The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Tenth Lecture

[ 1 ] It is undoubtedly evident in our time that the spirit of the worldview of Spiritual Science—which has been discussed for years now in this branch and indeed throughout our German Section—is beginning to take root more and more in the world and to find understanding in the hearts and minds of our contemporaries. Of course, it is not possible—though this might at times be quite desirable for mutual understanding—to speak now and then about the introduction of our Spiritual Science sensibilities, feelings, and insights into the present world. Certainly, many of you would like to know how what you yourselves take into your souls as spiritual nourishment affects other hearts and other personalities in our time. After all, we can only speak of this outward dissemination of our Spiritual Science outlook on certain occasions. But it may perhaps fill you with a certain satisfaction when I say, by way of introduction, that we can see time and again how, in the various regions of the world, under the various skies, the spirit that animates us all is making its way there—more so in some places, less so in others. When, some time ago, I sought to awaken an understanding of our ideas in Trieste, a city in the southern part of Austria, it was evident that the views we cherish were already beginning to take root there as well. And if we travel northward from this southern point to Copenhagen, where in recent days a series of lectures has succeeded in bringing to people’s hearts what we recognize as Spirit, we could see there as well, among our northern friends, how the Spirit we cultivate under the sign of the Rosicrucians is taking hold more and more. When one considers individual examples of such external facts, it becomes evident that there is a need and a longing in our present time for what we call Spiritual Science.

[ 2 ] It is indeed the very essence of that mindset that permeates our spiritual orientation—not to engage in any kind of agitation or propaganda in an external sense, but simply to listen for what the hearts and souls of people today need from the great, all-encompassing wisdom of the world—what they need in order to have the possibility and security of life in our time. Here, building on the idea of a broader perspective, we can reflect on the fact that, in a sense, it is a kind of obligation for us in our time to make this spiritual attitude the nourishment of our souls. This is, after all, connected to the very way in which we have grown into our time. We have certainly all absorbed enough of the great law of karma to know that it is no coincidence, no trivial matter, when this or that individual feels compelled, precisely at this very specific time, to descend into the physical world to take on a physical body. And all of the souls sitting here have felt the longing to take on a physical body at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, because what can be cultivated and accomplished within the physical environment during this time is something these souls—your souls—wish to experience.

[ 3 ] Let us consider our time as it appears spiritually to souls who—like our own—have just been born into our era. Things are truly quite different at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries—both in the spiritual realm and out there in the exoteric world—than they were even fifty or sixty years ago. The person growing up today—and you were all in this situation—tries here and there to hear about what the Spirit is, what spiritual guidance and leadership in the world entail, what permeates the outer world through the creations of the various kingdoms of nature, and what enters our soul. And we may say that for half a century now, a soul yearning for the spiritual has found extraordinarily little wherever it seeks to receive genuine, spiritual nourishment. Yes, deep within the soul this longing exists; it can at most be stifled when it does not seem to speak aloud; this longing is there, and everyone—no matter where they stand in life or what they are called upon to do—wishes to receive spiritual, genuine nourishment. Whether one engages today in the field of any science—one learns only the outer, material facts, which, though utilized in a clever, magnificent, and astute way to bring about the great cultural advances of the present, do not reveal what the spirit seeks to make known. Whether one is active in the world as an artist or engaged in a more practical branch of life: everywhere one finds little of what is needed to enable the spirit, mind, and hands to function—so that we may have not only the strength and impulse to work, but also security, comfort, and strength in life. And people at the beginning of the 19th century already sensed, in a certain way, that little of this would be available in the near future. Many people in the first half of the 19th century—when remnants of an old spiritual life still existed, albeit in a different form—said to themselves: There is something in the air suggesting a complete disappearance of the old spiritual treasures that have been handed down through tradition from ancient times. But it is precisely the justified cultural advances of the 19th century that will completely wipe out the spiritual heritage handed down to us from ancient times.

[ 4 ] We hear some such voices. And I would like to cite a few examples here to bear witness to how such voices resounded in the first half of the 19th century. Let us hear the voice of a man here among us who, in the first half of the 19th century, knew a great deal about the old form of theosophy, so to speak; who also knew that this old form would now have to disappear completely in the course of the events of the 19th century; but who, at the same time, was firmly convinced that there must be a future in which the old theosophy would return. The words I am now going to read aloud were written down in 1847, that is, as the first half of the 19th century was drawing to a close. And the person who wrote them down was one of those thinkers who no longer exist today, who still sensed the last echoes of those ancient traditions, which, admittedly, had been lost even longer ago:

[ 5 ] “What theosophy actually seeks is often difficult to discern among the older theosophists, … but it is no less clear that, on its current path, theosophy cannot achieve scientific legitimacy and, consequently, cannot have a broader impact. It would be very hasty to conclude from this that it is, in general, a scientifically unfounded and merely ephemeral phenomenon. History, however, speaks loudly enough against this. It tells us how this enigmatic phenomenon has never been able to take root, and yet has repeatedly emerged anew; indeed, it is held together by the chain of an unbroken tradition in its most diverse forms. ... Indeed, there have always been few times when this vibrant speculative need has been combined with a vibrant religious need. But theosophy is intended only for the latter. ... And what is most important is that, once it has become a true science—and has thus produced clearly defined results—these will gradually become part of general belief or gain popular acceptance, and will thus be passed down as universally valid truths to those who cannot find their way along the paths by which they were discovered and could only be discovered.

[ 6 ] But this lies in the bosom of the future, which we do not wish to anticipate; for now, let us gratefully enjoy dear Oetinger’s beautiful account, which can certainly count on a wide audience.»

[ 7 ] Thus we see how the theosophical spirit was perceived in 1847 by a man like Rothe in Heidelberg, who, in his preface, refers to a theosophist, Oetinger, from the second half of the 18th century.

[ 8 ] What, then, is the theosophical spirit, really? It is a spirit without which the world’s true cultural achievements could never have come to pass. And if we think of the greatest examples: it is the spirit without which there would never have been a Homer, a Pindar, a Raphael, or a Michelangelo—without which there would be no religious depth in humanity, nor any spiritual life, nor any external culture. For everything that a human being wishes to create, he must create out of the spirit. And if he believes he can create without the spirit, he does not realize that the entire spiritual striving falls into decay for certain periods, and that something which originates to a lesser degree from the spirit is all the more doomed to death than that which is created from the spirit. What has eternal value originates from the spirit, and no creation endures that does not originate from the spirit. But even the smallest act, even when performed in daily life, has eternal value and connects us to the spiritual, for everything a human being does is guided by spiritual life. We, in our theosophical life as we practice it, know that this life is founded upon the current we call the Rosicrucian current, and we have often emphasized that the Masters of Rosicrucian wisdom have, since the 11th, 12th, 13th centuries, have prepared the way for what began to take place at the end of the 19th century and what will continue to unfold in the 20th. What Rothe in Heidelberg, for example, describes as the future—what he yearns for and hopes for—is, after all, already the present for us. And it is becoming more and more the present for us. But this has long been prepared by those who first allowed this spiritual current to flow into souls in a way imperceptible to human beings. In a specific sense, what we call the Rosicrucian Path—which has existed since the 12th, 13th, and 14th centuries—is present in our theosophical movement in a more conscious form—that which flowed into the hearts and into science since the 11th, 12th, 13th, and 14th centuries, and which shaped the spirit of the people of Europe.

[ 9 ] Can we gain a mental image of how this spirit actually operated from the events that have taken place in our culture? I said that since the 11th, 12th, 13th, and 14th centuries, it has been at work as the true Rosicrucian spirit; but it has always been there, having merely taken on its most recent Rosicrucian form since that period. This spirit, which is now at work as the Rosicrucian spirit, dates back to the dawn of humanity. It already had its mysteries in the ancient Atlantean era. And what has unfolded its activity in more recent times flowed—becoming ever more conscious—unconsciously into the hearts and souls of people in earlier times, in times that lie not so long behind our own.

[ 10 ] Let us try to create a mental image of how this spirit unconsciously flowed into humanity. You are sitting here together. Together we nurture what shows us: In one way or another, the human soul develops in order to gradually ascend into the realms where it can understand spiritual life, where it may even be able to perceive spiritual life. Many of you have been striving for years to allow the concepts and ideas that reflect spiritual life to flow into your souls, so that you may draw spiritual nourishment from these concepts and ideas. You are familiar with the way in which we communicate about the mysteries of the world. I have often spoken of how the various stages of the soul’s development unfold, and how the soul ascends into the higher worlds. It has been explained how a human being must distinguish a higher part of their self from a lower part, it has been described how human beings have come over from other planetary states, how they have undergone a Saturn, a Solar, and a Lunar evolution in which their physical body, etheric body, and astral body were formed, and how they then began their earthly evolution. It has been explained how there is something within us that is meant to undergo training here in order to ascend to a higher state. It has also been explained that certain beings on the Moon remained behind as Luciferic beings, who later set out as tempters to influence the human astral body, in order to give human beings what they were able to give them. We have often spoken of how human beings must overcome this or that within their lower self, how they must conquer this or that in order to ascend to the spheres to which their higher self belongs, and how, in order to ascend to the higher regions of spiritual life, they must fulfill Goethe’s words: “/p”

[ 11 ] And as long as you do not have this,
This dying and becoming,
You are but a gloomy guest
On this dark earth!

[ 12 ] We have further stated that the human development that is possible today—and that can give us strength, security, and a true purpose in life—can be achieved by, for example, acquiring knowledge of the multi-fold nature of the human being; by learning to understand that the human being is not a chaotic assemblage, but consists of a physical body, an etheric body, an astral body, and an “I.” We did not perceive what was meant by this as mere words, but through the characterization of the various temperaments, through the consideration of human upbringing—as it proceeds as the development of the physical body up to the age of seven, of the etheric body up to the age of fourteen, and of the astral body up to the age of twenty-one—we have formed specific mental images of these things. And through reflections on the mission of truth, devotion, anger, and so on, we have come to see that what we have come to know as the physical body, etheric body, astral body, the soul of feeling, the soul of understanding or emotion, and the soul of consciousness—are not merely abstract concepts, but rather how they enliven our perceptions of life and make our surroundings transparent, clear, and rich in meaning.

[ 13 ] This is how we come to understand the mysteries of the world. We can come to an understanding about this today. And even though there are still many people out there who, consciously or unconsciously, remain entrenched in materialism, there is nevertheless a certain number of souls who feel it is a necessity of life to listen to such explanations as can be given. Many of you would not have been sitting here for years, sharing in and empathizing with what we do here, if it were not a necessity of life for you. Why are there souls today who understand this, who can trace the human path of life in the concepts and perspectives we develop here? This is the case for the following reason. Just as you were born today into a world—such as the one I just tried to describe—with such longings, so too were our ancestors in Europe—that is, a large number of the souls present here today—born through the centuries past into a different environment, into a world other than that of the 19th century. Let us look back to the 6th, 7th, or even the 12th and 13th centuries, when many of the souls seated here were incarnated at that time, and let us consider what such souls experienced back then.

[ 14 ] In those days, however, there was no Theosophical Society where people talked about everything the way we do today; rather, back then, the soul heard something entirely different from its surroundings. Let us try to imagine what souls heard back then—from those who did not travel around giving lectures on Spiritual Science, but who, as rhapsodes or in some other way, went from village to village and from town to town to proclaim the Spirit. What words did such people speak back then? Let us consider a single example. Back then, people did not yet say: “There is a theosophy, a doctrine of the lower and higher ‘I’; “human beings have a physical body, an etheric body, an astral body, and so on”; rather, rhapsodes traveled about—that is, people who were called to proclaim the Spirit—and told stories such as the following—and I would now like to repeat some of what was particularly recited throughout Central and Eastern Europe at that time:

[ 15 ] Once upon a time, there was a prince. He rode out into the countryside and came to a ditch, where he heard a whimpering sound coming from inside it. He followed the course of the ditch to see what was making the sound and found an old woman inside. So he left his horse there, climbed down into the ditch, and helped the old woman up, for she had fallen into the ditch. When he saw that she could not walk because she had injured her leg, he asked her how she had come to have this accident. Then the woman told him: “I am an old woman, and I must go into town early after midnight to sell eggs; and that’s when I fell into the ditch.” Then the prince said to her, “Look, you can’t go home now, so I’ll put you on my horse and take you home.” And that is what he did. Then the woman said to him, “Although you are of noble birth, you are still a kind and good person, and because you helped me, you shall receive a reward from me.” And he now sensed that she was more than just an old woman, for she said: “Because you have shown me such kindness, you shall receive the reward your good soul deserves. Do you want to marry the daughter of the Flower Queen?”—“Yes!” he said. And she continued: “For that, you’ll need something I can easily give you.” And then she gave him a little bell, saying: “If you ring it once, the Eagle King will come with his hosts and help you in a situation you will surely face; if you ring it twice, the Fox King will come with his hosts and help you in a situation you will surely face; and if you ring it three times, the Fish King will come with his hosts and help you in a situation you will surely face.” - The prince took the little bell, went home, and announced that he wanted to seek out the Flower Queen’s daughter, then rode off. He rode for a long, long time, and no one could tell him where the Flower Queen and her daughter lived. By then, his horse had become unusable and had completely perished, so he had to continue his journey on foot. Then he came upon an old man, whom he asked where the Flower Queen lived. “I cannot tell you,” the old man replied, “but just keep going, farther and farther, and you will find my father; perhaps he will be able to tell you.” So the prince walked on for many, many years and found a very, very old man. He asked him, “Can you tell me where the Flower Queen lives?” But the old man replied, “I cannot tell you. But just keep going, farther and farther, for many more years; there you will find my father, and he will certainly be able to tell you where the Flower Queen lives.” So the prince continued on his way and finally found a very old man, whom he asked if he could tell him where the Flower Queen lived with her daughter. Then the old man said to him, “The Flower Queen lives far away on a mountain that you can see from here in the distance. But she is guarded by a fierce dragon. You cannot approach her for now, because the dragon never sleeps at this time; he only sleeps for a certain time, and right now is his waking hour. But you must walk a little farther, to the other mountain; that is where the dragon mother lives, and through her you will reach your destination.” So he bravely continued on, came to the first mountain, then to the second mountain, and there found the dragon mother, the very embodiment of ugliness. But he knew that it depended on her whether he could find the Flower Queen’s daughter. Then he saw seven other dragons around her, all eager to guard the Flower Queen and her daughter, who were held captive and were to be rescued by the prince. Then he said to the dragon mother: “Oh, I realize that I must become your servant if I am to find the Flower Queen!” “Yes,” she said, “you must become my servant, but you must perform a task that is not easy. Here is a horse; you must lead it out to pasture on the first day, the second day, and the third day.” If you bring it home safe and sound, then perhaps after three days you will achieve what you want. But if you do not bring it home safe and sound, the dragons will devour you—we will all devour you!” — The prince agreed, and the next morning the horse was handed over to him. He wanted to lead it out to pasture, but soon it had disappeared. He searched for it but couldn’t find it, and this made him very unhappy. Then he remembered the little bell the old woman had given him, took it out, and rang it once. Then

[ 16 ] Many eagles, led by the Eagle King, searched for the horse, and he was thus able to return it to the Dragon Mother. She said to him: “Since you’ve brought the horse back, I’ll give you a copper cloak, so you can attend the ball taking place tonight in the circle of the Flower Queen and her daughter.” On the second day, he was to lead the horse back to the pasture. It was handed over to him again, but soon it had disappeared once more, and he could not find it anywhere. So he took out his little bell and rang it twice. Immediately, the Fox King appeared, followed by many of his army, who searched for the horse, and he was able to return it to the Dragon Mother. Then she said to him, “Today you will receive a silver cloak; with it, you can go again to the ball taking place tonight among the Flower Queen and her daughter.” — But at the ball, the Flower Queen said to him, “On the third day, ask for a foal from this horse! With this foal, you can redeem me, and we will be united.” - On the third day, the horse was handed over to him again so he could lead it to the pasture. Soon it had disappeared once more, for it was very wild. So he pulled out the little bell, rang it three times, and the Fish King came with his army; they searched for the horse for him, and he thus brought it home for the third time. He had happily completed his task. Then the Dragon Mother gave him a golden cloak as a reward—his third garment—so that he could attend the ball at the Flower Queen’s on the third day. And in addition, as the gift he deserved, he received the foal of the horse he had tended. With it, he was then able to escort the Flower Queen and her daughter to their own castle. And around the castle—since everyone else wanted to kidnap the daughter—she caused a dense wall of brush to grow, so that the castle could not be taken. And then the Flower Queen said to the prince: “You have won my daughter; you shall have her from now on, but only on one condition: you may have her for only half a year; the other half of the year she must return beneath the earth’s surface so that she may be united with me, for only in this way is it possible for you to be united with her.” — And so he won the Flower Queen’s daughter and lived with her for half a year at a time, while she spent the other half of the year with her mother.

[ 17 ] These and other stories found their way into many, many souls back then. The souls listened intently and took them in—but they did not take them in order to interpret them allegorically, as some strange modern-day theosophists might do, for these things are worthless as symbolic or allegorical interpretations. No, people absorbed them because they took delight and pleasure in them, because they felt the warmth of life coursing through their souls as they listened to such tales. And they wanted nothing more when this warmth coursed through their souls, when they were told of the prince, of his deeds with the little bell, and of his winning the hand of the Flower Queen’s daughter. And many souls are alive today who heard such things back then and received them with delight and joy. And when something like this is received for the delight and satisfaction of the soul, it lives on within the soul. Then such souls take in thought-forms through feelings and sensations, and they become something different from what they were before. This bears fruit; it gives strength to the souls, and these forces transform, becoming something else. What, then, have they become? They have become what now exists in the souls as a longing for a higher interpretation of those very same mysteries, as a longing for Spiritual Science. Back then, the rhapsodes did not say: There is a human being who strives upward toward the higher Self and, to do so, must overcome what seeks to pull him down—namely, his lower Self. Instead, they told the story of a prince who set out, found a ditch from which a whimpering sound rose, and performed a good deed. Today we say: A person must do something that is a good deed, an act of love and sacrifice. In those days, such actions were recounted in symbolic terms. Today we say: A person must cultivate within themselves that spiritual disposition through which they gain a sense of the spiritual world, a connection to it, and through which they become capable of developing their powers in such a way that they can enter into a relationship with the spiritual world. Back then, this was expressed in a metaphor: The old woman gave the prince a little bell, which he rang. Today it is said: Human beings have taken the other kingdoms of nature into themselves; what is spread out before them, human beings have harmoniously united within themselves. But they must understand how what is spread out outside lives within them, and can overcome their lower nature only by bringing what acts in the kingdoms of nature into the right relationship with themselves, so that it can come to their aid.

[ 18 ] How often have we spoken of humanity’s evolution through the Saturn, Sun, and Moon eras, of how it left the other kingdoms behind and drew out the very best from them in order to ascend to a higher plane. What has he evolved into? Into that for which Plato already used an image to point to what lives in the human soul: the image of the horse on which he rides from incarnation to incarnation. Back then, people used the image of the little bell that was rung so that the kingdoms of nature—represented by the eagle king, the fox king, and the fish king—would come to place what was to become the ruler of the three kingdoms of nature in its proper perspective.

[ 19 ] The human soul is wild, and it is only when love and wisdom take hold of it and soothe it that a person finds the right balance. Back then, this was presented to people in a figurative way. The soul was guided so that it could understand what we tell differently today. Back then, the story went like this: If he rang the little bell once, the Eagle King would come; if he rang it twice, the Fox King would come; and if he rang it three times, the Fish King would come—and they would bring the horse back. This means that the storms of the human soul, which rage wildly, must be recognized, and when we recognize them, the soul can also be freed from the lower aspects and brought into order.

[ 20 ] We say: Human beings must come to understand how their own passions, anger, and so on are connected, in their own development, to their progression from seven to seven years of age; that is to say, we must come to understand the threefold nature of the human being in the course of human life. Back then, people used this magnificent image: Every time the prince rang the little bell—that is, every time he brought one of the kingdoms under his control—he received a sheath. —Today we say: We study the nature of the physical body. Back then, they used this image: The dragon mother gave him a copper cloak. We say: We come to know the nature of our etheric body. Back then: The dragon mother gave him a silver cloak a second time. We go on to say: We are getting to know our astral body with all its ebbing and flowing passions, and so on. Back then, the image was used to say: On the third day, the dragon mother gave him a golden cloak. — What we learn today in our concepts about the threefold nature of the human being’s sheaths was inspired back then by the image of the copper, silver, and golden cloaks. And for the souls who back then absorbed the thought-forms of the copper, silver, and golden cloaks, we say today what might awaken in them an understanding of the dense physical body, which relates to the other human sheaths as copper ore does to silver and gold. - We say today: There are Luciferic beings of seven kinds who have remained behind on the Moon and who approach the human astral body. Back then, the rhapsode said: When the king’s son came to the mountain where he was to find union with the daughter of the Queen of Flowers, he encountered seven dragons who wanted to devour him if he did not properly fulfill his daily task. We know: If our development does not proceed in the right way, our development is corrupted by the forces of the Luciferic entities, which are of sevenfold nature. — Today we say: As we undergo spiritual development, we find our higher self. Back then, the image presented was: The prince united with the Flower Queen. — And we say: The human soul must enter into a certain rhythm.

[ 21 ] A few weeks ago, I said: When an idea arises within the human soul, it must allow that idea to mature over time, and in doing so, it will be able to observe a certain rhythm; for after seven days, the idea has penetrated into the depths of the soul; after fourteen days, the now-matured idea can take hold of the outer astral substance and be baptized by the World Spirit; after twenty-one days, it has matured further, and only after four times seven days is it ready for us to present it to the world as our own personal creation. This is an inner rhythm of the soul. And only those who do not greedily force whatever comes to mind into the world, but who know that the regularity of the outer world is repeated in their own soul—that we must live in such a way that we repeat the macrocosm microcosmically within ourselves—can create in a positive sense. —The rhapsode said: Human beings must bring their soul forces into harmony; they must seek out the daughter of the Queen of Flowers and enter into a marriage with her, in which they live with the daughter for one part of the year and leave her to her mother—who works in the depths—for the other part of the year. This means that human beings attune themselves to a rhythm, and the rhythm of their lives unfolds like the rhythm of the macrocosm.

[ 22 ] These images—and we could cite hundreds of such images—stimulated the soul’s powers through their thought-forms, so that today the corresponding souls have matured enough to receive the other form of knowledge that we cultivate in Spiritual Science. But it had to come to pass that—one might say—through deprivation, the longing grew all the greater; first, everything that lived in the soul as spiritual longing had to disappear, as it were, from the physical world. So much disappeared in the first half of the 19th century. With the second half of the 19th century came materialistic culture, and spiritual life grew barren. But the longing grew all the greater, and the ideal of the spiritual movement all the more significant. There were only a few people who, as if in a silent martyrdom during the first half of the 19th century, still sensed how the ideas—once glimpsed and then recounted—lived on, yet were in the process of perishing.

[ 23 ] A man was born in the year 1803. Within his soul, something of the echoes of the ancient wisdom of bygone times was still very much alive. Something lived within him that was closely related to our theosophical idea. His soul was filled with what we today call the solution to the world’s mysteries from the field of Spiritual Science: this is Julius Mosen. His soul could only endure because his body was confined to bed for most of his life. The soul no longer fit within the body, for through the way he had grasped these things—yet was unable to penetrate them spiritually—he had drawn his etheric body out of his physical body, which was thereby paralyzed. The soul, however, rose to the spiritual heights. In 1831 he wrote a remarkable work, Ritter Wahn. He had become aware that a wondrous legend lived on in Italy—an ancient Italian folk legend about Ritter Wahn—and as he contemplated this legend, he said to himself: Within it lives the Spirit of the World; this folk legend came into being, and these images were shaped, because those who formed them were imbued with the living spiritual essence of the world’s guidance. — And what did he accomplish with this? In 1831, he wrote a work that was marvelous and captivatingly grand. It has, of course, been forgotten—like all things that spring from such spiritual greatness.

[ 24 ] Knight Wahn sets out to overcome Death. On his way, he encounters three old men. Julius Mosen has now succeeded, in a remarkable way, in translating the name of one of the old men, il mondo, as Ird; for he knew that there was something peculiar about it that needed to be conveyed in the German language. Ird, Time, and Space are the three old men that Knight Wahn encounters as he sets out to overcome death. But he has no use for these three old men, for they are subject to death. Ird is everything that is subject to the laws of the physical body and thus to death. Time, the etheric body, is subject to transience. And the third, the lower astral body, which gives us the perception of space, is also subject to death. Our individuality passes from incarnation to incarnation; but what we are enclosed in—our threefold sheath—lives on, according to the Italian folk tale, in Earth, Time, and Space.

[ 25 ] What is Knight Delusion? We have often spoken of what enters us as maya. It is we ourselves—we human beings—who move from incarnation to incarnation, look out into the world, and receive the great illusion. Each of us is Ritter Wahn, and each of us sets out to lead a life in the spirit of conquering death. There we encounter the three old men—our sheaths. They are ancient! The physical body has existed since the Saturnic Age, the etheric body since the Solar Age, the astral body since the Lunar Age, and what lives as the “I” within the human being has become integrated during the Earth Age. Julius Mosen now depicts it this way: Knight Delusion, with the soul through which he intends to conquer death, first seeks to charge forward as a horseman—following the Platonic image that has been alive throughout Central Europe and far beyond. Thus Knight Wahn charges forward, seeking to conquer heaven with materialistic thinking, just like those who cling to the illusion of meaning because they remain trapped in delusion and Maya. But when they too enter the spiritual world upon death, what Julius Mosen so beautifully depicted occurs: they have not lived out their lives to the full; they long to return to Earth for the further development of the soul. And Ritter Wahn comes back down. And when he beholds the beautiful Morgane—the soul meant to be inspired by all that is earthly and, as the daughter of the Flower Queen, to symbolize the union with all that can be given to us only through the school of the Earth—then, as he is so connected to the beautiful Morgane, as he is once again connected to the Earth, he, too, succumbs to death—that is to say, he passes through death in order to lift this very soul of his, which appears as Morgane, ever higher during each incarnation.

[ 26 ] From these images, which bear the imprint of millennia, ideas flow in and find expression in artists such as Julius Mosen, in whom they struggled to emerge from a soul too great to live healthily within a body during the encroaching materialistic age, so that he had to endure silent martyrdom for the greatness of his ardent soul. That was in 1831. That lived within a person of the first half of the 19th century. It is to rise again, but now in such a way that it kindles human strength and human power. And it will rise again! And this gives us an awareness of the significance of what we recognize as the theosophical spirit and what is to enter into people as the Rosicrucian spirit.

[ 27 ] Now we sense that what we ourselves nurture has always been present. We fall prey to the illusions of the Knight’s Delusion if we were to assume that anything in the world can flourish without this spirit working through the veins of human beings. Where, then, did the rhapsodes of the 7th, 8th, or 12th centuries come from, who set out into the world to stir the thought-forms so that souls might now grasp something different? Where was the center of these rhapsodes? Where had they learned to present such images to people?—They had learned it in the very same temples that we must regard as the schools of the Rosicrucians. They were disciples of the Rosicrucians, and their teachers told them: “Today you cannot yet go out and speak to people in ideas, as will be the case later; today you must tell of the prince, the flower queen, and the threefold cloak, so that the thought-forms may take shape that are to live within the souls.” And when the souls return, they will understand what they need for further progress. — Time and again, the spiritual centers send their emissaries into the world so that, in every age, what lies in the depths of the spirit may be brought to human souls.

[ 28 ] It is a trivial notion for people today to believe that they can create fairy tales out of their own imaginations. The ancient fairy tales, which are an expression of the world’s ancient spiritual mysteries, came into being in such a way that those who shaped them for the world listened intently to those who could recount these spiritual mysteries to them, so that the structure and composition of the tales are in accordance with those spiritual mysteries. That is why we can say: The spirit of all humanity, of the microcosm and the macrocosm, lives within them.

[ 29 ] From these very temples, the rhapsodes were sent forth to recount meaningful tales, and from these very temples come the teachings of today that enter the souls and hearts of people to make possible the culture that humanity needs. Thus the Spirit that underlies humanity advances from epoch to epoch. Those beings who, in pre-Christian times, instructed the individuals seated in the sacred temples and taught what they themselves had brought with them from earlier planetary states, placed themselves under the guidance of Christ—this unique individual—in order to continue working in accordance with his spirit. Christ has become the great Teacher, the Guide of humanity. And if I could tell you today that the fairy tales that have lived on for centuries arose in the same way, and that within the whole of Western culture they have inspired thought-forms that express the same thing— albeit in symbolic form, just as what we speak of today regarding Christ to the world, then you would see how, in the time following the Mystery of Golgotha, the spiritual guidance of humanity at its central sites has in fact placed itself under the guidance of Christ. Thus, everything in spiritual guidance is connected to Christ. When we become aware of this connection, we look up to the light that we must have—a light we must make particular use of in relation to what souls longed for when they incarnated in the 19th century.

[ 30 ] When we allow such figures to influence us—figures who acquaint us with the longings of bygone eras—we feel the full weight of responsibility resting upon our souls: The others have waited so that we might accomplish what they longed for! What these spirits—such as Julius Mosen, who created a “Ritter Wahn” and an “Ahasver”—like a final prophet of the West—longed for, because what came to life within them was what the emissaries of the holy temples had recounted in images, in hundreds and hundreds of images, to prepare souls for the time to come—what these spirits longed for is revealed in the words that Rothe wrote in Heidelberg in 1847: “Once it has become true science, and has thus produced clearly defined results, these will gradually become part of general conviction or gain popularity, and will thus be passed down as universally accepted truths to those who cannot find their way along the paths on which they were discovered—and could only be discovered!” At that time, a man who yearned—not only for himself but also for his contemporaries—had to find solace in these resigned words: “Yet this lies in the bosom of the future, which we do not wish to anticipate!” In 1847, those who know the secrets of the Rosicrucian temples had not spoken in a way that was outwardly audible. But what lies in the bosom of the future can come to life if enough souls are found who know that knowledge is a duty, because we must not return our soul to the World Spirit in an undeveloped state; for otherwise we have deprived the World Spirit itself of something that it has incorporated into us as powers. If such souls are found—those who know what they owe to the World Spirit by striving for knowledge of the world’s mysteries—then the hopes cherished by the finest people of old will be fulfilled. Yes, they looked to us, as to those who would come after them, and said: Once it has become a science, it must become popular; it must capture the hearts!—These hearts must first be there; they must appear! It depends on those who, with true understanding, are part of our association striving for the spiritual, to know: I must have it—this spiritual illumination of the mysteries of existence! It depends on every single soul in our association whether such deeply felt longings were merely a vain dream of those who hoped for the best for us, or whether they were valuable dreams that we will fulfill for them.

[ 31 ] When we see the scientific wasteland of our time—the wasteland in art, in social life, and everywhere—we must tell ourselves: We do not have to be swallowed up by this wasteland; we can find our way out of it. For once again a time has dawned in which the sacred temples speak—and now not merely in images and fairy tales, but in truths that, though still regarded by many today as mere theories, can and must increasingly become the life-giving sap, the blood of the soul. Every single person can resolve to absorb this lifeblood with the very best that lies within their soul.

[ 32 ] Such is a thought that emerges as a conclusion from what we have been able to form through our contemplation of the ages. And such should be the thought that we now implant in our souls—one that embodies the true meaning and spirit of the guidance and leadership of all humanity. If we allow this thought to take effect in our souls, we will have ample spiritual inspiration again for months to come; we will be able to reflect on this thought again and again over the course of months. For we will see that there is much within it, that it can grow into a structure—not because it is expressed in these or those words. No matter how imperfect my words may be: what matters is not how the thought is expressed, but what it actually is. And what it actually is can live in every single soul. For the sum total of truth is present in every single soul as a seed and can blossom when the soul surrenders to this seed.