The Rudolf Steiner Archive

12. Karmic Effects: Anthroposophy as a Way of Life

[ 1 ] Today I would like to address some anthroposophical questions of life and then move from these questions—from the everyday to the all-encompassing and fundamental. This should be the most fruitful gain of our striving: that through Spiritual Science we learn more and more to assess life in its truth and reality, to assess it in a way that enables this assessment itself to lead us most effectively and energetically into life, to place us in the position we are meant to fill according to our karma, according to our greater or lesser mission during the time we are incarnated in an earthly body.

[ 2 ] And so I would like to begin by discussing certain qualities in life that we encounter every day in ourselves or in our surroundings—qualities whose full scope and significance we can only grasp when we view them in the light of Spiritual Science. I would like to begin with two vices in life and then speak of some virtues; I would like to start with the virtues of benevolence and contentment and the vices of deceitfulness and envy.

[ 3 ] Let us first consider these two vices, which we often encounter in life. It cannot be denied that in the widest circles—among both the humblest people and those who, in a sense, already belong to the leaders of society—there prevails a deep, deep aversion and antipathy toward what we might call envy and deceitfulness. To name just a few people who have been among life’s leaders, I point to the sculptor Benvenuto Cellini and to those passages in his autobiography where he says that, upon careful self-examination, he must admit to various vices, but that he may nevertheless say that a deceitfulness worthy of the name has never been a part of his character. This artist, then, finds a certain satisfaction in the fact that, upon self-examination, he can exclude deceitfulness from his character traits. And Goethe once said, as the result of his own self-examination, that he must accuse himself of many things, but that envy—that ugly vice—had not actually gnawed at his heart. Thus we see, as it were, at the pinnacles of life, how deceitfulness and envy are viewed with antipathy; how people everywhere—where one is accustomed to contemplating life with greater depth, even where, so to speak, great spiritual capacities are inherent in the life of the soul—tell one another: “You must guard yourself against precisely these vices.” — And who would deny that this profound aversion to deceitfulness and envy runs through all, all strata of humanity? You need only recall how deeply it would gnaw at your heart if, in a moment of truly honest and accurate self-observation, you had to say to yourself: “I am an envious person.” — You would certainly, if you had to resolutely admit this to yourself, feel even in the act of this confession that you would have to take upon yourself a struggle against this envy, a fight against envy. It is a deeply rooted feeling that deceitfulness and envy are ugly human traits. Why, then, do we actually feel this way? Well, you see, people do not always fully why they have such a deep antipathy toward this or that. Often they do not fully realize what lies dormant—and is undoubtedly present—in the more or less subconscious part of their inner life. When faced with envy and deceitfulness, people feel that by indulging in them they are violating something connected to what is most fundamentally human and of the highest human value. We need only utter a single word, and we will feel it. Spiritual Science is meant to gradually bring us to the realization that, apart from the individual personalities incarnated in the flesh, there is such a thing as a unified, universal humanity that dwells equally in all souls as the divine-human. And it is precisely Spiritual Science that presents this to us as a great ideal and gradually leads us to an understanding of what is universally human. And on an emotional level, there is indeed something in every human heart that, in a certain way, always expresses: Seek a bond that holds all people together, that always winds its way from soul to soul, and you will find it. — And this corresponding feeling is expressed in the word “compassion.” Compassion is such a universal human quality that we must say: In this compassion, the bond that runs from every soul to every other soul begins to emerge, however dimly. — And there, in the subconscious, one senses once again how, through deceitfulness and envy, one is violating compassion—and the recognition of what is common to all human beings in the most profound sense.

[ 4 ] What are we actually doing when we tell someone a lie? We are doing nothing other than erecting a barrier between ourselves and that person. What should connect us to that person—the shared knowledge of some truth that ought to live in both our souls and theirs if things were as they should be—we tear apart by telling them a falsehood. At the very moment we speak the falsehood, we fail to acknowledge that the best part of ourselves ought to live within the other person as well.

[ 5 ] And when we envy someone—whether for their abilities or for something else in life—we sin against compassion in that we fail to recognize that person as what they should actually be to us: something that belongs to us, and whose virtues, gifts, and good fortune we should actually rejoice in if we truly felt connected to them.

[ 6 ] So we sin against the most beautiful thing in human life—compassion—when we are envious and deceitful people. And why, exactly, is this expressed so vehemently in the dissatisfaction with these two traits? Why is that? Well, both traits can truly show us how what lies within our soul propagates, extends to the outer layers of our being, and holds significance for those layers.

[ 7 ] Envy is something that, when present in a human being, manifests itself clearly in a very specific quality of the astral body during occult observation. And an envious person, even if capable of concealing this envy from the outside world as much as possible, reveals the quality of envy in their astral body. Our astral body has very specific fundamental qualities. Although it differs from person to person and exhibits the most diverse variations among different individuals, it nevertheless possesses certain fundamental qualities. And when we observe it as an aura through clairvoyant vision, it possesses very specific color characteristics. These fade in a concerning way in an envious person; they fade, becoming weak and dull. And the astral body of an envious person becomes, so to speak, deficient in the strength it is meant to supply to the entire human organism.

[ 8 ] As for the nature of lying, it is the case that lying—and indeed every single lie—manifests itself in the etheric body. The etheric body loses vitality and life energy when a person is dishonest. This can even be observed externally. As strange as it may sound in our age, it is nevertheless true that, under otherwise identical conditions, wounds in people who lie frequently are harder to heal than in truthful people. Of course, one cannot draw absolute conclusions here; there may also be other reasons. But all other factors being equal, wounds are harder to heal in dishonest people than in truthful people. It is good to take such things into account in life. And this is also easily explained. The human etheric body is the actual principle of life; it is what must contain the life forces. But these life forces are undermined by deceitfulness. As a result, the etheric body cannot release as much life force as is necessary for healing if this etheric body has had its life force drained by deceitfulness—if it has not been constantly permeated by those movements and those states of being that arise from truthfulness. We should take such things to heart, for we will understand life better in many respects if we do so.

[ 9 ] Now you know that we must view what approaches human beings in the light of two forces that influence human life as it develops from incarnation to incarnation. We must consider human life under the influence of the Luciferic and Ahrimanic forces. The Luciferic forces are those that act upon our astral body, that radiate their forces into our astral body and tempt us in relation to it. The Ahrimanic forces are those that tempt us in relation to our etheric body. Yes, it is Lucifer who, so to speak, grabs us by the collar when we are envious people. Envy is truly a Luciferic quality, a quality that comes from Lucifer, whereas deceitfulness is a quality that comes from Ahriman. For Ahriman sends forth the forces and powers that radiate into our etheric body.

[ 10 ] Now we can say: It was indeed absolutely necessary for Lucifer and Ahriman to be sent by the wise world powers so that they might influence us toward our independence. By causing us to abuse our independence, they are, in a certain sense, enemies of humanity’s higher development. But even though they are, in a certain sense, enemies of humanity in its higher development, they are very close allies and reach quite peculiar compromises among themselves. We can speak of these very compromises when we consider such human traits as envy and deceitfulness.

[ 11 ] Envy! A person who is not entirely corrupt will, the moment he has to admit to himself, “I am an envious person,” truly do everything—one doesn’t even have to be particularly noble to do everything—to combat this envy. But sometimes these things run much deeper than our power—which stems from consciousness—can reach. And people sometimes imagine too easily what it takes to combat such things. So it happens that they fight against them because they find them ugly, yet they do not go away; in fact, they merely change their form and reappear in another realm. They then appear in masks, in disguises. And because one hates envy so much, one fights it; but if the soul is not yet strong enough to combat it thoroughly, it disappears as envy but reappears in another form.

[ 12 ] You are all familiar with that trait in people that is so common and that one might call: a tendency to criticize and find fault—the habit of focusing on the mistakes of those around us. When someone has to admit to themselves, “I am an envious person; I don’t want my fellow human beings to have any advantages”—they feel bad. They feel they must fight against it. But when they can say to themselves, “He or she has done this or that terrible thing”—then they feel that the tendency to find fault is, in a certain sense, justified; then they feel right at home. Just imagine, if that weren’t the case, how many coffee gatherings and beer gatherings would have to be canceled—where, when it comes down to it, so often nothing else is done but to give free rein to this nitpicking and fault-finding. And there, people find themselves justified in their own eyes. They tell themselves: “Yes, we see the faults; we have to see them; we cannot close our eyes to them.” — The only question is the reasons why we see the faults of our fellow human beings: whether we do so with the intention of improving life, or whether we are following a tendency of our soul that is often nothing more than envy in disguise. People fight against envy because they hate it, but they cannot root it out because they are too weak. Thus it takes on the guise of fault-finding and continues to wander through the soul in this way. Then one has not fought against envy; one has merely forced it into another metamorphosis. In truth, what has happened is that the human being has fought against Lucifer, for he reigns over envy as he does over many things. But Lucifer then says to Ahriman, if I may put it this way: “Look, dear Ahriman, human beings hate my dominion of envy; they do not want to be envious. Now take them over with regard to this quality!” Then Ahriman says: “Yes, then I will press this into the etheric body.” — And it is pressed into the etheric body as a tendency to find fault, as nitpicking, as misguided judgment of the world around us. For the capacity for judgment always has something to do with the movements and forces of the etheric body. Thus, the dominion over our soul passes from Lucifer to Ahriman. And so many qualities—which, if they were to reveal themselves to us in their original form, we would hate and fight against—appear in a masked form. Sometimes they appear in such a way that we actually find them quite justified and even take some credit for being able to rise above them to see what is right in life. Then we are truly in the clutches of the other power, the Ahrimanic power. We must not forget that a trait is far more dangerous when it appears in disguise than when it appears in its original form. Therefore, it is always good to ask, when we see this or that in life: Isn’t this perhaps merely another vice in disguise? — It is absolutely essential that we learn to view life in its truth in this way. Fundamentally, we can only do this if we use the guidelines provided by anthroposophical wisdom to look at life properly.

[ 13 ] Now we must say: Whatever appears in life as this or that vice—whether in its true form or in disguise—we often see it already at work karmically within a single incarnation. We do not need to wait for the transition from one incarnation to the next. We can already see, within a single incarnation, the karmic effect of a trait that appears at some point in a person’s life. And those who truly wish to observe life and pay a little attention to the fact that one does not come to know life by forgetting tomorrow what happened today, but rather by taking into account the longer periods of human life—they will find karma already at work even within a single incarnation, within a single life. It is truly necessary to pay very, very careful attention to how the sins of life essentially only manifest themselves after decades. But human beings are a forgetful race. Of all the races that begin with the human race and extend up into all the higher worlds, human beings are truly the most forgetful. Even if we have known someone for decades, we forget what came to light ten years ago; we are only too happy to let it fade from memory. I may have already mentioned a small example here, but it can once again show us how we must view life over longer periods of time if we wish to recognize it in its true form—a brief aside I’d just like to interject. It concerns the time when I had the opportunity to observe many children in various families. When raising children, one doesn’t just observe the children one is raising oneself, but also the more or less young offspring of uncles, aunts, nieces, nephews, and so on. And there one can take note of many things for life. Well, it’s been a long time, and fashions change. Back when I was raising children, it was customary for caregivers to sometimes give young children quite a few small glasses of red wine with their meals during the day to fortify them. That’s how it was—people considered it a good thing. If you had made a note of it back then—that this or that child was given red wine and the other wasn’t—you can now, when you have the opportunity again (as I always try to do), observe what has become of these children and gather some interesting insights. I can say this: the two-, three-, and four-year-olds from back then—now twenty-seven, twenty-eight, and twenty-nine years old—who were given red wine as children are restless, nervous people who sometimes find it extremely difficult to find their way in life. Of course, one shouldn’t base one’s observations on just five years. It’s so common today to try this or that, and if it shows some success in the coming months, it quickly becomes a widely used remedy. People are forgetful in this area as well. They’ve already forgotten how many remedies have gone out of fashion after five years. But, as I said, if one extends one’s observations over decades, then one can really sense how life works. There really is a big difference between the children who were given red wine back then and those who were not. But one would first have to conduct observations over three decades, so to speak, to see that. And that is indeed the case. I have woven this in to show that if one wants to see karma at work, it is necessary not to be forgetful, but to extend one’s observations over longer periods of time. The same is true of what manifests itself more on a spiritual level.

[ 14 ] If one considers the second half of a person’s life in connection with the first, one can certainly see that if a person was deceitful or envious during a certain period—or harbored envy under the guise of a critical disposition—the karmic effect of this becomes evident as early as the second half of life. Deceitful people always exhibit, even in a single incarnation, a very specific karmic effect of their deceitfulness: a certain shyness, an inability—one might say—to look people straight in the eye. This certainly comes to pass. Just try observing this phenomenon. You will find it to be true. Folk proverbs sometimes contain a deep, wise core of truth. It is not for nothing that people in many regions say one must be wary of someone who cannot look another person in the eye. For that is the karmic effect of deceitfulness.

[ 15 ] Envy, on the other hand—or envy masked as a tendency to criticize and find fault—manifests itself in a later stage of life within the same incarnation in such a way that the person in question has a tendency to be unable to stand on their own two feet, so that they long to lean on others, need advice on every little thing, and would prefer to constantly run to someone else to ask for advice. Independence in life is lost through envy, nitpicking, and a tendency to find fault. Such a person becomes emotionally weak.

[ 16 ] Now, when we consider a single incarnation, these qualities, with their karmic effects, present themselves to us on a spiritual level. We will consider shortly how these karmic effects play out as we pass from one incarnation to the next.

[ 17 ] But now, so as not to be one-sided, let us also consider some good qualities: benevolence and contentment. Everyone knows what a benevolent person is. A benevolent person is someone who feels a certain sense of satisfaction when another person succeeds, achieves this or that, or when they notice good qualities in that person. Benevolence is present when, so to speak, one experiences what the other is experiencing as if it were one’s own. This benevolence, in turn, has a very specific effect on our astral body—namely, pretty much the opposite of the effect of envy. We see how the lights of the astral body shine brightly when a person expresses benevolence. The astral body becomes brighter and more radiant when feelings of goodwill are present in a person’s soul. The aura becomes more luminous, more radiant, and thus richer; it becomes more saturated within itself, and is then able to infuse the person first with something like the warmth of the soul and then even with a sense of well-being.

[ 18 ] And when we see a contented person before us—a person who is not inclined to be grumpy about everything from the outset, to be dissatisfied with everything—then the etheric body reveals very specific qualities to us. It is important that we, in turn, take this into account in a certain way. For we should really be clear about how much of our dissatisfaction actually depends on ourselves. Some people can’t help but seek out everything that might make them dissatisfied. And we sense that it is not only happier natures, but also better natures, that are capable of paying close attention to the fact that even when terrible things keep coming our way, we still have reasons to rejoice over this or that. Such reasons do exist. And if someone refuses to admit that they exist, that is entirely their own fault. Contentment—especially when it is brought about by a better quality of our soul—strengthens the etheric body in terms of its vital force. And again, it is the case—assuming all other conditions are the same —that wounds or other ailments heal more easily in a content person who has good reason to be content and does not get overly upset about what befalls them, than in the gloomy and discontented person who gets worked up over everything and walks away dissatisfied with everything—as mentioned, all other things being equal. Now we can also see quite clearly in the course of a single life—and it is important that we take this into account when we are responsible for educating others—that in someone who, at a certain stage of life, is so thoroughly imbued with contentment and strives to seek out the things that can satisfy him, perhaps despite pain and suffering—that a karmic effect occurs in that same life, even if only after decades, which manifests itself notably in the fact that such a person, who has thus strived to cultivate contentment, radiates a certain soothing balance of life into their surroundings during a certain phase of their life. You know that this exists. There are people in whose presence others inevitably become extremely restless, and others who, simply by being there, have a calming effect on others. People who have strived to be content during a certain phase of their lives earn, as a karmic effect for a subsequent phase of that same life, the ability to have a harmonizing effect on their surroundings—to be, in a sense, benefactors to those around them simply by their very presence.

[ 19 ] Benevolent people—as we can always observe—who have strived to be benevolent achieve the karmic effect that, in a later phase of life, everything that depends on them and that they intend to do strangely succeeds. It sometimes seems inexplicable to us that some people succeed at everything, that they feel up to whatever they undertake, while others do not succeed, and everything they attempt fails. This leads back to the karmic cause of goodwill or ill will. You can observe these things, which I present to you as guidelines, in life. If you eliminate the sources of error that exist, you will see that life confirms what I have said.

[ 20 ] When we now pass from one incarnation to the next, we must say: In an incarnation, karmic effects can actually manifest only on the soul level; they manifest only on the soul level. There, the effects of envy manifest in certain weaknesses and a lack of independence; the effects of deceitfulness in shyness; and the effects of goodwill and contentment, just as I have described to you. In a single incarnation, we simply do not have those profound, deep-seated influences on our physical constitution that would allow us to take the karmic effects beyond a soul-level foundation. These influences begin to work into the body—into the structure and organization of the body—only in the next incarnation. And while we make ourselves spiritually dependent on others in one incarnation through envy and a tendency to find fault, these traits have a weakening effect on the physical constitution, carrying this weakness over into the next incarnation. A weak body is built up by one who was previously plagued by envy—or by masked envy—by a tendency to find fault, and by a critical nature.

[ 21 ] However, once we have given some thought to what Spiritual Science otherwise reveals to us, we must also say that it is truly no coincidence when we are brought together with this or that person in a new incarnation. We are led into the family and the environment with which we have a connection. And so you will not find it very strange when I say: If someone was an envious person in one incarnation, they will be reborn among the people—whether they are their parents or others—whom they envied, whom they judged or slandered, whom they reproached. He will be reunited with them. And we may be brought together in this way by being led into this environment with a weak constitution. This makes the matter very practical; it brings the doctrine of karma closer to everyday life. We can then say that when a human child is born with a weak constitution: This is the consequence of the envious disposition from a previous incarnation, and we—we are the ones who were envied, and this human child has been karmically brought together with us because we are the ones whom it pursued with its envy and its love of gossip. This is fruitful when we tell ourselves: If karma has any meaning at all, then it is justified to view the matter in this way. So let us look at it this way for once.

[ 22 ] Of course, the matter only becomes meaningful when we ask ourselves: What should we do in the face of such a weak human being? We need only ask ourselves: What does seem to us to be morally the best, even in ordinary life, when someone persecutes us with their envy and their tendency to criticize? Perhaps it is not always possible to do what is best in ordinary, everyday life. But what does seem best to us?—Well, certainly, forgiveness seems to us to be the very best. One might say: Our lives may not always allow us to forgive, but forgiveness is undoubtedly the best, and the most effective and also the most fruitful thing in life is forgiveness. If we can already say of ordinary life that forgiveness is the best—even if we cannot always put it into practice—then it becomes clear that, under all circumstances, the true application of the principle of forgiveness is most appropriate when we must acknowledge, as a karmic consequence of past incarnations, what I have said. When a vulnerable child is born into our circle or brought into our lives, we must then tell ourselves: Since karma is not meant to remain merely a theoretical idea, we must consider that we were the ones who were envied and slandered. Now, under all circumstances, we can practice the feeling of forgiveness in the depths of our hearts. — We can, so to speak, envelop such a child in an atmosphere of feelings of forgiveness that are continually rekindled. If one were to do this in life—if one felt connected to people who are weak, and were not merely to grasp the idea of forgiveness theoretically, but to continually stir up in one’s soul the feelings of “I have something to forgive you for,” “I want to forgive you,” and to constantly renew this feeling—then that would be a practical introduction of the anthroposophical attitude into life. One would already see the effect. Try putting this into practice, and you will see that the people whom you forgive in this way—and for whom you continually renew the feeling of forgiveness—will flourish when they are born into our midst in a state of weakness; that our feeling has a healing, life-giving effect on them. And in this way, we can become healers, bringing health to the people with whom karma has brought us together. This is how anthroposophy becomes fruitful—if we do not merely regard it as a collection of ideas that interest us. It is, in essence, quite selfish when we begin to take an interest in anthroposophy simply because the ideas of anthroposophy inspire us and appear true to us. For what are we satisfying then? We are satisfying our longing for a harmonious worldview. That is very beautiful. But what is greater is when we allow our entire life to be permeated by what arises from these ideas; when the ideas flow into our hands, into every step we take, and into everything we experience and do. Only then does anthroposophy become a principle of life, and until it does, it has no value.

[ 23 ] We can speak in a similar way regarding the other characteristics as well. For example, if we were deceitful people in one incarnation and are reborn, we will be brought together precisely with those whom we may have lied to relentlessly. It is quite common—if you are a serious student of the occult—to find that a human child is born into an environment with which it cannot establish a proper relationship, an environment that does not understand the child and which the child does not understand. It is sometimes the case that we have a peculiar effect on our surroundings. I don’t know if you’ve already observed that this actually extends far beyond just human beings. There are certain people: when they want to grow flowers, those flowers thrive—they have a knack for it. It is precisely because they are the ones growing the flowers that they thrive. Other people can do whatever they want, but the flowers wither away. That happens. There are simply far more mysterious relationships between the individual beings of existence than is generally supposed. These mysterious relationships exist, of course, primarily from person to person. And when karma brings us together with a child who has lied to us brazenly in a previous incarnation, we find it, so to speak, difficult to establish a relationship with that child. We should bear this in mind. We must not judge this solely according to our own temperament, but rather from a karmic perspective. We should say: This stems from the fact that we may have been lied to often by this child. Now, in turn, we can help this child, strengthen and empower them.

[ 24 ] What is the best way to forgive something—for example, when someone tells you a lie? The best way to forgive is to teach them the truth. By correcting the lie, you are doing some good, but you haven’t actually helped the person move forward. You help them move forward by trying to teach them a useful truth. One must follow a certain approach in dealing with people; that is what helps them move forward. If we are compelled to view the matter from a karmic perspective, it is particularly beneficial that, when dealing with people with whom we are karmically connected—people we know cannot relate to us because they are shy toward us—we make an effort to be truly sincere with them. Then we will see how these people, in turn, blossom under our openness and how this openness is of great benefit to them. In this way, we see how we can gain principles for living when we take a practical view of the workings of karma.

[ 25 ] What we described earlier as the effect of goodwill even within a single lifetime can be understood as bringing about something akin to the harmonization of life—though initially on a spiritual level. In people in whom this carries over from one incarnation to the next, we find that they are indeed born with a happier constitution, which we might call “skillful.” Benevolence and contentment in one incarnation bring about flexibility and dexterity in another. It is indeed true that this is the case, for it can always be demonstrated in the field of occult research. And one can very well observe oneself and experience to some extent how the previous incarnation influences the present one. We can be quite certain that this is the case with people whose fingers are completely unsuited to sewing on a button that has come off, or with people who, when asked to carry a glass into the cupboard, manage to knock it to the floor—I’m exaggerating a bit here. But on a more subtle level, there are a great many people who are so constituted that they simply cannot help but move their fingers in the wrong way, so that they are constantly making clumsy mistakes. This has profound significance for life: whether one can use one’s physical body effectively or whether it constantly presents one with, so to speak, treacherous obstacles. This is extraordinarily important. And when we see a clumsy child growing up, we must assume in most cases that he lacked contentment and goodwill in his previous incarnation. When we see dexterity emerge—so that when a person undertakes something, he already knows exactly how to do it in advance—then that is most certainly the karmic effect of goodwill and contentment.

[ 26 ] When we look at it this way, we can say: In fact, we can influence one incarnation to the next in a wonderful way. This opens up the possibility for us to truly begin working on our next incarnation. And we will change many things for our next incarnation if we once seriously resolve to observe whether we might not have even a tiny bit of fault-finding and criticism within us. If we try to examine ourselves to see if we have even a little of that within us, we will even find that we have it to a considerable degree. It is already a good start if we try to examine ourselves to see if we have even a little bit of it within us. Then the process of working on ourselves begins. And we may save ourselves from being born weak and pale in our next incarnation; we may already protect ourselves in this life from becoming, so to speak, dependent human beings,

[ 27 ] When we consider these things, we will say to ourselves: It is no longer a fantasy to view individual incarnations as links in the chain of human existence and to regard the Earth truly as a kind of training ground through which we learn to make use of what is offered to us in each incarnation in such a way that we rise higher and higher, advancing farther and farther. For why, after all, do we incarnate? We can best grasp this by asking ourselves about the two major differences—the great distinctions—that exist between our incarnations in ancient pre-Christian times and our present incarnations, which unfold after the Christ impulse had come. For there is, in fact, a very, very significant difference.

[ 28 ] The best way to describe this difference between our incarnations in ancient pre-Christian times and our present incarnations is to say: When we look back at the incarnations of people in pre-Christian times, the souls of that era had, to a certain extent, all retained something of what all souls possessed at the beginning of earthly incarnations. All souls possessed a natural clairvoyance, a capacity to look into the spiritual world. And the progress of incarnations consists precisely in the fact that this legacy from the spiritual world—of spiritual origin—has gradually been lost, that human beings have stepped out more and more onto the physical plane, and that the spiritual world has increasingly faded from their lives. The Christ impulse means that when we find the way to receive the Christ within us and connect him with our “I,” we begin once again to ascend more and more toward what we were at the beginning—only richer. The fact that, at the end of our incarnations, we will once again be in the spiritual realm as we were at the beginning of our incarnations is brought about by the reception of the Christ force, provided we use our next incarnations in such a way that we take in more and more of the Christ. These are the great differences between pre-Christian and post-Christian incarnations. We are actually still in a transitional period in this regard. We have been deeply driven, in terms of all normal human cognition, onto the physical plane—toward mere physical perception—and today actually marks a peak in terms of physical perception. For the Christ impulse is only just beginning, and in subsequent incarnations, people will truly take in the Christ; only then will they come to cherish these incarnations, because they offer them the opportunity to experience what can only be experienced through earthly existence: the absorption of the Christ impulse into the soul. We can observe this even in the case of great personalities—how, so to speak, there is a tremendous difference between their incarnations before the Christ impulse came to Earth and those afterward. I would like to share a specific example with you.

[ 29 ] Some time ago, I was invited to speak for a few days at our southernmost European branch—I mean, insofar as we are speaking of Rosicrucian Theosophy—in Palermo. And as I sailed into Sicily from Naples, I already had the very distinct feeling that there was something to be learned there about occult realities that are difficult to investigate solely in the North. For there is a personality, an individual, who appeared—whom I cannot name at this time—who played a certain role at the turn of the Middle Ages and the modern era, who was much talked about in our region and in neighboring areas, and about whom the occultist often wonders: What was the situation regarding this personality’s previous incarnation? — That was an important research question for me, and strangely enough, I had the hope that, precisely upon this journey to Sicily, I might perhaps learn something about this question through the occult research possible there. And that was indeed the case very soon. Of course, what is being recounted here is somewhat intimate, but within our branches there is no longer any need to be completely reserved about such intimate matters. There is something permeating the entire spiritual atmosphere of Sicily—I am not referring to the external atmosphere, but to the spiritual one—something very, very curious. And the pursuit of this peculiarity ultimately led to its origin: a great sage who was active in Sicily, one who is dismissed with just a few words in the history of philosophy, but about whom, in truth, very little is actually known from an exoteric, external perspective. It is Empedocles.

[ 30 ] If one now—and this is what I intend to do right here before you—wishes to characterize Empedocles as an occultist, then one must say: In a certain respect, Empedocles was far ahead of his time; he was too advanced for his era. In other respects, however, he was unable to transcend his time. There was a deep conflict within his soul. Empedocles is truly a great, multifaceted figure. In Sicily, he was active not only as a philosopher, not only as a leader of the mysteries, but also as a statesman, an architect, and all sorts of things—he was a kind of organizer, this wonderful Empedocles. Now, Empedocles lived in Sicily about four or five centuries before the Christ impulse, and he was ahead of his time in that he felt the urge to delve into the material aspects of the world. People had never before delved into matter so superficially as they do today. When people spoke of water, as Thales did, for example, they meant something spiritual. Empedocles was the one who, in a certain sense, anticipated a materialistic principle by composing all of existence from the four elements, which he, however, conceived of in material terms. And through the mixing and separating of this matter, he conceived of the constitution of the world. The spiritual aspect was lost to him because—precisely as an occult personality, looking back on his incarnations—he should have found the Christ impulse; he had already been called to do so. When we look back today into the Akashic Records, we find the Christ impulse at a very specific point; but the one who lived before the Christ impulse could not do so. He could not receive it as an earthly impulse, for it had not yet physically existed. That was what Empedocles lacked; it could not pour into his soul. He lacked the counterbalance to the materialism flaring up within him. But because he was, after all, a personality with strong impulses—albeit those of an occultist—this led him to act out this disharmony. That is what turned out to be the truth. This led him—just as one would otherwise, when seeking the truth, seek to unite with the spiritual in the mind—to want to be one with the materiality of the four elements. And he threw himself into Mount Etna. He truly threw himself into it in order to be one with the elements. On the material level, he sought identification with the Divine, which had appeared to him in a material form. And I would like to say: This product of Empedocles’ combustion in the fiery torrents of Etna is still very much present in the atmosphere of Sicily today as a fertilizing force, like the effect of a sacrifice. There is something great and mighty present, but it stems from this—one might say—false, smug, anachronistic materialism—please do not misunderstand the term “false.” Empedocles, who, looking back, could not find Christ, even though he should have found him, casts his life aside. That is why he came to life again in such a remarkable way at the dawn of the modern era and lived quite differently then. The time has not yet come to speak of the personality into which he was reborn. This offers a wonderful insight into what the Christ impulse actually is in the course of evolution. The Christ event stands right in the middle between Empedocles’s earlier and later incarnations. And by comparing the two incarnations, one can see in Empedocles’s individuality what effect this has: whether, as a spirit belonging to the modern era, one can look back and find the Christ impulse, or whether one does not find it. This makes a tremendous difference. Just as souls in ancient times had to go back from incarnation to incarnation to see how they had allied themselves with the divine-spiritual being in earlier incarnations, so must we have the opportunity, when we go back from our own incarnation and trace the time from our birth to our previous death, and again from that to our previous birth, and so on —to find the Christ impulse in this way. The spiritual researcher, in particular, must find it. This Christ impulse kindles a light within him, whereas otherwise he would plunge into darkness at that moment, and everything that existed would lie in darkness. We need the Christ impulse precisely in the field of spiritual research like a torch; otherwise darkness ensues, and otherwise we cannot look clearly into the true reasons behind the Akashic Records of ancient times. This can be observed in a wonderful way through an example such as that of Empedocles. There one gains a sense of how these incarnations follow one another in our earthly existence; how, so to speak, humanity has moved in a descending direction up to the Christ impulse, how it has stepped further and further out onto the physical plane, and how we are now in the process of gradually ascending into the spiritual realm. The last great spirit of the descent is the great Buddha; the first great impulse for the ascent is that of Christ Jesus, and perhaps nothing else allows one to feel so deeply within the immense difference between the Buddha principle and the principle of Christ Jesus as when one contemplates what the great Buddha once said to his closest disciples, referring to his enlightenment—which is symbolically called the enlightenment under the Bodhi tree. There the Buddha says: When I look back on past incarnations, I see how I set out from the divine-spiritual source of the world, how I have gone from incarnation to incarnation, always dwelling with my spiritual core within the outer temple of the body, descending into the physical world. But now, in this incarnation, I have found the possibility of no longer having to return to another incarnation. I have gone from one physical temple to another; in every incarnation, the Divine has erected the temple of my body for me. But now, as I am embodied in it for the last time, I feel the beams of this physical temple creaking, and that I no longer need to return to such a temple. — For he proclaimed that the true striving must be directed toward emerging from this earthly existence, toward no longer having any connection with this temple of the body, but rather toward striving beyond it to the final incarnation, in order to live on solely in the spiritual realm. This was the final reference to humanity’s descent, to the memory that human beings may have of primordial wisdom, to that which stands at the beginning of the human race.

[ 31 ] Oh, it must move us deeply when we see the Buddha standing there, saying: “From temple to temple of the body I have walked; now I feel that this is the last time.” If we compare this—setting aside all metaphysical implications—with an intimate statement that Christ made to his closest disciples, namely: ‘Tear down this temple, and in three days I will rebuild it’—then we see that in the Buddha there was a great longing for the beams of the temple of the body to crash down so that there would no longer be a need to return to it; whereas in Christ there was the promise: ‘Tear it down, and I will rebuild it in three days.’ Love for the earthly world is expressed in the subsequent incarnations of human beings, in which they find the opportunity to build up their physical temple again and again, so that they may learn anew and ascend to higher levels; so that when the Earth has reached its goal—when the Earth itself becomes a corpse, so to speak, shedding the soul-bound nature of all humanity, just as our body sheds the soul when we pass through the gate of death—by then, humanity will have ascended higher and higher. Because human beings will have been Christianized, they will be able to pass over to new stages of existence as the whole of humanity. Christ’s statement does not mean that he himself intends to return to the physical body, but that he will return to the principle of building the body, that he will remain with earthly existence until the end of the earth.

[ 32 ] I tried to express this through the words spoken by Theodora, the seer in the Mystery Drama, where you can see how Christ will become more and more familiar to human life, even though He does not return to a physical body. But He is experienced in the physical temples of human beings. And in his words, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it up again in three days,” lies the promise: Yes, I will make it come true that I may enter into the souls of human beings, so that more and more people may come who can say, in the spirit of Paul, “Not I, but Christ in me!”

[ 33 ] Thus we see how, on a small scale, we can regard Spiritual Science as a principle of life by gaining the ability to perceive—even between birth and death—the karmic effects of certain qualities of our character and soul, and by seeing how these carry over into the physical constitution of our next incarnation. And so we see how, on a larger scale, Spiritual Science sets before us the loftiest ideals and tells us what we will become—people who have become Christianized—when the Earth becomes a corpse and falls away from the soul-life of humanity, when humanity will be called to advance to other planetary states. Spiritual Science can thus provide us with the greatest ideals, and it can flow into the smallest circumstances of life. In this way, it becomes truly practical, and it can and should become so more and more. When we become anthroposophists in the sense that all our conduct—even if it takes place in this or that sphere of life that seems so far removed from actual anthroposophical activity —is permeated in every detail by an anthroposophical attitude, by anthroposophical feeling and thinking; only then has what can be called the fulfillment of our being through anthroposophy truly come to pass. Anthroposophy must not be regarded merely as a theory; it must also be seen as a way of life—but as a way of life that requires learning. And fundamentally, we must be clear that, if anthroposophy is to be a way of life for us, we must strive—through its true, concrete content—not to say, “I understand this aspect of anthroposophy, and that is the right thing,” but rather to first familiarize ourselves deeply, deeply with what Spiritual Science has to say to us. Then it must become a source of life for us. And it can do so only when we allow it to permeate us. Then, however, it will do so in the smallest and the greatest things; then the perspective on the interconnections of human progress and on the smallest facts of everyday life will open up to us.