The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Tenth Lecture

[ 1 ] If we try to address, first of all, the question we hinted at last time—How can people today establish a possible relationship with Christ?—then, of course, the objection immediately comes to mind that a great many people today do in fact have a relationship with Christ. I have spoken about this objection on several occasions, and we know that it does not hold up, since upon closer examination it actually turns out to be a rather selfish objection that can only be raised if one takes the position: “I have my own satisfying faith, and everything else is none of my business.” — That humanity in general does not currently hold a satisfactory stance toward the Christ-being—this is all too evident from the events of our time to require much elaboration. The answer to this objection can, of course, be given by anyone who tells themselves that it must be a fundamental element of the Christian creed that Christ died and rose again for all people, for all people in the same way, and that it can never be in the name of Christ when one person turns against another for the sake of material goods. One can turn away from this universal human destiny and, in a selfish manner, focus solely on one’s own confession. Certainly, however, in doing so one fails to take into account that the advent of the Mystery of Golgotha is, above all else, a matter that concerns the human community. Now we shall present a few points that can draw our attention to what constitutes the essence of the path to Christ; for, of course, every soul must find the path to Christ for itself, using the means appropriate to the present age.

[ 2 ] If we first attempt to understand, in a deeper sense, what the Christ Being means for the Earth, we must begin by acknowledging that it is essential to the Christ Event that the Mystery of Golgotha took place once at a specific point in time—that is, in time and space. When we consider this, we immediately encounter a contradiction to a general view—one that must also be our own—a contradiction that, because it is a legitimate one, should not be dismissed through argument; a contradiction that must first be acknowledged if one wishes to resolve it within one’s soul. Is it not true that the Mystery of Golgotha can only be what we have always emphasized: the meaning of Earth’s evolution—if this Mystery of Golgotha possesses inner, true reality? But everything that takes place in time and space—as we know—belongs to the realm of Maya, the great illusion; it therefore does not belong to the real, eternal essence of things. And so we are faced with the significant contradiction that the Mystery of Golgotha belongs to Maya, the great illusion. This is a significant contradiction, the full validity of which one must first bring to mind.

[ 3 ] Now that the Mystery of Golgotha took place during the period to which the evolution of the human race on Earth belongs, let us consider this evolution of the human race on Earth. We know, of course, that this evolution of the human race involves the fact that human beings have come over from earlier worlds and that, as we have indicated in Outline of Esoteric Science, at a certain point in time they were subjected to what can be called the Luciferic temptation. We have often considered this—what constitutes the Luciferic temptation—in the sense that spiritual scientific research suggests; we know that it has been expressed in a magnificent image at the beginning of the Old Testament, in the image of the so-called Fall of Man, of Lucifer as the serpent in Paradise, which stands as one of the most powerful images within the religious texts.

[ 4 ] When we survey the period of human evolution from the Luciferic temptation up to the Mystery of Golgotha, we see that for us it is a time in which human beings have gradually descended from an original, clairvoyant revelation—one that had carried over from earlier planetary stages and was thus atavistic—through which the spiritual worlds stood before the soul’s eye, so that in the centuries preceding the Mystery of Golgotha, they were no longer able to look up to the spiritual worlds as they had before, but had only echoes of the old knowledge of the spiritual worlds.

[ 5 ] Let us now, for a relatively short period of Earth time—we cannot go back as far as the Luciferic temptation—allow the sequence, so to speak, of the descending stages of human evolution up to the Mystery of Golgotha to pass before our souls. There we find the following. If we go back far enough, we find what people once possessed as an atavistic wisdom—a genuine insight into the spiritual worlds—expressed in the echoes of religious worldviews through people’s veneration of what was, to a greater or lesser extent, a significant, highly revered ancestor. That is to say, we find religious cults in various regions of the earth that we can describe as ancestor cults. Such ancestor cults have indeed persisted among people who have remained, to a greater or lesser extent, at earlier stages of development. People, then, revere or look up to an ancestor with reverence. What actually underlies this reverence for ancestors? What is the reality of this veneration of ancestors in ancient times, in those earliest times to which history can still look back? Let us say: This goes back to the mists of time; then we have a certain epoch in which ancestor cults exist (see diagram on page 203).

[ 6 ] Such ancestor cults were not based, as today’s superficial science believes, on people imagining that they had to look up to an ancestor; rather, the earliest ancestor cults were such that people had a direct perception of the ancestor at certain times in their lives. Those who looked up to an ancestral god would, at certain times in their lives—in states between waking and sleeping, which were indeed common in the early stages of human development—actually come to be in the presence of the one they revered as their ancestor. The ancestor did not merely appear to him in a dream, but in a dreamlike vision that held real significance for him. And those people who were visited by a common ancestor belonged together in an ancestral cult. What people beheld in their minds was, admittedly, a human form elevated to the sublime; but behind this human form lay something entirely different. If one wishes to understand what was actually hidden behind this spiritual figure, one must bear the following in mind: The ancestor had once died; he departed from the earth as, as mentioned, a highly esteemed personality who had done much good for a human community. The ancestor had passed through the gate of death; thus, while people looked up to him, he was on the path between death and a new birth. What, then, did people see of the ancestor when they looked up to him?

[ 7 ] We know, of course, that when a person passes through the gate of death, they remain in their etheric body for a short time; then this etheric body is shed. But shedding it means that the etheric body passes into the spiritual worlds, into the etheric world. The human being, in their I and astral body, continues to develop; the etheric body passes into the etheric world. Since the person in question had performed deeds of substance on Earth, the memory of the etheric body lingered for a long time. People perceived the etheric body of their ancestors through their ancient, atavistic, dreamlike clairvoyance and revered what was revealed to them through this etheric body. But between death and a new birth, this etheric body comes into contact with the spirits of the higher hierarchies, above all with the spirits from the hierarchy of the Archai, the spirits of the ages. And because the person in question was a significant figure in the development of humanity, he united with the spirit of the age, which advanced human development a step further.

[ 8 ] That which manifested itself through this—let us call it, for my sake—ghost of the ancestors was, in essence, the spirit of the age, one of the spirits of the age, so that the oldest forms of religious worship were offered to the spirit of the age. Wherever we go back to times that history still regards as the “gray ages,” we find that people worshipped the etheric bodies of their ancestors as vehicles of revelation for the spirits of the age. Thus, by going back to the ancestor cults, we find the worship of the spirits of the age, the Archai.

[ 9 ] Then people descended further and began to worship those deities who are known to us from various mythologies and whom we recognize as archangels; even in Greek mythology, Zeus and so on are regarded as manifestations of archangels. In the earliest times, people looked up to the spirits of the times; then they looked up to those spirits who are no longer spirits of the times, but who are equivalent to the spirits who also guide the tribes—the archangels. So we can say: polytheism follows the cult of ancestors, and people worship the Archangeloi.

[ 10 ] Then comes the age in which human beings descend even further—the age in which the “I” of the individual is to be born, little by little. And we find that the most advanced nations transition to monotheism relatively early, while others do so later—the Egyptians, for example, as early as the second millennium, and the peoples of the Near East later—that is, they begin to worship not archangels (Archangeloi) but angels (Angeloi), each with their own Angelos. They descend from higher polytheism to lower monotheism. In light of what was explained yesterday, what I am about to say will no longer seem strange to you, and you will realize that people must rid themselves of the arrogance that permeates the entire field of religious studies: the notion that what is commonly called monotheism is entitled to look down on polytheism as an inferior religion. For this is not the case; rather, the situation is as has now been presented.

[ 11 ] Why, then, were these ancient peoples still able to worship Archai, Archangeloi, and Angeloi? They were able to worship them because they still possessed the remnants or echoes of the ancient art of atavistic clairvoyance. Thus they were able to rise to that which was superhuman; they were able, so to speak, to transcend the human and rise to the superhuman. And in the ancient mysteries, this ascent to the superhuman was cultivated in a very special way. There, people were led to develop within themselves that which went beyond the human, whereby the human soul rose into the realm of the spiritual. But then came the time when the human “I,” as it lives here between birth and death, was born into human consciousness. That was the time immediately preceding the advent of the Mystery of Golgotha. Had the Mystery of Golgotha not come, human beings would have degenerated; they would have descended from the worship of the angels to the worship of the next lower hierarchy—humanity itself. And we need only recall how the Roman Caesars had themselves worshiped as gods, how they were truly gods to the people, to realize that at the time of the Mystery of Golgotha, humanity had degenerated to the point where it no longer worshiped the Archai, Archangeloi, or Angeloi, but rather human beings themselves. At that time, in order to save humanity from worshipping earthly human beings, the God-Man had to appear.

Archai (Spirits of the Age) — Ancestor Worship
Archangeloi — Polytheism
Angeloi — Monotheism
Human — God-Man

[ 12 ] The fact that the God-man entered history signifies a fundamentally new way of approaching religious life. For where, after all, was the worship of angels, archangels, and archai to be found? And where, ultimately, was the human worship of the Roman Caesars to be found? In human beings themselves; for no one worshiped the Caesars for the Caesars’ sake, but—naturally—for their own sake; this had sprung from within human beings themselves; it came from the human soul. Christ had to enter human development as a historical fact; he had to be perceived from the outside, just like natural phenomena themselves; he had to approach humanity in a completely different way than the gods of the ancient religions had approached humanity. “Where two are united in my name, I am in their midst”—this is an important statement in Christianity, for it means that while one may indeed encounter angels, archangels, and even archai on the path of purely individual mysticism, one cannot find Christ on that path. Those who wish to pursue individual mysticism, as is often described even among Theosophists, generally get no further than the Angelos. They merely internalize this Angelos more deeply, sometimes even making him somewhat more egotistical than other people make their god. Christ is found in a different way—not merely through inner development, but when one is, above all, conscious that Christ belongs to the human community, to the entire human community.

[ 13 ] Now we come to a very significant distinction, which, it must be admitted, is very difficult for the human soul to grasp. But we must strive to rise to it. When we encounter another person in life, we stand as one human being facing another human being within the Maja. Just as we see only the Maya of natural phenomena before us, so too do we see only the Maya of another human being before us. Within the Maya, the human being stands before us, first as this individual human being, as he appears to our external senses and to what is connected with external sensibility; then he stands before us as a member of his family, of his people, and of his time. If one were to gain a complete overview of him, one would see behind him the Angelos, the Archangelos, the Arch£g; but all of these are expressed in what the human being is. For the human being is, in a certain sense—precisely because Archangeloi and Archai stand behind him—a member of specific human groups. In other words, he stands within the line of inheritance, within the relationships of inheritance. It is merely a form of short-sightedness—which is humanly understandable—that we do not always consciously judge a person standing before us according to this affiliation of theirs, for unconsciously we do so constantly. We unconsciously face one another within this differentiation, which must necessarily be brought into humanity through these three hierarchies. But Christ demands more; Christ demands something else as well. Christ actually demands this: When you encounter a human being, you should regard them in such a way that what appears to you in the outer world is not the whole, complete human being; you should regard them in such a way that their true essence does not come merely from the Archai, Archangeloi, and Angeloi, but from higher spirits who no longer belong to earthly evolution, nor even to planetary evolution—for that begins with the Archai, as you know from An Outline of Esoteric Science—but from the higher heavenly spirits; that with the human being, something supermundane enters into Maya.

[ 14 ] What I have just said must be fully internalized as a feeling; it must not be left as a mere concept if one is to understand it fully. One must be clear that in every human being we encounter something of a superhuman nature that cannot be grasped by earthly human means. Then that intimate reverence for all that is human arises in every person. But before the Mystery of Golgotha, human beings had gradually lost this superhuman quality, having descended to the level of mere humanity. They had lost the superhuman. For at the very moment—take this sentence to heart!—when a human being allows himself to be worshiped as a god, like a Roman Caesar, he loses his humanity and sinks into subhumanity. He ceases to be human when he allows himself to be worshiped as something superhuman in social life. Humanity was thus in danger of losing its humanity; and it was restored to them through the appearance of Christ on earth. Read the Karlsruhe Cycle, in which I spoke about this question—how something is truly communicated to every single human being through the fact that Christ was on earth.

[ 15 ] Thus, through Christ, we have come to recognize in every earthly human being—even if he is a sinner or a tax collector, with whom Christ associates for this very reason—the Christ who stands behind him, and to recognize in every earthly human being the truth of the words: “Whatever you do for the least of my brothers, you have done for me.” — As I said, one must fully internalize this concept; only then will one grasp its full truth. For in the face of what one thus sees, all concepts and ideas that separate people fade away, and something that is common to all humanity spreads over the earth like an aura when one commits to seeking not merely as far as the Arch&, but upward to that which stands above the Arch&, when one encounters another human being.

[ 16 ] If we turn our gaze once more to the ancient mysteries, we find that in these ancient mysteries, human beings sought to rise above themselves in order to grow, with their souls, into the spiritual world. But because the Luciferic temptation once took place, this is only possible to a certain degree. Then, so to speak, during this ascent one loses the ability to climb any higher. One can no longer carry anything up into the higher world. Why is that so? The answer to this question becomes clear when we consider the deeper meaning of the Luciferic temptation. What does Lucifer actually want from humanity? We have emphasized this many times. Humanity lives in Maya, in what is merely a mirror of the world, not the real world. What does Lucifer want? Human beings can rise a few steps above themselves in this mirror, all the way up to the Ark. But then, if they wish to ascend further into the spiritual realm, they must be taken over by Lucifer; they must, so to speak, make Lucifer their guide—the light that can lead them onward. Had evolution remained under the influence of Lucifer, Christ would not have entered human evolution; thus, from the time when the Mystery of Golgotha should have taken place—but did not—human beings would have developed so highly through the Mysteries that the Archai would have been revealed to them. But then they would have entered the Luciferic world. Then everything that had been established in Earth’s evolution by higher gods—such as the Exusiai—as the earthly-human, as everything that is earthly-human on Earth, would have remained on Earth. Human beings would, so to speak, have become entirely spiritualized through asceticism and, having left behind their physicality, would have entered the spiritual Luciferic world. Human souls would have found their salvation, but the Earth would have been rendered purposeless. The bodies would never have been able to serve the souls as they are actually meant to. The fact that this was prevented is the significance of the Mystery of Golgotha.

[ 17 ] We must now look back once more at the evolution that preceded the Mystery of Golgotha if we are to understand the matter fully. From the very beginning of Earth’s evolution, Lucifer had intended to lead humanity away from Earth into his spiritual realms; Lucifer had no interest in the rest of Earth’s evolution; he wanted only for himself what the higher gods had established with humanity; he wanted to lead that out as a soul from of Earth’s evolution, after it had once dwelt in the earthly form that comes from the Exusiai, the spirits of form. He therefore wanted to lead the souls away and leave the Earth to its fate. Why, then, did human beings in the time before the Mystery of Golgotha not follow this urge of Lucifer to lead them into a world of light? Why did they not follow him? You can deduce why they did not follow him from various hints I have already given here in these lectures. They did not follow him because the higher gods introduced something into the Earth’s evolution that prevents human beings—I would say—from becoming so advanced in their development that they can immediately follow Lucifer.

[ 18 ] As I have shown you, what is called the eighth sphere was introduced into the evolution of the Earth long ago. One aspect of the eighth sphere is that human beings develop such a tendency and inclination toward their lower nature that Lucifer cannot draw the higher nature out of this lower nature. Every time Lucifer made renewed efforts in ancient times to spiritualize humanity, people were too accustomed to the flesh to follow him. Had they not had this inclination toward the flesh, toward the physical nature, they would have followed Lucifer. You see, this is one of the great mysteries of existence in this world: that something divine has actually been implanted in human nature, so that this human nature, as it were, has greater weight than it would have had if this divine element—this divine necessity—had not been implanted. If it had not been implanted, human souls would have followed Lucifer. If we go back to ancient times, we find everywhere that religions aim to have people worship what is earthly, what provides an earthly context, what lives in flesh and blood, so that human beings are heavy enough not to be led out into the cosmos. And since for such matters—which concern both the human and the cosmic—there is not only an earthly order but also, everywhere, a cosmic order that must be present, what happened is what you will also find described in my Outline of Esoteric Science; it came to pass that, at a certain time, as you know, not only was the Earth formed and did the Earth move in its orbit around the Sun, but the Earth also received the Moon as its satellite.

[ 19 ] What does that mean: “The Earth acquires the Moon as a satellite”? “The Earth acquires the Moon as a satellite” means nothing other than: the Earth acquired a force through which it can keep the Moon in its vicinity, can attract it. If the Earth did not possess this force to attract the Moon, then the spiritual counterpart of this force would not bind human beings to their lower nature either; for, from a spiritual perspective, the very same force that binds human beings to their lower nature is the force with which the Earth attracts the Moon. So one can say: The Moon is placed in the cosmos as an adversary of Lucifer, to prevent the Luciferic. I have already alluded to this mystery here once before. I have pointed out that in the age of materialism in the 19th century, this truth was virtually turned on its head in Sinnett’s “Esoteric Buddhism”: the Moon is actually described as something hostile to human beings. In truth, it is not hostile to humanity; rather, as the cosmic counterpart of that which in human beings constitutes clinging to their lower nature, it prevents humanity from succumbing to Luciferic temptation. In order to spiritualize this lower nature—not to tear souls away from the lower nature, but to spiritualize the lower nature itself—a mechanism was required that operated subconsciously, for this could not take place in consciousness; otherwise, human beings would have sunk to the level of animals, and would have consciously followed their lower nature. There had to be something within the lower nature that was unconscious to him, so that he would not follow it, but rather, as a human being, as a being on Earth, would follow precisely that which flowed into his lower nature as the Divine. The God of the Old Testament in particular—the God Yahweh—was concerned that human beings remain on Earth, and He is connected to the Moon in this mysterious way, as you will find explained in An Outline of Esoteric Science. From this you can gauge how materialistic it was to designate the Moon as the eighth sphere, whereas the eighth sphere is that force, that sphere, which attracts the Moon. And Blavatsky, under her own delusion, then developed a particularly insidious scheme by using her Secret Doctrine to slander the God Yahweh as a mere moon god, and sought to replace him with Lucifer, presenting Lucifer as the friend of the spirit—which he indeed is, in the sense I have explained. She sought to portray the God Yahweh as the god of mere lower nature, whereas what was implanted in lower nature was opposition to Lucifer.

[ 20 ] You can see how dangerous it is to present truths that can be twisted into their opposites. Blavatsky was seduced by certain beings who had an interest in leading her astray, in replacing Christ with Lucifer, and this was to be achieved by introducing, through the eighth sphere, precisely this opposite of the truth into the world and slandering the God Yahweh by portraying him merely as the God of the lower natural realm. Thus, those world powers that sought to promote materialism worked toward this end—even through what was called “Theosophy”— for materialism would, of course, have fallen into its worst abysses if people had come to believe that the Moon was truly, in the sense that Sinnett or Blavatsky had explained it, the eighth sphere, and that Christianity must be fought against at all costs.

[ 21 ] However, it was only possible to relegate Lucifer’s adversary to the lower nature as long as the human being had not developed his “I” in the way it was developed at the time of the Mystery of Golgotha. People greatly underestimate just how subdued the “I” was in ancient times. It was suppressed. The “I” only began to emerge in the centuries leading up to the Mystery of Golgotha. By then, it was no longer possible to simply relegate that which strives against Lucifer to the subconscious or unconscious nature; something had to come that human beings could take into their consciousness: the Christ, who is the further development of the God Yahweh. Christ had to come so that, by consciously professing faith in Christ, human beings might now resist mere spiritualization, as sought by Lucifer. For Christ descended for all human beings. But it is only by feeling this connection with all human beings that we belong to the Earth; through this we truly belong to the Earth. It is in our connection with humanity—and in what we contribute to that connection, to a full and complete connection—that a deeper understanding of Christ lies.

[ 22 ] You see, as long as human beings lived with a self that was not yet fully developed and faced the Mystery of Golgotha, they passed through the Gate of Death into the spiritual world; there they came into contact with the Archai, Archangeloi, and Angeloi. But because they had not yet fully developed the “I” here on Earth, even after passing through the gate of death, they did not need to consciously establish a connection with the higher spiritual beings. This was regulated by the atavistic forces within them. But since the Mystery of Golgotha—not through the Mystery of Golgotha itself, but since that time—things have become fundamentally different for human beings. Let us see how they have changed!

[ 23 ] A person passes through the gate of death; other people also pass through the gate of death; or: one person passes through the gate of death, while others remain here on earth. By passing through the gate of death, a human being remains a human being, and our relationship to him cannot change if we wish to maintain a proper connection with him. But now let us consider: As a human being ascends into the spiritual worlds—today, since we live in the aftermath of the Mystery of Golgotha—he ascends through the hierarchy of the Angeloi, Archangeloi, and Archai; and since he is now in the time in which his “I” has developed here on Earth, he also has an awareness of the other hierarchies that stand above them. This means that they consciously develop the powers instilled in them by beings even higher than the Archai. But what does that mean? Let us take a specific case: suppose a very dear person dies; the person left behind remains here. The one who has passed through the gate of death does, of course, as you know, initially retain for years a connection to certain inclinations and certain tendencies that he had here in life; but because he has developed an “I” here in life as a human being, the moment he passes through the gate of death, he immediately becomes aware of the perspective leading into his next incarnation. This is decided, as I have called it in the Mysteries, at the “midnight of existence”; but something does already enter into human post-mortem consciousness once the person has passed through death. But when a person is in this state, there lives within them that which already draws them away from what they were born into in their last life. Let us say, for example, that in their last life they belonged to a particular ethnic community. The one who has remained here continues to belong to this ethnic community in their physical body. The one who has died is already being overtaken by a force belonging to an entirely different ethnic community. How can the bond between the one who lives here and the one who has died be a real one that extends beyond death without weakening? It is possible when the one who is here has an understanding of that which goes beyond the Angeloi, Archangeloi, and Archai—that is, beyond what one can develop here in terms of inclinations related to one’s connection with human communities. If someone were to remain here—let us say, as a member of a certain people—and a person were to die, a person who is already preparing to belong to another people, then the bond of love with the deceased could not be an unclouded one. It is only because both profess their faith in Christ—understanding Christ in that which transcends all human distinctions—that the bond can be a supermundane one. For what did John say when Christ Jesus approached him for baptism? “Behold, this is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world”—a statement whose full significance could make one pale if one were to take it in all its gravity.

[ 24 ] One might ask: Why did Christ triumph, and not Mithras? At the time when Christianity was spreading from the East to the West, the cult of Mithras was spreading at the same time, all the way up the Danube into Western Europe, as far as France and Spain. But the worship of Christ prevailed over the worship of Mithras. Why? Because the worship of Mithras had grown out of the ascent through the Angeloi, Archangeloi, and Archai, and through this ascent sought to reach the Illuminator and Ruler of the World. But what, in contrast, is Christ? Christ, in contrast, is the one who has taken upon himself, for the sake of Earth’s evolution, everything connected with angels, archangels, and archai—that which binds human beings to the Earth. He bears the world’s sins, that is, those sins that have entered the world through human differentiation. He is a being in whose presence one must say to oneself: I belong to a particular human community; but by belonging to a particular human community—that is, by belonging to something connected with the earthly—I separate myself from the heavenly. Only a being who has nothing to do with human differentiation can redeem me from this. Only by understanding the Christ within me—who leads me beyond earthly distinctions, who teaches me to feel that what brings about earthly distinctions is suffering and brings death—only in this way do I regain my connection with the spiritual worlds. Everything that has entered humanity as a result of the emergence of differentiation has been taken away from humanity by Christ’s coming into the world. Therefore, Christ could not be a god like Mithras, who leads people upward beyond themselves, but rather the God who descended to Earth and takes away, sweeps away, the sins of differentiation. Mithras races through the world, sword in hand, thrusting it into the side of the lower nature to slay it; beneath him, the lower nature dies. Christ presents himself as the Lamb of God, who takes the lower nature upon himself in order to redeem it.

[ 25 ] There is much in this parable—infinitely much in this parable! That is why the idea of Christ cannot be separated from the idea of death and the idea of resurrection. Only when we know that what brings human beings into the world is that which brings death, but that there is more within the human being than what brings them into the earthly atmosphere—that within the human being is that which Christ is, who leads them out again—“In Christo morimur”—only then do we understand Christ, and only then do we know ourselves to be united with him. That is why the depictions of the ancient gods could portray triumphant beings; that is why Christ could only be portrayed as the one who brings humanity together with suffering and death, for he endures what passes through the human being across the globe in its various forms. Through this, Christ becomes the one who leads humanity through ‘death,’ who leads humanity back into the spiritual world; through this, however, he also becomes the divine being whom one may approach on earth by transcending Maya, or illusion. Just as Christ was born here from the womb of Maya, so must we approach him by transcending Maya ourselves—that is, by appealing to him through all that extends into Maya yet is not Maya, but rather a higher reality.

[ 26 ] Humanity will still need a long time on Earth if it is to turn first to this service to Christ; but people will have to begin taking Christianity seriously again. It is taken least seriously by theologians; for these theologians often argue about whether Christ performed miracles, whether he cast out demons—through miracles, for example. Well, it is quite unnecessary to argue whether Christ cast out demons, if only we learn, in the right place, to cast out the demons there where we can cast them out for now—if we learn to imitate his miracles. We are still capable of very little—that is the fate, the karma of our age—in terms of casting out demons in the higher sense, as antiquity was able to do out of atavism. But we can begin, for the time being, to cast out the demons we spoke of yesterday; these demons are there, and it is negative superstition to think that they are not. How do we cast them out? Humanity will be convinced that they are being cast out when what is today an unholy service becomes a holy service—that is, when it is imbued with Christ-consciousness. In other words: to move toward sacramentalism, when the awareness enters into whatever a person does that Christ is everywhere behind them, and that they should do nothing else in the world except that in which Christ can help them. For if they do anything else, Christ must help them; that is to say: Christ is crucified in human deeds and continues to be crucified. The crucifixion is not merely a single act; the crucifixion is an ongoing act. As long as we do not cast out the demons through what lives in our soul—by first transforming the external, mechanical act into a sacred one—we continue to crucify Christ. For this is where our education toward true Christianity must begin. What was symbolically practiced in the ancient cults of Christianity must take hold of the whole world; what was performed solely on the altar must take hold of the whole world. Humanity must learn to treat nature as the gods themselves treated nature: not to build machines in a detached manner, but to perform a divine service in all activities, to bring sacramentalism into everything.

[ 27 ] There are many ways to get started. Above all, there are two areas where people can begin to develop sacramentalism today. First, in the realm of education and instruction. If we regard every person who enters the world at birth as bringing with them the power of Christ—and thereby have the proper reverence for the growing child—and organize the entire educational process, and especially instruction, accordingly—that is, by realizing a sacramentalism in instruction —we can certainly speak more clearly about this at some point—if we bring a sacramental reality to life, if we see education and instruction as a form of worship but also make it into a form of worship, then we begin to spiritualize what religions call baptism. And when we try to bring what we call our knowledge into our consciousness in such a way that, as our soul fills itself with ideas about the spiritual world, we have the awareness: The spiritual passes into us there; we unite with the spiritual—if we regard this as a communion, if we can realize true knowledge—thinking is the true communion of humanity; you will find this statement already expressed in 1887—if we can realize this: then what was the symbolic sacrament of the altar becomes a universal sacramental experience of knowledge. The Christianization of humanity must proceed in this direction; then you will come to realize that everywhere in life, in every respect, that which is connected with Christ does in fact bring reality into Maya, and that to view reality as modern science does with its worldview is unchristian—unchristian in the most eminent sense.

[ 28 ] It is strange how easily people today can find their way into everything that is unchristian, and how little they can find their way into that which is appropriate for Christianity in the present day. There is still little to be seen that, I would say, works against materialism as if driven by a dark impulse, but there is already quite a bit of it; it is just going down the wrong path by turning, in a confused way, to the old religions instead of turning to spiritual science. Forgive me for mentioning something close to my heart here, but I do so only to illustrate my point. I may have already drawn attention to the fact that a contemporary figure whom I knew very well in his youth, Hermann Bahr, is now setting out to seek the spiritual once again. Hermann Bahr does not initially seek it in spiritual science; he has only a very slight interest in it. If you take his very beautiful, witty book on “Expressionism,” you will see that he is already somewhat interested in the science of the spirit, but up until this book—as can be seen from the book itself—he had only familiarized himself with the science of the spirit to the extent of having read Levy’s book on my worldview and its opponents. He has not yet found the path to delving into it more deeply. But it is interesting, nonetheless, that he has written a novel featuring a hero who gets to know everything: modern chemical laboratories and so on; he had “heard” about it from Ostwald in Leipzig, dabbled a bit with the Theosophists in London and so on—a hero who passes through everything the present age has to offer in terms of spiritual sensations, who also ventures into spiritualism; then he has someone—I don’t even know who—give him exercises, esoteric exercises, which he does for a while. But he’s impatient; he only does them for a short time, gets no results, so he gives those up too, just as he gives up everything else right away. Then he goes through some strange experiences; and what I found most interesting was that, curiously enough, this book echoes some of the things I have said in lectures—even on current events—in very recent times, even though I haven’t seen Hermann Bahr in twenty-eight years, except for one brief occasion in the meantime, when, in any case, questions of worldview were not discussed. Recently, however, Hermann Bahr has also had a play staged, titled Die Stimme (The Voice). There is no need to defend this play, for the simple reason that Hermann Bahr does not seek the path into spiritual science—which is too difficult for him—but rather falls back on orthodox, or let us say, modern Catholicism; yet he is, after all, seeking a spiritual life. And it is interesting to see how the hero of this play seeks that spiritual life. The hero of this play is married to a woman who is the daughter of a very orthodox mother and is herself very orthodox, yet she takes her Christianity seriously—deeply seriously, beyond the seriousness that can be demanded of a human being. The man, however—who is the hero of the drama—is a follower of Ostwald and Haeckel, a thoroughly materialistic person. Since the wife and her mother-in-law take their Christianity seriously, it is naturally a great source of pain to them that the man is an Ostwaldian and a Haeckelian and wants to know nothing of a spiritual world; and the wife grieves over this so deeply that she dies of grief. But during her illness, she has a strong conviction: she wants to die so that she can help her husband from the spiritual world. The woman has died. After her death, the man finds himself on a train one day. He has often heard, as if from an unknown twilight gloom, something as though his deceased wife were calling out this or that to him. One day he is in a railroad car—a sleeper car—and there he hears his wife’s voice particularly clearly. This drives him nearly mad, and he storms out of the train. He behaves like a madman—I believe—in the waiting room at a station. And then he hears that the entire train he had been on had been destroyed in a railway accident. The wounded are being brought in, and so on. He realizes that he was saved by his wife’s voice, because he had gotten off the train on which he would otherwise have perished. This is the first time that his wife’s voice is connected to real-world circumstances. I do not wish to condemn this; I merely want to recount what a person of the present day writes. Now, because he has been saved—through an obvious miracle, through the aftereffect of this woman’s being extending beyond death—he is prompted to reflect anew on the connection between human beings and the spiritual world. Later, however, the woman reveals herself to him even more frequently, and through an intimate connection between his soul and the soul of the deceased woman, he is now led back to Christianity in the true sense, transcending the materialistic worldview.

[ 29 ] In any case, even if we do not need to defend this particular drama, we can see that there are already people today who strive to bring into life the insight that, within the great illusion—within Maya—a truth of the spiritual world can emerge. Only a pure understanding of Christianity will build the bridge between life here on Earth and life in the spiritual world. But the need for this world—many, many people already feel it, though they are still only a small handful compared to the vast number of those who today are either stuck in the traditional religions—which have, after all, also succumbed to materialism, even if they won’t admit it—or who, immersed directly in materialism, lack a genuine connection to the spiritual world. As I said, we do not wish to defend Bahr’s play, but it can point us to one thing: that a person cannot move beyond the problem of death if they truly wish to understand Christianity; for one of the most interesting aspects of this play is, after all, that it proceeds from that relationship between the human soul and the human body which leads beyond the gate of death. There is, however, a fundamental flaw in all these things: that instead of leading to Christianity—which is where spiritual science, as we understand it, aims to make its true beginning—they seek to lead back to a single denomination.

[ 30 ] If only people would understand Christ the way I have hinted at today—and if we can speak here more often, I will elaborate on this in greater detail—if people could understand Christ the way it has just been shown today in the very first, most primitive hints, then the feelings and ideas developed about Christ could truly be conveyed to all people, for Christ did not die merely for those who profess a current Christian creed, but he died and rose again for all people. And one must not equate a specific religious creed with the essence of Christ; rather, every religious creed must be reconciled with Christianity. If people could understand how to perceive Christ as has been indicated, then Christianity would spread throughout the entire earth. For the revelation of Christ is one thing, and the revelation of Jesus is another.

[ 31 ] If we go as missionaries to foreign lands, or even to indigenous peoples, and try to impose the ministry of Jesus on them through some particular denomination, then they will not understand us, since often what these people already know goes even beyond what this or that missionary intends to teach them. For I would like to know, for example, what a Turk would say if a modern Protestant were to try to teach him the view of Christ that he holds as a modern Protestant pastor—this view of Christ which deals with—as is already the case among modern Protestant pastors— well, that there was a Socrates, and then someone who was a little more than Socrates: Christ, the human being—isn’t that right?—the special human being, but still just a human being, or those confused ideas that are otherwise said about Christ in modern Protestantism today. The Turk would say to him: “What, you’re telling us something like that, and you want to be a Christian? Just read the 19th surah in the Quran: there’s much more about Christ in there than what you’re telling us!” The Turks, in fact, know much more about Christ Jesus than what modern Protestant pastors teach about him, because there is much more in the Quran, and because Christ Jesus is brought much closer to divinity in the Turkish creed than in the modern Protestant creed. People just don’t know this because, even today, they rarely bother to actually read the religious texts and prefer to spout superficial nonsense about all kinds of religions.

[ 32 ] The Revelation of Jesus will also come to people in the proper way. But they must come to it on their own. And they will come to it once they have undergone a sufficient number of incarnations. Today, everyone is ready for the Revelation of Christ to a certain degree. One must make this distinction. But there are many forces at work to prevent true Christ-revelation—and also true spiritual science—from emerging. And here you need only recall various things I have said recently about all sorts of movements that call themselves “occult,” which I have characterized.

[ 33 ] And now I would actually like to conclude today’s lecture at this very moment. I will just add a brief appendix to it. For a very specific reason, I do not wish to include this in the lecture itself. You will see in a moment why. Namely, what I say in the lecture, I say without any reservation, but what I am about to say, I will have to say—for the time being—with some reservation, and that is why I am separating it from the lecture. However, I do attach a certain importance to it, particularly in connection with our current considerations, and that is why I want to mention it today.

[ 34 ] I have explained that in the mid-19th century, materialism was at its peak, and that at that time, those people who understood the necessity of spiritual life always existing within humanity—I am merely outlining this in advance—considered teaching humanity that spiritual beings and spiritual forces truly exist in our surroundings. But, as I said, the leading occultists of that time were divided into those who said, “Humanity is not yet ready to take these things in,” and others who said in the mid-19th century, “Humanity could already be introduced, in a basic way, to the most important concepts of spiritual life.” — Today, the latter group has dwindled to almost a mere handful who advocate for teaching and for spreading the doctrine. Yet it is part of our anthroposophical movement’s conviction that the dissemination of the doctrine, as we practice it today, is of the utmost importance, and that through this, the spiritual heritage must be passed on to humanity. Back then, in the 1840s, the question first arose, but those who held this view were, so to speak, outvoted, and so it was agreed to take a different path—the path of spiritualism. Attempts were made, through mediumship, to demonstrate that certain individuals—who can be regarded as mediums (as I have described here)—are capable of receiving messages from the spiritual world, and that through this one can establish a connection with the realms of the spirit. I have also already said: The entire endeavor has failed. For if it had succeeded, something similar to what I recently expressed in my lecture in Bern for those who were present would have become apparent: one would have recognized the various stages of connection with the dead. But people did not want to engage with that. And so the endeavor ended in complete failure. The mediums all claimed, in the most primitive, most elementary way, that they were in direct contact with certain dead people, and the people always wanted to receive direct messages from certain dead people through the mediums. Please note, however, that this does not mean that when a medium is present and one experiments with a medium, what comes through the medium could not constitute some form of communication with a deceased person. But it is another matter entirely whether it is an unconscious, genuine, and proper form of communication—and whether such communication is even possible at all. What people had expected, in fact, was something entirely different; what they had expected was that through the mediums they would come to recognize that spiritual forces, just like sensory forces, are constantly flowing into human beings—that one should therefore seek the realm of the spiritual primarily in one’s immediate surroundings, rather than in the messages from this or that individual deceased person.

[ 35 ] Since the whole thing has now turned out to be a mistake, serious occultists have withdrawn from this spiritualist experiment, and humanity must now pay the price for it, as all manner of occultists—people who do not follow purely occult paths but rather paths toward some specific human purpose—have taken control of the mediums. As I have often explained: Anyone who wishes to be a true occultist cannot serve merely a specific human purpose, but only the general human purpose and universal human goals; and above all, they must never resort to bad or improper means to achieve any goals whatsoever. But what a wide range of things are called “occultism” today! You could get an idea of just what is called occultism today if you were to read the report that reproduces the speeches given by Mrs. Besant and Mr. Leadbeater at the last Theosophical Convention, where current events are portrayed as the great struggle between the Lords of Light—on whose side, of course, Mrs. Besant and Mr. Leadbeater stand—and the Lords of Darkness, and in which it is stated that anyone who stands on their own as a neutral—a truly neutral person—and does not take sides with any group—naturally, the Lords of Light, on whose side Mrs. Besant and Mr. Leadbeater stand—is a traitor. But all sorts of other things were also recounted at this gathering. For example, Leadbeater, drawing on profound occult knowledge, recounted that before the year 1870, Bismarck went to France and established magnetic centers in the north, south, east, and west of France. During the war of 1870–71, these magnetic centers, which Bismarck had first established in France, were at work; otherwise, the war with France would have been lost at that time. People today actually let themselves be told such things at theosophical meetings! Yes, they actually listen to it! One can only marvel at it—or perhaps do something else entirely—when one hears such things being cited. But as I said, there are many forms of occultism in the present day.

[ 36 ] What is important is that now, after serious occultism has withdrawn from spiritualism, the entire field of spiritualism has been taken over by precisely those people who are pursuing their own special agendas. And it is, of course, very easy to pursue such special agendas. Please bear in mind, as I go on to explain, that this is the case: that Spiritism was brought into the world through an honest attempt to test whether present-day humanity is ripe to receive spiritual truths; that this attempt failed, and that all manner of movements, occult brotherhoods, and individual people—particularly from America—have since attempted to gain control over every aspect of mediumship in order to pursue certain specific agendas. Now, what I am about to recount in connection with this, I am sharing because yesterday our dear friend, Mr. Heywood-Smith, gave me an account of the book detailing Sir Oliver Lodge’s experiences. I repeat, I am recounting this with the utmost caution, because for the time being I have only a report before me—from which, admittedly, much can already be gleaned—but I reserve the right to return to certain points once I have the book myself. However, I do not consider the matter itself to be unimportant and would like to speak about it today. Should the report prove to be incorrect, I would of course—and that is why I am speaking with reserve—set the record straight regarding anything said today as a result of the incorrect report.

[ 37 ] Isn't it an extraordinarily significant fact that one of the most distinguished figures in the scientific community in England, Sir Oliver Lodge—the great naturalist Oliver Lodge, who has, of course, already written various books in which he has acknowledged the existence of a spiritual world—that Sir Oliver Lodge wrote such a book, which contains ideas that, if taken as Sir Oliver Lodge intends, would actually have to be among the most significant things one can say in the present day. The fact is this:

[ 38 ] Sir Oliver Lodge had a son who was born in 1889 and who, when the war broke out, volunteered for military service while Lodge and his wife were in Australia; this son, Raymond Lodge, was then sent in March 1915 to a very dangerous front and, as one might imagine, in this dangerous part of the theater—he was also near Ypres—caused his parents considerable concern. Now, in August 1915, Sir Oliver Lodge received a message from Mrs. Piper in America. From Mrs. Piper, an American medium, he received a message—a message with a curious content that read, roughly as reported here: “Myers will share in whatever fate has in store for you and will protect you.”—But this was couched in a classical form, in a phrase from Horace. So Sir Oliver Lodge received a message from an American medium in August—it was written in August—stating that Myers, who had formerly been president of the Society for Psychical Research in London but had died fourteen years earlier, would protect and assist Sir Oliver Lodge in the event of a serious incident that was to befall him, that is, he would work to protect him. Please bear in mind that this message contains nothing other than the statement that, in the event of a serious incident, Myers would stand by Sir Oliver Lodge.

[ 39 ] Then, in September 1915, his son Raymond Lodge died, and at first Sir Oliver Lodge interpreted the message that Myers would stand by him as referring to his son’s death. Sir Oliver Lodge’s family then came into contact with all sorts of mediums; several mediums appeared at the same time. These mediums conveyed all sorts of messages. These messages all gradually boiled down to the same thing: Your son—or rather, your son and Lady Lodge were also present at these séances—is with Myers; Myers is helping him, and your son is now deeply concerned that you learn of him, and that Sir Oliver Lodge, in particular, thereby establish a connection with the spirit world. — When one reads through the various communications from the individual mediums, as they are initially reproduced here, one notices very clearly throughout: there are interesting climaxes in every one; everything occurs at a very specific moment. Questions are asked and so on, and answered by the mediums; the sequence of events is extraordinarily interesting. It even goes so far as to the discovery of a portrait of Raymond Lodge—one unknown to the family—through the fact that the son, the deceased son, points to this portrait, describes it, and it is then found exactly as he described it. In short, this book seems to have compiled with extraordinary precision and accuracy what one can indeed experience in many spiritualist séances—and what can lead to the events described there. Sir Oliver Lodge had always been somewhat inclined to engage in such activities; his sons apparently did not approve of this; but as a result of what occurred, they, too, were convinced. Sir Oliver Lodge now seems to have written in great detail about how this bridge was built across to his son through the various mediums.

[ 40 ] The important thing here is that such a distinguished figure is prompted to cross over into the spirit world through mediumship. I must say: As far as I know so far about the various séances, the séances themselves do not offer anything particularly new. — But something else is very important: that a figure of the very highest rank in the present day, a scientific figure who, when writing in this way, can exert a great influence on people’s intellects—that such a figure is driven to write in this way. This is very important, because it drives many people toward mediumship, driving them down this path that seeks a connection with the spirit world in this way.

[ 41 ] Of course, this is nothing more than a repeat of the mistake made back then, when people tried to achieve through spiritualism what I have already described to you. But now, I ask you to look into the matter a little more closely. In the first message from the medium Piper, which Sir Oliver Lodge received from America, there is only mention of an event that was to occur and that Myers would protect him from it. Well, this event could have unfolded in a variety of ways. Let’s assume the son had not been killed; it would be entirely consistent with this message to say: Well, you were warned that Myers, from the spirit world, is protecting your son here from death on the battlefield.” — You will surely not doubt that, since young Raymond Lodge was in a dangerous spot on the battlefield, this could have been known over in America as well, and that one could therefore speak as an ancient oracle sometimes did: “Myers will protect the son”—and could have referred to this afterward if the son had survived: “He protected him by bringing him through safely”; but if the son falls, one can interpret this to mean that Myers is now, from the spirit world, bringing the son together with his father, uniting them; that is also possible. So the message was initially phrased very cleverly. The matter was orchestrated from America; then—such brotherhoods naturally extend very far—the next medium was brought to Lady Lodge. One need not even know how such an—as it is called here—“anonymous” séance comes about. The procedure initially follows the same steps as in regular séances. But by now the obituary has long since arrived; Lady Lodge carries within her own psyche all the aftereffects of that obituary. This can indeed demonstrate that what lives in one soul passes over into another soul and speaks through the medium. Furthermore, in Lady Lodge’s soul, the son has naturally lived on beyond death in the way we understand it. What was thus brought about through the medium is merely the reproduction of what was in Lady Lodge’s soul—or in the souls of the other family members. One can even study this very clearly from the transcript, because it varies depending on the character of those who serve as the guiding figures in these séances. The name Myers also appears in the communications of mediums who did not know Myers. But that is not particularly surprising, for Sir Oliver Lodge was very good friends with Myers, worked with him, and so on; in short, if Sir Oliver Lodge were to conduct his experiments in such a way that, aside from his personal interest in his son, he merely sought to prove—as was originally intended—that spiritual influences exist in our environment, then everything would be fine. But that path has, of course, been abandoned.

[ 42 ] It is, of course, nothing less than the fact that from some quarter—and the book will shed full light on this quarter as well; I do not wish to pass judgment on it today—Sir Oliver Lodge is to be used to achieve specific, particular purposes. This, in particular, will most likely be a characteristic example of an initiative undertaken once again by a very shadowy occult brotherhood, seeking—through the circumstances that have arisen here—to achieve whatever it is they always want—including conquering science for spiritualism, which is always eager to be regarded as scientific and through which one can very easily achieve very specific, special purposes.

[ 43 ] There was, in fact, an attempt made at another location in America—to mention just one example—to eradicate the belief in reincarnation from people. What was done? At the time when what I have described had already come to pass—when spiritualism had been abandoned by serious occultists—I believe they Langsdorff—the man in question—organized all sorts of séances in various places, in which the mediums were always associated with the dead, and the dead testified everywhere that there was absolutely no question of waiting here for a future reincarnation. Thus, it was precisely from that standpoint that the doctrine of repeated earthly lives was combated. One can achieve an immense amount by presenting the matter as messages from the dead to the living.

[ 44 ] Since I have been speaking about these matters recently, and because this seems to me, at first glance, to be a particularly outstanding example, I wanted to discuss it with you very briefly, at least sharing a few thoughts. For what will the world learn? The world will learn that a great scholar has professed his belief in spiritualism; it will read the book and, in all likelihood—as this excerpt already shows—find that spiritualism has never been so well substantiated as it is in this very book. And probably—as I said, I am presenting this appendix today with reservations, because I reserve the right to return to it once I have read the book myself—probably there will be nothing more to it than an attempt by a so-called brotherhood of the left-hand path to achieve very specific goals precisely in this way. It is not immediately obvious, but there are, in fact, numerous brotherhoods that seek to achieve their specific goals in this way; and one can accomplish more in this manner than is generally believed. But we will, of course, discuss these matters further.