The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Fourth Lecture

[ 1 ] The day before yesterday, an attempt was made here to point out the impulses from which Christianity developed. We were able to see how the very essence of Christianity—its core—has, so to speak, become embodied; of course, this is difficult to express precisely, but we can describe it, by way of comparison, in terms of three elements: the ancient Hebrew soul, the Greek spirit, and the Roman body. Now, in order to cultivate its application—to be able to speak of the application of Christian thought to the immediate present—let us first continue this reflection a little further; let us, so to speak, try to gain some further insights today into this inner core, this central essence of Christianity.

[ 2 ] If one wishes to address the development of Christianity, one has no choice—as you can already see from my book *Christianity as a Mystical Fact*—but to show to what extent Christianity developed out of the mystery traditions of pre-Christian times. It is generally not easy today to speak about the mystery traditions, for the reason that, in the course of human development —as dictated by necessary laws—we have reached precisely that point in time, or rather that epoch—and in a certain sense we are still in the midst of it—in which the mystery traditions have receded, in which they can no longer play the role they once played, for example, during the time when Christianity developed not only from other sources but also from the mystery traditions. There are good reasons why the mystery tradition has receded in our time, and, drawing specifically on what we will discuss today and in the coming days, we will explore these reasons and also see how this mystery tradition can be reestablished.

[ 3 ] What drove people in ancient times—and I am speaking first of all of pre-Christian times, let us say, to begin with, the pre-Christian Greek and pre-Christian Egyptian-Chaldean periods—what drove people in those ancient times toward the world of the mysteries was the fact that their worldview at that time compelled them to accept the conviction that: the world that spreads out all around them is not directly the true world; one must seek ways and means to penetrate the true world as a human being. A strong sense of a certain fact was characteristic of the people of those ancient times who set themselves any kind of intellectual puzzle. These people were aware of the fact that—no matter how hard one might strive through external observations to penetrate the essence of the world—one cannot penetrate this essence of the world through external observation alone. To fully grasp the weight of this insight from those ancient times, one must even take into account that we are speaking of times when the vast majority of people still had a complete external perception of spiritual, elemental facts. It was not the case for these people, as it is today for the vast majority of people, that they perceived only the impressions of the external senses; these people still perceived spiritual essences, as it were, through the phenomena of nature. They also perceived effects that were by no means limited to what we today call natural processes. Nevertheless, even though these people spoke of the manifestation of elemental spirits in nature, they were deeply convinced that these perceptions of the external world—no matter how clairvoyant they might be—could not lead to the true essence of this world, and that this true essence of the world had to be sought through special means. These special paths are beautifully summarized in the Greek worldview in the phrase “Know thyself.”

[ 4 ] If one searches for the true meaning of the phrase “Know thyself,” one will find something like the following. One will find that the power of this phrase stems from the insight that, no matter how broadly one may survey the external world, no matter how deeply one may penetrate it, not only does one fail to discover the essence of that external world itself, but one also fails to discover the essence of the human being. To put it simply in terms of today’s worldview, one could say: These people were convinced that a view of nature cannot provide insight into the essence of the human being. On the other hand, however, they were convinced that this essence of the human being is connected to the whole of nature spread out across the world; that is, if a human being succeeds in penetrating into his or her own essence, he or she would be able, through the knowledge of his or her own essence, to know something essential about this world as well. They were convinced that they could not, at first, gain insight into the nature of the world from the world itself. But from the nature of the human being—who is, after all, a part of this world—they could, if they were able to recognize it, also gain insight into the nature of the world. Hence: Know thyself in order to know the world. — That was, in a sense, the impulse. And that was the impulse that lay at the foundation of—well, let’s say—the Egyptian-Chaldean initiation. — All initiation proceeds through stages—we have come to call them degrees—proceeds upward through stages, through degrees. Now, the first step, the first degree of the Egyptian-Chaldean initiation, is described in a single phrase: the initiate must first pass through the “Gate of Man.” That was, in a sense, the first step: the passage through the Gate of Man. That is to say, the human being himself was to be made into the gate of knowledge. Humanity was to be recognized because, if one recognizes the essence of humanity in humanity itself at this gateway to the world, one can also penetrate the essence of the world by way of humanity. Therefore, “Know thyself” is synonymous with entering the essence of the world through the Gate of Humanity.

[ 5 ] Now, I do not intend to speak in great detail today about these various degrees of initiation, but I would like to highlight what is essential for understanding Christianity. Therefore, do not regard what I am about to say as an exhaustive account of the nature of the degrees of initiation, but rather as intended to highlight certain characteristic features of these degrees of the Egyptian-Chaldean initiation, which were particularly preparatory—and indeed did serve as a preparation—for the development of the essence of Christianity.

[ 6 ] What the initiate was to recognize at the gate of humanity was, therefore, the very essence of humanity itself. This was something he could not find—no matter how far and how closely he looked around—in what the outer world revealed to him. In the Mysteries, it was clearly understood that something of the mysteries of existence had been left behind in human nature—mysteries that could be discovered within this human nature using human means, but which cannot be found by turning one’s gaze toward the external world. These people were convinced of this. If one turns one’s gaze toward the external world, one does indeed first encounter the earthly natural reality that surrounds human beings. Yet this earthly natural reality is, in a sense, merely a kind of veil or covering, insofar as human beings perceive it. And even what natural science has to say today about this external nature, as it presents itself, is, by its very nature, such that it by no means sheds light on itself. Then human beings were able to direct their gaze—and in those ancient times this was done much more intensely than it is today—upward from the outer nature they perceive here on Earth in their surroundings, toward the world of the stars. There they saw many things about which they knew well in those ancient times—a knowledge that has been lost to the outer world today—that human beings are just as connected to them as they are to the plant, animal, and mineral kingdoms here on Earth. It was known that just as human beings are born from the realms of nature on Earth, they are also, in some way within themselves, born from the extra-terrestrial, the extraterrestrial cosmos. However, that which unites human beings with this extra-terrestrial, extraterrestrial cosmos became apparent to their consciousness when they passed through the “gate of humanity.” Within themselves, human beings carried, so to speak, the remnants of a connection from which they had detached themselves during the transition from the lunar nature to the earthly nature. They carried within themselves the remnants of their connection to the extraterrestrial cosmos. Humanity was thus led to the Gate of Humanity; there, it was to come to know humanity itself. It came to know within itself that which it could previously only gaze upon from the outside, namely in the world of the stars.

[ 7 ] He came to know within himself not only how, as a true human being, he is integrated into an earthly body composed of the realms of earthly nature, but he also came to know how that which emanates from the entire extraterrestrial world of the stars has flowed into his entire human being. Through self-knowledge, one might say, the human being discovered the nature of the starry heavens. He came to understand how he had descended from stage to stage—in a sense, from heaven to heaven—before arriving on Earth and becoming incarnated in an earthly body. And at the Gate of Man, he was to ascend these stages again—eight of which were usually listed. During his initiation, he was, so to speak, to retrace his steps through those very stages through which he had descended until he was born here into a physical body.

[ 8 ] Such knowledge—I am now referring throughout to pre-Christian mystery knowledge—cannot be acquired without the whole being of the human person being embraced. The preparation that the initiate had to undergo in those times—modern people are reluctant to even conceive of it—I choose my words so that they express the fact as precisely as possible—because these concepts confuse them. People today would perhaps like to undergo initiation as something one casually picks up along the way in life, something one completes on the side. They want to inform themselves—as it is called today—about what leads to these insights; in any case, people today do not wish to experience what those ancient people who sought initiation had to endure. To be transformed in their entire human being through the preparation for insight, to become a different person—that is something they do not wish to do. But those people had to resolve to become a different person. The descriptions you so often find of this ancient mystery tradition give you only a vague idea, for these descriptions are usually phrased in such a way that one gets the impression these ancient initiations simply passed people by as a side matter, much like the so-called initiations of modern Freemasonry. But that is not the case. Even where ancient initiations are imitated in the present, one is dealing only with all manner of imitations of what was truly lived through in those ancient times—imitations that can indeed be completed in life in a casual manner, just as modern people desire. But what was an essential preparation for the people of old was that they had to undergo that inner state of soul which can be described in a single phrase: they had to be led, to the utmost degree, through that fear which a person always feels when they are truly and genuinely brought, with full consciousness, before something entirely unknown to them. That was precisely the essence of the ancient initiations: that people had to truly absorb within themselves, with the utmost intensity, the feeling that they were standing before something they could not possibly face in any way in their outer life.

[ 9 ] This state of mind cannot be attained through all the spiritual powers that people still employ in their outer lives today. With the powers of the soul that people today like to employ—with which one can eat and drink, with which one can move in society in the way one does today among the social classes customary today, with which one can engage in commerce, engage in bureaucracy, indeed with which one can become a professor, engage in the natural sciences—all of that is possible, but one cannot perceive anything real with these abilities. The state of mind with which one sought to gain insight in those ancient times—please bear in mind that I am always speaking in that ancient sense—is fundamentally different. It could have nothing in common with the soul forces that serve external life; these had to be drawn, so to speak, from entirely different regions of the human being. These regions are always present within the human being, but people have a hopeless fear of dealing with them in any way. It was done quite deliberately to activate, in the initiate, precisely that region which modern people—the ordinary, profane people of that time as well—shunned within themselves, to which they did not wish to take refuge, about which they gladly harbor illusions, and regarding which they gladly allow themselves to be numbed. Therefore, this is described outwardly—though it should be understood more inwardly—as the arousal of a series of states of fear, which, however, had to be endured, because in the human soul, only that which lies in such a region—the region that the human being fears in ordinary external life—can be led toward the intended insight. Only from this state of mind—which was bravely endured and truly experienced, in which the human being felt nothing in his soul but fear of something that was precisely the unknown—for it was through this fear that he was to be led to knowledge— only from this state of mind was he then led before what I have just characterized as the descent of the human being through the regions of the heavens or the spiritual world, where he was in turn guided upward through the eight stages, which, of course, today are only imitated—can only be imitated—in accordance with the customs of our time. But back then, the human being was actually introduced into this experience.

[ 10 ] What is particularly important to us is the outcome that resulted for human beings once they had been led to this “gate of humanity.” Once the human being had grasped the full meaning of being placed before the Gate of Humanity, he ceased to regard himself—forgive the expression—as a two-legged animal that is a synthesis of the other kingdoms of nature here on Earth. He began to regard himself as a citizen of the entire world; he began to regard himself as belonging to the heavens that can be seen, and also to those that cannot be seen. He began to feel at one with the entire cosmos, to truly feel himself as a microcosm—not merely as a small Earth, but as a small world. He felt his connection to the planets and fixed stars; he thus felt born out of the universe. In a sense, one could say that he felt how his being did not end at his fingertips, the tips of his ears, or the tips of his toes, but how his being continued beyond this physical form he had taken from the earth, through infinite spaces, and through these infinite spaces and on into the spiritual realm. That was the result.

[ 11 ] Do not try to turn this result into an abstract concept too much, because this abstract concept really won’t do you much good. To say that man is a microcosm, a small world, and to have only that abstract thought—that is not very much; it is actually merely an illusion, merely a “delusion.” For what these ancient mysteries were all about was direct experience. The initiate had truly experienced, at the gateway of the human being, how he is related to Mercury, Mars, the Sun, Jupiter, and the Moon. He had truly experienced that those hieroglyphs, which stand in the cosmos and through which the Sun passes—apparently, as we would say today as a matter of course—the images of the zodiac, have something to do with his own existence. It was only this concrete knowledge, based on experience, that constituted what I now call the result. One does not have the same thing when these things are translated today into abstract concepts. When one translates the ancient experiences into abstract concepts today—this star has this influence, that star has that influence, and so on—these are simply abstract concepts. In those ancient times, it was a matter of direct experience—the actual ascent through the various stages through which the human being had descended before birth. Only then, when a person had this living awareness, when they knew from experience that they were a microcosm, only then were they considered ready to ascend to a second stage, a second degree—which at that time was the true degree of self-knowledge. There, a person could experience what they truly are.

[ 12 ] That which I have just characterized as the essence—which is also the essence of the world—could, however, be found by the people of that time only within human beings themselves; therefore, if one wished to gain access to the universe, one had to pass through the gateway of the human being. Within this second stage, everything that had been experienced as lived knowledge in the first stage came into motion, so to speak. This coming into motion—it is still difficult even today to convey a sense of this coming into motion of experiences. In the second stage, one not only came to know how one is connected to the macrocosm, but one was woven into the entire movement of the macrocosm. One moved, so to speak, with the sun through the zodiac; and by moving with the sun through the zodiac, one also came to know the entire path that any external impression takes within the human being. When a person faces the external world with ordinary cognitive faculties, they are aware only of the beginning of a very elaborate process. They see a color, form an idea of the color, perhaps retain this idea in their memory, but it does not go any further. These are three stages. If one were to regard this as something complete, it would be just as if one were to observe only three hours of the sun’s twelve-hour daily course. For everything that a person takes in as an external impression—which they actually follow, at most, only as far as the mental image in memory—undergoes a further process within them from that mental image onward, through nine additional stages. Human beings become a moving entity themselves; they are, as it were, internally permeated by a living, rotating wheel, just as the sun traces its celestial path—apparently, to use today’s terminology. This is how human beings came to know themselves. But in doing so, they also came to know the mysteries of the greater world. If, in the first stage, he came to understand how he stands at the very center of the world, then in the second stage he came to understand how he moves within the world.

[ 13 ] Without these insights as insights into life, it is not possible to attain what everyone who was to be initiated into the third degree, the third stage, in ancient times truly had to go through. We are living in an age in which it is natural for people to deny everything threefold—if I may speak in the sense of the mysteries—and to erase everything threefold from human consciousness altogether. For people today, whether they admit it or not, actually insist that the entire world is confined within space and time. Even among very thoughtful people, you can find that they regard the entire world as confined within space and time. You need only consider, for example, how the idea of human immortality was conceived during the 19th century, an era in which materialism—theoretical materialism—reached its zenith. Very intelligent people in the middle and second half of the 19th century repeatedly emphasized: If the human soul were to leave the person at death, there could ultimately be no room; the world would have to be so filled with souls that there could be no room for them. — Very intelligent people said this because they actually assumed that the human soul, after death, would somehow have to be accommodated in a way that could be characterized by concepts of space. Or another example: There was—and is said to still be—a Theosophical Society in which all sorts of things were taught about the higher aspects of human nature. I do not mean to say that the enlightened leaders fell into the same error, but a large portion of the followers imagined the astral body in quite a spatial way: as a cloud—admittedly quite thin, but still a spatial cloud; and these followers have speculated at length about how they should imagine this when a person sleeps and that cloud emerges spatially from them, and where it then resides spatially. It was very difficult to teach a large number of followers that such spatial conceptions are inappropriate for the spiritual realm.

[ 14 ] It is incredibly difficult for people today to imagine that, from a certain point on the path of knowledge, a person not only enters other regions of space and other times, but also steps out of time and space—that the truly supernatural only begins when one leaves behind not only sensory impressions and their temporal processes, but space and time themselves, when one enters into conditions of existence entirely different from those that encompass space and time. And if, as I say this, you perhaps reflect on yourself, you may well encounter difficulties within your own inner being when you ask yourself: How am I to go about this, so that I may step out of space and time with my imagination? — And yet, that was essentially the true achievement of actually passing through the first two degrees. If, in the age of materialism, people had still had a clear awareness of these third-degree mysteries, then something—and here I am not speaking of the external experimental aspects, but of the underlying theory—that is as grotesque a theory as spiritualism would not have gained widespread acceptance. Anyone who seeks spirits by attempting to bring them into space as if they were subtle bodies has no idea that, by proceeding in this way, they are already acting without spirit—that is, seeking a world that contains no spirits, but rather something other than spirits. If spiritualism had any inkling of how, in order to find spirits, one must step outside of time and space, it would not arrive at this grotesque notion that one can make spatial arrangements through which spirits might, in some way, announce themselves in the same manner that external spatial effects unfold in the process of time.

[ 15 ] In short, that was what was to be attained through the first two stages up to the third degree: the ability to transcend time and space. However, the actual passage through the Gate of Man and then through the second degree prepared one for this.

[ 16 ] This third stage, this third degree, was described with a word that can be roughly translated into German as follows: The initiate passed through the “Gate of Death.” That is to say, he now truly knew himself to be outside the space in which physical human life unfolds between birth and death, and outside the time in which this human life unfolds. He knew himself to be moving beyond time and space, in the eternal. He learned to recognize that which already extends into the sensory world—as I have often emphasized—but which, because of the nature of its extension into the sensory world, cannot be comprehended within that sensory world itself, since it already contains spiritual elements. He learned to engage with death and with everything connected to death. That was, in essence, the content of this third degree. However one may view the mystery rites—which varied in character among different peoples—and however they may have been conducted, the preoccupation with death lay at the foundation of them all. Everywhere, the starting point for the third degree had to be taken from all that can be experienced—if I must use the paradoxical expression, for I have no better one at present—namely, making death, which otherwise leads the human being out of the body, something that can be experienced already within bodily life. This was then simultaneously linked to the possibility of truly regarding the human being—as he stands between birth and death—as something outside the essence that had now been attained in the third degree. People now knew how to associate a concept with the phrase “to be outside one’s body,” whereby this “outside” was not to be understood in a spatial sense, but rather in a supra-spatial sense. Thus, people were able to associate an experiential concept with it. It was also at this point that people cast aside their belief in the ordinary, profane religion—the religion of their people. Above all, at the threshold of death, people cast aside the notion: “You stand here on earth; your gods or your God are somewhere outside of you.” — There, the human being knew himself to be at one with his God; there, the human being was no longer distinct from his God; there, he knew himself to be completely united with him. It was, in essence, experienced immortality that this third stage brought to the human being. It was a lived experience of immortality because man was able to abandon that which is mortal in him, because he was able to separate himself from that which is mortal in him.

[ 17 ] But let us not forget the entire journey that led to this result. The entire journey consisted in humanity learning to know itself. Now humanity was no longer within itself; now it was in the outer world. It had carried into the outer world what it had come to know through delving into itself. This is the essence of this pre-Christian initiation: that human beings went within themselves to find something within themselves, which they then carried out into the external world; and which, in the external world—by separating themselves from their inner selves—only then truly shone forth for them in the right way, so that they then felt connected to the essence of the external world. They went within themselves in order to step out of themselves. He turned inward because he could find within himself something of the essence of the world—something he could find only within himself, something he could not have found outside, but which he could truly experience only outside. He passed through the gate of humanity and through the gate of self-knowledge and death in order to enter the world that is, after all, outside of him. The ordinary natural world is also outside of us. But man was clearly aware that he could find what he was seeking only by going within himself.

[ 18 ] Then, after a person had gone through the extraordinarily difficult third degree, he was readily ready for the fourth degree. And one can say: Simply by having practiced living in the third degree for a time, he was ready for the fourth degree in a way that would be very difficult to say of people today. For people today—and this is simply a feature of the current epoch—do not actually reach maturity within the third degree. They cannot easily transcend their conceptions of space and time except through certain conceptions of force, which, however, must be sought through different paths—I will speak about this in the coming days—than those pursued in ancient times. Through what the human being had now carried from within himself into the outer world, he was raised to the consciousness of this fourth degree, and he became what could later be rendered and translated in other languages with the words: a “Christophor,” a bearer of Christ. That was, in essence, the goal of this mystery initiation: to make the human being a bearer of Christ. Of course, only a select few became such Christ-bearers. They could only become Christ-bearers by first seeking within the human being what could not be found in the entire outer world, by then going out into the outer world with what they had sought within the human being, and by then uniting with their God. In this way, they became Christ-bearers. They knew that, within the structure of the universe, they had united with that which—speaking not historically but in anticipation—is called the Logos or the Word in the Gospel of John; they had united with that from which all things are made and without which nothing that has been made was made. Thus, in those ancient times, the mystery of Christ was, so to speak, separated from humanity by an abyss, and it was contingent upon humanity transcending this abyss—that is, upon humanity truly placing itself, through self-knowledge, in a position to step outside of itself and unite with its God, to become a bearer of its God.

[ 19 ] Let us now, to further our consideration, hypothetically assume that the Mystery of Golgotha had not taken place on Earth, and that Earth’s evolution would have unfolded to the present day without the Mystery of Golgotha having occurred. Only by formulating such counter-hypotheses can one truly grasp the significance of something like the Mystery of Golgotha. So let us assume that the Mystery of Golgotha had not taken place up to the present day. What would have happened to what was observed in human beings through the mysteries in ancient times?

[ 20 ] People today might then come to understand what the Greek Apollonian saying—what the Greek Apollonian motto—was: “Know thyself.” They might, in a sense, want to live out these words, “Know thyself,” might try—since the traditions have been preserved—to undergo the same initiation rites that, in my view, were part of the Egyptian-Chaldean royal initiation; might thus try to ascend through the four stages, just as people did in that pre-Christian era, in order to become a Christophor. But in doing so, a person would have a very specific experience. If he were to follow this motto, “Know thyself,” if they attempt to look within themselves—even through those states of fear that were experienced back then—and then, through the subsequent experience of the transformations, through the subsequent setting in motion of what was first experienced in a state of stillness, they would realize that they now find nothing, that they no longer find the essence of the human being within themselves. That is what is truly significant! Certainly, the motto “Know thyself” also applies to people today, but this self-knowledge no longer leads them to knowledge of the world. That which human beings in the old state of the soul still found within themselves as connected to the essence of the world—that which they could not find in the outer world, that which they had to seek precisely through the path of self-knowledge in order to then possess it as knowledge of the world— that inner center of human being which they could then carry out into the external world to become a Christophor—people today do not find this within themselves; it is no longer there. It is important to take this to heart! People with today’s foolish notions, cultivated by so-called science, hold the view: a human being is a human being. Today’s Englishman, Frenchman, or German is a human being just as the ancient Egyptian was. But this is nonsense in the face of true knowledge—utter nonsense. For the ancient Egyptian, by turning inward according to the rules of initiation, found something within himself that modern man cannot find within himself, because it has vanished, because it is gone. This has slipped away from humanity, has been lost to humanity—something that could still be found in the pre-Christian and, to some extent, even in the post-Christian Greek state of the soul. It has been lost; it has vanished from the human being. The human constitution today is different from what it was in ancient times.

[ 21 ] To put it another way, we might say: In those ancient times, by turning inward, human beings found their “I”—albeit in a vague way, and not in fully conscious terms. This does not contradict the assertion that the “I” was, in a certain sense, only born through Christianity. That is why I say: even if vaguely, even if not in fully conscious terms, human beings did find their “I.” It was only through Christianity that the “I” was born as active consciousness, but human beings did find their “I.” For something of this “I”—this real, true “I”—remained within the human being of that time after he was born. You will say: Shouldn’t human beings today be able to find their “I”? — No, they do not find it either: the real “I” comes to a standstill when we are commanded. What we experience as our “I” is only a reflection of the “I.” It is merely a reflection of the pre-birth “I” within us. In fact, we experience only a reflection of the “I”; we experience something of the real “I” only very indirectly. What psychologists—the so-called researchers of the soul—refer to as the “I” is merely a reflection; it relates to the real “I” in the same way that the image you see of yourself in a mirror relates to you. But this true “I,” which could be discovered during the era of atavistic clairvoyance and well into Christian times, is not present today in the person who looks toward their own being—insofar as that being is connected to the body. Only indirectly does a person experience something of their “I,” namely when they enter into relationships with other people and karma unfolds.

[ 22 ] When we encounter another person and something happens between us and that person that is part of our karma, something of the impulse of the true “I” enters into us. But what we call the “I” within us—what we designate by that word—is merely a reflection. And it is precisely through this that human beings are prepared during our fifth post-Atlantean cultural epoch to experience the “I” in a new form in the sixth epoch—by experiencing this “I” during the fifth epoch, so to speak, only as a reflection. This is precisely what characterizes the Age of the Conscious Soul: that human beings receive their “I” only as a reflection, so that they may live into the Age of the Spiritual Self and reshape the “I,” experiencing it anew in a different form. Only, they will experience it differently than they would like to today! Today, human beings would rather call their “I”—which they experience only as a reflection—anything but what it will present itself as in the future sixth post-Atlantean epoch. Those mystical impulses that people still have today—of finding the true “I” by brooding over their innermost selves—which they even call the “divine I”! —such impulses will be rarer for people in the future. But they will have to get used to seeing this “I” only in the outer world. The strange thing will be that every other person we encounter and who has anything to do with us will have more to do with our “I” than what is enclosed within our skin. Thus, humanity is heading toward a social age in which people will say to themselves in the future: My self is found in all those I encounter out there; it is least of all found inside me. As a physical human being living between birth and death, I derive my self from all manner of things, but not from what is enclosed within my skin.

[ 23 ] This—which seems so paradoxical—is indirectly being prepared today as people are beginning to sense, even if only a little, just how terribly insignificant they actually are within what they call their “I,” within this mirror image. I spoke recently about how one can arrive at the truth by objectively reviewing one’s own life story and asking oneself what one actually owes to this or that person from the moment of one’s birth. One gradually begins to dissolve into the influences coming from others; one finds extraordinarily little in what one must regard as one’s actual “I,” which, as I said, is really only a mirror image. To put it somewhat grotesquely, one could say: In those times when the Mystery of Golgotha took place, the human being was hollowed out; he became hollow. What is significant is that one learns to recognize the Mystery of Golgotha as an impulse by considering it in relation to this hollowing out of the human being. When speaking of reality, the human being must be clear that the space—which he was once able to find, let us say, in the Egyptian-Chaldean royal mysteries—must somehow be filled. At that time, that space was still filled to some extent by the true “I,” which today takes hold when a human being is born—or at least during the early years of childhood; it still seems to enter somewhat during those early years. And the Christ impulse took that place. There you see the true process. You can think of it this way: here (see drawing, left) are the people before the Mystery of Golgotha; here (center) is the Mystery of Golgotha; and here (right) are the people after the Mystery of Golgotha.

[ 24 ] Before the Mystery of Golgotha, people had something within them that, as mentioned, was discovered through initiation (red). People after the Mystery of Golgotha no longer have this within them (blue); they are, so to speak, hollowed out there, and the Christ impulse descends (violet) and fills the empty space. The Christ impulse, therefore, should not be understood merely as a doctrine or a theory, but must be understood in terms of its reality. And only those who truly understand the possibility of this descent in the sense of the ancient mystery initiations can grasp the significance of the Mystery of Golgotha in its inner truth. For today, just as was the case in the ancient Egyptian royal initiation, a person cannot simply become a Christophor; yet he becomes a Christophor under all circumstances when, as it were, the Christ descends into the void within him.

[ 25 ] Thus, the loss of meaning of the ancient mystery principles reveals the great significance of the Christ Mystery, about which I have said—you can read about this in my book *Christianity as a Mystical Fact*—: That which was once experienced in the depths of the mysteries, that which made a person a Christophor, has been brought out into the great plan of world history and is unfolding as an external reality. That is a fact. From this, however, you will also see that the principle of initiation itself has had to undergo a change since those ancient times, a transformation, for what the ancient mysteries set forth as that which is to be sought within the human being cannot be found today.

[ 26 ] One should certainly not take too much pride in the fact that modern science views today’s English, French, and German people in the same way that, if it could, it would view the ancient Egyptians. It does not consider what is essential to human beings at all. After all, even outward appearances have changed somewhat since those ancient times, but what is essential—what has changed—must be described as we have done today. In this description, however, you will also see the necessity for the principle of initiation to change. What, then, should a person seek today if they wish only to follow the ancient maxim “Know thyself” in its original sense? What would they achieve if they knew all the descriptions of the initiation ceremonies and processes of ancient Egypt and applied them to themselves? They would no longer find what was found within the ancient mysteries. And what one became in the fourth degree, they would unconsciously accomplish, but they cannot understand it. Even if a person were to undergo all the initiation ceremonies and follow the paths that once led to Christophor, he could not, in this way, meet the Christ with understanding. The ancient human being could do this when he was initiated: he truly became Christophor. It is precisely what has occurred in the course of Earth’s evolution that human beings have lost the ability to seek within themselves that being which then became the light of the world spirit. Today, when a person searches in the same way, he finds a void within himself.

[ 27 ] But in the course of life, losing something is not without meaning either: it changes who you are. To expand on what I just discussed: as human beings, we carry that void with us through the world. But this, in turn, gives us special abilities. And just as it is true that certain old abilities have been lost, it is also true that, precisely through the loss of those abilities, new ones have been acquired—abilities that can now be developed in the same way as the old ones were in the past. In other words: The path that was once traversed through the gate of humanity to the gate of death must now be traversed in a different way. This is connected to what I have said: The spirits of the personality are taking on a new character. The new initiation is essentially linked to this new character of the spirits of the personality.

[ 28 ] In a sense, the initiation marked the first pause in human development. In the 19th century, in particular, humanity had drifted far away from it. It was not until the end of the 19th century that the possibility of drawing closer to true, living initiation arose once more. And this true, living initiation is in the process of preparing itself, but it will unfold in a completely different way than the earlier one did—which I have described today from a certain perspective in order to prepare you for a deeper understanding of Christianity. What was entirely futile back then—seeking something essential in the expanding outer world—becomes possible precisely because we become so hollow within. And this will occur more and more; it is already possible to a certain degree today and can already be attained through the paths of knowledge described in *How Does One Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds?*. What is possible to attain today is, in a certain sense, to look more deeply into this outer world using the very same soul faculties—if only they are applied correctly—with which we look into the outer world. Natural science does not do this; it seeks only to penetrate as far as laws, so-called laws of nature. These laws of nature are, after all, abstractions. And if you familiarize yourself a little with the common literature that drapes a little philosophical cloak over scientific concepts—I might also say, puts a little philosophical cap on them—then you will see that these people who speak about such things today do not know how to think about the relationship between the laws of nature and reality. They may arrive at the laws of nature, but these remain abstract concepts, abstract ideas. A figure like Goethe sought to go beyond the laws of nature. And that is what is remarkable about Goethe and Goetheanism—the very thing that is so little understood: Goethe sought to go beyond the laws of nature to the shaping of nature, to the forms. That is why he established a morphology in the higher sense—a spiritual morphology. He did not attempt to capture what the external senses provide, but rather that which is taking form—that which the external senses do not provide, yet which is hidden within the forms. So that today we can truly speak of something parallel to the “Gate of Man”: we can speak of the “Gate of Natural Forms.” I would say that the dawn had already broken, though in a somewhat obscure way, when, emerging from the chaotic mysticism of the Middle Ages, a man like Jakob Böhme spoke—albeit in his own language—of the seven forms of nature. But it is simply not very clear or comprehensive in Jakob Böhme. What modern initiation must increasingly come to, however, are these forms that reveal themselves in the external sensory forms as transcending space and time.

[ 29 ] I have often drawn attention to that famous conversation between Goethe and Schiller, which took place as they were leaving a lecture by the naturalist Batsch. Schiller remarked to Goethe that Batsch had adopted a very fragmented way of viewing the world. Well, it was nowhere near as fragmented as today’s naturalists do it, though Schiller still found it very dry. And Goethe said that one could certainly adopt a different approach to observing nature. And he sketched his plant metamorphosis—the primordial plant—with a few characteristic strokes. Schiller, who could not grasp this, then said: “That is not experience”—he meant, nothing that exists in the external world—“that is an idea.” Schiller remained fixated on abstraction. Goethe replied: “If that is an idea, then it suits me fine; I see my ideas with my eyes.” — He meant that for him this was not an idea formed solely within the mind, but rather that what he had sketched there—even though it cannot be seen with the eyes, as colors can—is nevertheless there. This is true formation, supersensible formation within the senses. Goethe certainly did not develop this very far. I have told you in the reflections we have made: In direct continuation of this Goethean metamorphosis of the plant and animal worlds—which Goethe developed only in a rudimentary way—lies the true interpenetration of repeated earthly lives. Goethe regards the colored petal as a transformed plant leaf; he regards the skull bone as a transformed vertebral bone. It was a beginning. If one continues along the same line of thought, one reaches only as far as the forms—but precisely to the threshold of natural forms—and gains an imaginative insight into these natural forms. And there one comes to the point of truly looking not merely at the skull bones, which are transformed vertebrae, but at the entire human skull. One comes to realize that this entire human head is the transformed human form from the previous life, conceived as headless. What you carry within you today besides the head—the rest of the body—naturally passes into the earth in terms of its material substance; but the supersensible aspect of the forms passes through the life between death and new birth, and that is the head of the next incarnation. Here we have metamorphosis in its highest form in human beings. You must not attach any importance to appearances. You might naturally say: We bury the person in the earth or we cremate them—how, then, is the body to be transformed into a head? —Well, that is precisely what it means to judge by appearances in the modern sense. If you wish to cultivate this illusion, you must stick with those who draw attention to the passage in Shakespeare where Hamlet, in despair, says that somewhere in any dust there is the earthly human dust of Julius Caesar; perhaps in some dog lie the remains, the atoms, that once formed the Roman Caesar.

[ 30 ] Well, these people simply do not follow the path that, for example, the physical organism takes, regardless of whether it is buried in the earth or cremated. That is where this metamorphosis already takes place. The fact is that only the head fades away and disappears from the earth, for it goes out into the universe; but that which is your body for the present incarnation—apart from the head—is transformed, and you will find it as a head—you cannot escape this at all—in your next incarnation. You need not think of matter at all. Even now, you do not possess the same matter that you carried within you seven years ago. You need only think of the transforming, the transformed form. It is just as much a first stage as the “Gate of Man” in the old sense was a first stage: it is the “Gate of Forms.” And by grasping this Gate of Forms in a living way, one can enter the “Gate of Life,” where one no longer deals with forms, but with stages of life, with elements of life. This would correspond to what I characterized earlier, in connection with the ancient Egyptian royal initiation, as the second degree. And the third is synonymous with entering the Gate of Death: it is the initiation into the various states of consciousness. Between birth and death, human beings know only one state of consciousness; yet this is only one among, initially, seven. But one must take these various states of consciousness into account if one wishes to understand the world at all.

[ 31 ] Just consider that you have the outline of these three successive stages in my *Outline of Esoteric Science*. I presented them in relation to the evolution of the world. There you have the various forms of consciousness—Saturn, Sun, Moon, Earth, and so on—the seven forms of consciousness. In each of these stages—one of which is Earth—humanity passes through a particular state of consciousness. It undergoes seven different stages of consciousness; within each of these stages—that is, Saturn, Sun, and so on—there are seven stages of life, and within each stage of life, seven stages of form. What we describe in our cultural stages—the ancient Indian, ancient Persian, Egyptian-Chaldean, and Greek-Latin stages, as well as our present one—are also forms. There we live within the Gate of Forms. This corresponds to the human gate when we speak of these cultural forms, and from the world of forms we can form concepts about these cultures that follow one another. There are seven in each stage of life. But when we speak of stages of life, we are referring to the seven successive stages, of which, for example, our post-Atlantean era is one, together with the primordial Persian, primordial Indian, and so on, up to the seventh. We are now in the fifth stage of life; this is one stage of life, the Atlantean era is another, and the Lemurian era is yet another stage of life. And these seven life stages exist so that human beings could attain the consciousness they possess today. This consciousness, however, has evolved from the ancient lunar consciousness, which in turn evolved from the ancient solar consciousness. From each of these planetary incarnations, human beings assume a corresponding form of consciousness. They will attain their most perfect form of consciousness during the volcanic stage of development.

[ 32 ] There you can see how, through the three successive mysteries of the degrees, a person gains an overview of the cosmos. And then, based on this understanding of the world, they can in turn gain an understanding of humanity. From this understanding of the world, one then gains the ability to also comprehend the mystery of Golgotha.

[ 33 ] I would say that it was only today that we began to take in some outlines of this understanding. But we have at least been able to grasp why, for example, the Mystery of Golgotha falls within the fourth post-Atlantean cultural form of the fifth life period—the post-Atlantean life period—and why it took place on Earth. If you look back at the last Leipzig lecture series, you will see how this Mystery of Golgotha was prepared on this Earth. But everything necessary for understanding this Mystery of Golgotha arises from the principles of the new initiation. Thus, while the old initiation essentially moved from knowledge of the human being to knowledge of the world, the new one moves back from knowledge of the world to knowledge of the human being.

[ 34 ] But this is characterized from the point of view of initiation. There, you stand, so to speak, on one side; on the other side, the mirror image of this is revealed to you. In order to attain this knowledge of the world, you must first start from a new understanding of humanity. And I spoke about this recently. One must speak of it in a completely different way for the old era and, in turn, for the new era. The old era arrived at a conclusion through its understanding of humanity, and that conclusion was precisely an understanding of the world. ‘Theoretically speaking, one could say: Humanity went through something as a life process, and then, when it was finished, that was an understanding of the world; through this, he proceeded in his consciousness from knowledge of the world and could then, in turn, draw conclusions about the human being. Today, when you proceed from this knowledge of the world through form, life, and consciousness, you actually attain through it—as you can see in my *Esoteric Science*—essentially knowledge of the human being. Everything else actually fades into the background in the knowledge of nature: the human being becomes comprehensible to you. And just as I have shown you, the human being only becomes comprehensible as a threefold being—as a sensory-nervous being, as a rhythmic being, as a metabolic being—by acquiring this knowledge of the world. And from the human being, one can then return to the knowledge of the world.

[ 35 ] These are not contradictions. You will find such things at every turn if you wish to enter the world of truth. If you want dogma, then you cannot seek out such contradictions, for they are inconvenient to you. If you want dogma, you can find it here and there, but this dogma will never provide an understanding of reality—only something you can swear by, if you wish. If you want to recognize reality, you must simply be clear that this reality must be presented from various perspectives. In terms of life, the old human had to go from the world to the human being; the new human, from the human being to the world. In terms of knowledge, the old human went from the human being to the world; the new human, from the world to the human being. That is what is necessary. This, in turn, is something uncomfortable for modern people, but everyone today must find their way through what is called wavering, through that uncertainty! Just consider this: in the second degree of the Egyptian royal initiation, the person entered into wavering, into the turning. Today, if a person truly strives to enter life through its forms, they must allow themselves to be placed in that state of possibility where they say to themselves: “And no matter how beautiful the concepts I may be given through this or that traditional creed—and these concepts may all be quite beautiful—I still cannot approach reality through them unless I can also set the opposite concept before myself.”

[ 36 ] I have pointed out to you that the Mystery of Golgotha itself necessitates the existence of these two opposing concepts, as you tell yourself: It was certainly a wicked act for people to murder the God who is incarnated in a human being. But this act was certainly the starting point of Christianity. For if the murder on Golgotha had not taken place, Christianity would not exist in reality. This paradox in the face of a supersensible fact can serve as a prime example of the many paradoxes you must come to terms with if you truly wish to cross over into an understanding of the supersensible world, for without this, the crossing cannot be made. In the past, fear was necessary; today, one must cross that abyss which seems to human beings like standing without a center of gravity in the vastness of the universe. But one must go through this process so that one no longer swears by concepts, but rather regards concepts as something that illuminates things from different angles, like the photographs one takes of a tree that is lit from various sides. The dogmatist—whether natural scientist or theologian—believes that they can grasp the whole of reality through certain dogmas. The one who stands in reality knows that every statement of this kind can be compared to a photograph taken from one side, which shows only one aspect of reality; that one must at least have the opposite aspect as well, so that by viewing both aspects together, one can approach the reality of the object. More on this tomorrow.