The Rudolf Steiner Archive

8. Thomas More’s “Utopia”

[ 1 ] We have been reflecting on what might be called occult brotherhoods, and last time we were here, we also attempted to shed some light on what repeatedly appears as one of the most significant symbols within such brotherhoods: the rediscovery of the lost word. Today, on this topic—one that one could discuss for years on end without ever exhausting it—I would like, in a sense, to add something that, in a world that knows nothing, little, or nothing at all—one might even say: absolutely nothing—about Spiritual Science, can hardly be connected in any way to what, I do not wish to call an “occult brotherhood,” but rather what flows through the occult brotherhoods as a teaching, a cult, and a worldview. So let us speak of something that stands in a certain kind of connection with the subjects we have discussed—a connection that we can only make clear to ourselves when, in conclusion, we turn to the entire aspect of Spiritual Science related to the question that will be our focus today.

[ 2 ] It is necessary to discuss a dark chapter in history, one that—precisely from the perspective we will be exploring today in connection with insights from Spiritual Science—could also be titled: How Religions Sometimes Come into Being. You may recall from your school days that Henry VIII sat on the throne of England from 1509 to 1547. I believe none of you would have held this Henry VIII in your hearts and minds as a particularly exemplary model of noble humanity. The story about Henry VIII that has perhaps stuck most firmly in your memory is surely that he had six wives, two of whom he had executed: one because she no longer pleased him, and the other, essentially, for the same reason—she no longer pleased him. One can always find reasons for such things. He divorced the others. He had intended to have the last one—the sixth—executed as well, but it never came to that because, in a particularly flirtatious exchange that took place between Henry VII and this sixth wife of his, she proved a bit wiser than he was and managed to win him back. But as you know, the divorce from his first wife, in particular, wasn’t exactly easy, because the marriage had been solemnized according to all the rules of the Church, and if all the customs and beliefs of the secular world had been observed, it would have been necessary for Henry VIII to be granted a divorce by Pope Clement VII. But the Pope found no grounds for divorce and refused time and time again. For many years, negotiations went back and forth. The Pope would not grant a divorce. Isn’t that a dire situation! What does one do in such a case? Well, you can’t always do it, but if you’re Henry VII, then that’s exactly what you do: you found a new religion; you establish a new church. And so Henry VIII established the new church, which, after various transformations, lives on as the Anglican Church of England, which today has twenty million adherents. So Henry VII established a new church. When others establish a new church, they do so by shaping a new doctrine into a specific form. But Henry VII was no wise man, as the conversation with his last wife—which I have already recounted—shows, and he actually could not think of anything with which to found a new church. So he left the doctrine as it was and founded a new church—that is, he gradually sought to persuade the enlightened men of Parliament and the state to agree to no longer recognize the Pope as the head of the English church, but rather to recognize him, Henry VII, in that role. It is the famous Act of Supremacy, which was enacted in England at that time, whereby Henry VII—and thus, of course, each of his successors—was declared the head of this church. Now he could get a divorce. The goal had been achieved, hadn’t it? But perhaps one should nevertheless consider such a matter a little in the context of all the ongoing events in the development of humanity.

[ 3 ] One of the men who devoted his life to everything related to the establishment of a new church by a man as holy as Henry VII is the famous—though I do not know how widely known—Thomas More. Thomas More is, as you probably know, the author of a work of the kind that has since been called a utopia. You may still recall Bellamy’s Utopia. People believe that many such utopias have been written. As we shall see shortly, people merely believe that many such utopias—like the one Thomas More wrote—have been written. But ever since More, whatever someone writes as an ideal form of government—which intelligent people believe cannot be realized (and they may well be right, for some utopias truly cannot be realized)—has been called a “utopia,” because Thomas More described in a specific work the land of “Utopia,” which had a unique form of government. In this Utopia, Thomas More described various institutions of his state—let us say, for now, his imaginary state—and one of these institutions is that tolerance of different religions is to prevail in this imaginary state. A state, then, that, in a sense, declares religion to be a private matter. One could say that the Redemptorist—a branch of the Jesuits—who wrote about Thomas More not so long ago was actually not entirely wrong when he doubted that Thomas More could really have believed that religious tolerance should prevail in any ideal state. One must also not forget that it would be difficult for a Redemptorist to accept such a view, for the Catholic Church has beatified Thomas More, and this beatification was so strongly emphasized in the 1890s that one can infer from these various references: the Catholic Church even intends to “canonize Thomas More very soon.”

[ 4 ] Yes, my dear friends, in such cases the Catholic Church is generally very familiar with the files. For canonization is a very detailed procedure that delves deeply into the files. Above all, the “Advocatus Regius” must highlight everything that indicates that the person in question was truly a holy man and that miracles were performed through him. For without miracles, one cannot be canonized in the Catholic Church. This process takes a very long time. But then the so-called “Advocatus Diaboli” also speaks. He must present everything that speaks against the person in question. Now imagine that the Church would expose itself to the risk that, in the event of a possible canonization of Thomas More, the Advocatus Diaboli might argue: “This man performed the miracle of recognizing religious tolerance!” — Impossible, isn’t it! But there are indeed many other arguments against it. And if we could elaborate in detail on the biography of Thomas More, as far as it is known, we would see how much speaks against the idea that Thomas More would have wanted to preach religious tolerance—as it is called—so readily through his work Utopia. But perhaps even a central feature of his life speaks in its favor. For Thomas More, despite being a very pious man, was—one might say—initially a man of good fortune. He rose to various government offices, became a member of Parliament, and ultimately Lord Chancellor to Henry VIII. So he had attained a high position under a holy man! Yet Thomas More was a pious man and a man of conscience. And—because of the special relationship he had with the holy man, Henry VII—he was called upon to render his judgment on the establishment of the new church. And lo and behold, he would not bring himself to do so, even though, despite being a devout man, he was also of a gentle nature. Thomas More could not be persuaded to render a judicial verdict stating that Henry VIII was in the right.

[ 5 ] What does one do in such a case, if one is a man like Henry VIII? Does one refute the person in question, who raises such sound objections as Thomas More? No! You lock him up! And so, after various procedural steps, Henry VIII had Thomas More thrown into the Tower. And the very enlightened Court of Lords now had to decide what sentence to pass on this Thomas More, who had, so to speak, committed one of the first great sins of the new Church. It is certainly not uninteresting, my dear friends, to take a closer look at this verdict that was handed down at that time. Thomas More was, in fact, sentenced as follows. So he was led—let’s be clear about the situation—from the Tower to the enlightened court and was then sentenced, by order of the sheriff or magistrate, William Pinkston, to be taken back to the Tower, from there to be dragged through the city of London in a wicker basket all the way to Tyburn, then to be hanged there at Tyburn, but only until he was half dead; then to be beheaded while still alive; then, after certain limbs had been cut off, his body was to be torn open, his entrails burned, and his body—with the exception of his head—divided into four parts, which were to be taken to the four corners of the city of London to be impaled on stakes there. His head, however, was to be mounted on a high pike on London Bridge as a warning to the people, so that they might not commit such acts in the future. This sentence was pronounced by the enlightened Lords. It was not, however, carried out; instead, Thomas More was pardoned so that he would merely be beheaded in the Tower, and the other parts of the sentence were not carried out—only his head was mounted on a high pike on London Bridge. This is how Thomas More stands before us in history. And all of this took place in the first half of the sixteenth century. It was not that long ago. And now, having concluded that it is unlikely Thomas More preached religious tolerance—since he opposed Henry VII solely out of loyal devotion to the Catholic Church and was therefore beatified as a martyr— — now that we have come to understand that Thomas More cannot simply be classified as a rationalist of the sort found among the freethinkers of the eighteenth century who preached religious tolerance—we must now take a closer look at his Utopia. It is, however, a lengthy book, and I can only explain a few of its features.

[ 6 ] This “Utopia,” then, contains ideas about a political system that we are told developed on the distant island of Utopia. This political system—let us characterize it only in broad strokes—features institutions that, based on certain underlying currents of thought, certainly appear to many people as highly desirable traits. However, various aspects do indeed show that mere sober, dry reason prevails in this political system. For example, we are told that all the houses have square, rectangular floor plans, that they are all identical, and that the streets also run uniformly. We are then told that in every house it must be regulated—strictly, one might say, as if by the police—how many young men and men, maidens and women, are permitted to live there. If it turns out that there is an excess of people in one house, then some must move out and fill vacancies in other houses. Thus, great importance is placed on the precise distribution of the population among the various houses. However, care is also taken to ensure that private property is not acquired, but rather that a certain communist economy prevails. To prevent people from overvaluing private property in the form of gold, the police enforce a limit on how much each person may acquire, ensuring it does not exceed a certain amount. Everything else is turned over to the state. In particular, no individual is allowed to acquire gold. All gold is turned over to the state. But the very notion that gold might be something particularly desirable must not even arise. For if one has enough gold—if one has gold in abundance—then all that excess, or anything that could become excess, must be fashioned into chains with which to shackle criminals, or it must be distributed by shaping it into vessels for certain, but only subordinate, domestic purposes, and the like. Thus, gold is to be used in such a way that no one could ever come to believe that it has any value whatsoever. Police power is not entirely eliminated in this state of Utopia. Certain limits are set. For example, it is expressly stated that the number of children one may have in a household is not prescribed. Meals in the homes are communal for the household members. It is strictly regulated where the elders sit, where the young sit, who is to serve the food, and so on. Something is also said about the prevailing attitudes—after all, we are dealing with the island of Utopia, meaning the state exists in the imagination; it is not a future ideal—about the attitudes of the inhabitants of Utopia: Through the rational institutions of their state, they have, in a certain sense, been so thoroughly freed from base, selfish passions and desires that, for example, they always have this saying on their lips: One must not eat simply because the food tastes good in some way; that is contrary to the higher development of human nature, but one must be grateful for the grace bestowed upon humanity, that the necessary enjoyment of food is accompanied by a pleasant sensation. You notice the subtle distinctions, don’t you! And in particular, these inhabitants of Utopia say that one must be grateful that the ailment one might call hunger—for it is truly just as bad for a person to become hungry as it is to become ill—does not have to be cured with poisons and bitter medicines like other illnesses, for otherwise one would have to take poisons and bitter medicines every day, and that would be terrible. It is then explicitly stated that even at the table—or at least before one begins to eat—one must always listen to a pious lecture on morality delivered by one of the enlightened minds of Utopia. It is then mentioned that the Utopians are, in general, entirely guided by these enlightened men, who are also priests, and so on.

[ 7 ] But now we will also examine how, in this Utopia, principles are established in such a way that one can serve God properly, even in the event that it had pleased Him to be worshiped by humans not in a single way, but in various ways. And that was one of the reasons—indeed, the most significant reason—for Utopus, the founder of Utopia’s political institutions, to grant complete freedom of religion. This freedom of religion is truly quite reasonable, for it also entails that everyone may express what they hold to be their religious conviction. However, this is based on the assumption that there is no one in Utopia—nor can there ever be—who denies the existence of God, the immortality of the soul, and the judgment in the afterlife. These are common principles shared by all religions, and everyone would acknowledge them in any case. As the reasonable counterpart to this religious freedom, it is also explicitly stated that no one may insult anyone else because of their religious beliefs, much less cause them harm. In short, if one engages with the content of Thomas More’s book Utopia, one truly sees that it is built upon remarkable views, about which one can only say: They are reasonable in every respect. And when Thomas More makes such asides as I have mentioned—about the price of grace, which makes it possible for people to still derive pleasant sensations from eating or the like—this is based on very specific premises that by no means suggest Thomas More intended to say that the entire state is nonsense, without further ado, but rather that he meant to say: People are simply not inclined to interpret reasonable teachings in a truly reasonable way, but rather distort them into caricatures. — There are also other societies—not in Utopia, but elsewhere—in which, for example, equality and equal recognition of the various religious communities prevail, and in which people also strive to put rational teachings into practice, and in which not every individual always expresses rational ideas when, for example, he recounts his views and convictions, which he has derived from reason. I do not wish to point to the “distant” regions where such things occur!

[ 8 ] So, from a certain point of view, Thomas More must be taken very seriously with regard to his island of Utopia. At the same time, we must not forget that this Thomas More was, from childhood onward, not only a devout man but also a man who ceaselessly engaged in his meditations and spiritual exercises—a person who took his meditations seriously in the deepest sense and who spent hours every day allowing his soul to journey into the spiritual world through meditation. Even on the very last day before his execution, Thomas More sent the secret materials he used for his spiritual exercises from the Tower to his daughter, so that those who were leading him away would not find them in his cell. He continued his spiritual exercises right up until his execution. This man, who took the development of his soul so seriously, repeatedly and clearly expressed that, in keeping with the spirit of his time—we are, of course, on the eve of the spread of Protestantism—he wanted to be nothing other than a faithful son of his Church, namely the Roman Catholic Church. And it was for this Church that he allowed himself to be executed.

[ 9 ] Some passages from the book Utopia must still come to mind. Above all, it is stated there: On this distant island, which has no geographical connection whatsoever with Europe, only ancient sages—Roman and Egyptian sages—once landed, and they laid out the principles that then prompted Utopus, the founder of the state, to establish its institutions. Then strange things are recounted; at least, they are contained in the older editions of the book Utopia. A certain alphabet is described, consisting of specific right angles and their combinations, which is said to be the alphabet of the Utopian script. Anyone who looks today in the commonly available books that reproduce the writings of certain Masonic orders cannot help but recognize, even from this external aspect alone, how similar the script that Thomas More described as the script of Utopia is to the script used in certain Masonic contexts. In addition, certain sayings are presented that are intended to provide guidelines for conduct in Utopia. And there, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew texts are combined in a peculiar way, so that this, in turn, is reminiscent of certain formulas of occult brotherhoods, even if the matter is only hinted at in a very, very veiled manner. Then something else curious is mentioned. It is explicitly stated that Roman and Egyptian customs have found their way to that island, but that nothing from Christianity has reached it. Now the matter becomes increasingly puzzling. Consider that Thomas More is a devout Catholic, a man who practices spiritual exercises. Thomas More writes a book titled Utopia, in which he describes an island with institutions that he undoubtedly intended to be taken seriously within the broadest possible limits; yet Christianity never reached it.

[ 10 ] Yes, how does one actually approach such a man? How does one understand him? Well, we need only take as our starting point the fact that he engaged in spiritual exercises, and we need only properly consider various things he said that are connected to his spiritual exercises—then we will find that Thomas More also achieved something through his spiritual exercises. But now, remember the era in which Thomas More lived. Remember that we are in the reign of Henry VII, in the sixteenth century—that is, shortly after the transition from the fourth post-Atlantean epoch to the fifth post-Atlantean epoch. I recently described this transition to you by referring to Pico della Mirandola, Savonarola, and so on, as I attempted to characterize the entire transition—I might say—as it is expressed through these personalities. But in Thomas More, too, we have before us a person who stands at the beginning of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch—that epoch which we have so often characterized by its most profound characteristic: that the ancient occult abilities have receded. They have receded from ordinary human experience, but they can be regained through spiritual exercises. And Thomas More undertook such spiritual exercises.

[ 11 ] Now, a certain situation may arise. Through such spiritual exercises—as is actually always the goal of proper practice—one can come to clearly perceive the connection between the ordinary human mental images of everyday life and that which rises from the depths of the soul as a vision of a higher spiritual world. But something else can also happen. And in the case of Thomas More, something else did indeed happen. Through his spiritual exercises, Thomas More transported himself into the astral world while he was asleep, so that in this astral world he was able to have experiences quite different from those of the ordinary person who does not engage in spiritual exercises in the astral world; however, he was unable to bring them back with immediate consciousness. He was able to experience certain things in the spiritual world in great detail; although he could not bring them back consciously, he did bring them back, and what he brought back from this astral world, he described in his book Utopia. This book, Utopia, is—forgive me—merely a fantasy for very intelligent people. For those who know the facts, it is a spiritual experience in which only the connection between ordinary thinking and the spiritual experience has not fully come to consciousness. But such spiritual experiences are all the more compelling for that. One can very well be a devout Catholic; one can even be so devout a Catholic that one is later beatified and canonized; one can become a martyr for one’s Catholic faith, like Thomas More: If one has had such spiritual experiences as he had on the astral plane, then one must write them down! For one has lived through them. And that experience exerts a powerful force.

[ 12 ] It has struck me that people always—or at least very often—attempt to translate “Utopia,” the name of the island. And I believe that German literature has foisted upon people the translation “Nirgendheim”—that is, the island that is nowhere. That is the kind of translation one comes up with when one simply doesn’t understand the whole thing. One really has to grasp the whole concept if one wants to translate the name Utopia correctly. For when one truly enters the astral world, one of the first things one experiences in this astral, elemental world is that the laws of space cease to apply in the same way they do here in ordinary three-dimensional space. These laws, as we learn them in geometry, really apply only to the outer sensory world. And it is impossible to speak in the same way about what one experiences in the astral world. One can do so figuratively; but in reality, one must know that the figurative means something else. It is impossible to speak of what one experiences in the astral world in the same way that one speaks here of things and beings of the sensory world. Isn’t it true that I may speak of these things and beings of the sensory world—and indeed do speak of them: this lady is sitting here, that lady is sitting there, in one place or another? To transfer this so directly to the astral world makes not the slightest sense. One soon becomes aware in this world that one is standing in a world of non-locality, of non-topicality, of non-topism; that is to say, if one wishes to speak about this world, one must negate the locational nature of the sensory-physical world. And one would have to translate “Utopia” as “non-locality.” What matters here is the nature of the world that Thomas More gazed into.

[ 13 ] What, then, has he encountered in this world that is particularly striking? Is it really any wonder that he encountered something that resembles the principles and certain customs that prevail in occult brotherhoods? These customs of the occult brotherhoods, as we have emphasized, are, after all, ancient occult wisdom, stemming from the ancient observations of this astral world. Once this had faded away and lived on only through tradition in the various monastic orders—among people who, though they had it historically and to whom it was dictated and shown in images, had no insight of their own—it naturally disappeared from view in a purely external sense. But because people like Thomas More engaged in spiritual exercises, they transported themselves right into the spiritual world, and something similar came to meet them from the spiritual world. And they described it. It is therefore no wonder that what lived on in many occult brotherhoods as a teaching not yet touched by Christianity is also portrayed by Thomas More in such a way that it permeates, as a state institution, the island of Utopia—to which, admittedly, ancient Egyptian and Roman ways had come, but not yet Christianity. Reference is made to such occult brotherhoods, which time and again emphasize their great significance precisely by calling themselves Egyptian orders, referring to the past, and the like.

[ 14 ] And now, in connection with what has been said, let us summarize what we have come to know as being linked to the deepest nerve of the Christian worldview. I have often drawn attention to what I now wish to mention once again. Christianity is based, after all, on the fact that the spiritual power we designate by the name of Christ descended and, in the thirtieth year of his life, animated the body of Jesus, who had gradually risen to this capacity by passing through the souls of the two Jesus boys. What actually happened there? Well, a spiritual power that had not been interwoven with Earth’s evolution until the Mystery of Golgotha became interwoven with it from that point onward, first living in the body of Jesus of Nazareth, then passing into Earth’s evolution through the Mystery of Golgotha, in order to connect itself ever more deeply and firmly with Earth’s further evolution. We have, of course, often spoken of this. So from the spiritual heights where this power formerly resided, it descended to the physical plane of the Earth. Thus, as I have already mentioned, when an ancient sage who was truly clairvoyant ascended to the spiritual heights in the time before the Mystery of Golgotha, he naturally encountered the Christ in those spiritual heights. That is why those who could speak of the Christ at that time became prophets who could foretell the coming of the Christ; for they found the Christ in the spiritual worlds and saw him, as it were, on his way toward Earth, descending as the Sun Spirit to gradually become the Earth Spirit. They thus looked forward to a future moment in Earth’s evolution when what they saw only in the spiritual heights would become connected with Earth’s evolution. If one had searched the Earth at that time, before the Mystery of Golgotha, in all its vastness for whatever could be known of it, one would not have found the Christ. Therefore, the earth science of the ancient peoples living before the Mystery of Golgotha naturally did not include Christ. But when the initiates of these mysteries had reached a certain level, the coming of Christ to Earth was revealed to them.

[ 15 ] Now consider how different everything has been since the Mystery of Golgotha. In fact, the exact opposite has been the case since the Mystery of Golgotha. Since the Mystery of Golgotha, if one examines the development of the Earth, one finds Christ woven into the entire history of those peoples who have already been permeated by Christianity. And to present a historical account without speaking of Christ is actually an absurdity. Even the historian Ranke sensed this and, even in his old age, asked himself whether history has any meaning at all if one does not show everywhere how the Christ impulse lives within the individual events. In contrast, however, in those worlds to which one can ascend—from which Christ emerged in order to connect with Earth’s evolution—Christ is not so directly present there. One must then look down upon the Earth from those heights and see how he has connected himself with the Earth.

[ 16 ] You see, what I have just explained lies, as a real fact, at the root of the groundless fear that certain religious denominations have of the occult. For, of course, they understand nothing of true occultism, and they know nothing of how Christ is found through true Spiritual Science. But, I would say, they sometimes come into contact with that superficial form of occultism which consists precisely in explaining to people from an occult standpoint: “Christ is, after all, only something on Earth, and when you ascend into the sublime spiritual worlds, you must cast off this Christ, for up there, Christ does not exist at all.” — It is the fear held by certain priesthoods that people, through occultism—which they know only in its superficial form—might uncover this mystery, which of course provides a deeper foundation for Christianity when one knows the real facts, but which endangers Christianity when one knows only superficial occultism. Hence the church’s opposition to occultism. This is based on a real fact.

[ 17 ] So we are faced with the fact that we really must hold fast to what can still be experienced about the Christ within earthly existence. I have explained this so often. When we cross the threshold and ascend into the spiritual worlds, we must not forget what can still be experienced about the Christ in an occult way while we are still on Earth. That is deeper Spiritual Science, whereas superficial Spiritual Science either tells people that the Christ is meant only for earthly perception, or that he incarnates in Alcyone or the like.

[ 18 ] Let us now put ourselves in Thomas More’s shoes. Thomas More had just completed exercises that enabled him to gain a complete understanding of Christ. When the world then faced the danger of falling into errors regarding Christ, the Jesuits attempted to prevent this—albeit through an even greater, colossal error—by means of their Jesuit exercises. Thomas More did not perform such Jesuit exercises; rather, he engaged in exercises that truly enabled him to hold the full reality of Christ Jesus before his soul. Had he now entered the spiritual world in full consciousness, he would naturally have beheld Christ there in the manner described, as He descended to Earth. But he was unable to establish a complete continuity of consciousness. The result was that, in a state of semi-unconsciousness, he wrote down what he had experienced in the spiritual world—a world in which Christ was absent. He expressed this by stating that Christianity had not yet reached the island of Utopia. And now we can also understand why “Utopia” contains something that would contradict all of Thomas More’s honesty, sincerity, and love of truth if he had written it down consciously—fully consciously, that is—from the standpoint of ordinary consciousness. He could never have written down the provisions regarding religious tolerance. But he did, in fact, write down something that did not fully enter his consciousness in its entirety. What he perceived there in Utopia was such that religious tolerance is a given—that the specific form of worship and the specific form of devotion to God really do not matter. In a higher sense, Thomas More had to say of himself: Two souls dwell, alas, in my breast: one here in the physical world, the other living there between falling asleep and waking up, experiencing an entirely different world—a world into which it cannot carry the Christ impulse. And if we seek the fundamental feeling that could inspire a man like Thomas More to write something like Utopia, we find the following: Among the side effects of occult experiences that are not fully lived through—not fully lived through, but rather a laborious entry into the spiritual world, as was undoubtedly the case with Thomas More—is the emergence of anxieties; and these anxieties are not perceived by the soul as such, but rather what is actually a feeling of fear remains more or less stuck in the subconscious. One then seeks other reasons for what one experiences and what one does. Masked fear, which manifests itself to the conscious mind as something entirely different. In the case of Thomas More, the fear he felt manifested itself as something else. For he became afraid as a result of his occult experiences churning within his mind; he became afraid. And what would this fear have been if it had been brought up into his soul consciously, JUST AS IT WAS? What would Thomas More have said to himself then? Let’s assume for a moment, as a hypothesis—though this could not have happened—that this had been drawn into Thomas More’s full consciousness: You see this in the astral, elemental world—what he later described in Utopia—and you want to describe it. Why? If he had fully grasped the fear and perhaps cast it off through writing, he would have had the following thoughts. In the present world age, one must do everything with every fiber of one’s soul that can penetrate the Christ impulse and fully uphold it for the development of humanity. But if, somehow, people could return to the old clairvoyance, then they would see that which looks like this—and now he would have described his Utopia—and which contains no Christ impulse. “Oh, beware,” this fear would have said, “of whatever might lead you astray from the Christ impulse along this path!”—That is how he would have spoken and written under the impression of this utterance, had he truly been able to feel this fear. But he did not truly feel it; it remained in his subconscious. And the consequence of this was that he wrote down the matter as he saw it inwardly, and now presented the world with the riddle of how this apparent contradiction could be reconciled with the entire nature of Thomas More, which was nonetheless conscientious, honest, and truthful.

[ 19 ] But now that we have brought this to mind, let us put ourselves in the shoes of those who belonged to certain occult brotherhoods. That was when Thomas More wrote Utopia. He had already been under suspicion anyway, but that, of course, would not have led the enlightened Lords—since they had not all completely lost their minds—to pass the kind of judgment they did. He was, of course, already under suspicion—and pressure was also exerted on the Lords—of having acted against the intentions of King Henry VIII. But suppose for a moment: In the Lords’ court, there were some who formed the majority and who, at the same time, belonged to occult brotherhoods. What could they have said to one another, what did they have to say? What was, from their point of view, fully justified as a demand of their conscience? Then this Thomas More wrote Utopia—that is, after all, a betrayal of what we keep as secrets! That is a complete betrayal! This work contains all sorts of allusions to all manner of things. And it is not merely a betrayal; it also shows how this then continues to have an effect on the outer culture of humanity. If one now considers Thomas More as a whole person, people had to say to themselves, well, then it’s clear: through him, exactly the same thing happened that one would otherwise say had occurred if someone were initiated into this or that brotherhood, had attained this or that degree—that he had betrayed what he had sworn not to betray. One of the oath formulas that was in use at that time—to a certain extent—regarding the betrayal that someone might commit is strikingly similar to the judgment handed down in London against Thomas More. And if any member of an occult brotherhood of a certain degree had consciously revealed—by the standards of that time—what is described in Thomas More’s Utopia—insofar as his sources would have been what exists within the occult brotherhood—then that person would have been someone who, upon being informed of and shown these things, would have recited an oath that was very, very similar to the formula with which the London court, the wise Lords, condemned the man.

[ 20 ] You see, my dear friends, to truly understand history, it is certainly not enough to rely on what is compiled in that “fable convenue” which we call history today. Rather, to truly come to know history, one must be able to look more deeply into the development of humanity and into what is at work within the soul. An event such as the death of Thomas More stands as a great symbol, and this symbol must be unraveled in order to understand the course of history. And it can only be unraveled by coming to understand the interplay of such supersensible impulses within these events—impulses that can only be revealed through Spiritual Science. This is the case in many, many instances of historical development. Many things that, viewed from the outside, appear just as they are described in the fable convenue that we call history—one only comes to understand them when one has some knowledge of what was at work within the souls involved in the events in question.

[ 21 ] And this, too, is one of the great demands that our present age places upon us: that we cast aside thoughtlessness regarding certain matters. After all, no one can objectively assess the value of something like the Anglican Church if they do not know which “saint” founded it: that within the mind of this man who founded it lay the capacity to actually execute two women and to intend to do the same to a third—which are, of course, significant precursors to a very special kind of holiness. And if such a thing is brought into the true light through reflection—into that light which could teach us many things about the world in which we live—then, if one engages in genuine reflection on such matters, the soul might also be compelled to recognize the broader context, which is often so mysteriously connected to them. For this significant fact—which reveals so much—associated with the writing of Thomas More’s Utopia and the entirety of Thomas More’s life, unfolds in connection with these historical events.

[ 22 ] Well, my dear friends, one might also wonder what would happen if some indiscreet person were to reveal what was said here today to a Jesuit, and if, for example, the Advocatus Diaboli were to later raise the point—during the canonization of Thomas More—of what was said today, and what the Advocatus Diaboli would have to say about it. Perhaps he would level serious charges against Thomas More. But his opponent, the good Advocate, could also retort: Everything occult is the work of the devil. And precisely if it could be proven that Thomas More drew his Utopia from occult sources, then he would be all the more holy, for he would have accomplished the miracle of resisting all the diabolical temptations inherent in all occultism.

[ 23 ] And to understand—that was, I would say, the central theme—the leitmotif, so to speak, of the lectures being held here now—is how spiritual realities and spiritual matters interplay with external historical events; this is certainly one of the things to which our present, fateful times—these grave events that so profoundly affect human life—are meant to draw our attention. —More on that next time.