The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Second Lecture

[ 1 ] As has often been said here, and as was explained the day before yesterday from a slightly different perspective, the point is to perceive the gravity of the present time through the history of human development—as it appears to spiritual scientific research—and to act in light of this gravity, regardless of one’s position in life.

[ 2 ] Today I would like once again to contribute a few building blocks to the edifice that, taken as a whole, can show us the nature of the spiritual constitution of present-day humanity and how we must work, based on this spiritual constitution, for the further progress of humanity. We will begin by revisiting some points whose main features are already familiar to us.

[ 3 ] We know that present-day civilized humanity essentially represents the continuation of the humanity that developed on the Atlantic continent prior to the Atlantic catastrophe—a continent which, as we have often stated, stretched between what is now Europe, Africa, and America, in the place where the Atlantic Ocean lies today. We know that under the influence of the Atlantean catastrophe—even as it was brewing and as it then unfolded—the people of the West at that time first moved eastward, populating Europe and, moving on, Asia; and that, in fact, the present-day European and Asian populations consist of the descendants of the ancient Atlantean people. We also know that civilization then, in a certain sense, took the reverse path; that the substance of civilization and culture—which had initially been established in Asia—was brought to Europe by humanity through the immigration of colonizers, and that it then spread from various centers there. Thus, I would say, the physical foundation of modern civilization—the peoples of Europe and Asia—are descendants of the ancient Atlantean population that migrated from west to east; civilization itself, however, made the journey from east to west. These two migratory movements can only truly be distinguished by drawing on research in the spiritual sciences. Conventional anthropology confuses the two and fails to recognize that what was transplanted from Asia to Europe is, in fact, merely culture, whereas the physical foundation owes its existence to migrations that extended from west to east.

[ 4 ] But human beings are never entirely disconnected from the local foundations of their existence. They share a certain kinship with the soil beneath them, with what the soil produces, and with the way the soil manifests itself in climatic conditions and provides them with a place to live. From this you can already conclude—and this is fully confirmed by spiritual scientific research—that those people who migrated further into Asia during the post-Atlantean migrations had to develop differently from those who remained in Europe. To put it simply, one can say: The European soil had a different effect on the descendants of the Atlanteans than the Asian soil did. And we can, in a certain sense, describe the difference between the Asian and European populations. This difference lies in the fact that, particularly in the earliest periods of post-Atlantean civilizational development—in the 9th, 8th, 7th, and 6th millennia B.C., and even in the millennia that followed, the Asian population assimilated in a different way that which actually came to full expression only from the 15th century onward—as I hinted at last time—but which had already been prepared not only in earlier centuries but over millennia: intellectualism, true thinking.

[ 5 ] Just as we understand this way of thinking today, just as we now recognize human intellectualism as an inner self-activity of the soul, so it first emerged in its most authentic form only in the very recent past. But the entire course of development, particularly the post-Atlantean one, is a movement back toward this intellectualism. And what is significant is that the Asian post-Atlantean population has absorbed everything we can describe as intellectual, primarily through the elements of the soul; so that we can say, within this Asian population: Local conditions predestine this population in a special way to permeate the soul with the preliminary stages of the intelligent being. This is the most remarkable aspect of Asian civilization: that the spiritual, as such, has become the instrument for assimilating the intellectual principle.

[ 6 ] In Europe, among the people who remained there, things were different. There, it was quite evident that physical development—the physical constitution—not only later became the true instrument of intellectualism, but had already developed in such a way that it constituted the very essence of this European population, making it particularly suited to become the vessel of the intelligent being. Therefore, if one wishes to characterize the descendants of the earliest descendants of the Atlanteans—that is, ourselves—one must say: The Asians became accustomed to thinking more with the soul; the Europeans became accustomed to thinking more with the body. — This is also the essential difference between Asian and European civilization. If you wish to point out a fundamental difference between what emerges as an intelligent being in the Vedas, in Vedanta philosophy, or in other Asian spiritual traditions, as opposed to the European being, you will have to say: The Asian thinks more through the soul, the European more through the physical body.

[ 7 ] And so it comes to pass that, because Asians conceived of the intellectual as, in a sense, a higher aspect of human nature, he attained a high degree of civilization much earlier—but a more spiritual civilization, a civilization whose structure contained fewer abstract concepts, yet which finds its way further upward toward the spiritual-soul content of the world through the spiritual-soul content of the human being, without resorting to abstract concepts. This is what constitutes the spiritual essence of Asian civilization: that it is, in essence, a spiritual civilization. The Asian, to a high degree, left his physicality unused in his thinking; he carried his body through his earthly journey. That which constituted his spiritual life, he cultivated in the purely soulful realm. You will not understand the full, distinctive nature of the Asian being unless you view it from this perspective. Europeans thought more and more in terms of the physical. Consequently, the foundation was laid for a culture that could place the principle of freedom at its center to a greater extent than it was for Asians. Asians, whose intelligence was rooted in the soul, were even more deeply embedded within the general world organism. The human body, after all, stands out distinctly from the rest of the world organism, and if one uses it as the specific instrument of intellectual life, one becomes more independent, but is also, through that independence, more bound to the body than the Asian, who has developed intelligence within the spiritual principle and, as a result, becomes less independent.

[ 8 ] So, as we look back across Asia, the closer we come to that period in human evolution marked by the Mystery of Golgotha, we find a highly developed soul-spiritual culture—one that had, in fact, already passed its zenith by the time the Mystery of Golgotha occurred and was already in a state of decline. For we should not be under any illusions: what was brought forth as a high culture through the soul-spiritual in Asian civilization cannot be readily grasped using European concepts. And when people who think in a truly European way—that is, people who think entirely with the instrument of the body, such as Deussen—attempt to make Asian culture accessible to Europeans, the result is something that does not at all correspond to the substance of Asia’s soul-spiritual civilization, but rather translates everything that lives there into European terms. Indeed, under such influences, it has even become possible for interpretations of certain Indian spiritual currents to cause a sensation in Europe—such as those of Garbe—which amount to nothing more than a confused translation of the Asian soul-spiritual essence through European materialism. In writings of this kind, there is not even a trace of what the spirit of ancient Asian culture was. It is necessary to point these things out emphatically today because, as I have often mentioned, belief in authority has reached a terribly high level, and there is actually nothing left that prompts one to regard anything as valid other than the fact that it comes from academic circles. Of course, there is no truly intrinsic reason to regard Deussen’s or Garbe’s distortion of Asian culture as anything more significant than Europe’s misguided belief in authority, which is no longer capable of finding any inner reasons at all, but which simply believes that this or that is correct solely on the basis of external authority. It does no good—even if it gives rise to new hostilities—to refrain from speaking the truth about these matters, for the gravity of the times absolutely demands that no compromises be made on certain issues, but rather that the truth be pointed out unreservedly.

[ 9 ] Even as the spiritual high culture of Asia was already in a state of decline, the event of Golgotha occurred within that high culture. This event of Golgotha—and this cannot be emphasized enough—was initially perceived and understood through the lens of what Asian culture had produced. One must truly distinguish between the Mystery of Golgotha as an earthly fact—that is, what took place in the Near East at the beginning of our era—and the ideas that people have formed about this Mystery of Golgotha. At the time the Mystery of Golgotha took place, Europe did not yet have the capacity to fully comprehend this Mystery of Golgotha, for it was an event that could only be understood from a spiritual-soul perspective. European civilization, however, had developed through the medium of the material-physical; given the material-physical civilization that had emerged in Europe, this event—which took place at the beginning of our era—could not be grasped directly. Asian civilization, however, was able to find concepts rooted in spiritual-soul intellectualism to comprehend this event at Golgotha. And so what happened in Palestine was cast into the imaginative world of the Orient. And as such, it traveled westward through Greece to Italy and was brought to Europe as a tradition.

[ 10 ] Now, a person can receive something externally that he or she cannot yet grasp internally; he or she can receive it externally through tradition, through oral transmission, and through the written word. And so Europe initially received the explanation, the understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha, through Eastern tradition; that is to say, Christianity was understood in the light of Eastern, spiritual-soul wisdom. This wisdom was great at a time when the Mystery of Golgotha and Christ’s role in the entire development of the Earth were still understood in a Gnostic sense. It grew ever smaller and smaller as Europeans increasingly mingled their own characteristics into the tradition. They had to incorporate their own characteristics—that is, their intellectualism bound to the physical—into their understanding. And what became particularly evident in Europe was that, although in ancient times the human body of Europeans served to a high degree as the instrument for their form of elemental intellectualism, this body gradually withered away. And in fact, the physical development of European humanity up through the fifteenth century and even into our own time has been a process of the material body withering away. Our physical body is becoming increasingly dense and bony. This cannot be proven through external anatomy and physiology, but it is the case. Today we no longer have that inwardly living body that people of the 1st, 3rd, and even the 10th and 11th centuries still possessed. Today we have a European body that, compared to this old, inwardly living body, has become ossified and enfeebled. Thus, on the one hand stood the tradition tailored to the Asian spiritual-soul life, which preserved the church creeds, and on the other hand, increasingly, the European body, to which what had come over from Asia became ever more foreign, and which gradually could no longer receive what had come over from Asia.

[ 11 ] And then, from the mid-15th century onward, under the influence of the ossified European body, it became increasingly apparent that the old tradition was being preserved within the confessional communities only in its outward, formulaic wording. For centuries, tradition had been so alive that people paid little attention to the Gospel, but instead held fast to life itself. Under the influence of the dying European body, they then found themselves compelled to say: “Let us cast aside tradition; let us believe only in the Word—the Word that is written down.” For people believe they possess the Word simply by having a poor translation of it. And so, without being willing to admit it, they gradually came to the point where they actually possessed only the outer shell of the ancient Word, which contained within itself the message of the Mystery of Golgotha clothed in the garb of Eastern spiritual and soul wisdom.

[ 12 ] This Eastern spiritual and psychological wisdom is little understood by those who today often interpret or translate the Gospels—little, almost not at all. We are now faced with the necessity of reinterpreting the Mystery of Golgotha; but we cannot grasp it unless we in Europe move beyond what the already dying European body provides us. Through the development of spiritual science, we must come to an understanding of the spiritual world that is independent of this body. And all the salvation of the future depends on our attaining such an understanding of the spiritual world that is independent of the physical and that reaches directly into the spiritual. It will have to differ from what Oriental spiritual-soul culture embodies. This Oriental spiritual-soul culture came to humanity almost of its own accord through human development. The European of modern times must acquire it for himself. He must cultivate spiritual science. He must organize public education from the very lowest level in such a way that spiritual science is not pursued merely in theory, but that it permeates the entire conduct of teaching and upbringing in particular; that spiritual science also permeates higher education; that spiritual science lives in all that constitutes public spiritual life—such as art, literature, and so on. And it is up to this European culture to ensure that spiritual science is cultivated as such. What will then grow out of this spiritual science? A new understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha will emerge. And we will have to say: Those were bygone days when the Mystery of Golgotha was interpreted solely in terms of Eastern spiritual and soul wisdom; a living, new wisdom must grasp the Mystery of Golgotha in a new way.

[ 13 ] We have, of course, spoken about these things often in many respects, but they must touch our souls from every angle. It is necessary that we take to heart the gravity that truly permeates us with the realization of the need for a new understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha. And there is, after all, something here that, I would say, makes this gravity even more bitter for the people of Central Europe.

[ 14 ] If we look with a deeper understanding at what spiritual life had become in the second half of the 18th century and the first half of the 19th century, particularly within Central Europe, then you will have to say: Although, of course, the population of Central Europe also had bodies that were already in the process of dying, there was still so much that was alive that this population of Central Europe was able to rise to the vitality of the world of ideas, as had never before been achieved in human development. There is no such elevation of the human being to abstract concepts—yet at the same time, when one lives within these abstract concepts, one does not live in the dead but in the living, as was achieved, for example, by Goetheanism or by the idealist German philosophers. This is otherwise unknown in human development. In a certain sense, this is also a high point that one must simply make quite clear to oneself. Today’s humanity simply wants nothing more to do with the way—to take just one thinker from the ranks of the Goetheans—a person like Schelling—as I have often described—moves within the sphere of abstract concepts, and yet, even though he speaks in abstract concepts, he moves so vividly within this world of abstract concepts as one would otherwise only do when speaking of eating and drinking. This was also the case with Fichte. This ability to ascend into the sphere of concepts and ideas with such vitality stands out to us quite particularly in this area of human development. Therefore, there really is something quite special about this Central European population within the broader context of modern humanity. For this Central European population, in fact, possesses a unique character—one that was only truly overwhelmed by something else in the second half of the 19th century—that enables it to most readily embrace the calling of modern humanity: to return to the spiritual realm. That is why it is so terribly painful to witness that there exists today in Central Europe such a slumbering human being who, in a certain sense, wanders among the graves of Lessing, Goethe, Herder, and Schelling, and sees his own task in spiritual slumber. For in fact, it is in reconnecting with what these spirits wrote and thought—not in an external sense, but by reconnecting with the spirit from which they wrote—that lies what could lift Europe to new heights. Europe cannot be raised to new heights if the words of the Gospel, misunderstood, are merely parroted in its churches. Europe can only be raised to new heights if an understanding of the spiritual worlds is sought through a further development of what Herder, Goethe, and others strove for. But almost no one takes notice of this in the present day. It is indeed a sad sign of the times that, for example, within a cultural community that possesses works such as Fichte’s The Destiny of Man, Schelling’s Bruno, and Schiller’s Aesthetic Letters, and I could name many more—that within such a cultural community a trend could emerge that has turned toward the ridiculous, superficial Americanisms of a Ralph Waldo Trine and others like him. Here, far, far higher things exist, yet they are left dormant while attention turns elsewhere.

[ 15 ] And the deeper one penetrates into the realm of the spirit itself, the more evident it becomes that something new is emerging in the life of humanity today. Central Europeans are little understood by Western Europeans; Western Europeans are little understood by Central Europeans, even in everyday life. But people don’t really notice it there. They believe they understand one another. They don’t realize that they are talking past one another. I do not wish to speak of the Americans and Europeans talking past one another, but rather of Central and Western Europeans doing so. One can indeed experience strange things in these matters.

[ 16 ] I also told you the last time I was here that this smear campaign is not limited to Germany, but extends beyond its borders as well. I told you about this Ferrière, who, in a Belgian-Swiss magazine, made himself the purveyor of a strange tall tale by claiming that it was common knowledge that I had been Wilhelm II’s “Rasputin” and had contributed significantly to all the bad advice given to Wilhelm II during the Reign of Terror. Compelled by this slander, which had spread particularly within French-speaking Switzerland, I responded by writing down the truth of the matter—namely, the bare facts: that I had only seen the former emperor briefly from a distance, that I had never spoken a word to him, and that I had never even sought an indirect connection with him. I set down these bare facts in a letter to Dr. Boos, who in turn gave Ferrière the necessary rebuttal. This was published in the relevant journal, and the reply was printed immediately as well. This reply has roughly the following content: One can see in this example, once again, the great difference between the Latin spirit and the Germanic spirit. The Germanic spirit takes everything so seriously. “My readers,” Ferrière writes, “will not have been deceived, however; they will already have realized that what I wrote was meant as a ‘plaisanterie’ and not as ‘méchanceté.’” Incidentally, I note that one can learn from experience that even when one hears something from people whom one believes one can trust, and even if the rumor has spread widely, it may still not be true. I take note of this.” And so on.

[ 17 ] That was the elegant retort that the “Latin spirit” could offer with “plaisanterie” to the serious Germanic spirit. If such things still come to the fore, then one can still be satisfied, but very often they go unnoticed.

[ 18 ] But these matters stand out even more significantly in the realm of a deeper worldview—where they play a role in the science of initiation, in the science of consecration, and in everything connected with them. And here, in this realm, it is indeed necessary to address these matters—matters that some people today still consider extraordinarily dangerous to touch upon. And so today I would like to speak to you about a fact that, in the opinion of Western representatives of the science of initiation in particular, should not be discussed.

[ 19 ] You will hear time and again from Western representatives of the science of initiation that it is actually quite inappropriate for anyone to disseminate the self-realized science of initiation on their own initiative. You will therefore always find that when truly initiated individuals in the West present the science of initiation through public writings, they deny—based on their own experience—that they know anything about the very things they are communicating. You will find it a typical occurrence that someone communicates things that are indeed the science of initiation; such things appear especially in America, where a preface is added—this is simply part of the technique for handling the whole matter—and in it it is stated: “It goes without saying that I do not have all these things of my own accord, for if I did, I would not communicate them.” — Look into it, and you will find such things in a large number of documents pertaining specifically to Western esoteric science. And when the question arises as to why this is done, you will receive a certain answer that, within certain limits, is entirely accurate for Western esoteric science. You will be told: “The one who experiences something directly and immediately in the spiritual world—that is, who knows the mysteries of the spiritual world—cannot tell another that he knows them through his own experience”—this is how the answer will generally read verbatim—“ for if he reveals that he possesses initiatory knowledge from his own direct experience, he places himself in lifelong dependence on the one to whom he reveals his secret.

[ 20 ] This view, which is rooted in the very nature of Western esoteric science, leads to everything related to initiation being discussed in a purely superficial manner within Western esoteric societies, so that there are indeed initiates walking among Western people of whom no one knows that they are initiates. This view, which must be overcome in modern times, cannot apply at all in Central Europe, and it is precisely the spirit that should prevail in Central Europe that must combat this view. Specifically, this Central European spirit must combat it by learning to understand, in the new spiritual way characterized earlier, the Mystery of Golgotha and life with the Christ Being.

[ 21 ] Herein lies an important secret. In Western countries today, the prevailing science of initiation is still in many ways far removed from Christianity; otherwise, the Theosophical Society would not have applied a purely Eastern, Indian wisdom—a pre-Christian wisdom—as something new, while excluding Christianity or presenting a caricatured version of it. It is a peculiarity of this Western science of initiation that one who is initiated in it derives no benefit from one’s initiation unless one has at least one disciple who repeats one’s ideas. It is of no use whatsoever to possess the science of initiation solely for oneself. Just as you cannot see any object directly with your eyes, so you cannot perceive your own spiritual concepts if, as a Western initiate, you are unable to observe the repetition of your ideas in another person. This is already hinted at in the most varied forms, but it is not properly recognized. In fact, if this is the case, then it follows that whoever reveals to another that he himself is an initiate falls under that other’s power for life; for the other can terminate his service and can say to him: “I do not repeat your ideas.” — A certain dependence arises from this principle. This is essentially one of the characteristic features of that science of initiation about which I have often spoken to you—from other perspectives—as the dominant science of initiation in the West.

[ 22 ] Now, in contrast to this dependence on the followers, there is only one thing: to be in communion with Christ, who has indeed been truly present on earth since the Mystery of Golgotha. Whoever maintains this communion—not with a non-sensory human being, but with the first brother who came among humanity, with the living Christ walking among us—the very communion that in pre-Christian initiation had to be shared with another human being, need not shy away from sharing their own wisdom with the world around them. But in the present day, there is no other way to directly communicate original initiatory wisdom than by maintaining communion with Christ. There is no other way. And therefore, true initiatory wisdom of the modern age will have to seek this communion with Christ. If this initiatory wisdom could not be sought, we could make no progress in social understanding. For today, social thought can no longer be developed from anything that does not stem from initiation. Yet that is precisely what we need. And if a social system were to emerge solely from Western initiatory wisdom, it would have to be based on the fact that the initiatory wisdom itself is kept secret in many areas—certain higher realms, after all, cannot be communicated to people today because preparation is necessary for them. But this kind of secrecy is, from the outset, incompatible with the principle of the equality of all human beings—a principle increasingly sought after by the newer European, and indeed by modern civilized humanity as a whole. From this you can see that it is precisely where initiatory wisdom is found that the colossal difference between the disposition of Central European people and that of Western people comes into play. This difference becomes much clearer when it comes to the wisdom of initiation than when it comes to that in which people today so often fail to see eye to eye and believe they can mold humanity into an abstract, uniform form. That is not possible. Humanity is diverse, and this diversity becomes particularly evident when one delves into the depths of initiatory science. This topic indeed touches on something very significant, and I will certainly need to provide further explanations on this subject during my stay here. — In the realm of true spiritual knowledge, one cannot expect to get by with superficiality, carelessness, or a lack of seriousness toward the truth. That simply does not work. Truthfulness is essential.