The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Fourth Lecture

[ 1 ] Yesterday I spoke about historical contexts insofar as they lead our consideration of humanity into the spiritual worlds, and I examined the two earlier periods of human development from this perspective. I pointed out how the ancient initiates sought to guide humanity—in religious, social, and other respects—by choosing as their helpers those spiritual beings associated with human inhalation. And we have seen that these beings, in turn, are connected within the cosmos to that which manifests outwardly in the light of the moon, so that we can speak, for example, of certain lunar beings having been used as helpers during the time when it became necessary—namely, in the Egyptian era—to guide the religious and social life of ancient Egypt and, more broadly, the wider spheres of ancient historical development.

[ 2 ] We then saw how, in Greek culture, the beings I referred to yesterday as elemental Luciferic beings came to play an important role, and how they were used by the Greek initiates—for example, those of the Orphic Mysteries—as helpers, particularly in the inauguration of Greek art. I pointed out how even today, if one possesses a somewhat deeper and more intimate human sensibility, one can perceive in the traditional image of Homer’s head the way this human individuality listens to what I called yesterday “tentative hearing” and “hearing through touch”—which was essentially a listening to spiritual beings. These were the air beings who utilized the equilibrium between what occurs through human inhalation and exhalation to evoke a rhythm between breathing and blood circulation, whereby—through that marvelous numerical ratio that exists in humans between the respiratory rhythm and the pulse rhythm— resulted in something like the Greek hexameter—as, indeed, all Greek verse forms, which are thereby both a creation of human beings themselves and a creation of that which, as a mysterious rhythm, ripples and vibrates through the entire cosmos. I have said: When the Greeks speak of Apollo’s lyre, one can almost imagine how the strings of this lyre of Apollo were tuned according to the impressions one gained from perceiving this composite rhythm.

[ 3 ] Since then, humanity has entered a completely different phase of development, and I have repeatedly pointed out the specific characteristics of this development from a wide variety of perspectives. In particular, I have pointed out how, since the 15th century, humanity has been gripped by the intellectual element that today actually dominates all human culture and civilization to the greatest extent, and which has emerged in recent development notably through the gradual disappearance of an older form of language—which, in its earliest form, was still connected to what I might describe as this “listening to rhythm” in the Greco-Roman era—that the Latin language persisted well into the Middle Ages and became thoroughly intellectualized. Thus, in many ways, it was actually through the Latin language that modern humanity was educated into modern intellectualism.

[ 4 ] This intellectualism, which is based on ideas that depend entirely on the development of the physical human body, actually puts all of humanity at risk of falling away from the spiritual world. And one can certainly say: If the older religious creeds speak of a “fall” in an archaic sense—meaning more than just a moral fall—then the danger facing modern humanity must be described as an “intellectual fall.” — For the ideas about humanity that are common today—toward which humanity feels the greatest sense of authority, the so-called intelligent ideas of modern science—these thoroughly intellectualistic constructs are based entirely on the physical human body. One simply cannot believe that when modern human beings think, they draw upon anything other than the physical human body. Thoughts were, in fact, something entirely different in earlier periods of Earth’s history. In earlier periods of historical development, human thoughts arose simultaneously with certain spiritual visions. Spiritual visions either reached out to human beings from the cosmos, or they arose from within the human being. These spiritual visions, I might say, carried thoughts upon their waves. These were thoughts bestowed from the spiritual realm; they were thoughts sent to human beings from the spiritual world—thoughts that revealed themselves to human beings. Such thoughts are inaccessible to intellectualism.

[ 5 ] If one forms one’s own thoughts based solely on logic—which is, after all, what modern humanity strives for—one’s consciousness is thereby bound to the physical body. Not that the thoughts themselves arise from this physical body—that is, of course, by no means the case—but the forces at work within these thoughts remain unconscious to modern human beings. They do not come to know thoughts at all in their true essence. All the thoughts that modern people receive as early as school through what is conveyed to them as popular science, or what is contained in popular literature—all these thoughts are, in their actual substance—in terms of what lives within them—unknown to modern people. They know them only as reflections. The physical body is the mirror, and modern people do not learn to recognize what actually lives within their thoughts; rather, they learn only to recognize what the physical body reflects back to them from these thoughts. For if modern people were to immerse themselves in these thoughts, they would be able to perceive pre-earthly existence. They cannot do this. Modern man cannot perceive pre-earthly existence because he does not live at all in the substance of his thoughts, but only in the mirror images of those thoughts. These thoughts are not realities.

[ 6 ] And this is precisely what is dangerous for the development of modern humanity: that these thoughts actually contain, in essence, the spiritual, the supernatural, and pre-earthly life, yet human beings know nothing of this—they know only the reflections. As a result, something that is actually intended for the spiritual world—for these thoughts are intended for the spiritual world; they are rooted in the spiritual world—falls away from the spiritual world in modern human beings and is reflected in the physical body. And what is reflected there is only the outer sensory world, so that one could truly speak of a “fall from grace” in modern times, one that arises in the realm of intellectualism. The great task of our time—as we have often characterized it—consists precisely in bringing spirituality, true spirit, back into the world of thought for human consciousness. If a person truly wants to live in the modern world, they cannot renounce their intellectualism; but they must spiritualize that intellectualism; they must once again bring spiritual substance into their thoughts.

[ 7 ] Because this is our task, we stand in contrast to what the initiates of ancient Egypt had to do. The initiates of the pre-Egyptian era over in Asia were able, without difficulty—because people possessed an ancient form of clairvoyance—to use those intermediate states between sleeping and waking that were found in human beings to enlist the moon spirits, who could live within people’s inhalations, as their helpers. But during the Egyptian period of development, people gradually lost their ancient clairvoyance, and the initiates were forced to provide a dwelling for their helpers on Earth, because these lunar spirits had gradually become homeless on Earth, as I described yesterday. And I have told you that the dwellings the Egyptian initiates provided for these lunar spirits were the mummified human bodies—the mummies. The mummies thus truly play the greatest conceivable role during the third post-Atlantean period of historical development. Those elemental spirits dwelt within the mummies, without whom the initiates on Earth could hardly accomplish anything in their social relations with human beings. Thus, what was entirely possible in earlier times—making the lunar spirits living within the human breath into helpers for the spiritual guidance of Earth’s evolution—was then achieved in ancient Egypt, by way of substitution, through the work of the elemental spirits that had their dwelling in the mummies.

[ 8 ] Today we find ourselves in the opposite situation. The Egyptian initiate looked back on a bygone era, for whose distinctive characteristics he had to create a substitute. We must look to the future, where there will once again be people who live in harmony with the spiritual world—people who carry the impulses of their morality within their individual characters, as I described in my Philosophy of Freedom, where I explained how moral impulses are born within the individual and must radiate from the individual out into the world. They will be able to do this only if these people’s exhalation is shaped in such a way that the exhaled air imprints the images of this morality and these moral dispositions upon outer cosmic life. Just as, with inhalation—as I characterized it yesterday—the etheric forms of the cosmos enter into the human being and work to sustain his organs, so too must that which develops within the human being—that which, in a sense, detaches itself as the form of their inner organs through the leading of an intellectualistic life—must be imprinted as an impulse into the exhalation and must enter the outer cosmos with the exhaled air.

[ 9 ] And when this Earth is one day scattered into outer space, there must be a form of life that has first taken shape in the cosmic ether through the moral impulses of human beings—which, as you know, must arise more and more through moral intuitions—sending their images out into the ether through the air we exhale. Then a new Earth—a Jupiter-like planet, as I described it in my Outline of Esoteric Science—will build itself up from the condensed forms that human beings will exhale in the future. Thus, we must look toward a future for humanity in which exhalation plays a prominent role, where human beings entrust to their exhalation that which is to shape their future.

[ 10 ] One could add a passage from the Gospels here. I have often spoken of the words of Christ Jesus: “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.” I have pointed out that this means that what surrounds us physically—including today’s stellar world—will one day cease to exist, but that which arises spiritually from human souls will take its place and find its future embodiment on Earth, the planet Jupiter. One could expand on this saying of Christ as follows: Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away—if human beings are so permeated by Christ that they entrust what Christ’s words inspire in human souls as moral impulses to the exhaled air, which will then build the new world out of the forms springing from human beings.

[ 11 ] Now, since approximately the 4th or 5th century A.D., elemental spiritual beings from other worlds have entered the earthly realm. These beings were not present before. In contrast to the lunar beings, who played a major role in the early Indian and early Persian periods and later took up residence in mummies, and in contrast to the air demons, who played a major role in the Greek period and to whom Homer listened—in contrast to these and the others, we can call these beings the true Earth beings. These beings, who will one day be the greatest helpers to the individual human being with his or her individual moral impulses—who will be helpers in building a new Earth planet out of the moral impulses of human beings—these helpers we can call Earth spirits, elemental Earth spirits, for they are intimately connected with earthly life. They expect earthly life to provide them with sufficient stimulation to carry out their work in the future incarnation of the Earth. As I have said, these beings entered Earth’s evolution in the 4th and 5th centuries A.D., and I have emphasized—both in public lectures and elsewhere—how remnants of the ancient clairvoyance had been preserved even after the Mystery of Golgotha had taken place. There were also external human activities, ritual acts, and the like, through which these beings—who had thus been drawn into Earth’s evolution, if I may put it in trivial terms—found their way forward. But it is the particular tendency of these beings to help human beings, in a sense, to become truly individual—when a person has an intense moral idea—to shape the entire organism in such a way that this moral idea can become, within the person, a temperamental disposition, a character trait, and a blood constitution, so that, in a sense, one can derive one’s moral idea, one’s entire moral quality, from one’s blood constitution.

[ 12 ] These elemental earth beings can become significant helpers, especially for human beings who are increasingly entering into individual freedom. But these beings face a major obstacle—a tremendous obstacle. When speaking about the spiritual world—not based on theories that should never be taken entirely seriously, but rather from the actual practice of life—one really has no choice but to speak of these spiritual beings just as one speaks of human beings, for they are truly present on Earth, just as human beings are present on Earth. So one can certainly say: These beings feel particularly misled by what human heredity is. And when the superstition of human heredity exerts a particularly intense influence, it runs counter to all the inner dispositions and tendencies of these beings, who are very passionate. As I said, you must accept this paradox, for one must speak of these beings as one speaks of human beings. When Ibsen, for example, appeared with his “Ghosts”—through which the superstition of the theory of heredity was virtually cemented—these beings simply went wild. If I may express myself somewhat figuratively, I would like to say: Ibsen’s disheveled hair, that wild beard, that strange gaze, that contorted mouth—all of that stemmed from the turmoil these beings caused Ibsen, because they could not stand him, because in this regard he was truly a modern spirit who clung to the superstition of heredity. You know, when one has fallen prey to this ghostly superstition, one believes that one carries in one’s blood traits inherited from one’s parents, grandparents, and so on—traits from which one cannot escape; one becomes a person of a certain nature solely through the inherited traits one carries within oneself. What emerged in Ibsen’s work in a grotesquely poetic form—yet still with a certain grandeur—permeates all of modern science. Modern science truly suffers from the superstition of heredity. What must become characteristic of modern human beings is precisely that they break free from inherited traits, that they do not cling to the superstition that everything comes solely from the blood flowing down from the ancestors, but rather that they truly come to make use of their individuality, so that their moral impulses are attached to them as individual human beings in this earthly life and they can become creative and productive through their individual moral impulses. These beings serve this purpose and can one day become helpers.

[ 13 ] In today’s world, these beings are not in the same situation as the lunar beings once were, who had become homeless and therefore had to find their homes within the mummies; but these beings, whom we regard as the hope of the future for humanity, are in a situation where, although they are not homeless among humanity, they wander about like lost pilgrims and find conditions everywhere that are not suitable for them. They feel rejected everywhere, most of all by the minds of the scholars. They do not even want to come anywhere near them. For these beings, every path and bridge is a source of discomfort, for the belief in the mere omnipotence of matter is particularly repugnant to them. This belief in the omnipotence of matter is connected to the intellectualistic Fall—to the fact that human beings want to cling to thoughts that are, in essence, nothing at all, because they are merely reflections, and because human beings are not even aware of their substantive content.

[ 14 ] Just as the Egyptian initiate had to consider how to provide shelter for those beings who had become homeless, so it is our responsibility to find ways to ensure that these beings, of whom I have just spoken, find the entire Earth hospitable to them, not inhospitable. The very worst thing that can happen to these beings is modern machinery. This modern machinery is, in a sense, a second Earth—but a spiritless one. The spiritual lives in minerals, plants, and animals; in modern machinery, only these mirror-thoughts exist. This modern machinery is something that causes such beings constant pain during their wanderings on Earth, so that, above all, the nightly exhalation of human beings today already takes place in a completely chaotic manner.

[ 15 ] These entities, which should actually find their way through the exhaled air—the carbon dioxide-laden air that comes from human beings—find themselves blocked everywhere by the effects of intellectualism in the world. As much as this repels modern man, and as much as he does not want it, there is only one remedy: the striving for a spiritualization of what man himself does in the external world. But to achieve this, modern man must first be educated. It will be difficult for him. The merely intelligent person—and modern man is, after all, very intelligent—actually knows nothing, for intelligence alone does not lead to knowledge. And such a person, who surrounds himself with his mechanisms in which mirrored thoughts dwell, is actually in danger of losing himself more and more, of no longer possessing himself, of no longer knowing anything about himself. He must first be filled once again with a certain substance. What this modern, intellectualistic person must acquire—and through which he must educate himself—is inner intellectual morality. I will tell you right away what I mean by that.

[ 16 ] People today are incredibly clever, but there isn’t really much substance to that cleverness. You can hear these incredibly clever people say all sorts of things; they also take great pride in their own words. The examples are obvious. Something quite curious, for instance, is currently making waves in European literature: a correspondence written in Russian between two people, Herschenson and Ivanov. The story is framed in such a way that these are two people living in the same room. But both are apparently so exceedingly intelligent that, when they talk to each other, their thoughts collide in such a way that neither listens to the other, because they always speak at the same time. Otherwise, I can’t imagine why they write letters to each other, since they’re always sitting together—one in one corner, diagonally across from the other in the square room, the other in the opposite corner. So they write letters to each other. There’s nothing in these letters—absolutely nothing. They’re very long, and an enormous number of words are used, but there’s nothing in them. What’s said in them is something like this: one of them thinks, “Yes, we’ve become far too clever. We have art, and we have religion, and we have science, and we’ve acquired all of that for ourselves.” We’ve become terribly clever.

[ 17 ] Of course, when one reads the writings of this man, who makes such a terrible show of his cleverness, one can only be astonished at how stupid he is—even though he is, in the modern sense, clever. In his own opinion, he has become so terribly clever that he no longer knows what to do with his cleverness and longs to return to the times when people knew nothing of religious ideas, nothing of science, nothing of art, and so on—and thus lived in a completely primitive way. And the other man cannot go along with that. But he believes that everything that continues to develop as this sort of cultural mishmash must be based on certain underlying ideas in order for it to amount to anything at all. In short, the two men are actually talking about nothing—absolutely nothing—yet they use many words and are incredibly clever. This is just one such example. There are many such examples.

[ 18 ] One might say: Intellectualism has finally reached the point where discussions are taking place in this manner. It’s roughly like someone who wants to grow oats in a field and is now discussing with another person whether one should grow oats. After all, it doesn’t occur to anyone today that they themselves should contribute something to culture and civilization; instead, everyone merely criticizes what has come to be—what wasn’t supposed to be—and insists it should now be different according to their own ideas. Now they begin to debate: Should one grow oats there? Grain used to be grown there. Should one now grow oats on a field where grain was once grown, or has the field been ruined by the fact that grain was once grown on it? Isn’t the idea of growing oats there burdened by the fact that people once lived there who knew that grain had been grown there? And on the other hand, those people were, after all, regarded by others as very nice people; shouldn’t we also take into account that they were very nice people?

[ 19 ] That’s roughly how it goes, because no one knows that they’re supposed to grow the oats now. Even if our culture is worth going back to Adam or longing for the end of the world—anyone who has something within himself to contribute to this culture should not sit down and write letters to his neighbor in the manner in which this correspondence was written! It is one of the laziest products of modern intellectual life. It is truly symptomatic of the rottenness of modern intellectual life.

[ 20 ] These matters must be viewed with a clear eye. People who are in the midst of life could often do quite a lot; however, they must do what is appropriate for the situation at hand. Of course, there are countless possibilities for doing this or that at a quarter to twelve on September 23, 1922, but each individual must do what the situation demands of them. This fact must also become part of people’s inner lives. One must learn that certain thoughts must be forbidden, while others are permitted. Just as one must do some things and refrain from others in general, one must be clear that one cannot allow oneself every thought.

[ 21 ] Such a view would change many things in our lives. Newspapers could hardly be written in the modern style anymore if this were to become part of general education, for those who take themselves rather seriously would reject all the ideas expressed in them. But just as morality must necessarily be present in human actions as they interact with the real world, so too must morality find its way into people’s intellectual lives.

[ 22 ] These days, everyone says: “That’s my point of view; that’s what I think.” — Yes, perhaps it isn’t even necessary for them to think that or to take that position. But people do not yet moralize in their thinking. They have to learn to do so. Then a torrent of pseudo-thoughts like the one in the aforementioned correspondence will not flow onto the page. All of this is connected to the fact that intellectualism has completely turned people away from the true spirit, from an understanding of what is truly spiritual. There is a very fine example of this, especially in the present day. And I want to share this example with you before I continue with these discussions, which I will then carry on tomorrow.

[ 23 ] There is a Benedictine monk named Alois Mager. This Benedictine monk, Mager, recently wrote a rather good little book on “Walking in God’s Presence.” But this little book only proves that the Benedictine Order was once a magnificent institution, immediately after Benedict founded it. For what flows directly from Benedict’s Rule is still evident in this little book by the Benedictine monk Mager. One can develop a certain respect for this little book, and it is certainly a read that could be recommended to some people, given the trash that exists today. But now one must say: What comes from this Benedictine monk is indeed still the best literature to come from that camp, but it is, of course, thoroughly outdated literature.

[ 24 ] Now this Mager has also taken it upon himself to speak about anthroposophy. After all, all sorts of people today speak about anthroposophy from the most diverse points of view. They cannot stop themselves from doing so in their thinking, because they do not realize that they have not the slightest understanding of it. But actually, what Mager writes about anthroposophy isn’t even among the worst. We must examine it more closely, for it is characteristic of the intellectualism of our time. Mager says: The anthroposophist wishes to develop his human cognitive faculties in such a way that they can truly perceive the spiritual. — Certainly, that is what anthroposophy aims for, and it can do so. Alois Mager now believes: It would be something extraordinarily good if people could truly come to perceive the spiritual world. But they simply cannot—he argues—it is simply not possible. He is even of the opinion that it is not impossible in principle, but that people in general are simply unable to truly perceive the spiritual world. And the fact that he is not opposed to this in principle is shown by his statement: “Two people were once able to develop their human cognitive faculties to such an extent that they could look into the spiritual world.” And in his view, these two people are Buddha and Plotinus.

[ 25 ] It is quite remarkable that a Catholic Benedictine monk holds the view that the only two people who were truly able to glimpse the spiritual world were Buddha and Plotinus: Plotinus, whom the Catholic Church naturally regards as a fantasist and heretic, and Buddha, who, after all, belongs to those whom one had to renounce in the Middle Ages; among the three greatest entities to be renounced, Buddha was one. But of these two, Alois Mager now says: “They were still able to bring their souls to the point of looking into the spiritual world.” — He even uses a curious comparison, a curious image that recalls the patterns of thought characteristic of modern humanity—namely, militaristic patterns of thought. For he compares the spiritual world to a city, and those who wish to approach this spiritual world he compares to soldiers who want to storm this city of God—that is, the spiritual world. Now he says: It is as if an army had prepared to storm a city, but only a few of the boldest soldiers scaled the battlements of the wall. Thus, the attack collapses.

[ 26 ] During the World War, we read time and again in telegrams about the collapse of such an attack. Today, in the writings of a Benedictine monk, we read how the “spirit-recognizers” are soldiers who seek to storm the city of spiritual life, yet how the attack collapses in on itself—with the exception of what the two bold soldiers, Plotinus and the Buddha, once accomplished.

[ 27 ] And so you see that this man is incapable of even remotely admitting that one can gain access to the spiritual world. His intellectualism prevents him from doing so. One can only wonder why he refuses to grant any Christian figure the possibility of drawing near to God through true knowledge. But he is honest in this regard. Therefore, he would naturally have to reject something like my Philosophy of Freedom entirely, for it seeks to assert as moral impulses that which can arise from within the human individual itself. But he believes that such a thing cannot exist at all, for if human beings are left entirely to themselves, then nothing spiritual can emerge from them. Therefore, he says that private and public life must gradually be organized entirely according to the precepts of the Gospel. So, without in any way understanding why the Gospel speaks in this or that way, private and public life is simply to be organized according to the precepts of the Gospel—precepts that cannot be understood by human powers of cognition!

[ 28 ] It is no surprise that, given the intellectualism of our time, such a view asserts itself in such a way that one is led to say: My deepest scientific conviction is that Steiner’s anthroposophy cannot be characterized as anything other than a skillful systematization of hallucinations into a worldview, a materialization of the spiritual.

[ 29 ] It is impossible to imagine just how grotesquely bizarre the writings of such a man are—a man who is, in himself, honest, and who is actually not even one of the most insignificant people of our time. To characterize him properly, I have drawn your attention to the fact that he wrote a fine little book quite recently. The other is his latest work, this critique of anthroposophy. Now take this sentence, for example: “My deepest scientific conviction is that Steiner’s anthroposophy cannot be characterized as anything other than the skillful systematization of hallucinations into a worldview. Ultimately, the doctrine of reincarnation also amounts to a materialization of the spiritual.” — Well, I’d like to say: Father, let’s imagine for a moment that you take your conceptions of God and the spiritual seriously. Then you must place the spiritual somewhere if you are to rise to the spiritual. You do not, however, admit that human beings are capable of doing this with their powers of cognition. But I don’t know why you are a priest and want to devote your entire life’s work to the spiritual. If you want to speak of the spiritual at all, then surely this spiritual is what gives rise to the material. Now, if someone attains knowledge of the spiritual, what is this knowledge of the spiritual like? Whoever clings solely to an understanding of the material—well, that person has the material right before them, and the spiritual is then merely a matter of thoughts. Whoever turns to the spiritual quite clearly lives in the intensity, in the reality of the spiritual. Within that, the things one can see with the eyes are merely hints.

[ 30 ] This seems like hallucinations to Father. That is why he calls the whole thing a systematization of hallucinations. It is, after all, quite understandable that it must seem that way to him, because when one speaks of the spiritual, one cannot at the same time speak of a material table—for the eyes see that, and the hands touch it. In the spiritual realm, it is present only as a hint. So it strikes Father as a hallucination. But now let us move on; one must say to him: Father, just consider this: you devote your ministry to the spiritual, so surely you must admit that the Creator of the material world lives within the spiritual. What, then, is the world in your view? The materialization of the spiritual. So if he truly recognizes the world, what must he recognize? The materialization of the spiritual! Yes, but Father, you criticize anthroposophy for this, rejecting its worldview as a materialization of the spiritual—which you must actually believe to be a fact of the world: that this world was formed out of the spirit through materialization. That is what anthroposophy seeks to penetrate. You criticize it most of all because anthroposophy finally takes seriously what you yourself should take seriously but do not wish to take seriously. That is why you criticize anthroposophy. In your view, surely the God in whom you believe must once have taken the materialization of the spiritual seriously; otherwise, a world could never have come into being through this act of creation. Do you truly believe in your own religion if you criticize anthroposophy precisely for seeking to understand how the spiritual can be materialized, how it can gradually become material?

[ 31 ] Just think of the abyss one gazes into when one has before one a rather intelligent person of our time—who, moreover, has learned to think quite well—a man who has previously written a good little book, and now sees how he approaches anthroposophy! Think for a moment about what is actually hidden in such a judgment, and you will see what kind of consequences intellectualism—even among those who today devote themselves to some form of spiritual service—has produced, and how one must move beyond this intellectualism—in a different way, of course, than the Egyptian priests moved beyond the spiritual impasse that had arisen in their age. We will discuss further tomorrow exactly which historical forces intellectualism must turn to.