The Rudolf Steiner Archive

13. Lucifer

[ 1 ] Persian mythology speaks of two opposing deities: Ormuzd, the good god, and Ahriman, the evil god. The two deities battle for humanity—and indeed for everything that unfolds here on Earth as life and striving. It is foretold that the good deity will one day triumph over the evil deity.

[ 2 ] Whatever one may think of this legend, everyone can see a reflection of this legendary idea in nature, in the world around us. To give an example, consider fire on the one hand. We owe our culture, our comfort, and our progress here in life to fire; and on the other hand, consider the destructive force of phenomena that are also related to fire in some way, such as earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. Thus, within nature itself, there are benevolent, sustaining, life-promoting, and life-giving forces, and on the other hand, life-destroying and hostile forces. The arena in which the struggles between these two forces take place is not only the outer human being but also the inner one. The human soul is torn between opposing forces: on the one hand, by pain, evil, and suffering; and on the other hand, by the benevolent forces of existence—by what is joyful, sublime, heart-lifting, and that which points us toward the spiritual spheres of heaven. Those of deeper nature have always recognized the unity—and, at its core, the harmony—between these two opposing forces. I need only recall something very familiar, and you will bring to mind how an exceptional spirit of our own German culture expressed the unity and oneness of these two opposing forces. Schiller’s “Song of the Bell” contains, precisely in this regard, the beautiful words:

The power of fire is benevolent,
When man tames it and guards it,
And whatever he shapes, whatever he creates,
He owes to this heavenly power;
Yet the heavenly power becomes terrible,
When it breaks free from its bonds,
Marching in its own path,
The free daughter of nature.

[ 3 ] One and the same thing viewed from two different perspectives!

[ 4 ] If we thus consider human beings both externally and internally, we will see conflicting forces at work within them everywhere. One of these forces, of which both the wise and the unwise have spoken since time immemorial, will be the subject of our consideration today: the force that has always been known by the name of Lucifer. — We wish to address this topic today not merely from the standpoint of scientific or historical analysis, but from the standpoint of inner, so-called esoteric contemplation.

[ 5 ] Literally, Lucifer means: Lux—light, fer, ferre—to carry; the bearer of light. If we keep this word in mind, we must admit: Those who gave this force its name could not possibly have meant merely what various positive religious beliefs summarize as the destructive, suffering- and ruin-bringing power they see in the symbols of the serpent and the evil dragon. — Nevertheless, the religious system best known in Europe—Christianity—resonates with what is commonly called the devil or Satan, who is regarded as the life-destroying or downcasting power. The serpent is known to all of you as the tempter of humanity. So it is written at the beginning of Genesis, in the Bible, and so it lives on in the consciousness of many. Not always, and not in all religious creeds, is the serpent regarded as the symbol of evil, of the power that drags down and corrupts. If we consider the Judeo-Christian myth itself, it may not appear quite that way to us. For who today would unconditionally count among the hostile forces that very power which brought humans the knowledge of good and evil—the very power said to have opened their eyes? A great transformation has taken place, particularly in the last century.

[ 6 ] We need only recall the name of the great genius Goethe to illustrate the transformations that have taken place over the course of the last few centuries. As you all know, Goethe transformed the medieval Faust legend—he did not merely reinterpret it. If you trace this medieval Faust legend, Faust stands there as the representative and archetype of human striving—a striving founded on freedom, independence, and science, not on what is supposed to be based on revelation and faith. As late as the 16th century, the spirit of the age still portrayed this Faust—this genius of the free human quest for knowledge—in such a way that he was bound to fall prey to the evil, life-denying forces. Faust must perish precisely because he has turned his back on faith, on the traditions of millennia, and on revelation. It is said of him that he no longer wished to be a theologian; it is said that he had placed the Bible behind a bench and had become a man of the world. A “man of the world” was understood to be someone who sought to ground his existence in freedom and independence, in his own knowledge, and in his insight into the forces at work. According to the views of the time, such a person was bound to fall prey to evil forces. Goethe now presents this struggle to us anew. And how does he resolve this fate? “Whoever strives with all their might, we can redeem,” he has the choir of angels sing. Here, too, Faust enters into a pact with the powers associated with Mephistopheles, but he is redeemed, even though he bases his existence on freedom and self-determination. Faust achieves peace in his existence. A transformation of the soul has taken place here. Lucifer is no longer recognized in the old way as a bringer of utter ruin.

[ 7 ] If we look at the ancient religions, we see that Lucifer was not always the bringer of ruin. In the ancient Indian religions, the sages, the leaders—those who enlighten people with the spirit—are called serpents. This is the case in many religions. Why is that so? What does Lucifer represent in the context of these ancient religions? What does he ultimately represent? This and similar questions are what we shall consider today. What does he represent in the view of the occultists—those who explore the forces of existence slumbering within nature, the deeper forces of nature—who, in light of this understanding, speak of Lucifer as the one who is to bring light to the self-reliant human being, one who relies not on revelation and faith but on knowledge and science? If we wish to delve into this matter, we must touch upon something that leads us to the far-off reaches of human existence—to the very starting point of human evolution, so to speak. The question, which can only be touched upon here at the outset, will only fully engage us when we speak of planetary evolution. But we must already take our starting point today from this stage of human development. Development is that which appears to us today as a magic word and seeks to make human existence comprehensible—that which confronts us today in a certain degree of perfection and completion, and from which we hope that it will tend toward ever greater and greater degrees of perfection. We attribute everything that lives around us to a process of development from the most imperfect to the perfect. And so it is with human beings—with those who, according to a deeper doctrine of evolution, entered into existence in ancient times, when our Earth itself still looked quite different from today and when the natural forces and powers acting upon it operated in an entirely different way. In the spirit of what is called the theosophical or spiritual-scientific worldview, we also speak from this starting point of human evolution, but we speak of an evolution that takes us back even further into the distant past and to starting points that lie before the very formation of our Earth. This can only be hinted at.

[ 8 ] When humankind first came into being, it was a being that, so to speak, existed alone in the world alongside and among the kingdoms of nature. If we view human beings in this way, they appear to us, in relation to the other kingdoms of nature—the mineral, plant, and animal kingdoms—at first glance as the highest link, the final link in the chain of development that runs through these kingdoms. But just as foolish as it would be for a plant, a stone, or an animal to say, “Evolution ends with me”—just as foolish and nonsensical would it be for a human being to say of himself, “Evolution ends with me; I am the highest of all beings possible here on Earth.” — We must look upward toward other beings whom we cannot perceive with our physical eyes, but whom we can perceive when the deeper spiritual powers slumbering within us are awakened, when our spiritual eyes are opened. The theosophical or spiritual-scientific worldview is one that is intended to restore an awareness of these more highly evolved beings, who stand in relation to human beings just as human beings do in relation to the lower kingdoms of nature. When human beings first came into existence here, they were not created out of nothing, but arose from earlier, much earlier stages of development. But other beings, too, have undergone such developments. They stood above humankind. Religion—including the Bible—speaks of these beings. It speaks of beings who, at the time when humankind began its development on Earth, could feel themselves to be roughly as perfect as humankind itself will one day feel when it has reached the end of the phase of development in which it currently finds itself. In the spiritual-scientific worldview, we say: within human beings, in their innermost being, lives a God-in-the-making. And in the spirit of the Christian mysteries of the Middle Ages, we speak of how human beings can rise into realms that stand above those in which they dwell today. The Christian mystic Angelus Silesius expresses this beautifully: “When you rise above yourself and let God reign, the Ascension takes place within your spirit.” Then human beings are not merely among the creative powers, merely enjoying them as they do today, but will stand as creators, as spiritualized and deified beings.

[ 9 ] And at the starting point, when the forces that have already attained certain degrees of perfection today were still in their infancy, there were beings alongside him who had already passed through the stages that he must now complete. If we understand the Bible deeply enough, they were the ones from whom the gods are descended. Even the gods, in the sense of the Bible, have evolved. The Elohim are not something that simply exists; rather, they are something that has come into being and has evolved to that height. In the past, they stood before the eyes of the inquiring human being at the height to which he himself will one day evolve. These gods have attained a certain degree of perfection. But just as on the stages of our present existence there stand, alongside fully developed human individuals, those who have attained only a lesser degree of perfection—who have lagged somewhat behind their fellow human beings—so too did there exist at that time beings between humans and gods who were higher than humans but lower than those designated as creative gods. I know how misleading such things are, even when they are taken seriously and understood seriously. I know that the materialistic worldview virtually forbids speaking of successive stages in the development of such beings, because it regards this as superstition. But that cannot prevent us from looking the truth in the face and speaking of successive stages beyond humanity. Thus, the gods stood at a sublime height above human beings, and immediately above them were beings who, in their evolution, stood between the gods and human beings; yet they did not complete their evolution at that time and subsequently underwent their evolution among human beings because they were closer to them. These beings, so to speak, made up for on our Earth—within the course of their own evolution—what they had previously neglected. What is called the Esoteric Doctrine or occultism is in harmony with the ancient religions and the deeper wisdom of our time. There, these powers are grouped together under the name of Lucifer. And just as the theosophical worldview makes it clear that a God lives within the human being—a God who sustains and supports him and who expresses Himself in the dormant faculties that are, however, divine faculties which the human being will have developed at the culmination of his evolution—so, too, does the Luciferic principle live within the human being and belong to his own soul, just as the soul belongs to the gods.

[ 10 ] Having brought this to mind, we may well speak—just as a physicist speaks of electricity and magnetism—of gods and Luciferic powers, of the divine and the Luciferic principle within us. The gods stood as sublime beings. We must now understand both—the gods and the Luciferic powers—as the great law that lives and works in all evolution. Consider for a moment the nature around you. In a series of stages, we encounter, as the lowest, the lifeless mineral world; then the plant kingdom; then the animal kingdom; and finally the human kingdom; and even higher still, the realms of the higher beings. If a plant could open its eyes and look around with bright, clear insight, it would say to itself: “To this mineral kingdom that lives all around me, I owe my existence; were it not for it, I could never be. From it I draw my life force. This kingdom forms the soil from which my roots spring forth. Without this kingdom, I could never exist.” — And likewise, if the animal could view the lower kingdoms of nature in the same way, it would be just the same. And it would have to look down into the lower plant kingdom and say: “I have grown out of it; to it I owe my nourishment; were the plant kingdom not here, I would not be.” —- And the same is true of human beings. They, too, must say to themselves: I have grown out of these lower kingdoms of nature; to them I owe my existence; were they not here, I would not be here. Here, once again, the higher kingdom of nature stands opposite the lower one and helps it, so to speak, to advance its existence. Just imagine for a moment that only a mineral kingdom had developed on Earth! What would have become of the Earth? A rigid, lifeless body hurtling through space. Life would have remained slumbering in the mineral kingdom, as if in a grave. This life has now, so to speak, taken refuge in a higher kingdom—the plant kingdom—and through the plant kingdom, the mineral kingdom on Earth is once again transformed into a living one. The mineral kingdom sustains and supports the plant kingdom; the plant kingdom continually transforms the mineral kingdom within the living cycle. Consider what the plant does with the mineral forces on Earth! If there were no plants on Earth, the substances of the mineral kingdom would lie dormant in dead rock. But as it is, since there is a plant kingdom, it absorbs these substances, animates itself with them, and returns them. The lower kingdom provides the foundation and forces for the higher one, and the higher kingdom, in turn, helps to sustain the existence of the lower one. And so it is with every next higher kingdom. The animal kingdom lives in harmony with the plant kingdom; it inhales oxygen and exhales carbon dioxide; the plant builds its body from carbon and releases oxygen in return. And what of human beings? They, too, live through the lower kingdoms of nature. There we gradually ascend to the human being who draws nearer to the spirit and is nourished by the spirit; and as we move on to the spiritual powers, there is, roughly speaking, a relationship between the gods and human beings just like that between the lower kingdoms of the universe—a relationship similar to that between plants and minerals or between the other ascending kingdoms of the universe. If we know what the plant does to form and enliven the mineral kingdom, what then do the spiritual kingdoms do? What do the gods do with humankind at the starting point of development and as that development progresses? What did they do with the human kingdom?

[ 11 ] The gods have completed their evolution. To put it in a way that is clear, even if not entirely accurate, they have no direct interest in the human realm. But they do have an indirect interest; they give it the powers to bring the life that lies dormant and frozen within human beings back into existence, just as a plant gives life to a dead stone. Now consider the mineral kingdom, the plant kingdom, and the animal kingdom. How do they relate to one another? The occultist—that is, the one who explores the deeper forces of nature—says: The mineral, plant, and animal kingdoms relate to one another like wisdom, life, and love. — Let us try to understand this!

[ 12 ] When you look at the mineral kingdom as it appears to us in nature, you seek everywhere to understand it through reason and human wisdom. You study the celestial bodies in their orbits—that which exists as a natural law in the mineral world. The plant draws wisdom and the laws of the universe from the mineral world. We therefore say: Wisdom and the laws of nature rest within the mineral kingdom; this mineral kingdom is embodied wisdom. But this mineral kingdom, with its wisdom, would be poor, austere, and lifeless were it not for the plant world, which has joined it and awakened the life-giving principle—the sprouting and budding life—within this slumbering wisdom. Love and wisdom exchange their forces as plants and minerals interact with one another. The relationship between the gods and human beings is similar. Just as human beings were when they began their evolution on Earth—at first, life lay dormant within them; the gods rekindled it for a new earthly evolution. To what is this earthly evolution linked? Here, too, when we consider the human realm and the divine realm in relation to one another, they behave like wisdom and love. That is why occultism, and all deeper religious traditions—including Christianity—speak of God or the gods as love, the life-giving, sprouting principle. First, this sprouting and germinating principle brings forth sensual love. This is why, in the Jewish religion of the Old Testament, Jehovah is portrayed as the bestower of the sensual impulse, as the giver of growth and the drive to procreate. In the sensual impulse lies the principle of further development, which drives from the imperfect to the perfect—that is, the development from the animal realm upward, where love establishes communities. In this love, which, so to speak, calls forth communities within the human being—a love that causes that which is hardened within the human being to be permeated by sprouting and budding life, just as the plant calls the stone to life—in this love we first encounter the revealing, primordial Divinity. This is the case in all religions and also in what we call esoteric science. And now we must be clear that here, in human evolution, we must see the divine driving forces—the divine power. Human beings have always had to regard that which propels them forward, that which lifts them upward, as a gift, as a revelation of a divine principle.

[ 13 ] The Luciferic principle steps right in between him and the gods. This enables him to take into his own hands that which lives unconsciously within him as the divine principle—in his unconscious drive for procreation and development. Through this, he will rise to independence and freedom in his development. And why is that? Because that which lives in Lucifer is closer to him—it is, so to speak, a younger brother of the divine principle. Back then, when evolution was still in an earlier phase, the gods themselves were at the level of humanity; they sought their own evolution independently within the human stage. But now that they have evolved, humanity is a creature among them; now they rule over humanity and work within it. The Luciferic principle now enters the picture. And it has an even more familial and intimate relationship with humanity; it has not yet fully outgrown the stage known as humanity. It is something that rises above humanity’s present stage, yet remains intimately connected to it, so that it merges more closely with human beings and acts within them as a distinct impulse to propel themselves forward. These are the three stages that operate within the human being as forces of development: humanity, the Luciferic principle, and divinity. If we wish to understand human beings as they stand before us at the present stage of development, then we must recognize, in accordance with the spiritual-scientific worldview, that they have developed the so-called four lower principles. In doing so, I am drawing on certain teachings of the theosophical worldview. I will offer only a brief explanation of this.

[ 14 ] First, we have the human physical body; then the principle of the etheric body—the life-giving, form-giving principle; then his instincts, desires, and passions—the animal nature within him; this has awakened to independence through the fourth principle, through the human being’s true “I,” by which he has transcended the animal realm. It is this human “I” that actually continues to develop. This “I” lives within the three lower principles. It is the fourth. And within this fourth principle, the divine powers are at work—powers that, in their development, have already transcended the fourth principle and govern it from above. Still halfway within it, still connected to the fourth principle, we find the Luciferic forces. The gods have ascended from selfhood to selflessness, to devotion, and to the overcoming of all separate existence. The Luciferic aspect in human beings is, for the greater part of their being, still enclosed within the “I”; it still lies within human interests themselves. Thus we see that everything that lives in human beings as selflessness and a willingness to sacrifice is a divine principle within them, and that alongside this divine principle there is another driving force within them. Those who practice true self-observation learn to recognize this other principle. It is the Luciferic principle. It is that which does not merely strive toward divinity in complete self-surrender and self-renunciation, but—though with enthusiasm—precisely out of the deepest interest of the self, aspiring to the highest levels of perfection, says: Not merely because I love it, but because higher perfection coincides with what I must love, I, as a human being, wish to strive toward it in divine freedom. The divine powers do not seek this perfection. But through the Luciferic striving, I make divine perfection my very own essence.

[ 15 ] That is why we can say: If this Luciferic principle were not present in human beings, they would be carried by the gods—in a certain passivity, in a certain inactivity—and led to perfection. They would be, so to speak, completely devoted to their divine sonship. True, his being would strive toward perfection, but it would not be he who strove in this way, but rather the God within him. — Added to this is the other force, which we regard as Luciferic. This force makes this striving a matter entirely of one’s own. It sets this goal of perfection for itself. This is also depicted in a wondrous way in the biblical myth. There, Adam and Eve emerged from the hand of the gods, destined to be guided by the divine powers—without any effort on their part—toward divine perfection, because the God within them guides them. But when the serpent comes, offering knowledge and freedom—and thereby also the vision and the possibility of perfection—it also brings the possibility of evil. Now that the decision between good and evil is placed in humanity’s own hands and within its own knowledge, the impulse—love—becomes the bearer of an unconscious yet divine striving for perfection. Everything that is to live and flourish in this striving for perfection must be infused with this love, with that which reveals itself to humanity through this love. On the other hand, this is countered by that power which guides human beings by taking possession of this fourth principle—the “I”—awakening it of its own volition, shedding light upon it for their own understanding, so that they may walk in the light toward perfection. Thus we have the bearer of love and the bearer of light as the two real forces at work within the human being.

[ 16 ] This is, expressed in a modern form, precisely what is found in all religious creeds and in all occult worldviews as the principle of God and the principle of Lucifer. Only those religious creeds that have increasingly come to base themselves solely on revelation and solely on faith have perceived that which works within the human being and lives as the principle of self-perfection as the bearer of evil. Thus it comes to pass that Lucifer, the bearer of light, has become—out of that which calls human beings to freedom, to independence, to bright, clear knowledge—that which seduces them. That is one side of the matter. All those religions that have strayed from their starting point—for all of them began with the correct view of God and Lucifer—those that seek only the one aspect of God who leads people to bliss through unconsciousness, all of them simultaneously perceive that in which God Himself is at work as something corrupting. They perceive nature as sin; they perceive the spirit—bright, luminous, clear knowledge—as the corrupting Lucifer. Goethe expressed this beautifully: “Nature is sin, the spirit is the devil; between them they harbor doubt, their misshapen hybrid child.” Yes, it is true, absolutely true, that doubt stands right in the middle between what is divine revelation and what is the striving for freedom. But it is also true that this doubt is necessary for human beings if they truly wish to strive beyond their own ego toward godlikeness through their own merit. We must pass through doubt, and only when we are able to doubt all truths are we also capable of truly making the truth our own. Whoever has never doubted does not know how human beings are connected to the truth. But whoever overcomes doubt has gained a higher understanding than if it had become his possession through blind revelation. This is the educational value of doubt. That is why it rightly stands between what is divine—that which cannot be separated from nature and is turned into sin—between what is diabolical and Luciferic, and the level of perfection.

[ 17 ] Viewed in this light, human development appears to us in a certain new light. The entire Old Testament narrative appears to us as one in which God, as love, reigns over the progress of the human race—in sensual love and in all that underlies it: blood ties, family, tribe, and so on. We find the most perfect expression of this in the Jewish people in Jehovah. He is nothing other than the personified force of nature, when one considers how he reigns in the mineral kingdom, in the sprouting plant kingdom, in the animal kingdom that feels pleasure and pain, and in human beings themselves. It is the human-God, the Christ-principle, that causes the mineral to crystallize, that allows the plant to sprout and the animals to pass through their instinctual life, and that also leads humanity from the imperfect to the perfect. Even if human beings were to ascend to the higher realms, they would remain mere natural beings were it not for the other spirit—the spirit beneficial to humanity, Lucifer—reigning within them; a spirit that, while awakening selfishness, also awakens independence and freedom; a spirit that makes human beings unique, distinct beings, yet thereby also elevates them above mere natural forces. Just as it is true for the perception of the servants of Jehovah that Jehovah himself is the foundation of the human world, the Deity, so too is it true that Lucifer is the one who rebels and rises up against this natural force, who leads humanity to knowledge and calls it to a clear consciousness.

[ 18 ] Thus, human beings rise to independence. They break free from the bonds of blood kinship, from the bonds of tribe and nation. They gradually become individuals—albeit selfish individuals. Then, emerging from the same spirit, Jehovah—the organizer of the higher life—comes to meet him, regulating development solely through the law, through the commandments. Just as we have in nature the God who acts out of necessity through sensual love, so now we have him in the Lawgiver, in the God of the Ten Commandments. In him we have Jehovah, who gives humanity a law to which they must submit—a law intended to bring order into the awakening personality, to unify it in harmony and balance. What is sensual love below is, above, the commandment of morality; it is law; it is commandment. That which acts not only as a force of nature, as a commandment—that which strives not only toward perfection from the divine—must also be elevated; indeed, the human self must also be elevated. Thus it is—call it, if you will, with a more or less apt expression — it is given by the general laws of nature, by necessity, that the mere power of love is transformed into the principle of spiritual love, that the sensual Jehovah becomes Christ, the ennobled, spiritualized love that no longer acts merely through natural instinct, but infuses and spiritualizes life, which previously could only be governed by the law. Thus, Christ becomes the founder of the law, which does not approach human beings from the outside like ordinary law, but rather becomes, like the innermost impulse toward morality, a power of the soul itself. When Jehovah gives a commandment, Christ provides the power to act. When the God of Jehovah determines what is good, the Christ reigning within human beings brings forth the good from the power within human beings themselves. The forces of nature are elevated to the soul; what was sensual love becomes spiritual love—that which Christ has made. The law itself is imbued with the divine; it acts in the world itself as something divine, as grace, as it is called in Christian terminology.

[ 19 ] Thus, with the great progress at the turning point of our era, we see that sensual love—the principle of a natural force conceived as purely divine—is ennobled and spiritualized into spiritual love, into a power that no longer operates on the natural plane but on the moral plane. Thus, Christian charity—Christian love—is, first and foremost, the ennobled force, the force that brings about among human beings a moral bond that permeates them, a bond that regards human beings strictly as human beings, that allows all human beings to be equal in the face of the highest perfection, and that allows morality to be steeped in love, just as nature was once steeped in love. This is the early period of Christianity. Christian virtue thus became the virtues of community, the virtues of harmony among human souls. The God who brings people together was to be one who acts through spiritual love, and this is the principle of the Christian religion. Just as bodies once found one another through the natural principle, so in Christianity souls find one another through the Christ principle in higher love. Just as the Jehovah principle created human communities on the basis of blood—on the foundation of family, tribe, and nation—so Christ was called to bring about a situation in which souls might find one another without the mediation of blood. Sensual love is ennobled into self-sacrificing devotion; the force of nature is ennobled into a moral act of God. Just as the other principle—the Luciferic principle—operated throughout the Old Testament as a divine natural force surging through humanity, bringing independence and freedom to people, so in more recent times this principle has permeated human development as the bearer of light, as the bearer of freedom. It is not the opponent; it is the necessary complement to the Christ principle. It is united with this Christ principle, just as all seemingly conflicting forces of nature are conceived as united by those who have penetrated the nature of the universe. Just as Schiller puts it: “Beneficial is the power of fire when man tames it, guards it, . . . yet terrible becomes the heavenly force when it breaks free from its bonds”—so it is here as well. As a unity, on the one hand there reigns Christian charity, love, the divine that leads soul to soul, and on the other hand, the bearer of light, the bearer of independence and freedom.

[ 20 ] Even through spiritual love, humanity would live only in a state of perfection that is kept more or less unconscious. But because the soul is permeated and inflamed, illuminated by bright, clear knowledge, and set ablaze by the light of the Spirit—because the bearer of the light lives and works within the human being—Christian love will continue to work for the free development of humanity in the future as well. Thus the two forces—revealed wisdom and humanly attained science—stand in opposition to one another. Soul and consciousness stand in opposition to one another in this way: the soul is set ablaze by spiritual love, and consciousness radiates through and illuminates this spiritual love with the principle of clarity and freedom. Thus does the human being live between these two poles of his being; thus does he act and live right in the midst of these two forces. Thus, for those who look more deeply at things, Lucifer, the bearer of light, is not a hostile force; thus—even if he were to break free from his bonds and set out on his own path as the free will of the universal power—thus, to use Goethe’s words, even if he were to will evil, he would still always be able to create good. Luzifer “thus necessarily presents himself to us as that which must complement another principle within the human being. He proves to be the familiar friend of humankind, standing opposite him as a brother, while on the other hand, humankind looks up to the sublime gods, to whom he submits in silent devotion, and who carry him in their love. Thus, life truly appears as a struggle between light and love. And that is indeed the case at its present stage of development. Just as physicists present positive and negative electricity, positive and negative magnetism, as the two poles that necessarily belong together, so too do light and love belong together in the higher realm of human life as the two poles of human existence. Never does only one kind of electricity arise; when you rub a glass rod, it becomes positively charged, while the object used for rubbing becomes negatively charged. It is the same everywhere. In the development of life, one can never act alone; the other must always step in as a necessary complement. And in human life, the two poles are love and light. One is not possible without the other.

[ 21 ] And just as the old law—the commandments of Jehovah, symbolically given on Mount Sinai—has been transformed by the appearance of Christ Jesus on earth, so too is love transformed. Love is a spiritual phenomenon, just as it emerged as a higher stage of natural power within sensual love. And so it is also possible that, at this higher stage, something clearer—knowledge—emerges. What was this knowledge? If you look back, it was something similar to the Law of Jehovah, the Ten Commandments, and it must be transformed. Just as love was transformed through Christ’s death on the cross from the sensual level to the soul level, so too must the principle of mere knowledge—the knowledge of Lucifer—be transformed into a higher one. We are in the midst of this transformation today. And in a certain sense, we are experiencing a renewal of what took place in Christianity. Just as the law has been transformed into grace, so science will have to be transformed into wisdom. Just as grace must be born through one’s own soul, so wisdom will have to be born from the human being’s own soul. Just as Christ is the God who can also reign within the human being and enables the human being to become their own lawgiver in grace, so wisdom will be born from human science. And just as our science, as a science, is built upon external experience—which is given from without, just as the Commandments were given to the Jews on Sinai—so will this science be born in wisdom, just as the Law was born anew through and in Christ. This is the aspiration of spiritual science. Science given from without, given through the senses—that is what we have had until now, and in a certain sense it has reached the highest level in our cultural life. To bring forth this science from within as humanity’s most intrinsic possession, to make Lucifer that which acts and lives from within the human being—that is what the future must bring. Spiritual science seeks nothing other than such a deepening of knowledge, such a deepening of insight. Just as the law or commandment has become internalized in Christian virtue, and just as human development in love progresses in the realm of the soul through the virtue of Christ, so too will our material science progress in the realm of the soul when it is reborn from within the soul itself. And it is this rebirth that spiritual science should strive to achieve.

[ 22 ] Christianity has thus far established a very similar process for human development: moral virtue in love, rather than mere natural force. Inner virtue—through the awakening of inner, hidden forces within human beings—will bring about the development of the future. Just as we look back in a process of development that has brought about internalization and spiritualization to a law, so we look back in the external realm of science to a scientific endeavor that will bring about internalization. Just as the law has been deepened into grace, so science will be deepened into wisdom. But this means seeking inner development. Transformed and recast into the soul, the law was transformed by Christian grace. Our science will be recast from the power of our own soul into human skill and achievement. Spiritual science strives to awaken inner, dormant abilities.

[ 23 ] Just as the Christian acts toward the former servant of Jehovah out of the love of his soul, so in the future the one who recognizes the truth will act out of the wisdom of his heart and thereby achieve an even deeper level of human development. Christianity also promises the development of the outer spiritual life. A citizen of the Spirit, who unites human beings outwardly without distinction of race or gender—that is what Christianity promises. The striving of the future will make human beings such citizens in the higher spiritual worlds through inner occult development.

[ 24 ] This is the relationship between spiritual science and external Christianity: External Christianity seeks external virtue in order to attain the spiritual; the occultist awakens inner virtues—the abilities lying dormant within the human being—in order to attain the even deeper meaning of the higher spiritual worlds. What we are discussing here is merely a deepening of Christianity itself. The law was deepened by the Christian principle; science will be deepened by the principle of spiritual science.

[ 25 ] Thus, throughout human evolution, we have presented the Luciferic principle not as an enemy, but as a pole that is necessarily linked to another. We have presented it in relation to Christianity as it has been up to now. But it is precisely here that we have recognized that the principle of the Light-Bearer will unite with the principle of love to form a higher unity. When inner spiritual capacities emerge through the development of the merely outward Christian virtues, we will have an even deeper Christianity—a Christianity that cannot be prescribed by the Church, but which each person will develop through the capacities still slumbering within them today. Each person will develop God through their own power, and all souls will work together in completely free striving. Luzifer will have added freedom, science, and independence to love and goodness. Only those who wish to remain stuck at a particular epoch of human development can bring themselves to turn their gaze away from what lies so promisingly within this vision of the future. Any past would be fruitless if it did not carry within it a new, higher future. This is what must make the human heart beat faster when spiritual science is truly and correctly understood—what must fill the human heart with an entirely different kind of enthusiasm. What has been achieved to date through external institutions—what has been imposed upon humanity in a noble yet still external manner—will one day be brought forth by human beings from the power of their own souls; they will produce it from within themselves. There will be an inner church, an inner temple, which will bring about the true transfiguration and spiritualization of the outer one. Everyone will be a Christian, because Christ is to awaken within them, because the inner Christ will live within them and will draw near to the Christ who has redeemed humanity as a whole. Christ has redeemed humanity as a whole; humanity will understand this when it is inwardly free and redeemed, when it not only believes in redemption but lives out this redemption itself.

[ 26 ] Those who seek to point us toward Christianity always remind us: “You are striving for self-redemption, but you fail to recognize what Christ has done.” — What is being said against spiritual science is not correct. Spiritual science is not an adversary, but a friend and collaborator of Christianity; not of the Christianity of the past, but of the Christianity that knows what Jesus said: “I am with you always, even to the end of the age,” the Christianity that is developing toward higher and ever higher perfection. Spiritual Science is not hostile to Christ’s principle of redemption, because it does not take the one-sided view that every person should do something only for themselves. That would be the most desolate form of egoism, even if a person were merely striving within themselves toward the noblest forces. Humanity is a whole, and when an individual—Christ—accomplishes death, the redemptive death, this is the redemptive death for all of humanity. But this must be imbued with consciousness; it must be lived out by the individual. Redemption itself must be reborn in freedom. Here, too, the principle of the Gospel of John regarding the new birth of the human being applies. No one is a true human being who has not been born again in spirit and in truth. This is what Christ Jesus said. And today, since He still lives according to His own words, He says clearly and unequivocally regarding His own redemptive death: Although I once died for all of humanity to bring humanity the certainty that death can be conquered by life, this death must be reborn in the soul of each individual. The redeemed person is truly redeemed only when he or she has also reborn redemption within himself or herself.

[ 27 ] This is the living Christ principle, the Christ principle deepened through spiritual science. Thus, within every single human being lies the soul that unfolds love through humanity’s noblest ideals—this love that transcends mere sensuality to become spiritual love and leads the human being to divine perfection; on the other hand stands the Lucifer principle, illuminated by science, freedom, and independence. Love in bright clarity—consciousness joins the soul. The soul brings the power of love, and consciousness radiates through and illuminates this power of love with bright, luminous clarity. And through the soul and consciousness, human beings themselves advance toward perfection. In passing through a state that is unclear to him, he would ascend to divinity if he were merely a feeling soul; he would rise to a cold, purely rational perfection if he were merely consciousness. But the soul and consciousness will always have to interpenetrate one another in this process. That is why the seeker of spiritual science looks back and also looks forward. He looks at the soul with its feeling and sensation, and he looks at consciousness with its light and wisdom, and says to himself: It is not the human being living in dullness, but the human being flourishing in bright, luminous clarity who is to be aspired to. — And to all other virtues must be added the virtues found in science, in freedom, and in independence. But freedom must be deepened through love; otherwise, it becomes arbitrariness and leads the human being only closer to instinct. On the other hand, science must be deepened through love: then it becomes wisdom, true spirituality grounded in action. Otherwise, it becomes cold, barren, and abstract. And independence, too, must be united with love; otherwise, it becomes blind egoism and leads to a hardening within oneself. This is the deeper truth of life underlying the worldview and way of life founded on spiritual science: that the three great virtues—science, freedom, and independence—must be reshaped entirely as the necessary principles of the human soul; yet these three virtues must be deepened by the power of love. And then love will transform science into wisdom, freedom into a willingness to sacrifice, devotion, and reverence for the Divine, and independence into selflessness—into that principle within the human being that overcomes individuality, merges with the universe, and in this way attains divinity in freedom.