The Rudolf Steiner Archive

7. Cosmic influences on the human constitution during sleep; the occult basis of the Christmas festival; the meaning of sacrificial death

[ 1 ] My intention these days must be to help our souls grasp some of what, from the perspective of Spiritual Science, can shed light on the major events of our time. And so next Sunday, too, it will be my task to direct our feelings toward certain perspectives that can shed some light precisely on what must now move our hearts and souls in the deepest sense. To this end, however, I would like to lay a preparatory foundation today, so to speak, by directing your soul toward certain powers and forces at work in the historical existence of human beings—forces that can only be recognized through the insights provided by Spiritual Science, and which are not immediately perceptible to everyday consciousness. Today I would like to point out facts of human development, as they manifest in the historical course of human life, and facts that are more or less subconscious. But let us start from the premise that, as you know from the description in the book *How Does One Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds?*, that which takes place in the hidden realm within every human being is recognized through successive stages of supersensible knowledge: in so-called imaginative knowledge, in inspired knowledge, and in intuitive knowledge. I already emphasized yesterday in the public lecture that one must always bear in mind that the person who practices Spiritual Science, who through his knowledge of imaginative, inspired, and intuitive perceptions speaks about the spiritual worlds, brings nothing to light that would not already exist in the spiritual regions in which every human soul lives, even without his knowledge. The Spiritual Science scientist merely draws attention to that which is always weaving and living in the world and how the individual human soul is placed within it. Thus, the knowledge of what is, under all circumstances, an inner reality—a reality that cannot be perceived through the ordinary perception of life—is important not only for those who intend to immerse themselves in the stream of occult experiences, but for every human soul.

[ 2 ] I would therefore like to begin with some facts of imaginative perception regarding human nature in general. We observe daily that a mysterious event—at least one that is mysterious to external science—intervenes rhythmically and alternately in our lives: waking and sleeping. We have long known that in the waking state we belong to the physical earthly world with our four human members: the physical body, the etheric body, the astral body, and the I. We know that in the state of sleep—that is, from falling asleep until waking—we are present in the physical world only with our physical body and our etheric body, and that we withdraw, as it were, into the purely spiritual world with our astral body and our I. What now presents itself to the spiritual insight of the spiritual researcher can be characterized as follows: The spiritual researcher observes what, for example, constantly takes place within a human being when, upon falling asleep, they leave their physical and etheric bodies and enter the region of the higher world with their astral body and the I. The spiritual researcher simply observes what happens to the human being—to every human being every time they fall asleep. So that we can say: The spiritual researcher observes only what would present itself to every human soul if, not in the dream state but in a state of deep sleep, it could look down upon the world in such a way that, among the things of the world, it would find its physical and etheric bodies as something outside of itself, that is, outside the sleeping soul.

[ 3 ] Now, we must not form a mental image of how we will then see—from the perspective of sleep—what we have left behind, and in which we have left our physical and etheric bodies, in the same way that we see with our physical eyes what surrounds us in the physical world. In order to see what surrounds us just as we see it from the moment we wake up until we fall asleep, it is necessary that we make use of our physical eyes, our physical sense organs. We do not make use of these when we are outside the physical body and the etheric body. If we were suddenly to become clairvoyant in the sleeping state, we would perceive nothing of what we see while awake, just as it is while awake. Nor do we perceive our physical body and etheric body there in the same way we perceive the physical body when we look into a mirror. It is entirely mistaken to believe that one views the physical body and the etheric body, as it were, as if one were bending over the physical and etheric bodies with one’s astral body and the I. That is not the case. What presents itself to imaginative perception—so let us note this: to imaginative perception—is that ultimately everything we are accustomed to seeing in the waking state disappears, truly vanishes for the moment. Even when we see our physical body and etheric body, they are not as they are in the waking state; rather, our physical body and etheric body truly appear to us as if expanded into a world; they appear to us as if connected with the entire earthly world. We look at them; we are conscious that we are looking at our physical and etheric bodies. But we look at them in such a way that, for the time being, they are, so to speak, the only world for us. Just as in the waking state we have mountains, rivers, and clouds, the sun and stars, and so on, all around us and look upon them as our surroundings, so too, when we are outside our physical and etheric bodies, we look upon our physical body and etheric body as expanded into a world. We look at nothing else at all. We look at them just as we otherwise look at the various things of our Earth. We look upon our own physicality as upon a whole world.

[ 4 ] And strangely enough, this world we are looking at is such that, as we drift off to sleep, we perceive it just as we perceive the earth in spring, when, having been freed from winter’s blanket of snow, it brings forth individual green shoots, when it sets out once more on the path of growth, of the vegetation that forms upon it, when everything once again turns into shoots and sprouts. As we look upon the physical body and etheric body, expanded into a world, while falling asleep, we see them, as it were, in such a way that we can perceive them like a planet awakening in spring. And this continues throughout the entire state of sleep. What we see there in powerful images, which truly appear to us in their expanse like a planet, is preparing to move toward its summer, just as the Earth prepares to move toward its summer when spring comes to an end. And this is how we pass through the state of sleep when we truly go through it. We pass through the state of sleep, as it were, up to that point where we sense: our physical body and etheric body bear what is sprouting and budding all the way to flowering, indeed to the unfolding of fruit; everything is growing and thriving everywhere. If I am to express myself in detail, I must say—for the imaginative vision, what presents itself in this way is indeed paradoxical—: While with physical vision we perceive, as it were, the surface of the earth and are conscious of what sprouts from below and grows upward, that which grows and flourishes, it is as if, when we now observe from the outside what is happening with our body and compare it to the plant world, its roots were penetrating from above and it were growing into our body with its blossoms. Thus we perceive a completely inverted world, and the fruits are drawn inward. We then learn that this drawing-in of the fruits truly expresses what then comes to our consciousness as the strengthening of sleep. And through this we know that in fact—since everything we thus observe in the imagination are forces—our physical body and etheric body receive the forces from the entire cosmos as we enter the state of sleep. We observe how forces, which express themselves in the formation of plants growing in from the world, come from the cosmos. We see how the cosmos drives a whole vegetation into our physical being. And we then gain the certain knowledge that when we fall asleep, we essentially leave our body because, from waking until falling asleep, we withdraw our physical body and etheric body from the influences of the forces of the cosmos through the ego and astral body. By stepping out ourselves, we free our physical body and etheric body to the influences of the entire cosmos, which sends into us—through the elemental, non-physical forces it possesses, which are expressed to us precisely in the imaginations described—its energies. Thus, every time we fall asleep, a connection is established between the physical body and the etheric body and the entire cosmos. While we live in the physical world in the waking state, our physical body and etheric body truly live during our sleep in what we call the elemental world, the world of pure forces that present themselves to us precisely in the imaginations described. And where are we ourselves, with our I and astral body? Well, we have often described this, and it is also depicted in various writings: with our I and astral body, we are in the world that has been described as the world of the higher hierarchies among the beings we call Angeloi, Archangeloi, Archai, and so on. The I and the astral body immerse themselves in these beings and their world. Just as we, when we are awake, know of the beings of the animal world, the plant world, and the mineral world, and as human beings stand, as it were, above this world by taking it into our thoughts, so are we ourselves taken in, as thoughts, by the beings of the higher hierarchies. And this is the significant point: we can say that while down here our physical body and etheric body come into connection with the forces of the entire cosmos, from the moment we fall asleep until we wake up, we ourselves are thought of, as if we were true beings, woven from thought and the being of the will; we are thought of by the beings of the higher hierarchies. — Just as we think of nature, so do the beings of the higher hierarchies think of us. Therefore, strictly speaking, it is not at all correct to say that when one steps out of the physical body, one thinks the world. It is actually correct to say that one experiences being thought by the world of the higher hierarchies. Just as a thought would have to feel during waking life if it had consciousness, so must we experience ourselves as the thoughts of the higher beings when we are outside our physical body.

[ 5 ] And how do we experience this reawakening in our imaginative perception? As we gradually prepare to awaken, we truly experience this in the same way that we experience in the outer world—we can again compare the imagination to the outer world—the onset of winter with all that it brings of destruction, paralysis, and annihilation for the sprouting and budding life of summer. And just as winter brings frost and cold over the earth and the destruction of what is summer’s splendor, we ourselves immerse ourselves in the physical body and the etheric body. Whatever forces have truly entered our physical and etheric bodies from the elemental world of the cosmos—like vegetation, even like the animal world—we bring about their downfall upon waking, just as winter brings about the downfall of summer’s splendor. And while we are awake, we truly, through our presence in our physical and etheric bodies, place them in a state similar to that into which the conditions of the cosmos place the Earth when it is winter. We spread winter over our own physical and etheric being by entering into them. From this you can see at the same time how what is often used as a comparison from a physical point of view does not hold true for spiritual perception. Certainly, intuitively, human beings already have the awareness that they are connected to the entire cosmos and that, in a sense, what they experience is a microcosmic reflection of the macrocosm. But when a person truly wants to compare something in their microcosmic life with the macrocosmic life, it is natural for them to say: Waking up is like the arrival of spring in our lives, and waking life is like summer. And autumn is like the evening weariness, the life of sleep is like winter. — The exact opposite is reality. Summer life is the life of sleep, and winter life is the waking life. That is the truth of the matter.

[ 6 ] If the spiritual researcher truly investigates these conditions, however, he will find that while his ego and astral body rise into the regions of the higher hierarchies and are, so to speak, thought of by the higher beings, not only does that which exists in the elemental world act upon his physical and etheric bodies, but certain beings of the higher hierarchies also act upon our physical and etheric bodies. It is not merely the elemental world, which consists of forces, but actual beings—beings of the higher hierarchies—that act upon our physical and etheric bodies. And here the remarkable fact emerges that we can become aware of how, at the very moment we fall asleep, we enter into conditions entirely different from those in which we find ourselves while awake. As I said, everything that can be expressed in this way is based on the fact that spiritual research allows us to observe what happens during falling asleep and waking up. And for them it then becomes apparent that, from waking up until falling asleep, the being from the higher hierarchies—whom we must perceive as the national spirit, the folk-soul to which we belong—also acts upon our physical and etheric bodies. As a person wakes up, they do not merely immerse themselves in their physical and etheric bodies, but also in the processes carried out within their physical and etheric bodies by what their national spirit accomplishes. It turns out—and I ask you to take this to heart, for it befits us who wish to penetrate Spiritual Science to regard the connection of the worlds more deeply than outer perception can—that when a human being falls asleep, they not only immerse themselves in those beings of the higher hierarchies that correspond to their individual development, but also in such spiritual beings that we must regard as national spirits. And indeed, from the moment of falling asleep until waking, the human being immerses themselves in the context of all other national spirits, except for their own.

[ 7 ] So let us bear this in mind: While we are awake, we live immersed in the spiritual realities that our own national spirit enacts within our physical and etheric bodies. In a sense, we live together with our own national spirit from the moment we wake up until we fall asleep. Now, alongside our national spirit, all the other national spirits of other peoples are present in the world. When we fall asleep, we immerse ourselves in the interplay of the other national spirits—not in a single other national spirit—note this carefully—but in what they accomplish together, what they accomplish, as it were, collectively, as a society. During the night, only our own national spirit is excluded from this interplay. We cannot escape having a connection with all those national spirits that belong to the other peoples into which we are not incarnated in a particular incarnation. For while we belong to our own national spirit when awake, in the sleeping state we belong to the other national spirits—though only to their harmony; whereas in the waking state we belong to the intentions of the individual national spirit into whose realm we have been born in a particular incarnation.

[ 8 ] But there is a way, even while asleep, to immerse oneself, so to speak, in the essence of a single other national spirit. While in our normal waking state we live within our own national spirit or its activity, and in sleep within the harmony of other national spirits, we can, while asleep, immerse ourselves in a single national spirit if we cultivate a truly burning hatred toward what that other national spirit accomplishes in life. And as grotesque as it sounds, it is nevertheless true—and we in our movement must be able to calmly endure such truths—: If a person truly feels a burning hatred toward a national territory from the depths of their being, they condemn themselves to sleep with the national spirit of that territory at night, to be with it.

[ 9 ] Here we are touching upon truths that reveal to us that life, behind the veil that hides the spiritual worlds from everyday observation, begins to take on a profound seriousness, and that, in a certain sense, it is already uncomfortable to be a proponent of Spiritual Science. For, starting from certain points, Spiritual Science begins, in the deepest sense, to take seriously circumstances that we find uncomfortable in life—circumstances from which we are truly mercifully spared by the fact that life, in the ordinary sense, does not reveal the truth to us. Although we must, of course, stand firmly on the ground that this outer life demands of us in our outer lives, when we rise in the realm of Spiritual Science to those realms where other aspects of life begin, we must take this principle very seriously.

[ 10 ] In the book *How Does One Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds?*, it is stated that the moment one ascends into the spiritual world—and every human being is, of course, in the spiritual world; it is merely a matter of recognizing what is always there—that comfortable unity of the human being in which we live in the physical world ceases. The human being enters into divisions; apart from those divisions mentioned there, which can be observed after the encounter with the Guardian of the Threshold, many other divisions arise, for example, one that must be of profound significance for our entire emotional life. We must recognize that, in a given incarnation, while we have a full duty to the people among whom we now stand and must offer them our full love, this people is situated within the entire evolutionary process of the Earth. We must be clear that, since we are also spiritual beings in the I and astral body, we truly belong to all of humanity and must feel with all of humanity through our impulses. And it is not the case that Spiritual Science allows us to live within it in a one-sided manner; rather, we must be able to bring these two sides of our being into full harmony.

[ 11 ] We must be clear that—even though, as human beings in our present incarnation, even if we are Spiritual Scientists, we can love our national heritage as deeply as anyone is capable of loving it—we must reconcile this feeling with that which unites us with all of humanity. And Spiritual Science is precisely the elevation toward this uniting with all of humanity, because it reveals to us that we are connected to all of humanity through our ego and astral body. Bringing about harmony between opposites—that is what Spiritual Science demands more and more of those who engage with it in earnest and with dignity. And it is disastrous to confuse true Spiritual Science with that vague mystical confusion that always seeks to blend the needs of outer, physical life with that to which we must rise by immersing ourselves in the spiritual world. For vague mysticism, which seeks to introduce into everyday life what Spiritual Science first reveals in the proper light—that vague mysticism will, for example, never be able to reconcile love for one’s own people with love for all humanity; it will lead to a blurred, mystical cosmopolitanism. One can compare this, as I have already done, to what vague theosophists constantly say about the equality and equivalence of all the world’s religions. Certainly, in the abstract one can say: All the world’s religions contain the truth. But that is exactly the same as saying: On the table there is pepper, salt, and paprika and all sorts of other things, and all of these are food ingredients. Sugar, pepper, salt, and paprika—they are all the same; so I might put paprika in my coffee and sugar in my soup, since they are all food ingredients. Those who, in vague mysticism, ramble only about the core unity of all religions instead of engaging with the true essence of each individual entity that appears in our earthly evolution stand on exactly the same logical ground. What matters is not that we merely emphasize: All peoples are, in a sense, merely expressions of the universal human, but rather that we recognize precisely the specific tasks given to the individual peoples through their Folk-souls. And a point of reference for this is provided in the lecture series—which has long been in print, was delivered several years before the outbreak of the war, and was not conceived under the influence of the war, so that it cannot be accused of having been shaped by the impressions of the war—entitled “The Mission of Individual Folk-souls in Connection with Nordic-Germanic Mythology.”

[ 12 ] Especially in our time, it is important to reflect on such serious matters so that people may find harmony between universal love for humanity and love for one’s own people. One need not shy away from characterizing the peculiarities of each individual nation—insofar as it is a nation (for the individual always rises above his nation)—the peculiarities of the individual nations. Only, as is already evident from the remarks I have made, this must of course be done without hatred. Just as one cannot recognize the true nature of an individual plant if one hates the plant and describes what one feels as hatred, so too can one not recognize the distinctive characteristics of a people if one describes what one hates about that people, or if one includes in the description what arises from feelings of hatred.

[ 13 ] And so the aim of anyone capable of rising to the perspective of Spiritual Science must always be not to see the essence of the world in monotonous uniformity, but precisely in the harmony of diversity. And human beings must find the capacity to feel all possible warmth—in which regard they need not stand back from anyone who does not strive for Spiritual Science—all warmth for their own people, and to unite this, on the other hand, with that which, insofar as we belong to all humanity, brings us together with all humanity as one great, unified entity.

[ 14 ] As I said, we will pick up on these matters the day after tomorrow. But now I would like to point out that, at the same time, as we pass from our waking state into the state of sleep and are thereby received into the beings of the higher hierarchies, we essentially shed what binds us to our individual incarnation through our physical and etheric bodies. In sleep, therefore, we also shed our national being. Through sleep, we become merely human beings, human beings with all the characteristics that we must possess due to what we have acquired as human beings. When we, as spiritual researchers, observe what happens to the human being, both in the waking and sleeping states, we perceive at the same time that, while sleeping, the human being lives with their ego and astral body in the spiritual world, just as their physical and etheric bodies now belong to the great world; that this individual life, which flows, as it were, within our skin, ceases, and that we expand our self into the great Self. And now consider that, in essence, we always go through a summer and a winter state in the course of twenty-four hours. The Earth also goes through this summer and winter state, but the Earth goes through it in the course of a year. Why does the Earth go through these states over the course of the year? Because the Earth is a being like ourselves, only on a different level of the hierarchies. The whole Earth, when we look at it physically as it is around us, is only the body of the Earth; and just as we carry our spiritual-soul within us, so too does the Earth have its spiritual-soul. The only difference is that we wake and sleep over the course of twenty-four hours, and the Earth wakes and sleeps over the course of the year. It wakes from autumn until spring and sleeps during the summer. So that we can actually always say, when we live during the summer: We live nestled in the sleeping Earth. — And when we live during the winter: We live nestled within the waking Earth. — It is not the case that the Earth wakes in summer and sleeps in winter, as we might say in the trivial comparison drawn from ordinary life. Rather, it is true that when autumn comes, the Earth, as a spiritual-soul being, awakens and is most awake in the middle of winter. The Earth Spirit thinks most intensely in the middle of winter and begins to gradually cease its thinking as spring approaches; and it sleeps when outer life sprouts and grows; during the summer, the Earth Spirit sleeps.

[ 15 ] As human beings, however, we are connected not only through our physical body to the body of the Earth, but also to the spirit of the Earth. Now we know from the various lectures that, through the Mystery of Golgotha, the spirit we call the Spirit of Christ has united with the spirit of the Earth. Since the Mystery of Golgotha, the Christ Spirit has lived within the Spirit of the Earth. Therefore, if people wish to celebrate a festival that is meant to express to them that the Christ Spirit is within the Spirit of the Earth—to what time of year must they then move this festival? They must place the festival not in the summer, but in the winter, right in the middle of winter. That is the Christmas festival. For this reason, Christmas and what has developed from it are placed in the winter season. This arose from a true understanding on the part of those who once established the structure of the Christian year. Christmas was established on the basis of occult truths, not on the basis of historical facts. For indeed, for what humanity is today—the human being, embedded with his spiritual-soul aspect into the spiritual-soul aspect of the Earth—is in the most active state of earthly existence during the winter season. There he lives in the awakening Earth.

[ 16 ] And what must the ancient peoples have done, those whom we know to have based their service to the world and their understanding of the world on a kind of dreamlike clairvoyance? Well, they must have relied primarily on what lives in the sleeping Earth Spirit, when the Earth Spirit sleeps most deeply, has withdrawn most completely into its sleeping state. There they must have risen—in contrast to modern humanity—to that which unconsciously instilled in them the truth as it had to be for them. In the middle of summer, therefore, we find among the peoples who belonged to the cult that drew its knowledge from the more sleeping, dreamlike state, the Feast of St. John, the St. John’s celebration, the summer festival, in contrast to the Christmas festival that befits modern humanity.

[ 17 ] What is established in such an external way—and what our materialistic age no longer understands at all—has its true, deep foundations in what spiritual reality is. And now we are living in a time when people must once again begin to think, feel, and perceive in a completely different way than was the case in the past. The past era had the task of bringing the realm of materialistic thinking and feeling close to human beings. And it was precisely the last few centuries, which human souls have lived through, that were meant to bring materialistic thinking and feeling close to human beings. It is simply the case that Earth’s evolution had to pass through the materialistic era. We do ourselves no good if we merely offer harsh criticism of materialism. It had to enter into Earth’s development at some point. But now we live in a time when materialism must be overcome again, when a spiritual outlook must once more enter into human souls. And this is the more or less clear or vague feeling of all those who feel drawn in their own souls to our spiritual scientific endeavors, to our spiritual scientific worldview; that they simply feel: now is the time when, whereas in the past the spiritual world had to be viewed as a dream, one must consciously take this spiritual world into oneself. And that is what Spiritual Science is for.

[ 18 ] So the period that had just passed was one of materialism. And because humanity, so to speak, had to immerse itself in materialism, the powerful impulse that leads humanity upward again had to work its way through the very era of materialism. That is the Christ impulse. And when the Christ impulse entered into the development of the Earth, the preparation had already begun. It truly came into play in the 14th and 15th centuries. But as it approached, the groundwork was already being laid for humanity to immerse itself in materialism. The Christ impulse was there as an objective fact in the development of the world, but people were least capable of understanding it precisely at the time when it was present. Now we live in the time when we are to begin to truly understand what was there.

[ 19 ] What, then, do we see? We see in the course of development thus far a remarkable trajectory of the Christ impulse. We see that this Christ impulse, having entered into human development through the Mystery of Golgotha, is not understood at all by human beings. For let us try to form a picture of what people did in their cleverness. Precisely in the first and subsequent centuries after the Christ impulse entered, we find that all manner of theological systems arose, that people argued about how they were to conceive of the Trinity, and so on. We see endless theological squabbling throughout the centuries, and it would surely be the worst approach today to try to understand, based on this theological squabbling, how the Christ impulse worked during those centuries. And the people who quarreled over its meaning also understood nothing of the way the Christ impulse stands within evolution.

[ 20 ] Let us try to understand what impact he actually had. I will cite a few specific facts to illustrate this. Let us consider what happened in the 4th century, in the year 312, on October 28, an event that completely shaped the subsequent map of Europe: Constantine, who was indeed called “the Great,” the son of Constantius Chlorus, marched against Maxentius, the ruler of Rome, and won the victory over him, whereby Christianity also triumphed in the Western world in an outward sense. Constantine then elevated Christianity to the status of state religion, and so on. But did he do this out of his own wisdom? Did what happened back then happen out of wisdom? We cannot say. What actually happened? When Maxentius, the ruler of Rome, learned that Constantine was on the march, he first consulted the Sibylline Books. He thus approached the matter in a dreamlike way, seeking to understand world events. And what he gleaned from these books was that it was signified to him: The right deed would be accomplished by the one who, as ruler of Rome, leaves the city and wages battle outside Rome. That was pretty much the most extraordinary thing one could have imagined. For Constantine had a much smaller army than Maxentius and would undoubtedly have been unable to achieve anything if Maxentius had remained in Rome. But Maxentius marched out of Rome on the advice of the Sibylline Books. Yet even in Constantine’s army, it was not the generals who won the victory. Rather, Constantine had a dream in which the symbol of Christ appeared to him. In response to this dream, he then had his armies carry the cross as the symbol of Christ at the forefront. He based his conduct on what the dream revealed to him. This battle, which shaped the map of Europe at that time, was not decided by human wisdom; it was not the generals who won it, but dreams and prophecies. Everything in Europe would have turned out differently if, back then, events had unfolded according to people’s conscious awareness rather than according to what arose from the subconscious—which people simply did not know.

[ 21 ] Theologians have argued about what Christ is—whether he was born of the Father from eternity, whether he was born in time, whether he is equal to the Father, and so on. What they pondered in their thoughts contained nothing of the Christ impulse. But he worked within people in the subconscious. He did not work through the egos, but through the astral bodies. The Christ impulse was reality, and it worked without people needing to understand it. That is what is important, what is essential. The way in which Christ worked is as independent of what people understood of him as the course of a thunderstorm is independent of what people have learned from the electrostatic machine or elsewhere in the physics laboratory. Now is the time to consciously immerse oneself in the efficacy of the Christ impulse. But in what has historically occurred, the Christ has always been at work as a force within it.

[ 22 ] Let us move on from this to another example from a later period. In doing so, however, we must keep in mind what I have explained to you. In an age when materialism has risen, it is important to know that if a person wishes to immerse themselves in the spiritual world, they must do so best during the winter season. Hence, the belief arises everywhere that on the designated nights of midwinter, particularly gifted individuals are blessed with inspirations from the spiritual world. There are legends and tales among all peoples that tell us how particularly gifted individuals—who do not undergo initiation but are blessed by their very nature, through elemental forces working within them—are inspired, and how they are inspired during the nights from Christmas Eve through Epiphany, during the thirteen winter nights. There is a very beautiful legend that was discovered in Norway not long ago, the legend of Olaf Åsteson, who approaches the church on Christmas Eve and falls asleep. He sleeps until January 6; and when he wakes up, he is able to recount in visions what has taken place in the realm of the soul, in the spirit realm, as we call it. He expresses it in images, but he has lived through it during these thirteen nights. And such legends can be found everywhere. They are simply not what we call legends today. In fact, there have always been gifted people who have, so to speak, undergone a natural initiation through elemental forces working within them—forces that a person, if they faithfully follow the instructions of the initiatory path, can experience through their own will. So that we can say: In the age of materialism, there could always be people who, when the spirit of the Earth is most awake—in the middle of winter—could unite with the spirit of the Earth and receive inspiration. That was also the time when the Christ impulse, which had united with the Earth, could not work its way in through consciousness. Let us consider particularly gifted souls who are receptive to the spiritual world. For them, it had to become clear that they would receive the impulses for what they are to accomplish from the spiritual world precisely during these thirteen nights leading up to January 6. This had to become evident, and it did so time and again in both small and large examples: throughout history, there were people who were spiritually predisposed in such a way that, when the right moment came for them—as they lived through those thirteen nights in winter—the spiritual impulse—and during this time especially the Christ impulse—entered into them. Natural initiations—initiations that did not, therefore, take place through human conscious effort—will have occurred most easily during these thirteen nights in the age of materialism. And we can learn that, where such initiations occurred, they took place during these thirteen nights.

[ 23 ] And now we have a fact that even those who have just a little goodwill to acknowledge the spiritual world—very few people do today—will recognize: that in the 15th century, through a maiden, the Maid of Orleans, spiritual powers demonstrably intervened in the course of history. This can also be historically proven: the entire map of Europe was reshaped by the fact that the Maid of Orleans helped the French against the English at that time. And anyone who reflects on it can conclude that everything would have turned out differently, according to human capabilities, had the shepherdess not intervened—and within this shepherdess, precisely the forces from the spiritual world. The Maid of Orleans was merely the instrument of what was accomplished at that time. What worked within her was the Christ impulse.

[ 24 ] To do so, however, she would have had to undergo a natural initiation—and this natural initiation would have been best carried out during the thirteen nights leading up to January 6. Thus, the Maid of Orleans would have had to enter a kind of sleep-like state during the period from December 24 to January 6, when she would have been particularly receptive to the spiritual influence that can be present precisely at that time. So it would have to be assumed that the Maid of Orleans would have experienced the period from December 24 to January 6 in a state of partial consciousness—and in doing so would have received the Christ impulse. —Yes, the Maid of Orleans went through this state in a most striking way! One cannot go through it more strikingly than when one is still in that state of sleep in which one is before birth, in the final moments spent as a child in the mother’s womb before birth. There, of course, the outer consciousness is incapable of taking anything in. There is a state of sleep there, and when it is the end of the time in the womb, then it is the most mature state of intrauterine sleep. And the Virgin of Orleans was indeed born on January 6. That is the great mystery of the Virgin of Orleans, that in the thirteen days preceding her birth, she went through a state of natural initiation. That is why particularly sensitive people gathered in the village on that January 6th, when the Virgin of Orleans was born, and said that something very special must have happened. They sensed that something special had come into the village. The Virgin of Orleans was born. And she underwent a natural initiation during that significant state of sleep she experienced in her mother’s womb in the final days before birth. Here we see how, as always, behind the threshold of what unfolds for human consciousness, the spiritual beings that exist below this threshold of consciousness are truly at work.

[ 25 ] Here we see what can happen when a history relies solely on what is found in documents and external reports. The gods move through the course of history in a different way. The gods work through other means and in other ways. They bring a Maid of Orleans into existence who, through her particular karma, is suited for incarnation to receive the Christ impulse and work with it. And they allow this Christ impulse to flow in at the appropriate time. Of course, both factors were necessary: the specific individual karma of the Maid of Orleans had to be present. Not every child born on January 6 could have accomplished the same thing.

[ 26 ] Thus we can truly say: The Christ impulse has worked within human beings through forces of which these human beings were not consciously aware. Only today do we live in an age in which we must consciously take in that which, over the course of centuries, sought a path into historical activity other than the conscious one.

[ 27 ] I wanted to awaken in your souls a sense of how subconscious forces actually work in the concrete world. How that which is external history—and can be studied through documents and external records—is merely an outward appearance. It is good to undertake such a study, especially in our time. Let us see, especially in our time, how on the one hand something great, something mighty, something heroic is unfolding, coupled with acts of sacrifice. But we see that the great events taking place in our time are truly accompanied by the consequence of extreme materialism—that consequence which seeks to explain everything happening in our time solely through external circumstances. This is expressed in the fact that one people shifts the blame for current events onto another people and thus seeks to judge everything from an external perspective, finding fault with the other for what is taking place. For our time as well, the reasons and causes for what is happening lie deep within the subconscious events. We will speak of this the day after tomorrow.

[ 28 ] Our time will be particularly suited—not least because of the bloody events currently unfolding—to urging people toward spiritual impulses of insight. Once peace returns to the countries currently at war, a discovery will be made: the discovery that such massive wars in world history cannot be explained by external causes! People will discover that they cannot be explained. Today, people still say—especially the clever ones: It is not appropriate to speak of everything that caused this war; history will speak of that! —And those who say, “Only in fifty or a hundred years will history speak the truth about it,” think themselves particularly clever!

[ 29 ] What we call history today will never explain the causes of current events; but we will see that the causes cannot be fathomed through a historical perspective. However, other means of understanding will be available. This is precisely what an occult observation of our present time reveals.

[ 30 ] What, then, is one of the most striking facts of this fateful time? Oh, one of the most striking facts is undoubtedly this: that so many people pass through the gate of death while still in the prime of life. We know what happens to a person when they pass through the gate of death. We know that they first step out of the physical body with their etheric body, astral body, and ego, and that after a relatively short time they shed this etheric body and continue their journey with the essence of it. But can you not imagine that there must be a difference between an etheric body that is shed between the ages of twenty and thirty—one that could still have sustained the functions of human life for decades to come—and an etheric body that is shed at a later age? Yes, there is a great difference. When a person dies of old age or illness, the etheric body has fulfilled its task. But in the case of a young person—of whom countless numbers are now passing through the gates of death—the etheric body has not yet been able to fulfill all that it could have fulfilled.

[ 31 ] Now I would like to show you, using a concrete example, what happens to such etheric bodies when they are, as it were, violently torn away from the physical body. Of course, one could cite many examples. But today I want to give you an example that we ourselves experienced last fall in Dornach. We experienced this at the construction site. A family living near the construction site had a seven-year-old son—a family that belongs to our anthroposophical circle. He was a sweet seven-year-old boy, truly a wonderful boy. He was so well-behaved that when his father went off to war, little seven-year-old Theo said to his mother: “Now I have to be especially diligent, because I have to help you where your father used to help you!” One evening after a lecture, a member of our circle came and explained that little Theo had been missing since that evening. One could think of nothing else but that he had met with an accident. Now, on that very evening, through what is called a coincidence in everyday life, a moving truck had driven to a spot where certainly no one had driven for years, and no one has since. The truck had overturned at that spot. Little Theo had been in that little house called the canteen, because that is where our friends working on the construction site are provided with food. Strangely enough—he would have left earlier—he was held back by someone, and while he was about to go out through a door that would have led him down a certain path, this time he had to go through another door, and as he passed through it, he walked past the moving truck just as it tipped over. The truck fell on top of him. This is one of those examples where we can see so clearly how karma works.

[ 32 ] I have often used a simple analogy to show how frequently cause and effect are completely confused: We see a person walking along a river. Suddenly, we see the person fall into the river. We go over and find a rock lying at the spot where the person fell in. The person is pulled out of the water. He is already dead. If one does not investigate the matter further, one will, in all good faith, recount the story as follows: The man tripped over the stone, fell into the river, and drowned. — One need only have investigated, and one would have found that death did not occur because the person fell into the water, but rather the person fell into the water because he was dead; he had suffered a stroke. The situation is therefore the reverse of what one might assume. Thus one sees how easily cause and effect are confused in life. In conventional science, however, this happens everywhere—that causes and effects are confused.

[ 33 ] Here, too, it is of course the case that it was Theo himself who brought this about: he was the reason the car drove by at that moment; he steered it toward himself. One must keep this in mind as the true mystery of the matter. But now for the rest: a human child who met with an accident in the very first bloom of life! Yes, if one is deeply connected in one’s heart to the entire construction work in Dornach and at the same time has the opportunity to observe what is working into this building, then one can say: This etheric body, which has been so violently separated from little Theo in this way, is now in the atmosphere of the building, and the most beautiful forces of inspiration for what is being created there are gained by uniting one’s own soul with that which lives in the atmosphere of the building, magnified and expanded as if into a small world. And I will never hesitate to confess unreservedly that much of what I was able to find regarding our building at that time I owe to the guidance of my own soul toward little Theo’s etheric body, which was active in the atmosphere of the building. Such are the connections in the world. That which is the actual individuality of this human being goes on, but what remains behind is the etheric body, which could have sustained a human life for many decades yet.

[ 34 ] Now imagine the number of unconsumed etheric bodies floating in the spiritual atmosphere above us and above those who will live after us! Those etheric bodies left behind by those who, during our fateful times, passed through the gate of death at an early age. We are not speaking here of the path that individual souls undergo, but rather of the fact that these remaining etheric bodies create a distinct spiritual atmosphere. The people who will live there will live in this atmosphere. They will be immersed in a spiritual atmosphere that will be filled with these etheric bodies, which have sacrificed their lives so that humanity may advance through these events in our time. But it will be necessary to sense what these etheric bodies desire, for they will be the greatest inspirers of future humanity. A beautiful era of spiritualism may dawn if people respond with understanding—with heartfelt understanding—to what these etheric bodies will wish to convey to them. All these etheric bodies will be helpers in the spiritual upsurge of the future. That is why it is so important that there are souls who will be able to feel what is entering the atmosphere of the future through these etheric bodies.

[ 35 ] You do not learn about the nature of the etheric bodies merely by being able to say that human beings consist of a physical body, an etheric body, an astral body, and an I; rather, you must also understand the mystery of the active spirituality of the etheric bodies as it will exist in the future.

[ 36 ] Those who already have a predisposition toward Spiritual Science will need to prepare themselves to be receptive to what these etheric bodies seek to convey. If we therefore turn our souls toward the spiritual world, we will prepare ourselves and those who will come after us to perceive what the legacies—the ethereal legacies of the dead—intend for the humanity of the future. When human souls are so inspired by Spiritual Science that they can direct their spiritual sense toward the spiritual worlds, then surely something great and mighty will spring forth as an effect from the blood and the courage and the sufferings and the sacrifices. Therefore, at the conclusion of our reflection today, I would like to summarize in a few words what can now inspire and enliven us as we, as adherents of Spiritual Science, direct our attention to the great, fateful events of our time.

From the courage of the fighters,
From the blood of battle,
From the suffering of the forsaken,
From the sacrifices of the people
Grows the fruit of the spirit
Souls, spiritually aware,
Send their meaning into the spirit realm.