The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Thirteenth Lecture

[ 1 ] It is our task today to discuss the future course of human development and what is known as initiation—through which a person in the present, in a sense, anticipates and passes through stages of life that humanity as a whole will not experience until the future.

[ 2 ] If we first consider the first question, it may seem to you either presumptuous to want to speak about the future, or impossible to determine anything about the future of humankind. Nevertheless, if you give the matter a little thought, you will find that the view that one can know something about the future is not entirely unfounded. You need only compare these things with what the ordinary researcher—for example, the natural scientist—can know about the future. He can tell you with certainty that if he mixes oxygen, hydrogen, and sulfur under certain conditions, sulfuric acid will always be produced. One can say exactly what happens when rays are reflected by a mirror. Indeed, this goes even further when it comes to the phenomena of external life; one can predict solar and lunar eclipses for indefinite periods of time.

[ 3 ] Why is this possible? Because—and to the extent that—one knows the laws of physical life. If, then, someone recognizes the spiritual laws of life, he can likewise deduce from these laws what must occur in the future. But one question usually weighs on people’s minds. It is all too easy to think that knowing in advance what will happen contradicts freedom and arbitrary human action. This, too, is a mistaken perception. If you combine sulfur, hydrogen, and oxygen under certain conditions, sulfuric acid is produced; this is determined by the laws governing their combination. Whether you do so, however, depends on your will. And so it is in the spiritual course of human development. What will happen, human beings will do of their own free will, and the higher a person develops, the freer they will be. Nor should one think that what a person will do in the future is already predetermined, simply because they can foresee it. It is just that most people lack a proper understanding of this question, and in fact, it is one of the most difficult. Since time immemorial, philosophers have grappled with the question of human freedom and the lawful predetermination of phenomena. Almost everything that has been written in this field is highly inadequate, for people generally cannot distinguish between foresight and predetermination. For foresight is no different from looking at distant points in space. If you look into space at a distant point—say, the street corner over there—and you see one person giving another ten pfennigs, have you then caused this action? Has the fact that you see it provided any cause for it? No; you merely see that he is doing it, and that exerts no compulsion on him to act in that way. Now, in a certain respect, it is the same with time, only people cannot grasp it. Suppose you are reincarnated in a few thousand years. You will then do something of your own free will; that is just like the example of the ten pfennigs being given. Under certain circumstances, the seer sees what will be done in the future, and this future action is just as little determined by the present moment as the gift of the ten pfennigs is by the point in space. People often say: If one sees that something will happen, then it is actually predestined. — But then one is confusing the future with the present. It would not be foresight into the future if it were already determined. After all, you do not see something that is already there, but something that is yet to come. You must grasp the concept of looking into the future precisely. It must be practiced and cultivated through patient meditation; only then will you find the ability to comprehend these things correctly.

[ 4 ] Following these introductory remarks, let us discuss some of what can be said about the future development of humanity. We have reached the point where humanity has descended deepest into matter, where it uses its spiritual powers to design and manufacture tools and machines that serve personal life. Linked to this was an ever-increasing process of densification of humanity and the Earth as a whole. We have seen that what we today call the densest realm—the mineral kingdom—only came into being at a specific point in our development. It was only then that humanity entered its present earthly phase of development. Hand in hand with this came the emergence of the two sexes and other phenomena. Back then, when humanity had not yet entered this physical stage of development characteristic of the mineral kingdom, it was still of a much finer, softer nature. Just to give you an idea of this, let me describe how the human race reproduced in those ancient times when sexual dimorphism did not yet exist. Back then, the human being—who was still of a more ethereal, finer physical nature—brought forth another being from within themselves. This did not happen in the way it does today, but rather in a manner similar to how, in spiritualist séances, the etheric body of some other being emerges from the medium. This gives you a rough picture of this “materializing from within”—how humanity reproduced in ancient times: like a pushing forth of human beings who were ripe to continue their own evolution.

[ 5 ] Thus you can see how humanity’s evolution into a poetic being within the cosmos is linked to its descent into the material world. And linked to this is the development of another force that could not have developed at all without this descent: that is egoism. It has a good side and a bad side. It is the foundation of human independence and freedom, but on the other hand, it is also the root of all that is bad and evil. However, in order for human beings to learn to do good of their own free will, they had to pass through this force of egoism. The forces that had guided them in the past had to drive them toward the good time and again; but they had to be given the opportunity to go their own way. Just as they have now descended, so must they ascend again into the spiritual realm; and just as this descent is connected with the prevalence of selfishness, so the ascent depends on selflessness—the feeling of sympathy among human beings—becoming ever stronger and stronger. Humanity has developed through various ages—first through the ancient Indian age, then through the Persian, the Egyptian-Chaldean-Babylonian, and the Greek-Latin ages—to the present, the fifth age, and this will be succeeded by a sixth. And as human development works toward this goal, it is simultaneously working toward overcoming the principle that has been strongest since the time when the etheric body became integrated into that part of the brain I spoke to you about yesterday. That was the time of the descent into the deepest egoism.

[ 6 ] In earlier stages of development, human beings were also selfish, but in a different way. The kind of selfishness that penetrates so deeply into the soul as it does in our present age is entirely linked to the prevalence of a materialistic mindset, and a spiritual age will mean the overcoming of this selfishness. For this reason, Christianity—and all those movements that truly embodied religious life—have consciously worked toward breaking through the old blood ties; and Christianity has put forward a radical statement that reads: “Whoever does not leave father, mother, wife, child, brother, and sister cannot be my disciple.” This points to nothing other than the fact that the old blood ties must be replaced by the spiritual bond between soul and soul, between human being and human being. The only question now is: What are the means and ways by which humanity can attain spirituality—that is, the overcoming of materialism—and at the same time what might be called a brotherhood, the manifestation of universal love for humanity? One might now be tempted to believe that one need only emphasize universal love for humanity thoroughly enough, and that this love would then inevitably follow; or that one should found associations dedicated to the goal of universal love for humanity. Occultism never shares this view. On the contrary! The more people speak of universal brotherly love and humanity in the sense of reveling in it, the more selfish they become. For just as there is sensual pleasure, so too is there a pleasure of the soul; and it is even a subtle pleasure to say: “I want to become morally higher and higher!” It is, in essence, a thought that, while it does not generate ordinary, everyday selfishness, does give rise to a sophisticated selfishness that springs from such a lust.

[ 7 ] It is not by emphasizing love and compassion that they are brought about in the course of human evolution. Rather, humanity is led to that brotherhood by something else, and that is spiritual knowledge itself. There is no other means of bringing about universal human brotherhood than the dissemination of occult knowledge throughout the world. People may talk endlessly about love and human brotherhood, and they may found thousands of associations, but these will not lead to the goal they are intended to achieve, no matter how well-meaning they may be. What matters is doing the right thing—knowing how to establish this brotherhood. Only people who live in the common occult truth—which is valid for all humanity—can come together in that one truth. Just as the sun unites the plants that reach toward it, each of which is nevertheless an individual entity, so must the truth be a unified one toward which all strive; only then will all people come together. But people must work energetically toward the truth; only then can they live together in harmony.

[ 8 ] One might object: Everyone strives for the truth, but there are different points of view, and that is why disputes and differences arise. — This is not yet a sufficiently thorough understanding of the truth. One must not claim that there can be different points of view within the truth; one must first come to realize that there can be only one truth. It does not depend on a popular vote; it is true in and of itself. Or would you put it to a vote whether the three angles of a triangle add up to 180 degrees? Whether millions of people admit it or not a single one—if you have recognized it, then it is true for you. There is no democracy in truth. And those who are not yet in harmony have not yet advanced far enough into the truth. This is the source of all disputes over the truth. One might say: “Yes, but one person claims this and another claims that when it comes to occult matters!” That is not the case in true occultism. It is the same as with materialistic matters: there, too, one person claims this and another claims that, but then one of them is wrong. It is the same in true occultism; only that there is often the impudence to pass judgment on occult matters before one has understood them.

[ 9 ] This is the goal toward which the sixth age of humanity will strive: the widespread dissemination of occult truth. This is the mission of this age. And the society that unites spiritually has the task of carrying this occult truth into every aspect of life and applying it directly there. That is precisely what our age lacks. Just look at how our age is searching and how no one can find the right answer. There are countless questions: the question of education, the question of women, medicine, social issues, and nutrition. And people tinker with these questions, and numerous articles and books are written, and everyone speaks from their own point of view without wanting to study what is central—the occult truth. It is not a matter of knowing something abstractly about spiritual scientific truths, but of bringing them directly into life—of studying social issues, educational issues, indeed the whole of human life—from the standpoint of true occult wisdom. — “But then one must recognize the highest wisdom!” one might object. This objection stems from the misconception that one must always truly understand what one applies in life. But that is not necessary; the understanding of the highest principles often comes much later than their application. If humanity had wanted to wait to digest food until the laws of digestion were understood, then human development would not have been possible. Likewise, one does not need to understand all spiritual laws in order to integrate spiritual science into daily life. This is precisely how the Rosicrucian method seeks to approach the spiritual: less abstraction, and instead a focus on the questions of everyday life. What matters is not that one says, “Spiritual science is spiritual science”—but that one takes it seriously in one’s immediate life. Do you believe that a child knows all the grammatical rules of a language once it has learned to speak? First it learns to speak, and then it learns grammar. Therefore, it is essential that a person, with the help of spiritual teachings, first engage with what immediately surrounds them before turning to what is found in the highest worlds—that which imparts knowledge of the astral plane and the devachanic plane. For only in this way do we understand what exists in our surroundings and where we ourselves must intervene. Therefore, the concrete task is to unite a fragmented humanity—which has been torn away from the old blood and tribal bonds—through unified occult spiritual wisdom.

[ 10 ] Thus, as we evolve from the fifth to the sixth and then to the seventh age, the old bonds of tribal and blood ties are increasingly lost. Humanity is mixing together in order to group itself according to spiritual considerations. It was a mistake for Theosophy to speak of races as if they would remain forever. The concept of race will lose its meaning even in the near future—though by “near future” we mean thousands of years. The constant talk that seven and seven races have always developed in the world is the speculative extension of a concept that applies only to our age, both backward and forward in time; this has never been stated by clairvoyants or in occultism. Just as everything comes into being, so too did the races come into being; and just as everything passes away, so too will the races pass away, and those who have always spoken only of races will have to get used to making their concepts more flexible. That is merely a matter of convenience! If one looks even a little into the future, the concepts used in the past and present no longer apply. The main thing is that people not regard what they once expressed in a beautiful concept as eternal wisdom. We will have to get used to making concepts fluid, to recognizing that concepts change, and that will be progress. This ability to move from rigid, dogmatic concepts to fluid ones—that is what must be cultivated in those who wish to be the bearers of the future. For just as times change, so too must our concepts change if we are to understand these times.

[ 11 ] Now the souls live in a human body, which you can clearly perceive through the senses. How did it come into being? It used to be very different from what it is today—indeed, from our present material perspective, strangely different—when the soul descended. The soul took its place within it. How did the human being develop into its present form? Through the soul’s own work within the body throughout all its incarnations. You can get an idea of how the soul has worked on the body if you consider what remains for human beings in our materialistic age of the ability to work on their own bodies. What a person can do to work on their dense physical body is relatively very little. Observe, for example, how you temporarily work on your body and its physiognomy today. Something, for instance, causes you shock or fear. The impressions of fear and dread make you turn pale. Your physical appearance is also altered by a blush of shame. This passes again, but you can see how it happens: something affects the soul, so that the effect extends to the blood and, indirectly through it, to the physical body—to your immediate appearance. The effect can be even more intense. You know that people who lead a spiritual life have a strong ability to create an imprint of their spiritual work in their outward appearance. One can tell whether a person has lived thoughtfully or thoughtlessly. In this way, a person is still working on their outward expression, and a person who feels nobly expresses this feeling through noble movements. These are only faint remnants of how humanity has worked on itself over the course of millennia.

[ 12 ] While today you can only make the blood rush to your cheeks and then recede, in earlier times human beings were entirely under the influence of a world of images that was the expression of a spiritual world. This enabled human beings to work on their physical constitution in a much more transformative way. Moreover, the body was even more supple back then. There was a time when one could not only extend one’s hand, when one could not only point with one’s finger, but when one could send one’s will into one’s hand and shape it so that one could extend these fingers as extensions of oneself. There was a time when the feet were not yet permanent, but when human beings extended them as extensions from themselves as needed. In this way, human beings shaped their own bodies through the images they received from their surroundings. Today, in our material age, this transformation is as slow as can be imagined, but it will proceed more quickly again. In the future, human beings will once again gain greater influence over their physical bodies. When we consider the process of initiation, we will see the means by which they gain this influence. Even if they cannot achieve this in a single lifetime, they will still be able to do much in preparation for their next incarnation.

[ 13 ] It is, therefore, human beings themselves who will bring about the future form of their bodies. As human beings become softer and softer—that is, as they separate themselves from their hard parts—they move toward their future. An age is coming when human beings, as in times past, will, as it were, live above their earthly parts. This state, which is comparable to your present state of sleep, will then be replaced by another in which human beings will be able to withdraw their etheric body at will from their physical body. It will, as it were, be the denser part of the human being here on Earth, and the human being will use it from the outside, like an instrument. The human being will no longer carry his body in such a way that he dwells within it, but will hover above it; the body itself will have become finer and more ethereal. This seems like a fanciful idea today, but one can know it with certainty from the spiritual laws, just as one calculates solar and lunar eclipses for the future from the laws of astronomy. And, above all, human beings will transform the power of procreation. Many cannot imagine that there will ever be a reproductive force different from the one that exists today. But it will exist; the nature of reproduction will change. Everything that today constitutes reproduction and is connected to this instinct will, in the future, be transferred to a different organ. The organ that is already preparing itself today to become the future reproductive organ is the human larynx. Today it can produce only air vibrations; it can convey to the air only what is contained in a word, so that the vibrations correspond to the word. Later, not only will the word emerge from this larynx in its rhythm, but this word will be illuminated by the human being; it will be permeated by the substance itself. Just as today the word becomes merely an air wave, so in the future the inner being of the human being—his own image, as it is today in the word—will emerge from the larynx. The human being will emerge from the human being; the human being will speak the human being. And this will be the birth of a new human being in the future: that he will be spoken by another human being.

[ 14 ] Such things shed a certain light on phenomena in our environment that no natural science can explain to you. That transformation of the reproductive instinct—which will, in turn, be asexual—will then take over the functions of the old form of reproduction. For this reason, a transformation of the larynx also occurs in the male organism during puberty. The voice deepens. This directly points out to you how these two things are connected. In this way, occultism repeatedly sheds light on the facts of life and illuminates phenomena for which materialistic science is unable to provide an explanation.

[ 15 ] And just as this organ of the larynx will be transformed, so too will the human heart be transformed. It is the organ that is intimately connected with the circulatory system. Now, science believes that the heart is a kind of pump. That is a grotesque and fanciful notion. Never has occultism put forward such a fanciful claim as today’s materialism. The driving force behind the blood is the emotions of the soul. The soul propels the blood, and the heart moves because it is propelled by the blood. Thus, the exact opposite of what materialistic science says is true. However, humans cannot yet control their hearts at will; when they are afraid, it beats faster because the emotion acts on the blood, which in turn accelerates the heart’s movement. But what humans today experience involuntarily, they will later be able to control at a higher stage of development. They will later be able to drive their blood at will and move their hearts just as they move their hand muscles today. The heart, with its peculiar structure, is a crux, a conundrum, for modern science. It possesses striated muscle fibers, which are otherwise found only in voluntary muscles. Why? Because the heart has not yet reached the end of its development but is an organ of the future—because it will become a voluntary muscle. That is why it already shows the predisposition for this in its structure.

[ 16 ] Thus, everything that takes place in the human soul alters the structure of the human organism. And if you now imagine a human being capable of creating his fellow humans through the spoken word—a being whose heart has become a voluntary muscle and who will also have altered other organs—then you have a conception of the future of the human race on future planetary incarnations of our Earth. On our Earth, humanity will progress as far as it can under the influence of a mineral kingdom. This mineral kingdom, despite having arisen last, will most likely disappear in its present form. Human beings will then no longer build their bodies from mineral substances as they do today; the future human body will initially incorporate only that which is of plant substance. Everything that has a mineral effect in human beings today will disappear. To give you a seemingly grotesque example: Today, human beings spit out their ordinary saliva. It is a mineral product, for the human physical body is a complex interplay of mineral processes. When human beings have completed their mineral development, they will no longer spit out mineral saliva; rather, this saliva will be of a plant nature, and human beings will, so to speak, spit out flowers. No gland will secrete anything mineral anymore, but only plant substances. In this way, the mineral kingdom will be overcome as human beings develop back toward a plant-like existence.

[ 17 ] Thus, human beings transition to Jupiter by shedding all that is mineral and moving on to plant-based creation. And when he later transitions to animal creation—these will, of course, be different animals than those of today—once his heart is ready to act creatively, he will create in the animal world just as he creates today in the mineral kingdom; then the Venusian stage will begin. And when he can then create his own kind by speaking his own image, then the purpose of our evolution will be fulfilled, and the words, “Let us make humankind …” will be fulfilled.

[ 18 ] Only by observing this point of view—that the body is transformed from within the soul—will humanity truly be transformed. Only through thinking in the occult, spiritual sense will what has been described as the transformation of the heart and the larynx come to pass. What humanity thinks today is what it will become in the future. A humanity that thinks materialistically will produce terrible beings in the future, and a humanity that thinks spiritual thoughts will have such a transforming effect on the organism of the future that beautiful human bodies will emerge from it.

[ 19 ] The effects of materialistic thinking are not yet complete. Today we have two currents: a large materialistic one that pervades the entire Earth, and a small spiritual one that is limited to a few people. Distinguish between the development of the soul and the development of races. Do not believe that when races degenerate into a grotesque form, souls will do the same. All souls that think materialistically are working to bring about evil races, and what is accomplished through spiritual work brings about a good race. Just as humanity has produced that which has degenerated into animals, plants, and minerals, so too will a part split off and represent the evil part of humanity, and the inner wickedness of the soul will find external expression in the body, which has meanwhile become soft. Just as earlier states that have degenerated into the ape species appear grotesque to us today, so materialistic races will remain at the level of evil and, as evil races, will populate the earth. It will be entirely up to humanity whether a soul wishes to remain with the evil race or to ascend through a spiritual culture to a good one.

[ 20 ] These are things we need to know if we want to live into the future with true insight. Otherwise, we walk through the world blindfolded, for there are forces at work within humanity that must be recognized and taken into account, and anyone who refuses to familiarize themselves with the forces that lean in one direction or the other would be failing in their duty to humanity. Knowledge for knowledge’s sake would be selfishness. Anyone who seeks knowledge merely to glimpse into the higher worlds is acting selfishly. But anyone who wishes to apply this knowledge directly to the practice of daily life is working toward the further development of humanity’s future evolution. It is of extraordinary importance that we learn more and more to put into practice what exists as a spiritual-scientific perspective.

[ 21 ] As you can see, the spiritual movement has a very specific goal, namely, to shape the future of humanity. This goal can only be achieved through the assimilation of spiritual occult wisdom. This is the perspective of those who view spiritual science as humanity’s great task. They view it in the context of evolution, and they regard it not as a desire but as a duty they have recognized. And the more we acknowledge this, the more rapidly we move toward the future shaping of humanity in the sixth age. Just as in ancient Atlantis, near present-day Ireland, the advanced people migrated eastward to establish new cultures, so we now have the task of working toward the great moment in the sixth age when humanity will undertake a great spiritual ascent.

[ 22 ] We must try to break free from materialism, and so spiritual communities must remember to play such a leading role in humanity—not out of immodesty or arrogance, but out of a sense of duty. Thus, a certain group of people must come together to prepare for the future. But this coming together should not be understood in geographical terms. All concepts of locality will then have lost their meaning, because it is no longer a matter of tribal kinship; rather, what matters is that people across the entire Earth come together spiritually to shape the future in a positive way. That is why, four hundred years ago, when our age had plunged deepest into materialism, the Brotherhood of the Rosicrucians founded that practical spiritual science which seeks to provide guidance on all questions of daily life. There you have the ascending development in contrast to the descending one.

[ 23 ] Just as the old understanding has a corrosive effect, as shown in Mauthner’s Critique of Language, so the spiritual movement seeks the unifying bond of spiritual wisdom. Hence the new initiation training, which directly anticipates the transition of humanity into a new cycle of time. Thus, the principle of human evolution is linked to the concept of initiation.