without the shadow of differentiation, before he has entered into nations, into other differences, into those differences that he enters only through living together with the body. On the one hand, the idea of Jesus touches the idea of Christ, which can only be fully realized in the child Jesus; on the other hand, the idea of Christ comes into being when one can grasp purely, in the Jesus between the ages of thirty and thirty-three, what is now also spiritual, the being of Christ. In a twofold way, through the Nathanic and the Solomonic Jesus, a body has been prepared that can now stand apart from all that differentiates itself through human beings. And only in such a body can the Christ reveal Himself. Thus, in our spiritual scientific sense, we see, as I have indicated in the booklet on the progress of man and humanity, the Jesus idea and the Christ idea growing together. This is the greatest and most significant need of our time. So far, people have had only one Christmas and only one Easter, but these do not belong together. For Easter is a Christ festival, while Christmas is a Jesus festival. Easter and Christmas will only lead the way together if one can understand how Christ and Jesus belong together. And spiritual science will build the bridge between Christmas and Easter. And from the simple play of the shepherds, a bridge is built to the finest understanding that can be gained when we pursue spiritual science to the point where we find the Christ through it. We must only have the ability to go with the attitude of the shepherds, not with the attitude of the landlords. The contrast between materialism and spiritualism is wonderfully contrasted in the “landlords” and the “shepherds”. And basically, that is the big question of our time: whether people want to be hosts or shepherds. A great deal of the events of our time stem from the fact that people are hosts. Being a host is widespread in the world. To be shepherds, we must again try to become shepherds. There will certainly still be many doubters among the shepherds, and when one says, “I think I see a glow there, that is, I perceive something spiritual,” the other will still say for a long time, “That's just fantasy.” But if the human being can only now develop the sides in himself that are not based on what has been acquired on earth, but can find the connection with what the human being has brought out of the spiritual, heavenly in his inner being, then he will be able to be a shepherd. Today people are too absorbed with the house they live in and the possessions they own, the things they have brought in from the earth. This can only be measured in terms of earthly values. But those who still have a certain connection with the spiritual forces that surge through the world, who still have the nature of a shepherd within them, they should be able to find the way to realize that, basically, external knowledge only reveals appearances. We will gradually begin to understand Christmas when we learn to distinguish between the host nature and the shepherd nature, and when we know how much of the host nature there is in our time. But there is one small problem that needs to be overcome. Of course we have to distinguish between the innkeeper and shepherd natures, since we are surrounded by innkeepers, and wherever we go we are surrounded by innkeepers and feel very much like a shepherd. Of course we always feel like a shepherd! One must get over that, at least to do a little research into the innkeeper element that one carries within oneself, and not to see oneself as a shepherd at all. One will sometimes have to ask oneself: Do I already see the light that is to come and announce what is to come through the new spiritual science? — We will have to cultivate everything that can awaken in us the feelings: to be able to celebrate Christmas in our hearts in this new spiritual direction, to seek the light out of the darkness, but to seek within ourselves and really want to seek, really want to seek, and by really feel that it is not over at once, and that you have to keep coming back, like the shepherds did, who also promise to come back; they don't want to leave it over at once. Yes, there is still much to be learned from this simple Christmas play, and so I think it is good that we cultivate this simplest way of experiencing the Christmas mystery in these simple forms among ourselves for a while. For many difficult struggles will confront spiritual striving in the coming time, and only those who have truly learned to become shepherds in the spiritual grasp of the Christmas mystery with all the humility of shepherds, but also with all the wise searching of the shepherd who is faithfully united with the world, will find the way. Let us inscribe this in our hearts and souls this Christmas season, so that we may become more and more seeking shepherds and learn in time to seek the sacred in the innermost soul mood of man, as it has been found out of the profane mood, as I have characterized it to you, as more out of a carnival, not a sacred conversation, the most solemn form of the Christmas play also gradually arose. If we try to seek the spiritual in the context of what the Christmas plays showed us, then we will find it in the right sense as shepherds, not as innkeepers, who have already lost — as the Christmas play symbolically suggests — the connection with the Christmas child. And our time has a great need of it, a very great need of it, our time in which materialism has acquired such wide, wide areas of the outer world, of inner human feeling, and in which it is so difficult for a spiritual world view to even find the right words to express what the right words are, given the misused words with which one expresses oneself. |
| 158. Olaf Åsteson: The Awakening of the Earth Spirit
07 Jan 1913, Berlin Translator Unknown Rudolf Steiner |
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| To those however who have kept in touch with nature, what happens at Christmas time is not the same as what takes place at some other time in the year, for example, at midsummer. |
| Of him I sing to thee. He went to rest on Christmas Eve. A deep sleep fell upon him soon, And he could not awake, Till on the thirteenth day The people went to Church. |
| II I went to rest on Christmas Eve, A deep sleep soon enveloped me; And I could not awake, Till on the thirteenth day The people went to church. |
| 158. Olaf Åsteson: The Awakening of the Earth Spirit
07 Jan 1913, Berlin Translator Unknown Rudolf Steiner |
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The period from about Christmas to the present date (Jan. 7th) is really an important and significant period of the year, also in an occult connection. It is called “The period of the Thirteen Days.” The remarkable thing is that the importance of these thirteen days is felt by those who through the constitution of their souls have preserved an inkling of the ancient connection of the human soul with the spiritual world, of which we have often spoken. We know that the primitive human being who lives in the country or in a community which is little infected by our town life, preserves more of the connection with the spiritual world which existed in ancient times than one belonging to a town.We find many things in folk-poems regarding experiences of the soul during the period from Christmas Eve to Epiphany, Jan.6th. This is the time when—after darkness has been greatest over the earth, directly after the winter solstice, when the sun again begins his victorious course,—together with the deepest immersion and subsequent liberation and redemption of nature,—the human soul can also have special experiences if it still has a definite connection with the spiritual world. Those who o longer possess the old clairvoyance, but who in their souls are still connected with the spiritual world, perceive a difference in the abnormal world of dreams at this period of the year. What the soul can then experience is important, because the soul—if it is still susceptible—can then really penetrate best into the spiritual world. To the modern man the course of the year is such that he can no longer distinguish the various seasons of the year; for while the snowstorms rage outside, when the darkness descends about 4 p.m. and it grows light late in the morning, the city man feels the same as in the summer months when the sun develops its greatest power. Man has been torn out of his ancient connection with the Cosmos in which he lived when he was outside in nature. To those however who have kept in touch with nature, what happens at Christmas time is not the same as what takes place at some other time in the year, for example, at midsummer. Whereas at midsummer the soul is most emancipated from what is connected with the spiritual world, at the time when nature has died away the most it is connected with the spiritual world and formerly had special experiences during this time. Now there is a beautiful folk-poem in the old Norwegian language, a poem which was re-discovered a short time ago and has quickly become popular again owing to the peculiarly sympathetic understanding of the Norwegian people. It treats of a man who was still in connection with the spiritual world,—Olaf Oesteson. What he goes through in the time between Christmas and Epiphany is beautifully described in this poem. At the New Year Festival in Hanover on Jan. 1st, 1912, I tried to put this folk-poem “Olaf Oesteson” into German verse, so that it might come before our souls too. We will begin this evening with the song of Olaf Oesteson, which contains his experiences during the “Thirteen Nights.”
The poem itself is old; but as we have already said, it has recently reappeared as if of itself among the Norwegian people and is spreading with great rapidity. The fact of this poem spreading id one among the many things at the present time which shows how people are longing to understand the secrets now being opened up by Theosophy, for the fact that what is here described takes place—or at least could take place a comparatively short time ago—in a soul, is not merely “imagination.” Olaf Oesteson is a type of those people living in the North who, even in the Middle Ages, about the middle of that period, were able to experience literally, one might say, the things mentioned in this poem. When our Norwegian friends gave me this poem on my visit to Christiania the time before last, and wished me to say something about it, it was the fact just mentioned, one of general theosophical interest, which came particularly to notice, but what led up to include this poem in our theosophical understanding we can really penetrate more and more deeply into what comes to light in it. Thus for instance, it was significant to me that Olaf (that is an old Norwegian name) has the surname “Oesteson.” “Oesteson”—the son of what? Of “Oste”; and I tried to find what sort of mother this is the son of. Now of course we might adduce many things—including some that might lead to dispute—about he meaning of the word “Oste” (East): but it would be impossible to-day to explain all that is connected with it. If, however, we take into account all that comes into question, “Olaf Oesteson” means approximately this: One who is still a son of that soul which passes down from generation to generation, and is connected with the blood which is handed on from generation to generation. Thus we have traced this name back to what we have so often spoken of in Theosophy, namely, that in ancient times the old clairvoyance was connected with the relationship of the blood which passes through generations. We might translate “Olaf Oesteson” thus: Olaf, the one born of many generations and who still bears in his soul the characteristics of many generations. Now when we examine his experiences, it is extremely interesting to notice that what Olaf Oesteson went through while he was asleep for thirteen days, beginning from Christmas Eve, during which time he did not woke was in a sort of psychic state. When we read these verses describing his various experiences with the broad homeliness of the nation, we are reminded of certain descriptions of the first stages of initiation, where we are told that so and so was led to the portal of death. We are shown in many places in the poem that Olaf Oesteson arrives at the portal of death. It is pointed out particularly clearly where he says that he feels like a corpse, even to the earth which feels between his teeth. When we remember that in initiation the etheric body extends beyond the limits of the skin and the neophite becomes larger and larger, so that he lives into the large, into the wide expanse of space, we are told in this poem how Olaf Oesteson descends deeply, feels himself in the depths of the earth and ascends to the clouds. Olaf Oesteson experience what man has to go through after death, for example, in the sphere of the moon. It is poetically described how the moon shines clearly and how the paths stretch far away, then the chasm is described which has to be passed over in the world which lies between the human world and the one leading out into cosmic space. The heavenly bridge connects what is human with what is cosmic. Our attention is then drawn to the beings expressed in the constellations; the bull and the serpent. To one who can look spiritually into the world, the constellations are only the expression of what exists spiritually in space. Then the world of Kamaloca is disclosed in the description of “Brooksvaline.” It describes how there is a sort of recompense, how people have there to experience what they have not acquired here on earth,—but in a compensating way.—We need not, however, go into all the details of the poem. We should not do this at all with poems such as this. We ought to feel they have originated from a frame of mind still closely connected with something which existed in such a people as this, much longer than among nations which lived in the more interior part of the continent or who were connected with the life in cities. In the Norwegian people, which still possesses in its national language many things which border closely upon occult secrets, it is possible to keep souls in touch for a long time with what exists behind outer material phenomena. Remember who I explained that, parallel with the seasons of the year, there are spiritual facts taking place, how in the spring when the plants spring forth the earth, when everything wakens, as it were, when the days grow longer, we have to recognize what may be called a sort of sleeping of the elementary and higher spirits connected with the earth. In spring, when outwardly the earth awakens, we see that spiritually this is connected with a sort of falling asleep of the earth; and when outer nature dies down again it is connected with an awakening of the spiritual nature of the earth. When about Christmas time outer nature is as though asleep, it is the time when the spiritual part of the earth is most active, and includes elemental, less important beings, as well as great and mighty beings connected with earthly life. It is only when it is observed outwardly that it seems as though we must compare spring with the awakening of the earth and winter to its going to sleep. Seen occultly it is the reverse. The “Spirit of the Earth” which however, consists of many spirits, is awake in winter and asleep in summer. Just as in the human organism the organic and plant activities are most active during sleep, as these forces then work even into the brain, and as the purely organic activity is subdued while the person is awake, so is it also with the earth. When the earth is most active, when everything has sprouted forth, when the sun has reached its zenith about St. John's Day, the Spirit of the earth is asleep. In accord with this occult truth the festival of Christmas, the festival of the awakening of the spirit, was fixed in winter. Things which have been handed down as customs from ancient times often correspond to these occult verities. Now one who knows how to live with the spirit of the earth celebrates, for example, the festival of St. John in summer, for this festival is a kind of materialistic festival; it celebrates that which is revealed in an outward materialistic form. One who is connected with the Spirit of the Earth, with what lives spiritually in the earth, awakens in his inner being—that is, he sleeps outwardly like Olaf Oesteson—best at Christmas time, during the “Thirteen days.” This is an occult fact, which to occultism signifies exactly the same as, for example, the fact of the outer solstitial point to ordinary materialistic science. Of course materialistic science will consider it to be an obvious thing that in astronomy it should describe the activity of the sun in summer and in winter in a purely external manner, it will consider foolish what to occultists is a fact, namely that the spiritual solstice is at its highest point in winter, that therefore the conditions are then the most favorable for those who wish to come in touch with the Spirit of the Earth and all that is spiritual. Therefore to one who wishes to strengthen his soul's powers it may come about that he can have his best experiences during the thirteen days after Christmas. At that time, without noticing it, experiences come forth from the soul,—although the modern man is emancipated from outer processes, so that occult experiences can come at any time, but in so far as outer conditions can have an influence, the time between Christmas and New Year is most important. Thus are we reminded by this poem in quite a natural manner, that a great deal of what we are able to relate regarding the period between death and rebirth was known among certain peoples a comparatively short time ago, many knew it from direct experience. |
| 223. The Cycle of the Year as Breathing-Process of the Earth: Lecture II
01 Apr 1923, Dornach Translated by Barbara Betteridge, Frances E. Dawson Rudolf Steiner |
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| And in all ancient times when something comparable to our present Christmas festival existed, it was recognized that what goes on in connection with the Earth at Christmas time could be grasped only by initiation into mystery-knowledge, by the initiation still known in Greece as the Chthonian Mysteries. |
| This was regarded as the secret—if I may express myself in the modern sense—as the Christmas secret of the ancient mysteries: that just at Christmas time one comes to know how the Earth, by being permeated and saturated by her spirit-soul-being, becomes especially receptive in her inner being to the activity of the Moon forces. |
| John's thought was perceived to be the counter-pole of the Christmas thought. As the Christmas thought by its inner livingness, has brought forth the St. John's thought after a half-year, so must the Easter thought bring forth the Michael thought. |
| 223. The Cycle of the Year as Breathing-Process of the Earth: Lecture II
01 Apr 1923, Dornach Translated by Barbara Betteridge, Frances E. Dawson Rudolf Steiner |
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I have sought out of the esoteric aspect of the Easter thought to speak to you about how, when the course of Nature is permeated by spirit, it must come about that an autumn festival is added to the festivals of the year. This should be a kind of Michael festival, placed in relation to the fall equinox approximately in the same way as Christmas is to the winter solstice, Easter to the spring equinox, and St. John's to the summer solstice. I should like to try to bring closer to you the Easter thought appropriate to the present age, particularly in its feeling content, so that tomorrow I can lay before you the whole significance of such a contemplation. When we celebrate the Easter festival today, if we look about us into the consciousness of contemporary humanity and are honest with ourselves, we shall have to admit that the Easter thought is actually very little true for the greater part of humanity! On what does the truth of the Easter thought depend? The truth depends on a man's being able to link with this thought a mental image showing the Christ Being as having gone through death, having conquered Death, and then when He had undergone death and the succeeding Resurrection, having thereafter so united Himself with mankind that He could still give revelations to those who had formerly been His disciples, to the Apostles. But the Resurrection thought has more and more faded away, whereas when Christianity was in its inception it had been so living that Paul's words could sound across the ages from this epoch: “And if the Christ be not risen, then is... your faith vain!” Paul has here linked Christianity directly with the Easter thought, that is with the thought of the Resurrection. People who have received the education of the present day call the Resurrection a miracle, and as miracle it is excluded from the realm of what is or can be reality. So that for all those who can no longer penetrate to the Resurrection thought, the Easter festival merely reflects an ancient custom, as do the rest of the Christian festivals. In the course of the years we have mentioned this from the most varied points of view. It will first be necessary for mankind to reacquire a knowledge of the spiritual world as such in order to understand events which do not belong to the realm of sense reality; and what is connected with the Resurrection thought must be regarded as such an event. Then it will be possible for the Easter thought to become truly living again, which it cannot be for a humanity that relegates the Resurrection to the realm of unreal miracles. The Easter thought arose in those epochs of mankind in which there were still remnants of the ancient primitive human knowledge of the spiritual world. We know that at the beginning of human earth-evolution, man had a certain instinctive clairvoyance by means of which he could gain glimpses of the spiritual world which led him to view this world as of equal validity with the physical sense world. This original instinctive clairvoyance is lost for earthly humanity. But in the first three centuries of the Christian era, the last remnants of it at least still existed. Hence in these centuries a certain understanding of the Easter thought based upon ancient human insight could still take root. Such an understanding became blunted in the fourth century, when preparation began for what has come to full expression since the first third of the fifteenth century; namely, man's life in abstract, dead thoughts, which we have often mentioned. In these abstract, dead thoughts, in which natural science attains greatness, the Easter thought soon died. Today the time has come when it must again awaken as a living thought. But in order to awaken, it must pass over out of the state of death into a state of livingness. That which is living is characterized by the fact that it puts forth something other than itself out of itself. In the early Christian centuries, when the Easter thought was spreading throughout Christendom, the “Gemuets”1 of men were still sensitive enough to experience inwardly something very powerful when they pictured the grave of Christ and, rising out of the grave, that Being Who was now united with mankind. The Gemuets could experience with great inner force what appeared before their souls in this powerful image. And this inner experience was a reality in the human soul life. Only that is a reality in the human soul life which this soul really lays hold of, just as the senses ordinarily lay hold of the outer sense world. The people of the early centuries felt that they were changed by beholding the event of the Death and the Resurrection of Christ. They felt that by this sight their souls were transformed, just as a man feels that he is changed by physical events in the course of his life on earth. The human being is transformed at about the seventh year by the change of teeth, and again at about the fourteenth or fifteenth year by the onset of puberty. These are bodily transformations. In the contemplation of the Easter thought the early Christians felt themselves transformed in their inner soul life. They felt themselves thereby lifted out of one stage of human existence and transported into another. In the course of time the Easter thought has lost this force, this power, and it can regain it only when the Resurrection, which cannot be understood according to natural laws, regains reality through spiritual science, a science which comprehends the spiritual. But what is spiritually conceived attains reality, not when this spiritual is conceived merely in abstract thoughts but only when it is also grasped in lively connection with the world appearing before the senses. Anyone who wants to cling to the spiritual only in its abstraction, who says, for example, that we should not pull down the spiritual into the physical sense world, should at the same time maintain that the Divine Being is degraded when He is represented as having created the world. The Divine is comprehended in its greatness and power, not when we place it outside and beyond the sensible, but when we ascribe to it the power to work in this sensible world, to permeate this sensible world creatively. It is a debasing of the Divine to want to set it up yonder in abstract heights, in a “cloud-cuckoo-land.” And we will never live in spiritual realities if we conceive the spiritual only in its abstractness, if we cannot bring it into connection with the whole course of the world as this comes to meet us. And this cosmic course, as far as our earthly life is concerned, meets us first of all in the fact that this earthly life comprises a certain number of years, and that these years present the return of certain events in a regular rhythm, as I indicated yesterday. After a year we return to approximately the same conditions of weather, of sun-position, and so forth. The course of the year thus enters into our earthly life in a rhythmical way. We saw yesterday that this course of the year represents an in-and-out-breathing by the Earth itself of soul-spiritual elements. If we picture to ourselves once more the four high points of this Earth breathing-process, as we allowed them to come before our souls, we must say to ourselves: The time of the Christmas festival represents the time when the Earth holds its breath within it. The soul-spiritual part of the Earth is completely absorbed. Deep in the bosom of the Earth there rests all that the Earth unfolded during summer in order to let it be stimulated by the cosmos. All that opened up to the cosmos and was yielded up to its forces during the summertime has now been completely drawn in by the Earth, to rest in her deeps at Christmas time. Man of course does not dwell in the earthly depths; physically he lives on the surface of the Earth. Soul-spiritually also, he does not dwell in the depths of the Earth, for he lives actually in the Earth's periphery; he lives in the atmosphere that surrounds the Earth. Therefore esoteric wisdom has always recognized the essential being of the Earth at the time of the winter solstice, at Christmas time, as something concealed at first, as something which cannot be penetrated by the ordinary forces of human knowledge, something which belongs in the sphere of the esoteric mysteries. And in all ancient times when something comparable to our present Christmas festival existed, it was recognized that what goes on in connection with the Earth at Christmas time could be grasped only by initiation into mystery-knowledge, by the initiation still known in Greece as the Chthonian Mysteries. By means of this initiation, man forsook in a certain way the periphery of the Earth in which he lived with his ordinary consciousness, to immerse himself in something into which he could not submerge physically. He immersed himself in the soul-spiritual element, and thus he learned to know what the Earth becomes during midwinter, when she draws her soul-spiritual element into herself. And then a man came to know through this Mystery initiation, that at the time of the winter solstice the Earth is especially receptive to permeation by the Moon forces. This was regarded as the secret—if I may express myself in the modern sense—as the Christmas secret of the ancient mysteries: that just at Christmas time one comes to know how the Earth, by being permeated and saturated by her spirit-soul-being, becomes especially receptive in her inner being to the activity of the Moon forces. In certain ancient times, for example, no one was entrusted with a knowledge of healing science unless he was initiated in the Winter Mysteries, and understood how the Earth, through the holding of her breath, becomes especially susceptible inwardly to the activity of the Moon forces, how at this time she permeates especially the plants with healing forces, how at this time she makes the plant world, and to a certain extent also the world of the lower animals into something entirely different. The Christmas initiation was felt as a descent into the depths of the earthly world. But something else was connected with this Christmas initiation; namely, something that was felt in a certain sense to be a danger for the human being. A man said to himself: “When anyone really observes his consciousness in connection with what lives in the Earth as Moon forces at Christmastime, he comes into a state of consciousness in which he must be inwardly very strong, must have inwardly fortified himself, in order to withstand the attack from all sides of the Ahrimanic powers, who live in the Earth precisely because of its having taken in the Moon activity.” And only in the strength which a man had himself developed in his soul-spiritual being, in the strength to break the opposition of these forces, did he see what makes it possible to endure his earth existence over the long run. But then some time after the celebration of these Christmas Mysteries, the teachers of the Mysteries gathered their pupils together, and as a sort of revelation, said to them the following: “Certainly, through initiation one can, in full consciousness, behold what is at work within the Earth at the time of the winter solstice. But with the oncoming of spring, when the plant world starts to grow, something rises up out of the depths of the Earth which permeates all that is growing and sprouting, permeates also man himself; namely, what the Ahrimanic powers bring about. At a time when man was still endowed with divine forces, as he was at the Earth's beginning, then through this primordial divine heritage men could still resist the attack of the Ahrimanic powers which broke over mankind in this way during the time of the winter moon. But (so the initiates told their pupils) a time will come when mankind will be rendered insensible to the spiritual through the agency of the Moon forces which the Earth takes up in the wintertime. With the growing and sprouting in the spring, a kind of intoxication with regard to the spiritual will come over mankind, depriving men of any consciousness that anything spiritual exists. Then, should mankind not find it possible to resist these intoxicating forces, the humanity of the Earth will go into decline and not be able to develop further with the Earth to future higher stages of earth evolution.” The initiates painted in gloomy colors the age which had to break in for humanity in the fifteenth century, when mankind will excel to be sure in abstract, dead thoughts, but when man can again acquire spiritual capacities only by gaining new strength to overcome the intoxicating forces that rise out of the Earth. This he can do by developing the particular spiritual force now accessible to mankind. When we form such visualizations, we transpose ourselves, so to speak, into the connection that exists between the course of the year in nature and what lives in the spirit. We bring together what is otherwise abstract, merely thought-out, with what is the natural sensible course as it confronts us, for example, in the seasons. The polar opposite of this Christmas Mystery is the St. John's Mystery, at the time of the summer solstice. Then the Earth has completely exhaled. The spirit-soul element of the Earth is then utterly surrendered to the super-earthly powers, to the cosmic powers. Then the spirit-soul element of the Earth takes in all that is extraterrestrial. Just as the ancient initiates had said of the Christmas Mystery, so they said also of the St. John's Mystery (we use modern forms of expression, but there were appropriate forms in the ancient Mysteries also)—the initiates said that it was necessary to attain initiation in order to penetrate the secrets of the St. John's Mystery, that is, the secrets of the heavens. For man belongs to the periphery of the Earth; he belongs neither within the Earth, nor as earthly man does he belong to the heavens. Hence he must be initiated into the secrets of the sub-earthly in order to come to know the secrets of the super-earthly. In a certain way, the Easter Mystery and the Michael or Autumn Mystery were seen as holding the balance between the super-earthly and the sub-earthly. And the Michael Mystery, as we have said, will first attain its proper significance in the time that is still future to our own. The Easter Mystery in its full magnitude entered into the evolution of mankind through the Mystery of Golgotha. And this Easter Mystery was understood, as I have already said, because remnants of the ancient clairvoyance still existed. At that time people could still raise themselves up in their Gemuets or feeling souls to the resurrected Christ. The Easter Mystery was therefore woven into that ritual which was not an initiation ritual, but a ritual for mankind in general; it was woven into the ritual of the celebration of the Mass. But with the retreat of primitive clairvoyance, the understanding of the Easter Mystery was lost. People begin to discuss a matter only when they no longer understand it. All the discussion that began after the first Christian centuries about how the Easter thought is to be understood derive from the fact that people could no longer comprehend it in a direct elementary way. Now we have often been able to apply to the Easter thought what anthroposophical spiritual science gives to us. What is essential here is that this anthroposophical spiritual research points again to forms of life which are not exhausted between birth and death in the sense world; that it places what can be spiritually investigated over against what can be sensibly investigated; that it makes comprehensible how the Christ could converse with His disciples, even after the physical body was turned to dust. In the light of spiritual research, the Resurrection thought becomes alive again. But this Resurrection thought will be fully understood only if it is linked to what I might call its counter-pole. What then does the Resurrection thought really portray? The Christ Being descended from spiritual heights, entered into the body of Jesus and lived on Earth in this body, thereby bringing into the earthly sphere forces in themselves super-terrestrial. And these super-earthly forces which the Christ Being brought into the earthly sphere were from the time of the Mystery of Golgotha on, united with the forces of mankind's evolution. Since then that which the men of ancient times could behold only outside in cosmic space is to be feelingly perceived within the evolution of earthly humanity. Following the Resurrection, the Christ united Himself with mankind, and since then He lives, not only in the super-earthly heights, but also within the earth-existence; He lives in evolution, in the stream of mankind's evolution. Above all, this event must be regarded not from the earthly point of view alone, but also from the super-earthly viewpoint. We can say that we should not view the Christ only in the way He comes to Earth out of heavenly worlds and becomes man, in the way He is given to men, but we should view this Christ Event also from the standpoint that the Christ actually departs from the spiritual world when He descends to the Earth. Human beings saw the Christ arise in their realm. The Gods saw the Christ forsake the heavenly world and plunge down among mankind. For men the Christ appeared; for certain spiritual beings He vanished. Only when He passed through the Resurrection did He appear again to certain extraterrestrial spiritual beings, now shining out to them from the Earth like a star, a star which radiates out from the Earth into the spiritual world. Spiritual beings mark the Mystery of Golgotha by saying: “A star began to shine out from the Earth into the spiritual realm.” And it was felt to be of immense importance for the spiritual world that the Christ had submerged into a human body, and had gone through death in this body. For by partaking in death in a human body He was enabled immediately after this death to undertake something which His former divine companions could by no means have accomplished. These former divine companions confronted, as an inimical world, what even in earlier times was called “hell.” But the efficacy of these spiritual beings stopped short at the gates of hell. These spiritual beings worked upon man. The forces of man extend even into hell. This signifies nothing other than man's subconscious projection into the Ahrimanic forces in the wintertime and also into the ascent of these Ahrimanic forces in the spring. The divine spiritual beings felt this as a world opposed to them. They saw it rise up out of the Earth and felt it to be an exceedingly problematic world. But they themselves had only a roundabout connection with it through man. They could only observe it in a certain way. But because the Christ had descended to the Earth, had Himself become man, He could descend into the realm of these Ahrimanic powers and overcome them. This is expressed in the Creed as “the Descent into Hell.” This Descent into Hell provides the opposite pole to the Resurrection. This is what Christ has done for mankind: By descending from the divine heights and taking on the form of man, He became able actually to descend into the realm to whose dangers man is exposed, into which the other Gods, who had not been exposed to human death could not descend. In His way the Christ gained the victory over death. And therewith entered, I might say, as the opposite pole of the Descent into Hell, the ascent into the spiritual world, in spite of the fact that the Christ remained on Earth. For Christ had so united Himself with mankind that he had descended to that to which mankind is exposed. During the winter and spring seasons, He could win for man that which works out of extraterrestrial regions into the Earth again from St. John's to autumn. Thus in the Easter thought we see united in a certain way the Descent into the region of Hell, and through this descent the winning of the heavenly region for the further evolution of mankind. All this belongs to a right conception of the Easter thought. But what would this Easter thought be if it could not become living! It was possible in ancient times to connect the right feeling awareness with the thought of the winter solstice only because they had on the other hand the St. John's thought. Schematically drawn: If one had the earthly with its deeply concealed winter nature (orange), then its counterpart was what in summer lay in the super-earthly periphery (orange). Both were to be reached only through initiation, yet they were connected by what was in the atmosphere surrounding the Earth, in the Earth's periphery (green), Christmas calls for St. John's. St. John's calls for Christmas. Man would rigidify under the influence of the Ahrimanic powers if he could not be exposed to the loosening Luciferic powers, who again give wings to thought, so that it need not remain rigid but can thaw again under the influence of the light.  At first humanity in its evolution had only the one pole, the Easter pole, and this Easter pole became paralyzed. The Easter festival lost its inner vitality. It will regain its inner life only when man can think about this festival in such a way that he can say to himself: “Through what is symbolically expressed in the Descent into Hell—which in reality can be understood as the Resurrection—a counterweight was given against something which had to come; namely, the paralyzing of all spiritual vision, its dying away in the earthly life. Prophetically, Christ Jesus wanted to prepare for what had to come; namely, the circumstance that man during his life on Earth between birth and death would have to forget the super-earthly, the spiritual, that he would in a certain way die to the spiritual. Opposed to this dying away of man in earthly life stands the Easter thought of the victory of super-earthly life over the earthly.” On the one side is this: Man descends from his pre-earthly life; but in the period that dawned in the first half of the fifteenth century, he will in his earthly life more and more forget his super-earthly origin; as to his soul-being he will die away, as it were, in the earthly life. That stands on the one side. On the other stands this: There was a spiritual, heavenly Being, Who by His deed, working out of the heavens into the Earth, set forth the counter-image. That spiritual Being descended into a human body, and in the Resurrection has, through His own being, placed the super-earthly spiritual among the men of Earth. In remembrance of this we have the Easter festival, which puts before mankind the picture of the burial of Christ Jesus and the Resurrection of Christ Jesus. He was laid in the grave and thereafter He arose—this is the Easter thought, as it stands in cosmic records... “Look upon thyself, O Man; thou descendest out of the super-earthly worlds; thou art threatened by the danger that thy soul will die away in the earthly life. Therefore the Christ appears, Who sets before thine eyes how that from which thou also didst arise, how that super-earthly spiritual conquers death. There stands before thee in mighty images such as could be placed before mankind: the entombment of Christ Jesus, the Resurrection of Christ Jesus. He was laid in the grave. He rose from the grave and appeared to those who could behold Him.” But with the paralyzed soul forces of man today, this image can no longer become living. Where could it become alive? In a traditional faith man can still look upon what the Easter festival gives him: Upon the sublime picture of the burial and the Resurrection. But out of the inner force of his soul, he can no longer, of himself, find anything to connect with this Easter thought, with the thought of the entombment and the Resurrection. It is out of spiritual knowledge that he must again unite something with it. And this something is another thought, to which there can be no alternative. It is, however, possible for a human being to let spiritual knowledge approach him so that he may understand this “other.” Let us place this “other” before ourselves, so as to inscribe it deeply within our souls. Easter thought: He has been laid in the grave; He is risen. Now let us place before ourselves the other thought which must come over mankind: He is risen and can confidently be laid in the grave. Easter thought: He has been laid in the grave; He is risen. Michaelmas thought: He is risen and can confidently be laid in the grave. The first thought, the Easter thought, pertains to the Christ; the second thought pertains to the human being. It pertains to the man who directly comprehends the power of the Easter thought, comprehends how when spiritual knowledge enters into the earthly life of the present, in which his soul-spiritual is dying away, his soul can resurrect, so that he becomes living between birth and death, so that in the earthly life he becomes inwardly alive. The human being must through spiritual knowledge comprehend this inner resurrection, this inner awakening; then will he confidently be laid in the grave. Then he may be laid in the grave, through which he otherwise would fall prey to those Ahrimanic powers who work within the earth realm at the time of the winter solstice. And the festival which contains this thought: “He is risen and can confidently be laid in the grave”—this festival must fall in the time when the leaves are beginning to turn yellow and fall from the trees, when the fruits have ripened, when the Sun has received that power which brings to maturity what in the spring was budding and sprouting, full of the forces of growth, but which also brings withering and the inclination to seek again the inner part of the Earth; when what is developing on the Earth begins to be a symbol of the grave. If we place the Easter festival at the time when life begins to bud and to sprout, when the forces of growth attain their highest point, then the other festival, which contains: “He is risen and can confidently be laid in the grave,” we must place at the time when Earth nature begins to wither, when the mood of the grave is spreading abroad in Earth nature, when the symbol of the grave can appear before the soul of man. Then the Michael thought begins to stir in man, that thought which is not, like the Easter thought in the earliest centuries of Christianity, directed toward a kind of inner perceiving (Anschauung).2 In the first centuries of Christianity, this feeling perception was directed to the Christ laid in the grave and risen. In this perception the soul was made strong, was filled with its strongest forces. In the festival-thought at the time of the fall equinox, the soul must feel its strength when appeal is made not to its perceiving, but to its will. “Take into thyself the Michael thought which confers the Ahrimanic powers, that thought which makes thee strong to gain here on Earth knowledge of the spirit, so that thou canst overcome the powers of Death.”—As the Easter thought is directed to the perception, this thought is directed to the will-powers: to take up the Michael force, which means to take the force of spiritual knowledge into the will-forces. And so the Easter thought can become living, can be brought directly to the human soul and spirit, when now the Michael thought, the thought of the Michael festival in the autumn, is felt to be the counter-pole of the Easter thought—just as the St. John's thought was perceived to be the counter-pole of the Christmas thought. As the Christmas thought by its inner livingness, has brought forth the St. John's thought after a half-year, so must the Easter thought bring forth the Michael thought. Mankind must attain an esoteric maturity, so as to think, not merely abstractly, but to be able again to think so concretely that men can again become festival-creating. Then it will be possible again to unite something spiritual with the cycle of sense phenomena. All our thoughts are so abstract! But no matter how remarkable they are, how intelligent, if they remain abstract, life will not be able to penetrate them. When today men reflect that Easter might be set abstractly on any day, no longer according to the constellations of the stars, when today all higher knowledge is darkened, when man no longer sees any relation between insight into the soul-spiritual and the natural-physical forces, the force must once more awaken in man which will be able to unite something spiritual directly with the sense phenomena of the world. Wherein then did the spiritual strength of man consist, making him able to create festivals in the course of the year, in accordance with the yearly phenomena? It consisted in the primal spiritual force. Today men can continue to celebrate festivals according to the ancient traditional custom, but they must gain once more the esoteric force out of themselves to “speak” something into Nature that accords with natural events. It must become possible to grasp the Michael thought as the blossom of the Easter thought. While the Easter thought stems from physical blossoming, it will become possible to place the blossom of the Easter thought—the Michael thought—into the course of the year as the outcome of physical withering. People must learn once more to “think” the spiritual “together with” the course of nature. It is not admissible today for a person merely to indulge in esoteric speculations; it is necessary today to be able once again to do the esoteric. But people will be able to do this only when they can conceive their thoughts so concretely, so livingly that they don't withdraw from everything that is going on around them when they think, but rather that they think with the course of events: “think together with” the fading of the leaves, with the ripening of the fruits, in a Michaelic way, just as at Easter one knows how to think with the sprouting, springing, blossoming plants and flowers. When it is understood how to think with the course of the year, then forces will intermingle with the thoughts that will let men again hold a dialogue with the divine spiritual powers revealing themselves from the stars. Men have drawn down from the stars the power to establish festivals which have an inner human validity. Festivals must be founded out of inner esoteric force. Then from the dialogue with the fading, ripening plants, with the dying Earth, by finding the right inward festival mood, men will also again be able to hold converse with the Gods and link human existence with divine existence.
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| 262. Correspondence with Marie Steiner 1901–1925: 225. Letter to Marie Steiner in Dornach, Haus Hansi
23 Nov 1924, Dornach Rudolf Steiner |
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| Wachsmuth tells me, after I have summoned him, that the sending of the newsletter is delayed by the Christmas reflection of Rudolf Steiner. 42 was stopped at his instigation even at the post offices. |
| It is almost certain that Rudolf Steiner is referring here to the Christmas issue of the newsletter (dated December 28, 1924). His Christmas reflection “The Mystery of the Logos”, which was contained in it, was read by Marie Steiner at the Christmas celebration at the Goetheanum on December 24, 1924, which is why the text should not have been known before the lecture and therefore the sending of the issue was delayed. |
| 262. Correspondence with Marie Steiner 1901–1925: 225. Letter to Marie Steiner in Dornach, Haus Hansi
23 Nov 1924, Dornach Rudolf Steiner |
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225To Marie Steiner in Dornach, Hansi House L. M. Dr. Wachsmuth tells me, after I have summoned him, that the sending of the newsletter is delayed by the Christmas reflection of Rudolf Steiner. 42 was stopped at his instigation even at the post offices. It will not take place until tomorrow. It is therefore impossible for the text of the lecture to be in many hands. Sincerely, Rudolf
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| 169. Toward Imagination: The Immortality of the I
06 Jun 1916, Berlin Translated by Sabine H. Seiler Rudolf Steiner |
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| Christmas is connected with the Mithras festival, which celebrates the birth of Mithras in a cave. Thus, Christmas is a festival closely linked with nature, as symbolized by the Christmas tree. |
| And how beautifully this is expressed in the elaboration of Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost! Just think, Christmas as we celebrate it is directly connected with earthly events; it follows immediately upon the winter solstice, that is, at the time when the earth is shrouded in deepest darkness. |
| We fix the date of Easter according to the relative position of sun and moon. You see how wonderfully Christmas is connected with the earth and Easter with the cosmos. Christmas reminds us of what is most holy in the earth, and Easter of what is holiest in the heavens. |
| 169. Toward Imagination: The Immortality of the I
06 Jun 1916, Berlin Translated by Sabine H. Seiler Rudolf Steiner |
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It would not be fitting to speak of Pentecost in our fateful time in the same way as in earlier days. We are living in a time of severe ordeals, and we cannot look only for the lofty feelings that warm our souls. If we have any right and true feeling at all, we cannot possibly, even for a moment, forget the terrible pain and suffering in our time. It would even be selfish for us to want to forget this pain and suffering and to give ourselves up to contemplations that warm our souls. Therefore it will be more appropriate today to speak of what may be useful in these times—useful insofar as we have to look for the reasons of the great sufferings of our time in our prevailing spiritual condition. As we have found in many of our previous talks here, we have to realize that we must work on the development of our souls particularly in these difficult times so that humanity as a whole can meet better days in the future. Nevertheless, I would like to begin with some thoughts that can lead us to an understanding of the meaning of Pentecost. In the course of the year there are three important festivals, Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost. Everyone will feel the great difference between them—everyone, that is, whose feelings have not become dulled, as in the case of most of our contemporaries, to the meaning of these festivals in the evolution of humanity and the universe. The difference in our feelings for these festivals is expressed in the external symbolism of the festivities connected with them. Christmas is pre-eminently celebrated as a festival for the joy of children, a festival that in our times—though not always—includes a Christmas tree, brought into our houses from snow- and ice-clad nature. And we remember the Christmas plays we have performed here on several occasions, plays that have for centuries uplifted even the simplest human hearts, guiding them to the mighty event that came to pass once in the evolution of the earth—the birth of Jesus of Nazareth in Bethlehem. The birth of Jesus of Nazareth is a festival connected almost by nature to a world of feelings that was born out of the Gospel of St. Luke, particularly out of its most popular parts that are easiest to understand. Thus, Christmas is a festival of what is universally human. It is understood, at least to a certain extent, by children and by people who have remained childlike in their hearts, and it brings into these hearts something great and tremendous that is then taken up into consciousness. Easter, however, although celebrated at the time of nature's awakening, leads us to the gates of death. We can characterize the difference between the two festivals by saying that while there is much that is lovely and speaks to all human hearts in Christmas, there is something infinitely sublime in Easter. To celebrate Easter rightly, our souls must be imbued with something of tremendous sublimity. We are led to the great and sublime idea that the divine being descended to earth, incarnated in a human body, and passed through death. The enigma of death and of the preservation of the eternal life of the soul in death—Easter brings all this before our souls. We can have deep feelings for these festivals only when we remember what we know through spiritual science. Christmas and the ideas it evokes are closely connected with all the festivals ever celebrated to commemorate the birth of a Savior. Christmas is connected with the Mithras festival, which celebrates the birth of Mithras in a cave. Thus, Christmas is a festival closely linked with nature, as symbolized by the Christmas tree. Even the birth it celebrates is a part of nature. At the same time, because Christmas celebrates the birth of Jesus of Nazareth, which has great significance particularly for us in spiritual science, it includes much that is spiritual. As we have often said, the spirit of the earth awakens in winter and is most active when nature appears to be asleep and frozen. Christmas leads us into elemental nature; the lighting of the Christmas candles should be our symbol of the awakening of the spirit in the darkness of winter, the awakening of the spirit in nature. And if we want to understand the relationship between Christmas and human beings, we have to think of what connects us to nature even when we are spiritually separated from it, as in sleep when our astral body and our I ascend as spirit into the spiritual world. The etheric body, though also spirit, remains bound to the outer, physical body. Elemental nature, which comes to life deep inside the earth when it is shrouded in wintry ice, is present in us primarily in the etheric body. It is not just a mere analogy, but a profound truth that Christmas also commemorates our etheric, elemental nature, our etheric body, which connects us with what is elemental in nature. If you consider everything that has been said over many years about the gradual paralyzing and diminishing of humanity's forces, you will be struck by the close relationship between all the forces living in our astral body and the events bringing us this diminishing and death. We have to develop our astral body during life and take in what is spiritual by means of it, and therefore we take into ourselves the seeds of death. It is quite wrong to believe that death is connected with life only outwardly and superficially; there is a most intimate connection between death and life, as I have often pointed out. Our life is the way it is only because we are able to die as we do, and this in turn is connected with the evolution of our astral body. Again, it is not just an analogy to say that Easter is a symbol of everything related to our astral nature, to that part of our nature through which we leave our physical body when we sleep and enter the spiritual world—the world from which the divine spiritual Being descended who experienced death in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. If I were speaking in a time when the sense for the spiritual was more alive than it is in ours, then what I have just said would quite likely be taken more as reality. However, nowadays it is taken as merely symbolic. People would then realize that the celebration of Christmas and Easter is also intended to remind us of our connection with elemental nature and with the nature that brings spiritual and physical death. In other words, the festivals are tokens reminding us that we bear a spiritual element in our astral and etheric bodies. But in our age these things have been forgotten. They will come to the fore again when people decide to work at understanding such spiritual things. In addition to the etheric and astral bodies, we bear another spiritual element in us—the I. We know how complex this I is and that it continues from incarnation to incarnation. Its inner forces build the garment, so to speak, that we put on with each new incarnation. We rise from the dead in the I to prepare for a new incarnation. It is the I that makes each of us a unique individual. We can say our etheric body represents in a sense everything birth-like, everything connected with the elemental forces of nature. Our astral body symbolizes what brings death and is connected with the higher spiritual world. And the I represents our continual resurrection in the spirit, our renewed life in the spiritual world, which is neither nature nor the world of the stars but permeates everything. Just as we can associate Christmas with the etheric body and Easter with the astral body, so Pentecost can be connected with the I. Pentecost represents the immortality of our I; it is a sign of the immortal world of the I, reminding us that we participate not only in the life of nature in general and pass through repeated deaths, but that we are immortal, unique beings who continually rise again from the dead. And how beautifully this is expressed in the elaboration of Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost! Just think, Christmas as we celebrate it is directly connected with earthly events; it follows immediately upon the winter solstice, that is, at the time when the earth is shrouded in deepest darkness. In a way, our celebration of Christmas follows the laws of the earth: when the nights are longest and the days shortest, when the earth is frozen, we withdraw into ourselves and seek the spiritual insofar as it lives in the earth. Thus Christmas is a festival bound to the spirit of the earth. It reminds us continually that as human beings we belong to the earth, that the spirit had to descend from the heights of the world and take on earthly form to become one of us children of the earth. On the other hand, Easter is linked to the relationship between sun and moon and is always celebrated on the first Sunday after the first full moon in spring, that is, the first full moon after the twenty-first day of March. We fix the date of Easter according to the relative position of sun and moon. You see how wonderfully Christmas is connected with the earth and Easter with the cosmos. Christmas reminds us of what is most holy in the earth, and Easter of what is holiest in the heavens. Our Christian festival of Pentecost is related in a beautiful way to what is above the stars: the universal spiritual fire of the cosmos, individualized and descending in fiery tongues upon the Apostles. This fire is neither of the heavens nor of the earth, neither cosmic nor merely terrestrial, but permeates everything, yet it is individualized and reaches every human being. Pentecost is connected with the whole world! As Christmas belongs to the earth and Easter to the starry heavens, so Pentecost is directly connected to every human being when he or she receives the spark of spiritual life from all the worlds. What all humanity received in the descent of the divine human being to earth is given to each individual in the fiery tongues of Pentecost. The fiery tongues represent what is in us, in the universe, and in the stars. Thus, especially for those who seek the spirit, Pentecost has a special, profound meaning, summoning us again and again to seek anew for the spirit. I think in our age we have to take these festive thoughts a step further and consider them more deeply than we would at other times. For how we will extricate ourselves from the sorrowful and disheartening events of our times will largely depend on how deeply we can grasp such thoughts. Our souls will have to work their way out of these events. In certain circles people are already beginning to feel that. And I would add that particularly people who are close to spiritual science should increasingly feel this necessity of our times to renew our spiritual life and to rise above materialism. We will overcome materialism only if we have the good will to kindle the flames of the spiritual world within ourselves and to truly celebrate Pentecost inwardly, to take it with inner seriousness. In our recent talks here we have spoken about how difficult it is for people to find what is right in this area of the renewal of spirituality under the conditions of the present age. We see nowadays a development of forces we cannot admire enough; yet we lack adequate feelings to respond to them. When feelings become as necessary for the spiritual, people will realize that it is important to celebrate and not neglect the inner Pentecost in our soul. Some people—of course, not you, my dear friends, who have after all participated in such studies for several years—might well think our recent talks here smack of hypochondria and carping.1 I think the very opposite is true, for it seems to me absolutely necessary to point out the things we talked about because people should know where to intervene spiritually in the course of human evolution. In fact, here and there other people also realize what is essential for our times. The grandson of Schiller, Alexander von Gleichen-Russwurm, has written a nice little book called Cultural Superstition.2 As I read it, I was reminded of many things I said to you here. For instance, I told you that spiritual science should not remain merely a lifeless theory. Instead, it must flow into our souls so that our thinking becomes really enlivened, truly judicious, and flexible, for only then can it get to the heart of the tasks of our age. In this connection, let me read you a few sentences from this booklet Cultural Superstition by Alexander von Gleichen-Russwurm.
And von Gleichen-Russwurm, this grandson of Schiller, traces the fact that we have forgotten how to think far back in history:
Then von Gleichen-Russwurm says we cannot do without thinking. He shows this by painting a strange picture of our present time, which we must always think about and cannot forget even for a moment.
This state of things compels Schiller's grandson to consider the necessity of enlivening thinking. However, I have not been able to find, either in this pamphlet or in his other writings, that he is looking in the right direction for the true sources of enlivened thinking. It is indeed not easy to celebrate Pentecost in our soul nowadays, not at all easy. Now I have here the book of a man who has taken great pains in the last few years to understand Goethe—as far as he found it possible—and who has gone to great lengths to understand our spiritual science.3 This very man, who has really tried to understand Goethe and is delighted that he is now beginning to do so, had earlier written nine novels, fourteen plays, and nine volumes of essays. His case is very characteristic of the difficulties people have nowadays in finding their way to spiritual life. In his latest book, the tenth volume of his essays, he says how glad he is to have found Goethe at last and to have the opportunity to try to understand him. One can see from this tenth volume of essays that the author is really trying very hard to comprehend Goethe. But think what it means that a man who has written so many novels, so many plays, and who is quite well-known, admits now when he is perhaps fifty or fifty-one that he is just beginning to understand Goethe. Now his latest book is called Expressionism. The writer is Hermann Bahr.4 Hermann Bahr is the man I just described. I haven't counted all his plays; he wrote still more, but he disavows the earlier ones. It is not difficult for me to speak about Bahr because I have known him since his student days; indeed I knew him quite well. You see, he wrote on every kind of subject, and much of his writing is very good. He says of himself that he has been an impressionist all his life, because he was born in the age of impressionism. Now let us define in a few words what impressionism really is. We will not argue about matters of art, but let us try to understand what people like Hermann Bahr mean by impressionism. Consider the work of artists such as Goethe, Schiller, Shakespeare, Corneille, Racine, Dante—or take whomever you want. You will find that what they considered great about their art was that they had perceived the external world and then worked with it spiritually. In art the perception of the outer world unites with what lives in the spirit. Goethe would have denied the status of “art” to all works that do not strive for such a union of nature and spirit. But in modern times what is called impressionism has emerged. Hermann Bahr grew up with it and is now aware that he has been an impressionist in all he did. When he discussed paintings—and many of his essays are about painting—he did so from the standpoint of impressionism. When he wrote about painting, he wanted to be an impressionist himself, and that is what he was, and still is in his own way. Now what does such a man mean by impressionism in art? He means by impressionism that the artist is utterly afraid to add anything out of his or her own soul to the external impression given by nature. Nothing must be added by the soul. Of course, under such conditions no music could be created; but Bahr excluded music. Neither could there be architecture. Music and architecture can therefore never be purely impressionist. However, in painting and in poetry pure impressionism is quite possible. Very well, as far as possible everything coming out of the artist's own soul was to be excluded. Thus, the impressionist painters tried to create a picture of an object before they had properly perceived it, before they had in any way digested the visual impression. In other words, looking at the object, and then right away, if possible, capturing it before one has added anything to the picture and the impression it evoked—that is impressionism! Of course, there are different interpretations of impressionism, but this is its essential nature. As I said in a public lecture in Berlin, Hermann Bahr is a man who champions whatever he thinks to be right at the moment with the greatest enthusiasm. When he first came to the university in Vienna, he was heart and soul for socialism; he had a passion for it and was the most ardent social democrat you can imagine. One of the plays he now disavows, The New Humanity, is written from this socialist standpoint. I think it is out of print now. It has many pages of social democratic speeches that cannot be produced on stage. Then the German National Movement developed in Vienna, and Hermann Bahr became an ardent nationalist and wrote his Great Sin, which he now also repudiates. By that time, after having been a socialist and a nationalist, Bahr had reached the age when men in Austria are drafted for military service, and so at nineteen he became a soldier. He had left behind socialism and nationalism and now became a soldier, a passionate soldier, and developed an entirely military outlook on life. For a year he was a soldier, a one-year volunteer. After this he went for a short time to Berlin. In Berlin he became—well, he did not become a fervent Berliner; he couldn't stand that, so he never became an ardent Berliner. But then he went to Paris where he became an enthusiastic disciple of Maurice Barrès and people of his ilk. He was also an ardent follower of Boulanger who just at that time was playing an important role.5 Well, I don't want to rake up old stories, and so I will not tell you of the passionate Boulangist letters the enthusiastic Bahr wrote from Paris at that time. Then he went to Spain, where he became inflamed with enthusiasm for Spanish culture, so much so that he wrote an article against the Sultan of Morocco and his rotten behavior toward Spanish politics. Bahr then returned to Berlin and worked for a while as editor of the journal Freie Bühne, but, as I said, he never became an ardent Berliner. Then he went back and gradually discovered Austria. After all, he was born in Linz. Oh, sorry, I didn't mention that before all this he had also been to St. Petersburg where he wrote his book on Russia and became a passionate Russian. Then he returned and discovered Austria, its various regions and cultural history and so on. Bahr was always brilliant and sometimes even profound. He always tried to convey what he saw by just giving his first impression of it, without having mentally digested it. As you can imagine, it can work quite well to give only the first impression. A socialist—nothing more than the first impression; German nationalist or Boulangist—nothing more than the first impression; Russian, Spaniard, and so on and so forth. And now to be looking at the different aspects of the Austrian national character—doubtlessly an extraordinarily interesting phenomenon! But just imagine: Bahr has now reached the age of fifty, and suddenly expressionism appears on the scene, the very opposite of impressionism. For many years Hermann Bahr has been lecturing in Danzig. On his way there he always passed through Berlin, but without stopping. He is fond of the people of Danzig and claims that when he speaks to them, they always stimulate him to profound thoughts, something that does not happen in any other German town. Well, the people of Danzig asked him to give a lecture there on expressionism. But just think what that means to Hermann Bahr, who has been an impressionist all his life! And only now does expressionism make its appearance! When he was young and began to be an impressionist, people were far from delighted with impressionist pictures. On the contrary, all the philistines, the petty bourgeois—and of course other people too—considered them mere daubing. This may often have been true, but we will not argue about that now. Hermann Bahr, however, was all aglow and whosoever said anything against an impressionist painting was of course a narrow-minded, reactionary blockhead of the first order who would have nothing unless it was hoary with age and who was completely unable to keep pace with the progress of mankind. That is the sort of thing you could often hear from Hermann Bahr. Many people were blockheads in those days. There was a certain coffee-house in Vienna, the Café Griensteidl , where such matters were usually settled. It used to be opposite the old Burgtheater on the Michaeler Platz but is now defunct. Karl Kraus, the writer who is also known as “cocky Kraus” and who publishes small books, wrote a pamphlet about this coffee-house, which back in 1848 had Lenau and Anastasius Grün among its illustrious guests.6 When the building was torn down, Kraus wrote a booklet entitled Literature Demolished.7 The emergence of impressionism was often the topic of discussion in this coffee-house. As we have seen, Hermann Bahr had been speaking for years about impressionism, which runs like a red thread through all the rest of his metamorphoses. But now he has become older; expressionists, cubists, and futurists have come along, and they in turn call impressionists like Hermann Bahr dull blockheads who are only warming over the past. To Hermann Bahr's surprise the rest of the world was not greatly affected by their comments. However, he was annoyed, for he had to admit that this is exactly what he had done when he was young. He had called all the others blockheads and now they said he was one himself. And why should those who called him a blockhead be less right than he had been in saying it of others? A bad business, you see! So there was nothing else for Hermann Bahr but to leam about expressionism, particularly as he had been asked by the people of Danzig, whom he loved so much, to speak about it. And then it was a question of finding a correct formula for expressionism. I assure you I am not making fun of Hermann Bahr. In fact, I like him very much and would like to make every possible excuse for him—I mean, that is, I like him as a cultural phenomenon. Hermann Bahr now had to come to terms with expressionism. As you will no doubt agree, a man with a keen and active mind will surely not be satisfied to have reached the ripe age of fifty only to be called a blockhead by the next generation—especially not when he is asked to speak about expressionism to the people of Danzig who inspire him with such good thoughts. Perhaps you have seen some expressionist, cubist, or futurist paintings. Most people when they see them say, We have put up with a great deal, but this really goes too far! You have a canvas, then dashes, white ones running from the top to the bottom, red lines across them, and then perhaps something else, suggesting neither a leaf nor a house, a tree nor a bird, but rather all these together and none in particular. But, of course, Hermann Bahr could not speak about it like this. So what did he do? It dawned upon him what expressionism is after much brooding on it. In fact, through all his metamorphoses he gradually became a brooding person. Now he realized (under the influence of the Danzig inspiration, of course!) that the impressionists take nature and quickly set it down, without any inner work on the visual impression. Expressionists do the opposite. That is true; Hermann Bahr understood that. Expressionists do not look at nature at all—I am quite serious about this. They do not look at anything in nature, they only look within. This means what is out there in nature—houses, rivers, elephants, lions—is of no interest to the expressionist, for he looks within. Bahr then went on to say that if we want to look within, such looking within must be possible for us. And what does Bahr do? He turns to Goethe, reads his works, for example, the following report:
Goethe could close his eyes, think of a flower, and it would appear before him as a spiritual form and then of itself take on various forms.
Now if you are not familiar with Goethe and with the world view of modern idealism and spiritualism, you will find it impossible to make something of this right away. Therefore, Hermann Bahr continued reading the literature on the subject. He lighted on the Englishman Galton who had studied people with the kind of inner sight Goethe had according to his own description.9 As is customary in England, Galton had collected all kinds of statistics about such people. One of his special examples was a certain clergyman who was able to call forth an image in his imagination that then changed of itself, and he could also return it to its first form through willing it. The clergyman described this beautifully. Hermann Bahr followed up these matters and gradually came to the conclusion that there was indeed such a thing as inner sight. You see, what Goethe described—Goethe indeed knew other things too—is only the very first stage of being moved in the etheric body. Hermann Bahr began to study such fundamental matters to understand expressionism, because it dawned on him that expressionism is based on this kind of elementary inner sight. And then he went further. He read the works of the old physiologist Johannes Müller, who described this inner sight so beautifully at a time when natural science had not yet begun to laugh at these things.10 So, Bahr gradually worked his way through Goethe, finding it very stimulating to read Goethe, to begin to understand him, and in the process to realize that there is such a thing as inner sight. On that basis he arrived at the following insight: in expressionism nature is not needed because the artist captures on canvas what he or she sees in this elementary inner vision. Later on, this will develop into something else, as I have said here before. If we do not view expressionism as a stroke of genius, but as the first beginnings of something still to mature, we will probably do these artists more justice than they do themselves in overestimating their achievements. But Hermann Bahr considers them artists of genius and indeed was led to admit with tremendous enthusiasm that we have not only external sight through our eyes, but also inner sight. His chapter on inner sight is really very fine, and he is immensely delighted to discover in Goethe's writings the words “eye of the spirit.” Just think for how many years we have already been using this expression. As I said, Bahr has even tried to master our spiritual science! From Bahr's book we know that so far he has read Eugene Levy's description of my world view.11 Apparently, Bahr has not yet advanced to my books, but that day may still come. In any case, you can see that here a man is working his way through the difficulties of the present time and then takes a position on what is most elementary. I have to mention this because it proves what I have so often said: it is terribly difficult for people in our age to come to anything spiritual. Just think of it: a man who has written ten novels, fourteen plays, and many books of essays, finally arrives at reading Goethe. Working his way through Goethe's writings, he comes to understand him—though rather late in his life. Bahr's book is written with wonderful freshness and bears witness to the joy he experienced in understanding Goethe. Indeed, in years past I often sat and talked with Hermann Bahr, but then it was not possible to speak with him about Goethe. At that time he naturally still considered Goethe a blockhead, one of the ancient, not-yet-impressionist sort of people. We have to keep in mind, I think, how difficult it is for people who are educated in our time to find the way to the most elementary things leading to spiritual science. And yet, these are the very people who shape public opinion. For example, when Hermann Bahr came to Vienna, he edited a very influential weekly called Die Zeit. No one would believe us if we said that many people in the western world whose opinions are valued do not understand a thing about Goethe, and therefore cannot come to spiritual science on the basis of their education—of course, it is possible to come to spiritual science without education. Yet Bahr is living proof of this because he himself admits at the age of fifty how happy he is finally to understand Goethe. It is very sad to see how happy he is to have found what others were looking for all around him when he was still young. By the same token, to see this is also most instructive and significant for understanding our age. That somebody like Hermann Bahr needs expressionism to realize that one can form ideas and paint them without looking at nature shows us that the trend-setting, so-called cultural world nowadays lives in ideas that are completely removed from anything spiritual. It takes expressionism for him to understand that there is an inner seeing, an inner spiritual eye. You see, all this is closely connected with the way our writers, artists, and critics grow up and develop. Hermann Bahr's latest novel is characteristic of this. It is called Himmelfahrt (“Ascension”).12 The end of the book indicates that Bahr is beginning to develop yet another burning enthusiasm on the side—all his other passions run like a red thread through the novel—namely, a new enthusiasm for Catholicism. Anyone who knows Bahr will have no doubt that there is something of him in the character of Franz, the protagonist of his latest novel. The book is not an autobiography, nor a biographical novel; yet a good deal of Hermann Bahr is to be found in this Franz. A writer—not one who writes for the newspapers; let's not talk about how journalists develop because we don't want the word “develop” to lose its original meaning—but a writer who is serious about writing, who is a true seeker, such as Hermann Bahr, cannot help but reveal his own development in the character of his protagonist. Bahr describes Franz's gradual development and his quest. Franz tries to experience everything the age has to offer, to learn everything, to look for the truth everywhere. Thus, he searches in the sciences, first studying botany under Wiessner, the famous Viennese botanist, then chemistry under Ostwald, then political economy and so on.13 He looks into everything the age has to offer. He might also have become a student of ancient Greek under Wilamowitz, or have learned about philosophy from Eucken or Kohler.14 After that, he studies political economy under Schmoller; it might just as well have been in somebody else's course, possibly Brentano's.15 After that, Franz studies with Richet how to unravel the mysteries of the soul; again it might just as well have been with another teacher.16 He then tries a different method and studies psychoanalysis under Freud.17 However, none of this satisfies him, and so he continues his quest for the truth by going to the theosophists in London. Then he allows someone who has so far remained in the background of the story to give him esoteric exercises. But Franz soon tires of them and stops doing them. Nevertheless, he feels compelled to continue his quest. Then Franz happens upon a medium. This psychic has performed the most remarkable manifestations of all sorts for years. And then the medium is exposed after Franz, the hero of the book, has already fallen in love with her. He goes off on a journey, leaving in a hurry as he always does. Well, he departs again all of a sudden, leaving the medium to her fate. Of course, the woman is exposed as a spy—naturally, because this novel was written only just recently. There are many people like Franz, especially among the current critics of spiritual life. Indeed, this is how we must picture the people who pronounce their judgments before they have penetrated to even the most elementary first stages. They have not gone as far as Hermann Bahr, who after all, by studying expressionism, discovered that there is an inner seeing. Of course, Hermann Bahr's current opinions on many things will be different from those he had in the past. For example, if he had read my book Theosophy back then, he would have judged it to be—well, never mind, it is not necessary to put it into Bahr's words.18 Today he would probably say there is an inner eye, an inner seeing, which is really a kind of expressionism. After all, now he has advanced as far as the inner seeing that lives today in expressionism. Well, never mind. These are the ideas Hermann Bahr arrived at inspired by the people of Danzig, and out of these ideas he then wrote this book. I mention this merely as an example of how difficult it is nowadays for people to find their way to spiritual science. This example also shows that anyone with a clear idea of what spiritual science intends has the responsibility, as far as possible and necessary, to do everything to break down prejudices. We know the foundations of these prejudices. And we know that even the best minds of our age—those who have written countless essays and plays—even if they are sincerely seeking, reach the most elementary level only after their fiftieth year. So we have to admit that it is difficult for spiritual science to gain ground. Even though the simplest souls would readily accept spiritual science, they are held back by people who judge on the basis of motivations and reasons such as the ones I have described. Well, much is going on in our time, and, as I have often said, materialistic thinking has now become second nature with people. People are not aware that they are thinking up fantastic nonsense when they build their lofty theories. I have often entertained you with describing how the Kant- Laplace theory is taught to children in school. They are carefully taught that the earth at one time was like a solar nebula and rotated and that the planets eventually split off from it. And what could make this clearer than the example of a drop: all you need is a little drop of oil, a bit of cardboard with a cut in the middle for the equatorial plane, and a needle to stick through it. Then you rotate the cardboard with the needle, and you'll see the “planets” splitting off just beautifully. Then the students are told that what they see there in miniature happened long ago on a much larger scale in the universe. How could you possibly refute a proof like this? Of course, there must have been a big teacher out there in the universe to do the rotating. Most people forget this. But it should not be forgotten; all factors must be taken into account. What if there was no big teacher or learned professor standing in the universe to do the rotating? This question is usually not asked because it is so obvious—too obvious. In fact, it is really a great achievement to find thinking people in what is left of idealism and spiritualism who understand the full significance of this matter. Therefore I have to refer again and again to the following fine passage about Goethe by Herman Grimm, which I am also quoting in my next book.19
Indeed, later generations will wonder how we could ever have taken such nonsense for the truth—nonsense that is now taught as truth in all our schools! Herman Grimm goes on to say:
As you know, a more spiritual understanding of Darwinism would have led to quite different results. What Grimm meant here and what I myself have to say is not directed against Darwinism as such, but rather against the materialistic interpretation of it, which Grimm characterized in one of his talks as violating all human dignity by insisting that we have evolved in a straight line from lower animals. As you know, Huxley was widely acclaimed for his answer to all kinds of objections against the evolution of human beings from the apes—I think the objections were raised by a bishop, no less.20 People applauded Huxley's reply that he would rather have descended from an ape and have gradually worked his way up to his current world view from there, than have descended in the way the bishop claimed and then have worked his way down to the bishop's world view. Such anecdotes are often very witty, but they remind me of the story of the little boy who came home from school and explained to his father that he'd just learnt that humans are descended from apes. “What do you mean, you silly boy?” asked the father. “Yes, it's true, father, we do all come from the apes,” said the boy, to which the father replied, “Perhaps that may be the case with you, but definitely not with me!” I have often called your attention to many such logical blunders perpetrated against true thinking and leading to a materialistic interpretation of Darwinism. But these days, people always have to outdo themselves. We have not yet reached the point where people would say they have gone far enough; no, they want to go still further and outdo themselves grandiosely. For example, there is a man who is furious about the very existence of philosophy and the many philosophers in the world who created philosophies. He rails at all philosophy. Now this man recently published a volley of abuse against philosophy and wanted to find an especially pithy phrase to vent his rage. I will read you his pronouncement so you can see what is thought in our time of philosophy, by which people hope to find the truth and which has achieved a great deal, as you will see from my forthcoming book: “We have no more philosophy than animals.” In other words, he not only claims we are descended from animals, but goes on to demonstrate that even in our loftiest strivings, namely in philosophy, we have not yet advanced beyond the animals because we cannot know more than the animals know. He is very serious about this: “We have no more philosophy than animals, and only our frantic attempts to attain a philosophy and the final resignation to our ignorance distinguish us from the animals.” That is to say, knowing that we know as little as cattle is the only difference between us and the animals. This man makes short work of the whole history of philosophy by trying to prove that it is nothing but a series of desperate attempts by philosophers to rise above the simple truth that we know no more of the world than the animals. Now you will probably ask who could possibly have such a distorted view of philosophy? I think it may interest you to know who is able to come up with such an incredible view of philosophy. As a matter of fact, the person in question is a professor of philosophy at the university in Czernowitz! Many years ago he wrote a book called The End of Philosophy and another one called The End of Thinking, and he just recently wrote The Tragicomedy of Wisdom, where you can find the sentences I quoted. This man fulfills the duties of his office as professor of philosophy at a university by convincing his attentive audience that human beings know no more than animals! His name is Richard Wahle, and he is a full professor of philosophy at the university in Czemowitz.21 We have to look at things like this, for they bear witness to how “wonderfully far” we have advanced. It is important to look a bit more closely at what is necessary in life, namely, that the time has come when humanity has to resolve to take the inner Pentecost seriously, to kindle the light in the soul, and to take in the spiritual. Much will depend on whether there are at least some people in the world who understand how the Pentecost of the soul can and must be celebrated in our time. I do not know how long it will be before my book is ready, but I have to stay here until it is finished, and so we may be able to meet again next week for another lecture.
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| 165. The Problem of Jesus & Christ in Earlier Times
28 Dec 1915, Bern Translator Unknown Rudolf Steiner |
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| This is the greatest, most meaningful human need of our time. Until now, human beings have had a Christmas festival and an Easter festival, but these two festivals remained unrelated. Easter is a Christ festival, and Christmas a Jesus festival. |
| There is still much to be learned through the simple Christmas play, and because of this it seems to me a good idea to cultivate among us and to experience the Christmas mystery in this simplest of all forms. |
| If we look for the spiritual in connection with what the Christmas plays show us, we find it in the right way as shepherds, not as innkeepers who have already lost their connection with the Christmas child, just as the play shows us symbolically. |
| 165. The Problem of Jesus & Christ in Earlier Times
28 Dec 1915, Bern Translator Unknown Rudolf Steiner |
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In my lecture yesterday, I tried to indicate an important fact related to the Christ problem as a whole—a fact that is no doubt surprising. A great store of wisdom has in fact disappeared, and it is known today only through a few fragments. From one of these fragments, I cited certain passages to you yesterday from the beginning of the Book of Jeû.1 We must indeed ask ourselves now if it possible that a store of wisdom that once existed can disappear completely. In other words, can the reasons for such a disappearance be completely external? You will recall the analogy I used: I said that it is possible to imagine that everything we publish today and that all our existing writings have been burned, so that only the writings of our opponents remain, and posterity can be reconstructed only from those records and not from what we have said. This is quite possibly what did occur. Nevertheless, this hypothesis cannot be sustained as-is and without qualification. Even if all the writings were to disappear, many of us would still be alive—at least, we could assume this possibility—and we know the content of those writings and would be able to communicate those truths without the help of the works of our adversaries, so that the store of wisdom would continue to grow and spread, in spite of everything. To bring about a complete disappearance, it would in fact be necessary to eradicate, to a certain extent, the capacity to understand our writings, the ability to preserve them, and the possibility of communicating them from generation to generation. This must be what occurred at that time. It must have happened that people lost the capacity to understand such teachings as the Gnosis of Valentinus, for example, or the content of the Pistis Sophia manuscript, or the Book of Jeû, and so on. In fact, this is what happened. We must vividly imagine to ourselves that, based on the broad foundation, so to speak, of that ancient inheritance—which had already fulfilled its purpose in the form of a primitive clairvoyance that then gradually grew dim and faded away—a higher form of knowledge evolved. It was nurtured by only the few who were initiated into the Mysteries, yet it was a widespread knowledge nevertheless. And we must imagine further that it was because of the gradual paralysis of the capacity to understand such things that this knowledge was not just forgotten, but it eventually disappeared. People simply no longer had the capacity to understand such teachings. Only this could bring about such a complete loss of a treasure of wisdom. Thus, we may indeed say that, when we look back at the time just before the period following the Mystery of Golgotha, we can see how ancient capacities disappear, far and wide, and how something new develops out of entirely new and fresh forces. We may say without hesitation that, as human evolution approached the Mystery of Golgotha, we can see a gradual darkening and disappearance of a certain view and way of thinking, which had a spiritual quality and would have enabled human beings to understand the coming of Christ into the world as a spiritual being. But this form of knowledge, as we said, had disappeared. As a result, at the very time when the Christ united with earthly evolution, humankind lost the kind of knowledge that might have enabled people to understand, in a true and profound way, the nature of the Christ being. This is a very important fact. Furthermore, I have already indicated, several times, something very significant. I stated that the announcement of Christ's coming was not itself a new revelation, made known through the Mystery of Golgotha; in the Mysteries, the Christ had already been mentioned as the “coming one.” There were special teachings in the Mysteries that proclaimed the coming of Christ. One viewed the Christ being, of course, in the light of a past spiritual wisdom, but these Mysteries had gradually degenerated, so that, when the Christ did come, people were less able than ever to speak, as human beings, about the Christ. This is evident not only from all that I have just explained, but also from what remained alive in the souls of those who tried to conceive of the Christ Mystery out of a fresh, new impulse. Thus, during the very first centuries of the Christian era, we find great spirits arising, such as Clemens of Alexandria, for example, and Origenes—very lofty spirits, both of them. If we want to describe them from one perspective—Clemens, as well as Origenes, who came after the Gnostics when Gnosis itself was already waning—we must say that they did in fact strive for this knowledge. They asked themselves: What is the truth behind the Mystery of Golgotha? On the one hand, we are concerned with the Christ (they still knew this, of course); the Christ can be understood only as a spiritual being connected with spiritual and suprasensory impulses. This Christ descends from cosmic spiritual spheres. They could no longer comprehend how the ancient Gnosis had been able to understand the Christ, but they knew that he could be understood, as a spiritual being, only through spiritual faculties. This was what they knew about the Christ. On the other hand, they viewed Jesus as a historical personality. For them, the coming of Jesus was a historical fact. Them might have said: A number of years ago, in a certain part of the Middle East, a man named Jesus was born; he carried the Christ, and God lived in that human being. For them, this was the great problem. They thought: During the course of historical evolution, we are concerned with a historical personality; but in the realm of spiritual knowledge, we are concerned with the Christ. How should we conceive the union of these two? Thus we see great spirits like Clemens of Alexandria and Origenes working and struggling with the problem of how the Christ could have lived in the man Jesus. Now, let us first consider Clemens of Alexandria, the head of the catechetical school of Alexandria, where those who wished to become Christian teachers were trained. When we consider this significant individual, we find something in his teachings that we may describe in this way: The Christ belongs, of course, to the forces that participated in the creation of the earth; he belongs to the spiritual world; he entered earthly evolution through the body of Jesus of Nazareth. In this way, Clemens of Alexandria looked up, first of all, to the Christ as a spiritual being and tried to comprehend him in spiritual realms. But Clemens also knew something else, which we have emphasized often—that the Christ had, in fact, always existed for human beings, but not in the earthly sphere. The only ones who could reach him were those who had developed, through the Mysteries, forces that enabled them to leave the physical body. When human beings left their physical bodies through forces acquired in the Mysteries and ventured into the spiritual realms, they were able to recognize the Christ and felt that he was the “coming one.” Clemens of Alexandria knew this. He knew that the ancient Mysteries spoke of the Christ as the coming one, who was not yet united with earthly evolution. He expressed this by saying that human beings were, of course, inspired to expect the Christ. Clemens of Alexandria went so far as to say that, especially at two particular points in the spiritual evolution of humanity, something was nurtured as a kind of preparation for Christ's coming. He said, on the other hand, that this took place through Moses and the prophets. What came into the world through Moses and the prophets, said Clemens, was a preparation—humankind first needed to become acquainted with what came through Moses and the prophets, so that they might, through personal experience, come to feel they had found the Christ. This was the concept they had to form. So we see that Clemens knew nothing about the old Gnostic wisdom—or, at least, he did not use it. But Clemens designated what entered human capacity through Moses and the prophets as a “preparation.” Then, as the second turning point, or “preparation” (and this is very significant), Clemens placed Greek philosophy—Plato and Aristotle—at the side of Moses and the prophets. He said, approximately, that Moses and the prophets as well as the philosophers prepared humanity for the event that took place with the Mystery of Golgotha. Origenes said, on the other hand, that we are dealing with the Christ—the Christ who can be grasped as a spiritual being with the aid of spiritual forces. And we are dealing with the historical Jesus, who in fact once existed as a real person in the sensory world. How can these two be united, the God and the human being? How does the “God human” come to be? Origenes, accordingly, constructed a view that said: It is impossible for a god, without preparation, to live within an ordinary physical human body; a specially prepared soul, therefore, must have lived in Jesus so that his soul could mediate between God and the human being and might united the God, as a pure spiritual being, with physicality. Thus, Origenes brought in the soul element and, within Jesus Christ, distinguished between the God, the pure Pneuma-being of pure spirit being—the psyche, or soul—and the physical body of Jesus of Nazareth. He tried to imagine how the Christ could dwell within Jesus of Nazareth. He no longer possessed the early Gnosis, which would enable him to imagine the dwelling of Christ on earth and the union of the Christ with earthly evolution. It was necessary to make up an understanding out of completely new and fresh elements, and his efforts went toward achieving this. So we see that, right at the time when Christ as a real being united with earthly evolution, human beings had the greatest possible difficulty in understanding this fact; the capacity for such understanding had never been so limited. Clemens of Alexandria still preserved at least some idea of why this was so. He wondered what it was that inspired humankind in the ancient Mysteries. He thought that they were inspired through the Christ's influence, although from suprasensory worlds while they were out of their physical bodies. Clemens of Alexandria expressed this clearly when he said that Christ sent the angels to humankind. Indeed, he said openly that, when the Old Testament mentions the appearance of an angel, this means that the angel was sent by the Christ. He states explicitly that, when Yahweh appears to Moses as the burning bush, it is in reality the Christ who appears in this earthly, soul-spiritual manifestation. Clemens of Alexandria thus states clearly that, in the past, before the Mystery of Golgotha, the Christ appeared to human beings through angels. If people developed the capacity to understand the message of the angel, they were capable of standing as disembodied initiates in the presence of the Christ and in the presence of the spiritual world. Thus Clemens of Alexandria was still able to go as far as this. Further, he said—and this was also part of the knowledge retained by Clemens—that clearly, over the course of time, the Christ passed from the nature of angel to the “Son nature”; he became “Son.” Previously, he was able to manifest and reveal himself through angels or as a host, or multitude, of angels. When it so pleased him, he appeared to one person in one angelic form, and to another as a different angel. Thus he appeared to human beings in many and various forms. Later, however, he appeared in the one form as the “Son.” Here we come to a very important element, which I must ask you to note carefully, because it is extremely important. Clemens of Alexandria still held to the view that the Christ already existed before the Mystery of Golgotha in the spiritual realms. The Christ had already reached the point where he could reveal himself through angels, or messengers. But now, he came even further by being able to fulfill himself as the Son. His ability to fulfill his mission as the Son has the greatest imaginable importance. What was it that now entered human understanding? When we go through the entire ancient Gnosis, we find a peculiar trait. If, for example, I were to outline it in the form of a diagram, I might say something like this: The Gnosis conceives, in evolution, the existence of a human “person” as proceeding from the Father—from the primal Father, the so-called Stillness, or primal Spirit. These ancient Gnostics indicated thirty different stages, and named them “Aeons,” and now I could name thirty of these. And then comes the second current, or stream. Whereas the first stream is spiritual, they also spoke of a second stream that belongs to the realm of soul. Within these streams they saw the Christ and the Sophia as the two principal Aeons, and as the source of all being. Then there were numerous other Aeons besides. Moreover, the Gnostics indicated yet a third stream—that of the Demiurge and matter. These all united and formed humankind. It is possible to form such an outline out of the way those Gnostics thought. Such concepts as theirs are not entirely unreal, because human beings are complicated. In a lecture once, I explained how many groups, or stages, containing seven parts make up the human being, our friends were very surprised to hear that so many differentiations must be looked for in the human being.2 Yet it is just these differentiations that remind us of what the Gnostics, from their perspective, knew already. On the other hand, we always find, when we approach the Gnosis, one particular point that impresses us—that the concept of time plays a very minor role. Gnostic ideas may be expressed spatially; the role of time as an idea is unimportant. Or we could say that Gnostic understanding is not capable of understanding it completely. And to this extent we may indeed call it progress from the Gnosis to Clemens of Alexandria. Although the whole encompassing fullness of spiritual wisdom had been lost, it was nevertheless a step forward that led to Clemens of Alexandria, since he brought the concept of time into the evolution of the Christ. He taught that the Christ had already existed earlier—that he had previously revealed himself through angels and later on as the Son; this was his evolutionary course. Thus, the concept of development, or evolution, was introduced. This, you can see, is the significant point. Indeed, we cannot emphasize too often that the development of civilization in the West occurred in order to bring an understanding of the concept of time to the human worldview in the right way. This is what is so important, so radically important—to view the course of evolution and to realize that the Christ was first able to manifest only through angels, and that afterward, when he passed through the Mystery of Golgotha, he is able to manifest as the Son. Through the angels, he is the messenger of something outside the world. It is true that it permeates the world completely, but to understand it correctly, we must nevertheless recognize that it comes from outside the world, as the messenger. Later, however, he appears as Son; he imbues all things. Just as the Son is one blood—one with the Father in the physical world—we must also conceive the spirit as one and the same being with the Father in the spiritual world. To be a Son is something other than being merely an angel. So, when this being reveals itself as Son, it is an evolutionary progress, in contrast to the earlier manifestations, whereby he was able to appear only as an angel, or messenger. There was, as it were, a kind of understanding of the Christ that went further than the understanding of the ancient Gnosis. Yet, the effects of the Gnosis were needed in order to say even what Clemens could say. When the Gnosis gradually disappeared altogether, it was no longer possible to say even what Clem- ens of Alexandria and Origenes had said. People became increasingly familiar with those impulses that belonged to a later period: purely materialistic impulses. So it came about that the teachings of Origenes were condemned. They were pronounced heretical. The element in them that caused them to be declared heretical was the fact that people wished to renounce any form of understanding that came from humanity itself and its own forces. This was what they wanted to renounce; they felt that such an understanding was no longer possible. And how do matters appear to us now? What aspect must they assume for us? We see, in fact, that an ancient form of spiritual wisdom had established itself extensively on the foundation of ancient clairvoyance. It was there, but it gradually disappeared. Contained in this spiritual wisdom—though it dealt with a supra- sensory being—was wisdom related to the Christ. Just at the time when the Christ descended to earth, however, the wisdom had disappeared. The real Christ was now united with the earth; knowledge about the Christ, however, had disappeared by this time. Here you have an example, on a grand scale, that I must ask you to please consider in the right way. We can cast our glance over the earth that was known to humanity at that time—the earth as it was before the Mystery of Golgotha. The further back we go, the more knowledge we find about the Christ, who must be thought of as existent in suprasensory realms. The farther back we go, the more knowledge we find, but it is knowledge that can be communicated only through angels. This constitutes evolution. This knowledge, this view of Christ, is made known to many people. The Christ lived as the inspiration of many human beings: evolution. This knowledge slowly fades away and disappears, and its influence weakens. And in one being, Jesus of Nazareth, we find everything concentrated that had previously been distributed among many. Imagine, in the course of evolution, a drop of the inner being of the Christ as living in a priest of the Mysteries, another drop in a second priest, yet another drop in a third, and so on. In the case of each of these initiates, you would find that, when he went out of his body—when his spirit abandoned his body—he had some portion of the Christ within him. The Christ is thus multiplied in them. All of this disappears, because everything that had once been distributed is drawn together and concentrated in a single point, in the body of Jesus of Nazareth: involution. Involution is the very principle or being that was taken away from all the others and appeared in one body. Thus, we see that what had lived in evolution in a distributed form had to disappear from the earth by becoming concentrated into one point—the body of Jesus of Nazareth. This is the important fact. Evolution ceases within the most significant involution. Now begins the time, therefore, when the Christ himself lives with the earth, but when the knowledge of the Christ no longer lives in the earth; knowledge of the Christ must evolve anew. At this point, the very difficulties we spoke of appeared. On the one hand, we have Jesus of Nazareth, and on the other, we have the Christ. Keep in mind that the ancient wisdom concerning the connections of things in human beings themselves were now completely lost. During that entire period, there was no longer the slightest knowledge of anything concerning humankind. Not until now are we beginning again to differentiate in the human being our physical body, ether body, sentient soul, and so on. Only now are we beginning this. Now, in a single individual, we again differentiate between the physical earthly part, which continues the line of heredity, and the higher spiritual part, which has descended again from spiritual worlds. Origenes did not know this, nor did Clemens of Alexandria. They did not know about the spiritual soul and the physical part in each individual human being who walks on the earth. This was why they found it so difficult to understand the single members of the being of Jesus Christ. The knowledge related to the Christ became more and more at variance, and it is infinitely important for an understanding of our own age to realize how all of this, in turn, influences our own time, inasmuch as it was necessary for the knowledge of spiritual science to appear today. It is extremely important to keep in mind this separation of Jesus and the Christ. This is a very serious and important matter. And we encounter in a myriad of forms. The Christmas event was entirely unknown at that time. It entered human hearts only gradually. This was the outer aspect: People came to know in images what had occurred in Palestine; only gradually, with the aid of dramatic performances, did they begin to form an idea of what took place there. This was the aspect, I might say, of the Jesus Mystery. We have seen the Christmas plays performed for us here. We could still feel something of the Christ in one of them, the second. And we could feel Jesus in his purity of form in the first play, which is so primitive and simple. We could say that the child Jesus—the first appearance of “Jesus”—gradually conquered human hearts. Around the middle of the Middle Ages, we find that people began to look up to the child; before then, Christians participated in the Mass and heard about the Mystery of Christ. They heard that he had passed through the experience of death, about St. Paul's teachings, and so on, but the Bible, as we know, was not allowed to become popular; it was kept entirely in the hands of the priests. Believers were expected to participate in the Mass, which was, moreover, celebrated in Latin. But there was no real participation in the events of the holy rite itself. The essence of the Gospels conquered human hearts and souls only very gradually. So it happened that only after the middle of the Middle Ages could such plays portraying the appearance of Jesus and so on be given to ordinary people. Today, the actual view that we maintain is that the Mystery of Golgotha once took place and that, after that event, people knew something of this Mystery of Golgotha. Yet, what they really knew was simply this: Christ had died on the cross; it was mainly the Easter event that people felt. We must keep in mind that all of this took place at the same time when mystics such as Tauler, Meister Eckhardt, and others were seeking the Christ through mysticism. Thus, on the one hand, we have the first appearance of the Christmas plays; Jesus is sought in the most external form possible—in the form of a direct physical portrayal—whereas the mystics sought the Christ. They worked to develop the soul to such an extent that they could experience the Christ arising within them; they sought to apprehend the Christ in completely changed form, within the soul, a Christ far removed from the world, existing as pure spirit. Mysticism, on the one hand, and the Christmas plays on the other—Jesus and the Christ being sought simultaneously along two different and widely separated paths. What was a theoretical difficulty in the case of Origenes—the impossibility of uniting the Christ with Jesus—appears directly before us out in the villages. There, among the simple folk, Jesus is shown as a child, whereas the deep- natured mystics looked for the Christ by trying to guide their own souls to an inner experience—to inner contact, so to speak—of the Christ. But where can we find the connecting link? Where is it? Events follow their course, side by side. Just consider the wide gulf between the childlike gaze of the villagers and what they see in the Christmas plays and the deep mysticism of a Meister Eckhardt or a Johannes Tauler. And yet, the beginnings of these Christmas plays actually appear at the same time. In fact, mysticism also continues to live. And today, in our own time, just think what the whole event of the Mystery of Golgotha has become for many theologians. Among the most advanced theologians, what is it that draws their attention? They consider that, once upon a time, at the beginning of our era, a man was born in Nazareth, or Bethlehem, or somewhere else—a chosen one, chosen especially to experience gradually within himself the human connection with the spiritual world. He was a noble man, the noblest of all—so noble, in fact, that one might say that he was almost ... but here, you see, they are somewhat at a loss. Here they are not so sure of themselves. What is there to add to the fact that he was viewed absolutely as a god during the evolutionary course of Christianity? And so they turn backward and forward, until all the theories and teachings of Euken and Harnack come along. Isn't it true that they cannot understand it al all, yet they wish, in one way or another, to appear smart and to be able to view Jesus as something special—and to be able to conceive of the Christ. Then they consult the Gospels, and as modern persons, of course, they are ashamed to admit the truth of the miracles, so they struck out whatever can be struck out, and construct from the Gospels something as natural as possible—something that may be explained away. Then we come to the event of Jerusalem and the death on the cross. Theologians can pursue things as far as this death, you see, but they are unable to go so far as the resurrection. And then we see examples such as Harnack's statement that this resurrection, the grave from which Jesus Christ supposedly arose—indeed, this Easter Mystery—allows us to penetrate only the knowledge that this Easter Mystery took place in the garden, near the Place of the Skulls. It was there that the Easter Mystery arose, and the idea of the resurrection comes from there. We are expected to hold to this, without concerning ourselves with what actually occurred there, because the conviction of the resurrection proceeded from there. This is indeed very strange, is it not? If you read Harnack's book The Essence of Christianity, you will find this extraordinary idea of the resurrection. I once pointed this out in a certain city at a meeting of the Giordano Bruno Union by saying that this is a strange thought indeed. If you wish to solve the problem of the resurrection with such a statement, it is better to leave the actual event untouched and to point our simply that the resurrection belief—the belief in the Easter Mystery—arose from that grave. A certain gentleman who was present objected by saying that Harnack could not have written this, since this would in fact be almost Roman Catholic—a Roman Catholic superstition. It would be no different than believing that the holy garment of Treves had some hidden meaning. This would indeed be superstition, and Harnack could not have written it. Yet it is a fact that he did write it, and since I did not have the book handy, I had no choice but to send that gentleman a post card the next day, stating that the passage could be found on such and such a page. This are the sort of thing that leads to many difficulties. People are at a loss when they try to find the path leading from Jesus to the Christ. Someone once said to me, “We modern theologians can no longer do anything with a Christology. The only thing that is of any real use to us is a ‘Jesuology.’” And it was that same person, not I, who added this statement: “What a pity that the name Jesuits is already taken, since the followers of modern theology really ought to be called ‘Jesuits.’” Please note that it was not I who said this, but a modern theologian. Now this is one side of the historical picture. The other side is this: A number of modern theologians are, in turn, holding more to the Christ. They study the Gospels, but they do not interpret certain passages in the Gospels, as do the other theologians I've mentioned. They do not speak of what one is able to believe, as a rational person might believe about another human being, even if that human being is divine. Yet, when describing this individual as a divine being, they are not at all clear in their minds about how far they should go in their application of divine status. “A noble man,” they say, more noble than Socrates, certainly, but here they go no further. Thus we have the one class of people, the “Jesuolgians,” since it would be difficult indeed to apply to them the name theologians. The word theology means “wisdom of God,” but it is just this godly element that they wish to eliminate. And then there is the other group, who take things more seriously and who find, after studying certain Gospel passages, that it is impossible to view the one who pronounced such words as an ordinary human being. There are passages in the Gospels, as we know, that cannot, if we are honest, be so lightly attributed to a mere human being. Furthermore, such people take the story of the resurrection seriously. They consider themselves “Christologians,” in contrast to the “Jesulogians.” At the same time, they come to yet another conclusion. For example, just read the book Ecce Deus, among others. In this book, they say, “If you read the Gospels honestly, it is impossible to believe that they refer to an ordinary human being. They speak of a God—of a true and real God.” Hence, these people, for their part, lose Jesus; they lose him very seriously, because here they say, “Throughout the Gospels, certainly, we find the mention of God; but God can not possibly have existed—in fact, he could not have lived on earth. Therefore, we must hold on to the Christ. But the Christ is the one of whom people have said that he never lived on earth.” Christology without Jesuology; this is the other direction. Yet these two directions find no way to unite. This is true today; those who speak of the Christ have lost Jesus, and those who speak of Jesus have lost the Christ. Christ has become an unreal god, and Jesus an unreal man. And it would have to continue this way, inevitably, if something new could not be added. The new element to be added must be spiritual science, which is capable of understanding anew how the Christ could live in Jesus. In fact, one of the most important points in the spiritual scientific teaching is this: It can lead us to understand how the Christ, by way of the two Jesus children, could actually become the one who assumed the position at the center of earthly and human evolution. Spiritual science can do this, because it has a new vision of what the human being really is and how the spirit, soul, and body are united in the human being. Consequently, if we build on this, we can understand once again how the Christ united with Jesus. This is complicated, of course, and it is not easy to understand. Nevertheless, it can be understood. You will thus be able to see how what humankind has lost can, with the help of spiritual science, be built up again from its original source. This is also true of our comprehension of the Mystery of Golgotha. When the Christ appeared in the world, it was impossible for people to understand him. Such understanding can be acquired only gradually. His achievements took the form of actual facts. The points of departure that can lead us to an understanding can be found everywhere. Even the simplest Christmas play can help us find such points. What do such plays show us? So far as the Paradise Plays are concerned, the following fact is placed before us: A human being enters the world, and we realize, merely through incidental occurrences, that this human being is Jesus. We enter the world as children. I said that the Paradise Play—the beginning of earthly evolution—was connected with this, the Mystery of Golgotha. Certainly, we must consider the fact that, at the beginning of earthly evolution, human beings were exposed to luciferic temptation. Consequently, their normal progress of evolution was changed. Thus we are faced, symbolically, with Adam cast out of paradise; his being is other than what it was destined to be before luciferic temptation. How does this manifest? Imagine that Lucifer had never approached humankind, and that human beings had lived without the luciferic impulse. In that case, human beings would have lived in a different way in their ether body. When we pass through the portal of death, we still retain our ether body, and then we cast it off. Nevertheless, this ether body more or less continues its existence. As a result of luciferic temptation, it caries the impressions of everything we do and think. We know that human beings die; that they pass through the portal of death; that the physical body is surrendered to the elements; that, after a few days, the ether body detaches itself from the human being; and that human beings then continue along whatever path them must take. At the same time, in this etheric part are the impressions of what the ether body had become as a result of thinking, feeling, and actions, in an inevitable accordance with luciferic temptation. Now imagine the earth. The human physical body enters this earth; it is given over to the earthly elements, but the ether body remains connected with the earth. Thus, we have the ether bodies of human beings; they are present in the atmosphere of the earth. And they are different from what they would have been had the luciferic temptation never taken place. Everything I've said thus far about ether bodies in general refers, of course, to these ether bodies. But what I am saying today also refers to them. So we may repeat: Human beings are embedded in the earth; what we leave behind on the earth—all that our ether body has become during earthly life—has become more dry, more “woody,” than it would have become had the luciferic temptation not occurred. More wood-like, drier—in fact, this difference does exist. Imagine that the luciferic temptation had never taken place; after death, human beings would leave behind a far more rejuvenated ether body, a much “greener” ether body, as it were. Because of the luciferic temptation, human beings leave behind a far more dried-up ether body than would have otherwise been the case. This was expressed in the legend that tells us a dried-up Tree of Paradise arose from Adam's grave. But what lives in the earth actually lived before the Mystery of Golgotha in the human ether body, infected by Lucifer. It was precisely this element into which the body of Jesus of Nazareth entered as a healer, or as a “phantom,” as I explained in my lectures at Karlsruhe.3 Imagine that Adam's grave—Adam surrendered as a physical body to the earthly elements. Arising from his grave is the dried-up ether body, the representative of the human past that was infected by Lucifer and remains intact after death. This is, at the same time, the tree upon which one may be crucified. In fact, such a crucifixion actually does take place when the “phantom” of Jesus of Nazareth remains behind on earth after the Mystery of Golgotha, and through it unites with the earth. This is expressed in the legend that tells us this tree was handed down from generation to generation and became, in turn, the cross on Golgotha. This is a pictorial view that corresponds to the fact—that, through the crucifixion, the phantom of Jesus of Nazareth united with what lived in the earth etherically, as a totality of ether bodies infected by Lucifer. Those bodies were, of course, scattered, rarified, and dissolved, but they were nevertheless existent in the form of forces. This is very significant and infinitely profound fact that we must keep in mind, and it illuminates for us the mysteries of the earth. But what is it, in fact, that brings about our connection with the ether body infected by Lucifer? It is the fact that we enter the physical world as children. We still do not, of course, find the whole answer in that point were one becomes a child, because if we look with the right feeling, we see in the child a being free of Lucifer. And if we are able to do this—to look at a child with the right feeling, seeing how one enters the world—we can see the human relationship to the Christ. This, it was expected, would be the feeling experienced by those seeing Jesus thus portrayed in the Christmas plays: They were expected to feel what I have described in the first pages of my little book on the progress of the human being and humanity.4 There I spoke of the first three years of human life and about our entrance into the world. If the same thing that permeates the human being during those first years were to permeate one in the middle of life (as I mentioned in the book), one would have some idea of the way the Christ lived in Jesus. This opportunity to see something in children that is not yet infected by Lucifer is also possible when we see the Christmas plays. Now let's consider what all of this means. It is indeed tremendously important when we look at the child. In that little book I explained that during our earliest years we are far wiser than we are later on—although unconsciously—because we must then build up the body; later, we can no longer do that. We are far smarter and wiser than we are later on, and we are much better at penetrating our human nature, but we do not yet posses the Luciferic element. In working on ourselves inwardly in this way, during our earliest infancy—before that time we can recall later on—we work on the most delicate shaping of the body, and we work according to infinitely wise laws. Once Lucifer and Ahriman have permeated our knowledge later on, we haven't the faintest notion of those laws. While we are at work within this infant being, we are free of everything we enter later on, when we experience the world through the body; we are still unhampered by all differences, even by the difference of the sexes. We do not live during early infancy within the male or female element; we are not yet involved in the differences created by social position and race; we are not yet involved in national differences. We are human beings, pure and simple. We are then, in reality, within the same element inhabited by those who face one another in war, impelled by something they experience externally for the first time: hatred. The fact that it is possible for human beings in the world to face one another in hatred, just because they belong to different nationalities, is something that develops through forces into which we enter through the connection with our physical body. Before acquiring such a connection through the physical body, children still live in an element that transcends all national and social differences. They live in an element where all souls could live, no matter where they were born on earth. Consider this: Human beings may face one another as bitter enemies and kill one another, yet those who have killed may pass through the portal of death, mutually united in the Christ who belongs to them all, the Christ in whom they live, if they have remained unaffected by the differences that exist among humankind. What makes people fact one another in hatred is something that they acquire only through the physical body; but this has no connection whatsoever with what lies outside the physical body. Our age has much to learn—especially this age. It must find its way back to veneration for the infant Jesus, when he is portrayed as a child and not yet as one who has entered the element that brings differences among human beings, leading them into conflict and strife. It is only when their experiences change human beings from the child, about whom we are told at Christmas, that war and strife arise. It is human beings themselves who are portrayed in the Christmas play, human beings as they really are in their connection with cosmic powers—but portrayed in such a way that it reveals, in a unique way and on the physical level, something that does not become involved in strife; it is something that may even be carried, in a similar way, in the hearts of those who are fighting a physical battle to the death with one another. It is profoundly significant that this is presented to humankind in particular relation to the “Nathan” Jesus Child. We connect with the side of our being, so to speak, through which we enter the world, without the slightest trace of discrimination, because we have not yet become involved in distinguishing nationality and so forth. We develop such discrimination only through our life in connection with the physical body. The Jesus idea, which is expressed fully only in the Jesus child, unites with the Christ idea, which is fulfilled when human beings are able go clearly recognize the spiritual also in Jesus as a man, when he was between thirty and thirty-three years of age—in other words, the Christ being. In a twofold way, through the “Nathan” Jesus and the “Solomon” Jesus, a body is prepared, which is able to remain apart from all that causes discrimination among human beings. The Christ is able to reveal himself only in such a body.5 Thus we see, according to spiritual science (and I have explained this in a similar way in my little book on the progress of the individual and humanity), the coalescence of the Jesus idea and the Christ idea. This is the greatest, most meaningful human need of our time. Until now, human beings have had a Christmas festival and an Easter festival, but these two festivals remained unrelated. Easter is a Christ festival, and Christmas a Jesus festival. Easter and Christmas eventually become related as we gain the ability to understand how the Christ and Jesus are interrelated. It is spiritual science that builds the bridge between the Christmas festival and the Easter festival. From the simple “Shepherd Play,” a bridge will lead us to the finest attainable comprehension if we cultivate spiritual science to the degree that we have the mentality of the shepherds rather than that of the innkeepers. The contrast between materialism and spiritualism is wonderfully described in the characters of the innkeepers and the shepherds. In fact, the great problem of our time is whether we wish to be innkeepers or shepherds. Many of today's events may be traced to the fact that people prefer to be innkeepers. The innkeeper nature is widespread in the world today; we must again work to become the shepherds. Naturally, there are many disbelievers, even among the shepherds. When one of the shepherds says, “I think I see a light yonder” (which means, “I perceive something of a spiritual nature.), there will always be another shepherd who will be slow to agree, saying it is just a fantasy. There is one detail, however, that must not be ignored. Of course, we must be able to distinguish between the nature of an innkeeper and a shepherd; after all, don't innkeepers surround us on all sides? Wherever we go, they surround us, yet we convince ourselves that we are shepherds. This is natural, but we must not ignore this: We must investigate, at least in a small way, the innkeeper's nature within ourselves, and not view ourselves too certainly as the shepherds. We must occasionally ask ourselves, “Are we already able to see the approaching light, which will proclaim what must come through the new spiritual science?” We should cultivate inwardly everything that can keep alive the inner feeling for celebrating Christmas in our hearts through this new spiritual direction; this feeling will help us seek the light in the midst of darkness. We must seek and truly be willing to seek, however, in the right way. While we are seeking, we must truly have the feeling that we cannot reach our goal by trying only once; we must return again and again as the shepherds did, for they promised that they could come again and would not be satisfied to come only once.This is a fact; yet, people can become shepherds if they can begin now to develop within themselves the side of their nature that is not derived from earthly experience—if they can find, instead, a connection with what they brought to earth with them in their innermost being from the heavenly realms. People today stand far too firmly within the “house” where they can get what the innkeeper has to offer—what was brought from the earthly realms, and this can be evaluated only through earthly discrimination. On the other hand, those who still have a certain relationship with everything spiritual that surges and pulses through the world—those who have kept their shepherd nature—will be able to find the paths; they are able to discover that, in reality, ordinary knowledge finds only the outer appearance. People will gradually begin to understand Christmas when they learn to distinguish the innkeeper's nature from that of the shepherd, and when they come to realize how predominant the innkeeper's nature is today. There is still much to be learned through the simple Christmas play, and because of this it seems to me a good idea to cultivate among us and to experience the Christmas mystery in this simplest of all forms. There are many and diverse hard battles ahead, my dear friends. They must be faced in the near future by just this sort of spiritual scientific work. To find the path, we must truly learn to be shepherds through spiritual understanding of the Christmas mystery—possessing all the humility of the shepherds, but at the same time, all the wisdom in seeking that belongs to the shepherds who are united with the universe. Let us engrave this in our hearts and souls at this Christmastime, so that we may continue to become seeking shepherds, and so that we may eventually learn to find what is holy within the human soul, just as it was found in the ordinary, everyday atmosphere of the simple folk. I have explained how this most sacred form of Christmas play arose, little by little, out of a carnival holiday mood, not from any sort of holy recreation. If we look for the spiritual in connection with what the Christmas plays show us, we find it in the right way as shepherds, not as innkeepers who have already lost their connection with the Christmas child, just as the play shows us symbolically. This is sorely needed in our age, when materialism has conquered such broad and far-reaching areas of life, both outer and within the human life of feeling. There, a spiritual worldview finds it difficult even to rediscover the right words—in contrast to the misused words that people use to express themselves—so that it may say what the right words mean.
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| 259. The Fateful Year of 1923: The International Delegates' Assembly
22 Jul 1923, Dornach |
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| (See below for more details.) Between now and Christmas, we need two things more than ever: courage, so that we can secure all the physical foundations for the new structure by then; and love, so that the International Anthroposophical Society can be born at Christmas, an act that must mean something for the spiritual aura of the Earth. |
| It would be very nice if, in this respect, the delegates could come to Dornach at Christmas with concrete proposals and reports of their own activities in all countries after intensive discussions. |
| The building of the new Goetheanum and the carrying out of anthroposophical truths into the spiritual life of the whole earth will show that the signals of the Anthroposophical Society, which are to be born at Christmas, are a living and active being. Please come, dear friends, to Dornach at Christmas, equipped for such tasks and with loving intentions. |
| 259. The Fateful Year of 1923: The International Delegates' Assembly
22 Jul 1923, Dornach |
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Mr. Albert Steffen opened the meeting and said that many people were probably rudely awakened by cannon shots this morning. This is because today, down in the village, there is a celebration of the anniversary of the Battle of Dornach, which took place in 1499 on the same hill where we are now gathered. This battle marked the culmination of the wars of independence that had begun when the three founders of the Swiss Confederation met to swear an oath on the Rütli. As can be read in Swiss history books, this confederation was the model for the United States of America, which in turn became the model for the republics and democracies of Europe. The hill of Dornach is therefore a crucially important point for the history of humanity. The anthroposophical movement, which now has its spiritual center here, is neither political nor national. During the last Goetheanum, people of all nationalities worked peacefully side by side on the hill of Dornach, even during the world war. It is of the greatest historical significance, said Mr. Steffen, that he can make the announcement today that the International Anthroposophical Society will be founded here in Dornach at Christmas this year. Mr. Steffen then gave some examples of the spiritually low-level spite and dishonesty with which the opposition to Anthroposophy and the Goetheanum works, so that the unanimous and tireless support of members in all countries is needed to establish and maintain the new Goetheanum. Dr. Guenther Wachsmuth briefly reported on the results of the special meeting of the country delegates the previous afternoon. A significant step forward had been taken, both practically and morally. It had to be emphasized that it was not enough to indicate approximately how much funding might be collected over the course of a year; rather, Dr. Steiner could only be asked to take the reconstruction into his own hands if a certain sum were guaranteed now. It was a great moral success that a few delegates had taken such a heavy responsibility upon their own shoulders. The following sums have been guaranteed in writing by individual delegates: England... ..... 115,000 Swiss francs Netherlands... 150,000 Switzerland... 200,000 Denmark... 100,000 Honolulu... 200,000 America... 30,000 Czechoslovakia. 30,000 (from German members there) Italy. 20,000 Austria. 10,000 Sweden. 10,000 865,000 Swiss francs As was expressly emphasized by all the delegates, this is only a first step, so that construction can begin immediately. It is hoped that in the coming months, through vigorous activity, significantly larger sums can be secured. A second problem, which must now be discussed here and also after the delegates return to their countries, is the founding of the International Anthroposophical Society in Dornach at Christmas. In the course of this year, several national societies, e.g. in England, Holland, etc., will be founded on their own initiative, and it is to be hoped that several other countries will follow this example as soon as possible. The rebuilding of the movement in Dornach will result in a great deal of correspondence with all countries and branches, which is why the founding of national societies will greatly facilitate joint work, reporting, etc. Some grotesque examples were given to show why members who do not affiliate with other branches and country groups are unjustifiably dissatisfied when they are not notified of events in good time. It is hoped that this will be much easier and better in the future, thanks to the creation of country groups, which will simplify the exchange of information, and to the creation of a comprehensive address archive. (See below for more details.) Between now and Christmas, we need two things more than ever: courage, so that we can secure all the physical foundations for the new structure by then; and love, so that the International Anthroposophical Society can be born at Christmas, an act that must mean something for the spiritual aura of the Earth. Mr. Leinhas explained clearly and unambiguously that according to the existing laws it is absolutely necessary to leave the contributions collected in Germany, which are deposited with the trust company in Stuttgart, in Germany and to use them up there. He suggested, as one of several possibilities, that these funds be used for a study fund to make it easier for students to devote themselves intensively to the study of the various anthroposophical fields of teaching. Mr. Heywood-Smith pointed out that today, July 22, was an important day in the history of Switzerland's wars of liberation. We are now facing another decisive historical moment, where another deed is to be accomplished that also demands trust in the ideal and the commitment of the whole being. We still need three million Swiss francs to rebuild the Goetheanum. The three confederates at Rütli had risked their lives for the cause of freedom. Are there three people in our Society who would be willing to guarantee the three million from their own means and thereby perform a deed of love for humanity? The members could then, in turn, perform a deed of love by ensuring that the guarantors do not suffer any loss once the contributions flow into the fund at the same rate as they are needed for the reconstruction. Dr. Büchenbacher described the difficult moral tasks that have to be overcome by the friends in Germany; as Dr. Steiner showed us in his lectures, we have to help the genius of the time to overcome the demon of the time. Germany is a particularly difficult and important battleground for these forces at this time. Mr. Scott Pyle, America, expressed in a heartfelt way how unfortunate it was that the German contributions could not directly benefit the Goetheanum this time and that it would be a beautiful act of international community spirit if the other countries, going beyond their own foundations, would also distribute the German contribution among themselves. He himself set a good example by donating a large sum. Miss Woolley, England, added to it by donating jewelry to the German contribution. Mr. Jan Stuten impressed upon the audience the necessity of the new Goetheanum, especially for a rebirth of artistic life. In the old Goetheanum, all forms were so harmonious and musical that they had a direct inspiring effect on the artist. A new music could have been born from the contemplation of the capitals, architraves and other living organic forms of the Goetheanum. He described the uninspired, uncreative decadence of modern compositions with examples to the contrary. The anthroposophical artists asked the Friends of the Arts to help them with the new Goetheanum, so that a place full of stimulation for the creative powers of artists on earth could be created again. Eurythmy also needs the Goetheanum as a setting of the same spirit. The performance that the delegates saw yesterday, for example of Shakespeare's “Midsummer Night's Dream”, would have been an event, a renaissance of Shakespeare's works in a new spirit. We felt deeply grateful to Dr. Steiner for this event. Mr. Stuten proposed that one or more of Dr. Steiner's mystery plays be performed during a festival week on large stages in Switzerland and abroad in the course of this year. Ms. Henström, Sweden, reported on anthroposophical work in Sweden and guaranteed, at her own responsibility, a nice contribution from Sweden for the fund. Miss Lina Schwarz, Italy, spoke about the wishes of her Italian friends and hoped that in the future it might be possible to send a newsletter from Dornach to all countries. Count Polzer, Austria, said that in a properly conducted budget debate, spiritual human areas of interest should also be addressed; he welcomed the fact that in the last few days the budget negotiations here had been brought to such a level that at the same time, deep spiritual problems such as the consolidation of the Society in its connection with the reconstruction of the Goetheanum could be discussed. A center should be formed here in Dornach, in lively exchange with the life in the branches of all countries. He hoped that despite the growing difficulties, the delegates and members would meet quite often in Dornach and thus get to know each other more and more personally and warmly. Graf Polzer requested that the members of the other countries now also accept the resolution adopted by Switzerland. Mr. Steffen asked those in favor of the resolution to rise. - (All the delegates remained silent for a few moments.) — The international assembly has thus unanimously endorsed this resolution. The international assembly of delegates was closed by Dr. Steiner on the evening of July 22, at the end of the third of his lectures on “Three Perspectives of Anthroposophy”, with the following words: This was an attempt to characterize the three perspectives that anthroposophy can open up: the physical, the soul and the spiritual perspective. It will undoubtedly be a memorable meeting, my dear friends, if the building of a new Goetheanum can now emerge from it. And it would be wonderful if this new Goetheanum could become such that it could also radiate to us in its forms what is to be said through the word on the basis of anthroposophy to humanity. In this way, my dear friends, you will have done a great deal for anthroposophy. I may speak impersonally in all these matters at this moment; it really does not depend on me. I also do not want to speak about the decision that has been made, the content of which is that it should be left to me to make the internal arrangements for the construction. For my request that I be allowed to carry out the building work under these conditions was made because I can only take responsibility for the building work under these conditions. And all this remains within the objective. It is commendable that this request has been sympathetically received. The anthroposophical movement as such will benefit from the outcome. And so, as I bid farewell to our friends who have come here, I would just like to be the interpreter of the anthroposophical understanding, and the repercussions of this anthroposophical understanding will not fail to materialize for those who have this understanding. It can truly be seen from the spiritual realm what a difficult sacrifice our friends are making for the reconstruction of the Goetheanum. But the feeling has now entered our ranks that the will for what stands as an ideal before the soul's eye cannot be realized without such great sacrifices. The Goetheanum will only be truly blessed if those who make the sacrifices truly want them and if the sacrifices come from a sacred will. But the beauty and beautiful sincerity of this will can already be expressed by the interpreter of anthroposophy as a warm farewell greeting. And I can assure you of this: now that the sacrifices have been made, the Goetheanum will be rebuilt to the best of our ability. Building this second Goetheanum will require stronger, harder struggles than building the first, and a moral fund to supplement the physical one would be highly necessary. So, in the name of anthroposophy, I am deeply grateful to all those who have rushed here, and if it is the case that the right understanding will increasingly take hold, then in a sense the blessing cannot fail to come, and then one can also look forward calmly to the difficult struggles that this work in particular will entail. Therefore, today, in a particularly serious and also in a particularly warm way, I would like to say goodbye to the friends. Some preliminary remarks for the founding of the International Anthroposophical Society in Dornach, Christmas 1923.A large number of the delegates who had been present at the conference from July 20 to 23 met again after the conference to determine the issues that require preliminary discussion in the various countries and groups during the next few months, so that the delegates can arrive at Christmas well informed about the views of their friends at home and armed with fruitful proposals for the development of the International Anthroposophical Society. We therefore sincerely request that the following points be thoroughly discussed in the assemblies of the Anthroposophical branches and groups in the time between now and Christmas, so that harmony of opinion can be achieved all the more quickly in Dornach on the basis of the clarified views of friends from all countries: 1. There will be a discussion about the merger of the national societies that have already been founded or will be founded by Christmas to form an International Anthroposophical Society. Reports will be given on the different ways in which the individual national societies are organized. 2. Possible revision of statutes by the national societies, insofar as the current draft 1 needed to be changed or added. 3. Those countries, such as Belgium, Poland, etc., that have expressed the wish to remain affiliated to the Swiss Anthroposophical Society for the time being, until their membership has grown stronger, are asked to send the Swiss Anthroposophical Society a precise list of the addresses of the members of their group, as well as to indicate which individuals are to be notified of any events, communications, etc. who are then responsible for passing this on to all members belonging to their group. 4. Proposals for the person of a General Secretary of the International Anthroposophical Society. The decision, of course, lies with Dr. Steiner. 5. Some delegates had proposed appointing so-called envoys in Dornach, i.e. prominent individuals from the various countries who already live in Dornach and could be consulted or called upon to assist in dealings with the individual countries. Opinions were divided on the expediency of such an organization. It would, of course, only be useful if it facilitated, rather than complicated, communication between Dornach and the national societies. 6. The amount and due date of the contribution to be paid to Dornach per member (upon admission and annually) to cover the expenses of the General Secretariat. (It should not be forgotten that the sending of such communications, the organization of meetings, the handling of the constantly increasing number of requests in Dornach, etc., which result from the international growth of the Society, require funds that cannot be covered permanently by the Swiss Society or from private funds, but must be borne jointly by all countries). 7. Regular additions to the address archive of members in Dornach (unless otherwise agreed). (It is proposed that contributions and lists of new members, resignations, changes of address, etc. be sent to Dornach on 7 January and 1 July respectively). 8. Determination of the responsibility of the general secretaries, boards of directors, etc. of the national associations and of the International General Secretary with regard to the admission of new members to the Society. — (For example, during discussions with Dutch friends, it was suggested that the admission card of a new member be signed by the general secretary of a country and countersigned by the International General Secretariat). 9. The question of publishing a journal can only be resolved by specific proposals regarding the person and the means. 10. Organization of a dignified and effective defense against opponents in all countries. The International Anthroposophical Society must take on this task to such an extent through increased collaboration across the whole earth that Dr. Steiner is not impeded in important work by the tiresome defense against opponents. 11. Members in all countries to work together to support the initiatives launched by the Anthroposophical Society in the fields of education, therapy (distribution of remedies, support for clinical-therapeutic institutes, etc.), scientific research, art, etc. It would be very nice if, in this respect, the delegates could come to Dornach at Christmas with concrete proposals and reports of their own activities in all countries after intensive discussions. 12. How much have the individual countries and groups been able to contribute to the reconstruction of the Goetheanum? (It would be helpful for the continuity of the work if a preliminary report on this could be given by October 15, 1923). Please send the names of the delegates who are to represent their countries in Dornach at Christmas to Dornach by December 1, 1923. Similarly, information is needed about accommodation, etc. In addition to the responsible delegates, all members of the Society are of course most warmly and urgently invited to attend. The exact date of the Christmas meeting will be announced. All correspondence should be addressed to “The Secretariat of the Anthroposophical Society”, Dornach near Basel, Switzerland, Haus Friedwart, 1st floor. We repeat Dr. Steiner's closing words: “It would be wonderful if this new Goetheanum could become such that it could radiate to us in its forms what is to be said through the word on the basis of anthroposophy for humanity. The building of the new Goetheanum and the carrying out of anthroposophical truths into the spiritual life of the whole earth will show that the signals of the Anthroposophical Society, which are to be born at Christmas, are a living and active being. Please come, dear friends, to Dornach at Christmas, equipped for such tasks and with loving intentions. Albert Steffen Dr. Chronological overview of the days of the conference with a literal rendering of Rudolf Steiner's wordsFirst day, Friday, July 20, 1923 11:30 a.m., Friedwart House: preliminary discussion of the Swiss delegates (without Rudolf Steiner). The official delegates are elected and the question is discussed of whether Switzerland can raise the planned 400,000 francs for the reconstruction. 4 p.m., Glass House: Preliminary discussion of the German delegates (without Rudolf Steiner). Carl Unger mentions three points for the conference: 1. Rebuilding the Goetheanum, 2. Appeal for donations, 3. Following the “resolution” of the Swiss. The composition of the German delegation is decided: Dr. Unger, Emil Leinhas, Wolfgang Wachsmuth, Hans Büchenbacher, Maria-Röschl, Felix Peipers, Graf Lerchenfeld, Kurt Walther, Frau Goyert, Oberstleutnant Seebohm (Johanna Mücke has resigned). 5 p.m., Glass House: preliminary discussion of all the delegates named by the various countries to determine the conference program and the chairmanship. Albert Steffen is elected chairman, George Kaufmann from London vice-chairman, and Guenther Wachsmuth secretary. The Swiss delegate E. Etienne from Geneva reports the following from this meeting in a private letter dated July 29, 1923: "This first discussion was actually more of a get-together. The various country delegates had come here more or less informed, some hardly knew the purpose of the meeting; they had therefore not been given any powers of attorney and were more here to find out something that they could then inform their country and their branches about. Of course, this was a hindrance and an obstacle to the smooth running of the purely financial part of the work program. It was interesting to see how the mentality of their people was reflected in the statements of the various delegates. Switzerland, the Netherlands, Germany and Austria were the most willing to make sacrifices. The tragedy is that for the last two countries, the exchange rate situation is such that their enormous sacrifices appear so small when converted into francs. The Nordic countries, on the other hand, failed to contribute. Italy and France are willing but have few members and little money. England and America have disappointed... In contrast, the German group has been exemplary for Czechoslovakia. Of the 27 members, 150,000 Czech crowns (about 10,000 francs) have been delivered so far, and their delegate has personally committed to a further 20,000 francs. Will the three Czech groups be as loyal to the cause? They were not represented. 8 p.m., carpentry workshop: Rudolf Steiner's first lecture on “Three Perspectives on Anthroposophy” (in CW 225). Second day, Saturday, July 21, 1923 10 a.m., carpentry hall: First general assembly of the delegates and members of the Anthroposophical Society. Welcome address by Albert Steffen and report by Dr. Guenther Wachsmuth on yesterday's preliminary negotiations. In the discussion that followed, various suggestions were made as to how the funds for the reconstruction could be raised. Cf. the report by Albert Steffen and Dr. Guenther Wachsmuth on page 557. At the end of the morning session, Rudolf Steiner took the floor: See GA 252 George Kaufmann translates Rudolf Steiner's remarks into English. Then, until 1 p.m., the negotiations continue on the financing of the building and the proposed brochure. 3 p.m., Glass House: Special meeting of all delegates about the sums to be provided by the individual countries. (There are no minutes of this meeting.) 5 p.m., Carpentry: Eurythmy performance with introductory address by Rudolf Steiner (in CW 277). 8 p.m., carpentry workshop: Rudolf Steiner's second lecture on “Three Perspectives on Anthroposophy” (in CW 225). 10:30 p.m., glass house: assembly of delegates after Rudolf Steiner's lecture. There are no minutes available, but the Swiss delegate E. Etienne from Geneva reports in a private letter dated July 29 about this meeting, at which Rudolf Steiner was also present, as follows: "It was sometimes exhausting to listen to the haggling and haggling. The committee, which was pushing for large sums to achieve something worthwhile, and the delegates, some of whom had no authority to make real commitments. It is therefore to be hoped that they will really do everything they can in their countries to increase the guaranteed minimum amounts, in line with the number of members and their actual financial possibilities. After the minimum amounts had been agreed (which depended on whether or not the doctor considered the guarantee offered to be sufficient – he wanted to be absolutely sure and only took note of guaranteed amounts), it was concluded that at least 25% of the guaranteed amounts must be paid by 15 October of the following year. The original plan was to reconvene on this date. However, all the delegates were sufficiently empowered and well informed about the final amounts that their country would contribute to the reconstruction and in which installments. Doctor Itten said that he would now immediately start planning the new Goetheanum for the funds that had now been made available (insurance and minimum amounts). If in October the delegates are able to guarantee larger sums than those currently foreseen, then these funds would be used for the extensions. This met with long faces, and the immediate objection was raised that nothing of this should be mentioned at tomorrow's general assembly (we delegates would keep silent about everything anyway), because everyone wants to give their money for the Goetheanum and not for extensions. The sense of sacrifice could wane if this became known. The doctor replied that if our old Goetheanum had not burnt down, we would have been forced to build extensions anyway, because the work that awaited us could not have been done in the old building; we felt that ourselves at the time. And we should not imagine that greater sacrifices are now being demanded of us than we would have had to make without the fire in the next three years (we would not have had three million to start with!). In short, Dr. Itten was keen to make it clear to us that the extensions were not only not a disaster, but something desirable, and he tried to encourage us. — Later, he came up again and said very kindly: Don't think I'm making a joke: you can very well proceed in such a way that I design a Goetheanum for the available money, right up to the roof, so for the time being without a roof. (Much laughter.) I suppose most anthroposophists would then still want the roof and raise the necessary money for it. The suggestion was generally liked – but whether Doctor really proceeds in this way will probably depend on the degree of trust in our willingness to make sacrifices. Doctor just said clearly that he did not want to go through the misery of raising money a second time. He would only build with what was actually raised and would not rely on promises.
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| 88. On the Astral World and Devachan: Universal Law and Human Destiny
21 Dec 1903, Berlin Rudolf Steiner |
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| Christmas Lecture Follow me for a few moments into the ancient Egyptian temples for a ceremony that was celebrated at midnight on the day that corresponds to our Christmas Day. |
| If we understand the ceremonies that took place on Christmas in Asia, India and even in China, then we understand what Christmas bells actually mean to us. |
| The life of Christ should also directly reflect the sun as it rushes across the firmament. His birth was therefore transferred to Christmas. Let us ask ourselves why. What happens to the sun at the time of the winter solstice, at the time of Christmas? |
| 88. On the Astral World and Devachan: Universal Law and Human Destiny
21 Dec 1903, Berlin Rudolf Steiner |
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Christmas Lecture Follow me for a few moments into the ancient Egyptian temples for a ceremony that was celebrated at midnight on the day that corresponds to our Christmas Day. On this day – or rather at midnight – one of the images that are only shown four times a year was unveiled in the temple and carried before a small crowd that had been prepared for this temple service. This image was locked in the innermost sanctuary of the temple throughout the year and was kept in strict secrecy. On this day, it was carried out by the oldest of the priests, and a ceremony was performed before him, which I will describe to you very briefly. After the eldest of the priests had carried out the radiant image of Horus, son of Isis and Osiris, four priests in white robes approached the image. The first of the priestly sages spoke the following before the image: “Horus, you who are the sun in the spiritual realm and you who give us the light of your wisdom as the sun gives us the light of the world, lead us so that we may no longer be what we are today.” This temple priest had entered from the east. The second of the temple priests entered from the north and spoke roughly the following words: “Horus, you sun in the spiritual realm, you who are the giver of love, as the sun is the giver of the warming power that coaxes out the forces of plants and fruits throughout the year, lead us to a goal so that we may become what we are not yet today.” And the third of the temple priests came from the south and said: “Horus, thou sun in the spiritual realm, bestow thy power upon us, as the sun of the physical world bestows its power, by which it will part the darkest cloud and spread light everywhere.” After this third priest had spoken, a fourth stepped forward and said something like the following: “The three wisest of us have spoken. They are my brothers, but they are beyond the sphere in which I myself still am. I am the representative of you” - and he meant: the representative of the multitude. And he said: “I will lead your voice. I will speak for you who are still standing there as minors. I will tell my older brothers that they long for the great goal of the world, where human destiny and the eternal law of the world will be reconciled.” This should be understood in this hour by those who were sufficiently prepared for it, as once unchanging cosmic law and human destiny were one. If we understand the ceremonies that took place on Christmas in Asia, India and even in China, then we understand what Christmas bells actually mean to us. A macrocosm has always been called the world and a microcosm the human being. This was meant to suggest that the human being contains within himself the forces that are present outside in the great. But not only the calculating mind has called the world a microcosm for man, but also the mind, which tells us that we must look up at the stars. Here a word of the philosopher Kant applies: “Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe...: the starry sky above me and the moral law within me.” How different macrocosm and microcosm are when we look at them from a different point of view. Especially when faced with the macrocosm with its immutable eternal laws, those who are the most knowledgeable are filled with the deepest admiration and reverence. There have been no knowledgeable people who have seen through the wisdom of the world and not at the same time stood in awe of the creative spirit of the world. And one of those people [in modern times] who for the first time had a confidential relationship with this immutable law, Kepler, spoke the words: Who could look into the wonderful structure of the whole world and not admire the Creator who implanted these laws of the world. - Those who know most admire the eternal laws of the starry sky. It seems to be different when it comes to human destiny. Goethe says that he likes to take refuge from the changeability of man in the fixed rules of eternal nature, and the moral law [of Kant] with its categorical imperative seemed to him to be in error. We perceive the difference between the human heart and the world-spirit, the macrocosm, in yet another way. We perceive this difference when we consider the connection between human destiny and human character. Who would impose responsibility on a volcano? Probably no one. But we must indeed impose responsibility on the man who causes harm. Who would speak of justice and injustice in relation to nature? And how is it that the good suffer while the wicked prosper? We see harmony within the macrocosm. What position do we have in relation to it? What is clearly and distinctly outlined in the ceremony I have described will be enacted in a few days in the festival that is so little understood today. The starry sky with its immutable laws was not always the cosmos that appears to us now. This cosmos emerged out of chaos. Out of the surging and swaying of forces, what we have today first developed. The Copernican-Keplerian laws, which make us marvel at the wisdom of the world spirit, have not always applied. Today it seems to be poured out, exalted above justice and injustice; we cannot ask about good and evil. But we can ask about good and evil in relation to the human being. Today we ask ourselves the deeper question: Why do we ask about good and evil, about justice and injustice in relation to the human being? Why can we not ask this question in relation to the macrocosm? In the beginning, when the world was still a surging sea, there was, in the midst of what the eyes see, the ears hear, the senses perceive, between what appears to us today in the laws of harmony, still a surging sea of surging feelings, of desires and passions out there in the universe. These world passions, which were in the midst of the laws and chaos, had to be overcome first. Today, anyone who tries to visualize this world of cosmic desires and passions from an ancient past can hardly perceive the body of passions. Shiny and transparent, bright as stars, barely perceptible with the seer's finest tools, it shines in every atom after chaos has been overcome. What has brought the astral body of the cosmos to rest has not yet reached the same goal in man. In man, the astral body is still surging. What has already taken place in the cosmos over the course of millions of years, what has reached its goal, is still in the process of becoming in man. And if we follow man from return to return, from re-embodiment to re-embodiment, if we see him in his different bodies and then follow him in his astral bodies, then we see that from embodiment to embodiment the astral body becomes brighter and purer. In the beginning we see it permeated by dull passions. These remind us of the passions of that time when the world was still a chaos. But little by little that brightness and clarity developed, as it has now the astral body of the great universe. Because the sages of ancient times knew about the connection between the development of the human being and the existence of the world, they called the world macrocosm and the human being microcosm. The human being must look at the goal that he can set for himself: to become like the macrocosm, to imbue himself with the same bliss and peace that flows through the cosmos as a universal law today. Just as we cannot ask whether the laws of the cosmos are just or unjust, so neither can man ask whether his destiny coincides with his law. Pure law is the law of the cosmos, and pure human law, pure human spirit, shall one day become man's destiny. This is the path of destiny that the human spirit undergoes in its various embodiments. We become ever more starry and ever more similar to the destiny of the cosmos. Karma is a law by which we all suffer. What we have accomplished in one embodiment bears its fruits in later embodiments. What befalls us today we have caused in previous embodiments. But karma is a law that not only distributes guilt and atonement, disharmony and harmony in the right way, but is a law that leads us up to the highest summit of the human spirit. The great world book of karma will have found its balance on the left and on the right. We will have transformed everything we owe to life back into the bright glow of the astral body. Everything we have felt as deficiencies will be balanced out. Karma is burnt up. When the guilt points of our existence will no longer be there, when we ourselves go our way like the sun, which is not able to step even a little out of its orbit, then we will also follow the laws implanted in us like the sun in the starry sky. That is our way, that is our goal. That will one day be the harmony between the destiny of man and the laws of the world. Not everyone's journey through life is the same. Just as in the natural world, the perfect exists alongside the imperfect, and the higher animal already exists alongside the worm, so too in the spiritual world, the imperfect human spirit exists alongside that which has already reached a higher level. Those who honestly and sincerely believe in evolution must also have faith in spiritual science and its teachings of the first human beings. These are those who have already come further along the path that we all have to travel than we have today. Some have rushed ahead. They have overtaken us from the times of which history tells us; they have reached a higher stage of human development. Thus they have become leaders, guides of humanity. Just as the higher developed animal towers above the worm, so the Rishis, the masters, tower above humanity. They have achieved this in the earlier times because they have taken a different path of knowledge, a steeper, more dangerous path, which is associated with infinite danger. No one may enter it for its own sake. Whoever does so may stumble and fall into deep abysses, or lose his sense of existence for a time, or become a tormentor to people. In short, no one may seek out this path of faster knowledge out of selfishness. Only he who has taken this vow, who has sworn an oath that may never be broken, to powers of which the ordinary person has no inkling, only he who has taken this vow can enter upon the path to becoming a leader of humanity, a forerunner of humanity. Such leaders of men have never used their knowledge for themselves. What is so highly esteemed in the West, the knowledge for the sake of knowing, is not what the adepts, the great masters of knowledge, strive for. They strive for knowledge in order to help humanity, to draw it up to where human destiny and world harmony are in harmony with each other. These human firstlings are those who live in our midst and have lived in all times, who have acquired an astral body cleansed of desires and passions. Buddha already had it, the starry astral body. When he once went out with his disciple Ananda, Buddha dissolved into a bright cloud, into a cloud of light, into radiant light. That was the astral body that had come to rest. The corona of rays is nothing other than the symbol of the radiant astral body of the founder of Christianity. The Firstfruits of Men, as walking brothers of humanity, are an immediate reflection of the macrocosm. It should be shown that they have burnt their karma, that there is nothing more to be redeemed, that the eternal wisdom can no longer stray, that they guide humanity as surely as the sun follows its path across the vault of heaven and cannot stray from this path marked out in the firmament. This is the symbol for the firstfruits of mankind. It expresses that they cannot stray from the path that is laid out for people. As surely as the sun walks across the vault of heaven, they walk their path. And just as the sun sends its light and warmth over the earth, so they send the love of their hearts into the hearts of people, awakening love in the hearts of their fellow brothers. These firstfruits are strong in their powers to resist all temptations. You can show them, you can offer them all the riches of this world, they will not accept them, they only want to be one with the original spirit from which they came forth. These people want to be a macrocosm themselves in this life. That was their consciousness. This is also present in all religions. Those who know the sources of the religions are aware that in all these religions one looks up to the founders of the religions as one looks up to the stars of the macrocosm, as one looks up to the eternal cosmic law that rules the starry sky. These firstfathers of mankind were suns for the initiated and those who had progressed further. If humanity was to be shown how karma works, then they were shown the image of the sun in the temple. This signifies to man his destiny, like the course of the sun in the course of the world. [A-mi-t'o] was the same for the Chinese when they worshipped the Buddha as the “son” among their heavenly gods. And it was the same for the Hindus when they showed Krishna resting in the arms of the Deva-Mother. Christmas permeates all religions. It is the festival that should make man aware that his destiny is once to be an image of the destiny of the macrocosm. In Christianity, the spirit sun lives just as much as in the old religions. The life of Christ should also directly reflect the sun as it rushes across the firmament. His birth was therefore transferred to Christmas. Let us ask ourselves why. What happens to the sun at the time of the winter solstice, at the time of Christmas? The days become longer again after the shortest day has passed. The light struggles out of the darkness again. The sun, which has been in darkness for most of the day, is reborn, and as such a newly born sun it now sends its light. The birth of the light was celebrated at midnight because the light was born out of darkness. Thus, symbolically, the light of wisdom is to be born, which is represented by the firstlings of man. The sun appears again anew - she who moves across the firmament. With her birth, she is a symbol of the firstling of man who is born, who walks just as surely on his path as the universe carries harmony within itself. In the beginning, there were various Christian sects, and they celebrated the Savior's feast at different times. In the early Christian times, there were 135 such days. It was only at the beginning of the 5th century that a uniform date was set, namely our present Christmas. It was deliberately set on this day in order to establish the same symbolism, which resounded throughout the ancient world, for this Christian festival as well. A church father himself, who had been canonized by the church, considered it justified and in the spirit of Christianity. He tells us that the Christians were right to celebrate the birth of Christ at a time when the Romans celebrated the birth of Mithras and the Greeks the birth of Dionysus. The same meaning should be attached to the festival as to the festivals of Mithras and Dionysus, because in them too the birth of the firstlings was celebrated. Thus, in the Christmas festival, Christianity has erected a symbol that is intended to remind people again and again that the karma must be burned so that harmony between the macrocosm and the microcosm, which is not yet present today, will one day be present, so that man will one day also follow the immutable laws from which he must not stray. Just as Horus, the son of Isis and Osiris, the symbol of human existence and human destiny, was shown to the assembled crowd at midnight, and just as it was pointed out by the priests that he was the sun in the spiritual kingdom, that it is equal to the power of warmth and light of the sun, just as the three wise priests have joyfully bowed down, so the Christian legend also presents us with the three wise men bowing down before the Christ child. They follow the star, the light. There is a deep meaning in the visit of the three wise men from the Orient. They are the same three wise men who were active in the service of Horus and who now say: “A child has been born to us who will follow his path as unchangingly as the star that now guides us. The star is still far from us. But when this law will one day be our own, then we will be like the one who carries the unchanging law within himself. Just as the star is our ideal, so he who was born under it is our example. What the Egyptians celebrated became a world fact, a world event. Therefore, he who founded Christianity was allowed to call his disciples together for the Sermon on the Mount. It says: “He led them away from the people, up the mountain.” “Mountain” means the secret place where the inner circle were taught. The King James Version contains a tremendous error at this point: (“Blessed are they that are poor in spirit”). In truth it says: “Blessed are they that are beggars for spirit, for they find within themselves the Kingdoms of Heaven.” What did Jesus want to do for them? He wanted to make them blessed, the beggars for the spirit. Only those who were initiated into the temple mysteries had become partakers of wisdom. The founder of Christianity wanted to carry this wisdom out into the whole world; not only the rich in spirit were to receive the grace of wisdom – no, all those who stand outside and are also beggars for the spirit should find the Kingdoms of Heaven within themselves. In the past, people found this in the temple mysteries. They should not only find bliss within the temple precincts, but should also find the Kingdoms of Heaven within themselves, which were presented to them as the harmonious model of human destiny. They should ascend to the summit where a balance can be struck between the changeable, erring human heart and the unchanging law of the macrocosm. This is what the Christmas bells are meant to make people aware of, according to the original will of the initiates; they are a pointer to what shows us how karma leads to the goal, how the laws of the world and human destiny are connected. And to hear this again is what theosophical deepening is meant to bring us. Many festivals that we celebrate today without thinking about it, without knowing their deeper meaning, have their origin in a deeper wisdom. Because the ancient man was connected to the macrocosmic world, the events of the festival were signs for him. The mystery of the heart and the immutable law resound to us from the sounds of Christmas bells. Theosophy will bring deeper wisdom and the core of religious beliefs into the most direct life; it will show the extent to which these truths are contained in them. And when we recognize this truth, then, in the highest sense, what is expressed in the beautiful word “peace be with all beings” will gradually come true in the harmony between the law of the universe and the destiny of man. |