The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Fourth Lecture

[ 1 ] Yesterday I endeavored to show how developments in the 19th century and right up to the present day have in fact taken this course: increasingly eradicating knowledge and understanding of the supersensible impulses in the development of the world. I attempted to illustrate this using an example that is of particular importance to us: the misunderstanding of the mysteries. We have seen how, up until the end of the 18th century, there was essentially a clear awareness that behind the world of sensory things—namely, those entities that human beings can grasp with their ordinary intellect, oriented toward everyday use—that behind this sensory reality lies a supersensible reality, and that it is necessary — as people were aware of until the end of the 18th century — to bring the human soul into some kind of direct connection with this supersensible world.

[ 2 ] I have pointed out the great contrast that exists between a way of thinking such as that of Saint-Martin and that of Dupuis. In Saint-Martin, one still finds an awareness of ancient mystical truths, which was possible because, in a certain sense, he was a student and successor of Jakob Böhme. In Saint-Martin, whose mode of thought still exerted great influence in the 18th century, we thus find the declining aspect of 18th-century consciousness. In Dupuis, we find the rising aspect—the aspect of 18th-century thought that is convinced that everything that constituted mystery revelation was, at its core, based on error or fraud, and that human beings are truly enlightened only when they reject everything connected with these mystical truths, when they limit themselves to establishing a science based purely on the sensory world and on the intellect dependent on that sensory world. We said that, in contrast to the materialism that was established in the 19th century—which is, in essence, a philistine materialism—Dupuis’s materialism still possesses a certain grandeur, impartiality, and lack of philistinism.

[ 3 ] In a certain sense, the entire development of the 19th century and right up to our own time has been influenced by this “rejection of everything supersensory.” For whatever attempts were made from one side or the other to introduce connections between the human soul and the supersensory realm remained either confined to the narrowest circles, or were always attempts made with outdated or otherwise inadequate means. The nineteenth century simply had to develop a certain body of purely materialistic truths; it had to gather this body of purely materialistic views, feelings, and impulses of the will. And it is now the task of the person of the present day to make this clear to themselves in order to draw the necessary conclusion from it: The connection between purely materialistic views and what these views have led to teaches that the path must once again be taken from purely materialistic perception—or one could also say from purely intellectual perception—to spiritual perception.

[ 4 ] If one compares the fundamental essence of the ancient mystery traditions—in the sense discussed yesterday—with what spiritual science must now be, one can say that this ancient mystery wisdom was primarily intended to protect humanity from using certain forces, which we spoke of yesterday, in the sense of a pernicious magical practice. And we have already mentioned that, in contrast to this, the spiritual wisdom of the modern era has the task of making humanity aware of how the combination of certain attitudes with the material knowledge that has become necessary for the modern era must, in a similar way, give rise to forces harmful to human well-being—just as, on the other hand, those forces we spoke of yesterday did in the past. I said that it is, in fact, an inner law of the world that when those thoughts—which must necessarily be the thoughts of the modern era: the thoughts concerning the physical, chemical, and economic forces in the sense of the modern era, international financial conduct, and so on—when the thoughts that are and must be applied to all of this in the same way across the entire Earth are combined in human souls with a purely national mindset, with national sentiment—then through the combination of national sentiment, national pathos, so to speak, with the international ideas of physics, chemistry, national economics, the international commercial element, financial management, and so on—Ahrimanic elemental beings may arise. And these Ahrimanic elemental beings must drive human beings more and more into things that are bound to counteract the wholesome development of the human race during the last three cultural periods that the Earth still has to undergo.

[ 5 ] One will see the Mystery of Golgotha in its true sense when one recognizes in it that which must necessarily counterbalance the harmful force coming from the direction just described. Everything that the Mystery of Golgotha can bring about works against what comes from the forces just described. The forces just described can only be properly neutralized through an understanding surrender to the Mystery of Golgotha. Merely recounting that this Mystery of Golgotha took place at the beginning of our era, merely repeating the Gospel as it is interpreted in mainstream churches—that does not suffice; for that would presuppose the prejudice that revelation was possible only at the beginning of our era. But revelation continues. Christ Jesus is always present. And this attitude, which recognizes Christ Jesus as ever-present, is the Christian attitude that can be attained through anthroposophically oriented spiritual science. But this requires that one become acquainted with the individual, real impulses connected with the Mystery of Golgotha, and that one learn to recognize what specifically lies behind the Mystery of Golgotha.

[ 6 ] I have already drawn attention to the truth that what a person undertakes is not, insofar as his individual, personal karma is concerned, but rather, in the context of social, moral, and historical activity, subject to a certain regularity in the course of history; that what happens in a given year, so to speak, when it arises as a thought from a person, has a Christmas character and, after thirty-three years, an Easter character. This refers to the effect of our actions in a social context—as I said—not to personal karma. When I manufacture a pair of shoes, there is, of course, something in the very act of manufacturing that pair of shoes that, in a sense, reflects back on my personal karma. That is a current in and of itself. But when I make a pair of shoes for someone else, I am already acting socially. That is a very elementary process. It is a long path from this elementary process all the way up to major political and social measures, but everything that lies along this path belongs to the realm of what thus becomes truly effective after thirty-three years. And then, when, so to speak, such a seed that has been sown has matured, it continues to have an effect. A human generation of thirty-three years brings a seed of thought, a seed of action, to maturity. Once it has matured, it continues to have an effect for sixty-six years into the unfolding of history. One can recognize the intensity of an impulse that a person implants into the unfolding of history, even in its effectiveness across three generations, throughout an entire century.

[ 7 ] The dates for the two major Christian holidays, Christmas and Easter, have been set very wisely. Christmas is what is known as a fixed feast; it simply falls around the winter solstice. Easter is a movable feast. Christmas is fixed because, as we know, it is the expression of a very specific cosmic fact. We cannot bring this cosmic fact to mind often enough. It is, after all, a prejudice to believe that our Earth is merely what geology, physics, mineralogy, geophysics, and so on seek to acknowledge. Our Earth is a mighty spiritual organism. In fact, we do not merely live on a mineral Earth surrounded by an atmosphere. We live within the mighty spiritual organism that is the Earth, and this spiritual organism, in a certain sense, has a life that rises and falls. This spiritual organism sleeps in the summer. It enters its deepest sleep when the summer solstice occurs, at the time of the longest days and shortest nights for us. In humans, sleep is determined solely by time; in the Earth, sleep is also determined by place. Different places sleep differently; but that is only worth mentioning in passing. In winter, the Earth is in its true waking phase. That is when what might be called the Earth’s intellect is most active. To recall that when the shortest days and longest nights occur, the Earth is most awake in the places where this holds true—this is the deeper meaning of the Christmas festival. Those who acknowledge the Christmas festival should seek the Earth’s intellect, as it can be found in the depths of the Earth, just as the Christ Child is found hidden in a stable, or in a cave, or in a grotto, depending on the various traditions. This Christmas festival is an immutable celebration.

[ 8 ] Easter is a movable feast, determined by the positions of the sun and moon. Thus, Easter has become a symbol of events in the cosmos beyond Earth. Easter is, in a sense, a spiritual, a heavenly festival. Materialistically minded people—as I have often pointed out—have, of course, mounted a campaign against the variable date of Easter, because this variability would have introduced disorder into the philistine order of the 19th and 20th centuries. I myself have participated in many discussions, particularly among astronomers, in which it has been repeatedly argued that Easter should be fixed, in a purely pedantic and schematic manner, to a specific date—for example, at least the first Sunday in April—so that it would not be quite so variable. Of course, from a 19th-century perspective, there are many reasons to advocate for this fixed date for Easter. One need only consider that the flexibility of Easter is entirely in keeping with the Word of God, the New Testament—or at least with the spirit of the New Testament.

[ 9 ] But in the 19th century—and even earlier, to some extent—another book became more important, much, much more important than the Gospel. People may not always admit that another book has become much more important than the Gospel, but that is indeed the case. The book that became much more important than the Gospel in the 19th century is the one whose first page reads: “With God.” — But of course, it contains only the most ungodly things; it contains only the numbers under the headings “Debit” and “Credit.” This is the commercial ledger, which, as far as I know, always bears the inscription “With God” on the first page but is organized as just mentioned. This book naturally becomes very disorganized when Easter falls on a different day every year. It would be much easier to keep it in order if Easter were also a fixed holiday. That is why such proposals have been made. This proposal is nothing other than materialism’s assault on an outer, final bulwark of spiritualism: the determination of Easter according to the celestial constellation of the sun and moon.

[ 10 ] But there is an even deeper meaning behind making the period from Christmas to Easter different for each individual year. We know, after all, that Christmas is actually closely linked to Easter, which occurs thirty-three years later. This period is, of course, fixed insofar as it is the time for the unfolding of world-historical seeds. But something else is not fixed, and that is the following: Certain impulses—let us call them Christmas impulses—occur in a given year, others in the next year, others in the year after that, and so on. The successive Christmas impulses are by no means of equal strength in the course of historical development; rather, some have a stronger effect, while others have a weaker one. It may be, for example, that in a given year the impulses that are set in motion have less impact over the next thirty-three years than the impulses of the following year do for the next thirty-three years, and so on. This is indicated by the fact that the period between Christmas and Easter is sometimes longer and sometimes shorter. Thus, this variability of the date of Easter also points to something that people should certainly study if they truly wish to understand how events unfold in the course of history.

[ 11 ] You might ask: Yes, how is a person supposed to get any idea of how strongly their impulses will affect the next thirty-three years? Are they even supposed to have any idea whether their impulses will have a favorable or unfavorable effect? — Certainly, the answer to such a question is immensely difficult in our time, for our age suffers from abstractness as if from a terrible, creeping disease. Our time wants nothing more than to understand, if possible, the entire universe with just a few abstract concepts. This age wants to be as far removed as possible from grasping events with the full, whole human being; this age wants to be as far removed as possible from a genuine experience of the times and the currents of history. Of course, if one regards as “astronomy” nothing other than what today’s astronomers calculate using purely abstract mathematics, then it is impossible to muster the heart and mind for what has been calculated with abstract mathematics. But this is precisely what humanity must develop once again. Humanity must truly not only bring its intellect to bear when it does anything, but it must also know that its very heart and soul are connected to every action performed, no matter how mundane. This can happen if one is sincere and honest in one’s approach to spiritual science—to what spiritual science is and what it can be. If, however, a person wishes to relate to anything beyond the narrowest circle of their selfish or family interests solely through abstract reason, then they will find it difficult to connect their heart and soul to what they want and do. But this is precisely why spiritual science is so well suited to broadening the soul’s horizon and extending the sphere of interests beyond what it has been limited to under the influence of the materialistic abstractness of the 19th century.

[ 12 ] What humanity needs is precisely this broadening of its sphere of interest. This can only be achieved when the human soul is repeatedly imbued with the insight that can be expanded today—as we have already seen for weeks now through these reflections, beyond the boundary drawn by the senses and by the intellect bound to the senses, and by life between birth and death: beyond this boundary, into the cosmos that we, in the way we have characterized it, share with the human souls who find themselves in the realm between death and a new birth. One can only truly come to know this human soul if one also comes to know this other side of it, which it must live through between death and a new birth. Thoughts about life between death and a new birth, however, were as far removed as possible from the philistine science of the 19th and 20th centuries. That era believed it had to see salvation solely in summarizing, through the combinatory intellect, what the senses present.

[ 13 ] From this perspective, however, spiritual science stands in the sharpest contrast to what was the ideal of the 19th century. Spiritual science must emphasize the turning of the human soul toward the Spirit just as vigorously as the 19th century emphasized the turning of the human soul away from the Spirit. And I have already pointed out over the course of these days how the two cornerstones of the Christian worldview—the immaculate conception of Jesus Christ and the resurrection of Jesus Christ—can only be regarded as nonsense in the age of natural science. For this reason, however, spiritual science must turn its attention once again to these two cornerstones of the Christian worldview.

[ 14 ] The Catholic Church has adopted a certain way of speaking that allows it to sidestep some weighty problems that actually lie at the heart of its development. Catholic theology, of course, also speaks, for example, of the “Immaculate Conception of Mary,” but it will not engage in seeking out those spiritual powers of the soul through which this fact of the Immaculate Conception of Mary might become comprehensible. If one turns to the enlightened theologians of the Catholic Church regarding the dogma of the “Conceptio immaculata,” one should not expect a discussion of the kind that must once again arise through spiritual science; rather, one will hear something like the following: One must rise above the concept of Mary as a woman to what Mary has actually become in the course of evolution: the Church. The Church is, in fact, the embodiment of the Virgin Mary. — But then this Virgin Mary, this Church, naturally also gives birth to Christ perpetually. She must perpetually conceive Christ through the Holy Spirit; that is to say, she stands under the continuous inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and what she has to reveal is the Word, the Logos. This, too, is entirely in accordance with true Catholic faith. The inspiring Holy Spirit kindles within the Catholic Church that which is the enduring Word, that which was there in the beginning, and that which is continually born through the Church, the Virgin Mother.

[ 15 ] This is a quite common concept in Catholic theology. You might say that one does not hear much talk of this concept. It was also a good thing for the 19th century that not much was said about it. But this concept was all the more effective for all those who could still be spared from the influences of materialism. The three—the inspiring Spirit, the virgin Mother, and the Logos or the Word—must certainly be upheld; they must also be sought by anthroposophically oriented spiritual science. In an imaginative way, I tried to point these things out recently while discussing the transition from the ancient mysteries to the new mysteries. I said that antiquity, with its mysteries, had only progressed to the point where virginal wisdom could be venerated in the figure of Pallas Athena. In Pallas Athena, one also finds such a virginal personality; but this wisdom does not give birth to the Logos within the ancient era.

[ 16 ] This is precisely what is characteristic: that, for example, Greek culture remains at the stage of virginal wisdom, whereas modern times have moved on to the Son of virginal wisdom, to the Logos, who exists on the physical plane through his representation: the human word, human language. For this human language may certainly be considered in its connection with wisdom. Wisdom in earthly human life manifests itself precisely through human thought. The air exhaled through our larynx—this air shaped by our larynx and its movements—is united with the wisdom that lies within our thoughts. And that which we have to express—the content—is the inspiring spirit. Every time you speak—no matter how mundane the impulse behind your speech may be—you have expressed the earthly representation of the Trinity: the thought in your mind, the shaped air that passes through your larynx, which are united and connected under the influence of the Spirit, thus giving voice to the sensory world through perception. This is the earthly representation of the Trinity.

[ 17 ] What must lie behind this is the divine, spiritual Trinity; this is the all-encompassing wisdom that becomes a teaching for humanity and expresses the essence of the world. Anthroposophically oriented spiritual science, however, cannot align itself with an earthly institution, for an earthly institution would, with its claims, merely assert claims to power. ‘Anthroposophically oriented spiritual science takes the pristine wisdom of the world seriously. When one thinks in the spirit of anthroposophically oriented spiritual science, one sees in the content presented by this science not merely a sum of abstractions, a sum of abstract ideas, but something living that fills us, that can truly fill our souls with impulses, and that then becomes word and teaching; not merely in the academic sense, but in the sense that this spiritual-scientific wisdom becomes socially useful, just as the word becomes socially useful—the content expressed through it, which is then introduced from the supersensible worlds into the sensible world and thereby underlies our impulses; that is the inspiring spirit.

[ 18 ] I would like to say: We are seeking Pallas Athena; we are seeking virginal wisdom, the virginal wisdom of the cosmos. But we are also seeking the Son who proceeds from her, who expresses himself in such a way that, in everything we do and intend to do in social life, this wisdom is at work and gives us that which shapes the direction of what we intend and do. Then we express the Spirit—namely, the Holy Spirit, who is supersensory—in the sensory actions that take place on the physical plane. But this amounts to the fact that the science to be sought in the sense of spiritual science must, in a certain sense, bear a virginal character.

[ 19 ] Perhaps you will ask: Does this even make any sense? Isn’t this just empty talk? — It has a very significant, an important, a tremendous meaning. For it has the following meaning: Human beings direct their senses toward the external world; that is their task, and that is why they have been placed in the world. What the senses as such perceive can only be naive and innocent; animals perceive it as well, and in their case one cannot speak of “ought” or “ought not.” But human beings must go further: they make connections based on what they see, what they perceive; they make connections. What is the nature of this process of making connections? Physical science itself—not the scholars of physical science—already provides an answer to this today.

[ 20 ] The synthesizing mind—that which a person conceives based on sensory impressions and perceptions—is something that arises from within, specifically from the lower regions of the inner self. Human beings are actually terribly proud of their brains, especially the frontal lobes. But from the perspective of true science, the frontal lobes of the brain are of much less value than the more posterior regions, for these frontal lobes are essentially nothing more than the transformed olfactory organ. And to be intelligent in the sense of physical science actually means: as a human being, to have transformed the olfactory nerves to such an extent that they have become effective associative nerves, which can serve as tools—if I may use the word—for combining sensory perceptions. To be intelligent in the sense of materialistic intelligence actually means to have successfully transformed that part of one’s brain which, in lower beings—animals—belongs to the nose. It actually means nothing more than having a good, combinatory intuition.

[ 21 ] Those people who were able to perceive and see through such things in a healthy way have already pointed them out in one way or another. For just think about it: if one perceives and feels such things in a healthy way, one must actually say: To be perceptive on the physical plane actually means to have a special, highly developed sense of smell adapted to human life; it actually means being able to sniff things out in a very real sense; so that, in a certain sense, physical science—which arose through combinatorial methods—is the result of human “sniffing” on the physical plane, to be understood in the most literal sense. To say that what one uncovers through such sniffing—all manner of combinations regarding atomic processes, all manner of things one derives in this way as chemical and physical laws and so on—to say that this is something particularly lofty, is to miss the mark entirely. It is merely the result of a highly developed sense of smell. Physical science itself attests to this. You can learn this from physiology and anatomy, which I have just touched upon. However, the scholars’ refined sense of smell is not yet sufficient to draw this conclusion; thus, the “sniffing around” must be pursued far enough that this inference, this conclusion, can be drawn.

[ 22 ] One of those who felt about this fact in a healthy, human way was Goethe. And from this perspective, Goethe said something immensely significant. Goethe—as I have described in various ways over many years—actually called for a completely different direction in natural science than the one that eventually emerged in the 19th century and continues to this day. Goethe wanted to eliminate from natural science something that, while justified in everyday life, had no place in scientific research. Time and again, he returns to the idea of eliminating this specific element from research. What he wanted to eliminate was, in fact, the combining and interpreting of facts perceived through the senses. He wanted only the facts perceived through the senses to be described as phenomena according to their own nature; he wanted to trace sensory phenomena back to their primordial phenomena, but not to combine them with the intellect: What lies at the root here or there? — Goethe made a wonderful statement that sheds light on his entire worldview when he said: “The blue of the sky is itself already a theory; one need only seek nothing behind it.”

[ 23 ] Pure contemplation—that is what Goethe is said to have sought. And he wanted to use the intellect only to arrange phenomena in such a way that they themselves reveal their secrets. Goethe wanted a form of natural science free of hypotheses and free of intellectual combinations. This also underlies his theory of colors. People have completely failed to understand what these things are all about. For Goethe wanted the combining intellect to refrain from combining sensory perceptions, to take a different path. In other words, Goethe wanted to restore the human intellect—the combining intellect—to a state of innocence for the study of nature; he wanted to rid it of the impurity of being merely a transformed olfactory organ, a condition it essentially acquired by committing the Fall. For one aspect of the Fall is that which can be traced back to the ancient era, which I have often mentioned to you

[ 24 ] as I have described. But one consequence of this Fall is that, time and again throughout the course of human evolution, the human organs have, so to speak, come to occupy a lower position than they should. And so the human combinatory intellect, insofar as it operates in the external physical world, is subject to the Fall.

[ 25 ] For the external physical world, this is entirely justified. This physical intellect must be bound to the transformed olfactory organs just as physical sexuality and reproduction must exist for the external physical world. But in science, one must seek the virginity of the intellect. The intellect is detached from the processes it carries out when, as a merely transformed sense of smell, it combines sensory objects. The blue of the sky should not be interpreted in the sense of physical science, in the sense of Newtonian physics—as you can read in any physics textbook today—but rather, the blue of the sky is itself a theory in Goethe’s sense. And to understand Goethe correctly in this field also means to see in him the personality who sought to work entirely in the spirit that is also the spirit of spiritual science. Goethe thought consistently even in the realm of natural science. And by demanding only those theories in natural science that go back to the primordial phenomenon—theories that do not combine all manner of atomic theories, electron theories, theories of gravity, and so on—he in fact pointed precisely to what I intended to suggest in the field of physics by referring to Pallas Athena as the representative of wisdom. Through this alone, however, one begins—even in the field of natural science—to turn toward the Son, so that one snatches the Mother from combinatorics and turns toward the contemplation of the pure, virginal primordial phenomenon.

[ 26 ] This shows you the profound seriousness and deep significance inherent in what might be called Goetheanism. I simply wanted to suggest to you how—regardless of general so-called education—the impulses toward the other side were already present in the 19th century. Let us simply bear this in mind as well. Then we will interpret the demands of the present time in the proper sense and draw the right impulses from these demands of the present.

[ 27 ] We live in catastrophic times. It would, of course, be entirely wrong to believe that what is catastrophic in the sense of Christmas must also be catastrophic in the sense of Easter. However, today’s catastrophes can give rise to precisely the opposite—the greatest achievements of human creativity—if humanity finds ways and means to learn from them and to look with clear-eyed insight at what has happened.

[ 28 ] When I put forward such ideas—which may be far removed from the thinking of some of my friends—it is to point out again and again the important fact that in our time we must strive not to rely comfortably on old concepts and old views, but rather to seek new concepts and new views.

[ 29 ] What, then, actually underlies a tendency such as Goethe’s: not to apply the combinatorial intellect to external phenomena, but rather to contemplate them in their pristine state? The basis for this is that precisely when one does this—when one does not allow this intellect to fall into sin through all manner of combinations involving atoms, groups of atoms, atomic relationships, sound, electrons, gravity, and so on; when one spares the intellect from becoming entangled with external sensuality in order to form materialistic theories— then this intellect turns toward the spiritual side; and it gives birth to the Son: the spiritual-scientific teaching that ultimately leads to a true understanding of the human being, the whole human being. As I have said in recent days: The ancient wisdom, the wisdom of the Middle Ages, and the wisdom of the fourth post-Atlantean epoch led only up to a certain limit; the human being, so to speak, was not included. Today, our task is to understand the human being through our grasp of spiritual realities.

[ 30 ] Humanity should actually be yearning for new concepts, for new ideas. We must fully bring this to mind. And if one asks today: What thoughts will be the best Christmas thoughts? Which ones will bear the best fruit thirty-three years from now? — They will be precisely those that stem from a sincere and honest search for a new understanding of the world, for a new understanding of reality. Developing a longing for what the world has to reveal in a new sense—these are the best Christmas thoughts; not wanting to remain stuck with what is old. This is still a pervasive impulse in humanity today: to remain stuck in the old, because humanity finds it so difficult to summon the strength to draw from the very depths of the soul what is to be expressed through the lips. Today, a person can only truly fulfill their task as a human being if they develop the will to be genuine and true right down to the center of their being—not merely by trying to reflect on the old things, but by making the new—which must be drawn from the depths of their being—the substance of their creed and also of their actions.

[ 31 ] One need not go as far in thoughtless parroting as that politician who, in order to launch a major political campaign in 1917, took an old political proclamation from 1864 and copied it almost word for word! It certainly doesn’t take much thought for a leading politician of 1917 to take an old Brazilian document and copy it sentence by sentence, only to present it to the world as some great revelation! As I said, one need not go as far as this Woodrow Blechschmied—pardon me, I meant to say Wilson—who actually managed to fabricate the “significant manifesto” he issued some time ago by copying, almost word for word, a manifesto by the Emperor of Brazil from 1864.

[ 32 ] But it is necessary to see things—even if they are such pitiful details—in their true light. For one might say: One is moved to overflowing compassion for poor humanity, which today takes seriously things that, when viewed in their true light, actually represent something terrible in terms of insincerity and hypocrisy that pervade the world. — This is not said to accuse in any way, not even to criticize, but only to stimulate the mind to truly open its eyes and see with open eyes what is happening. At times today, things that are nothing more than ridiculous are idolized as something great. But one must look deeply into these matters. If one develops the will to look deeply into them, then one is already cultivating Christmas thoughts that will become the true thoughts of Easter. Then, perhaps in a somewhat paradoxical way, one might even say: The more painful the present is, the greater the fruits it can bear for the future. — But it is precisely a time like ours that requires that the poetic words about a great age “finding a small generation” do not come true.

[ 33 ] Our times are full of suffering. Yet they can still be great; but in a certain sense, they must find people who are also capable of thinking on a grand scale. — The Wilsonians will not be among them!