The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Experiencing the World's Past

[ 1 ] When we look back on what was described yesterday, we can realize how human beings, as they pass through successive periods of time—the term “time” must be used here in reference to physical conditions—as they pass through the periods following earthly death, first enter the realm of the lunar beings, and must then pass from the realm of the lunar beings into the realm of the solar beings. In a certain sense, the lunar beings still belong entirely to earthly existence. And the experiences a human being undergoes under the influence of the lunar beings in the soul world are, after all, cosmic memories of earthly existence. One relives earthly existence in actual experiences, but these are intertwined with what I described yesterday as the penetration of cosmic judgments. These cosmic judgments come to the human being after death through the lunar beings I have described. In fact, it is these lunar beings whose influence a person comes under, and who, so to speak, allow these judgments to flow into their being, just as minerals, plants, and animals allow the judgments we have here on Earth to flow into our being. We can therefore say: As a human being enters spiritual-cosmic existence after death, they first encounter such cosmic perceptions that still emanate from beings who once had connections with the Earth. For we had to mention how those beings who later took up residence in the Moon, as it were, in a cosmic fortress, were once themselves the teachers of humankind in the most ancient Earth mysteries, and later withdrew only to this lunar abode—if I may put it that way—; so that what human beings once experienced directly on Earth in ancient times, they now experience during their journey through the soul world under the influence of—if we may put it this way—the lunar population that has been “elevated” to the Moon. This expression can be used in the very literal sense if one properly takes into account the prerequisites I characterized here in the last lecture. This lunar population, under those leaders who were once leaders of humanity, holds a judgment quite different from that of the earthly population. The earthly population is, in fact, only now undergoing in earthly existence—between birth and death—what this lunar population went through in times long past.

[ 2 ] If we need to use Earth dates, we must say that this lunar population, during its existence on Earth well over 15,000 years ago, went through what humanity still has to go through. And well over 15,000 years ago, this lunar population came to hold a judgment in which natural and moral considerations converge.

[ 3 ] We on Earth still distinguish today between the naturalistic judgments we make about stones and animals [and moral judgments]. When we judge them, we refrain from making a moral judgment. We say: nature operates solely according to an amoral necessity. But the entire world does not operate according to an amoral necessity. Even if individual animals, individual plants, and individual minerals—especially when considered in their isolated existence—cannot be viewed in such a way that moral judgments are applied to them, their creation—the fact that they exist in the world—arose entirely from cosmic-moral judgments.

[ 4 ] The inhabitants of the Moon already possess these cosmic-moral judgments. Therefore, once we have passed through the Gate of Death, we must hear—in the presence of these lunar inhabitants—what the cosmos has to say about what we have thought, desired, felt, willed, and done here on Earth. Our entire earthly life is, so to speak, placed in the light of the cosmic judgment. And we learn how much what we have done here on Earth is worth to the entire universe.

[ 5 ] Based on these experiences, we then develop within ourselves the impulses to supplement, correct, or set right in one way or another in our next earthly life what we have done in this way—whether in harmony with or contrary to the course of world evolution. And while we are under the influence of the lunar population, we absorb the impulses for our destiny in our successive earthly lives—for what Eastern wisdom has always called karma.

[ 6 ] The impulses for karma, then, are received during the time when a person is under the influence of the lunar population, who can tell him how much his earthly deeds and thoughts are worth to the entire cosmos.

[ 7 ] Those spiritual beings of the higher world who live in the vicinity of human beings while they are under the influence of the lunar population are the beings I have summarized in my Occult Science as the beings of the hierarchy of the Angeloi, Archangeloi, and Archai. This is the first rank of beings into whose sphere human beings enter—beings who do not have to undergo a phase of life in an earthly incarnation. These beings, for their part, stand in close connection with the beings of the higher hierarchies. But during his lunar existence after death, the human being essentially comes into contact with this hierarchy of Angeloi, Archangeloi, and Archai, and, in a sense, is not yet aware of the higher hierarchies.

[ 8 ] In particular, it is the judgments of the angels that are important for determining the value of an individual’s deeds, so that after death, a person learns from the angels what value his or her own individual deeds hold within the entire cosmos. From the Archangels, a person learns more about the value of their deeds insofar as they speak this or that language or belong to this or that people. These are also factors that then influence the impulses shaping their future destiny and karma. And from the Archai, a person learns what value their deeds—which they have, after all, accomplished in a particular age—hold for the very age to which they must once again descend from spiritual heights into earthly existence.

[ 9 ] Through everything that a person can take in there, if he—and I ask you to pay very close attention to this subordinate clause— if they have prepared themselves in the right way for extraterrestrial existence—through everything they can absorb there in terms of impulses, namely, as we shall see later, through the way they have positioned themselves in relation to the great spiritual leaders of humanity—then human beings can find the transition from the sphere of the lunar population to the sphere of the solar population. Thus, when we speak of the worlds into which a human being enters between death and a new birth, we must speak of a lunar population and a solar population.

[ 10 ] The lunar population is the one we have already come to know as having once resided on Earth and been connected to it. But in a much, much earlier time, the solar population was also still connected to Earth and shared in Earth’s affairs.

[ 11 ] When a person enters the realm of the lunar population, it becomes perfectly clear to them that they have just entered a population that once inhabited the Earth alongside them. When they then enter the realm of the solar population, it is as if a powerful cosmic memory of an ancient time washes over them. I have described this from a different perspective in the book An Outline of Esoteric Science. They are overcome by something like a memory of an ancient time when the Sun was still connected to the Earth, and the solar population was still connected to the Earth. Thus, after death, we grow into the spiritual cosmos in such a way that we, so to speak, grow into two spiritual, cosmic realms, where we encounter populations with whom we were once connected on Earth, back when we were still very different beings there.

[ 12 ] Thus, by going through the experiences that unfold between death and a new birth, we see—in the current epoch of human history—vast, powerful memories of Earth’s development within the cosmos. And while human beings here on Earth essentially experience only a part of human development during their earthly existence, between death and a new birth they experience a part of the entire cosmic, the entire world’s development. Thus, the solar population is essentially one that, in much earlier times, has already risen above the experiences that can be had as an earthly being, and has also risen above the experiences that can be had as a lunar being.

[ 13 ] When a person enters the realm of the solar population, they enter a sphere of the highest wisdom—a sphere in which they can only live if they have prepared themselves sufficiently for it while on Earth.

[ 14 ] Well, I said yesterday that when human beings pass from the world of souls into the realm of spirits—or, as we must say today, from the sphere of the lunar inhabitants into the sphere of the solar inhabitants—they essentially slow down the pace of their journey through the cosmos.

[ 15 ] So while the orbit around the Moon takes a time equivalent to about one-third of an Earth lifetime, the next orbits—the Mars orbit, the Jupiter orbit, and the Saturn orbit—are traversed more slowly; as I mentioned yesterday, they are not traversed in their entirety, and in fact, they are traversed twelve times more slowly than the Moon’s orbit.

[ 16 ] If we now calculate how much time this amounts to, we arrive at the following. We must actually start from what was originally set before humankind, what it was originally destined to do according to the decrees of the cosmos. And here we can assume that human beings pass through the lunar cycle in one-third of the earthly cycle. If we add together the longer periods of sleep during early childhood and the later periods of sleep throughout a person’s earthly life, we arrive at approximately thirty years—as a rough average—which a person needs to pass through the first cycle, the lunar cycle. Each of the subsequent cycles is traversed such that the duration becomes twelve times longer, resulting in 360 years for each cycle. As we continue to follow humanity on its journey through the worlds, we find that it has undergone three cycles. It does not reach Saturn, but according to its original destiny, it was meant to undergo these cycles. So we can say: Human beings go through the first cycle, the second cycle, and the third cycle; they must then go back through the three cycles again, so that they complete the circuit three times on the way there, and on their return journey to their next earthly existence, they complete the circuit three times on the way back. That makes six cycles. And we then arrive at—the period of time that was actually intended for the human being—I will have to mention later that he does not always complete it in this way, that things are quite different for people today—than what was intended for the human being by the original decree of the cosmos: 2,160 years.

[ 17 ] 2,160 years—what does that mean? You just need to remember that every year, the vernal equinox of the Sun occurs at a different point within a zodiac sign. The vernal equinox is advancing. Over the past few centuries, it has advanced in such a way that it was originally in Aries, then moved slightly further along in Aries, then entered Pisces, and in approximately 25,920 years—that is, in a period approaching 26,000 years—the Sun will complete its full cycle through the zodiac. One-twelfth of that cycle is 2,160 years. Over the course of 2,160 years, the Sun moves from one zodiac sign to the next. It was thus originally decreed for humankind that they would return to Earth once the Sun had moved from one zodiac sign to the next.

[ 18 ] You see, if one calculates this number 2160 based on inner reasons and compares it with what I have stated from an entirely different perspective in the book Occult Science—those who have read it will recall, I described the time it takes for the Sun to move from one sign of the zodiac to the next as the interval originally intended for human beings between death and rebirth—in Occult Science I approached it more from the cosmos, from the outside in; today we have approached it more from the perspective of inner human life—if one calculates the number of years from these two perspectives, one arrives at exactly the same number. These are precisely the things humanity should take note of: that when one begins, anywhere in spiritual science, to form correct judgments from one point of view, and then forms correct judgments again from a completely different point of view, these judgments are internally consistent.

[ 19 ] Anyone who evaluates spiritual science in light of today’s prevailing views can very easily say: “On what, then, is your spiritual science based? Our science is based on observation and experimentation; that is our starting point—it is solid ground!”

[ 20 ] You see, someone who speaks this way, in light of the facts we have presented, is like someone who says: When I, as a human being, stand on Earth, I stand on solid ground. When a boulder lies out there, it lies on solid ground. Everything on Earth lies on solid ground. You astronomers are actually dreamers, because you tell us that the Earth floats freely in space. If you are to speak sensibly, you would have to tell us that it, too, rests somewhere on solid ground like a boulder. — This is roughly the opinion of those who speak of anthroposophy [and say] that it does not rest on any solid ground. Of course, they would find themselves ridiculous if they were to say that the Earth rests like a boulder on solid ground; but they do not find themselves ridiculous at all when they do not realize that what must sustain itself internally—just as the celestial bodies sustain themselves internally—cannot rest on a foundation of experiment or explanation. If only people would truly form their judgments consistently, they would see how precisely the spiritual science referred to here takes every step in the most exact manner and, at every step, gives a full account of what it actually intends to establish as a judgment about the world and the beings of the worlds.

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[ 21 ] Thus, after death, a person enters a world in which they first experience the fellowship of those souls who, like themselves, have lived an earthly existence and have then, through the process of disembodiment as they pass through the gate of death, been transported into the spiritual worlds just described. Human beings thus acclimate themselves to the sphere of disembodied human beings, continuing there the relationships they experienced together with them on Earth, in the spiritual afterlives.

[ 22 ] But we have also seen how human beings enter into the community of other spiritual beings—the community of the lunar population, which was once, along with them, part of the Earth’s population—and then also ascend into the community of the solar population, which likewise, though in much more ancient times, was part of the Earth’s population along with them. There he first enters the community of those beings who constitute the beings of the second hierarchy. I have described them in my Occult Science as Exusiai, Dynamis, and Kyriotetes. These are the beings with whom the human being must work together so that, in a subsequent earthly life, he may be enabled to re-present—and, in a sense, re-reveal in a cosmically refined form—what he has prepared in earlier earthly lives as his destiny, as his karma.

[ 23 ] Once one has passed through the realm of the lunar population, one knows—not with earthly thoughts, but with cosmic thoughts—what, in a sense, one did not do correctly in the cosmic sense; one understands the value of what one has done, thought, and felt for the entire cosmic evolution. However, one cannot prepare for a new earthly existence if one knows this only through cosmic thoughts. Within the lunar sphere, then, one gains an understanding of what one is to become in the next earthly life. But one cannot yet prepare for this next earthly life. To do so, one must ascend to the solar sphere, where the beings live who no longer have anything to do with earthly life at all, but who manage the affairs of our entire planetary system.

[ 24 ] Thus, within the realm of what human beings must experience in this cosmos, the cosmos contains—I would say—two spiritual realms with their respective spiritual populations. It contains the soul world of the lunar population and the more extensive population of the spirit realm, the solar realm. While the lunar population, having been connected to Earth for a relatively short time—from a cosmic perspective—has united its interests with those of the Earth’s population, and while the Moon is, so to speak, merely a cosmic colony tasked with influencing, guiding, and managing Earthly affairs, the Solar Realm—where the solar population lives under the leadership of the Exusiai, Dynamis, and Kyriotetes, a realm within the cosmos that is responsible for managing the affairs of the entire planetary system—Mars, Saturn, Jupiter, Venus, and so on—along with those of Earth and the Moon.

[ 25 ] Thus, upon entering the Solar Realm, we enter a sphere where our interests are significantly expanded; yet, through collaboration with Exusiai, Dynamis, and Kyriotetes, we are able to lay the groundwork so that the spiritual seed of a physical body may come into being—a body that a pair of parents can then give birth to for us. A pair of parents could never give birth to a physical body suitable for us as a physical body if that physical body had not been prepared over long periods of time through work with the highest, most exalted spiritual beings in the spiritual cosmos. And our work in the spiritual cosmos consists essentially—and it is truly greater and more extensive than what we do in our small earthly existence—in accomplishing all this together with beings of a higher order: what unfolds in these beings as spiritual events, just as natural events unfold here; what unfolds as spiritual art, just as natural art unfolds here; and which ultimately enables us to synthesize all that has been worked out there into a powerful spiritual archetype—which is, however, the spiritual seed, so to speak, the shadow cast in advance of that which is then born on Earth as our physical body.

[ 26 ] Once a person has gone through the three cycles and begins the descent, his interest in earthly affairs is rekindled; and then, many years before he is born, he looks down upon the generations that emerge in the course of Earth’s evolution, at the end of which stand his father and mother. The very moment a person undergoes this great reversal in the cosmos, he begins to direct his attention down toward the Earth. There he sees the distant lineage from which descend sons and daughters, from whom in turn descend sons and daughters, and again sons and daughters, and so on, until, after centuries, the parental couple is born to whom he can send down—in a reduced form—that which was formed in the spiritual world as a powerful, all-encompassing spiritual seed for the physical body, so that this spiritual seed may then unite with the physical seed in the mother’s womb.

[ 27 ] This spiritual seed is at first majestic and as vast as the universe itself. As the human being begins his descent into the physical world and surveys the generations from which his parents will eventually come—actively participating in this succession of generations from the spiritual world—during this time the seed grows smaller and smaller until it returns once more to the sphere of Mars, the true solar sphere, and then swiftly descends through the lunar sphere back to Earth for its next life.

[ 28 ] Long before a human being descends as a soul being, he sends this spiritual seed ahead. Thus, a human being sends forth what he has prepared for his physical body some time before he himself descends into the physical world. Having, so to speak, completed his work for his next earthly life, he is able to enter into a different relationship with the cosmos than before; through this, he is able to establish a connection with the entire cosmic ether. And as the final act of this descent from the spiritual worlds, he draws from the entire world ether the forces from which he forms his etheric body.

[ 29 ] When a human being has already sent down the spiritual seed for their physical body—that is, when the spiritual seed has already been sent down to the parents after a long-standing flow from the spiritual worlds for the physical body—the human being themselves still dwells in the spiritual world, gathering the ether around themselves in the spiritual world, so that for a short time they become a being consisting of the I, astral body, and ether; the ether is drawn together from the entire world ether. And it is only during the embryonic period, in the third or fourth week after conception, that the human being unites what has been formed in the first three to four weeks from the union of the spiritual germ and the physical germ. Thus, whatever arrived on Earth before the human being does, he unites with his own being and endows it with what he has gained as an etheric body through attraction from the world ether. And so the human being becomes a being composed of what has already come into being and been sent down—the [spiritual germ of the] physical body, the etheric body that he has, so to speak, gathered around himself at the very last moment of his cosmic existence, the astral body, and the “I,” all of which have passed through the life between death and new birth.

[ 30 ] Thus, after having had purely spiritual experiences, a person descends to a new existence in the physical world.

[ 31 ] It will become clear to you from what has been said that, as a human being lives through the world between death and a new birth, they experience it in memory of the early days of Earth’s development—indeed, of the early days of what we might call the development of the worlds. What a human being experiences there as memories of the world—which, however, become his actions, for he “does” something with these memories in union with those higher beings of whom I have spoken and of whom more must yet be said—what he carries out there, active in remembrance, and, while acting, recalls—that is a significant perspective into the past of the Earth and the world.

[ 32 ] What a person experiences during his interactions with the lunar population brings back to the human soul a time that the person went through in earlier Earth lives, such that in those earlier Earth lives he had already been in a relationship with them similar to the one he has now. The human being looks back over a series of earthly lives similar to the present one. But then the human being looks even further back to an era on Earth when he was even closer to today’s lunar inhabitants while still on Earth. He looks back to a time separated from his present physical existence by what geologists call the Ice Age. They look back on a phase of Earth’s development that you will find described in my writings as the Atlantean era. But they also look even further back to what you will find described as the Lemurian era. At that time, they were still in a completely different relationship to the Earth. Back then, human beings did not yet live in such an Earth-bound way that they walked around with their feet on the ground. At that time, they lived more within the Earth’s sphere, in the Earth’s atmosphere itself, as ethereal beings. They were able to do so because the atmosphere still contained, in a dissolved state, above all the water that has since settled in the oceans and continents; but other substances that have since become solid earth were also dissolved in the atmosphere at that time. Humanity lived more within this sphere during a period—again, the terminology is not important—that can also be called the Lemurian era, in reference to what natural scientists designate as the Earth’s oldest era.

[ 33 ] But then one looks back to a time when humankind was still united with the solar beings themselves, with the solar population, before the Sun separated from the Earth in the course of cosmic evolution. One does not look back to the time I described in the book Occult Science as the Sun Age of the Earth itself, as the second of the Earth’s evolutionary periods; rather, one first looks back at the repetition of this cosmic evolution within Earth existence alone. But it is precisely this repetition that one looks back upon. And in a sense, as human knowledge is supplemented by what a person can experience between death and a new birth, knowledge of humanity becomes cosmological knowledge. What was Earth’s evolution rises, connected with the results of the repeated stages of Earthly existence, into the human deeds that a person accomplishes together with higher beings. The Earth’s past, in its connection with the entire planetary system—the Sun, the Moon, and the planets dependent on them—reappears in human actions. And from what appears there, the human being then shapes the portion of the future that he must first form: his next earthly existence. But at the same time, he is interwoven into the preparation of all that future which is being prepared for the world: the Jupiter stage, the Venus stage, and the Vulcan stage, into which the Earth stage will transition.

[ 34 ] When we look into these matters, we can begin to understand what a phase of Earth’s evolution was like, so to speak, in the ancient cosmic ages. We are looking back to a time when the present-day lunar population provided teachers for the people of Earth. Then this lunar population, together with these last great teachers of humanity, withdrew to the lunar stronghold of the cosmos.

[ 35 ] But time and again, people were born on Earth who, throughout their entire karmic lives, had the opportunity to remain in close connection with the experiences of the lunar population. Thus these beings, who were born again and again in the course of Earth’s evolution, appeared—as emissaries of the great assembly within the lunar population—to those who populated the Earth during the first, second, and third post-Atlantean cultural epochs and developed a higher civilization in the East. These emissaries from the Moon were, in a sense, called Bodhisattvas. They were human beings on Earth, but within them lived on that which was spiritually present on Earth through the great Moon teachers.

[ 36 ] It happens time and again in the universe that there are periods when the lunar population—since it is closer to the solar population than to the Earth’s population— forges particularly close ties with the solar population, so that through this indirect route—via the lunar emissaries, who in the East have been called Bodhisattvas—the wisdom of the Sun was able to reach the people of Earth in the ancient Eastern civilizations. However, as Earth’s development progressed, it became necessary that Earth’s civilization no longer be sustained, so to speak, solely by the beings of the Moon. The entire course of Earth’s development would have had to take a completely different path—one not predetermined by cosmic wisdom—if things had simply continued in such a way that these lunar emissaries had continued to intervene in Earth’s development. Therefore, the great and significant event occurred that we call the Mystery of Golgotha.

[ 37 ] While it was, in a certain sense, emissaries from the Moon who brought solar wisdom to Earth in earlier times, the leading solar being itself—that is, the being who stands at the head of the order of the solar spirits—descended to Earth through the Mystery of Golgotha and incarnated in the person of Jesus. This brought about entirely new conditions for Earth’s evolution. That which has become the wisdom of the solar population has been carried into the very development of the Earth itself as an impulse through Christ Jesus. Therefore, the further development of the Earth must proceed under the impulse of Christ Jesus.

[ 38 ] When the Mystery of Golgotha took place, there was still so much Lunar Wisdom spread across the Earth that the ancient Lunar Wisdom—as Gnosis, as Pistis Sophia—was able to understand what Christ signifies. The ancient Lunar Wisdom was still present and manifested as Gnosis. And Gnosis was, after all, essentially an endeavor to comprehend the Christ in all his spirituality. Well, Gnosis has been eradicated. The first act in that evolution, which led to the temporary failure to understand the Mystery of Golgotha, is the eradication of Gnosis—almost entirely, except for the [accounts in] the writings of its opponents.

[ 39 ] Now imagine if all that remained of today’s anthroposophy were what its opponents have written about it; then you would get an idea of what people actually know about Gnosis based on external sources. They know nothing but what the opponents have said, and a few things from the Pistis Sophia text and so on, which they do not understand. That is what people know about Gnosticism. Gnosticism was, one might say, a gift from the Moon—from ancient times—to the early centuries, above all to the first four centuries of Christian development; for from the fourth century onward, Gnosticism was no longer understood at all. It was, therefore, what one might call the transmission from the ancient lunar wisdom, from the Lunar Logos, to the Solar Logos who had arrived on Earth—that is, to Christ. Anyone who understands this connection can truly comprehend Gnosticism, which is so widely misunderstood and about which such strange things are said in the present day.

[ 40 ] But we cannot stop there, for the evolution of the Earth must continue. We must truly move forward from the old Lunar wisdom into a new Solar wisdom. We must learn to understand Solar wisdom directly. Tomorrow I will describe to you how the old lunar wisdom—after it had essentially reached a certain conclusion—still spoke to human beings through a kind of yogic breathing, through a transformation of the breathing process. Through this transformation, people struggled their way to the old lunar wisdom.

[ 41 ] This form of yoga is no longer suitable for the people of the West. They must move directly toward imagination. This is also the next stage that must be strived for in general civilization: to move toward imagination. But there are various obstacles. And that is why the development of human civilization can only continue in an upward direction if humanity once again receives a spiritual impulse.

[ 42 ] This is connected to their most intimate destinies. In all the eras in which the Bodhisattvas have appeared, they have, on the whole, not found a reluctant humanity. Even though the ancient times often appear cruel, dreadful, and terrifying to us on the surface, there has always been the possibility of responding with goodwill to the impulses from the spiritual world. Thus, the Bodhisattvas encountered a humanity that, at the very least, was receptive to what was once the Moon Logos—the reflection of the Sun Logos. But humanity will never again be addressed in this ancient way.

[ 43 ] That which once was, however, continues on, so that the old lunar wisdom, the old lunar Logos, cannot simply cease to exist, but must carry on; only it will have to be embraced by the Word of the Sun, which now—following the loss of the last inheritance in Gnosis—must also be rediscovered. But humanity cannot be addressed in the true language of the Sun until it shows goodwill toward the Word of the Sun. Therefore, humanity will wait in vain for the arrival of one of the successors to the ancient Bodhisattvas. For whether or not a Bodhisattva is present for humanity depends, after all, on whether humanity shows understanding toward him or not.

[ 44 ] Today, humanity is deeply divided into an Eastern and a Western humanity. And anyone who does not look deeply enough into these circumstances simply fails to correctly assess how humanity is divided between East and West, and how the East expects something from a new Bodhisattva of its own kind in a way that is entirely different from what the West can even begin to imagine. That general consciousness of humanity—which must essentially be a result of the Christ impulse—has not yet sufficiently emerged across the entire earth to counter today’s nationalist strivings. But humanity will not find the path to this universal human, this truly Christian impulse, and therefore will not be able to understand what a potential Bodhisattva might have to say to it until it has once again developed a sufficient degree of spiritual longing within itself, until, precisely through this spiritual longing, it will have built a bridge across the entire Earth leading to understanding between the East and the West.

[ 45 ] I am thus broaching the topic that must be elaborated upon tomorrow and that will essentially describe—unlike the situation today—not that people must wait for the Bodhisattva, but rather that the Bodhisattva must wait for the understanding that humanity offers him before he can speak to them in their language; for humanity has entered the Age of Freedom.

[ 46 ] It is precisely this entry into the epoch of freedom—in connection with the topic we have just begun to discuss—that we will continue to explore tomorrow. But everything that humanity will have to go through in order to truly find its way up to the innermost impulse in the spiritual world is connected to various seemingly insignificant cultural and civilizational systems and phenomena.

[ 47 ] Please forgive me for bringing together the great things I have just spoken of with small ones, but it is in the small symptoms that one sees the great. A few days ago I said: It is precisely here, where the imaginations stand firmly established in the spirit, that cars intrude in a disruptive way. I am not speaking against cars—I have already mentioned that; anthroposophy cannot express anything reactionary. Of course, I absolutely love driving a car when it is necessary, for one must not seek to turn back the clock on the world, but rather one must be able to counter what arises on one side with its opposite, so that driving a car is entirely appropriate. But alongside driving—with everything that goes with it—there must be a heart that is drawn to the spiritual world. And then, even as other things emerge besides driving, humanity will be able to forge ahead precisely through its own strength and freedom—which had to arise, but which must also, in turn, lead to the Bodhisattva.

[ 48 ] Humanity will be able to help itself in the face of the things that are entering the world to perform mechanical tasks on behalf of humans. And so one can already say: humanity will be able to help itself against everything that comes in the form of cars, typewriters, and so on.

[ 49 ] The situation is different—forgive me for concluding with this seemingly trivial point—when it comes to the gramophone. With the gramophone, humanity seeks to force art into the mechanical realm. So if humanity were to develop a passionate fondness for such things—where what descends into the world as a shadow of the spiritual is mechanized—if humanity were to show enthusiasm for something like this, of which the gramophone is an expression, then it could not help itself. The gods would have to come to its aid.

[ 50 ] Well, the gods are merciful, and today there is indeed hope that, as human civilization advances, the merciful gods themselves will help us overcome even such lapses in taste as those expressed by the gramophone.