The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Ninth Lecture

[ 1 ] Today we want to take this as our starting point to consider the soul’s journey through successive earthly lives. You are already familiar with the outward phenomena that occur here from your other studies in anthroposophy; however, today we would like to discuss a few things that still require a more detailed examination.

[ 2 ] You know: When a person passes through the gate of death, the first thing that happens is that they shed their physical body; they are left first with what we call the “I,” with all its contents, then with what we call the astral body, and initially also with the etheric body, albeit only for a short time. This period, during which a person still possesses the etheric body, is a time for them to look back on their last earthly life: their last life appears before their soul in a pictorial manner. This period ends when this etheric body is, so to speak, propelled upward toward outer space, just as the physical body is propelled downward toward the earth. Then, therefore, the human being is united with his astral body. In this astral body, we still retain the aftereffects of the etheric body—that is, everything that this astral body experienced through its union with the etheric body and, incidentally, with the physical body during the last earthly life. You know that it takes quite some time before this astral body is also shed.

[ 3 ] I believe I have even pointed out in our literature that one should not speak of a radical dissolution of the etheric and astral bodies; rather, this dissolution is in reality a stepping out into the universe of those forces that the human being possesses within. The etheric body, after all, bears within it, so to speak, the imprints of everything a person has experienced in life. This is a sum of—I would say—form-structures. This sum of formative structures, which spreads out more and more, does indeed imprint itself upon the cosmos; so that what has unfolded as our life and what is imprinted upon the etheric body actually continues to exert its influence in the universe through its forces. We hand over to the cosmos the way in which we have behaved toward our etheric body. Our life is not meaningless for the entire universe. It is precisely through this—through the insight gained from anthroposophical spiritual science—that a strong sense of responsibility arises in the human being, compelling them to consider how what they incorporate into the etheric body through their intellectual life, their emotional life, their volitional life—that is, through their morality—is indeed communicated to the entire cosmos. The cosmos contains—if I may put it that way—the actions of people who have lived in past times. In a certain sense, what contributes to the formation of the etheric body through our way of life is set apart and accumulates throughout the entire vast world. We are, in essence, helping to shape the world. And when we realize that we are helping to shape the world, we must develop this sense of responsibility, which is expressed by our feeling that we are co-creators of the world. Nor should we simply regard what we carry with us as our astral body as if it were to disperse into the cosmos, as if it were to dissolve into the cosmos. That is not the case; rather, this too becomes part of the cosmos—specifically, the spiritual-soul aspect of the cosmos.

[ 4 ] And when the “I” has detached itself from this astral body, after the passage through the soul world is complete, then, in a sense, what we have incorporated into our astral body remains out there in the universe; we simply go our separate ways. The astral body goes its own way, separate from the “I,” and the “I” goes its own way as well. But one cannot speak of the destruction of the astral body. On the contrary, this astral body continues to develop, and through its interaction with the universe, it becomes something—simply because we have imbued it with the effects of certain moral impulses, and it now communicates with the universe in the form it has taken on as a result of these moral impulses, so to speak, inserting itself into the spiritual-soul universe. This gives rise to an interaction between it and the spiritual-soul universe. One can even say—though this is only partly figurative, it nevertheless corresponds to the facts—that this astral body expands more and more, but its expansion reaches a certain limit. It cannot expand beyond this limit; it then begins to contract again. And the speed or slowness with which it expands or contracts depends essentially on what has been incorporated into it throughout the course of life. So one can say: The astral body communicates with the universe; it strikes, so to speak—if I may put it that way—against the end of our spiritual-soul cosmos and is in turn thrown back.

[ 5 ] The “I” now goes its own way in a world that is, in essence, fundamentally different from this astral body. But this “I” develops internally a kind of—one might say—desire, as I myself expressed it in yesterday’s public lecture. And it is essentially this desire that feels drawn precisely to this returning astral body, which, however, has now become something different. In fact, a kind of connection is once again established between the transformed, altered astral body and the “I.” As this happens, the human being develops certain inclinations in various directions, I would say, as he approaches the moment when he is to return to Earth once more.

[ 6 ] I have hinted at how the astral body expands outward into the universe, then returns, and how the “I,” so to speak, finds it again. We can observe this in the human being’s outward form when we view the human being as a whole being, in all its totality.

[ 7 ] We must imagine, in fact, that human beings, as they appear on Earth when they are born, are truly formed from two sides. That astral body—which I have just described to you as having expanded out into the cosmos and then returned—meets, so to speak, with the “I.” Figuratively speaking, it approaches the “I” like a kind of hollow sphere, a hollow sphere that grows smaller and smaller; it is related to the planetary system. On its journey between death and a new birth, although the longing for the astral body is also present, the “I” develops an even greater longing for a specific point on Earth—toward a people, toward a family. But on the other hand, what comes from outside as the transformed astral body contracts and unites with what the “I” now is after passing through the time between death and a new birth—and which exerts a strong pull toward the earthly realm, toward a people, a family, and so on. What is subject to the forces of this transformed astral body—we see this again when we look at the newly born human being in terms of the outer surface of their physicality: that which is, so to speak, organized from our skin inward, including the sense organs, is organized for us from the great cosmos. But that which arises organically from the fact that the “I” feels connected to the Earth, feels drawn to the Earth—this brings about organization from the inside out, in contrast to the other form of organization; it affects more the organization of the bones, muscles, and so on—that is, what, in a sense, radiates inward from within, counteracting what radiates inward from the skin and the senses. We are, so to speak, organized from the macrocosm with regard to the outer extent of our physicality, and we are organized from the Earth with regard to that which flows through the actual “I”—that which grows from within in opposition to the formation of the skin and the senses.

[ 8 ] Thus, human beings are actually born from the universe. And their time in the mother’s womb merely provides—I would say—the opportunity for these two forces, a macrocosmic force and an earthly force, to unite. But the human being is by no means a being that grows from a single point—from the germ—but rather is a confluence, on the one hand, of external, non-terrestrial, extraterrestrial forces, which are held together precisely by his transformed astral body, and, on the other hand, of that which grows toward these extraterrestrial forces, influenced by the Earth. Intimately connected with what grows toward us from the cosmos, and intimately related to it, is what we call our reason, our intellect, and our power of imagination. This power of imagination of ours does indeed point us back to our previous earthly life. We acquire this power of imagination because what we wove into our astral body in our previous earthly life has expanded out into the cosmos and returned again, and now, so to speak, seeks out our head as its principal organ—a head that is essentially formed from the outside as a skin-sense organ. The rest is, so to speak, merely an appendage to the head as a skin-sense organization. In contrast, what is related to earthly forces—because the human “I,” when it is about to be born again, feels drawn to a point on Earth—is where our volitional organization is more fully expressed. So we can say: When we are reborn, heaven gives us our intellect, and Earth gives us our will. Between the two lies feeling, which is given to us neither by the Earth nor by Heaven; it is based on a kind of constant oscillation between Earth and Heaven, and essentially finds its external organ in the human rhythmic system—in the respiratory system, blood circulation, and so on. This lies right in the middle between the actual main organization—which is essentially the result of the macrocosm via the former astral body—and that which comes to us from the earth: our will organization. In between lies our rhythmic system, our emotional life, which can develop on the basis of this rhythmic system, and which we, I might say, also manifest outwardly between heaven and earth. Our head points us more toward our extraterrestrial origin; our will is intimately connected with what we have from the earth. Between the two lies our emotional life and, from a physical perspective, our circulation and our respiratory life. It is certainly the case that a comprehensive, total view of the human being is neither one-sidedly spiritual nor one-sidedly physical, but rather that the two—the physical and the spiritual—interlock in this total view.

[ 9 ] On the other hand, however, we can also see from this that, because we are connected to the entire macrocosm and, in a sense, carry within our very main organism something that has been formed from the macrocosm, we are thereby referred back to our past—that is, our intellect refers us back to our past in the first place; except that with our ordinary consciousness we do not gain this insight into how we are thus referred back to our earlier earthly lives.

[ 10 ] In the ancient Eastern quest for wisdom, those who were disciples of the initiates sought first to establish a connection between their rhythmic life and their head life. For that era—for the ancient Eastern development of wisdom—it was natural to seek higher human development by making the breathing process, and thus also the circulatory process, a conscious activity; by breathing in accordance with certain laws and thereby raising breathing and circulation into consciousness. The ancient Orientals were able to do this because their soul-spiritual nature was not yet as intensely connected to their physical body as is the case with people today. If one were simply to —I would say—through a kind of practical anachronism, were one to practice this ancient Eastern method of attaining higher insights, one would more or less ruin the human body; for one would thereby interfere too deeply with the health of the physical body, since today human beings are more intimately and more intensely connected to their bodies than was the case, for example, in the era of ancient Indian wisdom-seeking.

[ 11 ] But what did those who undertook such exercises in ancient India gain? He made the breathing process a conscious one; that is, he breathed in consciously. Through this, he gained the ability to gradually observe the process that takes place as the inhaled air exerts pressure, causing the cerebrospinal fluid to oscillate through the spinal canal toward the brain, so to speak, striking the brain. But it is in this collision—between the cerebrospinal fluid that shoots upward during inhalation and then sinks again during exhalation, and the solid parts of the brain—that ideas actually arise. This process of idea formation is far more complex than people imagine today, when everything is conceived in materialistic terms. People today—or at least they thought so until recently; today, after all, we have once again dispensed with more precise concepts—imagine some kind of evolutionary process, attributing the formation of ideas to certain nerves. That is nonsense. Rather, what actually occurs is a continuous impact of the cerebrospinal fluid against the nervous system, and this triggers the processes within the nervous system that underlie its functions. This is what the ancient Indian seeker of wisdom brought to his consciousness. What did he discover by consciously following this entire process? Through it, he discovered how that which had shaped his brain actually points back to earlier earthly lives. In a sense, he sensed his past earthly life through his present rhythmic system: this became a certainty for him. Consequently, it was simply self-evident to such a student of wisdom that he had lived a past earthly life. He perceived it, after all, but by elevating the breathing process to a conscious level. Today, this must be achieved in a different way. Today it cannot be achieved through a form of meditation such as I described in my public lecture—one that is based on a specific shaping of the breathing process, which, as I explained, must not be practiced by people today—but rather through a state of rest in mental images, which thus proceeds from the opposite direction and therefore takes into account the fact that people today are more intensely connected to their physical bodies. But by resting in imagination, the human being comes to know this nuance of the rhythmic system from the other side—the spiritual-soul side. He comes to know the process from the other side; but not, as was the case with the ancient Indian, by penetrating deeper into his body—he must not do that, because he is already deep enough within it anyway—but by freeing himself from the physical, that is, by tracing the entire cosmos in the spiritual-soul realm, which makes clear to him how his previous earthly life is connected to this present earthly life.

[ 12 ] What is expressed in anthroposophy is not just some abstract, fanatical assertion, but is based on a profound understanding of the human organism from within. Not by examining the organism from the outside as a corpse—or even if not as a corpse, but still from the outside—but rather by getting to know it from within, by truly understanding this interaction between the rhythmic system and the nervous-sensory system, and, on the other hand, the interaction between the rhythmic system and the metabolic system—for the rhythmic system also influences metabolism as such—it is through the intimate contact between the two [one comes to know the human being]. And when one comes to know this convergence of the rhythmic system with the metabolic system, one becomes certain that the seed for the next earthly life is already within us, simply because metabolism, in its spiritual aspect, contains the seeds for the next earthly life. Even though it is initially the lowest aspect of the human organism in this earthly life, from a spiritual perspective it does indeed contain the seeds for the next earthly life. In this way, one ascends to a view of the whole human being.

[ 13 ] You see, in this regard, people immersed in Western civilization often find themselves, in many ways, like the blind man standing before a painting. Perhaps this is foreign to some of you, but I would still like to draw your attention to it: Everything we grasp mathematically—that is, everything involving lines, angles, verticals, and horizontals, as well as what we measure—everything we grasp mathematically, we actually develop from within ourselves; it lies at the foundation of our inner being. The moment one learns to observe what underlies our inner being, one no longer speaks in Kantian terms—where one simply pours into a kind of incomprehensible word that which springs up within the human being: One no longer says that mathematics is a priori knowledge. “A priori” means that something is there from the very beginning. But if one learns to look inward, then one knows where this strange mathematical quality comes from: it is the astral body that has passed through the mathematics of the entire universe; it has drawn itself back together again. We simply allow to emerge from our soul that which we experienced in a previous incarnation—that which then passed through the entire cosmos and reemerges in the subtlety of mathematical-geometric lines. There you see that what is expressed in the a priori simply corresponds to a way of perceiving the world, just as a blind person perceives color! Otherwise, one would have to say: What is called “a priori” in the Kantian sense originates from our previous incarnations and reemerges in this incarnation in a transformed form—albeit having passed through the macrocosm.

[ 14 ] I have thus spoken to you about the law that underlies the whole human being and that reveals itself when one considers life as it unfolds through repeated earthly existences. Our present age is very reluctant to take such things into account at all. Consequently, our current view of the world truly remains stuck on the surface of things. And I would like to illustrate this to you with an example.

[ 15 ] Let’s suppose we examine, using the method that is currently standard, a particular people living on a specific piece of land on Earth. Well, what do we do today as historians? We say: The present generation lives there; another generation preceded it; and yet another generation preceded that one. We then go back to earlier centuries, we go back to the Middle Ages, and there we trace—I would say—the flow of blood through the generations, trace the external inheritances, and say: What lives in the present people traces its existence back to earlier phases of that people’s development.

[ 16 ] This is how history is viewed today. If a true historian today wishes to trace, say, German, French, or English history as far back as possible, he traces it through the chain of ancestors based on physically inheritable characteristics. One might then say that what a present-day generation belonging to a particular people is experiencing should be understood in terms of what earlier generations of that people have experienced—that is, in terms of what has been physically inherited. But that is, after all, merely a materialistic way of thinking applied to history. For if you consider what anthroposophical spiritual science offers you—not as a mere theory, but as something that is truly applied to life, something that is incorporated into one’s view of life— then you need not merely speculate about repeated earthly lives; you need not, so to speak, merely consider in isolation that your soul has lived through past earthly lives and will live through future ones, but you must also truly view what is unfolding in the world from this perspective. For if we consider any generation living today, certainly, we can trace them back by blood—externally, according to physically inheritable characteristics—to earlier generations who, for my sake, lived on the same soil, or whom we can trace back to ancestors on some earlier, different soil by considering the flows of migration and the like; but in doing so, we remain entirely stuck in the physical and material realm.

[ 17 ] But that is not the case. We have before us a generation in the present time that, in terms of its physical body, descends from its ancestors; but the souls that live within each individual have nothing at all to do with those ancestors. After all, the soul has by no means experienced on Earth what has unfolded over many generations and what outwardly represents the fate of the ancestors; rather, the soul has experienced this in the life between death and rebirth in the spiritual-soul world.

[ 18 ] Isn’t it true that we look up to our grandfather, great-grandfather, and great-great-grandfather? Well, when they were alive, we hadn’t been born yet; our soul was in the spiritual world. Our body inherited from them, but our soul inherited nothing at all from any of them! After all, it lived in a completely different world during that time; its own experiences have absolutely nothing to do with what our body has inherited from our ancestors. And when these matters are investigated in the field of spiritual research, what often emerges—from an external perspective—is indeed paradoxical. One must be fully aware that when one begins to speculate or philosophize about the true facts of life, the result is usually nonsense! Observation alone provides the correct answer. And the spiritual researcher is often surprised by his own results. Indeed, he can find a kind of confirmation precisely in this surprise he feels at his results; for if he had already imagined the matter beforehand, he would not find such strong confirmation. But precisely because things are usually different from what they would be if one were to imagine them, one can generally see that one is moving not in the subjective but in the objective realm when one devotes oneself to true spiritual research.

[ 19 ] You see, something is becoming clear with regard to this historical aspect of humanity. I have alluded to this before; however, this is not meant to be a correction, but merely a supplement, for we are, after all, dealing with a very complex subject. We have said before—and to a certain extent this is an entirely accurate statement—that, for example, among the European population there are numerous individuals whose souls previously lived in the south during the early Christian centuries and are now incarnated more in the north, or in Europe in general, but more so in the north; that is certainly true. But this does not actually constitute the majority of the population. One must look elsewhere if one wishes to understand the true reality. Among the majority of today’s population—namely the Western, but also the Central European population, extending all the way to Russia—spiritual scientific research leads us back to those times when the European population of that era appeared as a conquering people in relation to the indigenous peoples of America at that time. This Native American population possessed remarkable inner spiritual qualities. One generally fails to do justice to such things when—insisting selfishly on one’s “higher” culture—regards all of this as mere barbarism; when one fails to take into account the profound otherness of such people—like those who were conquered and exterminated after the discovery of America—and instead of considering them in their own unique way, simply views them from the bird’s-eye perspective of a “higher” culture. These indigenous peoples of America, these Native American peoples, for example, had remarkable pantheistic beliefs. They worshipped a Great Spirit that breathed through all becoming. Their souls were deeply imbued with the belief in the Great Spirit that permeated everything. Because of everything connected to this in the emotional life of these people, these souls were predestined to lead a relatively short existence between death and rebirth. But the relationship that had developed between them and their land and their entire surroundings, and between this fate—which they faced as a result of being exterminated—all of that was decisive for life between death and a new birth. And that has led to the fact that, in truth, the vast majority—as paradoxical as it may sound— it is simply a fact that the majority of the population of Western and Central Europe—and even extending into the East—not entirely, but to a large extent, and indeed to a very large extent—that this majority of the population, while descended by blood from the physical ancestors of the Middle Ages, consists of souls that once lived in the bodies of ancient Native Americans. As paradoxical as it sounds, this is the case with regard to the majority of the European population! This emotional experience of the Great Spirit entered into a reciprocal relationship with what is, of course, present in the outward, linear course of history, and with what one absorbs through one’s first childlike love—especially when one reenacts this from within through imitation. What we take in there is, for the most part, precisely what is absorbed from the outside; this enters into a reciprocal relationship with what actually originates in the soul from earlier incarnations. And one cannot understand European life if one views it one-sidedly in terms of what is not reality at all—namely, the characteristics inherited from ancestors—but only if one knows where the souls come from, which have then intermingled with these inherited characteristics to produce this interaction. And it was only as the result of this interplay between what the souls are from their earlier earthly lives and what these souls have taken on through heredity and also through upbringing—upbringing in the broadest sense—that what has now become the historical reality of Europe took shape.

[ 20 ] These populations, however, have been heavily intermingled with souls who lived in the south during the first centuries of Christianity and who then reincarnated in Western and Eastern Europe; but everything that has taken place in social life—and what is increasingly unfolding, especially in these catastrophic times—points to the fact that the reality of European life is a complex one. And the spiritual researcher comes to the conclusion that it is made complicated, in particular, by the fact that reincarnated Native American souls connect with what are inherited characteristics—those inherited traits that appear in the individual nationalities and the like.

[ 21 ] Against this, we must then set a certain European population that we encounter in the early Christian centuries, during the period that, according to external history, we refer to as the Migration Period: that population of Europe of yesteryear, which, as a “barbarian” people, embraced Christianity as it came from the south and shaped it in a completely different way than Christianity had developed, for example, in Greek or Roman culture during the very earliest centuries. The souls of the people during the Migration Period and even in the centuries that followed were shaped in such a way that they were deeply impressed by what was emerging as Christianity as it moved from the south to the north, alongside the original dispositions of this population. One must be absolutely clear that this population of Europe, which embraced Christianity during the Migration Period, brought very special characteristics to the surface. In particular, there was a strong tendency among these people to shape their physical constitution in such a way that the sense of self emerged with particular intensity. And this sense of self that emerged was combined with the selflessness of Christianity, thereby shaping the soul in a specific way. These were, so to speak, souls who had absorbed Christianity within themselves a few centuries after its emergence. Whereas the majority of the European population now consists of souls who are actually coming to know Christianity from the outside—through education, and also through what may be inherited in terms of feelings—these souls had absorbed nothing of Christianity in their previous lives over in America. One need only imagine how infinitely clear the relationship of the present-day European population to Christianity becomes once one discovers that, for the most part, these souls experienced nothing of Christianity in their earlier incarnations, but rather that Christianity for them is something instilled—a tradition passed down through the generations, something instilled and perpetuated. Those, on the other hand, who in Europe became acquainted with early Christianity—that is, Christianity in its earliest days—are, as time has receded into the past, reincarnating in the present more toward the East, more into Asia. So that, in fact, these souls, once somewhat Christianized, are now swinging in the opposite direction, taking up what has remained in the East from the ancient Eastern traditions and has fallen into decadence there. The Japanese, when studied from a spiritual-scientific perspective, are in many cases precisely characteristic reincarnated souls who lived in Europe during the Migration Period.

[ 22 ] Yes, we can develop an understanding of extraordinary individuals when we are aware of such things. Try to understand the remarkable figure of Rabindranath Tagore from this perspective: What was instilled in him through Orientalism—specifically through his Indian heritage—he inherited. So what he has from that source, he inherited; it was instilled in him; it flowed into him from the outside. Essentially, this is decadence, which is why it has such a coquettish character. For in a certain sense, what one hears from Rabindranath Tagore is expressed in an extraordinarily coquettish manner. But the European, in turn, senses within it something that glows warmly in Tagore—that which appears in a coquettish way. And this stems from the fact that this soul, in a previous incarnation, lived among a people who had embraced Christianity.

[ 23 ] You see, one views the external world no less abstractly when one considers it merely in material terms than when one develops some other view of life that is alien to life itself. What do we see of humanity today if we know only its blood ties and lineage, if we are unable to take into account what souls have brought with them from a previous incarnation? This, after all, combines with what occurs in external heredity and upbringing to form a whole.

[ 24 ] These souls, who lived in Central Europe during the Migration Period, were—by virtue of their entire soul configuration, and above all because they were inwardly permeated by Christ—predestined, for example, to linger longer between death and rebirth, so that they endured this period for a longer time.

[ 25 ] Then, when the spiritual researcher examines the present, he is led back to those times that were slightly before or concurrent with the Mystery of Golgotha, or slightly afterward. Over in Asia, the population had not yet embraced the Mystery of Golgotha. But certainly, from Eastern wisdom—from what had unfolded as wisdom within the Eastern soul through devotion—the foundation was laid, so to speak, for what was initially brought to Christianity as understanding. The Mystery of Golgotha stands as a fact in and of itself. It can be understood in the most diverse ways by the most diverse eras. The first centuries of Greek and Roman development understood this Mystery of Golgotha in such a way that they applied the wisdom that had come to them from the East to this Mystery of Golgotha. The concepts they derived from Eastern wisdom were what enabled them to understand the incarnation of Christ in the man Jesus of Nazareth.

[ 26 ] But over in Asia, the people who lived before, during, and after the Mystery of Golgotha were, in fact, already endowed with a creative power that was somewhat more diffuse, yet still far more vibrant than what you find in the Orient today. These people, who lived in Asia at that time—at least a large portion of them—are today embodied in many ways within the American population, specifically among the majority of the American people. It was precisely this part of humanity that, through its highly developed Eastern culture, had to undergo a long period between death and a new birth, so that these are, in essence, old souls. They are born in America into bodies in which they do not actually—if I may put it that way—feel entirely at home, and which they therefore prefer to view more from the outside than from the inside. Hence the particular inclination there today toward an external view of life. What is curious, what is paradoxical, is that those souls who once lived over in the East—who had not yet embraced Christianity at that time but possessed a refined spiritual culture—now live in American bodies. Admittedly, one group demonstrates this quite clearly through what I would call a distinct phenomenon. The Oriental was inclined toward the spiritual aspect of the world. As these souls reappear in America today, an inclination toward the spiritual world develops within them—though it has now become abstract and is no longer inwardly alive. In times past—that is, in earlier incarnations—this experience of the spiritual world was connected with overlooking the physical world, with not paying attention to it. Among the followers of “Christian Science,” this manifests in a decadent way: matter is denied; one does not want to look at matter. One feels, as it were, as if one were now worshiping the old but living spirituality in a more lifeless form—in a corpse-like, spiritually corpse-like form. But that is, I would say, only an isolated aspect. On the whole, one can see in the American conception how souls do not fully inhabit their bodies, how they therefore seek to grasp the body from the outside, and how even the study of the soul in America takes on a character in which, fundamentally, one has no proper concept of the “I.” Because the soul was more accustomed to feeling at home in the supernatural realm, this embodiment of the “I”—as it is now taking place in the West—is not properly developed. Hence, a situation arises in which one thought cannot be synthesized with another. This is then called “association psychology.” There, the human being becomes something like a plaything of thoughts that associate in this way. Curiously, something emerges that could be described with a single term—one that is often used slanderously against us to refer to the doctrine of repeated earthly lives: people speak of the transmigration of souls. But with regard to repeated earthly lives, we must not speak of the transmigration of souls—unless it is done by those with malicious intent. For when it comes to repeated earthly lives, we are dealing with an evolution, with the development of the soul, not with what we are accused of; but in another sense, one can speak of the migration of souls, in that the souls who populate a certain part of the earth in one age do not, in the next age, remain in the same place on earth, but rather in a completely different one. Thus, the souls that were incarnated in the south during the first Christian centuries are now found in Central, Western, and Eastern Europe—more to the north—but this population is intermingled with those souls who were once in Native American bodies. Over in Asia, one finds the souls who lived in Europe during the Migration Period and also before and after it; in America, the souls who lived in Asia precisely at the time of the Mystery of Golgotha.

[ 27 ] We are undoubtedly facing a time in which people will develop a longing to gain insight into the whole of reality. Today, there is still fierce opposition to this insight into the whole of reality—not merely in the theoretical realm, but also in the realm of external life. Just consider how, time and again from various angles, I have had to point out this intellectualist disease that has arisen in recent years: this enchantment with Wilsonism. I have often had to point out, even in public lectures, in no uncertain terms, this enchantment of a large part of humanity with Wilsonism. In this Wilsonism we have also—albeit in a quite abstract form—alluded to something that has, of course, gradually emerged as the external consequence of materialism in social thought: the principle of nationality, this insistence on nationality, this desire to live solely within the framework of nationality, gradually emerged over the course of the 19th century. This is the opposition to the spiritual-soul aspect, for this spiritual-soul aspect does not concern itself with nationality. The souls living in Europe today have in many cases been in America in earlier lives; the souls living today, particularly in Japanese bodies, should not even point spiritually to their ancestors, but rather to the period of the Migration Period in Europe. Indeed, Americans need not be proud of their ancestors—their blood relatives or forebears in Europe—but should instead point to how they lived at the time of the Mystery of Golgotha, specifically over in Asia, and how they passed through a culture that had not yet been Christianized, so that they, too, are among those who accept Christianity through external tradition and external education. There is still sharp opposition from this side as well against the spiritual-psychic understanding of the world.

[ 28 ] This materialism is not confined to the realm of science; it is also very much present in external civilization. And what people are trying to do to Europe today—this new map of Europe—is shaped entirely by materialistic sentiments and materialistic impulses. Humanity will only awaken when it adds to these nationalistic impulses—which are materialistic and based merely on an observation of the external succession of generations—a consideration of social-historical life in its true reality. So that one may also see the souls living in their present bodies, for whom what is passed down through physical inheritance in the succession of generations—or what is passed down in tradition as spiritual culture and is merely acquired through education—serves only as an outer shell.

[ 29 ] Even among human beings, there are deep-seated longings to go beyond what a purely materialistic perspective can offer. Of course, compared to what people are accustomed to thinking today, much of what stems from genuine spiritual research seems paradoxical. But anyone who is willing to look into life—especially into contemporary life, which is, after all, lived amid hardships—will see, for example, that much becomes understandable to them precisely when they listen carefully to what the spiritual researcher shares based on his conscientious, precise research. People are accustomed to placing value on what is communicated to them, say, by observatories or the like. When an astronomical discovery is made somewhere, people do not say that they accept it on authority. They do not realize that they are, in fact, accepting it on authority—but in conjunction with common sense, which recognizes that what is communicated to the rest of the world from any observatory is not foolish; that it is, after all, reasonably structured so that one has good reason not to doubt that what is being communicated is based on truth. The context of life is such that one cannot really say that one accepts something merely on authority. Yet one would have to think this way if isolated spiritual researchers were to appear merely as isolated astronomers and proclaim what has been discovered through spiritual research: but one will find this to be true everywhere in life, if one is willing to apply one’s common sense.

[ 30 ] Anthroposophical spiritual science would indeed remain merely a theoretical, abstract concept in life if it did not permeate every aspect of human existence. Nor should you imagine, for example, that history should be influenced by spiritual science in such a way that one would then develop only a history of epochs or generations—albeit on a deeper level; that is not the case. Rather, spiritual research itself should be united with the external material of practical or other forms of history, and from this a view of full reality should emerge. As great as the longing is today, in the subconscious depths of human life, for such a view of life that corresponds to reality, so strong is the opposition on the other side—namely, from the more conscious part of human life. And this opposition seizes upon all manner of things in order to give itself the appearance of justification. It does not shy away from any kind of slander. Yesterday I showed you, by way of an example, how untruthful this opposition becomes by simply lying—by stating objective untruths. One can quite disregard the fact that these are attacks on anthroposophical spiritual science; that is not the point. But what kind of human qualities are we being reminded of when a person who has a capital “D” before his name—that is, a Doctor of Theology—is so thoroughly deceitful that he does not, for example, write: “Someone told me that in Dornach he saw a statue of Christ with Luciferic features at the top and animalistic traits at the bottom”—while there stands an idealized head that is, admittedly, largely complete at the top but is merely a block of wood at the bottom; of this, he says it has animalistic traits! One must therefore truly say: There is such moral baseness here that one must infer from this lack of a sense of truth the state of the entire body of knowledge that such a person represents, for it will naturally not be imbued with any greater truthfulness in regard to the sense of truth.

[ 31 ] On the other hand, it turns out that people who do not wish to delve into the spiritual realm at all, but rather want to remain at the level of abstract concepts—even when they are determined to put forward something positive—also end up straying down strange paths. Take, for example, a person who today seeks to shape a worldview out of empty conceptual shells—a worldview that even makes an impression on some people: Count Hermann Keyserling. Just try, for a moment, to grasp something substantial in Hermann Keyserling’s empty, abstract conceptual shells—you will not be able to. He is a widely read man—but there is no substance in his writings; wherever he seeks substance, that is precisely what he finds. He also criticizes and denounces the anthroposophical worldview. What he concocts from his own phrases could, of course, make no great impression; thus, whenever he wants to say something positive, he is forced to resort to untruth. For example, anyone who follows my writings knows that in the 1880s, drawing on Goethe’s scientific writings, I certainly started from Goetheanism. The fact that I then engaged with Haeckelism is a matter that, in any case, does not form part of my starting point. Count Keyserling lies when he says that my entire perspective stems from Haeckel—and simply overlooks what the real starting point is. And so one can find numerous instances of outright falsehoods among widely read men of the present day. If these people want to be positive, they must tell untruths, for otherwise they simply indulge in their own empty rhetoric.

[ 32 ] One would truly venture into rather uninviting territory if one were to characterize, in all truth, what stands in opposition to anthroposophical spiritual science. But let’s look at the whole matter from another angle. This branch is, after all, one of the older ones; it was founded many years ago. Things have developed here in much the same way as elsewhere. One need only look back to see whether this anthroposophical spiritual science has ever approached people in any way other than, at first, cautiously reaching out to those who wanted it. There was absolutely nothing pushy about it. And at first, it was small circles that this spiritual science approached. For its tasks are not conceived in the same way as those of external agitators; rather, the tasks of the spiritual science movement are conceived within the spiritual world. And one knows—whether one has a large or small following—that these are spiritual tasks which, while they must certainly have their effects on the earth, are recognized entirely within the spiritual world itself.

[ 33 ] And then follow up on the matter. Consider just how little has been done to promote the cause in a truly outward way. After all, nothing was done except for holding public lectures. People can attend these lectures; they may feel positively or negatively moved by them, and they can choose not to attend if they feel negatively moved. Certainly, no kind of intrusive campaigning has been carried out. After all, one cannot say that we have distributed our books in a particularly intrusive manner; for we founded the Philosophical-Anthroposophical Publishing House, which did not seek the usual route to bookstores, but rather sought a more intimate path to the people of the civilized world. However, we have also published a large portion of the material in question in writings that were not even intended for the public—writings that have only come to the public’s attention unlawfully. Pastor Kully in Arlesheim does indeed have all these cycles, but they certainly never came into his possession through proper channels. And many others have them unlawfully. The fact that our movement has gradually grown large—and that we can indeed see today how rapidly it is spreading—is not something we sought to achieve through conventional agitation. And, in essence, that did not even contribute to it at all. Consider individual cases: Some Protestants and some Protestant pastors have found that they can no longer make sense of the concepts provided to them by their Protestant theology. They became acquainted—precisely because anthroposophy could not be stopped—with the anthroposophical worldview, and in turn wrote about the conflicts between their Protestant ministry and the anthroposophical worldview. The opposition that then arose among other Protestant pastors and also university professors, such as Traub, actually began initially as an internal conflict among the pastors themselves. We have more or less become the victims of what people initially had to work out among themselves. What is unfolding as opposition is actually taking place because people first got into a fight among themselves, completely apart from us. Now, of course, we are the ones being attacked in the end—naturally! Anyone who were to study how things actually played out internally would see that we were in no way the aggressors, just as the Protestant pastors were in no way attacked by us, nor did we take any steps to propagate anthroposophy within the Protestant world, which remains faithful to the church’s creed.

[ 34 ] Where we really have a role to play, we take a different approach: At the Waldorf School, Catholic students receive religious instruction from the Catholic priest, and Protestant students from the Protestant pastor. Only those students who do not wish to do so are taught by instructors who provide non-denominational religious instruction. But we have not created a school based on a particular worldview. And so what is actually taking place around us now—what is being portrayed as a struggle—is that we have faithfully spoken what we have been called upon to say from the spiritual world, and that the disputes now being laid at our door have arisen from what has taken root in the minds of others. And there is a certain tendency not to investigate the facts, but to blame the anthroposophical movement as such for everything. If one were to look at the true facts, it would be very instructive, especially if you consider the conflict taking place among Protestant pastors. For you can be quite certain: at first, there was no opposition to us among the Protestant pastors; rather, the opposition arose after Protestant pastors who had not found fulfillment in their own theology came over to anthroposophy. Opposition then arose against this. And then came those who later found it very profitable—such as Mr. Traub in Tübingen—to write books about me personally, because this provided an opportunity to sell books and so on. Now, of course, the anthroposophical movement is already so large that one can do business with books written about it.

[ 35 ] But the way in which this struggle is waged—and especially the cause of what I would call the fierce battle raging around anthroposophy—that is something that really ought to be studied more closely! One should truly apply conscientious attention to this. And then one would see what else emerges when one looks into the disharmonies within the current currents of worldview, and how, fundamentally, anthroposophy has by no means given rise to any of the opposing currents, but merely sought to carry out its mission, just as it has been given to it from the spiritual world. And whatever else has been written is, at best, written out of hatred by those who were part of the anthroposophical movement for a time, who wanted to satisfy their personal vanity within it, and who were of no use.

[ 36 ] It would also be very interesting to study the inner connections. Some time ago, a man appeared here in Switzerland who launched fierce attacks against anthroposophy and against me personally in his lectures. Among other things, this man said that he wanted to be particularly scientific, and that anthroposophy was fanciful, not scientific. Then he told all sorts of fairy tales. After all, it is not exactly we anthroposophists who excel at describing illusions and all sorts of fairy tales, but rather our opponents, who accuse us of being fanciful. — But I can tell you another story, now that I have drawn your attention to the gentleman who went around here in Switzerland ranting and raving about anthroposophy and about me. It was about thirteen or fourteen years ago, when I was in Frankfurt for a series of lectures, that a man came to my hotel room; since I was able to arrange it at the time, I received him. The man talked and babbled all sorts of nonsense to me and said: “I’ve been following you everywhere for a long time now, but I’ve never been able to meet with you; but now I’ve finally succeeded.” — And he seemed very eager to channel his aspirations into those of the anthroposophical movement. I saw right away: a complete dilettante, pure charlatanism! So away with him! Such things have often happened, for one simply had no choice but to push away those people who approached us merely out of personal vanity and personal ambition; that could not be changed. You see, this is the same man. He then waited a few years, after which he became the Swiss counterpart, though, as was said, he lived here as a refractory and has now become an opponent.

[ 37 ] But there are many such connections; one need only look into them: You would see from what murky sources that which presents itself as opposition to anthroposophy often draws its inspiration.

[ 38 ] We must draw strength from sources that provide us with a worldview such as humanity needs for the present—and especially for the near future—a worldview that will be particularly necessary for those who are still somewhat younger today, for they will no longer be able to live with the old worldview! Nevertheless, we should draw strength precisely from such a worldview, one that, for example, broadens the historical perspective and speaks of the origin of souls, not merely of the origin of bodies. But we should draw strength from this to advocate for anthroposophy wherever we can! Anthroposophy will need people who stand up for it. What appears today as opposition will not diminish, and it will not take on any less severe forms in the future. On the contrary, it will take on worse and ever-worse forms! Whoever becomes aware of what anthroposophy is all about will also be able, out of this awareness, to truly find the ground where they can work in the appropriate way in their own sphere. For what is accomplished through anthroposophy is truly not done for any personal goals: it is done for the good of humanity. And one should not be deterred by the fact that opposition will grow ever greater and uglier, that there is already much filth within it today—there will be even more filth within this opposition. If one loses heart because of this, then one does not truly understand what anthroposophy means for the future development of humanity.

[ 39 ] With these final words, I wanted to draw attention to something that deserves our attention within our movement. I wanted to link these final words specifically to such an important consideration as the one we have made today regarding the progress of souls through repeated earthly lives, and regarding the way in which we are structured from two sides—from the vast universe and from the Earth—within our organization. What external science knows about these things today is so little! This external science has limited itself to considering only what is ultimately the final image of the forces actually at work: the outer cotyledon, the inner cotyledon, and so on—without knowing what macrocosmic significance the outer cotyledon holds, what telluric significance the inner cotyledon holds, or how this, in turn, relates to imagination and will. Without considering these great interconnections, a materialistic perspective looks only at the outward appearances, the ultimate externalities. And the same applies to history, where one focuses solely on what, I might say, flows through the blood of generations, and what can be observed through tradition in the course of the linear flow of historical development on any given soil. Yet the whole of reality can be understood if one asks not only what kind of blood flows through these or those veins, but also: Where does the soul come from, which merely makes use of this blood? We must strive for a comprehensive view of humanity, for a true view of reality, for this is what the world demands, and will demand more and more. Anthroposophy aims to provide this.

[ 40 ] That is what I wanted to speak to you about today. Let us hope that we will see each other again after some time and be able to continue such reflections, which can lead us toward an understanding of the present and the future, an understanding of human nature, and an understanding of the universe—insofar as human beings are born from it.