The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Ninth Lecture

[ 1 ] This lecture will address a topic that is significant when viewed from the perspective of spiritual life. We will be able to discuss how those who adhere to the spiritual-scientific worldview can take a stance toward other spiritual movements, how they can relate to the development of humanity today, and to contemporary issues in general. I would like to speak to you in broad terms about the development of religious ideas from the era of post-Atlantean culture up to the present.

[ 2 ] We will recall what we have already mentioned here and there: that the concept of religion is actually something that only makes sense in the post-Atlantean era. Before the great Atlantean flood, what we call religion could not have existed at all, because religion presupposes that human beings do not have direct perception or insight into the supersensible worlds—or at least that the vast majority of people do not have such perceptions. Religion is humanity’s connection to the supersensible realm when, for the vast majority of people, the supersensible is not directly perceptible but can only be conveyed in various ways—through prophets, seers, sages, mysteries, and so on—as has been the case in recent millennia. Before the great Atlantean flood, when our ancestors lived for the most part in the region of ancient Atlantis, all people still had, to a greater or lesser extent, direct experiences and perceptions of the supersensible. In a time when people lived in the spiritual world itself—in which they had experiences at any moment just as modern humanity does in the sensory world—there was no need for religion. Toward the end of this Atlantean era, the supersensory experience was eradicated for the vast majority of people. It was replaced by the pronounced sensory experience that humanity has today. What remains from the ancient Atlantean era? When we go back to the mists of time and explore the legends and myths, allowing the Germanic myths of the gods to take effect upon us, we find messages from the supersensible worlds in pictorial form. These messages are not images or personifications conjured up by the popular imagination, as some would have us believe from their armchairs, but rather genuine memories from that ancient time when people themselves still knew what they had experienced. The legends of Wotan, Thor, and so on are such memories. And what has remained with humanity, particularly into the post-Atlantean era, is, in the highest sense of the word, a kind of “religion of memory.” It is most highly developed among the peoples living in southern Asia, among the Indian peoples; in a different form, it asserted itself in Europe. In India, the memory of that time in human history when everyone still had direct perceptions of the spiritual world manifested as a longing for that world. People perceived the physical world as an illusion, as Maya, and yearned for those ancient times. Yoga was the name given to that which gave certain individuals the ability to penetrate the supersensible worlds. Not all peoples advanced to the point of having sages who could rise to the level of yoga. Other peoples had to content themselves with memories, particularly the peoples of the North. Their initiates also penetrated the spiritual worlds and had direct experiences in the divine realm, but the Nordic nature made it difficult for them to do so in large numbers. This is how Nordic mythology came into being.

[ 3 ] But there is one thing we will find in common—something that people still retained in that post-Atlantean era: it is an echo of that much more highly developed power of memory that existed in the Atlantean era. Back then, memory was developed quite differently than it is today. People could remember far back, all the way to the lives of distant ancestors. They knew what such an ancestor had gone through centuries ago, just as an elderly person today knows what he experienced in his youth. Such memories of the ancestors shaped what might be called the religion of the ancestors, the ancestor cult. The ancestor cult—the veneration of ancestors—is, in truth, the first religion. Memory had, in a certain sense, remained alive. This vitality of memory was so great that, in fact, even for individual people—even if they could not rise to the level of yoga—a spiritual state could arise in which the common ancestral progenitor of a people appeared to them in dreams or during psychic states.

[ 4 ] This was not merely a legend or a myth—what such an ancient tribe held alive as a common ancestor—but rather something that appeared to people from time to time, something that emerged in their psychological consciousness, something that accompanied the people. The various peoples who streamed through Europe had the most diverse experiences. But one experience remained ever vivid and alive for many, and they recounted it to those who trusted them, who believed in them: this was the appearance of the ancestral father, who, from the spiritual realm, served as their advisor and maintained a connection with them. He came at particularly important moments and was present in times of uncertainty. The cult of the ancestors was something that remained thoroughly alive through the physical characteristics of the ancestors.

[ 5 ] This ancestor cult gradually developed into a kind of religious system that, although formulated by certain initiates, was nevertheless acceptable to many non-initiates as well. Such a religious system emerged in various regions, for example in ancient Indian Brahmanism. We find the last echoes of this in Vedanta philosophy; but we also find the last echoes of this ancient pantheism in the oldest philosophical systems. It was a kind of esoteric pantheism, such as we see in ancient Brahmanism. It also emerges in the actual system of the Egyptians, as well as among the Hebrews. In reality, we can imagine that this religious system arose as a more comprehensive idea of the divine essence—which permeated and flowed through everything—gradually took shape. The ancestral deity had merged with the spiritual foundations of existence; it had become a kind of primordial spiritual force. Then, in what we might call anthropomorphism, we find a specific manifestation of esoteric pantheism. It conceives of the various gods in human-like forms. The Greek religious system, for example, belongs to this category. But it is a complete misconception to think that, for the educated Greek, the unified spiritual world did not reign behind the individual gods. When we speak of angels, archangels, and so on—indeed, of the various spiritual beings that stand above human beings, as we have done in the doctrine of cosmic evolution—we are speaking in a manner very similar to how people spoke in ancient times of Zeus, Athena, and so on in relation to the single World Spirit. A unified world concept underlies this system. Pantheism is the spiritual foundation of things; the gods are then depicted as human beings.

[ 6 ] And when we ask ourselves: What is the reason that the even more abstract esoteric pantheism gave way to the multifaceted Greek pantheon?—we must recognize in this a deep, fundamental need of humanity as a whole, a profound principle in human development. When we consider the transition from the Egyptian to the Greek era, we see the most beautiful manifestation of this principle before our eyes. There is something particularly powerful and symbolic in the entire imagery of the pre-Greek era. The Egyptian pyramids and sphinxes are magnificent, imposing creations of the human spirit, which, in a somewhat abstract form, point to a spiritual source that one does not yet dare to give concrete form. How the Greek spirit demonstrated the ability to imprint the spiritual into the pictorial form! Therein lies an immense progress that can be traced everywhere. You will find this transition expressed most purely when you trace in your mind the transition from Oriental to Greek architecture, when we grasp the architectural idea in its purity. Throughout the entire development of humanity, the architectural idea finds its best expression in Greek architecture. Nowhere do we find such a complete outpouring of thought into external form as in Greek architecture. We see how everything is placed within space in a way that corresponds to the great cosmic laws.

[ 7 ] Perhaps there has been only one other instance in the history of humanity when architectural ideas were created: the idea of Gothic architecture. And when we contrast the Gothic idea with the Greek architectural idea, we must say: In Gothic architecture, we are actually no longer dealing with pure architecture at all, but with an expression—present only in a suggestive way in its forms—of the mystical element that penetrates our sensibility. Gothic architecture is not the complete realization of this idea. The Greek temple, on the other hand, is the dwelling place of the god and must be understood entirely as such. For imagine the god creatively present in space, his powers flooding through the space, as he, so to speak, forms a body for himself, as he weaves a garment for himself—this is the Greek temple. And we know, when we stand before it: this is the dwelling place of the god. The Gothic cathedral is not that; it is a house of prayer. It cannot be conceived without the visitor who is inside it, for whom it is built to evoke a certain atmosphere. Imagine the Greek temple standing entirely on its own, animated only by the god—then we have it in its entirety. This is not to be understood or interpreted symbolically. The devout believer belongs to the Gothic cathedral. And whoever understands space not as emptiness but as permeated by forces, whoever knows that forces crystallize within that space, and whoever senses these forces—such a person feels that something has crystallized within the Greek temple out of the dynamic forces of the world. Anyone whose sensitivity is so keen that they can perceive these entities knows that forces shoot through the space. The Greeks knew about the vitality of space. The best way to see how thinking, feeling, and willing have become concrete is to compare Greek architecture with Romanesque architecture, where we often see, for example, how the column is detached from its spatial function as a support. Romanesque architecture is also grand, but it contains much that is decorative—including, among other things, these very columns—for which there is no deeper motivation. But the sense for it is missing; the sense of space is missing. The column is there, yet it does not fulfill its purpose. All of this is connected to the stages of development of the human spirit. Only through this anthropomorphism could humanity be prepared for the concept of the God-man, for the concept of God dwelling within human beings themselves. But that is Christianity, which occultism also calls theomorphism.

[ 8 ] In Christianity, all the various divine forms converge in the one living form of Christ Jesus. This required a great and profound deepening of humanity, a deepening that enabled humanity not only to conceive of the living form of space, as expressed in Greek sculpture, but also to rise to the idea of seeing the inner in the outer, to the belief that the Eternal truly lived on earth in a historical figure within the realm of space and time. This is the essence of Christianity. This idea represented the greatest progress humanity could make on Earth.

[ 9 ] We need only compare—and we are permitted to make this comparison—the Greek temple, which is a dwelling place for the god, with what later became the Christian church, as expressed most purely in the Gothic style; then we will see that, in terms of external forms, a regression must even occur if one wishes to represent the eternal in the temporal and spatial. And what later art achieves by expressing the inner in the outer is entirely shaped by the influence of the Christian spiritual current. Fundamentally, one must say that it is understandable that architecture could become most beautiful where one could still cling with one’s whole soul to the external forces that flood through space.

[ 10 ] Thus we see how religious thought becomes increasingly profound in the post-Atlantean era, and how people seek clues to the supersensible. It will not be difficult to see in everything that has been said here indications of people’s longing to penetrate the outer form, to somehow capture the supersensory within the outer form. This is the aim of the most primordial foundations of art. With Christianity, we have, so to speak, reached our present era. From what has just been stated here, in connection with various other remarks made regarding the development of the post-Atlantean era, you will recognize that the course of humanity is striving more and more toward internalization. There is also, among the various races, an ever-increasing awareness of internalization within the external.

[ 11 ] We would like to say that in the Greek depictions of the gods, we see how what lives within human beings pours out into the external world. In Christianity, the most significant impetus in this direction is provided. With Christianity, we see the emergence of what has been called “science” up to our own time. For what is called by that name today—the exploration of the intellectual foundations of existence—only began in the Chaldean era. Now, in our own time, we are truly living through a great turning point in human development.

[ 12 ] Let us now take stock of what we have briefly outlined and ask ourselves: Why did all this happen? Why has humanity evolved to imprint the inner upon the outer? — The answer is that humanity has been driven to do so by the development of its physical constitution. The ancient Atlanteans were able to perceive the supersensible world because their etheric body had not yet been completely drawn into the physical body. A point on the etheric head did not yet correspond exactly to the corresponding point on the physical head. The complete interpenetration of the etheric body with the physical body is the reason why human beings are now driven more outward into the external world.

[ 13 ] When the gates to the supersensible world closed, human beings, in the course of their artistic development, needed a link—a connection between the sensible and the supersensible worlds. In earlier times, during the Atlantean epoch, they did not need this, for back then they were still able to know the supersensible world through direct experience. People only needed to be told about the gods and spirits once they had lost the ability to perceive them—just as one must describe plants only to those who have never seen them. This is the reason for the religious development of the post-Atlantean era. Why, then, did a being of a supersensible nature such as Christ have to appear in a finite personality—in Jesus—and walk upon the earth? Why did Christ have to become a historical figure? Why did people’s gaze have to be captivated by this figure? We have said that people could no longer look into the supersensory world. What had to happen so that God could become an experience for them? He had to become sensorial, to incarnate in a sensorial-physical body. That is the answer to the question. As long as people could perceive in the spiritual realm, as long as they could perceive the gods there through supersensible experience, no god would have needed to become human. But now God had to be present within the sensory world. Out of these feelings flowed the words of the disciples affirming this fact: “We have laid our hands in his wounds...,” and similar statements. Thus we see how the appearance of Christ Jesus himself becomes clear to us from the nature of post-Atlantean human beings, and how we come to understand why Christ actually had to reveal himself to sensory perception. The most powerful historical fact had to be present for human beings. The spiritual Self had to be present in a sensory way so that human beings would have a point of reference that could connect them to the supersensible world.

[ 14 ] Pure science has increasingly degenerated into a veneration, a worship of the external world. Today, we have reached a climax in this development. Christianity served as a strong bulwark against this absorption in the sensual. Today, Christianity must be grasped through theosophical deepening so that it may present itself to humanity with a new understanding. In the past, during the Middle Ages, there was still a connection between science and Christianity. Today we need a supersensory deepening of knowledge—of wisdom itself—in order to understand Christianity in all its depth. Thus we stand before a spiritual conception of Christianity. This is the next stage: theosophical or spiritual-scientific Christianity. In contrast, science, which focuses on the material, will increasingly lose its connection with the supersensory worlds.

[ 15 ] What, then, is the task of spiritual science? Can the person seeking the spirit look to today’s mainstream science? What is considered “science” today is precisely what will increasingly follow the course of post-Atlantean development—focusing more and more on the outer, physical, and material aspects, and increasingly losing touch with the spiritual world. Trace any branch of science back to earlier times: how many spiritual elements were once present in it!

[ 16 ] You will see everywhere—in medicine and in other fields—how the spiritual connection has increasingly disappeared. You can observe this everywhere. And this development must be so, for the course of the post-Atlantean era is such that that original connection with the supersensible world must be lost more and more. Today we can predict the course of science. No matter how many attempts are made, external science will not be capable of spiritual deepening. It will increasingly evolve into what amounts to higher instruction in technical skills—a means of mastering the external world. For the Pythagoreans, mathematics was still a means of gaining insight into the connections of the higher worlds, into the harmony of the worlds; for people today, it is a means of further developing technology and thereby mastering the external world. Secularized, stripped of its philosophical character—this will be the course of external science. All people will have to draw their impulses from spiritual development. And this spiritual development is taking the path toward spiritual Christianity. Spiritual science will be that which is capable of providing the impulses for every spiritual life.

[ 17 ] Science is indeed becoming more and more of a technical guide. And university life is increasingly shifting toward that of a technical school, and that is as it should be. Everything spiritual will develop into a free human asset that must emerge from science. Science will then re-emerge in a completely different context, in a completely different form. It is therefore necessary for humanity today to reconnect with the great experiences of the supersensible worlds. You can see that this is necessary if you realize what will happen if it does not occur. The etheric head is now drawn into the human being; the connection between the etheric body and the physical body is today at the height of its development. That is why the percentage of people who could have supersensible experiences has never been lower. But the course of human evolution is moving forward in such a way that the etheric body will once again step out of the physical body of its own accord. And this has already begun. Once more, the etheric body is stepping out; it is becoming more independent, freer, and in the future will once again be as separate from the physical body as it was in ancient times. The loosening of the etheric body must occur again, and this has already begun. But now, as the etheric body emerges, the human being must take with it what they have experienced in the physical body—especially the physical event of Golgotha, which they must experience physically, that is, in an earthly existence. Otherwise, something will be irretrievably lost to them: the etheric body would withdraw without their taking anything essential with them, and such people would remain empty within the etheric body. But those who have lived through spiritual Christianity will have in abundance within the etheric body what they have gone through in the physical body.

[ 18 ] The greatest danger lies with those who, through scientific seduction, have turned away from spiritual truths. But the process of the etheric body stepping out has already begun. The nervousness of our time is a sign of this. It will increase more and more unless people take with them what is the greatest event in the physical body. They still have plenty of time for this, for it will be a long time before it happens for the vast majority, but some are already reaching that point. But if there were a person who had never experienced in the physical realm what is the greatest event in the physical world—who had never lived the depth of Christianity and incorporated it into his etheric body—then he would face what is called spiritual death. For the emptiness of the etheric body will result in spiritual death.

[ 19 ] The Atlantic clairvoyant had no need for religion, because experiencing the supersensible was a reality for him. All human development stemmed from such a time. Then the perception of the spiritual world faded. “Religere” means “to connect,” and thus religion is a connection between the sensible and the supersensible. The era of rising materialism needed religion. But the time will come when people will once again be able to have experiences in the supersensible world. Then they will no longer need religion. This new way of seeing presupposes the presence of spiritual Christianity; it will be the logical consequence of Christianity. This is the basis for the statement that I ask you to remember as particularly important: Christianity began as a religion, but it is greater than all religions.

[ 20 ] What Christianity offers will be carried forward into all future ages and will remain one of humanity’s most important driving forces, even when religion no longer exists. Even when people have moved beyond religious life, Christianity will still remain. The fact that it began as a religion is linked to the development of humanity; but as a worldview, Christianity is greater than all religions.