The Rudolf Steiner Archive

3. The Revival of Spiritual Thought as a Demand of Our Time

[ 1 ] It gives me particular satisfaction that we are able to gather here, as it were, torn away from our construction work in Dornach. Yet it seemed impossible to me that, while we are physically so close to our building site, we should not also come together to discuss anthroposophical matters. Hopefully, we will have the opportunity to do this several times throughout the year, since otherwise our friends working on the construction would have fewer opportunities to participate in such discussions than they do during the times when they are not devoting their energies to this building.

[ 2 ] We would like to begin today with some individual reflections on spiritual life that may be useful to us when, in a quiet moment, we take stock of the question: What significance can Spiritual Science have for us as human souls? What significance can the anthroposophical life have? — It might well seem, especially to those people of the present day who have not yet become accustomed to anthroposophical thinking, feeling, and perception, as if the question were justified: “Well, why should we actually concern ourselves with spiritual life, with the spiritual world, since—as the materialist might well say—we will in any case be transported into this spiritual world after death and will then experience whatever there is to experience about it.” Why shouldn’t we be content simply to do, here in this life between birth and death, whatever arises from life in the physical world, and why should we put a damper on our lives by fulfilling our physical duties as they arise in the physical world, while leaving the nature of the spiritual world to remain in the realm of the unknown? — This is a statement and a question that one has often heard as the materialistic flood, particularly in the last third of the 19th century, swept over human development. And it was by no means always the morally worst souls who said: Let us, during our life on earth, focus on the duties that arise for us here, and leave the rest to a world we may enter after death. — One has often had to hear this.

[ 3 ] First, let us draw attention to something that will be immediately clear to the discerning mind that is now beginning to find its bearings—not so much in Spiritual Science, but simply in truly logical thinking. After all, human beings actually spend only a portion of the time between birth and death truly in the physical world; that is to say, they spend in the physical world the time during which they are awake. And at the very least, someone who may have only just begun to approach thinking about the spiritual world but is capable of logical thinking must admit that, in their conscious soul life, human beings are initially just as uninformed about life during sleep as they are about life after death. And, after all, logical thinking cannot reasonably deny the continuation of life during sleep; such logical thinking would then have to accept the claim that one truly perishes every evening and is reborn in the morning. Logical thinking will likely not do that, but neither will truly logical thinking be able to assert that the entire human being is truly contained within the sleeping body lying in bed. At the very least, people should begin to reflect on the fact of sleep. And when people begin to reflect on the fact of sleep, this will already give them an impulse to engage a little with what Spiritual Science has to offer the world. Natural science, in particular, will increasingly come to realize that in the sleeping human being—that is, in the physical body of the sleeping human being—the actual soul-being of the human being is not present, is not there. But this century of scientific development will hardly come to an end without natural science itself arriving at this insight that has just been indicated. Then natural science will already turn to Spiritual Science for answers, and then it will be compelled by its own logic to acknowledge that what we call the human spiritual-soul being is truly disconnected from the physical body during sleep. And then it will become important, increasingly important for the people of the 20th century, to know something about this sleep. And to form a mental image of what people will need to know about the nature of sleep in the course of the 20th century—that is where we shall begin today.

[ 4 ] We know from our studies in Spiritual Science that when a person sleeps, the two aspects of their being—the I and the astral body—are separated from the physical and etheric bodies. We might ask: Where, then, are the I and the astral body during sleep? — First of all, we can answer: Well, in the spiritual world. — Yes, but we are actually always in this spiritual world. We are truly always within the spiritual world, because this spiritual world is not separated from the outer world; rather, just as the air physically surrounds us everywhere, so the spiritual world surrounds us spiritually. So even in the waking state, we are constantly within the spiritual world. But when we are asleep, we are in this spiritual world differently than we are in it when awake. Now, in a sense, it suffices—I would say for the most basic needs of Spiritual Science—to put it this way: One is with one’s ego and astral body outside the physical and etheric bodies during sleep. But in saying this, one is, in fact, stating only half the truth. One does say the half-truth, but one is saying only the half-truth. It is, in essence, as if one were to say: At night, the sun is outside the Earth. — Only for those inhabitants, isn’t it, who live in Europe, is the sun indeed outside their Earth during the night. But we know: it is not so for all inhabitants of the Earth. Essentially, this is how it is with our being—insofar as we are an I and an astral body—during sleep. Truly outside, one might say, completely outside our physical and etheric bodies, we are with our I and astral body only after death. During sleep, strictly speaking, we are with our I and astral body outside our blood and our nervous system. But just as the sun of our being—our “I” and astral body—sets for our blood and nervous system, which they permeate during the day, so do they rise for the other half of the human being, for the organs that are not blood and nervous system. With these, the human being stands in an intimate connection during sleep. Indeed, just as our sun, which shines upon us during the day, rises for other inhabitants of the earth when it sets for us, so it is with the ego and astral body. When they set for our blood and nervous system, they rise for the other organs and are then connected to them all the more energetically. Now these other organs, with which our ego and astral body are connected during sleep, are in fact those which, just like everything that exists in the world, are built up out of the spiritual realm. And now the remarkable thing about our sleep is that, from our ego and astral body, we strongly influence these organs of our body that lie outside our nervous system and our blood. While during waking hours we strongly influence our nervous system and our blood from our ego and astral body, we influence our other organs—and also those aspects of our other organs that do not, so to speak, originate from the blood and nerves themselves, but rather what our nerves transmit into the blood—we influence all of this particularly strongly from our ego and astral body during sleep.

[ 5 ] If that is the case, then something else follows—something, I would say, that is easy to understand. What is easy to understand is that it matters how we enter sleep with our ego and astral body. To the materialist, it may at first seem completely irrelevant how his ego and astral body—which he does not even mention—behave during sleep. The person who sees through these things knows that our organs, insofar as they do not express themselves directly in the activities of the blood and the nervous system—that is, in conscious life—are dependent on what is in our ego and astral body that is active, particularly during sleep. Perhaps the best way to speak of such a matter is through an example. Let us take an obvious example.

[ 6 ] As is well known, there is a fear in our time that can be compared, in essence, to the medieval fear of ghosts. This is today’s fear of germs. Objectively speaking, these two states of fear are exactly the same. They are also exactly the same in that each of the two eras—the Middle Ages and modern times—behaves in a manner appropriate to itself. The Middle Ages had a certain belief in the spiritual world; naturally, it feared spiritual beings. The modern era has lost this belief in the spiritual world; it believes in the material, and so it fears material entities, no matter how small they may be. A difference, wouldn’t you agree, could at most be found in the fact that ghosts are, at least to some extent, respectable beings compared to the minuscule germs, which, strictly speaking, cannot really make a name for themselves with their nature, so that one could not truly fear them as seriously as one would a respectable ghost. Now, of course, this is not to say that germs should be cultivated, or that it is a good thing to, so to speak, live in close proximity to germs. That is certainly not what is being said. But it also does not contradict what has been said, for after all, germs are certainly there, but ghosts were there too. For those who could truly believe in the spiritual world, there is not even a difference in terms of reality in this regard.

[ 7 ] The point is—and this is the essential point to be emphasized today—that germs can only become dangerous if they are nurtured. Germs should not be nurtured. Certainly, even the materialists will agree with us when we assert that germs should not be nurtured. But if we go further and speak from the standpoint of true Spiritual Science about what nurtures them most, then the materialists will no longer follow along. Germs are nurtured most intensely when a person takes nothing but a materialistic mindset into the state of sleep. There is no better way to nurture them than to go to sleep with nothing but materialistic mental images and, from there—from the spiritual world, from one’s I and astral body—to exert a retroactive influence on the organs of the physical body that are not the blood and nervous system. There is no better way to nurture germs than to sleep with nothing but a materialistic mindset. That is to say, there is at least one other method that is just as effective as this one. This is to live in a hotbed of epidemic or endemic diseases and absorb nothing but the symptoms of illness all around you, while being filled solely with the feeling of fear of this disease. That is indeed just as good. If one can present nothing else to oneself but fear of the diseases unfolding all around in an epidemic hotbed, and falls asleep at night with the thought of fear, then unconscious afterimages and imaginings, permeated by fear, are generated in the soul. And that is a good way to nurture and foster germs. If one can only slightly alleviate this fear through active love, for example, where, in the midst of caring for the sick, one can forget that one might also be infected, then one also certainly alleviates the conditions for the germs.

[ 8 ] In Spiritual Science, these things are not merely presented to speculate on human selfishness, but to describe facts of the spiritual world. Thus we see that in this specific case, we are indeed dealing with the spiritual world in our lives, for we ourselves actually act from within the spiritual world from the moment we fall asleep until we wake up. And truly, more than through all the means now put forward by materialistic science against everything called “germs”—truly more, and in a way that is immeasurably richer for the future of humanity—one could work if one were to impart to people mental images that would lead them away from materialism and inspire them to active love from the spirit. In the course of this century, the realization must spread more and more that the spiritual world is by no means indifferent to our physical life, that it has a pervasive significance for the physical world, because we are in fact within the spiritual world from the moment we fall asleep until we wake up, and from there we continue to exert an influence on the physical body. Even if this is not immediately apparent, it is nonetheless the case.

[ 9 ] Now, if one wishes to view these things in the proper light, one will have to get used to one thing. One will have to get used to the fact that what must be regarded directly as the healing power of Spiritual Science must work through human society. For one might ask: what significance would it have if some individual here or there were to enter the spiritual worlds upon falling asleep, each time with thoughts inclined toward the spiritual world, while all around are others who, with materialistic thoughts, materialistic feelings, and feelings of fear—which are, after all, always connected with materialism— the guardians and nurturers of the world of germs. What is this world of germs, really? Yes, here we come to a subject about which some knowledge is quite essential for human life. When we find the air outside in nature filled with all manner of birds, the water with fish, when we observe what crawls across the earth, what frolics upon it, and thus reveals to the outer senses what lives in nature—there we are dealing with beings of whom we are actually quite correct to say: They are, after all, in some form—even when they interfere harmfully here and there with the forces of nature—creatures of the evolving Godhead. But the moment we come to those beings that have their dwelling place of activity within other living beings—in plants, animals, or humans— then we are dealing, especially when it comes to bacillus-like creatures that inhabit animal or human bodies—namely those in the human body—with creatures of spiritual beings, but with creatures of Ahriman. And one views the presence of such creatures within our world correctly when one is clear that all these entities are connected with spiritual realities, with humanity’s relationship to Ahriman. And these relationships of humanity to Ahriman are established, as we know, through a materialistic mindset or purely egoistic states of fear. And one correctly views the relationship in which such parasitic entities exist in the world when one says: Wherever these parasitic entities appear, they are a symptom of Ahriman’s intervention in the world. And when we see from such an example that it really does matter whether, when a person falls asleep in the evening, they carry over into the spiritual world—where they are between falling asleep and waking up—purely materialistic mental images or spiritual mental images; when we realize that this does matter, then we also cease to speak of it as if it might be a matter of indifference whether, even in this world, one knows something of the spirit or knows nothing of the spirit. We must, however, begin at a certain point if we are to truly bring to mind the great significance of Spiritual Science research even for this human life between birth and death.

[ 10 ] But we can also turn our spiritual eyes to entirely different realms. We will increasingly notice how this life is connected to the spiritual life. As human beings, we need the other realm—so to speak, the realm beneath humanity—from which we draw sustenance, that is, from which we derive our nourishment. What the dead initially draw their nourishment from for a time after death are the mental images, the sensations, the unconscious sensations and feelings that people here on earth carry over into sleep. For the dead, it makes a tremendous difference whether, say, a group of people is sleeping somewhere who, during their waking lives, fill themselves only with purely materialistic sensations and mental images and carry these over into sleep, and are permeated by the aftereffects of this materialism as they fall asleep, or whether somewhere a group of people is sleeping who, while awake, have completely imbued themselves with mental images and who remain imbued with such images even during sleep. Just as a barren surface that contains no food and on which people would have to starve relates to a fertile region that provides people with food, so does a group of people who sleep with a materialistic mindset relate, for those who have passed through death, to a group of people who sleep with mental images. For from the souls sleeping here on earth being filled with mental images, the dead draw, for many years after death, a life force that is similar—only spiritual, only transposed into the spiritual—to what we, as physical human beings, draw from the beings of the natural kingdoms below us that provide us with nourishment. In the literal sense, we make ourselves a fertile field for the dead when we fill ourselves with the mental images that come to us from Spiritual Science. And we make ourselves a barren field, through which we starve the dead, when we make ourselves sleepers with materialistic ideas and attitudes.

[ 11 ] Speaking of Spiritual Science in our time does not stem from the kind of enthusiasm that leads to the formation of many other associations, human societies, and the like. Rather, the urge to speak of Spiritual Science arises from that inner necessity of the heart which recognizes that people in the coming 20th century will need this Spiritual Science. No matter how conditions in the outer world may develop, anyone who deeply perceives how necessary Spiritual Science is to the world has no choice but to let the insights of Spiritual Science flow from their tongue and lips in order to share them with their fellow human beings. And one feels that every power of speech one can muster is far too small in the face of the necessity that exists to bring Spiritual Science in ever-increasing measure to a humanity that would otherwise have to plunge deeper and deeper into materialism.

[ 12 ] And if we approach the question from another angle: What about our relationship to those deceased individuals with whom we were connected in life, of whom we can form clear mental images, and with whom we all have such a bond that we often think of them? What about our relationship to the dead in yet another sense, other than when we offer them spiritual nourishment by carrying mental images into our sleep? What is the nature of our relationships with the dead in our waking lives?

[ 13 ] If what the dead draw from what is in the souls of sleeping people is something like nourishment for the dead, then every thought that enters the spiritual worlds—one that concerns itself with the spiritual worlds and spiritual beings— every thought that relates to the spiritual worlds, is something the dead can perceive—something they must do without if we do not harbor such thoughts. Mental images that relate solely to the material world, to what is out there in nature, exist in our souls in such a way that the dead cannot see them; they have no significance for the dead. No matter how learned or wise we may be in our reflections on the things of the external world, our thoughts are nothing to the dead. The moment we entertain thoughts that relate to the spiritual world, those thoughts are immediately present for the dead—not only for the living, but also for the dead.

[ 14 ] For this reason, it has often been recommended to our friends: If any person with whom they have had a connection is in the spiritual world, they should read to that person in their thoughts. They should visualize that person and, while reading, go through in their thoughts whatever deals with the spiritual world. Then the deceased reads along. One must not believe that this is meaningless. The deceased in the spiritual world is indeed in that world we know from Spiritual Science. But thoughts about the spiritual world must be generated on Earth. The deceased should not merely perceive the spiritual world, which is certainly all around them. They need the thoughts of those living on Earth. These thoughts are, for them, something like a perception. The most beautiful, most meaningful thing we can give to the dead is to read to them in the manner described here. Whenever the question arises as to how we can give something to the dead, the answer must be: by reading aloud any spiritual content. — And if anyone should still have doubts as to whether this is useful, since the deceased dwells in the spiritual world, one need only consider that in the physical world, a person may likewise be surrounded by things and beings, yet still have no concept of them. One must first acquire them. So the deceased may be in the spiritual world; he is there. But thoughts must flow up to him from the earth. Just as the blessing rain must flow from the cloud for the physical earth, so must the luminous thoughts flow up into those regions where the deceased dwells.

[ 15 ] All these examples show us just how great, how infinitely significant the experience of the spiritual world in thought already is for our physical world, and how unfounded the objection is that one could simply wait until after death to gain knowledge of what exists in the spiritual world. Truly, it is precisely a close examination of the spiritual world that so clearly shows that human beings are not on Earth in vain, that they are on Earth to acquire something here that cannot be acquired anywhere else in the world but on Earth—something of such significance that the living can still bestow it upon the dead.

[ 16 ] And in many other respects as well, the intimate connection between life here on earth—between birth and death—and life immediately after death becomes evident. It is just difficult to speak concretely about this connection because these words are so terribly easy to misunderstand. Human beings are quite prone to one-sidedness, and when one speaks of any subject—especially when it relates to the spiritual world and spiritual beings—it gives rise to misunderstanding due to certain motives of the human heart. When one recounts, in a specific case, that this or that connection exists between a human life here on Earth and life after death, it is all too easy—out of a readily understandable human egoism—to draw a completely misleading conclusion from the description of such a specific case, namely, one applies the case to oneself. When a story is told about a specific, concrete person who experiences this or that, people so easily think: things are quite different for me, so I do not experience anything so beautiful. And instead of the listener deriving satisfaction from the account of these experiences, they feel something born of a sense of egoism: that they cannot have anything equally beautiful after death.

[ 17 ] As soon as one addresses a specific case, rather than speaking in general terms, one must develop the selfless ability to consider another person’s fate without drawing conclusions about one’s own life—and without saying, for example, “Isn’t that just like me?”—otherwise one misses the point of what is being said. — So this and similar things are truly sources of misunderstanding. And I must preface this by saying that such a misunderstanding can easily arise, because by saying this, I want to prevent such a misunderstanding from forming.

[ 18 ] A very dear friend of ours passed away recently, and a large number of the friends gathered here attended his cremation. He would have celebrated his forty-third birthday tomorrow, on May 6. He suffered greatly here during the last years of his life. I would like to mention—as an aside—a wonderful account of his final days that his wife recently shared with me. Our friend resisted during the time he suffered greatly—not, for instance, against actually admitting to himself that he had to suffer, but he resisted the idea of being sick. He was not sick, he said. He suffered, yes, but he was not sick. And he insisted that such a statement not be taken as mere wordplay, but that it was meant to convey something real. It was this definition he coined: “I am suffering, but I am not sick”—arising from the awareness that what I can carry within me as spiritual science, what sustains and carries me inwardly as spiritual science, nullifies all the trials of illness. I feel that I am suffering, but the health of my soul is so great that, when I look at my physical condition in contrast, I cannot call myself sick. One could say much more about this definition. It is something immensely significant, something that is so well suited to permeating the human soul as a feeling.

[ 19 ] But now, if one follows the person in question as he spent his final years on earth in a sick body, in a suffering body, in which he did not know himself to be sick, but only suffering, and if one compares this with the spiritual life of this friend that is now beginning, one gains a fitting picture of the connections between life between birth and death and life after death. A wealth of imaginations had prepared itself—I am recounting a fact of the spiritual world—in this body, which bore the outward symptoms of illness. A wealth of imaginations lived, so to speak, in the sick limbs—powerful imaginations. He was completely filled with the content of the spiritual worlds, and they lived in such a way that they worked into all those organs of which a person is not as conscious in daily life as he is of his brain or nervous system—which he thus experienced more in his subconscious life— they lived within them, and the sicker these organs were outwardly, the more easily they could live there. And they prepared themselves and now stand as a mighty tableau of the spiritual world before the soul of the dead person, who now lives in these mental images that were captured precisely during his final years of life within the prison of his diseased organs, but which have prepared themselves in such density that he now has them as his world outside himself in the spirit.

[ 20 ] More beautiful worlds, or more perfect ones, perceive the spiritual cosmos in a more beautiful way than by seeing it blossom; to observe this phenomenon more beautifully, building upon spiritual art, is not easily possible except through such a reality. Everything that the artist creates, standing here on the physical plane and bringing a piece of the world into being through beauty—so that through the image he conjures onto the canvas or into the marble, we see more of the world than we can see on our own—is a trifle compared to when we see it again: the spiritual world as it is on the one hand, one might say, as it is in itself, and then again as it comes into being, blossoming from the soul of a deceased person who, through his karma, is prepared in the manner I have described. How he was prepared will be shown in particular by his writings, which are now in press and will appear shortly. For they will show that this entire mode of spiritual life, of passing over into the spiritual world after death, is intimately connected with what we have for years called the Christ impulse within our Spiritual Science. This Christ impulse, understood in the context of Spiritual Science, lives beautifully in these poems.

[ 21 ] In connection with this fact I spoke of—which can truly make us feel the relationship between the world we pass through between birth and death and that between death and new birth—there is now something I would like to add, and I would like to do so not by explaining the connection through abstract thoughts, but by letting you feel the connection. You see, here on the physical plane one can be a foolish or a wise person; one can also be a learned person: for life after death, it does not matter much whether one was a foolish, a wise, or a learned person on the physical plane, if that foolishness, wisdom, or learning relates to things of the physical world. No matter how cleverly we may think about the things of the physical world, those thoughts—namely, the way of thinking about the physical world—are of no use to us whatsoever once we have passed through the gate of death. This then has no significance at all. Once a person has passed through the gate of death, they need thoughts, mental images, and feelings that do not relate to the physical world; only those have meaning there.

[ 22 ] Now I would like to begin by conveying what I have said in a somewhat grotesque, paradoxical way. But do not be put off by the paradox; we will soon see what I mean by this. Let us suppose that a person refuses to think anything that is not prompted by sensory perceptions. And as soon as something approaches him and any thoughts begin to take root within him, he says: I do not want you; I proceed from what the eyes see, what the ears hear—that is what I want to think about. ‘Stay away from me with the rest,’ I say to myself—and in doing so, I keep myself from it. — Such a person absorbs no strength that they could use after death. They enter blindly into the time between death and new birth. Let us now further assume that a person has a vivid imagination and finds it inconvenient to approach Spiritual Science, to learn all sorts of things, to learn something only little by little. They would find it much more comfortable to form all sorts of mental images of the spiritual world out of their imagination; they would think a great deal about the spiritual world purely out of imagination, so that on the one hand they would have everything in their imaginative life that pertains to the sensory world, and on the other hand all sorts of mental images of the spiritual world. Such a person, however, differs from the one who says: “Leave me alone with these mental images of the spiritual world”—for the one who wants to know nothing of the spiritual world enters the spiritual world like a blind person. The one who at least forms imaginative concepts possesses such soul powers that he does indeed enter the spiritual world as one who sees, but he becomes a seer in the same way that, in the physical world, a seer is someone who has nothing but defects in his eyes, so that he sees everything wrongly. And that means something far worse in the spiritual world than in the physical world, for if one sees everything wrongly in the spiritual world, that means causing confusion at every turn in the spiritual world. But we can see one thing from what has been said, albeit in a grotesque way: we can see that human beings need mental images that go beyond sensory life if they truly wish to be citizens of the spiritual world—and they must be. They can either be so in a crippled state—such is the person who wants to take in only sensory mental images, or who lets their imagination run wild—; otherwise, they need orientation that goes beyond the sensory world.

[ 23 ] So that people, as they develop on Earth, would not merely have mental images inspired by physical things, or so that they would not merely imagine the spiritual world, the various founders of religions appeared over the course of time. If we examine them along with the teachings they gave to humanity, the goal of all these religious founders was to provide people with such mental images of the supersensible world that they could enter this supersensible world in an undiminished state. Depending on the needs of the ages and the peoples, the religious founders gave people such mental images.

[ 24 ] Our age is different from those of the past. Our age is such that we must grow up—and I ask that you not take this word in an external sense, but in a deeply inner sense—into a mature humanity. Into a mature humanity that must find its way up into the spiritual worlds through its own soul. The founders of religion in ancient times spoke to an immature humanity. They spoke to the humanity through which all our souls have also passed. The founders of religion in those ancient times knew their own times, and they knew that they would not be able to speak to the humanity destined to live toward the future in the same way they once spoke to humanity. For this humanity must become mature. Let us suppose that a member of a people of ancient times would have had to limit himself to sensory mental images or resort to imaginative ones; depending on which, he would have entered the spiritual world either crippled or at least confused. Then came the religious founder. He brought forth true mental images from the spiritual world. The member of a people of bygone times said to himself: Not I, insofar as I perceive sensually, insofar as I work in my imagination, but the founders of religion—Zoroaster, Buddha, Krishna—they are the ones who stir up mental images within me through which I find entry into the spiritual world. — Whether the ego causes confusion or becomes blind, the human being of this age must be of age. The Mystery of Golgotha was accomplished so that, as a person of age, he might find the way into the spiritual world. The founder of a religion no longer appears as such before outer humanity, as he appeared in the past. For those who even compare Christ with the old founders of religions understand nothing at all of Christ. For Christ first worked through a deed, whereas other founders of religions worked through teachings. The moment one calls Christ a world teacher, one testifies that one does not know at all who Christ is. What matters with regard to Christ is the deed he accomplished, which unfolded from the event we see in the baptism by John up to the crucifixion on Golgotha. What happens there for humanity is, in the spiritual realm, what matters. What happened there is what has been able to bring joy to human souls since that time: the words spoken by Paul: “Not I, but Christ in me.” For Christ has become the way into the spiritual world, because he brought into this world the spiritual world that human beings need if they are not to be crippled or blind in the spiritual world. One can, of course, deny Christ today; one can go about in the world and say: There is no proof that Christ lived in the outer world in the body of Jesus of Nazareth. — Certainly, it has even been proven that there was no historical Christ. But in doing so, one only proves that one does not know what really matters. If Christ had carved somewhere on a rock, for all future generations: “I have been here”—then all future generations would have known the fact from the sensory world, and they would not have needed to believe it. That this was not the case, that one cannot recognize him through the senses, but that one must recognize him through the power of the spirit—that is what is redemptive; that is the profound meaning that lies within him. This is how one must understand it; then one finds it in direct connection with that which already here on earth lifts the human being out of the sensory-physical world and raises him into the spiritual world. For to the one who cannot raise himself into the spiritual world, all of this is not there at all, and this in turn always gives rise to doubt.

[ 25 ] This is why it is such an immense blessing when a person who is so deeply immersed in modern education and culture, in knowledge and art, can encounter a mental image of Christ that has developed in such a way as to be well suited to the whole of modern culture. This will be the anthroposophical mental image of Christ in our Spiritual Science. It will teach us many things. It will teach us to adopt the right perspective toward the external world.

[ 26 ] Oh, this external world! What a path it has taken today! I have already hinted at some of this recently in the lecture I was permitted to give publicly. Here we can speak about it in even greater detail. Certainly, one must admire this material culture and all that technology, industry, and so on have brought about. Infinite spiritual power has flowed into this material life, and it demands much of human spiritual power. But these human intellectual powers—whom do they serve? Insofar as they satisfy the material needs of modern humanity, they serve Ahriman. What the Christ Jesus once lived through—the temptation by Ahriman—truly, ordinary human souls cannot endure this upheaval all at once. This temptation must be spread out over time for humanity. But part of this distribution of the temptation is that Ahriman calls out to humanity: “Yes, think only with the power of your science, with all that you can discover through science applied to technology, industry, and so on. Think only with all that, and apply it to nothing other than external earthly life.” That is quite all right with me. If you do not see me, I find it—so says Ahriman—suitable for my purposes. Just despise reason and science, humanity’s highest power: then I have you completely, at least as long as you do not see me. Then I instill in you the ‘impulse’ to use reason and science only for earthly things!

[ 27 ] There must therefore be something else that can counterbalance the service rendered to Ahriman. That is why it is not without significance that we take stock of what can be achieved through modern technology and so on, and that we build something that does not serve external life, but is intended to serve purely spiritual life.

[ 28 ] In ancient times, people offered sacrifices to the gods—the first fruits of the herd and the fields. They offered them to the gods as sacrifices. I do not wish to speak today about the meaning of sacrifice. But you will feel the meaning of this sacrifice, as it should exist in modern times. When people went forth with the fruits and offered them to the gods, even though they sacrificed the fruits of the fields, they enjoyed the rest after they had carried the first fruits to the gods as an offering. Truly, Spiritual Science does not proceed from false asceticism. Nor will it be guilty of the impossibility of railing against modern culture with all its material blessings. It acknowledges these. But if it does not wish to serve Ahriman alone, it must offer some of the first fruits of this outer material culture as a sacrifice to the gods.

[ 29 ] You see, there is a profound idea underlying the building that rises on the hill in Dornach: the idea that we wish to offer the first fruits of modern material culture as a sacrifice to the gods. Everything has changed in the age in which we live, compared to the age through which our souls passed in previous incarnations. But we must understand what we have to do, just as we understood what had to be done when we worked in earlier incarnations under the guidance of spiritual luminaries. Truly, it is difficult in our time, because we must take into account the nature of our time and the characteristics of our souls, and because we can no longer rely on that external authority that aided the founders of religions, and because we must work through entirely different forces. And just as Christ was the “Word,” so true Spiritual Science will seek to work only through the Word and must not work through anything else.

[ 30 ] Through such reflections, we see the connection between the world in which we live on Earth in our physical bodies and the spiritual world. And we see how, wherever we apply these reflections, the Mystery of Golgotha shines out at us like the very soul of these reflections. But we must also truly—and let this be said here as well—prepare ourselves, truly prepare ourselves, to truly understand what modern Spiritual Science is meant to be, to truly seek to penetrate this Spiritual Science in such a way that we never lose sight of the fact: this Spiritual Science must exist because humanity must come of age.

[ 31 ] It is true, absolutely true, that in a certain sense humanity has descended from higher spiritual realms, that it has strayed from the ancient, now atavistic, clairvoyance by establishing a worldview through its intellect and the rest of its scientific knowledge. And it is also true that we must take the progress of evolution seriously, that we must realize how we are now living at a time when humanity has the mission to develop its thinking, to truly advance through its thinking, to learn through study. Spiritual Science is what we must take as our starting point. We must seek to immerse ourselves in these mental images so that they may awaken within us what our souls will need in the future. Everyone can truly understand and grasp what Spiritual Science offers. Those who say one must believe, that one cannot comprehend what is presented in Spiritual Science, speak without knowing how things really are.

[ 32 ] When we encounter people in our time who do not rely on intellectual, rational understanding, but who display certain psychic and spiritual abilities that seem to arise spontaneously, we should not allow ourselves to be misled by such phenomena. If we understand the entire mission of Spiritual Science, we know that the souls who think today are able to do so because the clairvoyance of earlier times has been suppressed. When such people appear who possess clairvoyance naturally, who have not acquired it, we should see in them people who have remained at an earlier stage, and who today, in such a society, need to be cherished and nurtured rather than regarded as particularly perfect. It is a mistaken judgment to say: “Here is someone in whom clairvoyant powers are dawning; this is a particularly mature soul who has undergone especially high incarnations.” — Such a person, who possesses clairvoyant powers as a natural gift, has undergone far less than the one who is a thinker today. This must be understood within our society. Then our society—I must say this, it has been entrusted to me—could be a nurturing ground also for such souls who are developing psychic powers. It is precisely within our society that these psychic powers could be set on the right path. And the society itself could provide what cannot be given to them anywhere else: order for their psychic powers. But then our society must have, in its majority, members who, as has been said, know deep, deep down within themselves what the mission of true Spiritual Science is in the present. Then the situation that has so saddened us in recent days would not be repeated: that a member, who was admitted on the understanding that our Society could also serve as a nurturing ground for psychic powers still active in clairvoyance, that this member could find a field of activity precisely where they could act immediately like a prophet. This naturally leads to everything that, if it were to take hold, would turn our Society into the exact opposite of what it is meant to be according to the intentions of the spiritual powers by which it feels supported. We have unfortunately had to deal with the case of ..., who came from the Nordic countries, and who might perhaps have become a good member had he continued to develop his psychic powers in humility. As it was, however, a sort of aura immediately spread around him. Everywhere he appeared as a healer in a manner that can only be regarded as regrettable. This must be said. It was necessary to declare that he can no longer be regarded as a member of our Society, because our Society would be transformed into the very opposite of what it is meant to be if we did not always point out with the utmost care this psychism that refuses to be permeated by true spiritual power, which is, after all, the true power of Christ. It is not the psychic, but the Christ within me who must act. All of this must be handled in such a way that we say: Our Society has nothing to do with this. It knows of no other means than what was chosen in recent days. Unfortunately, what one would otherwise never support in principle had to happen: the expulsion had to be carried out.

[ 33 ] This, however, is closely connected to the serious and dignified understanding of the mission of the Anthroposophical Society. And truly, if one is in principle opposed to any form of exclusion and yet, in such a case, cannot oppose the exclusion, you will understand that one can only go through what has had to be endured in recent days with the deepest regret. Such experiences will become increasingly rare as our dear friends come to understand more and more what is so often said—and what was also meant by the remarks made this evening.

[ 34 ] With that, I would like to conclude these remarks and leave them with you, my dear friends.