The Rudolf Steiner Archive

7. On Self-Awareness

Following on from the Rosicrucian mystery “The Gate of Initiation”

[ 1 ] Most of those present know that in Munich we endeavored, in addition to repeating last year’s performance of the drama The Children of Lucifer, to stage a Rosicrucian Mystery Play that seeks to portray in various ways much of what is connected with our movement. On the one hand, this Rosicrucian Mystery Play is, in a sense, an attempt to show how everything that animates anthroposophical life can flow into art. On the other hand, however, we must not forget that this Rosicrucian Mystery Play contains much of our teachings in Spiritual Science in a way that may only become apparent over the course of the years. And in particular, it must not be misunderstood that if one were to make a reasonable effort to read the things contained therein—not between the lines, for they are already present, albeit in a spiritual sense, within the words—if, then, one were to make an effort to understand the Rosicrucian Mystery in this way, to understand the Rosicrucian Mystery in such a way that one would seek out these things in the coming years, then for many years to come it would not be necessary for me to give any lectures. Much of what I otherwise lecture on regarding any given topic would be found there. But it will prove more practical if we explore it together than if a single person were to do so. In a certain sense, it is good that what lives in Spiritual Science is also available in this form.

[ 2 ] Today, building on the Rosicrucian Mystery Play, I would like to speak about certain peculiarities of human self-knowledge. To do so, however, we must recall—in a way that captures its essence—how individuality operates within the body of Johannes Thomasius in the Rosicrucian Mystery Play. Therefore, I would like this lecture—which is to deal with self-knowledge—to begin with a recitation of those passages from the Rosicrucian Mystery Play that symbolize Johannes’s self-knowledge.

Second Scene

An open-air setting, rocks, springs; the entire surroundings are to be imagined in the soul of Johannes Thomasius as the subject of his meditation; later, Mary.

(It resounds from springs and rocks: O man, know thyself!)

Johannes:

This is how I have heard them for years now,
These words, so rich in meaning.
They resound to me from the air and water,
They ring out from the depths of the earth,
And just as, mysteriously, within the tiny seed
The structure of the giant oak takes shape,
So, ultimately, within
the power of these words,
lies all that is comprehensible to my mind
about the nature of the elements,
about souls and spirits,
about the passage of time and eternity.
The world and my own individuality,
they live in these words:
O man, know thyself!

(From springs and rocks it echoes: O man, know thyself!)

And now! — it becomes
Terribly alive within me.
Darkness weaves around me,
Gloom yawns within me;
It resounds from the darkness of the world,
It echoes from the gloom of the soul:
O human, know thyself!

(It resounds from springs and rocks: O man, know thyself!)

It now robs me of myself.
I shift with the passing of the day
And transform into night.
I follow the Earth in its orbit.
I roll in the thunder,
I flicker in the lightning.
I am. — Oh, already vanished
I feel myself estranged from my own being.
I see my physical shell;
It is a foreign being outside of me,
It is far, far from me.
Then another body floats toward me.
I must speak through his mouth:
“He has brought me bitter distress;
I trusted him so completely.
He left me alone in my grief,
He robbed me of the warmth of life
And cast me into the cold earth.”
The one I left behind, the poor one,
I was that very one myself.
I must endure her torment.
Knowledge has given me the strength
To carry my self into another’s self.
O cruel word!
Your light is extinguished by its own power.
O human, know thyself!

(It resounds from springs and rocks: O man, know thyself!)

You lead me back once more
Into the circles of my own being.
But how I recognize myself!
I have lost my human form.
I appear to myself as a wild worm,
Born of lust and greed.
And I clearly sense
How, like a foggy vision of delusion
My own terrifying form
Has hitherto remained hidden from me.
The wildness of my own being must devour me.
I feel, like a consuming fire
Those words flowing through my veins,
Which otherwise revealed to me with such primal force
The essence of the sun and the earth.
They live in my pulses,
They beat in my heart;
And even in my own thoughts I feel
Those foreign worlds already blazing as wild impulses.
These are the fruits of the word:
O man, know thyself!

(It resounds from springs and rocks: O man, know thyself!)

There, from the dark abyss, —
What creature stares at me?
I feel chains,
That bind me to you.
Not even Prometheus
Was chained so tightly to the rocks of the Caucasus,
As I am chained to you.
Who are you, dreadful being?

(It resounds from springs and rocks: O man, know thyself!)

Oh, I recognize you.
It's me.
Recognition forges in you a destructive monster

(Maria enters; Johannes doesn't notice her at first.)

I, a monstrous being, do myself harm.
I wanted to escape you.
I was blinded by the worlds
into which my folly fled,
to be free from myself.
I am blinded once more in my blind soul:
O human, know thyself!

(It resounds from springs and rocks: O man, know thyself!)

Johannes:

(as if coming to his senses, he catches sight of Mary. The meditation gives way to an inner reality)

Oh, my friend, you're here!

Maria:

I sought you, my friend;
Though I know full well,
How much you love solitude,
After so many people’s opinions
Have flooded your soul.
And though I also know,
That by my presence I cannot help my friend
At this time,
Yet a dark longing
Drives me to you at this very moment,
Since Benedictus’s words, instead of light
Brought such heavy suffering
From the depths of your spirit.

Johannes:

How dear to me is solitude!
- - - - - - - - -
I have sought it so often,
To find myself in it,
When, in labyrinths of thought,
Human suffering and happiness had driven me.
O friend, that is now over.
What Benedictus’ words first
Drew from my very soul,
What I had to endure
Through the talk of men,
Seems trivial to me now,
Compared to the storm
That solitude then brought me
In gloomy brooding.
O this solitude!
It drove me across the vastness of the world.
It tore me away from myself.
In that being to whom I had caused suffering,
I emerged as another.
And I had to suffer the pain
That I myself had first brought about.
That cruel, dark solitude,
It then returned me to myself.
But only to terrify me
Through the abyss of my own being.
Man’s last refuge is lost to me,
Solitude is lost to me.

Maria:

I must repeat these words to you:
Only Benedictus can help you.
The support we lack,
We must both receive it from him.
For know this: I, too, can no longer
Bear the mystery of my life,
Unless, through his sign,
The solution reveals itself to me.
The profound wisdom that over all life
only illusion and deceit spread,
when our thinking grasps merely its surface,
I have often held it before myself.
And time and again it spoke:
You must recognize how delusion envelops you,
no matter how often it seems like truth to you,
It could bear bitter fruit,
If you wish to awaken in another light,
That lives within yourself.
In the best part of my soul, I am aware
That even the heavy burden
That life has brought upon you, my friend,
By my side,
Is part of the thorny path
Which leads to the light of truth.
You must experience all the horrors,
That can arise from delusion,
Before the essence of truth reveals itself to you.
So speaks your star.
Yet it also seems to me through these words of the star,
That we must walk the paths of the spirit together.
Yet as I seek these paths,
A dark night spreads before my eyes.
And the night grows even darker because of many things yet to come,
Which I must experience
As the fruits of my being.
We must both seek clarity in the light,
Which may well vanish from the eye,
But can never be extinguished.

Johannes:

Maria, are you aware
Of what my soul has just endured?
A heavy burden indeed
Has fallen upon you, noble friend.
Yet far removed from your nature is that power
That has shattered me so completely.
You can ascend to the brightest heights of truth,
You can direct your steady gaze
Amid the turmoil of humanity,
You will preserve yourself
In both light and darkness.
But for me, every single moment
Can rob me of myself.
I had to immerse myself among the people
Who had just revealed themselves in words.
I followed one into the solitude of the monastery,
I heard in the other’s soul
Felicita’s fairy tale.
I was each one,
Yet I myself died within myself.
I would have to be able to believe,
That Nothing is the origin of beings,
If I were to cherish the hope,
That out of the nothingness within me
A human being might ever become,
Out of fear, it leads me into darkness
And chases me through darkness in fear
The essence of wisdom:
O human, know thyself!

(From springs and rocks it echoes: O man, know thyself!)

(The Curtain Falls)

Ninth Image

The same area as in the second picture. Johannes, later Maria.

(It echoes from the rocks and springs: O human, experience yourself!)

Johannes:

O human, experience yourself!
I have sought it for three years,
That courage-filled strength of the soul,
That gives truth to words,
Through which a person, freeing themselves, can triumph
And, by conquering themselves, find freedom:

Oh, human, experience yourself!

(From rocks and springs resounds: O human, experience yourself!)

It announces itself within,
Barely perceptible to my inner ear.
It holds within itself the hope
That, as it grows, it will lead the human spirit
From a narrow existence to worlds far away,
Just as the tiny seed mysteriously expands
The tiny seed
Into the proud trunk of the giant oak. — —
The spirit can enliven within itself
What weaves in the air and in the water,
And what strengthens the earth’s foundation.
Humanity can grasp
What in the elements,
In souls and in spirits,
In the flow of time and in eternity
Has taken hold of existence.
The whole being of the world lives in the soul,
When such power takes root in the spirit,
Giving truth to the words:
O human being, experience yourself!

(From rocks and springs comes the call: O human, experience yourself!)

I feel—how it resounds in my soul,
Stirring, bestowing strength.
The light lives within me,
Brightness surrounds me,
The light of the soul sprouts within me,
It creates the radiance of the world within me:
O human, experience yourself!

(From rocks and springs comes the call: O human, experience yourself!)

I find myself secure everywhere,
Wherever the power of the Word follows me.
It will shine for me in the darkness of the senses
And sustain me in the heights of the spirit.
It will fill me with the essence of the soul
For all time to come.
I feel the essence of the world within me,
And I must find myself in all worlds.
I behold my soul’s essence
Enlivened within me by my own power.
I rest within myself.
I gaze upon the rocks and the springs;
They speak the language of my soul.
I find myself again in that being,
Whom I have brought into bitter distress.
From within it, I call out to myself:
“You must find me again
And soothe my pain.”
The light of the spirit will give me strength,
To live the other self within my own self.
O hopeful word,
You pour strength upon me from all worlds:
O human, experience yourself!

(From rocks and springs comes the call: O human, experience yourself!)

You make me feel my weakness
And place me alongside God’s lofty goals;
And I feel, with bliss,
The creative power of that lofty goal
Within my weak, earthly self.
And from within myself, it shall be revealed,
What the seed within me holds.
I will give myself to the world
Through the life of my own being.
I will feel all the power of the Word,
Which at first sounds soft to me;
It shall be like an invigorating fire to me
In the powers of my soul,
On the paths of my spirit.
I feel how my thinking penetrates
into the deeply hidden foundations of the world;
and how it radiantly illuminates them.
Thus does the germinative power of this word work:
O human being, experience yourself!

(From Springs and Rocks: O Human, Experience Yourself!)

From luminous heights, a being shines upon me,
I feel wings,
To rise up to him,
I want to free myself
Like all beings who have conquered themselves.

(From Springs and Rocks: O Human, Experience Yourself!)

I gaze upon that being,
I wish to become like it in times to come.
The spirit within me will be set free
Through you, sublime goal.
I will follow you.

(Maria joins them.)

The eye of the soul was awakened in me
By the spiritual beings who welcomed me.
And as I behold the spiritual worlds
I feel the power within myself:
O human, experience yourself!

(From Springs and Rocks: O Human, Experience Yourself!)

Oh, my friend, you're here!

Maria:

My soul drew me here.
I could see your star.
It shines with all its might.

Johannes:

I can experience this power within me.

Maria:

We are so closely connected,
That the life of your soul
Lets its light shine within my soul.

Johannes:

O Mary, are you aware
Of what has just been revealed to me?
I have found man’s first confidence,
I have gained inner certainty.
I feel the power of the Word,
Which can guide me everywhere:
O human, experience yourself!

(From Rocks and Springs: O Human, Experience Yourself!)

(The curtain falls)

[ 3 ] In the two images, “O Human, Know Thyself” and “O Human, Experience Thyself,” two stages, two levels of development in the unfolding of our soul, appear before our soul.

[ 4 ] Now I ask you not to find it at all strange when I say that I actually have no objection to interpreting this Rosicrucian mystery in the same way that I have occasionally interpreted other works of poetry in our circles. For in a certain sense, it may well be said that this Rosicrucian mystery can bring to life before our souls, in a vivid and immediate way, what I have often said in connection with other works of poetry that I have had the privilege of interpreting. I have never hesitated to say: Just as the plant, the flower, knows nothing of what the observer finds in it, so too is what the observer finds in the flower contained within it. — When I was asked to interpret the poem Faust, I explained that the poet, while writing it down, did not necessarily know or feel all things directly himself in the words that were later found within it. I can assure you that nothing of what I will later connect to this mystery—and of which I nevertheless know it is there—was conscious to me as the individual images took shape. The images grew out of themselves just as the leaves of a plant do. One cannot produce such a form in advance by first having the idea and then translating it into an outward form. I always found it quite interesting when the paintings took shape one by one, and friends who had seen the individual scenes said it was remarkable that the result always turned out differently than one had formed a mental image of.

[ 5 ] Thus, this mystery stands as a reflection of human evolution in the development of a single human being. I emphasize: it is impossible for concrete feeling to cloak itself in abstractions in order to represent anthroposophy, because every human soul is different from the next and, fundamentally, since it experiences its own development, must also be different. In all that is presented as a general teaching, we can receive only guidelines. Therefore, the complete truth can be conveyed only when one connects with an individual soul—a soul that embodies its human individuality with all its unique characteristics. If, therefore, someone were to view Johannes Thomasius in such a way as to translate what is said about him in concrete terms into theories of human development, they would be doing something entirely wrong. If they believed they would experience exactly the same thing that Johannes Thomasius experienced, they would be very much mistaken. For what Johannes Thomasius is to experience in broad outlines applies to every human being, but to experience it in all its particularity—well, for that one must be Johannes Thomasius. And everyone is, in their own way, a “Johannes Thomasius.”

[ 6 ] Thus, everything is presented in a completely individual way. But this also ensures—in connection with the particular form—that the development of the human soul is portrayed as truthfully as possible. To this end, it was also necessary to lay this broad foundation: that Thomasius is first depicted on the physical plane, and that reference is made to individual soul experiences—such as the one that must be significant, when, not too long ago, he left a being who was devoted to him in faithful love. This happens often, but this individual event has a different effect on one who is striving to undergo a process of development. It is a profound truth that the one undergoing such a process does not attain self-knowledge by brooding within oneself, but by immersing oneself in individual beings. Through self-knowledge, we must come to realize that we come from the cosmos. We can immerse ourselves only when we transform ourselves into another self. We are first transformed into that which was once close to us in life.

[ 7 ] It is an example of experiencing one’s own self in another when John, having delved deeper into his own self, immerses himself—through self-knowledge—into another being, the very being to whom he has caused bitter pain. Thus we see how Thomasius immerses himself in this self-knowledge. Theoretically, it is said: If you want to recognize the flower, you must immerse yourself in the flower. — But the best way to attain self-knowledge is when we immerse ourselves in the circumstances in which we ourselves have been present in a different way. As long as we remain within our own selves, we go through external experiences. In the face of true self-knowledge, what we think about other beings becomes mere abstraction.

[ 8 ] For Thomasius, what other people have experienced first becomes his own experience. There was a man, Capesius, who described his experiences. These experiences are such that one can see how they fit into life. But Thomasius takes in something else. He listens. His listening, however—as will be characterized later in the eighth scene—is of a different kind. It is as if, with his ordinary self, the person were not even present. Another, deeper force reveals itself there, as if it were he himself who were creeping into Capesius’s soul and experiencing what is taking place there. That is why it becomes so infinitely significant that he becomes estranged from himself in that moment. It is inseparable from self-knowledge that one detaches oneself from oneself and becomes absorbed in the other. That is why it is so significant for Thomasius that, after listening to these words [in the first scene], he must say:

A reflection of life in its fullness,
Which revealed me so clearly to myself.
That lofty spiritual revelation
Led me to feel
How even those who believe themselves to be
Complete beings
Hide within themselves
But a single facet of humanity.
To unite these many facets
Within my own self,
I boldly set out on the path
That is shown here.
It has turned me into nothing.

[ 9 ] Why did he reduce him to nothing? Because, through self-knowledge, he has immersed himself in these other beings. Brooding over one’s own inner self makes a person proud and arrogant. True self-knowledge leads, first of all, through our immersion in another’s self, to suffering. In the first scene, Johannes follows the characters by listening to Capesius and, through this other soul, hearing Felicia’s words. He follows Strader into his monastic solitude. That is abstraction at first. He has not yet reached what he is now led to [in the second scene] through suffering. Self-knowledge deepens through meditation on the inner self. And what was shown in the first scene reveals the deepened self-knowledge [in the second scene], which creates a mental image of the concrete emerging from abstraction. And the familiar words that we have heard resound for centuries as the maxims of the Delphic Oracle take on a new life for humanity—but at first, a life of alienation from the self.

[ 10 ] Johannes, as one who recognizes himself, merges into all external beings. He lives in air and water, in rocks and springs, but not within himself. All the words that can only be uttered from the outside are, in fact, words of meditation. And even as the curtain rises, we must create a mental image of the words that, with every act of self-knowledge, resound much louder than can be portrayed on stage. Then the self-aware being immerses himself in the various other beings; through this, he comes to know the things into which he immerses himself. And then the very same experience he had earlier presents itself to him in a terrifying way.

[ 11 ] It is indeed a profound truth that this self-knowledge, when it proceeds in the manner just described, leads us to view ourselves in a completely different way than we did before. It leads us, so to speak, to learn to perceive our “I” as a foreign being.

[ 12 ] For human beings, their outer shell is actually what is closest to them. In our time, a person will feel much more connected to this shell when they cut their finger than when, for example, a false judgment by a fellow human being causes them pain. How much more does it hurt people today when they cut their finger than when they hear a false judgment! And yet it cuts only into their physical body. But the fact that we feel this—that we perceive our body as a tool—only becomes apparent through self-knowledge.

[ 13 ] A person can already sense their hand as a tool, to some extent, when they grasp an object. But one learns to sense the same thing with this or that part of the brain. This inner sense of the brain as an instrument emerges at a certain stage of self-awareness. That is when the individual parts become localized. When we hammer in a nail, we know that we are doing so with a tool. But we also know that we are using this or that part of the brain to do so. As things become objectively foreign to us, we come to recognize our brain as something separate from ourselves. Self-awareness fosters this objectivity of our physical shell, and eventually our shell becomes as foreign to us as our external tools are. Through this, we truly begin to live in the external world when we start to perceive our physical self as something objective.

[ 14 ] Because humans are only aware of their physical bodies, they do not realize that there is a boundary between the air outside and the air in their lungs. Nevertheless, they say that the air inside is the same as the air outside. If we consider the substance of air, it is both inside and outside. So it is with everything—with blood, with everything that is physical. Physically, however, it cannot be inside or outside; that is merely maya. It is precisely because the physical interior becomes an exterior that it truthfully extends into the rest of the world and the cosmos.

[ 15 ] The pain of feeling alienated was to be portrayed in the first scene recited today. The pain of becoming alienated by finding oneself in everything external. Johannes Thomasius’s own physical body is like a being that exists outside of him. But just as he feels his own body outside himself, he sees the other body approaching—the body of the being he has left behind. It draws near to him, and he has learned to speak with this being’s own words. It says to him—his self has expanded to include it—:

He brought me bitter sorrow;
I trusted him so completely.
He left me alone in my grief,
He robbed me of the warmth of life
And cast me into the cold earth.

[ 16 ] But it is only then that the accusation truly comes alive in the soul—when the suffering of another, to which we have bound our own self, must be articulated, because our own self has submerged itself into another self. This is a deepening. Johannes is truly present in that suffering because he caused it. He feels as if he has flowed into it and awakened anew. What is he actually experiencing there?

[ 17 ] When we take everything into account, we find that the ordinary, average person experiences something similar only in the state we call Kamaloka. The initiate must experience in this world what the ordinary person experiences in the spiritual world. He must experience within the physical body what Kamaloka experiences are—things that are otherwise experienced outside the physical body. Therefore, all the qualities that can be perceived as Kamaloka qualities are present as experiences of initiation. Just as John plunges into the soul to whom he has caused suffering, so must the ordinary person in the Kamaloka plunge into the souls to whom he has caused pain. Just as if a slap were returned to him, so must he feel pain. The only difference is that the initiate experiences these things within the physical body, while the ordinary person experiences them after death. Whoever experiences them here lives in a completely different way than in the Kamaloka. But even what a person can experience in the Kamaloka can be experienced in such a way that he has not, so to speak, yet truly become free. And that is a difficult task—to become completely free. The person feels as if he were bound to physical circumstances.

[ 18 ] In our time, one of the most important experiences of development—which was not yet the case in the Greco-Roman era but has only now become particularly important—is that a person can experience how infinitely difficult it is to detach oneself from one’s own self. Therefore, an important initiatory experience is expressed in the words where John feels bound to his own lower body, where his own being appears to him as a being to which he is chained:

I feel chains,
That bind me to you.
Not even Prometheus
Was chained so tightly to the rocks of the Caucasus,
As I am chained to you.

[ 19 ] This is something connected with self-knowledge, a mystery of self-knowledge. We just have to understand it in the right way.

[ 20 ] The question of this mystery could also be phrased this way: Have we actually become better people by becoming earthly human beings—by immersing ourselves in our earthly bodies—or would we be better people if we could remain solely within our inner selves, if we could simply cast off these bodies? Those who are trivial-minded and opposed to the spiritual life might easily ask: Why bother entering the earthly body in the first place? The simplest thing would be to remain above; then one would not have to endure the whole ordeal of entering it.

[ 21 ] Why have the wise powers of fate hidden us away? Intuitively, there is little to be explained by saying that divine-spiritual forces have been at work on this earthly body for millions and millions of years. Precisely because this is so, we should make more of ourselves than our powers allow. Our inner powers are not sufficient. We cannot yet be as much as the gods have made us to be if we merely wish to be what we are within ourselves, if we are not corrected by our physical forms. Life presents itself as follows: Here on Earth, human beings are placed within their physical forms; these have been prepared by beings across three worlds. Humanity must first develop its inner self. Between birth and death, a person is an evil being; in Devachan, they are once again a better being, received by divine-spiritual beings who infuse them with their own powers. Later, in the volcanic age, they will then become a perfect being. Now, on Earth, they are a being who indulges in this or that pleasure. The heart, for example, is so wisely designed that it withstands for decades the assaults that human beings direct against it through their excesses—such as coffee. Just as human beings are today by their own power, so they now pass through Kamaloka. There they are to learn what they can be by their own power. And that is truly nothing good. If a person were to describe himself, he could not describe himself with the attribute of beauty. He must describe himself as John does [in the second image]:

But how I recognize myself!
I have lost my human form.
I appear to myself as a wild worm,
Born of lust and greed.
And I clearly sense
How, like a misty image of delusion,
My own terrifying form
Has been kept hidden from me until now.

[ 22 ] Our inner self is stretched out, as if elastic, within our physical bodies and remains hidden from us. We actually come to know ourselves as a kind of wild worm when we experience initiation. And that is why these words are now drawn from the deepest feelings—words of self-knowledge, not of self-absorption:

It is I myself.
Insight forges you into a destructive monster
I myself, a destructive monster.

[ 23 ] Essentially, both are the same thing—in one case as an object, in the other as a subject.

I wanted to escape from you.

[ 24 ] But this escape leads people only back to themselves.

[ 25 ] And then there is that society that emerges—the one we find ourselves in when we truly look within. This society we find within ourselves consists of our own desires and passions—things that went unnoticed before because every time we tried to look within, our gaze was diverted to our surroundings. For compared to what we were trying to look into, the world is a wonderful place. There, in that illusion—the maya of life—we stop looking within ourselves. But when people around us spout all sorts of nonsense, and when it becomes too much for us, we flee into solitude. And this is very important for certain stages of development. There, one can and should gather one’s thoughts. This is a good means of self-knowledge. But there are still experiences when we find ourselves in company, when we can no longer be alone, when precisely there those beings appear—within us or outside us, it makes no difference—who do not let us be alone. Then comes that experience one is meant to have. This solitude brings with it the worst kind of company:

I have lost man's final refuge,
I have lost solitude.

[ 26 ] These are real experiences. But do not let the intensity and power of these experiences become a source of doubt for you. Do not think, when such experiences are presented with such intensity, that you should feel fear or dread. Do not think that this is meant to distract anyone or to draw them into these torrents themselves. You do not experience them immediately with the same intensity as John did, because he was meant to experience them for a specific purpose—in a certain sense, even prematurely. Normal self-development follows a different course. Therefore, what occurs tumultuously in John’s case should be understood as an individual phenomenon. Because he is this individual who has suffered shipwreck, everything can unfold much more tumultuously in his case as he goes through these laws. He comes to know them in such a way that they throw him deeply off balance. But by describing this here in relation to Johannes, one thing is meant to be brought to light: namely, the realization that true self-knowledge has nothing to do with trivial platitudes, and that true self-knowledge cannot help but lead first through pain and suffering.

[ 27 ] Things that were once a source of refreshment for people take on a different aspect when they appear in the realm of self-knowledge. We can certainly yearn for solitude, even if we have already found self-knowledge. But in certain moments of self-knowledge, solitude can be what we lose when we seek it in the way we knew before—in moments when we then flow out into the objective world, where the solitary person suffers the most intense pain.

[ 28 ] We must learn to perceive this pouring out into other beings in the right way if we are to feel what is contained in the drama. A certain aesthetic sensibility pervades it; everything in it is spiritually realistic. Anyone who thinks realistically—a realist with a genuine aesthetic sensibility—feels a certain pain when confronted with an unrealistic portrayal. Even that which can provide great satisfaction at one level may be a source of pain at another. This depends on the path of self-knowledge. A Shakespearean drama, for example—something that is already a great achievement of the external world—can be a source of aesthetic satisfaction. But a certain moment in one’s development may arise when one can no longer be satisfied by it, because one feels one’s inner self torn apart as one moves from scene to scene, because one no longer sees the necessity for one scene to follow another. One may find it unnatural for one scene to be placed next to another. Why unnatural? Because nothing holds the two scenes together except the writer Shakespeare and the audience. In the sequence of scenes, there is an abstract principle of causality, not a concrete, essential one. This is the defining characteristic of Shakespeare’s plays: nothing is suggested that karmically interweaves and holds them together.

[ 29 ] The Rosicrucian drama has become realistic—spiritually realistic. It places great demands on Johannes Thomasius. Although he does not actively participate in any significant role, he is present on the stage. It is within his soul that everything unfolds, and what is depicted there is the development of the soul—the real experience of what is experienced in the soul’s development.

[ 30 ] Johannes’s soul realistically weaves one image out of another. Here we see that the realistic and the spiritual do not contradict each other. The materialistic and the spiritual do not need each other, but they can contradict each other. But the realistic and the spiritual need not contradict each other either, and something that is spiritually realistic can be greatly admired by a materialist. Shakespeare’s plays can certainly be conceived of as realistic in terms of an aesthetic principle. But you can also understand that an art that goes hand in hand with Spiritual Science ultimately leads to a point where, for the one who experiences his or her self within the cosmos, the entire cosmos becomes an “I”-being. Then we cannot bear it when anything in the cosmos stands in the way of this “I”-being. In this regard, art will learn something that will lead it to the “I” principle, because Christ first brought us the “I.” This “I” will find its full expression in the most diverse fields.

[ 31 ] But this concrete human aspect manifests itself in the soul in yet another way, and is again distributed outward. If someone had asked back then: Which person is Atma, which is Buddhi, which is Manas? — It would be a dreadful art, a terrible art, if one were forced to interpret the depiction in this way: “This figure is a personification of Manas.” — There are theosophical bad habits that strive to interpret everything in this way. Of a work of art that had to be interpreted in this way, one might say: “Poor work of art!” — In any case, when compared to Shakespeare’s plays, this would be fundamentally wrong and ridiculous.

[ 32 ] Such things are teething problems in the development of theosophy. People will eventually outgrow them. But it is nevertheless necessary to draw attention to these matters at some point. It might even happen that someone sets out to find the nine aspects of human nature in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.

[ 33 ] And yet, in a certain sense, it is true that what constitutes a unified human nature is, in turn, distributed among different people. One person has this particular spiritual coloring, another that one. Thus, we can see people before us who represent different aspects of the totality of human nature. But this must be conceived realistically; it must arise from human nature itself. The way people appear to us in the world is how they represent the various aspects of human nature. And as we evolve from incarnation to incarnation, we become a totality. If the underlying fact in question is to be represented, then the whole of life must be unfolded.

[ 34 ] Thus, in The Rosicrucian Mystery, the figure who is meant to represent Mary in a certain sense is dissolved into the other characters who surround her as companions, together forming a single “I” with her. In particular, one can see qualities of the sensitive soul in Philia, qualities of the intellectual or emotional soul in Astrid, and qualities of the conscious soul in Luna. The names themselves already reflect this. All the names are such that they are imprinted in a way that is entirely essential to the individual beings. Not only in the words themselves, but in the way the words are arranged—particularly where the spiritual is to take effect in Devachan, in the seventh image—there, what is meant to characterize the three figures of Philia, Astrid, and Luna is precisely graded. What the seventh image begins with is a better characterization of the feeling soul, the intellectual soul, and the conscious soul than can usually be conveyed in words. There, one can show people what the feeling soul, the intellectual soul, and the conscious soul are. In art, one can illustrate these stages through the way these three figures are depicted. In the human being, they flow into one another. When they are separated from one another, they present themselves just as Philia places herself within the universe, just as Astrid places herself within the elements, and just as Luna flows out into self-action and self-knowledge. And because they place themselves there in this way, the Devachan scene contains everything that is alchemy in the true sense. The whole of alchemy is contained within it. One need only discover it little by little.

[ 35 ] But it is not found merely in the abstract content, but in the interweaving and essence of the words. Therefore, you should not only hear what is said—and especially not merely what the individual speaks—but how the soul forces speak in relation to one another. The feeling soul pushes its way into the astral body; we are dealing with a weaving astral presence. The intellectual soul pushes its way into the etheric body; we are thus dealing with a weaving etheric presence. We see how the conscious soul pours itself into the physical body with inner firmness. Thus, that which acts in a soulful way, like light within the soul, is expressed in the words of Philia; that which acts in an ethereal, objective way, so that we stand face to face with true things, is expressed in Astrid; that which provides inner steadfastness, connecting us to the physical body, is expressed in Luna. We must feel this. Let us listen to the soul forces in the seventh image:

Philia: (Soul of Feeling)

I want to fill myself
With the clearest light-being
From the vastness of the worlds,
I want to breathe into myself
Life-giving sound-substance
From the distant ether,
So that you, beloved sister,
May succeed in your work.

Astrid: (Mind-Soul)

I want to weave together
Radiant light
With subduing darkness,
I want to condense
The life of sound.
It shall ring out sparkling,
It shall sparkle as it rings out,
So that you, beloved sister,
May guide the rays of the soul.

Luna: (Consciousness Soul)

I want to warm the substance of the soul
And I want to strengthen the ether of life.
They shall condense,
They shall sense one another,
And, existing within themselves,
Sustain themselves,
So that you, beloved sister,
Of the seeking human soul,
May bring forth the certainty of knowledge.

[ 36 ] I would like to point out that in Philia we have: “That you, beloved sister…,” whereas in Astrid we move into something more subdued, more profound: “That you, beloved sister…,” “That you…,” “That you…”. And now, with Luna, we have interwoven it with something even more deeply resonant: “The seeking human soul.” Here, the “U” is so intricately woven with the neighboring consonants that it attains an even greater density.

[ 37 ] These are the things that can actually be characterized. It depends on the “how”—that must be noted. Let’s compare the words Philia goes on to say:

I pray to the spirits of the worlds,
That the light of their being
May delight the soul’s senses,
And the sound of their words
May bring joy to the spirit’s ear

compared to the very different ones that Astrid speaks:

I want the currents of love,
That warm the world,
To flow into the heart
Of the consecrated one

[ 38 ] It is precisely where these words are carried out that the inner weaving and essence of the Devachanic world element are realized.

[ 39 ] We must realize this about such things—and that is why I mention it—that when self-knowledge begins to dawn in the outer fabric of the world and its beings, it is essential to abandon all one-sidedness and to learn to feel what is present in every aspect of existence, which we would otherwise only be able to experience in a philistine manner. What makes us human beings rigid beings is that we are bound to a point in space and believe we can express truths through words. But words are the very thing least capable of expressing the truth, because they are bound to physical sound. We must—I would say—empathize with the expression. Therefore, it is essential that a process as significant as Johannes Thomasius’s process of self-knowledge can only be truly experienced when he then courageously attains and seizes that self-knowledge. This is the next step after self-knowledge has struck us down: that we begin to take into ourselves what we have learned from the outside—by understanding the cosmos as akin to us, after we have recognized the essence of all beings—and that we courageously dare to live out what we have recognized. It is only half the story that we immerse ourselves, like John, in a being to whom we have caused suffering, whom we have cast down into the cold earth. For we now feel differently. We gather the courage to make amends for the pain. Then we immerse ourselves in this life and speak differently within our own being. This is, at first, what confronts us in the ninth image. Whereas in the second image, the being called out to John:

He brought me bitter sorrow;
I trusted him so completely.
He left me alone in my grief,
He robbed me of the warmth of life
And cast me into the cold earth

[ 40 ] the same being in the ninth vision, after John had found himself in the place toward which all self-knowledge leads, called out to him:

You must find me again
And ease my pain.

[ 41 ] That is the other side: first the devastating aspect, then the balancing aspect of the experience. Then the other being calls out to him:

You have to find me again.

[ 42 ] There is no other way to describe this elevation of the experience of the world, this filling of oneself with the experience of the world. True self-knowledge in emerging within the cosmos could not be described except with the words with which John awakens. Of course, it must begin this way, in the second image:

That’s how I’ve been hearing them for years now,
Those words so full of meaning.

[ 43 ] Then, after it has sunk into the earth’s depths, after it has become one with the earth’s depths, the power arises within the soul to bring forth words in this way. That is the essence of the ninth image:

I have sought it for three years,
That courage-filled strength of the soul,
Which gives truth to words,
Through which a person, by liberating themselves, can triumph
And, by conquering themselves, find freedom.

[ 44 ] These are the words: “O human being, experience yourself!” in contrast to the words in the second image: “O human being, recognize yourself!” Thus, the same image confronts us again and again. While at one point the image leads downward:

The World and My Individuality,
They live in these words:
O man, know thyself!

[ 45 ] then it's the other way around. It changes. The image reflects the inner process.

[ 46 ] So you, too, have heard those terribly devastating words:

Maria, are you aware
Of what my soul has just endured?
- - - - - - - - - -
I have lost man’s final refuge,
I have lost my solitude.

[ 47 ] Then, in the ninth image, we see how the being first gains confidence and then certainty. That is congruence. It must not be mere constructs, but rather natural experiences. Through this, we are to feel how, in a soul such as that of Johannes Thomasius, self-knowledge crystallizes into self-experience. We are also to feel how this experience of Johannes Thomasius extends to individual human beings—and thus how his own insight encompasses all of humanity, in whom a part of his being manifests itself in individual incarnations. Finally, there stands a whole community in the Temple of the Sun, all arranged like a tableau, and all together they form a single human being. The qualities of a single human being are distributed among them all; it is, in essence, a single human being. But a pedantic person would have to say: There are too many parts; there should be nine instead of twelve. — Yet reality does not arrange itself so as to be in harmony with theories. And yet it is more in harmony with the truth than if one were to line up the individual members of the human being in a regular fashion.

[ 48 ] Let us now imagine ourselves in this Temple of the Sun. There are individual people who have been placed there exactly as they truly belong together karmically—just as karma has brought them together in life. But if we now imagine Johannes here and picture each individual’s character reflected in Johannes’s soul—and each person as a quality of Johannes’s soul—what then happens when we grasp this as reality? Here, karma has indeed brought these people together, as if at a crossroads. Nothing is without intention, purpose, or goal; rather, what individual people have done does not merely constitute a single event—each one represents a soul experience of Johannes Thomasius. Everything unfolds twice: in the macrocosm and in the microcosm of Johannes’s soul. This is his initiation. Just as Maria, for example, relates to him, so does one important aspect of his soul relate to another aspect of the soul. These are absolute congruences, strictly carried out. What is an external action is, within Johannes, an inner process of development. What the Hierophant expresses in the third image is meant to happen there:

Here, within this circle,
A knot is forming from the threads
That Karma weaves as the world comes into being.

[ 49 ] It has taken shape. And this knot, tied so tightly, shows where it all leads. On the one hand, absolute reality—how karma weaves—but not a purposeless weaving. We have this knot as the process of initiation in the soul of John, and we have the whole picture such that a human individuality still stands above all these people: the Hierophant, who intervenes, who directs the threads. We need only think of the Hierophant and his relationship to Mary.

[ 50 ] But it is precisely here that we can see that this process is something that can shed light on self-knowledge, at this point in the third image. Stepping out of the self is no joke. It is a very real process: the inner force leaving the human shell. Then these human shells remain and become a battleground for subordinate forces. When Maria sends down the ray of love to the Hierophant, it cannot be depicted any other way than this: down below, the body is seized by the power of the adversary and says the opposite of what is happening up above. Up above, a ray of love shines down; down below, a curse arises. These are the contrasting scenes: in Devachan, where Mary describes what she actually did, and in the third image, where, below, as the body is being left, the cursing of the demonic forces against the Hierophant takes place. Here we have two complementary images. It would truly be quite terrible if one had to construct them from scratch.

[ 51 ] Thus, I have based today’s lecture on a page from this mystery drama, and I hope that we have been able to draw on it to highlight some of the specific characteristics that underlie initiation.

[ 52 ] The fact that certain things had to be strongly emphasized in order to describe the actual events of the initiation should not discourage you or make you lose heart in your pursuit of the spiritual world. The description of the dangers serves only to steel people against these forces. The dangers are real; pain and suffering lie ahead of us. It would truly be a misguided endeavor if we were to seek to ascend to the higher worlds, so to speak, in the most comfortable way possible. It is not yet possible to reach the spiritual worlds as comfortably as one might roll along in a modern train—as external material culture does with regard to outward life. What is described here is not meant to discourage you; rather, it is precisely by becoming acquainted, in a certain sense, with the dangers of initiation that your courage is to be steeled.

[ 53 ] Just as with Johannes Thomasius, whose condition rendered him unable to wield a paintbrush—a condition that translates into pain, but then transforms that pain into insight—so too will everything that causes suffering and pain be transformed into insight. But we must earnestly seek this path. We can only do this if we try to realize that the truths of Spiritual Science are not so simple. These are such profound truths of life that one can never fully grasp them with precision. It is precisely the example of life that allows us to grasp the world, and one can speak even more precisely about the conditions of development when describing the development of Johannes than when describing the development of any human being in general. In the book How Does One Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds?, development is described as it can occur in any human being—that is, solely as a possibility that can be realized. When one portrays Johannes Thomasius, one is describing a single individual. But in doing so, one deprives oneself of the opportunity to describe development in general.

[ 54 ] I hope you will take the opportunity, if possible, to point out that, strictly speaking, I have not yet told the whole truth. We have two extremes and must find the nuances between them. I can only offer a few suggestions. These must then live on in people’s hearts and souls.

[ 55 ] In the reflections I shared on the Gospel of Matthew, I said: Do not try to remember the exact wording, but rather, once you have stepped out into the world, look into your heart and soul to see what those words have become. Do not merely read the text in cycles, but also read it with true earnestness in your soul.

[ 56 ] But for this to happen, something must first be given from the outside; something must first have entered within. Anything else would be a self-deception of the soul. Understand how to read this in the soul, and you will see that what has resounded from the outside will still resound within in many other ways. That would be the true anthroposophical endeavor: for what is spoken to be understood in as many ways as there are listeners.

[ 57 ] No one who wishes to speak about Spiritual Science can ever try to be understood in only one way. They wish to be understood in as many ways as there are souls. Anthroposophy can certainly accommodate this. But one thing is necessary. I am not saying this to make a trivial point. One thing is necessary: that every single way of understanding be correct and true. It may be individual, but it must be true. Sometimes the individual nature of a conception consists in the opposite of what is said being understood.

[ 58 ] Thus, when we speak of self-knowledge, we must also bear in mind that it is more useful to speak in such a way that we seek our faults within ourselves and the truth outside ourselves.

[ 59 ] It does not say: “Seek the truth within yourself!”—The truth is, in fact, to be found outside. One finds that it is poured out into the world. We must free ourselves from ourselves through self-knowledge; we must pass through such stages of the soul. Solitude can be a very poor companion. But we can also feel all our weakness when we sense in our soul the vastness of the cosmos from which we were born. Then, however, we take courage. Let us dare to experience what we recognize.

[ 60 ] Then we will find that, in fact, from the loss of the last hope of our lives will spring forth the first and last hope of life—that hope which, as we find ourselves in the cosmos, allows us to transcend ourselves and find ourselves anew:

O human, experience the world within yourself!
Then you will have found yourself,
transcending yourself,
and truly discovered your true self.

[ 61 ] If we experience these words as lived experiences, they become stages of our development.