The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Essential Aspects of Consciousness for the Present and the Future V

[ 1 ] We wanted to explore the following question: Why do people not actually notice how the various periods they pass through in the course of their repeated earthly lives—particularly during our current earthly cycle—are in fact different in terms of their content, including their spiritual and other cultural aspects? We would like to gain clarity on why so many people believe that human beings have changed very little over the millennia, since the dawn of recorded history, even though spiritual science actually shows us how greatly souls have changed in their essential nature over the course of the third, fourth, and fifth post-Atlantean cultural epochs; we ourselves are living in the fifth. Based on spiritual scientific insight, we must acknowledge such a change in the human soul. However, when we consider external history as it is usually presented and written, it tells us very little about such a transformation.

[ 2 ] To get to the heart of this question, I have recently attempted to show that, indeed, if one looks a little more closely at the spiritual aspect of humanity’s historical life, these changes are already evident. I tried to explain how differently human souls felt, for example, in the 11th and 12th centuries, and how differently they feel today. I illustrated this by attempting to shed light on a soul such as that of Bernard of Clairvaux in the 12th century. One could shed light on many other souls as well. But before we continue down this path, let us once again turn our attention to the core of our question. Let us pose the question directly: What prevents human beings from viewing their own transformation through their various earthly lives in the proper way?

[ 3 ] What prevents him from doing so is mainly the fact that, as he is in the present earthly cycle, he has very little insight into his true self, into his actual human nature. Human beings would conceive of their own nature and essence quite differently if certain obstacles did not exist. We will speak of these obstacles later. For now, let us point out—you may take this as a hypothetical for the time being—how human beings would actually experience themselves in the world if they could look upon their true essence.

[ 4 ] If a person could look at his true nature, he would, above all, constantly perceive a great transformation in his personal life between birth and death. No matter how old they are—whether twenty, thirty, or fifty—they would look back on their earlier years leading up to birth and feel as though they were undergoing a continuous metamorphosis. They would perceive the changes they have undergone more clearly, and they would entertain hopeful visions for the future, anticipating that they will undergo further changes. I have spoken of such hopeful visions for the future in earlier lectures I have given here.

[ 5 ] People today do not give much thought to how they have changed over time, because they have far too little spiritual awareness of themselves. Strange as it may seem, the fact is that when people imagine themselves today, they actually always split themselves into two parts. On the one hand, they see their physical body, which they regard—I would say—as something fairly rigid throughout their entire life between birth and death. They are certainly aware that they grow, that they were small and then became taller, but that is almost all they take into their consciousness regarding their outer physical being. Take a simple fact: you cut your nails. Why? Because they grow. This is an example that shows you that, in fact, a continuous shedding of the outer physicality of your organism is taking place. In fact, you are pushing the outer physicality of your organism outward, shedding it, so that after a certain period of time—which in the extreme case lasts six to seven years—what was within you seven or eight years ago is no longer present in you in a material, physical sense. You are constantly shedding your physical form. But human beings do not take into their consciousness the fact that they are actually always slowly shedding their outer physical form and rebuilding themselves from within. Imagine how differently we would perceive ourselves if we were aware that, outwardly, we are, as it were, shedding and dissolving our physical body, and inwardly constantly rebuilding ourselves anew: we would then be observing the metamorphosis of our own being!

[ 6 ] But that would involve something else. The fact that we have the body we carry with us for at most seven years, that we [then] cast off what came before: if we truly took that into our consciousness, we would feel much more spiritual. For then we would not have the deceptive notion: “I was once a little boy and then grew bigger and different.” Instead, we would know: What that little boy was in terms of materiality is somewhere; but what has remained is by no means material—it is something very transcendent. If we were to take this metamorphosis into our consciousness, we would look back on something that has been preserved within us since childhood. We would remember ourselves as spiritual beings. Precisely when we were conscious of what is going on within us, we would take in much more spiritual ideas about ourselves.

[ 7 ] But there is something else involved here: that we would seem much less abstract to ourselves. We actually speak to ourselves by, I would say, transforming ourselves into a kind of mental point. We speak of our “I” and thus have the idea that our “I” was there in our childhood, then it continued to be there—and is there now, and so on. But what we actually imagine when we think of our “I” is merely a kind of mental point. If we could rise to the other conception—that we are constantly dissolving outwardly and rebuilding ourselves inwardly—then we would have no choice but to understand this “I” of ours as the active force, as that which causes us to continually dissolve outwardly and rebuild ourselves inwardly. We would see ourselves as something very real, inwardly active. In short, when we looked at our “I,” we would not be looking at our abstract “I,” as we do now, but we would observe how this “I” works inwardly on our body, how it guides our body from metamorphosis to metamorphosis. We would correct certain notions, for—in connection with what I have just explained—we actually harbor quite erroneous ideas about ourselves. Even in the very words of language lie quite erroneous notions about ourselves. We say, “We grow”—imagining that we were once children and have since become taller. But the matter is not actually as simple as us being small at first and then growing larger. Rather, the truth is this: when we are small children, we experience physical-bodily activity and mental-soul activity more as a unity, and through this, the head organism and the reproductive organism—the sexual organism—remain in a certain proximity to one another. Later, these two experiences become differentiated; the experiences of the head and those of the body grow more distant from one another. The physical organism that we were as children does not grow larger; for it is shed, it melts away. But we differentiate ourselves; the two poles of our being move away from one another. As a result, matter is later organized into a formed body in which the two poles have moved apart. This then seems to us as if we were merely growing. Yet we do not merely grow; rather, we differentiate ourselves internally, and as a result, in later life we come into connection with different external things than in earlier life. Later on, with our head organization, we must stand further removed from the immediate forces of the earth than before. Our head rises. This is connected to the fact that we grow. |

[ 8 ] All these ideas change when we take in what is actually the truth. But we do not take in what the truth is. We blur, so to speak, the constantly metamorphosing body that is continually changing; we blur it and imagine it as if it were growing out of itself, becoming larger, and as a result, we fail to grasp what a rich inner world, a vibrant and living being, our “I” is—one that is constantly at work within us between birth and death. As a result, our conception of ourselves would be quite unified, if we could imagine ourselves in this way. But modern man—and this has been the case for a long time—cannot conceive of himself in this way. This is connected, in a sense, with the human condition, with the entire development of our age. Human beings do not stand so close to their living, active “I”—which actually shapes the organism from year to year—but rather they split it: on the one hand, they look at their organism, which they conceive of quite consistently, and on the other hand, at their “I,” which they abstract, reducing it to a hollow concept. And then such a person says: On the one hand, we are a sensory organism, a physical organism; because of this, we cannot approach things at all, since they can only make an impression on us; the essence of things is not revealed to us at all, the “thing-in-itself” does not reach us at all—we have only appearances. — Certainly, if one regards the physical body as something substantial, this conclusion has a certain validity. Then one looks at this entirely hollow “I” and says: Inside it lives something like a sense of duty. — Then one looks at what can be summarized as the categorical imperative. But in doing so, one divides what is contained within unity. One becomes a Kantian philosopher, dividing the unified human nature by orienting it toward two sides. What I have just expressed penetrates very deeply into human thought.

[ 9 ] Human beings today are therefore ill-suited to perceive themselves as a fully essential force of nature in the world. They are divided in the way I have indicated. But this means that we never truly have our soul before our inner eye; for this soul would be what is constantly at work on the body and transforming it. We do not have our soul before our eyes at all; instead, we see our abstract body and our abstract “I” as separate entities, and we pay no attention to what the whole, unified human being is. This awareness of the whole, unified human being, however, would immediately lead us to recognize that what we perceive as a unified human being is, from incarnation to incarnation, as different as is described here; the true, real human “I,” which conceals itself and hides from the human soul’s gaze in the present—that is what differs from life to life. — Of course, if you consider not the concrete human “I” but the abstract concept of the “I,” then you cannot conclude that the “I” is so different from one life to the next; for when you abstract, everything that is in any way similar ultimately becomes the same. Of course, the souls in successive earthly lives are similar; but on the other hand, they are also as different as we have always described, in that the human being lives through human development from one life to the next. Because the human being does not, in truth, have an overview of the full range of movement of his body or the full range of real activity of his “I,” he therefore does not see his true nature. This is something that must be upheld as a golden rule in the true knowledge and understanding of human beings. And why is that so?

[ 10 ] You can answer the question of why this is so based on your knowledge of the Ahrimanic and Luciferic principles. We split our being, splitting it in such a way that, on the one hand, we look at our body as something that is initially small and then expands and grows, whereas in truth it is constantly renewing itself. What do we see there, what appears to us when we look at our body in this way? The Ahrimanic appears to us—that which is active within us as the Ahrimanic. Yet this Ahrimanic aspect is not our true human being; that is the generic aspect, which in fact remains the same throughout all ages. So when we look at our body, we are actually looking at our Ahrimanic aspect, and modern scientific anthropology actually describes only the Ahrimanic aspect of the human being. That is one thing we see: the physical aspect as we have condensed it in our imagination. The other thing we see is the abstract “I,” which is actually quite fluctuating, existing very much only in time, when we then imagine ourselves between birth and death. There we have our individual upbringing within it—our uselessness and our good behavior—and there we survey our personal life between birth and death. But we do not see our “I” as it truly is, as it works on the metamorphosis of our physical body; rather, we see it in a thin, Luciferic-diluted form. We see our physical body materialized in an Ahrimanic way, and we see our spiritual-soul aspect diluted in a Luciferic way.

[ 11 ] If that were not the case—if we were not so divided that one pole of our being is Ahrimanic and the other Luciferic—we would have a much closer relationship with the dead as well—who remain among us constantly—because we would also have a much closer relationship with the spiritual world. We would perceive the entirety of reality, which includes the world in which a human being also exists after passing through the gate of death and before re-entering this world through the gate of conception.

[ 12 ] Thus, we never actually have our true being before us, but rather, on the one hand, the physical, corporeal Ahrimanic illusion and, on the other hand, the spiritual, soul-related Luciferic illusion—two illusions of ourselves—between which, however, imperceptible to us, our true human being lives, yet of whom we must speak when we speak of the human being; for it is this being who is our true human being, passing from life to life.

[ 13 ] We must take what has just been presented as an insight into human nature very deeply to heart. This explains why people believe that human beings remain the same throughout the various ages. When we examine these misconceptions about human beings, on the one hand we see what remains the same in terms of the human species over long periods of time, and on the other hand, we fail to extend the concept of what the true spiritual-soul being is beyond the life between birth and death. If one were to recognize how the spiritual-soul aspect transforms the body from year to year, one would also comprehend the tremendous transition that occurs when the spiritual-soul aspect enters the physical body through conception, or departs from it again through death. We take no account whatsoever of how the spiritual-soul aspect works upon the body.

[ 14 ] We can also express what we just said in a different way. Our finished organism, as we conceive it from an Ahrimanic perspective, is actually very little of what we are as human beings. We merely dwell within this organism. What we actually usually perceive in it—what we perceive in a truly Ahrimanically condensed form—actually stems much more from our previous incarnation than from this one. From the various reflections of this year, as well as from others, you will be able to gather that your physiognomy and your other enduring characteristics actually stem from your previous incarnation, your past life. One can actually see very clearly from a person’s physiognomy what takes them back to their past life. What pertains to the physical body is actually much more closely connected to the past life than to the present one. But people today are simply led to believe that: “We have no previous life, so a past life cannot possibly determine our present form—whether we are tall or short.” — But we are merely convincing ourselves of that. If we truly understood ourselves, we would have no choice but to look back on our past lives. If we were to examine this now—as I have explained it—in terms of what shapes our physical organism, things would become much clearer. We would notice what we cannot shape ourselves, but rather what has already been shaped by our past lives. Anyone who can truly look at a human being knows how their spiritual-soul aspect shapes their physical body. This, so to speak, emerges from within that person, and behind it remains what, from an Ahrimanic perspective, can be seen as the form shaped by the previous incarnation.

[ 15 ] For those who have grown accustomed to viewing human beings as truly living beings, when they encounter another person, it is always as if someone were emerging from that person. The one who steps out is the present human being; one usually just does not see him. The one who, on the other hand, remains somewhat behind is the one formed from the previous incarnation. And into the one who steps out, something very soon steps in. The one who steps out is, at first, I would say, quite transparent; then very soon he becomes opaque. Because the spiritual-soul aspect is active and appears as such, it densifies what has stepped out. And then something emerges that appears to one as a seed for the next earthly life.

[ 16 ] To those who see through the circumstances, modern humanity expresses itself in threefold form. Various mythical representations have symbolically captured this. Try to recall numerous depictions in which three generations are shown one after the other simply to illustrate this manifestation of the human trinity. Recall certain depictions of Isis, as well as some from the Christian era, in which three figures that belong together are shown in succession. In truth, what is meant here is precisely what I have just explained. Of course, one can reinterpret it if one wishes to interpret it materialistically: grandmother, mother, and child—if one so desires. But such a trinity is depicted precisely because it corresponds to a reality of perception. You can best imagine imagery from earlier times if you do not focus on the fanciful notions of contemporary science—which is always pondering what someone has conjured up about a pictorial representation—but rather if you take into account what people saw in a not-so-distant past and how they then artistically depicted what they had seen.

[ 17 ] Such a consideration as the one we have just made becomes important—especially important—when we realize that Christ, who passed through the Mystery of Golgotha, has this relationship—of which we always speak—to the true human “I.” So if you keep Paul’s words in mind: “Not I, but Christ in me,” this “in me” refers to the true “I,” which is hidden and veiled from today’s perspective. To a certain extent, a person must regard this as a spiritual reality if they wish to find the right relationship to Christ. One might well wonder how certain words in the Gospels can be understood if this is not taken into account. Just think of that passage in the Gospel of John right at the beginning, where John speaks of how Christ comes to humanity as the place where he belongs. Translators of the Gospels usually render it as follows: “He came to his own, and his own did not receive him.” But then it continues: “Yet to all who did receive him, he gave the right to become children of God—to those who believe in his name, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of a man, but of God.” And it is clearly indicated that he actually wanted to come to all people who possess such awareness. But the “outer” human beings—that is, all people as they usually exist—are most certainly “of the blood and of the will of a man.” The human being, however, whom I have described as the true one—who is not born of the blood and will of a man—does indeed come from the spiritual world and clothes himself in what comes from physical heredity. The Gospel speaks of the human being I have spoken of today, and that is why it is so difficult to understand and is so often misinterpreted—because people force it into concepts that they wish to impose on it today. But without the concepts that spiritual science can convey, the things recorded in the Gospels cannot be understood. Once one has these concepts, a light suddenly dawns regarding the Gospels.

[ 18 ] In light of all these circumstances, something truly momentous in human evolution actually took place with the Mystery of Golgotha. You know—from books as well as from lectures—that up until then, the entire human “I” had lived within the body in a different way than it did afterward. The time of the Mystery of Golgotha was also a time when the entire consciousness of humanity underwent a transformation. All of this, of course, was brought about by the Christ Being uniting with the evolution of the Earth, as I have often described. But the time has come when we must increasingly understand what this Mystery of Golgotha and its relationship to humanity are actually all about. A particular stumbling block for many interpreters of the Gospel, for example, is a saying in Christianity that is expressed or translated in one way or another, but which actually states that “the Kingdom of Heaven has come down.” Among those who have thoroughly misunderstood this statement is Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, who, if I may say so, latched onto this phrase by claiming that Christians assert that with the Mystery of Golgotha a kind of Kingdom of Heaven came down to Earth, yet nothing at all had changed; the ears of grain had not grown twelve times larger, the cherries had not grown larger—and so on. By this she intends to suggest that things on the physical earth have not changed. This “descent of the Kingdom of Heaven,” of the spiritual realm, poses great difficulties for many interpreters of the Gospels precisely because it is not well understood. What is meant is that, up until then, whatever people could experience as spiritual in the physical world, they experienced through atavistic clairvoyance. Afterward, they had to rise to the spiritual realm and recognize things in the spiritual realm that has truly come. There is no need to accept all the speculations put forward from various quarters; rather, one should take reality as it is intended. This reality lies in the following:

[ 19 ] It is truly the case that, through Christ’s passage through the Mystery of Golgotha, things have come to be such for human beings that they can no longer receive their spiritual existence through mere physical existence alone, but must live in the spiritual world. Whoever lives only in the physical world no longer lives on earth but lives beneath the earth; for since the Mystery of Golgotha, the possibility of living in the spirit has been given. The spiritual realm has truly come into being. The expression is immediately understood when taken as I have explained it. But Christ stands in a real relationship to this. This, however, was to remain hidden for the time being. It was to be revealed to humanity only gradually, as people earned it for themselves. And only by recognizing this can one understand the true course of recent history following the Mystery of Golgotha. In the first centuries, Christianity—as it had come into the world through the Mystery of Golgotha—took root in Gnosticism, which was still more or less present. People had very spiritual conceptions to clarify for themselves what Christ Jesus actually is. Then the Church took on a specific form. You can, of course, trace this form historically, but you must properly grasp the purpose of this form of the Church from the 3rd, 4th, and 5th centuries onward.

[ 20 ] What I am about to say must by no means be misunderstood. Spiritual Science, as represented here, is truly grounded in genuine, active tolerance toward all existing religious revelations. Spiritual Science must therefore also be able to discern the relative truth of the various religious creeds. This is not to say that spiritual science leans more or less favorably toward this or that creed, but rather that it seeks to bring to light the truth contained in the various religious creeds; it will therefore weigh matters carefully and will not be one-sided. It cannot, therefore, be said of spiritual science that it leans toward this or that creed; it seeks to be a science of the spiritual. Spiritual science can, for example, fully appreciate that it is a pity that what lies within the Catholic liturgy has been lost to many people. Spiritual science is well able to appreciate the merits of the Catholic liturgy in relation to culture. It also recognizes how certain artistic productions are closely related to the Catholic liturgy, which is, after all, merely a continuation of various other religious creeds—far more so than is generally believed. A profound mystery lies at the heart of this liturgy. But what I have to say relates to something fundamentally different—certainly not to the Catholic cult, which has its own full inner justification and is an immensely stimulating force for human creativity. But what I must elucidate is this: that ecclesiastical forms have been entrusted with certain tasks—tasks that they once fulfilled to the highest degree, and indeed still fulfill today, even as fervent souls like Bernard of Clairvaux grew out of the Church for the sake of their God. One must always distinguish between the Church—and figures such as Bernard of Clairvaux and numerous others. But what was the Church’s task? Its task was to keep souls as far away as possible from the knowledge of Christ, to ensure as much as possible that souls did not come too close to Christ. And the history of church life from the 3rd and 4th centuries onward is, in essence, the history of distancing the human mind from an understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha. There is a certain opposition to the understanding of Christ in the development of the Church. This negative role of the Church does, in fact, have its justification. It is justified by the fact that people have had to strive anew time and again to come to Christ through the power of their own minds, through the power of their own souls. And, fundamentally speaking, people’s coming to Christ throughout all these centuries has been a continuous rebellion against the Church. Even people like Bernard of Clairvaux were, in fact, rebelling against the institutional church. Study Thomas Aquinas for yourself: he was regarded as a heretic by those who were orthodox within the church; he was frowned upon, and the church did not adopt his teachings until later. The path to Christ was, in fact, always a struggle against the church, and only slowly and gradually were people able to work their way toward Christ. Let us consider, for example, that people like Peter Waldo, the founder of the so-called “Waldensian sect,” lived in the 12th century with his companions, and none of them had any knowledge of the Gospels at that time. The spread of church life had, after all, taken place without the Gospels. Just think about that! Some people were gathered from Peter Waldo’s circle who were able to translate parts of the Gospels; in this way, they came to know the Gospels, and once they had come to know them, a holy, exalted Christian life flowed from the Gospels. However, this resulted in Peter Waldus being declared a heretic by the Pope, against the will of his companions. Even up to that time, certain Gnostic teachings had spread throughout Europe, as was the case, for example, with the Cathars—which translates as “the Pure Ones.” But this Gnostic knowledge was aimed at forming concrete ideas about Christ and the Mystery of Golgotha. From the official Church’s standpoint, this was not to be tolerated. That is why the Cathars were labeled heretics. The name “heretic” is simply a variant of “Cathar”—it is the same word. |

[ 21 ] It is absolutely essential to grasp the full significance of what I am now speaking about, so that one may distinguish the path of Christianity from the path of the Church, and so that, in our time, one may come to understand the need to pave a path to the true Christ—to the true concept of Christ—through the foundation of spiritual science. So much about our present time becomes clear when one realizes that not everything that has been baptized in the Christian name was intended to convey an understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha, but that much of it was intended precisely to prevent this understanding, to erect a barrier against it. And does this barrier not still exist today? It certainly exists today! I would like to present some characteristic examples of this to you.

[ 22 ] Including Protestantism, the movements that arose in many places were always in opposition to the Church because the Church often served to erect a barrier to the understanding of Christ, and because people had to work their way toward that understanding. Petrus Waldus had to do this by seeking out the Gospels. Until then, people had only the Church, not the Gospels. But even today, some people still hold strange views about this relationship between the Church and the Gospels. From a more recent work that is very characteristic of such views, I would like to read you a passage from which you will see that this view—which led to Peter Waldus being excommunicated back then because he sought the way to Christ in the Gospels—still has its roots in the present day. So take a statement like this, as it is spoken even today. The text I am referring to states: “The Gospels and the Epistles of the Apostles are for us the written records of revelation, incomparable in value; but they are neither the foundation upon which our faith must first be built, nor the sole source from which we independently draw the content of the latter. In our view, the Church is older than the Holy Scriptures; we derive the latter from her; she vouches for their authenticity; and in the face of the dangers of manuscript transmission and the alterations in wording that occur during translation into all the languages of the earth, the Church is for us the sole reliable interpreter of the meaning and scope of all individual statements.”

[ 23 ] In other words, what really matters is not what the Gospels actually say, but what the Church says we are supposed to look for in the Gospels. I must say this for the simple reason that there is a great deal of naivety about this matter even in our circles. Time and again, even in our circles, the view seeks to gain ground that it might be more beneficial to us in our dealings with the Catholic Church if it could be said of us that we hold a “Christ-friendly” view. But that will not help us at all in our dealings with the Catholic Church; rather, it will only discredit us, because in the Catholic Church nothing may be advocated concerning Christ or in relation to anything that goes beyond mere natural science—anything that is not recognized by the Church itself as doctrine. So whoever among us holds a conception of Christ and now believes that this will enable him to justify himself before the Catholic Church is, in fact, incriminating himself—or rather, is considered to be incriminating himself—because he has no right to say anything about Christ from sources other than the Church’s doctrine.

[ 24 ] The same author who wrote what I just read aloud expresses himself very clearly on this point: “For the believer, of course, the situation is no different than it is for the natural scientist with the facts of experience” — in other words, he believes that the believer must accept what the Church prescribes regarding the spiritual world just as the eyes perceive the facts of nature —, “he must accept them as they are; he can neither subtract from nor add to them; it is precisely this perception of the actual state of affairs, purified as much as possible of all subjective embellishments, that is required of him above all else.. . The truths of revelation, too, are a given—for those who embrace them in faith. Moreover, they are a closed and complete whole. Since the time of Christ, they cannot be enriched, nor can their substance be diminished; any change in their content is ruled out. “This is said by someone who is fully immersed in what the true Catholic, the true member of the Catholic Church, must say. This true member of the Catholic Church must, for example, turn away—with a certain reluctance—from such things as were introduced by Lessing, which ultimately amounted to a search for the spiritual and psychological once again. Lessing’s work led all the way to the idea of repeated earthly lives. This flowed out of the newer spiritual life. But that which stands on the ground of the Catholic Church must place itself in the sharpest contradiction to German spiritual life as it flowed through Lessing, Herder, Goethe, and Schiller. The same man who wrote what I have read to you therefore also writes: “The body of church doctrine, as it stands before theologians today and is presented by them, was certainly not complete and finalized from the very beginning. What Christ imparted to the apostles, and what they proclaimed to the world, was not a methodically progressive, comprehensively developed system; it was a wealth of truths, all of which converge—as if at a focal point—in the single fact of salvation history: the Incarnation of the divine Logos. But the instruction of the faithful and the defense against the attacks of the pagans as well as against the misinterpretations of the heretics made it necessary to systematically connect these truths with one another, to develop their full content, and to establish their precise meaning. This was accomplished through the unceasing proclamation of doctrine by the authorities called to this task; according to Catholic understanding, it took place under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, but at the same time with the collaboration of early ecclesiastical scholarship.

[ 25 ] Revelation did not create a new language, but rather made use of the language already in circulation, redefining and elevating the meaning and significance of individual words. Theology, too, which undertook to systematically and doctrinally analyze the content of Revelation and to penetrate it speculatively, required certain tools and aids for this purpose: sharply defined concepts for structuring the material, and specific expressions to indicate, in an understandable way, relationships that extend far beyond the experiences of daily life. Thus, Greek philosophy was entrusted with its new task in world history. It had helped prepare the vessels into which an infinitely richer content, originating from a higher source, was now poured. Initially, it was Platonism from which one drew. The direction of its speculation toward the supernatural directly called for this. Much later, after more than a millennium had passed and the most important elements of revelation had long since found their dogmatic formulation, the close union of theological science with Aristotelian philosophy took place, a union that continues to this day.” — Since Aristotelian philosophy was already united with the Church in the Middle Ages, it may also be accepted in the Church today! — “With its help, St. Thomas Aquinas, the greatest systematist in history, erected the great edifice of doctrine which, modified only in details here and there, determined the form, expression, and method of teaching of Catholic theology for the centuries that followed.”

[ 26 ] Now, the gentleman in question, from whom this text originates, does indeed acknowledge that what he calls “church doctrine” has come about through a certain synthesis of the substance of Christian wisdom with Greek-Aristotelian philosophy. He even envisions the possibility that in a future—which he, however, imagines to be quite distant—he explicitly says “in a future that is by no means near today”—one might approach Christianity with entirely different ideas. He says: What if Christianity had not spread through Greek philosophy, but—as would indeed have been possible—through Indian philosophy? Everything would have taken on a different form. Nevertheless, we must stick to the form it has taken; we must not alter it with a different perspective that comes from more recent times. Admittedly, he senses that there are points where the matter becomes precarious: “I am opposed only to a mindset that, in fields where scientific research is entitled to full freedom, remains deaf to all objections—no matter how well-founded—and clings to tradition.” Yet he himself adheres quite strictly to tradition!

[ 27 ] “And in the end, one must give in, just as one gave in regarding the Copernican system of the world.” That was as recently as 1827! But he turns away from the attempt—which was, after all, made for good reason—to understand Christianity anew by seeking to grasp it from the perspective of modern consciousness. This displeases him particularly. He says: “I could imagine that, in the not-too-distant future, the connection between theology and Aristotelian philosophy might be loosened, and the concepts that are no longer comprehensible—and even less satisfying—might be replaced by others that correspond to their vastly improved knowledge.” He “could imagine” that what no one understands anymore could be replaced by something that no one understands either. “This would not contravene the Gospel’s warning, for it would not be a matter of pouring new wine into old wineskins; rather, the opposite would be true: new vessels would be crafted to preserve within them the inexhaustible and, by its very nature, unchanging wine of the doctrine of salvation and to serve it to the faithful.”

[ 28 ] But this must not happen. For: “The vessels would, of course, have to be suitable for this purpose. The attempts made in the 17th century with Cartesian philosophy and in the 19th century with Kantian and Hegelian philosophy serve as a warning to exercise caution. A conceptual system intended to replace the Aristotelian one would have to, just like the latter, have emerged from the abundance of knowledge and a sense of time [itself] ”—then these people would come and oppose it, because they certainly did not emerge from the “abundance of knowledge and a sense of the times”—“it [the conceptual system] would have to have attained, just like the Aristotelian one, lasting dominance over broad circles of thinking humanity. Even then, however, its application in ecclesiastical theology would hardly take place without all manner of errors and confusion.” One would have to “work” to bring about mutual understanding. “After all, it was no different in the 13th century, when the complete body of Aristotelian philosophy came to the attention of the Christian West through the mediation of the Arabs. Its reception met with fierce resistance in some quarters. Even Thomas Aquinas was not spared such hostility. At the time, many regarded him as an innovator against whom the defenders of the tried-and-true old ways had to direct their attacks.”

[ 29 ] It is strange how people are—how they absolutely refuse to entertain ideas they can quite easily conceive of, simply out of a principled desire to suppress the traditional understanding of Christianity, especially when they themselves are products of that very era. And one cannot say that such a thing is not cleverly done. It is very erudite, for the little book concludes with a truly significant reference—a reference to a religious order that has always valued prudence, a reference to a religious order that has organized itself differently from Bernard of Clairvaux or Francis of Assisi, who oriented themselves toward a certain mystical inclination toward piety. That other religious order placed less emphasis on mystical piety or the like, but rather on a certain wisdom and an understanding of the affairs of life. That is why the little book concludes: “I close with a saying of St. Ignatius of Loyola, which has been included in the Constitutions of the Society of Jesus and to which attention has recently been drawn from various quarters: ‘em’ ‘The pursuit of learning, when driven by the pure desire to serve God, is—precisely because it engages the whole person—not less, but even more pleasing to God than exercises of penance.’”

[ 30 ] In our time, attempts have been made to foster a clear understanding on all sides. I would like to illustrate this with an example. Today I read to you from a text from which you can see how people on a certain side behave in accordance with a trend that I described. That people behave this way is recognized, for example, by a gentleman who recently—and it is important that it was recently—wrote an essay about the man who authored this little treatise. So I would now like to read a passage from this essay to you: “In the 1893 speech ‘On the Task of Catholic Scholarship and the Position of Catholic Scholars in the Present,’ he makes the following declaration: ‘We, too, as Catholic scholars of the nineteenth century, are convinced that there is no contradiction between knowledge and faith, but that both are destined to permeate one another in intimate harmony. We are convinced that there is not, and cannot be, a dual truth. God is the source of all truth; He has spoken to us through the prophets and the Logos made flesh; He speaks to us through the Magisterium of the Church, but no less so through the laws of logic, to which we must adhere as we strive for the knowledge of natural truths. And because God cannot contradict Himself, there can be no contradiction between supernatural and natural truths, between the teachings of revelation and what serious, sincere science—following the laws of logic and the rules of methodology—brings to light.” But this silences philosophy. Its freedom strikes us as being exactly like that of a herd within a fence or of prisoners within enclosing walls. Just as these are not free—even though they may use their own feet to move and their own hands to act, and can move about at will within the enclosed area—so, too, philosophy, with its own principles, is not free under the determining, limiting dominion of faith. “Catholic philosophy contains an inherent contradiction within itself, for it is not unconditionally free, left to its own devices.” If our philosophy were not left to its own devices, it would not be what it is meant to be. “It [Catholic philosophy] has a predetermined course.” A philosophy that claims to be scientific may only, with uncompromising consistency, uphold what stems from its own research and thought, bound by the strict rules of research and reasoning; it must not stand within a specific religion or adopt a specific ecclesiastical-dogmatic standpoint. Otherwise, it is not science, but unscientific dogmatism; it is determined not by principles of knowledge, but by faith and dogmas. It does not follow its own path unhindered and uninfluenced; it does not follow its own laws impartially, but recognizes from the outset a truth that rightly exists and relinquishes its independence in the face of it.”

[ 31 ] But that is precisely the task of our time: to find the path where every human soul can stand on its own. A person who asserts something like what I read to you from that text is therefore in the sharpest contradiction to the true task of our time. You see, there are also people who recognize this: that, in any case, a worldview—a scientific worldview—is not possible if one holds such views. But it seems quite difficult in the present day to maintain the impartiality of one’s judgments, even though it is so necessary. For the future course of culture will depend on people coming to find their spiritual connection—how they are connected to the spiritual world; and whoever fails to recognize this hinders the most important task of our time. This conclusion must be drawn in any case. What is strange today is that people can understand something, but then, oddly enough, draw different conclusions from it. For the author of that essay goes on to write about the man from whom I read to you—a man whose journey culminates in a profession of Jesuitism—and the man who wrote this essay was, at the time of its composition, Georg Freiherr von FHertling—now known, as you know, as Count von Hertling—but the author of that essay, after having previously stated, “All of this precludes science,” concludes his article with the words: “Count Hertling is a decidedly pronounced individuality. Individuality literally means indivisibility, but it is precisely this that simultaneously implies divisibility, internal gradation, and consistent organization. The individual soul, the tribal soul, and the national soul converge and mutually enhance one another in this man; it is this trinity of souls that makes him so strong and imprints upon him the mark of the chosen Chancellor of the German Empire.”

[ 32 ] In our present age, it is essential that we find a way to tap into the nerve through which the vital force of spiritual science must flow. And this nerve can be none other than the one that allows that which enables the human soul to find its own path to spiritual life to flow through it. This must be thoroughly understood, for it is connected to the deepest needs and the most essential impulses of our present age. For our time demands that a person, when he or she sees through something, be able to acknowledge it and truly draw the necessary conclusions from it. Our spiritual science can truly take root only among those who have the courage to face the truth; otherwise, we will increasingly witness such phenomena. I must also say this because there are more and more naive minds among us who take great delight whenever something related to spiritual science—or something that merely appears to be so—is praised here or there. It is precisely on this point that one must exercise discernment. Praise can be far more harmful to us and far more contrary to our aspirations than any criticism, provided it is sincerely meant.

[ 33 ] Hermann Heisler, a Protestant theologian, gave a series of lectures in Konstanz, which he later compiled under the title *Lebensfragen: 17 Sermons by Hermann Heisler*. I happened to come across a review of this book by Hermann Heisler that is very characteristic, and our naive friends might count this review among the things they should be pleased about, since it actually praises everything. But this review is characteristic: “These sermons deserve special attention, if only for the sake of the preacher. He served as a Protestant pastor in Styria and Bohemia for ten years; then, alarmed by the danger of becoming stuck in the routine of his ministry, he temporarily resigned from his post to devote himself for years to thorough studies in the natural sciences and philosophy, until he finally, driven by an inner calling, returned to the ministry with renewed joy and love. Since he could not serve his homeland with arms, he offered his spiritual services to his native Baden regional church and was entrusted with a parish in Constance. It was there, in the course of the year 1917, that the 17 sermons presented here were delivered. They also stand out in terms of content. They are all based on thorough intellectual work and require serious engagement from their listeners and readers. They do not seek to stir up pleasant emotions, but rather to form a conviction that becomes knowledge through serious reflection. Thus, they avoid the typical tone of a sermon and read almost like scholarly treatises—solid yet accessible—on religious issues. I cite as an example the sermon on the ambiguous concept of freedom. It arrives at the true conclusion: “Of course, it is always a duty that guides us. Even as liberated human beings, we follow the goal that beckons to us most strongly. But that is the divine gift of freedom that Christ brings us—that the base temptations of the sensory world lose their compelling power over our soul, and that the glory of the spiritual world gains inner power over us.’ But what is distinctive about Heisler’s sermon does not lie generally in the intense strain of thought; it lies in the specific content of his ideas: Heisler is a convinced and enthusiastic theosophist. He himself would probably prefer to say: a follower of spiritual science. This, however, must not be confused with a spiritualist belief in the materialization of spirits, but rather asserts a purely spiritual effect of the spirit, unbound to any material means. Our thoughts are forces that radiate from us invisibly yet powerfully, imprinting the stamp of our being on all of nature—either for its benefit or to its detriment. This belief in the indestructible power of the spirit is meant to have a comforting effect in the sermon “Our Dead Live On”; it takes on a surprising form in the sermon “Fate.” Based on John 9 (the man born blind), the ancient Indian and Orphic doctrine of the transmigration of souls—the reincarnation of the soul in an earthly body—is taught here: with it, the preacher seeks to solve the riddles of fate, which often seems so unjust, and, much like Lessing in his *Education of the Human Race*, to awaken faith in a purposeful divine education. If I add that Heisler regards this doctrine—like his entire spiritual science—as a return to the New Testament, and that he presents it as a science, thereby consciously crossing the Kantian boundary between knowledge and faith, then I have probably outlined the main features of his ideas.”

[ 34 ] One might say: What more could one want? After all, one couldn’t really write anything better! — But the man who writes this concludes his reflection: “I personally reject this spiritual science and stick with Kant.” But the sermons contain so much that is good, and theosophy is currently influencing theology in such a significant way (see, for example, Rittelmeyer’s essays in *Christliche Welt*) that I believe I am doing many theologians and laypeople a service by emphatically drawing their attention to these sermons by Heisler.”

[ 35 ] This is the way people often think in our time—how our thinking lacks inner strength and inner courage. The man has “only good things” to say; you can tell he recognizes the good, too, because he can express it quite nicely. But then: “Personally, I reject this spiritual science”! There you have the fruits of what I described earlier, and many things in the present are connected to these fruits.

[ 36 ] Today, I would like to explore this further over the next eight days: the current that I described today, which then leads all the way to social democracy and Bolshevism.