The Rudolf Steiner Archive

On the Meaning of Life I

[ 1 ] In these two evening lectures, I would like to speak to you, from the perspective of occult research, about a question that people often and urgently ask: What is the meaning of life? Now, if we wish to approach in our reflections on these two evenings what can be said about this meaning of life, we must first establish a kind of foundation, a kind of basis upon which we will then, so to speak, build a structure of insights that, though brief and sketchy, can nevertheless provide us with an answer to the question posed.

[ 2 ] When a person first allows what surrounds them—what they can observe—to pass them by in the course of their sensory perception and ordinary life, and when they then also cast a glance at their own life, the result is actually little more than, at most, a question—a grave, anxious riddle. There, a person sees the beings of outer nature arise and pass away. After all, they can observe this every year: how in spring the earth, spurred on by the forces of the sun and the cosmos, bestows upon them the plant beings that grow green, sprout, and bear fruit throughout the summer. As autumn approaches, a person sees how these beings pass away again. Some do indeed remain for years, sometimes even very, very long years, such as our long-lived trees. But even of these, the human being knows that, though they may sometimes outlive him in their lifespan, they too pass away, disappear, sinking down into what constitutes the realm of the inanimate in the great realm of nature. In particular, we know how, right down to the very greatest facts of natural phenomena, creation and decay reign everywhere, and even the continents that today form the ground upon which cultural developments spread—we know that at certain times they were not there. They rose only in the course of time, and we know full well that they too will crumble into ruins.

[ 3 ] Thus we see arising and passing away all around us. You can observe this arising and passing away in the plant and mineral kingdoms as well as in the animal kingdom. What, then, is the meaning of it all? Things are constantly arising and passing away around us. What is the meaning of this arising and passing away? When we look into our own human lives and see how we have lived through the years and decades, we have also seen coming into being and passing away in our own lives. When we recall the earlier days of our youth: they have faded away, and only as a memory have they remained with us. What has remained is, in essence, merely a stimulus to a pressing question of life. We ask, after all, when we have done this or that: What has become of it, what has come about because we did this or that? The most important thing here is that we ourselves have moved a little further along, that we have become wiser. Most often, however, the situation is such that only after we have done things do we know how they should have been done. Then we realize that everything could have been done much better, but by that time we are no longer in a position to do it better, so that we actually incorporate all the mistakes we make into our lives. Yet it is precisely through our mistakes and errors that we gain our most extensive experiences.

[ 4 ] A question presents itself to us, and it seems as though what we can perceive with our senses and comprehend with our intellect cannot provide an answer to it. This is the situation we humans find ourselves in today: that what surrounds us imposes upon us a profound existential question, namely: What is the meaning of all existence? And specifically, the question: Why have we humans been placed in this existence? So for us humans, this question first presents itself before us.

[ 5 ] An extraordinarily interesting legend from ancient Hebrew times tells us that in those ancient Hebrew times there was an awareness that this anxious question we have raised—about the meaning of life and, specifically, the meaning of human existence—actually concerns not only humans but also entirely different beings. This legend is extraordinarily instructive and goes as follows: When the Elohim were about to create human beings in their image and likeness, the so-called ministering angels of the Elohim—that is, certain spirits of a lower order than the Elohim themselves—asked Yahweh or Jehovah: Why should human beings be created in the image and likeness of God? Then, the legend continues, Yahweh gathered the animals and the plants that had already sprung up at a time before humans existed in their earthly form, and then Yahweh or Jehovah also gathered the angels, the so-called ministering angels, that is, those who directly served Yahweh or Jehovah. He then showed them the animals and the plants and asked them what these plants and animals were called, what their names were. The angels did not know the names of the animals or the names of the plants. Then man was created as he was before the Fall. And again Jehovah or Yahweh gathered the angels, the animals, and the plants, and then asked the man in front of the angels what the animals, which he had caused to pass before the man’s eyes one by one, were called, what names they had, and behold, the man was able to answer: This animal bears this name, that animal that one; this plant has this name, that plant has that one. And then Jehovah asked the man: “What is your own name?” Then the man said: “I must actually be called Adam.” — Adam is related to Adama and means: made of earthen clay, a being of the earth; thus Adam is to be translated. — “And what shall I myself be called?” Jehovah then asked the man. “You shall be called Adonai; you are the Lord of all beings created on earth,” replied the man, and the angels now had an inkling of the meaning associated with human existence on earth.

[ 6 ] Religious traditions and religious expressions often present life’s greatest mysteries in very simple terms, but the matter remains difficult precisely because we must first look beyond their simplicity; we must first understand what lies behind them. If we succeed in doing this, great wisdom will be revealed to us, and deep knowledge will be unveiled. This will likely also be the case with this legend, which we will simply set before us for now, as the two lectures will provide us with a kind of answer to the questions this legend poses for us.

[ 7 ] Now you know that a certain religious movement has posed the question of the value and meaning of existence in a truly magnificent way, by putting this question into the mouth of its own founder in a strikingly grand manner. You are all familiar with the accounts of the Buddha, which state that when he left the palace into which he was born and was shown the events of life of which he had had no inkling within his palace during that particular incarnation, he was deeply dismayed by life and passed this judgment: Life is suffering, which, as we know, breaks down into four components: birth is suffering, illness is suffering, old age is suffering, death is suffering, to which is further added: being united with those one does not love is suffering, being separated from those one loves is suffering, not being able to attain what one strives for is suffering. — Then we know that the meaning of life within this religious community emerges from the statement: Life, suffering, only gains meaning by being overcome, by transcending itself.

[ 8 ] Essentially, all the various religious creeds, as well as all philosophies and worldviews, are an attempt to answer the question of the meaning of life. Now, we will not approach the question in a philosophically abstract way, but for the time being, in a kind of occult form, we will consider the phenomena of life, the facts of life. We will try to look a little deeper into these facts to see whether a deeper occult view of life offers anything to answer the question of the meaning of life.

[ 9 ] Let us return to the point we previously touched upon: the annual cycle of growth and decay in the sensory world, in life, and in the plant kingdom. In spring, people see plants sprouting from the earth. What sprouts and grows from the earth awakens their joy, awakens their delight. They become aware that their entire existence is connected to the plant world, for without it they could not be here. Thus they feel how everything that emerges from the earth as summer approaches is connected to their own life. They then also feel that in autumn, that which in a certain sense belongs to them, passes away once more.

[ 10 ] It stands to reason that humans would compare what they see coming into being and passing away with their own lives. Thus, for an external, purely sensory and intellectual observation, it is also quite natural to compare the springtime emergence of plants from the earth, say, with a person’s waking in the morning, and to compare the withering and passing away of the plant world in the fall with a person’s falling asleep in the evening. But such a comparison would be entirely superficial. It would disregard the actual events into which we can already penetrate through the elementary truths of occultism. What happens when we fall asleep in the evening? We know that we leave our physical body and our etheric body behind in bed. With our astral body and our I, we withdraw from our physical body and our etheric body. We then spend the night—from falling asleep until waking—in a spiritual world with our astral body and our I. From this spiritual world, we draw the forces we need. But not only our astral body and our ego, but also our physical body and our etheric body undergo a kind of restoration, a kind of regeneration during the night’s sleep, when they usually lie in bed, separated from the astral body and the ego.

[ 11 ] When one looks down clairvoyantly from the ego and the astral body onto the etheric and physical bodies, one sees what has been destroyed by our daily life; one sees how what is expressed there in fatigue exists as destruction and is restored during the night. In fact, the entire conscious life of the day, when we consider it in its connection with human consciousness and in its relationship to the physical and etheric bodies, is a kind of process of destruction for the physical and etheric bodies. We are always destroying something through it, and the fact that we destroy is expressed in fatigue. What has been destroyed is then restored during the night.

[ 12 ] If we now look at what happens when we have lifted ourselves out of the etheric and physical bodies with our astral body and I, it is as if we had left behind a devastated field. But the moment we are outside the physical and etheric bodies, it begins to gradually restore itself. It is as if the forces belonging to the physical and etheric bodies were beginning to blossom and sprout, as if a whole vegetation were rising from the ground of destruction. The deeper into the night we go, the longer the sleep lasts, the more it sprouts and shoots up there in the etheric body. The closer we get to morning, the more we re-enter the physical and etheric bodies with our astral body, the more a kind of withering, a kind of drying up, begins again with the physical and etheric bodies.

[ 13 ] In short, when the ego and the astral body look down from the spiritual world upon the physical and etheric bodies as a person falls asleep in the evening, they see the same phenomenon that one sees in the great world outside when plants sprout and grow in the spring. We must therefore, when making an inner comparison, truly compare our falling asleep and the onset of the sleeping state at night with spring in nature, and compare the time of waking, the time when the ego and the astral body re-enter the physical and etheric bodies, with what autumn is out in nature. If we compare in this way, then we compare correctly; but not if we compare in the reverse manner. In the reverse case, we are comparing externally. Within ourselves, spring corresponds to falling asleep and autumn to waking up. How does the matter present itself, then, when the occult observer—the one who can truly see into the spiritual world—turns their gaze to external nature as it unfolds over the course of the year? What such an occult gaze reveals teaches us that we must compare not externally, but internally. What occult observation shows us teaches us that just as the astral body and the I are connected to the physical and etheric bodies of the human being, so too is that which we call the spiritual aspect of the Earth connected to the Earth. The Earth is, as it were, also a body, a vast body. If we consider it solely in terms of its physical aspect, it is as if we were to consider the human being solely in terms of the physical. We consider the Earth fully when we regard it as the body of spiritual beings, in the same way that we regard the spirit in the human being as belonging to the body. There is, however, a difference. Human beings have a unified being that governs their physical and etheric bodies. A unified soul-spiritual entity corresponds to what the physical human body and the etheric human body are. Many spirits, however, initially correspond to the Earth body. So what is a unity in human beings with regard to the soul-spiritual, is a multiplicity in the Earth. That is the next difference.

[ 14 ] If we accept this distinction, then everything else is, in a certain sense, similar. To the occult eye, it appears in spring that to the same extent that plants emerge from the earth and greenery sprouts forth, those spirits we call earth spirits depart from the earth. However, it is again the case that they do not depart completely, as humans do, but rather they relocate within the earth in a certain way; they go to the other side of the earth. When it is summer in one hemisphere of the earth, it is winter in the other. With the Earth, this happens in such a way that what constitutes its spiritual-soul aspect is moved from the northern hemisphere to the southern hemisphere when summer arrives in the northern hemisphere. This does not alter the fact that the occult gaze of a human being experiencing spring in any part of the Earth sees that the spirits of the Earth are departing. It sees how they rise and go out into the vast universe. It does not see them pass over, but depart, just as, when a person falls asleep, one sees the I departing with the astral body. And in the same way, the clairvoyant sees the spirits of the Earth departing from that with which they were connected. During the winter, when the earth was covered with ice and snow, the forces were connected with the earth. The opposite is true in the autumn. Then the occult gaze sees the earth spirits approaching, sees how they reconnect with the earth. And indeed, something similar then occurs for the earth as it does for a human being: a kind of self-awareness. During the summer, the spiritual part of the Earth knows nothing of what is happening around it in the cosmos. But in winter, the spirit of the Earth knows what is happening in the cosmos all around it, just as a human being, when he wakes up, knows and sees what is happening around him. Thus the analogy holds completely; it must only be reversed from the way external consciousness perceives it.

[ 15 ] However, if we want to consider the matter in its entirety, we must not simply say: When plants sprout and shoot up from the earth in spring, the earth spirits depart, for with the sprouting and shooting-up plants, other, more powerful spirits do indeed emerge, as if from the earth’s underworld, as if from the earth’s depths, as if from the earth’s interior. That is why the ancient mythologies were right when they distinguished between upper and lower gods. Only when people spoke of gods who depart in spring and return in autumn were they speaking of the upper gods. There were more powerful gods, older gods. The Greeks counted them among the chthonic gods. They rise up when everything sprouts and shoots forth in summer, and they descend again when, during winter, the true earth spirits unite with the body of the earth.

[ 16 ] These are the facts. Now I would like to point out right here that a certain idea, drawn from natural and occult research, is of immense significance for human life. This research shows, after all, that when we look at the individual human being, we are essentially faced with something like a reflection of the great Earth being itself. And what do we see when we turn our gaze to the plants that are beginning to sprout and grow? There we see exactly the same thing that the human being does when he lives within himself in sleep. We have seen clearly that one corresponds completely to the other. How individual plants relate to the human body, what they mean for human life, can only be recognized when one surveys such a connection. For it is indeed true that if one looks closely, one sees how, as a human falls asleep in their physical and etheric bodies, everything sprouts and shoots forth; one sees how an entire vegetation begins there, sees how the human is actually a tree, or a garden in which plants grow.

[ 17 ] Anyone who observes this with an occult eye will see how the sprouting and growing within human beings corresponds to what sprouts and grows outside in nature. And so you can get an idea of what might come to pass when, in the future, Spiritual Science—which is still largely regarded as folly today—is applied to life, when it is made fruitful. Take, for example, a person who lacks this or that in the external facts of their life. Let us now observe, when this person falls asleep, which plant species are absent when his physical and etheric bodies begin to develop their vegetation. If we see that entire plant genera do not emerge in a certain place on Earth, we know that something is not quite right with the nature of the Earth. The same is true of the absence of certain plants in the physical and etheric bodies of human beings. To make up for the deficiency in the human being, we need only seek out on Earth the plants missing in the person in question and apply their juices in an appropriate manner, either in dietary form or as medicine, and we will then, through their inner powers, discover the relationship between remedy and disease. In this we can see how Spiritual Science will intervene in immediate life. But we are only at the beginning of this endeavor.

[ 18 ] In this way, I have presented you with a kind of philosophical reflection, in the form of a parable, on the connection between human beings and the relationship of their entire being to the environment in which they are, after all, immersed with their very being.

[ 19 ] Let us now consider the matter from a spiritual perspective. I would like to draw your attention right away to something that is of extraordinary importance, namely, that our worldview based on Spiritual Science, by allowing the gaze to wander from the standpoint of occultism over the course of human development in order to decipher the meaning of existence, does not give any particular creed, any particular worldview over any other creed or any other worldview. How often has it been emphasized within our occult movement that we can point to what humanity on Earth developed and experienced immediately after the great Atlantean catastrophe had befallen the Earth. There we encountered, as the first great post-Atlantean culture, the ancient and sacred Indian culture. Here, too, in this place, we have already spoken of this ancient and sacred Indian culture and emphasized that it was such a high culture that what remains of it in the Vedas or the written traditions that have come down to us is merely an echo. The ancient teaching that emerged from that time can only be glimpsed in the Akashic Records. There we behold a height of culture that has not been reached again since then.

[ 20 ] The later epochs had a completely different task. We also know that a descent has taken place since those times. But we also know that an ascent will take place again and that, as we have already noted, Spiritual Science exists to prepare for this ascent. We know that in the seventh post-Atlantean cultural epoch there will be a kind of renewal of the ancient, sacred Indian culture. Thus, we do not give preference to any religious view or any creed. They are measured by the same standard, characterized everywhere, and the core of truth is sought everywhere.

[ 21 ] What matters, however, is that we focus on the essential. We must not allow ourselves to be misled when considering the essence of each individual religious creed, and if we approach worldviews in this way, we will find a fundamental difference. We find worldviews that are more of an Eastern nature, and those that have permeated Western culture more deeply. If we make this particularly clear to ourselves, then we have something that provides us with great insight into the meaning of existence. There we find that the ancients already possessed something that we must now reclaim with great effort: namely, the doctrine of the return of life. The Oriental-influenced schools regarded this as something that arose from the deepest foundations of life. You can still see how these Oriental-influenced schools shape their entire lives from this perspective when you consider the relationship of the Oriental person to his Bodhisattvas and his Buddhas. When you consider how little it matters to the Oriental to single out a single figure with this or that specific name as the ruling power of human development, you see at the same time how much more important it is to him to trace the individuality that runs through the various lives.

[ 22 ] Orientalists say that there are countless Bodhisattvas, exalted beings who originated from human beings but have gradually evolved to that level which we describe by saying: A noble being has passed through many incarnations and then become a Bodhisattva, just as Gautama, the son of King Sudhodana, did. He was a Bodhisattva and became a Buddha. The name Buddha, however, is given to many because they have passed through many incarnations, become Bodhisattvas, and then ascended to the next higher dignity, the dignity of a Buddha. The name Buddha is a general term. It denotes a human dignity and cannot be conceived of without looking at the spiritual-soul aspect that passes through many incarnations. In this respect, Brahmanism is in complete agreement with Buddhism in that it focuses primarily on the individual essence that passes through the various personalities, and less on the individual personalities themselves; for it amounts to the same thing when the Buddhist says: A Bodhisattva is destined to ascend to the highest human dignity to which one can ascend, and to do so he must pass through many incarnations; but I see the highest in the Buddha—or whether the follower of Brahmanism says: The Bodhisattvas are indeed highly evolved beings and then ascend to become Buddhas, but they have emerged from the Avatars, the higher spiritual individualities. You see, the contemplation of the spiritual that runs through many incarnations is something peculiar to these two Eastern views.

[ 23 ] But let us now turn to the West and see what was great and mighty there. To look a little deeper into this matter, we must examine the ancient Hebrew worldview; we must direct our gaze toward the personal element. When we speak of Plato, Socrates, Michelangelo, Charlemagne, or anyone else, we are always speaking of a personality; we present to people the completed lives of these personalities along with what these personalities have come to represent for humanity. In Western culture, we do not direct our gaze toward the life that has passed from person to person; for that was precisely the task of Western culture: for a time, to direct its gaze toward the individual life. When one speaks of the Buddha in the East, one knows that the title “Buddha” is a dignity bestowed upon many personalities. When, on the other hand, one mentions the name Plato, one knows that it was only a single personality. Such was the education of the West. The personal was to be valued and respected first and foremost.

[ 24 ] Let us now consider our own time. How must it relate to this entire sequence of facts? Through Western culture, humanity has for some time been trained to focus on the personal. Now, the individual, individuality, had to be added to the personal. So now we stand at the point of reclaiming the individual, but strengthened and invigorated by the contemplation of the personal.

[ 25 ] Let us consider a specific case. In this regard, let us turn our attention to the ancient Hebrew worldview that preceded the Western one. Let us focus on a figure as formidable as the prophet Elijah. We shall first characterize him as a personality. In the West, little thought is given to viewing him in a different light. If one disregards all the details and considers the personality in broad terms, one sees that Elijah was significant in the course of world development. He embodied something like a forerunner of the Christ impulse.

[ 26 ] When we look back to the time of Moses, we see how something is proclaimed to the people; we see that God in humanity is proclaimed to humankind: I, the God who was, who is, and who will be. He must be grasped in the “I,” but in ancient Hebrew times he was grasped in the way the soul of the people was. Elijah now goes even further. Through him it is not yet clear that the “I” lives in the individual human being as the highest divine; but he could not make it any clearer to the people at that time than the world was capable of receiving. Thus we see, so to speak, a leap made in development. While the culture of Moses among the ancient Hebrews was still clear about this: In the “I” lies the highest—and this “I” was expressed in the folk-souls during the time of Moses—Elijah already points to the individual soul. But here, too, an impulse was needed, and for this there was again a forerunner, whom we know as the personality of John the Baptist. Once again, it was a significant word in which this forerunner role of John the Baptist is expressed. What does this word express to us? A great occult fact. He points out that human beings once, as primordial humans, possessed an ancient clairvoyance, enabling them to look into the spiritual world, into the divine-active; but then they drew closer and closer to the material. Their vision of the spiritual world became closed off. John the Baptist points this out by saying: Change the state of your souls! Do not look any longer at what you can achieve in the physical world, but be attentive—a new impulse is coming! —by which he means the Christ impulse—therefore I say to you, you must seek the spiritual world right here among you. —Thus the spiritual enters, with the Christ impulse. Through this, John the Baptist became the forerunner of the Christ impulse.

[ 27 ] Now we can turn our attention to another figure, the remarkable figure of the painter Raphael. This remarkable figure presents a strange picture when one looks at him. Above all, one need only compare Raphael, as a painter of the Latin race, with later painters—say, Titian. Anyone with an eye for such things, even when looking merely at reproductions of the paintings, will notice the difference. Take a look at Raphael’s paintings and also at those of Titian. Raphael painted in such a way that he incorporated Christian ideas into his paintings. He painted for the people of Europe as Christians of the West. His paintings are understandable to all Christians of the West, and they will become so more and more. Take, by contrast, the later painters. They painted almost exclusively for the Latin race, so that even the schisms within the Church are expressed in their paintings.

[ 28 ] But which of Raphael’s paintings are his finest? Those through which he can reveal the impulses inherent in Christianity! Wherever he can place the infant Jesus in some relationship to the Madonna, wherever he can portray this relationship of Christ to the Madonna as something that is an impulse of feeling, that is where he succeeds best. In fact, these are the subjects he painted best. We have no Crucifixion by him, for example, but we do have a Transfiguration. Where he can paint the sprouting and budding, the self-revealing, there he paints with joy and creates his greatest and finest paintings.

[ 29 ] Essentially, the same applies to the impact of his paintings. If you ever come to Germany and view the Sistine Madonna in Dresden, you will see that the artwork—of which it is said that the Germans can be glad to have such a significant painting in their midst, indeed, that the Germans may regard this painting as the pinnacle of painting—reveals a mystery of existence.

[ 30 ] When Goethe traveled from Leipzig to Dresden back then, he heard a different account of the painting of the Madonna. The officials at the gallery in Dresden said something along these lines: “We have a painting by Raphael here, too. But it’s nothing special. It’s poorly painted.” The child’s gaze, the whole child, everything painted on the child, is crude. The Madonna herself is the same. One can only believe that it was painted by a bungler. And then there are the figures at the bottom, of which one does not know whether they are meant to be children’s heads or angels.”—Goethe heard this harsh judgment at the time. That is why he initially had no proper appreciation of the painting. Everything we hear about the painting today only took hold later, and the fact that Raphael’s paintings made their triumphant march across the world in reproductions is a consequence of this improved assessment. One need only recall what England in particular has done for the reproduction and dissemination of Raphael’s paintings. But the impact in England of having ensured the reproduction and dissemination of Raphael’s paintings will only become apparent once one learns to view the matter more from a perspective of Spiritual Science.

[ 31 ] Thus, through his paintings, Raphael appears to us as a forerunner of a Christianity that is destined to become international. For a long time, speculative Protestantism regarded the Madonna as specifically Catholic. Today, the Madonna has also penetrated everywhere into Protestant countries, and people are increasingly turning toward an occult conception, toward a higher, interdenominational Christianity. This is how it will continue to be.

[ 32 ] If we may hope for these effects for an interdenominational Christianity, then what Raphael has done will also help us in Spiritual Science.

[ 33 ] It is remarkable—three figures appear before us, all three of whom are associated with the forerunners of Christianity. And now let us turn our occult gaze to these three figures. What does it teach us? The occult gaze teaches us that it is the same individuality that lived in Elijah, in John the Baptist, and in Raphael. As impossible as it may seem, it is indeed the same soul that lived in Elijah, in John, and in Raphael. But now we ask ourselves: if the occult gaze—which investigates rather than making superficial intellectual comparisons—discovers that it is the same soul that was present in Elijah, in John the Baptist, and in Raphael, how is it then that Raphael, the painter, becomes the bearer of the individuality that had lived in John the Baptist? Can one form a mental image of this remarkable soul of John the Baptist living within the forces present in Raphael? Here again comes occult research, but not in a way that merely “puts theories out into the world,” but rather in a way that states how things are, how things are truly implanted in life! How do people still write Raphael biographies today? You can see it everywhere; even the best ones today are written in such a way that they simply state: Raphael was born on Good Friday of the year 1483. It is no coincidence that Raphael was born on a Good Friday! Already announcing his special position within Christianity through this birth, it becomes evident that he is connected to the Christian mysteries in the deepest and most significant way. So Raphael was born on Good Friday. His father was Giovanni Santi. Giovanni Santi died when Raphael was eleven years old. When Raphael was eight, his father had placed him in apprenticeship with a painter, who, however, was not particularly outstanding. But when one considers what was in Giovanni Santi, Raphael’s father, one gets a peculiar impression that is further heightened when one examines the matter in the Akashic Records. There it becomes clear that what lived in the soul of Giovanni Santi was far more than what actually came forth from him, and one must agree with the duchess, who said upon his death: “A man full of light and righteousness and the very best faith has died.” As an occultist, one might say that a much greater painter lived within him than had come to the fore outwardly. But the external abilities, which depend on the physical and etheric organs, were not developed in Giovanni Santi. That was the reason why the abilities of his soul could not come to the fore. But a great painter truly lived within his soul.

[ 34 ] He died when Raphael was eleven years old. If one now considers what is presented here, it becomes clear that while a person loses their body, what was their longing—the aspirations and impulses of their soul—continues to live on, working and taking effect in that which is most closely connected to it.

[ 35 ] There will come a time when Spiritual Science will be made fruitful for life, just as those who have mastered it in a living way—and not merely theoretically—are already able to do. I would like to add something here before I continue with the matter of Raphael. I speak in such a way that my examples are not mere speculations. On the contrary, they are always drawn from life. Let us suppose, for instance, that I had children to raise. Whoever pays attention to their abilities will discern the individuality in each child. But one can only have such experiences when raising children. If, for instance, a child’s mother or father has died early and only one parent is still alive, one may observe the following. Certain inclinations emerge in the child that were not present before and which one cannot therefore explain. As an educator, however, one must engage with them. The educator would do well to say to himself: What is written in the books on Spiritual Science, people may indeed regard as nonsense. But I do not want to regard it as nonsense from the outset. I will examine it to see if it is true. Then he will soon be able to say: I find that there are forces that were already present before, and still others that are working into those that were already there. Let us assume that the father has passed through the gate of death, and now qualities that lived within him are emerging with a certain strength in the child. If one makes this assumption and views the matter in this way, one applies the insights that flow to us through Spiritual Science to life in a reasonable manner and then, as one will soon discover, finds one’s way in life, whereas before one could not. The one who has passed through the gate of death thus remains connected through his forces to those with whom he was connected in life.

[ 36 ] People simply do not observe closely enough; otherwise, they would see more often that children are quite different before their parents’ death than they are afterward. People simply do not pay enough attention to these things; but the time will come when they will do so as well.

[ 37 ] When one looks at Raphael and reflects: Giovanni Santi, his father, died when Raphael was eleven years old; he may not have achieved any particular mastery as a painter, but his powerful imagination remained with him, and this now developed into Raphael’s soul—then we are not saying anything trivial or belittling about Raphael when we turn our gaze to Raphael’s soul and say: Giovanni Santi lived on in Raphael, and therefore he appears to us as if he were a fully formed personality; he appears to us as if he were no longer capable of further growth, because a dead man breathes life into his works.

[ 38 ] Now we understand that, since the dynamic forces of John the Baptist have been reborn within Raphael, within his own soul, and since the dynamic forces of Giovanni Santi now also live within his soul, these two things together could have produced in Raphael’s soul the result that stands before us as Raphael.

[ 39 ] Certainly, such extraordinary matters cannot yet be discussed publicly. In fifty years, this may well be possible, because progress is advancing rapidly and the prevailing view is swiftly heading toward obsolescence.

[ 40 ] Anyone who reflects on such matters will see that our task in Spiritual Science is to view life from a new perspective in every respect. Just as healing in the future will take the form I have indicated, so too will we view the unique wonders of life by drawing upon the deeds that still come from the spirit world from those who have passed through the gate of death.

[ 41 ] There are two things I would like to present to your soul as I speak of life’s mysteries. This is something in which the meaning of life can truly dawn upon us. It is, when we look at Raphael’s work, the fate that his works are heading toward. Those who view the paintings today in reproductions do not see what Raphael painted, nor do those who travel to Dresden or Rome, for these paintings are already so damaged that one cannot say one is still seeing Raphael’s paintings. It is easy to grasp what will become of them when one considers the fate of Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper, which is increasingly falling into ruin. Anyone who reflects on this knows that these paintings will eventually crumble to dust. They will come to the sad realization that everything the great masters once created will vanish. Since these things will vanish, we might ask ourselves: What is the meaning of their creation and decay? We will see that, ultimately, nothing remains of what has been created by the individual artist.

[ 42 ] And there is yet another fact I would like to present to your soul, and that is this: If we want to—and indeed must—understand Christianity today using Spiritual Science as our tool—I have already explained how we view Christianity as an impulse that works toward the future—then we need certain basic concepts through which we can know how the Christ impulse will continue to work. We need that. Now it is curious that we are faced with the fact that we must point to a future development of Christianity; but for this we need Spiritual Science. Now there is also a figure in whom we find the truths of Spiritual Science in a unique form, expressed in short sentences. When we approach this figure, we see that we can find in him many things that are significant for Spiritual Science. This figure is the German poet Novalis. When we look through his writings, we find that he describes the future of Christianity based on its occult truths. Spiritual Science teaches us that we are dealing here with the same individuality as in Raphael, the same individuality as in John the Baptist and Elijah.

[ 43 ] Once again, we have a glimpse into the future development of Christianity. This is a fact of an occult nature, for no one can arrive at this conclusion through logical reasoning.

[ 44 ] Let us piece the individual images back together. We see the tragedy of decline in the creatures and in the works of the individual figures. Raphael appears and allows his interdenominational Christianity to flow into the souls of men. But a premonition dawns on us that his creative work will perish, that his works will one day be reduced to dust. Novalis appears again to tackle the task anew, to continue what he began, what he has worked on.

[ 45 ] Now the idea no longer seems so tragic to us; now we see that, just as the personality dissolves within its outer forms, so too do the works dissolve, yet the core of being lives on and carries forward what it has begun. Thus, we are once again directed toward individuality. But because we have vigorously focused on the Western worldview and thus on the personality, the significance of individuality only now becomes truly clear to us. Thus we see how significant it is that the East has turned its gaze toward individuality, toward the Bodhisattvas who have passed through many incarnations, and how significant it is that the West first turned its gaze toward the contemplation of the individual personality, only to then come to grasp what individuality is.

[ 46 ] Now, I believe there are many Theosophists who will say: Well, we simply have to believe it when such things are said about Elijah, John the Baptist, Raphael, and Novalis. For some, it will essentially be the case that they have to believe it, for it is just as with the fact that many have to believe it when science asserts that this or that spectrum appears when this or that metal—or, for example, the Orion Nebula—is examined by means of spectral analysis. Certainly, some have investigated it, but the others—the majority—believe it. But that is not what really matters. What matters is that Spiritual Science is at the beginning of its development and will increasingly lead souls to see for themselves the things that have been spoken of today. In this respect, Spiritual Science will very rapidly advance human evolution.

[ 47 ] I have cited a number of insights that have emerged regarding life from an occult perspective. If you consider just the three perspectives we have examined, you will see how, by understanding the relationship between life and the spirit of the earth, one can give medicine a new direction and provide it with fresh impetus; how one can view Raphael not as if it were solely the personality of Raphael that was effective, but rather that forces originating from the father also played a role, and how one can thus understand this personality all the more fully. The third point is that we can educate children if we know the nature of the forces at work within them. Outwardly, people certainly admit that they themselves are surrounded by a myriad of forces that constantly act upon them, that human beings are continually influenced by the air, the temperature, the surroundings, and the other climatic conditions in which they live. And every person knows that this does not impair their freedom. These are the factors we already take into account today. But that human beings are constantly surrounded by spiritual forces, and that these spiritual forces must be investigated—this is what humanity will learn through Spiritual Science. It will learn to take these forces into account, and it will have to reckon with them in important matters of health and illness, of education and life. It will have to be mindful of such influences as come from the environment and from the supersensible world when, for example, a friend has passed away and one then carries within oneself certain sympathies and ideas that were characteristic of the deceased. What has just been said applies not only to children but to all ages. People do not need to know with their conscious mind how the forces of the supersensible world operate. But their entire state of mind can reveal this to us; indeed, their states of health or illness can reveal it to us.

[ 48 ] And things go even further when it comes to the connection between human beings on the physical plane and the realities of the supersensible world. I would like to present a simple fact to you that will show you what this connection is like, a fact that is not merely imagined but has been observed in many cases: At a certain point in time, a person notices that they have feelings they did not have before, that sympathies and antipathies arise in them that they did not know before, that they easily succeed at this or that which was previously difficult for them. They cannot explain this to themselves. Their surroundings cannot explain it to them. Nor do the facts of life themselves provide the explanation. In a person in whom we have observed such things, one will be able to discover—if one proceeds with care (though one must also have an eye for such matters)—that they now know and can do things about which they previously knew nothing, things they previously did not know. If one investigates the matter further, having studied the teachings of occultism and Spiritual Science, one will likely hear the following from him: “I feel quite strange now. I am now dreaming about a person I have never seen in my life. This person is appearing in my dreams, even though I have never had anything to do with them.” — If one follows up on this, one will find that he has had no reason to concern himself with this person up to now. But now the person has died, and only now does she approach him in the spiritual world. When she had come close enough to him, she revealed herself to him as a dream figure in a “dream that was more than a dream.” From this person, whom he had not known in life but who, after her death, gained influence over his life, came the impulses he had not had before.

[ 49 ] It does not matter to say: “It is, after all, only a dream we are dealing with here.” What matters, rather, is what it contains. It may be something that appears in the form of a dream but is much closer to reality than external consciousness. Does it really matter whether Edison made an invention in a dream or in broad daylight? What matters is whether the invention is true and useful. Similarly, it does not matter whether an experience takes place in dream consciousness or in external physical consciousness, but rather whether the experience is true or not.

[ 50 ] To summarize what we have been able to grasp from what has just been said, we can say: We have come to understand that, when we take occult knowledge as our foundation, life presents itself to us in a completely different context than when we do not have this occult knowledge. In this respect, people who are clever in a materialistic way of thinking are really quite curious children. One can see this for oneself every hour. As I was traveling here by train today, I had picked up a pamphlet written by a German physiologist, which has now been published in a second edition. In it, he states that one cannot speak of active attention in the soul, of the soul directing itself toward something, but rather that everything depends on the function of the individual brain ganglia, and because the pathways for thoughts must be formed there, everything depends on how the individual brain cells function. No intensity of the soul can intervene there; it simply depends on whether these or those connecting threads in our brain are formed or not. These materialistic scholars are truly innocent children. When one comes across something like this, one must think the following: These gentlemen are unsuspecting, for in the very same brochure there is a sentence stating that the hundredth anniversary of Darwin’s birth was recently celebrated and that both the qualified and the unqualified spoke on the occasion. Of course, the author of the brochure considers himself a particularly qualified individual, and then comes the whole brain-cell theory and its application. But what about the logic of the matter? If one is accustomed to viewing things in truth and then considers what these big children offer people regarding the meaning of life, one comes to the conclusion that it is actually the same as if someone were to say it is simply nonsense that at some point a human will ever intervened in the way the railroads run across the face of Europe. For it is quite the same as if, at a certain point in time, one were to consider all the locomotives in terms of their parts and functions and say: The locomotives are arranged in such-and-such a way and travel in so many directions, but the various directions meet at certain junctions, and thus one can route all the locomotives in all directions. — What would result from this would be a great jumble of locomotives and trains on the European railways. Nor, however, can one explain that what takes place in the brain cells as human thought life depends solely on the nature of the cells. When such scholars happen to hear a lecture on occultism or Spiritual Science without being prepared for it, they regard what is said as the most utter nonsense. They are firmly convinced that no will can ever intervene in the way European locomotives run, but that it depends on how they are stoked and directed.

[ 51 ] Thus we see how, in the present day, we are faced with the question of the meaning of life. On the one hand, it is greatly obscured within us; on the other hand, however, occult facts press upon us. If we summarize what has been communicated today, then on this basis we will pose the question to our soul in the way it can be posed in occultism, namely: What is the meaning of life and existence, particularly of human life and human existence?