The Rudolf Steiner Archive

The Spiritual Unification of Humanity Through the Christ Impulse

[ 1 ] Ultimately, all Spiritual Science aims to understand human beings in their very essence, in their tasks and aspirations—their necessary aspirations in the course of their development. The misunderstandings—which we often have to address—that are directed at Spiritual Science from outside stem largely from the fact that present-day humanity has yet to become accustomed to certain fundamental truths, which simply must be acknowledged and understood if one is to gain any kind of understanding of life and the nature of human beings.

[ 2 ] What, exactly—let us begin by touching on this question today—is the basis of that scientific approach whose great, significant triumphs over the past four centuries should be fully recognized, particularly by Spiritual Science? — It stems from what it perceives within the sphere of physical existence, from what manifests itself within the sphere of physical existence. Now, it is truly a matter of course that one initially places trust in what one perceives as so-called reality in one’s surroundings, and that one attempts to explain this reality based on everything that is present within this reality itself. It is, of course, difficult to realize from the outset that this reality itself might contain an illusion, that this reality itself might be deceptive. Anyone who truly wishes to understand Spiritual Science must first overcome this obstacle. They must learn to recognize that reality, as it surrounds us, can be deceptive, that it can downright tempt us to interpret it in a false way. And much of what we have come to know over the years in the field of Spiritual Science has taught us to be convinced that this reality immediately surrounding us can be deceptive. Today we want to start from a very specific point—a point that, however, can only be arrived at within Spiritual Science. In Spiritual Science, one must first understand things, and then, once one has understood them, one can find that what has been understood is confirmed by reality. In Spiritual Science, it is precisely the most important things that one must first understand before one can observe them. It could easily be argued that this is a method that is also widely applied in the external world, and particularly in the external world of science. But we will spare ourselves that discussion today. One cannot always develop every subject from the ground up.

[ 3 ] One such fact—which, in the most profound sense, is capable of deceiving us about external reality through its appearance, through the very physiognomy of that reality itself—is the difference, the diversity, among human beings on Earth. When we look at the people who inhabit the earth, we say to ourselves: Fundamentally, no two people are alike in the physical realm. All human beings are different from one another in the physical realm. — And so it is only natural to accept this diversity of human beings on Earth as a fact—I am referring here to the diversity of the physical body—and to proceed from this assumption in an attempt to discover, somehow through the facts of earthly life, why human beings are different, why they look different.

[ 4 ] However, a perspective from Spiritual Science reveals something entirely different. It shows us that if we were to consider only what forms can be created from the physical body of the Earth through the Earth’s forces, human beings could not possibly be different on Earth—rather, they would all be the same, all having the same forms! The forces present on Earth that give human beings their physical form are in fact such that, if only the Earth’s formative forces were acting upon them, all human beings would have to have the same external physical form. This is brought about by the fact that the human physical body has been sufficiently prepared. We know that it has been prepared through the Saturn, Solar, and Lunar epochs. Everything has been so prepared by the forces that were at work during these three epochs that nothing else can act upon the human body from the Earth’s own forces other than what would shape it into uniform forms across the entire Earth, if only this Earth were taken into account. I would like to say: Through the forces that were incorporated into the human physical body during the Saturn, Sun, and Moon epochs, human beings are so shielded against all variations in the Earth’s forces that, if they were left solely to the Earth’s forces, they would have to be the same across the entire Earth. Spiritual Science must therefore proceed from the premise that an identical form has been predetermined for human beings by the forces of the Earth.

[ 5 ] If we now consider the difference between the masculine and the feminine, what has just been said also applies to this difference between the masculine and the feminine. For this difference, too, is not brought about by the earthly forces that shape human beings, but by entirely different forces, which we will discuss shortly; thus, we can assume a certain sum of earthly forces that act formatively upon human beings and seek to produce only absolutely identical human forms across the entire earth. Now, of course, we may ask ourselves: Why, then, are human beings nevertheless so different?

[ 6 ] We know, of course, that we are not dealing solely with the human physical body, but that behind the human physical body lies the etheric body. Now, Spiritual Science shows us that, even though all human beings should actually be equal with regard to the physical earthly body, they must differ with regard to the etheric body—and this is because earthly forces alone do not act upon the etheric body. It is a complete error to believe that only earthly forces act upon the human etheric body. Forces from the cosmos, from the universe, act upon the human etheric body, shaping it and forming it. Thus, we must distinguish between the uniform earthly forces acting across the Earth—which would make all human forms the same—and the forces acting upon the Earth from the universe, which make human etheric bodies different. Through Spiritual Science observation, one can trace the diversity of human etheric bodies. There are human etheric bodies which, I might say, stand at an extreme limit, possessing strong forces—etheric bodies that can be observed to be extraordinarily resilient, so that when one observes them, they retain their form almost as a physical form does. This is one type of etheric body.

[ 7 ] A second type of etheric body is one in which the etheric body is so mobile—I would say, as mobile as something that is in constant motion, more of a fluttering kind of movement—that it flows and moves in contrast to a solid form. The etheric bodies of these two forms appear in such a way that they can be described as having a fairly uniform internal shading. Another type of etheric body is one that is internally shaded—internally iridescently shaded—meaning that it is not uniform in color but is internally shaded and tinged. A fourth type of etheric body consists of those which, although they display a basic color—if we may put it that way—throughout their entire substance, change this color over time without any external influence; that is, they are changed solely from within. These are therefore not iridescently tinged, not shaded with different colors, but are uniform in nature, yet display ever-changing hues over time—chameleon-like etheric bodies. Then there are etheric bodies that have a very strong tendency to lighten and clarify from within, becoming brighter and brighter at certain moments. Other etheric bodies possess a very strong ability to reflect the harmony of the spheres. And then there are etheric bodies that can be observed, particularly in inventive, genius-like individuals—etheric bodies that already reveal within themselves forces that are otherworldly and strange to the Earth. While the six previous types of etheric bodies at least demonstrate that they are of such a nature that they can be found in people—even if they are average individuals—the latter type of etheric bodies corresponds to those people who possess strong abilities and of whom it is said that they are not “born of the earth”—poets, artists, and the like.

[ 8 ] The distinction between these seven forms of the etheric body in human beings is not based on some arbitrary assumption about the number seven. One simply has to count them. One finds no others than those I have now described as typical, and that is why there are seven—for no other reason—seven types of the etheric body. There really are seven different types of human etheric bodies. In the etheric bodies, we have forces that are, in a sense, not earthly—they come from the cosmos. Now, the etheric body has a formative effect on the physical body, and so it is that, while in regard to the physical body—due to earthly forces—all human beings would be the same, they are already shaped differently by the etheric body, whereas the distinction between, for example, male and female bodies is brought about only by the astral body—through the forces that the astral body develops, particularly during the transition between death and a new birth, when the human being prepares for the sex that, according to karma, they must have in the next incarnation.

[ 9 ] Let us first continue our consideration of the etheric body. So we can say: While the physical body—if we consider only earthly forces—is actually predisposed to uniformity across the entire Earth, human beings are divided into seven groups across the Earth because their etheric bodies are, from the cosmos—from outside the Earth—predisposed in various ways, structured in various ways, and imbued with substance in various ways. This is the fact of the matter; this is what one gradually comes to realize when attempting to investigate, from a perspective of Spiritual Science, the mutual relationship between the human etheric body and the physical body. Now, this diversity that arises is connected to the predispositions and the differences among the races across the Earth. Essentially, the races can always be traced back to the number seven because of this difference in etheric bodies. Even if some typical forms have atrophied and one might distinguish fewer than seven basic races in conventional science, there are in reality seven basic racial differences within the entire human race. But these are actually brought about by the etheric bodies and do not have their origin in the earthly forces during our evolution; rather, they have their origin in cosmic forces.

[ 10 ] If we now trace the evolution of the Earth itself backward into the Atlantean and Lemurian eras, we see that there were originally predispositions, impulses were present through which the physiognomy—that is, the form the human physical body acquired through the influence of the etheric body—in other words, the diversity that was thus shaped—should not actually have unfolded on Earth in the way it did, according to the original predispositions. It was not meant to happen this way; rather, if everything had proceeded in a certain way—we will see shortly in what way—the seven-colored etheric body would have brought about differences in the human form, but one after another, in such a sequence that a certain type of human being would have existed, brought about by the etheric body, in the fifth Atlantean period, a second in the sixth Atlantean period, a third in the seventh Atlantean period, a fourth in the first post-Atlantean period, a fifth in the second post-Atlantean period, a sixth in the third post-Atlantean period, and a seventh in the Greco-Latin era, the fourth post-Atlantean period. So this is how it would have come about: different types of human beings would have appeared one after another, in succession. In a sense, human beings would have developed in such a way that, in the fifth Atlantean period, there would have been people whose physical constitution was particularly strongly influenced by one form of the etheric body; in the sixth Atlantean period, by the second of the characterized forms; and so on, right up to the fourth post-Atlantean period. That was actually the plan.

[ 11 ] Lucifer and Ahriman, however, resisted this; they did not want it to happen that way. This was the developmental trend proceeding in the regular course of human evolution. Lucifer and Ahriman resisted this. They set the whole process in motion in such a way that the course of development was shifted, so that—while development was actually intended such that, in essence, a certain form of human beings should have appeared in the fifth Atlantean period, and this form should then have gradually transformed into another form of humanity, Lucifer and Ahriman carried the form of the fifth Atlantean period into the sixth, and again from the sixth Atlantean period into the seventh, and on through the Atlantean Flood. So that, in fact, what should have passed away in form has remained, and instead of the racial differences developing one after another, as should have happened, the old racial forms have remained, remained static, and the newer ones have, as it were, pushed their way in, so that a coexistence has developed instead of the succession that was actually intended. And this is how it came to be that such physically distinct races came to populate the Earth—and continue to do so to this day—whereas this development should have proceeded as I have described. We see this everywhere—even when we consider what stems from the development of the etheric body—we see everywhere that Lucifer and Ahriman play their roles in the earthly development of humanity.

[ 12 ] Now we must ask ourselves: What was actually meant, in a global context, by the idea that human beings were to develop in this way, one after another, right up into the Greco-Roman era? We know, after all, that around the time I have referred to as the Atlantean era, the souls had gradually—that is, beginning with the fifth Atlantean period—descended from the planets to which they had ascended. Do you recall from my *Outline of Esoteric Science* how it is described there that the souls ascended and then descended again, and that from the moment they descended, the life of incarnation truly begins on Earth! We see, then, that the “I”s of human beings—their actual individualities—would have passed through these various forms in successive epochs. Our “I’s” would have passed through one human form in the fifth Atlantean period, another in the sixth, yet another in the seventh, and still another in the first post-Atlantean period, and so on. These successive human types, these human forms, would have been passed through one after another. And so it was actually intended that human beings would, in this way, have undergone what was necessary for the training of the human individuality—namely, the passage through various etheric forms, which would then have had a distinguishing effect on the physical form—so that all of this would have been experienced. In fact, a human type could have emerged on Earth—as was originally intended—that would have been the result of seven successive periods of development, each of which would have contributed something toward perfection. And the fifth post-Atlantean period would have been such that a harmonious human type was destined to prevail across the entire Earth.

[ 13 ] Lucifer and Ahriman thwarted that. There was no other option but for the Greeks to dream of an ideal, superhuman archetype, which they sought to shape in various ways—in the manner of Apollo, in the manner of Zeus, in the manner of Athena, and so on. They did not fully grasp it, because it did not exist in reality. But if one has a feel for Greek sculpture, one can sense how the Greeks dreamed of what should have emerged as a unified, perfect, beautiful human archetype. That this did not come to pass was prevented by Lucifer and Ahriman, who always preserved the racial forms that had once arisen, so that a coexistence emerged from what should have been a succession.

[ 14 ] Thus, during the fourth post-Atlantean period—the Greco-Latin era—human evolution was confronted with the fact that, due to the Luciferic-Ahrimanic influence, it had not been possible to achieve what the gods impelling the Earth had actually intended for this Earth in terms of its outer forms. The spirits of the Hierarchy of Form had intended that, through the interplay of the various Hierarchies of Form, this perfect human type could truly have emerged in physical form. Thus, the Greeks could only dream of him; they could only give him life through art.

[ 15 ] There is something deeply moving about the moment, in the course of Spiritual Science research, when one finds oneself asking: Why, in fact, did these Greeks create such perfection in sculpture? — Because, I would say, they absorbed—as if through a spiritual-soul instrument—the disappointments that Lucifer and Ahriman inflicted upon the good, divine-spiritual beings who had intended something different for humanity than what ultimately came to be. What should have come into being through the good, divine-spiritual beings lay close to the Greeks’ hearts, and they wanted at least to give it form, since it could not come into being in the outer, tangible world. The contemplation of these inner forces of human development—which manifest themselves in something akin to artistic forms that seek to capture what could not be achieved in external reality—has a grand, powerful, and profound effect. One then looks upon this Greek art with an entirely different sense—an art that, precisely in that Greek era, underwent such a unique and irreproducible development.

[ 16 ] But with this, the time had also come when, through the Luciferic-Ahrimanic influence, humanity had, so to speak, reached a crisis. Lucifer and Ahriman once brought about a situation in which the races, instead of living one after the other, began to live side by side. But at the same time, all those forces that had originally poured the formative spirits—the spirits of form—into the development of humanity on Earth had also been weakened. All they could do was to inspire the Greek imagination in such a way that it became what I have described. The spirits of form, so to speak, were faced with the necessity of asking themselves: Should the human race now continue to develop in such a way that human beings would never again come together in the course of Earth’s evolution? — For that is how it would have had to turn out. If Earth’s development had simply continued from the fourth period—the Greco-Latin era—onward, it would have fragmented into a sevenfold division, brought about by Luciferic and Ahrimanic forces, into seven human groups on Earth that would have drifted apart, as distinct from one another as the individual animal groups are from one another. Just as the individual animal groups do not understand one another but regard one another as different beings, so, toward the end of the fourth cultural period—the Greco-Latin era—and from the fifth epoch onward, in which we now live, the view would have had to develop more and more—we would still be in the midst of it now, it would not yet have reached the utmost perfection—which here actually means the utmost imperfection—but it would have had to come about on Earth little by little—that seven human groups would have gradually formed on Earth, each viewing the others as entirely different beings. The name “human” for all people on Earth would not have proved to be the right one at all; rather, there would have been designations—seven designations for seven different groups of beings on Earth—not a single, uniform designation for humanity across the Earth.

[ 17 ] The point was that precisely in this fourth post-Atlantean period, this Greco-Latin era, a provision of sorts was made in the universe so that what threatened to happen would nevertheless not come to pass in the further course of Earth’s development, so that the moment would not eventually arrive when the Earth reaches the culmination of its development —where seven groups of beings inhabit the Earth, each designated by a different name, just as different ‘animal species’ are given different names, and who do not regard one another as equal; and where, at most, some imitation of Greek forms—such as the figures of Zeus and Apollo—might have been introduced, which would have been viewed as something foreign, as something that could never have existed on Earth. A precaution had to be taken against this development. But physical evolution had already progressed too far; nothing could be done to change that. Thus, a precaution had to be taken with regard to the human etheric body. An impulse had to enter the human etheric body that would counteract this fragmentation of humanity into a sevenfold division. And this impulse, which was destined in the world plan to counteract this fragmentation of humanity on Earth—this impulse, which was destined to make it possible for the human name to retain a real meaning throughout the entire Earth and indeed to continue to take on ever greater significance—this impulse is—and here we come to a new perspective on this fact—the Mystery of Golgotha. The first attempt, so to speak, that was made with humanity on Earth before the Luciferic-Ahrimanic impulse intervened in Earth’s evolution, was to create unity throughout humanity across the entire Earth through the formation of the physical body. This attempt by the Spirits of Form failed. It failed due to the Luciferic-Ahrimanic influence. But it was not to fail entirely; something had to be put in place by which what Ahriman and Lucifer had brought about could in turn be neutralized and counterbalanced. It was no longer possible to act upon the physical body as had originally been intended. But it was intended to act upon the etheric body. And this came about through the fact that the spiritual-divine being of whom we have spoken so often—the Christ Being—united with the human form at that stage of human development when the possibility of preserving the archetype of humanity was still greatest.

[ 18 ] What stage of human development is this? — All the forces that counteract the original, uniform constitution of the physical body actually operate in the human being in such a way that they can act during the first seven years, when the physical body is primarily in a state of soft development. They do not allow it to remain the same; instead, they vary it from within. They can also do so during the second seven-year period, up to sexual maturity. They can also do so during the third and fourth seven-year periods, during the development of the astral body and the feeling soul. But when it comes to the middle stage of the intellectual or emotional soul—precisely that phase of human development that developed primarily during the fourth post-Atlantean, the Greco-Latin period— that is when the extraterrestrial forces have the least access to human beings, and least of all in the middle—that is, during the period of human life between the twenty-eighth and thirty-fifth years, and specifically in the middle of that period. If we add two years before that and omit two years afterward, this is the period from the thirtieth to the thirty-third year. After that comes the time when extraterrestrial forces once again exert the greatest influence on human beings; in fact, at that stage, human beings are in a state where extraterrestrial forces exert the very greatest influence on them. But now—from the age of thirty to thirty-three—this is the period when the influence of earthly forces alone on human beings is still at its strongest. And during this time, these three years—even if the differences in development that were at work in the earlier years were to remain, and even if the influences arising from the later years were to be added—if only what acts upon human beings during this period from the age of thirty to thirty-three were to be at work, then human beings on Earth would already be much more alike.

[ 19 ] Christ had to make very special use of these three years—they are three years set apart in a very special way—in order to enter into communion solely with the earthly forces within human beings, in whom the earthly aspect is still most strongly preserved. As we have explained, the Christ body was prepared for this through the two bodies of Jesus up to the age of thirty, and then, from the age of thirty to thirty-three, Christ took possession of this body. Where the earthly forces were still most active and where deformation could occur, development had ceased, and physical death set in. Thus this Christ-Sun Being truly entered the earthly sphere and then, in the manner I have often described, united with the entire etheric body of the Earth, passed into the Earth’s aura, and now continues to work within the Earth’s aura. For human beings, however, it must work in such a way that they truly come to understand more and more that, in Christ, that divine spirit was sent to Earth for them, so that what had been isolated and set apart from the original impulses in humanity by the adversary, Lucifer-Ahriman, may once again be overcome from within. In the outer nature of the human being, the good spiritual beings work together with Lucifer and Ahriman. But what was originally intended for the human being at the physical beginning of the Earth—to have from without: equality across the entire Earth, the possibility of the human name across the entire Earth—was now to be brought forth from within the innermost being of the human being through the Christ Spirit. This was one aspect of the many, many-layered significance of the Mystery of Golgotha: that through the Christ Spirit, something was given to the Earth which, when understood in the right sense, makes the human name possible once again for all of humanity on Earth. When that which is truly the essence of Christianity—which has already been revealed in part through Christianity, and which will be explored by those who, with Christ in mind, seek in the spiritual world that which Christ continually reveals according to His word: “I am with you always, even to the end of the age”—if what can be communicated to humanity from within in the name of Christ gradually comes to light, then what has been wrought in humanity by Lucifer and Ahriman will increasingly be balanced out.

[ 20 ] One might well ask, however: Does it really make sense that this detour was taken? — and this, I would say, childlike question is very often raised by people who want to be wiser than the wisdom of the worlds — and many people do indeed want to be that. It is precisely those people who want to be wiser than the wisdom of the world who say: If one is to believe in powerful divine beings, could they not have eliminated the Luciferic-Ahrimanic influence at the beginning of Earth’s evolution, so that their work would not be marred? — Certainly, this is human wisdom, but in the sense that Paul speaks of, “foolishness before divine wisdom.” That is indeed human wisdom.

[ 21 ] We must now view things in our reflections exactly as we have just described. Then, of course, what arises through opposition—what arises from the other side through the antagonism of Lucifer and Ahriman—appears to us not as something absolutely evil, but only as something relatively evil. For let us also consider the other side of the matter. Let us imagine that the original divine plan for the world, including the Earth, had been fulfilled; the Greco-Roman era would indeed have arrived in an orderly manner, as I have indicated, and that beautiful, harmonious human type of which the Greeks dreamed would not only have been sculpted by Greek artists but would have walked among human beings and would have taken up more and more space across the entire Earth. Gradually, all other human forms would have disappeared, and only that which lived in the disposition of the Apollo type, the Zeus type, the Diana type, and the Athena type would have walked the Earth and, having recognized itself in outward appearance, would have given itself the name “human.” The name “human” would have become possible, and so too would the sense of the equality of all human beings. One might say that a humanity embodying Greek beauty would have gradually spread across the earth, and in our time we would already see how humanity is tending toward an ever-greater convergence with this beautiful Greek human type, which would have been fully realized had the earth reached its goal in the seventh post-Atlantean period and advanced to another stage of existence. But human beings would have arrived at this human commonality in a state of bondage—this we must note. Human beings would have been compelled to regard themselves as equal beings across the entire earth. Everything that has arisen among human beings—the tendency to view one another as unequal, so that one does not regard the other as oneself, nor love the other as oneself—all of this has become possible precisely because such a uniform form did not come to pass. You may be able to sense that if it had truly come to pass that, outwardly, human beings had become as equal as they were meant to be through the original divine-spiritual forces—without the Luciferic-Ahrimanic influence—then the feeling that one must love one’s neighbor as oneself would also have developed; one could not have done otherwise. Anything else would have been nonsense—nonsense of feeling, nonsense of perception. But that which was not allowed to come from outside—because it would have made human beings into automatic lovers, into beings who, while loving their fellow human beings as their equals, would not have known what force drives them to this love—that which would thus have come about without freedom was prepared precisely for freedom by the fact that opposition was permitted. This allowance of opposition is thus part of the original plan of wisdom. One might even say: If one goes further back in the development of the Earth, opposition is first created against the uniformly progressing divine-spiritual forces, so that this opposition might then exist and bring about freedom.

[ 22 ] We have reached a point where one must recognize that concepts must change somewhat as soon as one moves beyond the physical perspective to a higher level of consideration. Some of you may be aware that in philosophy one speaks of antinomies, and that Kant even demonstrated: One can prove with equal validity that “the world is spatially infinite” and that “the world is spatially finite”; that “the world had a beginning” and that “the world never had a beginning”; both can be proven with equal rigor and necessity. Why? Because logic ceases when one reaches that which can no longer be grasped physically. One must finally learn to recognize that this human, physical logic does not cease merely at the point where philosophers have arrived, but that it ceases altogether when one casts a glance into forms of existence other than the physical. One must not stand there and view the opposition between Lucifer and Ahriman in the same way one views the opposition between a good and an evil person on Earth. Errors arise precisely because one constantly transfers earthly concepts to the non-earthly realm. Most people have a mental image of Lucifer and Ahriman as evil beings, merely intensified—very, very intensely—into infinity. But that is not the case; rather, one must also realize that certain earthly nuances of feeling, which we associate with these concepts, lose their meaning once one goes beyond the earthly realm. So one cannot say: On the one hand, we have the good gods; on the other, the evil gods Lucifer and Ahriman—and then conclude that a judgment must actually be held in the universe; that a particularly high-ranking cosmic jurist must now take his seat on the cosmic judgment seat and imprison Lucifer and Ahriman once and for all; they ought to be imprisoned so that only the good gods can work their influence. — Certainly, imprisoning someone can make sense in earthly life. In the cosmos, however, this would make no sense, for there even such concepts lose their meaning. The good gods themselves once created these oppositions—albeit in a previous age—so that in this way they could devote their full power to the direction of development I have indicated. So that freedom might enter there, so that human beings might not be led to an unfree love through the external imposition of forms, they have incorporated the Luciferic and Ahrimanic elements, so that human beings might arrive, from within, at a unity of the human name across the entire Earth—from within. They first allowed humanity—I would say—to become fragmented through opposition, so that once physicality had been fragmented, they could then restore unity to them in the spiritual realm, in Christ.

[ 23 ] And that is also the meaning of the Mystery of Golgotha: the attainment of unity among human beings from within. Outwardly, people are becoming more and more diverse, and this will result not in uniformity, but in diversity across the earth. This will mean that people must exert all the more strength from within to achieve unity. There will always be setbacks to this unity of humanity across the entire earth. We see such setbacks emerging. What was actually intended for an earlier epoch persists into a later one. What was intended to bring about diversity for a specific period of time now coexists alongside it. People form various groups, and while they are striving to achieve their unity across the earth through the name of Christ, through the Christ impulse, diversity remains as a lingering effect and will always remain, since people will only be able to achieve their unity little by little, and alongside this, individual groups of people will continue to fight each other to the death in regard to all external aspects of life. These remnants are holdovers from earlier times that, in essence, run counter to the Christ impulse rather than in harmony with it.

[ 24 ] However, a deep, deep meaning of this Christ impulse dawns on us here. Based on true insight, we can say: Christ is the Savior of humanity from fragmentation into groups. The fact that this cannot yet be fully grasped by all of humanity stems precisely from the fact that the old ways have persisted alongside the new. When we see today how little humanity still understands one of the vital nerves—the commonality of life in the Christ impulse—this is because such understanding must spring from the innermost being of the human being. We must realize how, in the nearly two millennia during which the Christ impulse has been at work within the Earth’s aura, this Christ impulse has been active yet misunderstood. For, as we have often emphasized, it can only be fully understood through what Spiritual Science has revealed to us. Only when a number of people come to understand, think, and feel more and more what has actually been drawn into the Earth’s development of humanity during this fourth post-Atlantean period will understanding of it grow ever more widespread. One cannot yet fully demand this of humanity today. For just consider how few people today are inclined to acknowledge that this fourth post-Atlantean period—the Greco-Latin era—has such fundamental, such great significance in the entire development of humanity! Just consider how few people today are inclined to acknowledge such a post-Atlantean era at all, let alone to place the Greco-Latin period at its center! To do so, it is simply necessary to have taken these concepts of Spiritual Science to heart. Otherwise, one would not even think of it—that is, one cannot understand the nature of human development if one has not taken these concepts to heart.

[ 25 ] It is therefore necessary to grasp the full significance of the spirits of form—how these spirits of form sought to develop a unified human race, yet sought, as it were, to do so in seven successive stages, and how this unified human race was fragmented by Lucifer-Ahriman, and how, through the Christ impulse, the force has been enlivened from within—a force that, despite all external diversity, seeks to meaningfully spread the unified name of humanity across the entire Earth until the end of the Earth’s history.

[ 26 ] Understanding how Christ stands right in the middle between Lucifer and Ahriman, and what he signifies in relation to Lucifer and Ahriman—that is one of the main tasks of the near future. Therefore, human reflection will have to repeatedly and consistently address the fact that we speak of Lucifer and Ahriman, and of the Christ impulse as that which combats them—as that which saves the Earth from the one-sided Luciferic-Ahrimanic impulse. This will have to be presented more and more in this form.

[ 27 ] That is why, in our Dornach building, the human archetype—as it was originally intended and is to be recreated from within by Christ—is placed in the most prominent position, with the Luciferic-Ahrimanic forces surrounding it. This will be the significance of this central statue in our Dornach building. When one looks at this central figure, one will be able to say to oneself: Yes, this is what the good gods intended. It was initially fragmented; Lucifer and Ahriman appear, but the Christ impulse emerges victorious, restoring from within—from the very core of the human being—that which was originally endowed from without, thereby establishing it within the human being’s freedom.

[ 28 ] What needs to be accomplished in terms of understanding human development—that is precisely what is to be presented to humanity through our building and what will be contained within it. What is most essential for humanity in the near future is the very purpose of this building: to observe and discern from the course of human development what is most essential for the near future, and to present precisely that.

[ 29 ] Certainly, there are many objections that could be raised. Such objections have already been raised to us. When people have looked at the paintings and sculptures in our building, some have said: A true work of art is only one that everyone who looks at it understands immediately, one that doesn’t require an explanation; when people go in there, the works have to be explained to them theoretically first. — That’s what people usually say. If only people would think just a little bit! Imagine a person who is a Turk through and through and understands nothing but what is in the Quran, who has never heard anything about Christ other than that he must fight against Christianity—imagine such a true Turk; I don’t even want to say a Chinese person, but a Turk—and take him before the Sistine Madonna and simply present it to him without giving him an explanation; just imagine that! Of course, only someone who lives within the entire spiritual current from which the work of art emerged can understand it. Thus, our ideal figures—Ahriman and Lucifer—will be understood only by those who are immersed in that spiritual current. But this is what works of art throughout history have in common: they are comprehensible only to those who are within that spiritual current. They can be true works of art only within that spiritual current, but the spiritual direction must be inherent in them. Just as someone who understands the Sistine Madonna or, say, Raphael’s Transfiguration of Christ must know something of the spiritual current from which the painting arose, so, of course, anyone who has looked upon anything in our building must have within their soul, within their heart, that which belongs to our spiritual current. But once one has that within one’s soul, the work of art must speak for itself; then no one needs to write anything on it by way of explanation—a name or anything of the sort.

[ 30 ] So when a person looks at one of our stained-glass windows and sees at the bottom a kind of coffin with a dead person inside, and further up along a winding path—something he recognizes as a winding path—he sees, for example, an old man, a young man, a maiden, and a child standing there. Once they have taken in our spiritual current, they will see that this is a retrospective view. Immediately after passing through the gate of death, one looks back on one’s earthly life. Of course, one must know this. But then the image takes effect through what it contains, just as the Sistine Madonna—for those familiar with Christian history—takes effect through what the image contains, yet has no effect on a Turk. Similarly, of course, what appears in our temple cannot have an effect on those who have not absorbed this spiritual current within themselves. One must simply view these things in the right way.

[ 31 ] What I wanted to make clear above all is that, in the course of Earth’s evolution, Christ was the Spirit from the universe who, in a spiritual way, brought about that which, although it had to be laid down in an outward form, could not be brought to completion in that outward form—for otherwise, humanity would have become an automaton of love and human equality. On the physical plane, it is a fundamental law that everything must operate through opposites, through polarities. Divine action could not simply—as a childish human saying might put it—send down the Christ right at the beginning of Earth’s development, for then this contrast between outward dispersion and inward gathering would never have arisen. Yet humanity must live within this contrast, within this polarity. Then one can meet the Christ with the right feelings, so that he may increasingly become the very being who fills our own innermost self, when one regards him as the Savior of humanity on Earth from the state of dispersion. Wherever one is truly able to grasp this unification of all humanity through the Christ across the Earth, there is Christianity. In the future, little will depend on whether that which Christ is will still be called “Christ,” but much will depend on seeking in Christ the unifier of all humanity along a spiritual path and on coming to terms with the idea that outward diversity will become ever greater and greater in the world.

[ 32 ] But we will also have to accept that there will still be many setbacks to this spiritual grasp of the Christ impulse. That which has arisen side by side rather than one after the other will continue for a long, long time to stir up forces on Earth that fight against a spiritual grasp of the equality of humanity across the entire globe. There will still be many, many terrible storms, and to a large extent, these storms serve the purpose of continuing the Luciferic-Ahrimanic struggle against the Christ impulse. And it will be one of the greatest, one of the most beautiful, and one of the most significant achievements if, even in our time, we can be at least a small group of people who understand this idea of unifying all of humanity—an understanding of how Luciferic-Ahrimanic backwardness on Earth strives for particularity within individual groups of people while excluding other groups. It is truly difficult to say a final word on these matters today. A final word spoken on these matters today, given the state of human hearts, would be more likely to provoke, to shock, and to elicit resistance—perhaps even hatred and abuse—than to work in the spirit of the Christ impulse. But whatever can be said at this point about this principle within the Christ impulse—which is the salvation of humanity from physical fragmentation into spiritual unification—must be spoken, for it must become effective and ever more effective within the course of human development. One must be able to face the diversity of human nature calmly and courageously, because one knows that one can bring into all these human differences a word that is not merely a spoken word, but a word of power. Even if groups that fight one another arise within earthly existence, and even if we belong to one or the other of these groups, we can know that we can bring into each of these groups something that may speak: “Not I, but the Christ within me,” and what the “Christ within me” is—this does not give rise to factions; rather, it enables the glory of the human name to truly spread across the entire earth. This is one of the practical aspects, one of the moral and ethical aspects of our spiritual scientific endeavors: that through an understanding of our Spiritual Science, this can come to life—namely, that—whichever of the conflicting human groups we bring our “I” into—we bring into those conflicting human groups the power that comes from the words “Not I, but the Christ within me.” In this way, we bring in something that belongs to all of humanity, not to a single group, and this is what alone can lead to a true spiritual understanding of Christianity.

[ 33 ] Great spiritual paths of the world always express themselves in such a way that they can ultimately be reduced to simple words. Let us now try to see in what simple words, fundamentally speaking, the entire sum of Christianity—which has permeated the world for nearly two millennia—can be expressed. Yet these simple words are attained only on the basis of broad developments. These simple words, into which Christianity can be encapsulated, were not there from the start; they first had to be won. Well, let us be quite clear about this: We are among those who are working toward the goal that one day very, very simple words will have to be found—words that will summarize, in an exceedingly primitive way, the truths that we must expound and develop today. But without this development, simplicity could never emerge. We can be certain of this: even if we are not yet able today to formulate, in any language, the simple words that would summarize our endeavors in Spiritual Science—I would say—on a quarter of a page, so that they might be comprehensible to all human spiritual striving, just as this has truly happened with Christianity—Christianity as it arose two millennia ago— then there will still be something in these simple formulations of what I have just tried to hint at to you today—something that will direct the spiritual gaze toward the development of humanity, toward the significance of the Greco-Latin era, toward the entry of the Mystery of Golgotha into this era, and toward the contrast, the polarity, of Christ and Lucifer-Ahriman. What can be recognized in all things will be condensed into a few words that will then speak to future humanity, much as when we say today, “You shall love God above all else and your neighbor as yourself.” Just as there is something in this that had to be achieved through a long process of development, so too will things be summarized in simple words later on. Then they will become clear to people.

[ 34 ] But our spiritual work is necessary for this, because simplicity in humanity’s spiritual development arises only when people have resolved to familiarize themselves with the details over an extended period of time. You are called upon to participate in this development, which will then lead to something emerging before humanity in simple, luminous clarity—something that cannot yet be articulated today simply because we do not yet have the words for it in our languages, but toward which our Spiritual Science must strive. If you feel yourself part of such a spiritual current and are happy to be within it because you recognize it as a necessity in the development of humanity, then you are in this spiritual movement in the right sense; you are in it in such a way that you view the greatest goal toward which this spiritual movement is tending in the proper way, out of an ever-deepening understanding of the opposition between Christ and Lucifer-Ahriman and the necessity of this opposition.

[ 35 ] This is what I wanted to present to your souls today. It is, after all, connected to the question of the meaning of our entire earthly evolution. It is indeed the case that when spirits from other planets look down upon Earth and ask, “What is the meaning of this earthly evolution?” — they will recognize this meaning when they learn something of the Mystery of Golgotha. For everything that happens in the course of Earth’s evolution only attains its meaning through the Mystery of Golgotha. This radiates out into the cosmos and gives everything else that radiates out from Earth its meaning, its central meaning!