The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Third Lecture

[ 1 ] It should be evident from the reflections we have been making here for quite some time—and especially from the reflections of recent days—just how essential it is for the further cultural development of humanity that what might be called the knowledge of initiation be integrated into this human cultural development. One must say today, without any reservation: The salvation of humanity from a downward trajectory of development lies solely in humanity’s turning toward a revelation that arises from that which can only be perceived through spiritual insight. No matter how many emotional or logical objections may be raised from this or that side, no matter how much it may be said that it will be difficult in our time for broader circles to accept such insights—which, after all, can initially arise only from a few individuals who have developed the capacity to a high degree to look into the spiritual world— all such objections—even those that may seem justified—are ultimately meaningless in the face of the plain fact that without the acceptance of what is here called anthroposophically oriented spiritual science, human culture must sink into the abyss, and the work on Earth must fall into the hands of forces that will not link their further development in the cosmos with that of humanity. There is no other way: if humanity is to find salvation in this direction, a sufficiently large number of people must allow themselves to be permeated by what has just been attempted to be said. For only those who do not want to—who absolutely refuse to look at what is now happening throughout the world as a result of the recent catastrophic years—only they can close their eyes to the fact that we are at the beginning of a process of destruction, and that only something new can lead us out of this process of destruction. Whatever one may seek within the process of destruction itself will never be able to become anything other than a force of destruction in its own right. A force of reconstruction can only be that which will now truly draw from sources that do not belong to the Earth’s development to date.

[ 2 ] However, there are significant difficulties in incorporating the findings from such sources. It is often said that the science of initiation cannot be presented to humanity simply or unconditionally, because a certain kind of receptivity is necessary for this science of initiation. You see, this is something we hear time and again; yet it is precisely this principle that is repeatedly violated, insofar as — let us take just a very simple example — one of the very first, most basic requirements for receiving the science of initiation is that those who accept it must try to shed what is called, for example, ambition, particularly when it manifests as a judgment of one’s own personality in relation to other personalities. Now it is easy to see that precisely within what we call the Anthroposophical Society—what good would it do if such things were not said?—it is repeatedly acknowledged: “Such a thing is true,” yet it is precisely within such a movement as the Anthroposophical Society that the most disastrous things exist, that mutual resentment and mutual envy grow. I simply wish to point out this phenomenon. For today I must speak of the other major difficulties involved in the introduction of the science of initiation into earthly culture.

[ 3 ] You see, one of the first things that will have to be revealed to humanity in a comprehensive way is what one might call the mystery of the human will. This mystery of the human will has been veiled from modern cultural humanity, particularly since the middle of the 15th century, since the dawn of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch. One could say: The new worldview of humanity knows the very least about the will. We have often characterized it this way: The individual human being never experiences the true nature of his or her will while awake. While awake, they experience the nature of their imagination; while dreaming, the nature of their feeling; but even when awake, they are partially asleep with regard to their will. We go through the world as so-called waking human beings, yet we are awake only to our thoughts, half-awake—dreaming—with regard to our feelings, and completely asleep with regard to our will. Let us not delude ourselves about this. We have ideas about what we want; but only when the will becomes imagination, manifesting itself as intelligence, do we experience it while awake. What goes on in the depths of the human being when a person raises even a single hand—that is, sets their will in motion—is something the average person today knows absolutely nothing about. This means that the mystery of the will is virtually completely unknown to modern people, and this is actually connected to the fact that our entire modern culture—especially the one that has taken hold since the fifteenth century—is an intellectualistic culture, a culture of the intellect, for even the culture of the natural sciences is a culture of the intellect. In everything we grasp through the intellect, in everything we carry out through reason, the will plays the very smallest role. When we think, when we imagine, the will naturally plays a role in our imagination as well, but in a very, very refined state. People do not notice how the will pulsates within their imagination or how the will otherwise operates within their being; they simply do not know this. In a sense, it is precisely the mystery of the will that has been completely obscured for people of modern times by the exclusively intellectual culture of the recent era. If one now approaches the study of the will using those methods of spiritual science of which I have often spoken to you here, that is, if one attempts, with the help of imagination and inspiration, to activate those forces that can look into the mechanism that arises when a person wills, then one realizes that in our physical life between birth and death, willing is essentially bound not to processes of building up, but to processes of destruction. We have discussed this many times. If only constructive processes were taking place in our brain—if only what, for example, the nourishment absorbed by the life forces initially brings about were occurring there—then we would not be able to develop a soul and spiritual life through the instrument of our nerves and our brain; only because there is a constant process of breakdown in our brain—because destructive processes are constantly at work there—does the soul and spirit take hold within what is being destroyed. And it is precisely the will that is at work within this. The human will is, in essence, something that already works in part toward the death of the human being during our physical life. With regard to the organization of our head, we are constantly dying; we die at every moment. It is only because the rest of our organism works against this continuous dying of the head that we live. But it is the will, above all else, that is active in this dying of the head. In our head, the very same process is already taking place continuously that, apart from us, occurs objectively in the outside world once we have passed through physical death.

[ 4 ] Our physical body is, in a sense, of no real concern to us—insofar as we are human individualities entering the soul-spiritual worlds through the gate of death; but this physical body is of great concern to the universe; for this physical body is, in one way or another—the specifics are not important here, whether through cremation or burial—surrendered to the elements of the earth; there it continues, in its own way, what our human will does in part within our nervous system and our sensory system during the life between birth and death. We imagine and think through the fact that our will destroys something within us. We entrust our corpse to the earth, and with the help of the decomposing corpse—which merely continues the same process that we carry out in part during life—the entire earth “thinks and imagines.” That which—I have described it to you from other perspectives in previous months—is constantly taking place within the Earth through the interaction between what is originally earthly and what occurs in the Earth through the union with the deceased human bodies, is an activity that is entirely similar in nature to the volitional activity that is continually and unconsciously exercised within us—as we break down, destroy, and work in a corpse-like manner between birth and death within our nervous and sensory systems. Between birth and death, the same will works through destruction by uniting with our “I” within the confines of our skin—the same will that works cosmically through our corpse after our death in the thinking and imagining of the entire Earth, once we have surrendered this very corpse to the Earth. Thus we are cosmically connected to what might be called the soul-spiritual process of the entire earthly existence. This concept is a weighty one; for it concretely places the human being within the cosmic context of our earthly existence. This shows how closely related the human will is to the forces of death at work in our earthly existence; it reveals the kinship of the human will with the way in which the general world will acts within earthly existence through destruction and the bringing about of conditions of death.

[ 5 ] But just as our further development in the spiritual world, after we have passed through the gate of death, depends on the fact that we no longer have our physical body, that we no longer work with these forces but with others—so, too, does the flourishing further development of the entire Earth depend on whether the humanity of this Earth connects itself with something that is not these forces of death, but with something that are life forces, which develop in a different direction than these forces of death. To speak of this within today’s humanity, which is filled with personal intentions and feelings, is in itself a bitter reality; for the gravity of such a truth is felt today only to a very limited extent. Humanity has, after all, forgotten how to take the great truths with the grave seriousness with which they must be taken. But we must nevertheless ask further: How, then, is that which lies in the human will—as I have described it—actually connected to the destructive processes of external nature? How is that which I have described as the true character of the human will connected to the destructive processes of external nature? You see, this is where, one might say, the greatest illusion stands before modern man. What does modern man actually do when he looks at nature? Well, he says: There is a natural process taking place. Before it, another one took place; that is its cause; before that one, yet another; that, in turn, is its cause. And so modern man finds a chain of causes and effects in nature and takes great pride in understanding the external world, as he puts it, by following the thread of causality. What is the result of this? Well, ask any contemporary geologist, physicist, chemist, or any other orthodox natural scientist in all sincerity—though they will often shy away from drawing the ultimate conclusion of their worldview— but ask him whether he does not have to imagine that the Earth, as it is—or rocks, plants, and many animals as well—would have developed exactly as they have, even if humans had not been there; no houses, no machines, no airships would have been built by buffalo, bulls, and so on; but everything else that we do not perceive today as the work of human hands would have been there from beginning to end, even if humans had not been there, for within the external natural world there is a chain of causes and effects. What comes later is the consequence of what came before, and in fact, according to the view of our time, humans were not even present during the formation of this chain! This view contains exactly the same flaw as the following: Imagine I write any sentence on the blackboard, such as: “Stuttgart is a city.” Now someone comes across this sentence and says: I am scientifically investigating what I find written here on the blackboard. Since I’m starting from the back, I have the “t” first. It follows from the “d.” Then I take the “d,” which follows from the preceding “a”; the “a” from the preceding “t”; the “t” from the preceding “s.” Each time, I have the effect of the preceding cause. The “t” is the effect of the “d,” the “d” is the effect of the “a,” and so on. You see, it’s nonsense. Each letter comes into being solely because I have written it down; it is not as though the preceding letter produced the following one. It is utter nonsense to say: the preceding letter is the cause of the following one; the preceding one produces the following one. A thorough, unbiased examination of the nature of natural processes convinces us of the same thing. We say—succumbing to the great illusion of modern science—that effects are the consequences of their causes. That is not the case. We must seek the real causes elsewhere, just as we must seek the cause for the sequence of letters within our own minds. And where do the causes for the external natural phenomena on a grand scale lie? That can only be determined through spiritual insight. These causes lie within humanity. Do you know where you must look if you wish to understand the true causes of the Earth’s natural course? You must examine how the human will—which, according to present-day consciousness, lies deep in the subconscious—is centered in the human being’s center of gravity, that is, in the human abdomen. Only a part of the will is active in the human head; the main part of the will is centered in the rest of the human organism. And what manifests as the external course of nature depends on the state of the human being in relation to this subconscious will. So far, we have been able to cite only one significant example of this natural process; but the entire course of nature is like this.

[ 6 ] I have often pointed out to you that during the Atlantean era, humankind indulged in a form of black magic. The consequence of this was the glaciation of the civilized world. But in the broadest sense, everything that constitutes the course of nature is in reality the result not of the will of the individual human being, but of what acts together within humanity through various forces of will that arise from human centers of gravity. If a sufficiently developed being—say, from Mars or Mercury—were to study the Earth, to study its course, that is, to seek to understand how the course of nature unfolds there, such a being would not describe nature as humans do when they seek to be learned; rather, such a being would survey the Earth and say: There is the Earth below; there are many points, and within these points are centered the forces that bring about the course of nature. But for this being, these points would not lie out in nature, but always within human beings. Anyone observing from the outside would sense that they must look into the innermost being of humanity if they wished to seek the causes of what occurs in the course of nature. This insight into the connection between human will and the course of nature on a grand scale—of course, a misconception can arise if we consider the course of nature only as far as our noses can reach, for there the connection does not become apparent—this insight into the connection between the effects of will, the direction of humanity’s will, and the course of nature must become an integral part of future natural science for humanity. With such a natural science, human beings will feel responsible for what they are in a completely different way than they generally do today. Human beings will transform from citizens of the Earth into citizens of the cosmos. Human beings will learn to regard the universe as belonging to them.

[ 7 ] But keep in mind that as soon as attention is drawn to such things, knowledge of them takes root within us. This knowledge does not seem as elusive as our intellectual knowledge; rather, it is drawn directly from reality, which is why it also seems much more real. And since it seems much more real than the shadowy knowledge of modern humanity, it is precisely necessary for people to take seriously what is revealed to them through this knowledge. One cannot, on the one hand, become a citizen of the world in the sense just described and, on the other hand, remain the old philistine that the last few centuries—since the mid-15th century—have shaped in modern humanity. One cannot, on the one hand, consciously seek to integrate oneself into the processes of the cosmos and, on the other hand, gossip about one’s fellow human beings just as was done in the bourgeois era since the mid-15th century at every coffee party. It is necessary that, at the same time, a different ethos and different moral impulses flow through humanity if the science of initiation is to take root in earnest. Today, in particular, everything that is improperly preparing what I would like to call “the appearance of Ahriman on our Earth” acts as a hindrance to the establishment of this science of initiation. I recently referred to this fact in order to characterize a little of the proper festive spirit of this year’s Christmas; I will only briefly repeat it.

[ 8 ] If we look back at the development of the Earth, we find that our more recent materialistic culture was preceded by the Greco-Roman culture, which dates back to the 8th century B.C. A few centuries after the beginning of this Greco-Latin era, we then see the emergence of what one might call the ancient wisdom life of prehistory, which had already been filtered through Greece. Nietzsche had a peculiar, if not pathological, perception in this regard. From the very beginning of his intellectual career, he saw himself as an opponent of Socrates, and he never tired of speaking, time and again, of the greater value of pre-Socratic Greek culture compared to the Socratic and post-Socratic eras. I do not wish to address this matter in any other way than by telling you: It is certainly true that, with Socrates, a great age of humanity dawned—one that reached its culmination at the turn of the 14th and 15th centuries—but that this age of Socrates has now come to an end, truly come to an end: for the Socratic era is the one that extracted from the earlier, intuitive wisdom mere logic and mere dialectic. This extraction of mere logic and mere dialectic from the ancient clairvoyant wisdom is the defining characteristic of our Western culture. It has also left its mark on Christianity; for Western theology, too, is dialectical. But what emerges in Greece as dialectic—as spirituality filtered down to the level of abstraction—traces its origins back to the mysteries of the East; and among these mysteries were also those who founded a culture that later became Chinese culture, within which the figure of Lucifer incarnated. We must not deny that Lucifer himself was once in a physical body, just as Christ walked the earth in a physical body during the time of the Mystery of Golgotha. But one misjudges this Luciferic incarnation in a philistine way if one seeks to regard everything that has emanated from Lucifer with a kind of “leave me alone” attitude. For example, the height of Greek culture itself, the true ancient art, and the artistic impulse of humanity—as we ourselves still essentially regard it—also emanated from Lucifer. Only has all of this in Europe become frozen into mere rhetoric, into emptiness. And it was Luciferic wisdom that first enabled Christianity to be understood in Europe. This is the significant point: that in Greek wisdom—which developed as Gnosis in order to comprehend the Mystery of Golgotha—the ancient Luciferic wisdom played a part, giving form to the ancient Gnosis. For that era, it was Christianity’s greatest victory that the reality of the Mystery of Golgotha was clothed in what Lucifer had given to the development of the Earth. But as the Luciferic culture—which was thus bestowed upon humanity through the actual incarnation of Lucifer—fades away, what is preparing the way for the future incarnation of Ahriman in the Western world is gradually rising. When the time is ripe—and it is preparing for this—Ahriman will simply incarnate in a human body in the Western world. This event must come just as the others did: that Lucifer incarnated and that Christ incarnated. This event is predestined for Earth’s evolution. What matters is simply this: to view this event in such a way that one prepares for it properly; for Ahriman does not begin to act only when he appears in a human being on Earth, but is already preparing his appearance from the supersensible worlds. He is already working into the development of humanity; from beyond, he seeks out his instruments through which he prepares for what is to come.

[ 9 ] Now, an essential factor for the beneficial effect of what Ahriman is to bring to humanity—he will bring just as much good as Lucifer—is that humanity approaches this in the right way. What matters is that humanity does not miss the appearance of Ahriman. When the incarnated Ahriman once appears in the Western world, the parish registers will record: John William Smith is born—this will not, of course, be his real name—and he will be regarded as an unassuming citizen like any other, and people will fail to recognize what is actually happening. Our university professors will certainly not ensure that people do not miss this. To them, what will appear will be John William Smith. But what matters is that in the Ahrimanic age, people know that outwardly this will only be John William Smith, but inwardly Ahriman is present—that they do not succumb to delusion in a drowsy illusion about what is happening. Indeed, even now we must not succumb to the delusion that these things are merely in preparation. Among the most important means Ahriman has for working from the beyond is the promotion of abstract thinking among humanity. And because this abstract thinking is so popular today, the groundwork is being laid in a way that favors the appearance of Ahriman. Nothing would better pave the way for Ahriman to ensnare the entire Earth for his own development than to continue the abstract and abstracting way of life that has already permeated even social life today. This is one of the ruses, one of the tricks, through which Ahriman prepares his dominion on Earth in accordance with his own purposes. Instead of showing people today, based on full experience, what must happen, one speaks to humanity of general theories, including social theories. Those who speak of theories find precisely what is based on experience to be abstract, because they have no idea of life. All of this is preparation in the Ahrimanic sense.

[ 10 ] But there is another way of preparing the way for Ahriman, and this can happen—and this, too, is something that must now become known—through a mistaken interpretation of the Gospels. You know, of course, that there are numerous people today—especially among the official representatives of this or that denomination—who vehemently oppose everything that is emerging among us as a new understanding of Christ, precisely out of the science of initiation. Such people, if they do not merely worship rationalism, still accept the Gospels; but what do these people really know about the true nature of the Gospels? It was precisely people of this sort who applied the external, worldly, historical-scientific method to the Gospels in the 19th century. And what, then, became of these Gospels under the scientific method of the 19th century? The result was nothing other than the gradual materialization of the understanding of the Gospels. The first thing that caught people’s attention were the contradictions among the four Gospels. And the recognition of these contradictions actually marked the beginning of a downward slide into Schmiedelism; for after all, what in Gospel research stems from the Basel Schmiedel—I do not mean our Dr. Schmiedel, but the theologian, Prof. Schmiedel—what comes from him? What is this other than, I might say, the uprooting of the Gospels? What is good old Schmiedel looking for in the Gospels? He seeks to prove that they are not merely products of the imagination, created solely to glorify Jesus Christ, and in doing so arrives at a limited number of points—the famous Schmiedelian main points—in which unfavorable things have also been said about Christ. These, he argues, would have been omitted if the Gospels had been written solely for the glorification of Jesus. So, in the end, one gets the feeling that he goes along with everything in which Christ Jesus is criticized, just to salvage a tiny shred of secular scholarship for the Gospels. Even this shred will vanish; one will gain nothing from secular scholarship that can prove the authenticity of the Gospels in the sense that these gentlemen desire. To adopt the right attitude toward these Gospels, one will have to know why the Gospels came into being—that is, one will have to know what the Gospels are actually intended to achieve. This can only be recognized by truly drawing upon what spiritual science has to offer.

[ 11 ] But if one delves deeply into the Gospels, absorbing their content and their power, one comes to gain a spiritual substance from them. No external historical science will unravel the mysteries of the Gospels for one; but one can immerse oneself in the Gospels, and then one gains a spiritual substance. This inner experience is a great hallucination—albeit a refined one—the hallucination of the Mystery of Golgotha. The highest thing to be gained from the Gospels is the hallucination of the Mystery of Golgotha, no more and no less. You see, it is precisely this mystery that the modern Catholic Church knows. That is why it does not want the Gospels to be fully understood by the laity, for it fears that people would come to realize that the Gospels do not provide a historical account of the Christ Mystery, but only a hallucination of this Mystery of Golgotha—I might also say: an imagination; for the hallucination is so refined that it is a true imagination. But nothing more than an imagination can be gained from the content of the Gospels themselves.

[ 12 ] What is the path from imagination to reality? This path is opened up precisely through spiritual science—not through anything outside of spiritual science, but through spiritual science alone. This means that the imagination of the Gospels must be elevated to reality through spiritual science. It is in Ahriman’s utmost interest to prepare his incarnation in such a way that human beings do not take this path from the imagination in the Gospels, through spiritual science, to the reality of the Mystery of Golgotha. Just as Ahriman has the greatest interest in preserving the sense of abstraction, so too does he have the greatest interest in humanity developing more and more that kind of piety which seeks to rely solely on the Gospels. If you consider this, you will realize that a large part of the creeds existing today constitutes Ahriman’s preparatory work for his purposes in this earthly existence. How, for example, could one serve Ahriman more than by deciding to exploit an external power one possesses to command those who believe in this power—and who submit to it—not to read anthroposophical literature! One could hardly render a greater service to Ahriman than to ensure that a number of people do not read anthroposophical literature. Those who have resolved to follow this anthroposophical path must familiarize themselves with these matters. Certain facts simply cannot be presented today in any other way than unreservedly in the light of truth.

[ 13 ] It must be understood that the course of world development—from Lucifer’s incarnation millennia ago, through the Mystery of Golgotha, which is to continue to work even now, and onward—is moving toward the incarnation of Ahriman, which will take place in the not-too-distant future. This incarnation must stand in the way of evolution so that the forces absorbed through the Christ impulse may be strengthened through resistance. Through a veiled worship of the Gospels and through abstraction, people will help Ahriman on his way. Today, many people have an inner, self-serving interest in closing themselves off from these serious facts. Anthroposophists should not share this interest; rather, they should develop a certain impetus to do as much as possible to ensure that spiritual science is spread among humanity. It is entirely wrong to believe, time and again, that one must come to an understanding with people like Traub. It is nonsensical to believe that one can come to an understanding with such people; for they do not want to. What matters is to enlighten the rest of humanity about these people. We must speak to the rest of humanity about these people. Everything has indeed been done to enable them to understand us. They need only read what is there without prejudice and immerse themselves in it. One must make a strict distinction between the characteristics of such pests to the further development of humanity and other people, before whom one must stand and explain the true nature of those pests. Attempting to reach an understanding with these people is completely pointless and meaningless; for these people will, moreover, immediately be inclined toward understanding once they no longer have followers who pull the rug out from under their feet. Then they will already be willing of their own accord to come to an understanding. The necessity at hand lies precisely in enlightening people about them. If only, unfortunately, there were not often a tendency within our own circles to make compromises in this regard, to not necessarily commit to the courage of the truth! There is absolutely no need for us ever to succumb to the illusion of bringing about an understanding with this or that person who, after all, does not want to understand us at all. Would that help us in any way? What is necessary for us is to courageously stand up for the truth, as much as we can. And this seems to me to emerge in particular from an understanding of what is connected with the development of humanity.