Mystery Knowledge & Mystery Centers
GA 232
8 December 1923, Dornach
8. The Mysteries Of Hibernia II
It will be clear to you from the description of Initiation in the Hibernian Mysteries that the goal was to achieve insight into secrets of cosmic and human existence, for the experiences of which I told you were of very far-reaching importance for a man’s life of soul. Everything that is to lead him into the spiritual world depends upon conquests achieved as the result of crucial inner experiences and upon such a radical strengthening of his powers that in one way or another he succeeds in penetrating into that world.
We heard that in the process of Initiation in Hibernia, the pupil was led before two symbolical statues—but the word ‘symbolical’ must not be misunderstood. I described to you how these statues were constructed and also what feelings and inner experiences were undergone by the pupil while contemplating them.
You will realise, of course, that the direct impression made by such majestic statues under the conditions I described had an infinitely more powerful inner effect than one received from mere descriptions. Hence after the pupil had lived through everything of which I spoke yesterday, the Initiators were able to produce in him echoes, lasting for a considerable time, of what he had experienced from each of the statues. The echoes of his experiences from the female and from the male statues continued to resound for weeks, or periods differing according to the karma of the individual concerned. The pupils were exhorted in the first place to feel in themselves the after-effects of the male statue. The tests of which I spoke yesterday were made in front of both the statues, for their effects were intended to flow together and work on in the pupil’s life of soul. Now, however, the pupil was first instructed to allow the impression from the male statue to echo powerfully within him. I will describe this to you, but naturally one has to use words that are not really suitable for depicting experiences of Initiation and the inner meaning of many things will have to be felt intuitively.
What the pupil experienced to begin with when he gave himself up to the impressions of the male statue, was a kind of numbness, a rigid numbness of the soul which set in with greater and greater intensity the more often he was bidden to let the echo persist; it was a numbness of soul which felt like a bodily numbness as well. In the intervening periods he was able to attend to all the necessities of life; but ever and again Iris soul experienced the echo and the numbness. This numbness caused a change in his consciousness, for it was an actual Initiation which, though not altogether the same as in the older, primeval Mysteries, was nevertheless strongly reminiscent of them. One could not exactly say that the consciousness was dulled, but the pupil had a sensation of which he might have said: This state of consciousness in which I find myself is totally unfamiliar to me. I do not know how to deal with it; I cannot control it.—The pupil felt that in this state his consciousness was entirely filled with the sensation of numbness. Then he felt that what was numb and frozen—namely, he himself—was being taken up into the Cosmic All. He felt as if he were being transported into the wide spaces of the Cosmos. And he could say to himself: The Cosmos is taking me into itself!
And then came a remarkable experience—his consciousness was not extinguished but transformed. When this experience of frozen numbness and of being taken up into the Cosmic All had lasted for a sufficient length of time— and this was ensured by the Initiators—the pupil could say to himself something to this effect: The rays of the Sun and the Stars are drawing me out into the Cosmic All, but nevertheless I remain here, within my own being ... When tins experience had lasted for the necessary length of time, a remarkable vista came before the pupil. Now for the first time he realised the purpose of this state of consciousness which had set in during the numbness. For now, through his various experiences and their echoes, manifold impressions of winter landscapes came to him. Winter landscapes were there in the spirit before him, landscapes in which he saw whirling snowflakes filling the air—as I said, it was all seen in the spirit—or landscapes in which he gazed at forests with snow weighing down the branches of the trees, or similar sights, always reminiscent of what he had seen here or there in his everyday life, and always giving the impression of reality. After he had been transported into the Cosmic All he felt as if his own consciousness was conjuring before him long wanderings in Time through winter landscapes. And during this experience he felt as though he were not actually in his body, but certainly in his sense-organs; he felt that he was living with the whole of his being in his eyes, in his ears, also on the surface of his skin. And then, when his whole sense of feeling and of touch seemed to be spread over his skin, he also felt: I have become like the elastic, but hollow, statue.—He felt an intimate union between his eyes, for instance, and these landscapes. He felt as though in each eye the whole landscape at which he gazed was working, as though his eyes were an inner mirror reflecting everything outside him.
And further, he did not feel himself as a unity, but he felt his Ego, multiplied to the number of his senses, to be twelvefold. And from the feeling that his Ego had become twelvefold, a remarkable experience caused him to say to himself: There is an Ego which looks through my eyes, there is an Ego which works in my sense of thought, in my sense of speech, in my sense of touch, in my sense of life. I am really scattered over the world.—And from this experience there arose an intense longing for union with a Being from the Hierarchy of the Angeloi, in order that from this union, strength and power might be acquired for mastering the splitting of the Ego into the single sense-experiences. And out of all this, the question arose in the Ego itself: Why have I these senses?
The result of these strange experiences was that the pupil now felt that everything connected with the senses and with their continuations inwards towards the inner organism, was related to the actual environment around him on the Earth. The senses belong to the Winter—that is what the pupil felt. This whole life through which he was passing, in which the changing winter landscapes tallied, as I said, with what he had seen in everyday life, but which now appeared before him in great beauty out of the spirit—all these experiences the pupil now gathered together into a fundamental attunement and tenor of his soul—a condition which may be indicated as follows: In my Mystery-winter-wanderings I have experienced what is Past in the Cosmos. The snow and ice in my enchanted winter have revealed to me deathbringing forces and impulses of destruction in the Cosmos. And my numbness on the way to these Mystery-winterwanderings was the intimation that I was to behold those forces in the Cosmos which come over from the Past into the Present but in the Present are dead cosmic forces.
This realisation was what the echo of his experiences with the male statue conveyed to the pupil.
Then he was brought to the point where his experiences with the plastic—not the elastic—statue could echo within him. And now he was not overwhelmed by inner numbness but by inner heat, by a feverish condition of the soul, accompanied at first by bodily symptoms. The pupil was aware of great inner pressure; he felt as though both breath and blood were exerting too great a pressure and he became aware of a deep, inner need. And in this state the second experience he must undergo became clear to him. Born from the need felt by his soul, the realisation that came to him and of which he was intensely conscious, might be clothed in the following words: I bear within me something that my bodily nature demands in ordinary earthly life. This must be overcome. My Earth-Ego must be overcome!
Then, when the experience of this inner fever, this need of soul, this feeling that the earthly Ego must be overcome, had lasted for the necessary length of time, something arose in the pupil of which he knew that it was not the previous, unfamiliar state of consciousness but that it was a state well known to him, namely, the dream consciousness. Whereas from the earlier numbness had come the distinct feeling that he was in a state of consciousness unknown to him in ordinary life, he knew now that his consciousness was a kind of dreaming. He dreamed; but in contrast with his earlier consciousness—although again in harmony with what he had experienced—he had dreams of the most wonderful summer landscapes. But he now knew that these were dreams, dreams which filled him with intense joy or with intense suffering, depending upon whether what came to him from the summer was sad or joyful, but in either case with the intensity of feeling accompanying dreams.
You need only remind yourselves of how a dream can affect you. It first takes the form of pictures but you may wake up from it with a palpitating heart, in heat and fear. The Hibernian pupil interpreted this experience in an elementary, quite natural way, saying to himself: my inner being has brought the summer to my consciousness as a dream; the summer has come to me as a dream.
At the same time the pupil knew that what was in his consciousness, in a state of continual transformation like an enchanted summer, was indicative of impulses leading over to the Future of the Cosmos. But now he did not feel as though he were scattered into his senses and multiplied. On the contrary, he felt inwardly gathered into a unity; he felt held together in his heart. And the culmination, the supreme climax of what he was experiencing was this sense of being held together in his heart, this feeling of inner union with the dream of the summer—not with the summer as outwardly seen. And rightly the pupil said to himself: In what the dream of summer reveals and I experience in my own being, therein lies the Future.
The next experience arising in the pupil was of two conditions the one following the other. He was looking, shall we say, into a landscape of meadows and ponds, and little lakes. Then came a vista of ice and snow which changed into whirling, falling snow, into a mist of falling snowflakes. This mist became more and more evanescent and finally faded into nothingness. And the moment this happened, when he felt himself as it were in empty space, at that moment the summer dreams replaced the winter scenes, and he realised in full consciousness: now Past and Future meet in my own life of soul.
From then onwards the pupil had learnt to say of this outer world as a truth which was to remain with him for all future time: In this world that surrounds us, in this world from which we derive our corporeality, something is perpetually dying. And the snow-crystals of winter are the outer signs of the spirit that is perpetually dying in matter. As human beings we are not yet capable of feeling in all intensity this dying spirit which in external Nature is rightly symbolised in snow and ice, unless Initiation has been achieved. But through Initiation we know that the spirit is all the time dying in matter, announcing this in freezing, benumbed Nature. A void is continually being produced. And out of this void something is born, something resembling, to begin with, the dreams of Nature. And the dreams of Nature contain the seeds of the Cosmic Future. But Cosmic Death and Cosmic Birth would not meet if Man were not there in the middle. For if Man were not there—as I said, I am simply relating to you the experience inwardly undergone by the pupil during the Hibernian Initiation—if Man were not there, the processes revealed through the consciousness born from the feeling of frozen numbness would be an actual Cosmic Death, and no dream would follow, no Future would arise. Saturn, Sun and Moon would be there, but no Jupiter, Venus or Vulcan. In order that the Future of the Cosmos may be joined to the Past, Man must stand between the Past and the Future. This became known to the pupil through the experiences he had undergone.
All these experiences were then summarised by the Initiators. The first condition, that of the state of numbness, when the pupil had felt himself transported into the Cosmic All, was summarised for him by the Initiators in words which I can render to you as follows:
Thou shalt learn in widths of Space,
How in the blue of Ether-distances
World-Existence vanishes
And finds itself again in thee.
These words summarised the feelings that had been experienced.
Then the feelings accompanying the condition brought about by the second statue were summarised as follows:
In the Depths thou shalt unriddle
Out of burning-fevered Evil,
How the Truth itself doth kindle
And through thee its Being foundeth.
You will remember that at the stage of which I spoke at the end of the lecture yesterday, as the pupil was being realised, the words SCIENCE and ART appeared in the place of the two statues. The word Science appeared in the place of the statue which had said: I am Knowledge, but what I am is not real Being. And the word Art stood there in the place of the statue which had said: I am Phantasy, but what I am has no Truth. The pupil had known the terrible heaviness of heart resulting from his soul’s allegiance to something that was not truly Knowledge. For it had become clear to him that the knowledge acquired on Earth consists of ideas only, of pictures only, and lacks real Being. Now he lived through the reverberations of this experience and had come to realise that man himself must find Being for the content of his knowledge by losing himself in Cosmic Space.
Thou shalt learn in widths of Space,
How in the blue of Ether-distances
World-Existence vanishes
And finds itself again in thee.
For this was indeed the feeling. He had stormed into Ether-distances which are bounded by the blue of the infinite expanse and had united himself at last with this expanse. But then it seemed to the pupil that the Earth had become so dissipated in the infinite expanse that it was as though transformed into Nothingness. He had learnt to experience Nothingness by beholding the enchanted winter landscape. And he knew now that it is only Man who can stand firm in the infinite expanse leading to the blue of the Ether-distances.
Through the second experience a man realises that he finds in the depths of his own being what he must overcome, what he must face as the Evil that is rooted and surging within him, the Evil that must be overcome by the impulse of the Good in human nature in order that the world may have a future.
In the Depths thou shalt unriddle
Out of burning-fevered Evil,
How the Truth itself doth kindle
And through thee its Being foundeth.
The pupil had come to know that the tendency of Phantasy is to avoid Truth, to be satisfied with a relation to the world consisting of arbitrary, subjective pictures. But now, from the dreamlike, enchanted summer-experience he had acquired insight which enabled him to say: Whatever rises up in me as creative phantasy I can carry out into the world. Out of my inner being, like the pictures of phantasy, grow the Imaginations of the plants. If I have the pictures of phantasy only, then I am a stranger to what is around me. But if I have Imaginations, there grows out of my own inner self everything that I can then find in this plant, in that plant, in this animal, in that animal, in this man, in that man. Whatever I find in my own being is to be found in something that is outside me. And for everything that confronts me in the external world I can find something that rises up out of the depths of my own life of soul and is connected with it.
This sense of twofold union with the world was an experience which, accompanied by a feeling of inner triumph, came to the pupil as an echo of the experiences connected with the two statues. In this way he had learnt to expand his soul spiritually on the one side into the Cosmos and also to penetrate deeply into a region of his inner being where the forces are not working with the monotony customary in everyday consciousness but where they work as if they were only partly real, pervaded through and through with magical dreams. The pupil had now learnt to balance this intensity of inner impulses with the intensity of external impulses. Out of his experience of the winter landscape and his experience of the summer landscape, enlightenment had come to him concerning external Nature and his own essential Self. And he had become deeply and intimately related to both.
He was then prepared for a recapitulation of all his experiences. In this recapitulation his Initiators put very clearly to him what he must do: You must make a deliberate pause when recapitulating the numbness your soul experienced. You must pause while recapitulating the flight into Cosmic distances and again while recapitulating the experience of feeling dispersed into your senses and multiplied. You must be inwardly clear about each of these conditions and be able to distinguish exactly between them; you must have an etheric, inner experience of each of the three conditions.—And when the pupil, now with full consciousness, called up again before his soul the state of numbness, there appeared before him the experiences he had had before he came down to the Earth out of spiritual worlds, before the earthly conception of his body, when he was drawing together out of the Cosmos the etheric impulses and forces in order to clothe himself with an etheric body. In this way the pupil of the Hibernian Mysteries was led to experience the final stage preceding his descent into a physical body.
He had then to recapitulate and add emphasis to the inner experience of being transported into the Cosmos. This time, in the recapitulation, he no longer felt as though he were being drawn up by the rays of the Sun and Stars but he felt as though something were coming towards him, as though from all sides of the Cosmos the Hierarchies were coming towards him; and he had other experiences as well. And then he became aware of conditions still further back in his pre-earthly life. Next, he had consciously to recapitulate the experience of being poured out into his senses and dispersed in fragments in the world of the senses. This brought him to the middle point of his existence between death and a new birth.
You can see from these indications that the powers enabling the Initiate to penetrate into these hidden worlds—to which, nevertheless, man really belongs—can be attained in the most diverse ways. And from the indications given yesterday and on many occasions you will realise too that vision of the supersensible world was achieved by methods differing widely in the several Mysteries. In later lectures we shall speak of why it was that such differences were considered appropriate, and why a uniform spiritual path was not adopted in all the Mysteries. Today I will merely mention the fact. But the purpose of all these different paths was to unveil the hidden aspects of world-existence and human existence which have been indicated again and again in our present studies as well as in other lectures and writings.
It was made clear to the pupil of the Hibernian Mysteries that he must also recapitulate inwardly and in his life of feeling the other conditions he had experienced as aftereffects of the second statue; each condition was to be evoked in full consciousness. He carried out these instructions, and in recapitulating the state I described yesterday as a kind of need of soul, he felt what would be the soul’s experience after death.
Then came the vision of outer Nature as revealed in summer landscapes, but this was a dream. When he recapitulated this experience and now consciously distinguished it from the other, knowledge came to him of the further course of his life after death. And when he was able to make the experience of being held together in his heart vividly alive in his consciousness, his vision extended back as far as the middle point of existence between death and rebirth. Then the Initiator could say to him:
Learn to perceive in spirit
Winter-existence,
And thou shalt behold
he pre-earthly life.Learn to dream in spirit
Summer-existence,
And thou shalt experience
The post-earthly life.
Please notice carefully the words I have used, for in the relation between ‘beholding’ the pre-earthly and ‘experiencing’ the post-earthly lies the difference between the two experiences undergone by the candidate for Initiation in the Mysteries of Hibernia.
The place of this Initiation in the whole historical setting of human evolution, its significance in the evolutionary process and in what way a deeper meaning was indicated when at that stage of Initiation which I described yesterday, something like a vision of the Christ came to the pupil of the Hibernian Mysteries—of these things I shall speak tomorrow.
Achter Vortrag
Sie werden gesehen haben, daß die gestern geschilderte Initiation der hybernischen Mysterien hinzielt auf ein wirkliches Durchschauen der Welt- und Menschengeheimnisse, denn die inneren Seelenerfahrungen, von denen ich sprechen mußte, waren einschneidender Art für das menschliche Seelen- und Gemütsleben. Und eigentlich beruht alles, was auf den Weg in die geistige Welt führen soll, darauf, daß der Mensch aus besonderen einschneidenden inneren Erlebnissen heraus zu gewissen Überwindungen kommt, in diesem Überwinden seine Kraft wesentlich verstärkt und dadurch auf die eine oder die andere Art in die geistige Welt hineindringt.
Nun sahen wir ja, wie bei der Einweihung in Hybernien der Einzuweihende zwei- man muß das Wort nicht mißverstehen - symbolischen Statuen gegenübersteht. Und ich habe Ihnen geschildert, erstens wie diese Statuen beschaffen waren, zweitens durch welche Empfindungen und inneren Seelenerlebnisse der Schüler bei Gelegenheit der Betrachtung dieser Statuen geführt wurde.
Nun müssen Sie sich darüber klar sein: der Eindruck, den man von solchen majestätischen Bildsäulen bekommt unter solchen Verhältnissen, wie ich sie Ihnen geschildert habe, der ist natürlich durchaus nicht etwa gleich dem, den man bekommt, wenn man die Dinge nun geschildert vernimmt, sondern er ist ein innerlich außerordentlich mächtiger. Und daher war es schon möglich, daß die Einweihenden, nachdem der Schüler alles das durchgemacht hatte, was ich gestern geschildert habe, daß die Initiatoren in die Lage versetzt waren, das Durchlebte, das an jeder der einzelnen Bildsäulen Durchlebte durch längere Zeit in dem Schüler nachklingen zu lassen. Der Schüler wurde einfach dazu angehalten, daß dasjenige, was er an der männlichen, was er an der weiblichen Statue erlebt hatte, in ihm nachklang. Wochenlang — die Dinge sind nach dem Karma des Menschen verschieden, zuweilen auch länger, bei manchem kürzer - wurden die Schüler angehalten, zunächst in sich den Nachklang zu fühlen der einen, der männlichen Statue. Die Erprobungen, von denen ich gestern gesprochen habe, die wurden zuerst an beiden Statuen gemacht, denn es sollte zusammenfließen auch im ferneren seelischen Leben des Schülers dasjenige, was von beiden Statuen zusammen ausging. Dennoch aber wurde der Schüler dazu angehalten, zunächst in sich ganz intensiv dasjenige nachklingen zu lassen, was er als Eindruck bekommen hatte von der männlichen Statue. Und ich werde Ihnen diesen Eindruck, wie er nachklang, nun schildern. Natürlich muß man dabei Worte gebrauchen, die ja nicht geprägt sind für solche Initiationserlebnisse; daher wird manches, was in diesen Worten ausgesprochen wird, eigentlich gefühlt werden müssen seiner wahren inneren Bedeutung nach.
Was der Schüler zunächst nun erlebte, wenn er sich dem Eindruck der männlichen Statue, den ich gestern geschildert habe, hingab, war eine Art von seelischer Erstarrung, eine wirkliche seelische Erstarrung, die sich immer mehr und mehr einstellte, je mehr der Schüler in die Zeiten versetzt wurde, in denen er die Dinge so nachklingen lassen sollte: eine seelische Erstarrung, die sich erfühlte auch wie eine körperliche Erstarrung. Der Schüler konnte in den Zwischenzeiten durchaus dasjenige besorgen, was für das Leben notwendig ist, aber er wurde immer wieder und wiederum in seiner Seele in diesen Nachklang versetzt und erlebte dann diese Erstarrung. Diese Erstarrung — es war durchaus eine Initiation, die noch sehr stark, wenn auch nicht ganz mehr an den alten Stil der Urmysterien erinnerte — diese Erstarrung brachte ihn zu einer Änderung seines Bewußtseins. Das Bewußtsein, man konnte nicht sagen, daß es etwa herabgedämpft wurde, aber es wurde so, daß der Schüler verspürte: Der Bewußtseinszustand, in den ich da komme, ist mir ganz ungewohnt. Ich kann ihn eigentlich zunächst nicht handhaben, ich kann mit ihm nichts anfangen. Und daher fühlte der Schüler eigentlich nur, daß dieser ganze Bewußtseinszustand ausgefüllt war mit der Empfindung der Erstarrung. Dann aber war es so, als ob der Schüler fühlte, daß dasjenige, was in ihm erstarrt war, also eigentlich er selber, von dem Weltenall aufgenommen wurde; er fühlte sich wie hinausversetzt in die Weiten des Weltenalls. Und er konnte sich sagen: Das Weltenall nimmt mich auf.
Aber dann kam - es war nicht ein Schwinden des Bewußtseins, sondern ein etwas Anderswerden des Bewußtseins - dann kam etwas ganz Besonderes. Wenn der Schüler genügend lange Zeit - und daß es eben genügend lange Zeit war, dafür hatten die Initiatoren zu sorgen - diese Art Erstarrung durchgemacht hatte, dieses Aufgenommenwerden von dem Weltenall, sagte er sich ungefähr: Die Sonnenstrahlen, die Sternenstrahlen ziehen mich an, sie ziehen mich hinaus ins ganze Weltenall, aber ich bleibe eigentlich doch in mir beisammen. Wenn der Schüler das lange genug durchgemacht hatte, dann bekam er eine merkwürdige Anschauung. Jetzt erst wußte er eigentlich, wozu dieses Bewußtsein war, das schon während der Erstarrung aufgetreten war, denn jetzt bekam er, je nach seinen Erlebnissen, anklingend an dies oder jenes, die mannigfaltigsten Eindrücke von Winterlandschaften. Winterlandschaften waren im Geiste vor ihm, Landschaften, wobei er hineinsah in wirbelnde Schneeflocken, welche die Luft erfüllten - alles, wie gesagt, im Geiste gesehen -, oder Landschaften, wo er hineinsah in Wälder, wo Schnee drückend auf den Bäumen lag oder ähnliches; durchaus Dinge, die, wie gesagt, anklangen an das, was er im Leben da oder dort gesehen hatte, die aber immer den Eindruck des Wirklichen machten. So daß er, nachdem er aufgenommen war von dem Weltenall, sich fühlte, wie wenn ihm das eigene Bewußtsein vorzauberte ganze Wanderungen in der Zeit durch Winterlandschaften. Und dabei fühlte er so, wie wenn er eigentlich nicht in seinem Körper wäre, wohl aber in seinen Sinnesorganen; er fühlte seine Wesenheit in seinen Augen, er fühlte seine Wesenheit in seinen Ohren, er fühlte seine Wesenheit auch auf der Oberfläche seiner Haut. Da, namentlich, wenn er den ganzen Gefühlssinn, den ganzen Tastsinn ausgedehnt fühlte über seine Haut, da empfand er auch: ich bin ähnlich geworden der elastischen, aber hohlen Bildsäule. Und er fühlte eine innige Gemeinschaft zum Beispiel seiner Augen mit diesen Landschaften. Er fühlte, als ob in jedem Auge ‚diese ganze Landschaft, die er übersah, tätig wäre, als ob sie überall ins Auge hineinwirkte, als ob das Auge ein innerer Spiegel wäre für das, "was da draußen erschien.
Aber das, was er noch fühlte, war: er fühlte sich nicht als eine Einheit, sondern er fühlte im Grunde genommen sein Ich so oft vervielfacht, als er Sinne hatte. Er fühlte sein Ich verzwölffacht. Und daraus, daß er dieses Ich verzwölffacht fühlte, ergab sich für ihn dieses ganz merkwürdige Erlebnis, daß er sich sagte: Da ist ein Ich, das sieht durch meine Augen. Da ist ein Ich, es wirkt in meinem Denksinn, in meinem Sprachsinn, in meinem Tastsinn, in meinem Lebenssinn. Ich bin eigentlich zerspalten in der Welt. - Daraus entstand eine lebendige Sehnsucht nach der Vereinigung mit einem Wesen aus der Hierarchie der Angeloi, um in dieser Vereinigung mit einem Wesen aus der Hierarchie der Angeloi die Kraft und die Gewalt zu bekommen, die Auseinanderspaltung des Ich in die einzelnen Sinneserlebnisse zu beherrschen. Und daraus, aus alledem ging im Ich das Erlebnis hervor: Warum habe ich meine Sinne?
Und dieses ganz Eigentümliche stellte sich heraus, daß der Schüler nun empfand, wie alles, was mit den Sinnen und mit den Fortsetzungen der Sinne nach innen, nach dem Innern des Menschen zusammenhängt, wie das eine Verwandtschaft hat mit der wirklichen Umgebung, die man auf der Erde hat. Die Sinne gehören dem Winter - das ist dasjenige, was der Schüler fühlte. Und in diesem ganzen Leben, das er da durchmachte, in den sich wandelnden Winterlandschaften, die, wie gesagt, anklangen an das, was er im Leben gesehen hatte, die aber mit einer großen Schönheit ihm entgegenstrahlten eben aus dem Geistigen heraus, aus diesen ganzen Erlebnissen nahm dann der Schüler eine Gesamtverfassung seiner Seele mit. Diese Gesamtverfassung seiner Seele, die enthielt etwa die folgenden Teile:
Ich habe durchgemacht in meiner Mysterienwinterwanderung dasjenige, was im Weltenall wirklich vergangen ist. Die Schnee- und Eismassen meiner Zauberwinter haben mir gezeigt, welche ertötenden Kräfte im Weltenall wirken. Ich habe Vernichtungsimpulse im Weltenall kennengelernt. Und meine Erstarrung, als ich auf dem Wege war zu meiner Mysterienwinterwanderung, war eben die Ankündigung, daß ich hineinschauen sollte in das, was im Weltenall an Kräften vorhanden ist, die aus der Vergangenheit herüber in die Gegenwart kommen, aber in der Gegenwart als tote Weltenkräfte ankommen.
Das wurde zunächst dem Schüler vermittelt durch den Nachklang seiner Erlebnisse an der männlichen Statue.
Dann wurde er dazu gebracht, den Nachklang seiner Erlebnisse mit der plastischen, nicht elastischen Statue, in sich zu haben. Und da war es ihm so, als ob er jetzt verfiele nicht in eine innerliche Erstarrung, aber in ein innerliches Heißsein, wie in einen Fieberzustand der Seele, in einen Fieberzustand, der etwa so wirkte, daß die Dinge, die so stark auf die Seele wirken können, weil sie innerlich eben so sind, durchaus mit körperlichen Symptomkomplexen begannen. Es empfand der Schüler das so, wie wenn er innerlich gedrückt würde, wie wenn alles zu stark drücken würde, der Atem zu stark drücken würde, das Blut nach allen Seiten zu stark drücken würde. In eine große Ängstlichkeit kam der Schüler, geradezu in eine tiefe innere Seelennot. Und in dieser tiefen inneren Seelennot ging ihm dann das Zweite auf, was er durchmachen sollte. Und das war, daß aus der Seelennot sich herausgebar für ihn etwas, was man etwa in folgende Worte kleiden könnte:
Ich habe etwas in mir, das gefordert wird von meiner Leiblichkeit im gewöhnlichen Erdenleben. Das muß überwunden werden. Mein Erden-Ich muß überwunden werden. — Das lebte stark im Bewußtsein des Schülers.
Dann, wenn er eine genügend lange Zeit dieses innerliche Heißsein, diese innerliche Not, dieses Gefühl, es ist das Erden-Ich zu überwinden, durchgemacht hatte, dann trat etwas in ihm auf, von dem er wußte, es ist nicht der Bewußtseinszustand von früher, sondern es ist ein ihm wohlbekannter Bewußtseinszustand, es ist derBewußtseinszustand des Träumens. Während er beim ersten, was aus der Erstarrung heraus wirkte, deutlich das Gefühl hatte, er war in einem Bewußtseinszustand, den er nicht im gewöhnlichen Leben kannte, kannte er jetzt seinen Bewußtseinszustand: eine Art Träumen. Er träumte; aber er träumte im Gegensatze zu dem, was er früher geträumt hatte, wiederum in Anklang an das, was er erlebt hatte, die wunderbarsten Sommerlandschaften. Aber er wußte, das sind Träume, Träume, die ihn innerlich mit einer intensiven Freude oder mit einem intensiven Leid ergriffen, je nachdem das, was aus dem sommerlichen Wesen heraus an ihn herankam, leidvoll oder freudvoll war, aber eben mit jener Ergriffenheit, wie einen Träume ergreifen. Sie brauchen sich nur zu erinnern, was ein Traum vermag, der in Bildern zunächst auftritt, aus dem Sie erwachen, erwachen mit pochendem Herzen, heiß, in Angst. Dieses innerliche Ergriffenwerden, das deutete sich nun der Schüler auf eine ‚ganz elementare, selbstverständliche Weise so, daß er sich sagte: Meine innere Wesenheit hat mir den Sommer als Traum vor das Bewußtsein gebracht - den Sommer als Traum.
Zu gleicher Zeit wußte jetzt der Schüler: Dasjenige, was da als Zaubersommer vor seinem Bewußtsein in einer fortdauernden Wandlung war oder ist, das ist etwas wie die Impulse in die weite Zukunft des Weltenalls hinüber. Aber er fühlte sich jetzt nicht so wie früher, wie in seine Sinne zerlegt und vermannigfaltigt, nein, er fühlte sich jetzt geade richtig innerlich wie in eine Einheit zusammengefaßt; er fühlte sich wie zusammengefaßt in sein Herz. Und das ist die Kulmination, die höchste Steigerung dessen, was er durchmachte: dies Zusammengefaßtsein in sein Herz, dieses innerliche Sich-Ergreifen und SichVerwandtfühlen in der innersten Menschennatur nicht mit dem Sommer, wie man ihn äußerlich sieht, aber mit dem Traum von diesem Sommer. Und in richtiger Weise sagte sich der Schüler: In dem, was der Traum vom Sommer gibt, was ich innerlich in meinem Menschenwesen erlebe, in dem liegt die Zukunft.
Und wenn der Schüler dieses durchgemacht hatte, dann kam über ihn das Erleben, daß diese beiden Zustände aufeinander folgten. Er sah, sagen wit, hinein in eine Landschaft, bestehend aus Wiesen und Teichen und kleinen Seen. Er sah hinein in Eis und Schnee, das verwandelte sich in wirbelnden, fallenden Schnee, wie nebelnde Schneeflocken, das verdünnte sich immer mehr und mehr und zerfloß in nichts. In dem Augenblicke, wo es in das Nichts zerflossen war, wo er sich gewissermaßen im leeren Weltenraume fühlte, in dem Augenblicke traten an dessen Stelle die Sommerträume auf. Und der Schüler hatte das Bewußtsein: Jetzt berühren sich Vergangenheit und Zukunft in meinem eigenen Seelenleben.
Und von jetzt ab hatte der Schüler gelernt, hinzuschauen auf die äuBere Welt und von dieser äußeren Welt sich jetzt als eine ihm immer für die Zukunft bleibende Wahrheit zu sagen: In dieser Welt, die uns umgibt, in dieser Welt, aus der wir unsere äußere Leiblichkeit haben, in dieser Welt stirbt fortwährend etwas. Und in den Schneekristallen des Winters haben wir die äußeren Anzeichen des in der Materie fortdauernd ersterbenden Geistes. Wir sind als Menschen noch nicht dazu veranlagt, diesen ersterbenden Geist, der richtig in Schnee und Eis symbolisiert wird in der äußeren Natur, vollständig zu fühlen, wenn eben nicht die Initiation vorangeht. Geht sie aber voran, dann weiß man: fortdauernd stirbt in der Materie der Geist, kündigt sich in der erstarrenden und erstarrten Natur an. Da west immerzu das Nichts. Und aus diesem Nichts heraus gebiert sich zunächst etwas wie Naturträume. Und die Naturträume enthalten die Keime für die Weltenzukunft. Aber es würde sich Weltentod und Weltengeburt nicht berühten, wenn der Mensch nicht mitten innen stünde. Denn stünde der Mensch nicht mitten inne — wie gesagt, ich schildere Ihnen einfach die Erfahrungen, die innerlich machte der Schüler der hybernischen Einweihung - stünde der Mensch nicht mitten inne, dann wären die wirklichen Vorgänge, in die der Schüler durch das aus der Erstarrung heraus geborene neue Bewußtsein hereinschaute, ein wirklicher Weltentod, und der Traum folgte nicht dem Weltentod. Keine Zukunft ergäbe sich gegenüber der Vergangenheit. Saturn, Sonne, Mond, Erde wären da; kein Jupiter, Venus und kein Vulkan. Daß diese Zukunft des Kosmos sich an die Vergangenheit angliedert, dazu mußte der Mensch zwischen Vergangenheit und Zukunft stehen. Das wußte einfach der Schüler aus dem, was er durchlebte.
Und was so der Schüler durchlebt hatte, das wurde ihm nun von seinen Initiatoren zusammengefaßt. Und zwar wurde ihm der erste Zustand, wo er durch Erstarrung gegangen war, wo er sich wie aufgesogen vom Weltenall fühlte, zusammengefaßt von seinen Initiatoren in Worte, die ich Ihnen etwa in der folgenden Art in deutscher Sprache geben kann:
In den Weiten sollst du lernen,
Wie im Blau der Ätherfernen
Erst das Weltensein entschwindet
Und in dir sich wiederfindet.
In diesen Worten waren tatsächlich die Empfindungen, die durchgemacht wurden, zusammengefaßt. Dann wurden ihm zusammengefaßt die Empfindungen des zweiten Zustandes unter der Nachwirkung der zweiten Bildsäule:
In den Tiefen sollst du lösen
Aus dem heiß-erfiebernden Bösen,
Wie die Wahrheit sich entzündet
Und durch dich im Sein sich ergründet.
Bedenken Sie, meine lieben Freunde, der Schüler wurde ja auf der Etappe, von der ich gestern gesprochen habe am Schluß der Darstellung, entlassen mit den Worten, die sich hinstellten an die Stelle der beiden Statuen, mit den Worten: Wissenschaft, Kunst. Und Wissenschaft stellte sich hin an die Stelle der Statue, die da eigentlich sagte: Ich bin die Erkenntnis, aber mir fehlt das Sein. Und Kunst schrieb sich hin an die Stelle der Statue, die da sagte: Ich bin die Phantasie, aber mir fehlt die Wahrheit. Und der Schüler hatte all das Schwere, das innerlich furchtbar Schwere durchgemacht, daß er eigentlich wie innerlich seelisch begierdevoll statt der Erkenntnis schon anderes gewählt hatte. Denn es war ihm ganz klar geworden, der Erkenntnis, die auf Erden erworben wird, sind nur Ideen, sind nur Bilder eigen, ihr fehlt das Sein. Jetzt hatte er die Nachklänge durchlebt. Und aus den Nachklängen hatte er kennengelernt, daß der Mensch das Sein für dasjenige, was er in der Erkenntnis hat, finden muß, indem er in die Weltenweiten sich verliert:
In den Weiten sollst du lernen,
Wie im Blau der Ätherfernen
Erst das Weltensein entschwindet
Und in dir sich wiederfindet.Denn das war in der Tat die Empfindung: Er stürmt gewissermaßen hinaus in die Ätherfernen, die vom Blau der Weiten umgrenzt werden; man vereint sich, man vereinigt sich zuletzt mit diesem Blau der weiten Fernen. Da aber ist das, was Erde war, so zerstreut in die Weiten, daß es wie in Nichts verwandelt ist. Und man hat gelernt, das Nichts zu empfinden aus dem Hinschauen auf die zauberische Winterlandschaft. Und man weiß jetzt, daß nur der Mensch es sein kann, der sich aufrecht erhält in diesen Weiten, die bis zu den blauen Ätherfernen hinführen.
Und im Zweiten ergründet der Mensch, wie er in seinen eigenen Tiefen dasjenige findet, was er überwinden muß, was er anschauen muß als das gerade im Menschen wurzelnde und quellende Böse, das überwunden werden muß durch die Impulse des Guten in der menschlichen Natur, damit die Welt eine Zukunft habe:
In den Tiefen sollst du lösen
Aus dem heiß-erfiebernden Bösen,
>Wie die Wahrheit sich entzündet
Und durch dich im Sein sich ergründet.Den Hang der Phantasie, nicht die Wahrheit zu haben, sogar den Hang, sich zu begnügen mit einem Verhältnis zur Welt, das nicht die Wahrheit umschließt, sondern das in willkürlichen Bildern der Subjektivität verläuft, diesen Hang hatte der Schüler durchgemacht. Jetzt aber hatte er aus dem traumhaft-zauberischen Sommererlebnis heraus die Einsicht gewonnen: Ich kann das, was in mir aufsteigt, wie die in mir schaffende Phantasie, hinaustragen in die Welt. Aus meinem Inneren, wie die Bilder der Phantasie, wachsen heraus die Imaginationen, die Imaginationen der Pflanzen. Habe ich nur die Bilder der Phantasie, dann bin ich fremd dem, was um mich ist. Habe ich die Imaginationen, so wächst aus meinem eigenen Innern heraus dasjenige, was ich dann finde in dieser Pflanze, in jener Pflanze, in diesem Tier, in jenem Tier, in diesem Menschen, in jenem Menschen. Alles was ich im Innern finde, deckt sich mit irgend etwas, was draußen ist. Und für alles, was mir im Äußern begegnet, kann ich auch aus den Tiefen meines eigenen Seelenlebens etwas aufsteigen haben, was mit ihm zusammenhängt, was sich mit ihm deckt.
Dieses zweifache Verbundensein mit der Welt, das ist dasjenige, was wirklich mit einer innerlich grandiosen Empfindung vor dem Schüler als Nachklang an die beiden Statuen stand. Und der Schüler hatte wirklich auf diese Art gelernt, seine Seele auf der einen Seite nach den Weltenweiten hinaus, ich möchte sagen geistig zu dehnen, und er hatte gelernt, tief in sein Inneres hineinzugehen da, wo dieses Innere nicht wirkt mit jener Mattigkeit, mit der es im gewöhnlichen Bewußtsein wirkt, sondern wo dieses Innerliche so wirkt, wie wenn es von halber Wirklichkeit, nämlich von Träumen durchschauert und durchrüttelt und durchzaubert würde. Der Schüler hatte gelernt, diese ganze Intensität innerer Impulse in Verbindung zu bringen mit der ganzen Intensität äußerer Impulse. Er hatte aus der Verwandtschaft mit der Winterlandschaft und aus der Verwandtschaft mit der Sommerlandschaft Aufschlüsse errungen über die äußere Natur und über sein eigenes Selbst. Und er war tief verwandt worden mit der äußeren Natur und mit dem eigenen Selbst.
Dann war er gut dazu vorbereitet, gewissermaßen eine Art Wiederholung durchzumachen. In dieser Wiederholung wurde ihm ganz deutlich vor die Seele geführt durch seine Initiatoren: Du mußt Halt machen innerlich mit der Seele in der Erstarrung. Du mußt Halt machen in diesem Hinausgehen in die Weltenfernen. Und du mußt Halt machen drittens, indem du dich fühlst wie ausgegossen und vermannigfaltigt in deinen Sinnen. Du mußt dir innerlich klar machen, wie der einzelne Zustand ist. Du mußt jeden dieser einzelnen drei Zustände von den andern genau unterscheiden können. Du mußt ein ätherisches inneres Erlebnis von jedem dieser drei Zustände haben. - Und wenn der Schüler sich den Zustand innerlicher Erstarrung jetzt aus dem vollen Bewußtsein wiederum vor die Seele rief, dann trat vor dieser Seele auf alles, was er an Erlebnissen gehabt hatte, bevor er aus den geistigen Welten zur Erde niedergestiegen war, vor der irdischen Empfängnis seines Leibes, wo er aus den Weltenweiten die Ätherimpulse und Ätherkräfte zusammengezogen hatte, um sich mit einem Ätherleib zu umgeben. So wurde der Schüler der Mysterien von Hybernia eingeführt in die Anschauung des letzten Zustandes vor dem Heruntersteigen in einen physischen Leib.
Und dann sollte er sich ganz klar machen das innere Erlebnis, wie es verläuft, wenn er in die Weltenweiten hinausgeht. Da fühlte er jetzt beim zweiten Mal, bei dieser Wiederholung, nicht als ob er von Sonnenstrahlen und Sternenstrahlen aufgesogen würde, sondern er fühlte bei dieser Wiederholung, wie wenn ihm etwas entgegenkäme, wie wenn ihm von allen Seiten aus den Weiten die Hierarchien entgegenkämen, wie wenn ihm entgegenkämen auch andere Erlebnisse. Und er fühlte das, was weiter zurücklag in seinem vorirdischen Leben. Und dann sollte er sich ganz klar machen den Zustand, wenn er in die Sinne hinausergossen war und sich wie zerspalten in die Sinneswelt fand. Denn da war er gelangt zu der Mitte des Daseins zwischen dem Tode und einer neuen Geburt.
Sie sehen, dasjenige, was den Initiierten eindringen läßt in diese verborgenen Welten, denen aber der Mensch mit seinem Wesen angehört, das kann auf mannigfaltigste Weise erreicht werden. Und wenn wir Umschau halten in der Art, wie ich es gestern und schon öfter angedeutet habe, dann werden Sie sich schon sagen können: In den verschiedenen Mysterienstätten wurde die Anschauung dieser übersinnlichen Welt in der mannigfaltigsten Weise erreicht. Warum solche Mannigfaltigkeit angestrebt wurde, warum nicht über alle Mysterien ein einheitlicher geistiger Weg ausgegossen war, davon werden wir ja noch in späteren Vorträgen sprechen. Ich will heute nur die Tatsache erwähnen. Aber alle diese verschiedenen Mysterienwege, sie waren dazu bestimmt, die verborgenen Seiten des Daseins der Welt und des Menschen zu enthüllen, auf die wir uns ja immer wieder und wieder von den verschiedensten Gesichtspunkten aus in diesen Betrachtungen hier und in anderen Vorträgen und anderen Schriften haben hingewiesen sehen.
Und dann wurde dem Schüler klar gemacht, er solle nun auch die anderen Zustände, die er im Nachklang an die andere Statue erlebt hatte, innerlich gesondert durchleben, so daß er für jeden einzelnen Zustand immer ein innerlich deutliches, empfindungsgemäßes Wissen habe, wie er ihn durchläuft, und er solle das dann in vollem Bewußtsein heraufrufen. Das tat er dann. Und bei dem, was ich geschildert habe als eine Art Not der Seele, fühlte er unmittelbar, was auf den Tod folgte im Seelenerleben.
Dann kam die Anschauung durch das, was er weiter erlebte, wo sich die äußere Natur wie sommerlandschaftlich zeigte, aber wie der Traum von Sommerlandschaft. Da enthüllte sich ihm, wenn er das wiederholt durchlebte und jetzt mit vollem Bewußtsein diesen Zustand sonderte von dem anderen Bewußtseinszustand, da lernte er erkennen dasjenige, was den weiteren Fortgang seines nachirdischen Lebens ausmachte. Und wenn er sich das ganz klar und lebendig machte, was Zusammenziehen in das Herzwesen war, dann konnte er, indem er das in seinem Bewußtsein lebendig, präsent machte, bis in die Mitte des Daseins zwischen dem Tod und einer neuen Geburt gelangen. Und der Initiator konnte ihm sagen:
Lerne geistig Wintersein schauen
Und dir wird der Anblick des Vorirdischen.Lerne geistig Sommersein träumen
Und dir wird das Erleben des Nachirdischen.Bitte, beachten Sie genau die Worte, die ich gebrauche, denn in dem Verhältnis hier vom Anblick des Vorirdischen und Erleben des Nachirdischen, und von träumen zu schauen, auf diesem Verhältnis beruht der gewaltige Unterschied, der in diesen beiden Erlebnissen bei den in die Mysterien zu Initiierenden in den Mysterien von Hybernia lag.
Wie sich diese Initiation hineinstellte in den ganzen historischen Zusammenhang der Menschheit, in die ganze Menschheitsentwickelung, was sie für die Menschheitsentwickelung für eine Bedeutung hatte und inwiefern das einen tieferen Sinn hatte, daß gerade bei der Etappe, bei der ich gestern schloß, etwas wie eine Christus-Anschauung in dem Schüler von Hybernia auftrat, das werde ich dann morgen darstellen.
Eighth Lecture
You will have seen that the initiation of the Hybernian Mysteries described yesterday aims at a real insight into the secrets of the world and of man, for the inner soul experiences of which I had to speak were of an incisive nature for the human soul and emotional life. And actually everything that is to lead to the path into the spiritual world is based on the fact that man comes to certain surmountings out of particularly drastic inner experiences, in this surmounting his strength is essentially strengthened and thereby penetrates into the spiritual world in one way or another.
Now we saw how, during the initiation in Hybernia, the person to be initiated faces two – one must not misunderstand the word – symbolic statues. And I have described to you, firstly, how these statues were made, and secondly, the sensations and inner soul experiences through which the disciple was led when contemplating these statues.
Now you must be clear about this: the impression that one gets from such majestic statues under such circumstances, as I have described to you, is of course not at all the same as the impression one gets when one hears the things described, but it is an inwardly extraordinarily powerful one. And so it was possible that after the pupil had gone through everything I described yesterday, the initiators were able to allow the experiences, the experiences of each of the individual statues, to resonate in the pupil for a long time. The pupil was simply encouraged to let what he had experienced with the male and female statues resonate within him. For weeks — the time varies according to the person's karma, sometimes longer, sometimes shorter — the pupils were encouraged to first feel within themselves the resonance of the male statue. The tests I spoke of yesterday were first carried out on both statues, because what emanated from both statues together should also flow together in the student's further spiritual life. Nevertheless, the student was encouraged to first let that resonate within himself very intensely, which he had received as an impression from the male statue. And I will now describe to you this impression as it resonated. Of course, one has to use words that are not intended for such initiation experiences; therefore, some of what is expressed in these words must actually be felt in its true inner meaning.
What the student first experienced when he surrendered to the impression of the male statue, which I described yesterday, was a kind of spiritual numbness, a real spiritual numbness that set in more and more the more the student was transported to the times when he was supposed to let the things resonate like that: a spiritual numbness that also felt like a physical numbness. In the meantime, the pupil could very well attend to the things necessary in life, but again and again his soul was plunged into this reverberation and then experienced this numbness. This numbness – it was definitely an initiation, which still very strongly, although no longer quite, recalled the ancient style of the primeval mysteries – this numbness brought about a change in his consciousness. The consciousness, one could not say that it was dampened, but it became so that the student felt: The state of consciousness in which I am coming is quite unfamiliar to me. I can't really handle it at first, I can't do anything with it. And so the disciple actually only felt that this whole state of consciousness was filled with the sensation of numbness. But then it was as if the disciple felt that what had become numb in him, that is, actually himself, was absorbed by the universe; he felt as if he had been transported into the vastness of the universe. And he could say to himself: The universe is absorbing me.
But then came – it was not a fading of consciousness, but a somewhat different state of consciousness – then came something very special. When the pupil had undergone this kind of paralysis – this absorption by the universe – for a sufficiently long time (and the initiators had to ensure that it was sufficiently long), he would say to himself: 'The sun's rays, the rays of the stars, attract me, drawing me out into the whole universe, but I actually remain together within myself. When the student had gone through this long enough, he received a remarkable vision. Only now did he actually know what this consciousness was for, which had already occurred during the solidification, because now, depending on his experiences, he received the most diverse impressions of winter landscapes, reminiscent of this or that. Winter landscapes were before him in spirit, landscapes in which he looked into swirling snowflakes that filled the air - all, as I said, seen in spirit - or landscapes where he looked into forests where snow lay oppressively on the trees or the like; certainly things that, as I said, were reminiscent of what he had seen here and there in life, but which always made the impression of reality. So that after he was absorbed by the universe, he felt as if his own consciousness was conjuring up entire journeys through time in winter landscapes. And at the same time he felt as if he was not actually in his body, but certainly in his sense organs; he felt his being in his eyes, he felt his being in his ears, he felt his being also on the surface of his skin. There, namely, when he felt the whole sense of feeling, the whole sense of touch, extended over his skin, there he also felt: I have become similar to the elastic but hollow statue. And he felt an intimate connection between, for example, his eyes and these landscapes. He felt as if in each eye 'this entire landscape, which he overlooked, was active, as if it were everywhere in the eye, as if the eye were an inner mirror for that “what appeared out there.
But what he also felt was that he did not feel as a single entity, but rather that he felt his self multiplied by the number of senses he had. He felt his self multiplied by twelve. And from this feeling of his self being multiplied by twelve, there arose for him this very remarkable experience: he said to himself, “There is a self that sees through my eyes. There is an ego that works in my sense of thinking, in my sense of speaking, in my sense of touching, in my sense of living. I am actually split in the world. From this arose a living longing for union with a being from the hierarchy of the Angeloi, in order to gain the strength and power to control the splitting of the I into the individual sensory experiences through this union with a being from the hierarchy of the Angeloi. And from this, from all this, the experience arose in the I: Why do I have my senses?
And this very peculiar thing turned out to be that the student now felt how everything that is connected with the senses and with the continuations of the senses inward, to the interior of man, how this has a kinship with the real surroundings that one has on earth. The senses belong to winter - that is what the student felt. And in this whole life that he went through there, in the changing winter landscapes, which, as I said, reminded him of what he had seen in life, but which radiated towards him with great beauty precisely from the spiritual, from these whole experiences, the pupil then took with him an overall state of his soul. This overall state of his soul contained the following parts:
In my winter mystery wanderings I have experienced what has really happened in the universe. The masses of snow and ice of my winter magic have shown me what deadly forces are at work in the universe. I have come to know destructive impulses in the universe. And my paralysis when I was on my way to my mystery winter hike was precisely the announcement that I should look into the forces present in the universe that come from the past into the present, but arrive in the present as dead world forces.
At first this was conveyed to the pupil through the resonance in him of his experiences with the male statue.
Then he was led to have within him the resonance of his experiences with the plastic, non-elastic statue. And then it seemed to him as if he was now not falling into an inner numbness, but into an inner heat, as if into a feverish state of the soul, into a feverish state that had the effect that the things that can have such a strong effect on the soul because they are like that internally, began with physical symptom complexes. The pupil felt it as if he were being pressed inwardly, as if everything were pressing too strongly, the breath too strongly, the blood pressing too strongly in all directions. The pupil experienced great anxiety, almost a deep inner crisis of the soul. And in this deep inner crisis of the soul, the second thing that he was to go through then became clear to him. And that was that out of the crisis of the soul something was born for him, which could be expressed in the following words:
I have something within me that is challenged by my corporeality in ordinary life. This must be overcome. My earthly self must be overcome. — This lived strongly in the disciple's consciousness.
Then, when he had gone through this inner heat, this inner distress, this feeling of having to overcome the earth selfhood, for a sufficiently long time, then something occurred to him of which he knew that it was not the state of consciousness of earlier, but that it was a state of consciousness well known to him, it was the state of consciousness of dreaming. While he clearly felt that the first thing that came out of the paralysis was a state of consciousness that he did not know in ordinary life, he now knew his state of consciousness: a kind of dreaming. He dreamt, but in contrast to his earlier dreams, he dreamt of the most beautiful summer landscapes, in keeping with his experiences. But he knew that these were dreams, dreams that seized him inwardly with an intense joy or an intense sorrow, depending on whether the nature of the summer essence that came to him was sorrowful or joyful, but always with the same kind of intensity that seizes one in a dream. You only need to remember what a dream can do, which first appears in images, from which you awaken, awakening with a pounding heart, hot, in fear. This inner being seized, the student interpreted it in a 'very elementary, self-evident way, so that he said to himself: My inner being has brought me the summer as a dream before consciousness - the summer as a dream.
At the same time, the student now knew: that which was or is before his consciousness in a continuous transformation as a magical summer is something like the impulses into the far future of the universe. But now he did not feel as he had done before, as if his senses had been dissected and multiplied. No, now he felt as if he were properly integrated inwardly into a unity; he felt as if he were integrated into his heart. And that is the culmination, the highest intensification of what he was going through: this being summarized in his heart, this inner grasping and feeling of kinship in the innermost human nature, not with the summer as one sees it externally, but with the dream of this summer. And the pupil rightly said to himself: 'In what the dream of summer gives me, what I experience inwardly in my humanity, there lies the future.
And when the student had gone through this, he experienced the two states following each other. He saw, let us say, into a landscape consisting of meadows and ponds and small lakes. He saw into ice and snow, which turned into swirling, falling snow, like misting snowflakes, which thinned more and more and dissolved into nothing. In that moment when it had dissolved into nothingness, when he felt, as it were, in empty space, in that moment summer dreams took its place. And the disciple had the consciousness: Now past and future touch in my own soul life.
And from now on, the disciple had learned to look at the external world and to say of this external world, as a truth that would remain with him for the future: In this world that surrounds us, in this world from which we have our outer body, in this world something is constantly dying. And in the snow crystals of winter we have the outer signs of the spirit that continually dies in matter. We as human beings are not yet able to fully feel this dying spirit, which is correctly symbolized in snow and ice in outer nature, if it is not preceded by initiation. But if it does precede, then one knows: the spirit in matter is continually dying, announces itself in nature that is freezing and frozen. There is nothingness all the time. And out of this nothingness, something like natural dreams are born at first. And the natural dreams contain the seeds for the future of the world. But the death and birth of the world would not touch each other if man were not at the center. For if man were not in the midst — as I said, I am simply describing the experiences that the student of the Hybernian initiation had inwardly — if man were not in the midst, then the real processes, into which the student looked through the new consciousness born out of torpor, would be a real world-death, and the dream would not follow the world-death. There would be no future in relation to the past. Saturn, Sun, Moon, Earth would be there; no Jupiter, Venus and no Vulcan. For this future of the cosmos to be linked to the past, man had to stand between past and future. The disciple knew this simply from what he had experienced.
And what the disciple had gone through was now summarized for him by his initiators. The first state, where he had gone through solidification, where he felt as if he had been absorbed by the universe, was summarized by his initiators into words that I can give you in German in the following way:
In the vastness you shall learn
How in the blue of the etheric distance
First the world existence disappears
And is rediscovered in you.
These words truly summarized the feelings that were experienced. Then he was given a summary of the feelings of the second state under the after-effect of the second statue:
In the depths you shall release
From the hot and feverish evil,
As truth ignites
and through you is fathomed in existence.
Consider, my dear friends, the student was dismissed on the stage of which I spoke yesterday at the end of the presentation, with the words that took the place of the two statues, with the words: science, art. And science took the place of the statue that actually said: I am knowledge, but I lack being. And art wrote itself in the place of the statue that said: I am imagination, but I lack truth. And the student had gone through all the difficulties, the terrible inner difficulties, that he had actually chosen something else instead of knowledge, inwardly, passionately. For it had become quite clear to him that the knowledge acquired on earth is only ideas, only images; it lacks being. Now he had experienced the echoes. And from the echoes he had come to know that man must find the being for that which he has in knowledge by losing himself in the vastness of the world:
In the vastness you shall learn
How in the blue of the etheric distance
Only the world existence disappears
And in you it finds itself again.For that was indeed the feeling: He storms, as it were, out into the etheric distance, which is bounded by the blue of the vastness; one unites, one finally unites with this blue of the far distance. But there, what was earth is so scattered in the vastness that it is as if it has been transformed into nothing. And one has learned to feel the nothingness by looking at the enchanting winter landscape. And one now knows that only a human being can maintain himself upright in these expanses that lead up to the blue etheric distances.
And in the second part, the human being fathoms how to find in his own depths that which he must overcome, that which he must look at as the evil rooted and welling up precisely in man, which must be overcome by the impulses of good in human nature so that the world may have a future:
In the depths you shall dissolve
From the hotly-feverish evil,
>How truth ignites
And through you is fathomed in being.The student had gone through the tendency of the imagination not to have the truth, even the tendency to be content with a relationship to the world that does not include the truth but that runs in arbitrary images of subjectivity. But now, as a result of his dream-like, magical summer experience, he had gained the insight: I can carry what arises in me, like the creative imagination within me, out into the world. From my inner being, like the images of the imagination, the imaginations of the plants grow. If I only have the images of fantasy, then I am alien to what is around me. If I have the imaginations, then what I find in this plant, in that plant, in this animal, in that animal, in this human being, in that human being, grows out of my own inner being. Everything I find within coincides with something outside. And for everything I encounter outside, I can also have something rising from the depths of my own soul life that is connected to it, that coincides with it.
This twofold connectedness with the world is what really stood before the disciple as an inner, magnificent sensation in response to the two statues. And in this way the disciple had really learned, on the one hand, to stretch his soul out into the world, I would say spiritually, and he had learned to go deep into his inner being, where this inner self does not work with the same languor with which it works in ordinary consciousness, but where this inner self works as if it were shaken, shaken and enchanted by half of reality, namely by dreams. The student had learned to connect this whole intensity of inner impulses with the whole intensity of outer impulses. From the affinity with the winter landscape and from the affinity with the summer landscape, he had gained insights into the external nature and into his own self. And he had become deeply related to the external nature and to his own self.
Then he was well prepared to undergo a kind of repetition, as it were. In this repetition, it was made very clear to his soul by his initiators: You must make a stop inwardly with the soul in solidification. You must make a stop in this going out into the far-off worlds. And you must make a stop thirdly by feeling yourself poured out and manifolded in your senses. You must inwardly realize what each state is like. You must be able to distinguish each of these three states exactly from the others. You must have an ethereal inner experience of each of these three states. And when the disciple now again summoned to his mind's eye the state of inner torpor in full consciousness, then everything that he had experienced before he descended from the spiritual worlds to earth, before the earthly conception of his body, occurred before this soul, where he had drawn from the cosmic expanse the etheric impulses and forces in order to surround himself with an etheric body. Thus the disciple of the mysteries of Hybernia was introduced to the contemplation of the last state before descending into a physical body.
And then he was to become fully aware of the inner experience of what happens when he goes out into the cosmic expanse. This time, during this repetition, he felt not as if he were being absorbed by sunbeams and starlight, but as if something were coming towards him, as if the hierarchies were coming towards him from all sides out of the vastness, as if other experiences were coming towards him as well. And he felt what lay further back in his pre-earthly life. And then he should clearly visualize the state when he was poured out into the senses and found himself as if split into the sense world. For then he had reached the center of existence between death and a new birth.
You see, the means by which the initiate penetrates into these hidden worlds, of which, however, the human being is a part, can be achieved in many different ways. And if we look around in the way I indicated yesterday and on previous occasions, then you can already see that in the various mystery centers the vision of this supersensible world was attained in the most manifold ways. Why such diversity was aimed at, why a unified spiritual path was not poured out over all mysteries, we shall indeed speak about this in later lectures. Today I will only mention the fact. But all these different mystery paths were intended to reveal the hidden sides of the existence of the world and of man, which we have pointed out again and again from the most diverse points of view in these reflections here and in other lectures and other writings.
And then it was made clear to the pupil that he should now also inwardly live through the other conditions that he had experienced in the aftermath of the other statue separately, so that he would always have an inwardly clear, intuitive knowledge of each individual condition as he went through it, and that he should then call it up in full consciousness. He did that. And in what I described as a kind of distress of the soul, he immediately felt what followed death in the soul's experience.
Then came the insight through what he experienced next, where the outer nature showed itself as a summer landscape, but like a dream of a summer landscape. Then it was revealed to him, when he relived it repeatedly and now, with full consciousness, separated this state from the other state of consciousness, he learned to recognize what constituted the further progress of his after-earthly life. And when he made it very clear and vivid to himself, what the contraction into the heart being was, then he could, by making that vividly present in his consciousness, reach the middle of existence between death and a new birth. And the initiator could tell him:
Learn to see winter spiritually
And the vision of the pre-earthly will be yours.Learn to dream spiritual summer days
And the experience of the post-earthly will be yours.Please pay close attention to the words I use, because the relationship here between the vision of the pre-earthly and the experience of the post-earthly, and between dreaming and seeing, is the basis for the enormous difference between these two experiences in the mysteries of Hybernia for those being initiated into the mysteries.
How this initiation fits into the overall historical context of humanity, into the entire development of mankind, what significance it had for the development of mankind and to what extent it had a deeper meaning that precisely at the stage I concluded yesterday, something like a vision of Christ occurred to the disciple of Hybernia, I will explain tomorrow.