The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Fifth lecture

[ 1 ] Today’s lecture is intended to provide a kind of summary of what we have heard in the various winter lectures, what we were able to draw from the reflections on the Gospel of Luke and the Gospel of Matthew, and what has been presented here in connection with the lectures on the Gospel of John, as they were most recently held in Stockholm. As these lectures were presented, it will have become clear to you that everything in them was structured in such a way that we do not merely have an explanation of the Gospels in a limited sense, but rather that from the truths—which, first of all, are truths in and of themselves, and second, are found in the Gospels when the Christian sources are properly understood— it always becomes apparent that the other mysteries of life, too, can be interpreted and illuminated by them in the most manifold ways.

[ 2 ] If we go back to the origins of Christianity, we find two types, two forms of initiation: the initiation of the North, which was described in more detail in those lectures held in Stockholm, and the initiation of the South, which is characterized in particular by its connection to the initiation rites of ancient Egyptian culture. From two directions, opportunities arose for the people of the ancient world to penetrate the spiritual world. If the initiate in ancient Egypt wished to reach the spiritual world, he descended into the depths of his own soul, descending beyond all that is present in ordinary soul life as thought, feeling, will, and so on. There he found that from which the soul itself had emerged: the divine-spiritual existence of the world. Thus, a descent beneath those regions of the soul that are illuminated and permeated by the “I” was the very essence of Egyptian—or southern—initiation. In contrast, the stepping out of the human being—a merging with the phenomena of the world in an ecstatic manner—was the central focus of northern initiation, particularly in the Germanic Druidic and Trotten mysteries. It has already been described how, in what we call Christian initiation, these two forms of initiation have converged, and how Christian initiation represents, as it were, the higher unity of the ecstatic initiation of the North and the mystical contemplation of the Southern initiation. This, however, points to a profound foundation of the world’s mysteries that permeates all existence. Fundamentally, any discussion—even of such a vast and momentous fact as the convergence of the two ancient forms of initiation into Christian initiation—is an example of an even more comprehensive, great law that permeates all human existence and, at the same time, interweaves all existence in the phenomena of the external world, insofar as human beings can perceive it. For this is found everywhere: the elements of a duality confront us as opposites. We see these elements of a duality standing opposite one another as opposites in northern and southern initiation. This is just one example of how opposites—or, one might also say, polarities—confront us in worldly existence. And the other aspect—how these two forms of initiation converge and, as it were, enter into a spiritual marriage in Christian initiation—is an example of how opposites, indeed dualities in the world, unite. This happens ceaselessly: units divide into dualities to further development, and dualities, in turn, unite to form a unit. Externally, we could first point to a great, powerful fact—one that extends, as it were, over the course of human development—which represents this splitting of a unity into duality and the reconvergence of duality into unity.

[ 3 ] We have often shed light on the Lemurian Age, which, among other things, witnessed the great event in the evolution of the worlds when the Moon split off from our Earth. But that epoch also witnessed the very beginnings of what we, in today’s understanding of human evolution, call the distinction between man and woman; whereas in the world-ages preceding the Lemurian era, we would find a unity of the sexes. Thus, we see an original unity breaking apart into man and woman. However, we have also already indicated that in the future this duality will once again unite into oneness, that oneness will once again arise from this duality. This is, in an outward sense, an indication of comprehensive series of facts that lie in this relationship between the Two and the One, or the One and the Two.

[ 4 ] What we encounter in the evolution of humanity, however, is essentially the expression, the reflection of an even greater cosmic contrast that is rooted in unity—a contrast that presents itself to us as two distinct forces in today’s world life and will dissolve back into unity in the distant future. It is necessary that we take every thought given to us today through spiritual science in its full depth, that we do not get into the habit of accepting anthroposophical thoughts in the same superficial way as other thoughts and concepts that swirl through the world today and are accepted due to the hurried, superficial, and banal nature of our present culture. Anthroposophical ideas must be taken as deeply as possible. Therefore, even a thought such as this—which is often expressed and lies, as it were, hidden within all our teachings—namely, that the human being is born as a small world, as a microcosm, out of the macrocosm, out of the great world—must not be taken lightly as merely an abstract idea; rather, this thought has an infinitely rich, manifold content. Above all, one must be clear that the world is deeper than is commonly believed, and that once one has grasped a contrast or a truth in one direction, one has by no means grasped the ultimate truth about that relationship or contrast; rather, one must patiently look around in every direction so that, if something holds true from one side, one may also come to know it from the other side.

[ 5 ] Human beings are born from the entire cosmos and must look up to the cosmos as to their mother-father being, of which they themselves are a reflection. Indeed, human beings are a reflection of the entire world that can be known to them; and there is nothing in the human being that does not, in some way, express a relationship that is not also found in some form within the great cosmos. If we could compare human beings as they appear to us today—specifically from the perspective of spiritual science—with human forms from a relatively very early period, we would find in today’s human being a characteristic of immense significance—alongside others, of course—for elucidating the nature of the human being. This characteristic can teach each of us that, in what we know about the world, it is not only a matter of things being true, but also of something entirely different. The fact that someone has proven to us that something is true does not mean they have revealed the most important aspect of that truth to us. For example, much of what trivial natural science says about the comparison of human beings with higher mammals is true. That human beings have the same number of bones and muscles and other such things is true—indisputably true. But once one has proven that a certain thing is true, one has not yet done everything. It is precisely the human being who, through deepening and internalizing spiritual science, must realize that what matters is to acquire, with regard to every truth, a sense of how much weight that truth carries—whether it is important or unimportant, essential or inessential to the explanation of a matter. That is why there may be people today who come along and, from their trivial perspective, prove to us time and again that what they say is indeed true. That should not be disputed either. But what matters is whether something is recognized in its proper weight for the explanation of the world!

[ 6 ] Now there is a certain fact that is undoubtedly true and that everyone knows, because it is encountered countless times every day, and which—if we wish to grasp its meaning and importance for humankind, its significance—we need only feel in the right way: namely, the fact that humankind is an upright and walking being capable of looking up into the vastness of the universe. Only human beings can do that! For even of the ape we must say that it looks as if it had striven for this possibility, but it has botched the job. It cannot do it. Human beings are the only beings who have fully realized this purpose: to be able to lift their faces freely upward into the cosmos. This fact is infinitely more important than anything that trivial natural science can tell us about humanity’s place in the animal kingdom. Everything else is true, of course, but this is infinitely more important. Anyone who wishes to sense something of this fact must familiarize themselves with the reason why human beings are upright creatures—beings who, though bound to the earth, rise in spirit through their contemplation, and indeed through their sensory perception alone, into outer space.

[ 7 ] The reason for this is that there is a certain opposition, a duality, which relates within the cosmos in the same way as another duality within human beings. We can point to a duality in the universe and a duality within human beings as two opposites that correspond to one another in the microcosm and the macrocosm. The contrast referred to in the macrocosm—the greater world—is that between the sun and the earth; and the same contrast that exists between the sun and the earth in the universe also exists within human beings: it is the contrast between the head and the hands and feet, between the head and the limbs. These matters will be elaborated upon more and more over time, but for now you must first become acquainted with them in a general sense and learn to sense that, in a certain respect, the head and the limbs—as a duality within the human being—behave in the same way that the Sun and the Earth behave within our solar system. For indeed, within our Earth lie the forces that have developed over time, mysterious forces that anchor the human being to the Earth and have brought about the present configuration and range of motion of our hands and feet, while the forces that have lifted his face out into the cosmos—transforming him from a being that looks upon the Earth into one capable of gazing out into the infinite distances of the cosmos—have their seat in the Sun. And whoever is capable of feeling and sensing will, upon beholding the contrast between the head and the limbs that occurs in human beings, feel and sense the same as when they allow the contrast between the sun and the earth to act upon their senses. This is a contrast that will one day be united in human life, just as it will be united in the cosmos. Just as the sun and the earth were once one being and then separated, becoming a duality, so too will they reunite. Likewise, the contrast between the head and the limbs in human beings will once again become a unity, however difficult that may be to imagine for people today, who are unaccustomed to such concepts.

[ 8 ] We have thus pointed out a contrast within human beings and cited the corresponding contrast in the universe. But there are other contrasts within human beings that also have their corresponding counterparts in the universe. With regard to the contrast between the head and the limbs, all human beings on our Earth are, so to speak, the same. Men and women share this contrast in the same way. There is no difference between men and women in this regard, for whatever else appears as a contrast—for example, in the configuration of the soul—is not caused by this contrast. If only this contrast existed in the microcosm and the macrocosm, men and women would be completely alike. But men and women represent a different contrast within the human being. And now we may ask ourselves: Can we also find in the cosmos a polarity that corresponds in human life to the polarity of man and woman? Is this polarity, which manifests on Earth as man and woman, also born of the cosmos? — That, too, exists. And in order to seek out this polarity, we must now familiarize ourselves a little, in the occult sense, with the polarity of man and woman. In doing so, we will not fall into the error into which our materialistic age falls—namely, applying the contrast between the masculine and the feminine, as it simply appears as a sexual contrast in the physical world, to the entire universe. This is not merely a triviality, but a rudeness on the part of our scholarship when it extends what we encounter in one field to all other fields.

[ 9 ] What manifests on our Earth as the opposition between man and woman corresponds in the universe to another opposition that we cannot call male and female. That would be an absurdity. But we must nevertheless bring this opposition before our eyes, particularly with regard to its occult foundation. This opposition of the masculine and the feminine in our earthly evolution has, of course—and let this be clear—nothing to do with “humanity”; the human being is the same in both man and woman. So when we speak of man and woman, we are limited to the configuration of the physical body and the etheric body; this has nothing to do with the inner being of the human being, so that in the occult sense we must not speak as people do today in our materialistic age. For men and women also have an astral body and an “I,” whereas the ordinary view knows absolutely nothing of what makes a human being a human being, and can therefore speak only of men and women. So we are not now speaking of the human being as such in terms of man and woman, but of what makes a human being a man or a woman, and that is only the outer shell. This must be clearly understood. If what is stated in the following sentences is applied from one human being to another, then everything is wrong. The contrast between man and woman, within these limits, lies in the following:

[ 10 ] The outward human form was, of course, quite different in the earliest days of humanity. The present human form—and thus also the present male and female forms—only emerged from an earlier, unified form that had not yet broken down into the opposition between man and woman. Thus, we have an earlier unity and the present-day opposition between man and woman. We also know that the earlier unity was a more subtle, more spiritual one. Human beings only developed into their dense, material form over the course of time. We are therefore not merely returning to a unity of form, but also to a unity that was more spiritual than the present-day form. We thus have a primordial human being who is neither male nor female, but rather represents the separation of this opposition—which had not yet occurred—as a state of subtlety, and who is more subtle, ethereal, and spiritual than the later, more material human being who lives out the opposition between man and woman. On what, then, does it rest that man and woman later emerged from the original unity? This is because, when the woman—as unity—entered into duality, she developed a physical body that did not fully transition from its earlier form into what we might call the normal material form. The woman’s body has remained at a more spiritual level; it has not descended to the full extent of the material. It has indeed become material and dense, but within this materiality it has retained an earlier, more spiritual form. A spiritual level has thus become material. The female body has, as it were, retained an earlier spiritual form and has not descended fully into matter. This is true in terms of materiality, but not in terms of form. It has retained the form that humanity once possessed. Therefore, we can say: Woman presents herself as the manifestation of an earlier form that was actually meant to be spiritual, and as she appears today, she is actually false—a maya, an illusion. If we were to assume a certain pivotal point in evolution at which the material crystallizes, we could say: Woman has not advanced to this pivotal point; she has crystallized an earlier form. Therefore, for those who truly feel the facts of life or can perceive them imaginatively, the human female body is only to some extent a true form—an expression of the spiritual underlying it—in terms of the head and limbs; that is, only in the head and limbs is something expressed that, as a material appearance, resembles the spiritual lying behind it. Therefore, the spiritual essence underlying it is dissimilar to the rest of the material form, for the latter is a false form.

[ 11 ] Thus, the statement that the world is Maya holds true in every respect. One must take it seriously. It is easy to think in the abstract that the world is Maya. One has truly grasped this statement only when one takes it seriously and asks: In what sense are these forms illusions? — Some are more so, others less so. There are forms that, at least approximately and in outward likeness, express the spiritual reality behind them: these are the head and limbs; but there are forms that are directly false, that are distorted, and this includes the rest of the human body. It is directly distorted. And once the world comes to understand this, people will no longer speak as foolishly as they do today, but will see that there is a certain deeper, more refined artistic sensibility that tells us that the female figure is distorted—if one disregards the head and limbs—and that it must be corrected if one wishes to reproduce it artistically. In more artistically sophisticated eras, this was actually put into practice, for no one who is truly capable of observing forms can deny the insight that, to a certain degree, the forms on the Venus de Milo have been corrected. It’s just that people usually don’t see this.

[ 12 ] So here we have divided human beings into parts that are more real—less illusory—and into those that are more illusory, that are completely distorted. But this does not apply only to women. For men, the situation is simply the reverse. It is the opposite. Just as the female form has not descended to the normal point to express the corresponding spirit in matter, but has crystallized at an earlier stage, so the male body has skipped the normal point and gone just as far beyond it as the female form stopped short of it. Consequently, the male body has descended deeper into materiality than the normal ratio would have dictated, and this is already evident in its external form. It would look entirely different if it had not skipped the middle point. The human body is, in general, only approximately a truth with regard to the head and limbs. With regard to the rest of its form, however, we must say that the female body came to a halt at a certain point, solidified itself before plunging into the waves of material existence, and therefore presents us with a form entirely different from what it would have been had it crystallized just as the waves of material existence touched it; the male body, however, has plunged even deeper and, to the same extent, presents a false, distorted form as does the female body. Thus, the female body represents a form distorted toward the spiritual, while the male body represents a form distorted toward the material. The true form would lie in the middle; it would be an average form of the two.

[ 13 ] This naturally affects the whole human being during his earthly existence, insofar as he has a physical body. This has nothing to do with the contrast between the head and the limbs, but what has just been said applies to the whole human being in his individual incarnation between birth and death. After all, one incarnates as a man or a woman. Consequently, one must reckon with what manifests as characteristic of men or women. But this extends to the whole human being, and the result is that, if one has a female body in an incarnation, this entire female body is permeated by this greater state of remaining in a more primordial, softer form. And in a male incarnation, this entire male body is permeated by an excessive immersion in coarse, solid matter. If one has even the slightest inkling of what it means to think in the spirit, to live in the spirit, and to use the physical body as a mere tool—if one does not feel so entangled in it that one identifies with it—then one can sing a song precisely about the misery of having to use a male body in an incarnation, a body that naturally also permeates the brain. For one realizes that the forms of the male brain—because they have become more deeply embedded in matter—are more difficult to handle than the softer forms of the female brain, which are not so deeply embedded in matter. It is indeed more difficult, when one must ascend into the higher worlds, to train a male brain to translate truths into thought than a female brain. It is therefore not surprising to those who are capable of thinking that a worldview entering the world as something new—such as that of spiritual science—can be more easily understood by the female brain, which is easier to train, than by the male brain, which finds it harder to let go of certain thoughts it has absorbed today, because the male brain is harder to work with and harder to handle. That is why spiritual science will find it so difficult to gain a foothold among the men who are today’s cultural leaders and who are bound by the conventional cultural notions of our present-day life. We must fully understand just how clumsy a thing a scholar’s brain is—not only in terms of absorbing spiritual science, but also in terms of thinking with what it can absorb from spiritual science. However, we must not turn the matter on its head and draw any conclusions from it—or at most, the conclusion that we must now regard it as all the more significant when a great many men use their brains in such a way that they come quite intimately and closely into contact with spiritual science. These things can, of course, only be hinted at for the time being, but if you allow them to take effect within yourself and reflect on them, you will find immense perspectives for human life within them.

[ 14 ] When we consider human life in its contrast between man and woman, we have something that we can call a form that has remained stuck at an earlier stage, and something that has actually advanced beyond a certain stage of the present—something that, in a certain caricatured state, brings a future form into the present, which is precisely why it appears caricatured. An earlier form of the body has preserved the feminine, and a later form has incorporated the masculine and shaped it in a way that it must not be in the future. Therefore, the male body has become distorted because it has placed later conditions of life into an earlier period of life.

[ 15 ] Is there also a counterpart in the cosmos for this contrast between the masculine and the feminine? Is there something in the cosmos that, on the one hand, shows us a form of existence—a stage of development—that has, as it were, preserved earlier forms and carried them over into a later existence? And, on the other hand, are there forms that have transcended a certain stage, thus representing a future state in a caricatured form? If we visualize the concrete development as we know it from the Akashic Records, we might ask: Is there something out there in the cosmos like an ancient lunar existence that did not wish to enter into earthly existence, but rather retained something from that ancient lunar existence—something like a feminine principle in the cosmos? Is there something that, like an ancient lunar existence, carries an earlier stage into the present? And is there something in the cosmos that has transcended a certain stage, thickened and condensed, so that it represents a later state—a Jupiter state?

[ 16 ] This is true. The same contrast as that between male and female—in the sense as we understand it in humans—exists out there in the cosmos: it is the contrast between the cometary and the lunar, between the comet and the moon. If we wish to understand the comet in terms of its essence—how it wanders through outer space today, as it were, breaking through the other laws of the solar system—then we must realize that it is actually the laws of the ancient lunar existence that the comet brings into our existence. It has preserved these and has thus entered into our existence. It has taken on the present-day matter of the solar-Earth system, but in terms of movement and its nature, it has remained at the stage of natural law that our solar system possessed when the Earth was still a moon. It has brought an earlier state into a later one—into the present—just as the female body brings an earlier state into present-day existence. The cometary aspect is one part of such a contrast; the lunar existence, as its opposite, represents the other side. When the Moon developed out of the Earth during the Lemurian epoch, it took certain parts with it that had to be removed from the Earth so that humanity could develop as humanity at all. The Earth was not allowed to become as dense as it would have been had it retained the Moon within itself. The Moon, in fact, represents a caricatured state of Jupiter. Just as a fresh, ripe fruit stands in contrast to one that, completely shriveled, has fossilized within the matter, so the Moon, in its configuration, has advanced beyond a certain middle form, just as the masculine in human beings has, in its form during development, transcended this middle point. We find in the cosmos, between the lunar and the cometary, exactly the same contrast that we have in human life as the contrast between the masculine and the feminine.

[ 17 ] This is how things belong together: just as the sun and the earth, so the head and the limbs; just as the moon and the comet, so man and woman within the human being. But we must not go home with this and say: “Well, there we have yet another thing we can neatly file away as a contrast!” — We must take these things very seriously and be clear that in other times, something different was said. We must take into account that a man is male only in relation to his physical body, but female in relation to his etheric body; and that, conversely, a woman is female only in relation to her physical body. What applies to the feminine aspect of a woman’s physical body also applies to a man’s etheric body, so that a man’s etheric body relates to a woman’s etheric body just as a comet relates to the moon. Now, if you like, you can say: “But that just blurs everything again!” — But that’s how things are. In every culture that has created its concepts with a “thickened” brain, these concepts ultimately aim to create contours as rigid as possible, which cannot be shaken at all, so that once one has such concepts, one must cling to them completely. But the spirit will not tolerate this. The spirit is something fluid, and once we have formed concepts, we must keep them fluid. Therefore, we must also apply to the masculine in women and the feminine in men exactly what has just been said about the moon and the comet in relation to men and women. What has been said applies precisely to the masculine and feminine as they appear to us in human life, and not to men and women as they appear to us outwardly.

[ 18 ] Thus we have discovered, in a profound sense, interesting connections between human evolution and the evolution of the worlds. Certainly—as I have already pointed out—those who today occupy the academic chair of the true scientific worldview will find such ideas about comets and the moon utterly crazy and absurd. Let them think so. They simply lack the will to truly engage with the truth. We, grounded in spiritual science, can build a bridge between what arises from the spiritual realm and what presents itself to us on the physical plane. The others do not want to.

[ 19 ] In 1906, during the congress in Paris, I pointed out that spiritual research, based on its understanding of the cometary nature, can state: Since compounds of carbon and oxygen play the same role on Earth as compounds of carbon and nitrogen did during the Moon’s ancient existence—that is, cyanide compounds—the cometary realm must contain hydrocyanic acid-like compounds, cyanide compounds composed of carbon and nitrogen. Those who have followed these matters closely will have retained this information. Thus, spiritual science has long maintained that our comets contain certain cyanide-like compounds. In recent weeks, this fact has been reported in the newspapers as an external finding of spectral analysis. This is just one example; a hundred others could be cited to illustrate how spiritual research can bridge the gap to the findings of external research. In this case, spectral analysis has confirmed after many years what had already been stated years ago from the perspective of spiritual science. Nowhere do the facts of external materialistic research contradict the facts of spiritual research! One may refer to something like what has just been said when those who sit on the high horse of “true science” keep coming back and pointing to the external facts. We must simply not confuse the external facts with the narrowly defined concepts that people impose upon themselves. If everything that is considered natural science today were actually facts, then natural science would indeed contradict spiritual science; but these are not facts at all, but merely corrupt concepts of those who, due to the circumstances of our time, are called upon to deal with these matters.

[ 20 ] Now that we have brought this contrast—which is found in human life just as it is in the cosmos—into focus, we may ask ourselves the following: What, then, actually emerges from the cosmos when we consider this entire contrast between the cometary and the lunar?

[ 21 ] It is somewhat difficult to characterize, in a relatively short time, the sheer magnitude underlying this fact. Therefore, please allow me to begin by characterizing human life, so to speak, as it unfolds when we observe its outward course. First, there is something that one might describe as proceeding, in a positive sense, in a middle-class manner from day to day. One gets up in the morning, has breakfast, and then goes about whatever each day brings, following the usual routines of the day. But even in this human life, there are events that strike in and, in an instant, bring about changes in the course of everyday life. Let’s suppose a man and a woman are living a fairly middle-class life for a while, following the usual, only slightly varied daily routine. But then something else happens that actually creates a kind of jolt in the ordinary outward life of people living under such circumstances. One such external jolt occurs when a new human being incarnates and enters existence as an earthly citizen. This differs vastly from the ordinary course of daily life. But when a new citizen of the world enters the horizon of a man and a woman, something actually comes into their lives that gives the entire family context a new character. I wanted to use this as a comparison because it helps us understand, at least to some extent, the deep occult background of a comet’s existence. Life in the cosmos, so to speak, also proceeds “in a good, middle-class manner” from day to day, from year to year. The same things happen there every day: the sun rises and sets; plants bloom in the spring and wither in the fall; and whenever there is rain or sunshine, or a hailstorm or the like, it corresponds to the events that also occur in ordinary life—such as when, for example, a festive coffee party is held instead of the usual tea. We see such things continuing in the ordinary routine of life. All of this is connected to the laws that underlie the movements of the Sun, the Earth, and so on, and how they unfold year after year, day after day. But the rarer—yet in a certain sense recurring—phenomena of comets intrude upon this course in a remarkable way. They intrude upon the course of cosmic events just as a new child enters the lives of a man and a woman. Through the appearance of the comet in the cosmos, something is indeed introduced into human existence that could not be provided by the ordinary course of life. If development is to continue, there must not only be what repeats itself from day to day, but something new must be woven into this fabric. Just as something very special enters into the life of an individual family with the arrival of a new child, so too does something entirely different enter into the progress of the human race on Earth through this phenomenon of the comet, which breaks through the ordinary course of worldly existence. Something new is, in a sense, actually born when the comet enters the world.

[ 22 ] For those who are able to examine these things spiritually, there is the opportunity to point out very precisely how individual comets fulfill their functions, introducing this or that new spiritual element into the world. Thus, Halley’s Comet is one of those that, as it appears periodically, repeatedly gives rise to something very specific and new in human life. While things otherwise repeat themselves in the usual way, the comet brings about a spiritual and cultural rebirth. I can illustrate what this means by citing just the last three appearances of Halley’s Comet—in 1759, 1835, and the one we are currently facing. What kind of task—since other comets have different tasks—is assigned to these last three appearances?

[ 23 ] New births in space are not merely those that we welcome with the same joy as a young Earthling joining a family. In the cosmos, everything is born that moves humanity forward—or even backward. Now, the appearance of Halley’s Comet—that is, its spiritual significance for the further development of humanity—is connected to what humanity had to absorb from the cosmos during the various periods of the Kali Yuga in order to descend ever further into materiality in terms of thought. With each new appearance, a new impulse was born for humanity to drive the “I” down from a spiritual worldview in order to perceive the world in a more materialistic way. This does not mean a descent into matter, but rather what the human “I” must absorb from the cosmos in terms of spiritual substance in order to be driven down from a spiritual existence into the sphere of materialistic views. All those views from the second half of the 18th century, known as the “shallow Enlightenment”—and which Goethe so mocked in Poetry and Truth as the kind of views exemplified, for instance, in Holbach’s Système de la Nature—can be understood cosmologically through the appearance of Halley’s Comet in 1759. The banal maternalistic literature of the second third of the 19th century was preceded by the appearance of Halley’s Comet in 1835. The things that happen on Earth in a microcosmic sense are connected in a macrocosmic sense to the things in the greater world. With the appearance of Halley’s Comet in 1835, a new impulse was once again born into materialism. And Büchner, Vogt, and Moleschott are the ones who live out on Earth what appeared from the cosmos like a mighty sign with Halley’s Comet. And now we stand before it—because humanity must be tested, must strive upward from within itself, must feel the resistance of spirituality, in order to then unfold all the more strength for its ascent— now we stand before the prospect that, with the reappearance of Halley’s Comet, we may be sent from outer space forces capable of leading humanity into an even more shallow, even more abominable materialism. Something may come into being that perhaps even the most shallow of Büchnerianists cannot conceive. This possibility must be acknowledged. For only when human beings overcome the forces that oppose them can they appropriate the powerful, uplifting forces from outer space.

[ 24 ] If we keep this in mind, we will face in the right way what we might call signs from heaven. This is certainly the case, provided it is not interpreted superstitiously, but rather in accordance with the great laws of the universe: Once again, the Lord is wielding the rod of heaven to show humanity what it must do. And the current appearance of Halley’s Comet is one that must be heeded. For a powerful impulse toward ascent must occur in order to emerge from our immersion in a materialistic worldview and turn toward spirituality. Just as we are given the opportunity to sink into materialism, so, on the other hand, we are given the opportunity to ascend to brighter, more spiritual heights.

[ 25 ] In recent lectures, it has been clearly stated that, even in the first half of the 20th century, etheric clairvoyance can develop as a natural faculty in certain individuals. So that human beings need not sink any further into materialism—a fact now, in 1910, being signaled to them through a sign—it can already be clear today to those who have an understanding of spiritual science that within the bosom of the human soul there are developing forces capable of leading human beings beyond all materialism. If human beings understand these forces, they will be able to teach them to see the etheric nature of Christ for themselves. We are living at an important crossroads, where even signs from heaven are teaching humanity that the path on one side can lead even further into the materialistic quagmire, while on the other side it leads to where the forces must develop within human beings that will lead to etheric clairvoyance after the end of the Kali Yuga. It is truly the case with us that John the Baptist’s call—“Repent!”—also applies to our time. This can certainly be emphasized. Just as, on the one hand, we are given the possibility of sinking into the materialistic quagmire, so, on the other hand, we are given the opportunity—through the sun reaching a certain point in the constellation of Pisces at the vernal equinox—to attain a certain form of etheric clairvoyance. The signs in the cosmos are also there for spiritual ascent, indicating to us how the forces come from the cosmos. By immersing themselves in spiritual science, human beings must acquire an understanding of this decision. And only those who acquire this understanding for the decision truly understand spiritual science. We must pass through the trial imposed upon us by the signs of the heavens, which we have now recognized, for example, in the appearance of Halley’s Comet.

[ 26 ] Let us now imagine the manifestation of Christ as it will appear to the first pioneers over the next 2,500 years, just as it did for Paul on the road to Damascus. Human beings will ascend to the knowledge of the spiritual world; they will see the physical world permeated by a new realm, a new kingdom. Over the next 2,500 years, the appearance of the physical environment will change for human beings, as an ethereal realm—which already exists but which they must first learn to see—will enter their perception. This etheric realm is already spread out before those who have brought their esoteric training to the point of enlightenment, including the initiates of the Kali Yuga. Thus, what people will increasingly see in the future is already present for the initiate, extending up to the highest heights. And the initiate repeatedly draws strength from this realm after a certain period of time, whenever he needs it. When he has a task to carry out, he draws his strength from that part of the earthly sphere visible to the initiate—a realm that exists but is accessible only to those who can perceive it. This can help us understand that a part of that land, from which the initiate has repeatedly drawn his strength during the Kali Yuga, will extend over a large portion of humanity for the next 2,500 years.

[ 27 ] In the past, during the era of ancient clairvoyance, human beings could look into the spiritual world without a strong sense of self, so that even then they saw, in a certain sense, what they will see again now—but this time, they will enter it with their new sense of self. Back then, they saw it in dreamlike, ecstatic states, or by looking into their own souls. Back then, this world lay before the gaze, which during the Kali Yuga has become merely a physical gaze. That is why the traditions that have preserved a memory of the ancient clairvoyance tell us of an unknown fairy-tale land that has vanished from the sight of modern humans. And in Eastern literature there are wonderful writings with a peculiar, tragic magic in their content, which say something like this: Once upon a time, in the human realm, there was the possibility of making a pilgrimage to a land where everything spiritual had flowed out into the physical and sensory. It is the land from which, at appropriate times, the initiates—and from which the Bodhisattvas—draw their strength time and again. Oriental writings speak of this land with deep melancholy; in some, it is said: “Where is it?” We are told the names of the places, and paths are described, but it has remained hidden even from the most revered lamas of Tibet. It is accessible only to the initiated! But it is said that this land will return to Earth. And this is true: It will return to Earth! And the guide to it will be the one whom people will see when, through the Damascus experience, they enter the land of “Shamballa.” Shamballa—that is the name of the land—has withdrawn from human sight. Today, it can be entered only by those who, as initiates, must go there at specific intervals to draw strength from it. The old forces no longer lead into the land of Shamballa. That is why the Eastern scriptures speak with such tragic melancholy of the lost land of Shamballa. But the Christ Event—which will be bestowed upon humanity in this century through the awakened new abilities—will bring back the fairy-tale land of Shamballa, which during the Kali Yuga was essentially known only to the initiated.

[ 28 ] Humanity thus faces a decision: Either to be led down by what comes through Halley’s Comet into a darkness that lies even below the Kali Yuga, or—through anthroposophical understanding—not to overlook what is inherent in new abilities, in order to find the paths to the land that, according to Eastern literature, has disappeared today, but which the Christ will reveal to humanity once more: the land of Shamballa. This is the crucial point at the crossroads: either down or up; either into something that, as a world Kamaloka, lies even below the Kali Yuga, or into that which enables human beings to enter the realm that is truly meant by the name Shamballa.