The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Second Lecture

[ 1 ] It is somewhat difficult to continue today where the recent anthroposophical lectures here left off, since so many friends have come who did not participate in the previous sessions. On the other hand, however, it is not really feasible—especially today, when there is much to add to the earlier lectures—to begin with something entirely new; so the friends who have just arrived will simply have to accept that some of the reflections, which are linked to what came before in an inner, rather than an outer, sense, may present difficulties for their understanding. The complete lecture series is, after all, to be held at Easter, and it will then be understandable in its own right. Today, however, I must continue where we left off. It was certainly not foreseeable that so many friends would be here today, which, on the other hand, is quite gratifying.

[ 2 ] In fact, our most recent reflections here have focused on discussing specific karmic connections—not to make any sensational claims regarding successive earthly lives, but to gradually arrive at a genuine, concrete understanding of the interconnections of destiny in human life. And I have described successive earthly lives—simply as they can initially be observed in the lives of historical figures—in order to evoke an understanding—which is, of course, not particularly easy—of how one earthly life influences the next. In doing so, one must always bear in mind that, since the Dornach Christmas Conference, a new trend has entered the anthroposophical movement. And I would like to say just a few brief introductory words about this trend.

[ 3 ] As you know, my dear friends, there were all sorts of efforts within the Anthroposophical Society after 1918. These efforts had a very specific origin. When the Anthroposophical Society was founded in 1913, the aim was to ask the question—truly arising from an occult impulse—whether this Anthroposophical Society would continue to develop through the strength it had gained from its members up to that point. And this could only be put to the test by my own decision—I, who until then had served as General Secretary in charge of the German Section, through which the anthroposophical movement was represented within the Theosophical Society—not to continue leading the Anthroposophical Society at that time; rather, I wanted to observe how this Anthroposophical Society would now develop through its own power.

[ 4 ] You see, my dear friends, this is different from what it would have been if, back then, I had simply said—just as I did at the Christmas Conference—that I wanted to take over the leadership of the Anthroposophical Society myself. For, of course, the Anthroposophical Society must be something entirely different if it is led by me than if it is led by someone else. And for certain underlying reasons, the Anthroposophical Society could have been led all the better without my having, so to speak, been in charge of its administration. If hearts had spoken, many things could have happened that in reality did not take place, that were not done—indeed, that were even carried out from outside, in the face of resistance from the anthroposophists.

[ 5 ] And so it came to pass that—since, of course, during the war there wasn’t much opportunity to deploy one’s resources in all directions—it came to pass that after 1918, I would almost say, the situation that existed at the time was exploited by all sorts of parties to do this or that. If I had said back then that this should not happen, then of course the argument today would be that if we had allowed it to happen, we would now have thriving enterprises in all areas.

[ 6 ] That is why, I would say, it has always been the custom throughout history for the leaders of an occult movement to have those who wanted to take action test things out, so to speak, to see how they would turn out, so that convictions could be brought about through the facts. That is, after all, the only possible way to inspire conviction. And that is precisely what had to happen in this case as well.

[ 7 ] And all of this has, of course, led to the fact that, especially since 1918, opposition has grown in the way that it has, to the state it is in today. After all, in 1918 we did not yet have this opposition. Of course, we had individual opponents. No one paid any attention to them, and there was no need to. But in reality, the opposition has only really taken root since 1918. And that has brought about the current situation, under the influence of which it is impossible for me, for example, to give public lectures within Germany.

[ 8 ] All of this should not be concealed, especially in the context of the anthroposophical movement. We should look at this with complete clarity, for we will not make progress if we operate in a state of ambiguity.

[ 9 ] But various experiments have also been conducted. Just think of all the experiments that have been carried out in the constant pursuit of, let’s say, “scientific” rigor—understandably, of course, stemming from people’s very nature. Why shouldn’t it be the case that scientists, who are, after all, part of our society, want to be scientific? But that is precisely what annoys their opponents. For when you tell them that this or that can be proven scientifically, they come forward with their own aspirations—which they call scientific—and then, naturally, they become furious. One must be perfectly clear about this. Nothing has annoyed the opponents more than the fact that people wanted to discuss the very same topics they themselves talk about in the same way—only, as has always been said, by “allowing” a bit of anthroposophy to flow in. This “allowing to flow in” is precisely what has drawn the opponents in such large numbers.

[ 10 ] And once one succumbs to the illusion that one can somehow win over people from various religious communities to anthroposophy—for example, by saying the same or similar things they say, while at the same time allowing anthroposophy to “flow in”—once one succumbs to this illusion, one is committing a grave transgression against the very conditions of anthroposophy’s existence.

[ 11 ] Well, ever since the Christmas Conference, a whole new trend has had to emerge in everything that has taken place in the field of anthroposophy. And those who have noticed the way anthroposophy is now being presented here—as it was presented in Prague, and as it has now been presented again in Stuttgart—will have seen that there are now impulses at work that are bringing about something entirely new, even in relation to our opponents. For if one wants to be scientific in the ordinary sense of the word—as, unfortunately, many have wanted to be—then one assumes, so to speak, that it is possible to discuss these matters with one’s opponents. But if you now consider the lectures that have been given here, the lectures that were given in Prague, and the lecture that was given in Stuttgart: Can you still believe for a moment that this can be merely a matter of discussing with opponents? Of course, one cannot discuss with opponents when speaking of these things, for how is one to discuss with anyone from today’s civilization the fact that the soul of Muawiya has reappeared in the soul of Woodrow Wilson!

[ 12 ] So there is now a trend throughout the entire anthroposophical movement that can lead to nothing other than finally taking seriously this refusal to engage in debate with our opponents. When it comes to arguments, we can’t make head or tail of them anyway. And it will finally be recognized that, with regard to opponents, the only option is to refute slander, falsehoods, and lies. We must not succumb to the illusion that such matters can be discussed. They must be allowed to spread through their own power and force. They cannot be resolved through dialectics.

[ 13 ] This is precisely what will perhaps now be increasingly recognized by our members as well, given the stance the anthroposophical movement has taken since Christmas. And that is why the anthroposophical movement is now being shaped in such a way that it takes nothing else into consideration but what the spiritual world wants from it.

[ 14 ] You see, I have now made various observations on karma from this perspective, and those who were present here, or who attended my last lecture in Stuttgart, will recall that I tried to show how those individualities who were present in the 8th and 9th centuries A.D. at the court of Harun al-Rashid over in Asia, developed in various directions after death and then played a certain role in their reincarnations. In the period we might also call the Age of the Thirty Years’ War, and somewhat earlier, we find, on the one hand, the individuality of Harun al-Rashid, reincarnated in the Englishman Bacon of Verulam; and we find the great organizer at the court of Harun al-Rashid—who lived there, not as an initiate, but as the reincarnation of an initiate—whose individuality we recognize in Amos Comenius. This influence then had a greater impact in Central Europe. But much of what constitutes the spiritual aspect of modern civilization has actually converged from these two currents. Thus, in the spiritual aspect of modern civilization, the Near East of the post-Muhammad era has lived on—on the one hand through Harun al-Rashid, reincarnated as Baco of Verulam, and on the other hand through Amos Comenius, his great advisor.

[ 15 ] Today, let us emphasize that human development does not take place solely while a person is here on earth, but that, in essence, it also occurs when people are between death and a new birth. So one can say: Both Bacon and Amos Comenius, after they had, so to speak, established Arabism in European civilization from two different perspectives, entered after their deaths into the life between death and a new birth. There, both Bacon and Amos Comenius were together with various souls who were on Earth later than they were—souls who died in the 17th century and then continued to live in the spiritual world. Then, in the 19th century, souls came to Earth; from the 17th to the 19th century, they were together with the souls of Bacon and Amos Comenius in the spiritual world.

[ 16 ] Now there were souls who tended to gather around the soul of Bacon, who certainly set the tone, and souls who gathered around Amos Comesius. And even if this is more figurative, we must not forget that—albeit under entirely different circumstances—there are also leaders and followers, so to speak, in the spiritual world that people pass through between death and a new birth. And such individuals did not act merely through what they accomplished here on Earth, such as through the writings of Bacon or those of Amos Comenius, or through what lived on in tradition here on Earth, but these leading spirits also worked by causing something quite special to take root in the spiritual world within the souls they sent down, or with whom they were associated and who were sent down. And so there are now, among the people of the 19th century, souls who, in their development, had already become dependent in their pre-earthly existence on one of these two spirits: the disembodied Amos Comenius or the disembodied Bacon.

[ 17 ] And here I would like—as I said, because I want to delve deeper and deeper into the specific ways in which karma works—to draw attention to two figures from the 19th century whose names will be familiar to most people; one of them was particularly influenced by Bacon in his pre-earthly life, while the other was influenced by Amos Comenius.

[ 18 ] When we look at Bacon and his position within earthly civilization during his earthly life as Lord Chancellor of England, we must say: He acted in such a way that one can sense an initiate standing behind his work. The whole controversy surrounding Bacon and Shakespeare—as it is outwardly driven by literary historians—is, in fact, something quite extraordinary, for all sorts of elegant arguments are presented that are meant to show, for example, that the actor Shakespeare did not actually write his plays at all, but that they were supposedly written by the philosopher and Lord Chancellor Bacon, and so on.

[ 19 ] All these things that rely on external means, seeking similarities in the way of thinking found in Shakespeare’s plays and Bacon’s philosophical works—all these external things are, in fact, barren, because they do not come close to the heart of the matter at all, since the truth is that at the time when Bacon, Shakespeare, Jacob Böhme, and yet another were active, there was an initiate who actually spoke through all four of them. Hence their kinship, because it actually traces back to a single source. But of course, people who argue using external arguments do not debate an initiate who stood behind all this, since this initiate is portrayed in history—like many a modern initiate—as a rather troublesome figure. But he was not merely that. In his outward actions, he certainly was that, but he was not merely that; rather, he was an individual from whom immense powers emanated and to whom both Bacon’s philosophical works and Shakespeare’s plays, as well as the works of Jakob Böhme and those of the Jesuit Jakob Balde, actually trace their origins. When one considers this, one must indeed regard Bacon, in the realm of philosophy, as the catalyst for a vast and broad historical current.

[ 20 ] If one wishes to consider what might become of a soul that, for two centuries in the spiritual life, has been entirely under the influence of the deceased Bacon—which is a very interesting question—then one must look at the way in which Bacon has lived on after his death. It will become increasingly important for reflections on human history to consider people living on Earth not merely until their death, but also in their influence beyond death—where, especially if they have achieved something significant in the spiritual realm, they continue to influence the souls who then descend to Earth.

[ 21 ] Of course, these things can sometimes be a bit shocking to people today. For example—and let me just insert this as a brief interlude—I remember once standing at the station entrance of a small German university town with a doctor, a well-known doctor who was deeply involved in the occult. There were many other people standing around us. He got carried away, and in the heat of his enthusiasm he said to me in a somewhat loud voice, so that many bystanders could hear: “I’ll give you the biography of Robert Blum, but it doesn’t begin until after his death.” — Because it was said so loudly, you could already sense a certain shock among the bystanders. Today, you can’t just casually say to people: “I’ll give you the biography of a person, but it doesn’t begin until after his death.”

[ 22 ] But apart from this two-volume biography of Robert Blum—which begins not with his birth but with his death—little has yet been done in this vein: to speak biographically of people after they have died. One usually begins with birth and ends with death. There are not yet many works that begin with death.

[ 23 ] But what is of immense importance for real events lies precisely in what a person does after death, when he conveys the results of what he has done on Earth—transformed into the spiritual realm—to the souls who descend after him. And one cannot truly understand the aftermath of an era unless one also looks at this aspect of life.

[ 24 ] For me, the point was to take a look at the individualities who were around Bacon after his death. And there were such individualities around Bacon who were subsequently born as natural scientists, but also those who were born as historians. And when one now considers the influence of the late Lord Bacon on these souls, one sees how what he established on earth—materialism, the mere investigation of the sensory world (for him, everything else is an idol)—how this, when elevated and translated into the spiritual realm, turns into a form of radicalism. So that, in fact, these souls absorb impulses in the midst of the spiritual world that lead them, after their birth and after they have descended, to value on Earth only that which is a fact that can be perceived by the senses.

[ 25 ] Now I would like to speak in somewhat popular terms, but I ask you not to take these popular expressions entirely literally, for of course it is then terribly easy to say: “That is grotesque.” — Among these souls were also those who, according to their earlier dispositions—according to the dispositions of their previous earthly lives—were simply meant to become historians. One of them was—I mean, back in their pre-earthly life—one of the most significant. All these souls, influenced by the impulses of Lord Bacon, essentially said: One must no longer write history as the ancients did, in a way that gives rise to ideas and explores connections; rather, one must investigate the actual facts.

[ 26 ] Now I ask you: What does it mean in history to use real facts? — After all, the most important thing in history is people’s intentions, which are not real facts. But these souls no longer allowed themselves to explore that at all, and least of all did the soul who later reappeared as one of the greatest historians of the 19th century—Leopold von Ranke, a pre-earthly disciple of Lord Bacon—who reappeared precisely as Leopold von Ranke.

[ 27 ] If we now trace Leopold von Ranke’s career as a historian, what, then, is his guiding principle? Ranke’s guiding principle as a historian is this: Nothing may be written in history except what can be found in archives; one must reconstruct the entire history from archives and from the correspondence of diplomats.

[ 28 ] Ranke, who is, after all, a German Protestant—though this is of no consequence to his sense of reality—works with objectivity; that is to say, with archival objectivity, he writes the history of the popes—the best history of the popes ever written from a purely archival standpoint. When one reads Ranke, one is somewhat irritated—actually, deeply irritated. For it is somewhat strange to have to imagine this gentleman, who remained active and energetic well into old age, sitting merely in archives and compiling accounts of diplomatic negotiations. It is, after all, not real history at all. But it is a history that takes into account only the facts of the sensory world—and for history, those facts are precisely the archives.

[ 29 ] And so, precisely by taking extraterrestrial life into account, we have the opportunity to gain an understanding of why Ranke turned out the way he did.

[ 30 ] But when engaging in such reflections, one can also look to Amos Comenius and consider how he influenced the pre-earthly will of souls who subsequently descended. And just as Leopold von Ranke became Bacon’s most significant posthumous disciple, so Schlosser has become the most significant posthumous disciple of Amos Comenius.

[ 31 ] And now, when you read through Schlosser’s story, take in the entire style, the entire underlying tone: Everywhere, the moralist speaks—the one who wants to move human souls and hearts, who wants to speak to the heart. Sometimes he finds it difficult to succeed, precisely because he does have a pedantic streak. Well, he speaks to the hearts in a pedantic way, but he speaks to the hearts because he is a pre-earthly disciple of Amos Comenius, because he has absorbed something from him—something that was inherent in Amos Comenius, who is so distinctive precisely because of his unique spirit.

[ 32 ] Just think, he does, after all, come from the Muslim tradition. He is something entirely different from, say, the spirits who aligned themselves with Lord Bacon; but Amos Comenius, too, entered the real external world in his Amos Comenius incarnation. Everywhere he called for clarity in teaching; everywhere, the visual should form the foundation. He calls for clarity of perception; the sensory is emphasized, but in a different way. For Amos Comenius is also one of those who, during the age of the Thirty Years’ War, held fast in the most vivid way to the idea of the advent of the so-called “Millennial Kingdom”; he is the one who, in his Pansophia, wrote of grand, global ideas—one who thus sought to influence the education of humanity through a powerful impetus. This continued to resonate within Schlosser; it is within Schlosser.

[ 33 ] I mentioned these two figures, Ranke and Schlosser, for the purpose of showing you that what manifests in human beings as a spiritual creative force can only be understood if one also takes extraterrestrial life into account. Only then can one understand it, just as we have come to understand many things by taking repeated earthly lives into account.

[ 34 ] It has now become apparent in the reflections I have shared with you here over the past few hours that there is a remarkable carryover from one incarnation to the next, and, as I have already said, I mention these examples so that we can then discuss the way in which a person can reflect on their own karma. Before delving into how good and evil carry over from one incarnation to the next, and how illnesses and the like carry over, one must first gain an understanding of how that which then comes to light in the actual spiritual life of civilization carries over.

[ 35 ] I must confess, my dear friends, that one of the most fascinating figures in recent spiritual life—in terms of his karma—was, for me, Conrad Ferdinand Meyer. For anyone who considers Conrad Ferdinand Meyer in his own right—as he lived as the poet Conrad Ferdinand Meyer—can see that his finest achievements stem from the fact that, time and again, within his overall human constitution, there was something akin to a desire of the “I” and the astral body to escape from the physical body and the etheric body.

[ 36 ] Conrad Ferdinand Meyer experiences pathological states that come very close to the threshold of insanity. These are states that, in a somewhat more extreme form, bring about what is actually always present in him at its very origin, in its status nascendi: the true spiritual-soul aspect wants to break free and is held back from the physical-etheric aspect only by a tenuous thread.

[ 37 ] And it is in these states—where the spiritual-soul aspect is gently bound to the physical-etheric aspect—that Conrad Ferdinand Meyer produces his finest works, including both his most beautiful major poems and his most beautiful minor poems. One could even say that Conrad Ferdinand Meyer’s finest poems were created while he was, in a sense, half outside his body. There was a quite unique interplay between the four aspects of human nature in Conrad Ferdinand Meyer. There really is a difference between such a personality and the average person of the present day. In the case of an average person of the materialistic age, one is usually dealing with a very robust connection between the spiritual-soul aspect and the physical-etheric aspect. There, the spiritual-soul aspect is deeply embedded within the physical-etheric aspect, fully integrated into it. This was not the case with Conrad Ferdinand Meyer. There was a delicate relationship between the spiritual-soul aspect and the physical-etheric aspect. And describing this man’s psyche is truly one of the most interesting things one can do in relation to recent spiritual development. It is extraordinarily interesting to see how much of what emerges in Conrad Ferdinand Meyer’s work almost seems like a clouded memory—one that has, however, been beautified by that very cloudiness. One always has the feeling that when Conrad Ferdinand Meyer writes, he is recalling something, but not precisely. He transforms it, but he transforms it into something beautiful and perfectly formed. This can also be observed, piece by piece, in a wonderful way in some of his poems.

[ 38 ] Now, what is characteristic of a person’s inner karma is the presence of a very specific relationship among the four members of human nature: the physical body, the etheric body, the astral body, and the ego. This strangely intimate connection must now be traced back. This leads us first back to the era of the Thirty Years’ War. That was the first thing that became clear to me regarding this individual: there is something from a previous earthly life dating to the time of the Thirty Years’ War. Then, in turn, there is an even earlier earthly life that goes back to the pre-Carolingian period and clearly extends into Italian history.

[ 39 ] But when tracing the karma of Conrad Ferdinand Meyer, I would say that the peculiarly elusive nature of his being—which, however, manifests itself in such formal perfection—transfers itself to the investigation, and one then has the feeling: you are entering into confusion. And I’m really only doing the right thing if I describe these things exactly as they present themselves. When you go back to the time of the 7th and 8th centuries in Italy, you get the feeling that you’re entering into something extraordinarily uncertain. One is repeatedly pushed back, and one realizes only gradually that this is not one’s own fault, but that it lies in the matter itself; that there is something in the soul, in the individuality of Conrad Ferdinand Meyer, that throws one into confusion during the investigation. For when one investigates such a matter, one must repeatedly return to the present incarnation, or rather to the most recent one that has just passed, and to those that preceded it; then one must, I would say, regain one’s bearings and return again and again.

[ 40 ] And now the following became apparent. You must realize: Everything that has lived within a human soul in previous incarnations manifests itself in the most diverse forms, in similarities that are sometimes not even discernible to the outside observer. You will have already seen this in other reincarnations that I have discussed here over the past few weeks.

[ 41 ] And so we arrive at an incarnation in Italy during the early Christian centuries—that is, at the beginning of the second half of the first Christian millennium—where the soul, with whom we must first pause to consider, lived—largely in Ravenna and largely at the Roman court. But this leads to confusion, for one is compelled to ask: What lived within the soul? — The very moment one asks this question, challenging occult research: What lived within the soul? — that is when it vanishes from one’s consciousness again. One turns to the experiences of this soul living at the court of Ravenna and at the Roman court; one enters into these experiences, one believes one has them—and then they fade from one’s mind again. And one is then driven back to Conrad Ferdinand Meyer, who lived in recent times, until one realizes: In this later life, he erases from one’s mind the very essence of one’s soul from the earlier life. And indeed, only after much effort does one realize how things stand. Then one realizes: Conrad Ferdinand Meyer—that is, the individuality that lived within him—lived at that time in Italy in a certain relationship to a pope who, together with others, sent this individuality on a Catholic Christian mission to England. So that this individuality, which later became Conrad Ferdinand Meyer, had first absorbed all that wonderful sense of form that could be absorbed in Italy at that very time—a sense of form expressed particularly in the mosaic arts of Italy and in older Italian painting, most of which has, in fact, been completely lost—it has, after all, ceased to exist— and he then went to the Anglo-Saxons with a Catholic Christian mission.

[ 42 ] A comrade of his founded the Diocese of Canterbury. And what happened in Canterbury essentially followed on from that foundation. The individual who later appeared as Conrad Ferdinand Meyer was merely present, but this individual was very spirited and thereby aroused the displeasure of an Anglo-Saxon chieftain and was murdered at the instigation of this Anglo-Saxon chieftain. This is something one discovers at first. But there was something in Conrad Ferdinand Meyer’s soul, while he was staying in England, that prevented him from finding joy in his life. This soul was actually rooted in the Italian art of that time—if one wishes to call it that—in Italian intellectual life. It found no joy in carrying out missionary work in England, yet devoted itself to this work with such intensity that the murder was, in fact, a reaction to it.

[ 43 ] This failure to find joy—this actual aversion to something, which he nevertheless carried out with all his strength and devotion out of another impulse of the heart—had the effect, in a certain sense, that a cosmic clouding of memory set in as he passed through his next earthly life. The impulse was there, but it no longer corresponded to any concept.

[ 44 ] And so it came to pass that, in the incarnation of Conrad Ferdinand Meyer, a vague impulse made itself felt: I was active in England; there is a connection with Canterbury; I was murdered because of my connection with Canterbury.

[ 45 ] This is where the outer life of the Conrad Ferdinand Meyer incarnation comes into play. Conrad Ferdinand Meyer studies English history; he studies Canterbury; he studies what is happening there in connection with English history and Canterbury. He comes across Thomas Becket, the chancellor of King Henry II in the 12th century, and the peculiar fate of Thomas Becket, who was first an all-powerful chancellor to Henry II and was then murdered at Henry II’s instigation. Then, in Conrad Ferdinand Meyer’s own life, this Thomas Becket revealed to him his own, half-forgotten fate—in the subconscious, I mean, half-forgotten, for I am, of course, speaking of the subconscious that emerges there. And there he depicts his own destiny from time immemorial by portraying it in the story that unfolded in the 12th century between King Henry II and Thomas Becket of Canterbury, by depicting this destiny in his poem “The Saint.” It is exactly like that—only all of this takes place in the subconscious that encompasses successive earthly lives—it is all as if, for example, a person in an earthly life had experienced something in early youth in connection with a certain place, perhaps in the second or third year of life, something that he then forgot, something that does not surface. Then a similar but different fate emerges, and the place is named: this place evokes a special sympathy in the person concerned for this other fate, and they perceive this other fate differently than someone who has no such associative connection to this place. Just as this can unfold in an earthly life, so it unfolds in this specific case I am presenting to you: the events in Canterbury, the murder of a figure connected to Canterbury—for Thomas Becket is, after all, the Archbishop of Canterbury—by the King of England. Thus, as these motifs interact, he portrays his own destiny in what he depicts.

[ 46 ] But now the story continues with Conrad Ferdinand Meyer—and this is the interesting part: He is reborn during the Thirty Years’ War, reborn as a woman—a lively, intellectually curious woman born during the Thirty Years’ War—and experiences many adventures. This woman marries a man who initially took part in all the turmoil of the Thirty Years’ War, but who eventually grew tired of it all and emigrated to Switzerland, to Graubünden, where he lived as a rather philistine gentleman. But his wife took in everything that was happening within the canton of Graubünden itself under the influence of the circumstances of the Thirty Years’ War.

[ 47 ] This, in turn, is as if covered by a layer, because what is present in this individuality—I would say—is easily forgotten on a cosmic scale, yet is brought back to the surface through change and then becomes more glorious and intense. And from what this woman experienced in her vision arises the wonderful characterization of “Jürg Jenatsch,” the man from Graubünden. And so, when one looks at this Conrad Ferdinand Meyer in his Conrad Ferdinand Meyer incarnation, one has no explanation for his peculiarity unless one can take his karma into account. For actually, I must say—and this is, of course, spoken cum grano salis, since the word doesn’t quite fit—actually, I envy the people who understand Conrad Ferdinand Meyer so effortlessly. Before I knew of his earlier incarnation, I understood only that I did not really understand him. For this marvelous coherence of form, this inner joy in form, this purity of form, this power, this force that lives in Jürg Jenatsch, this extraordinarily personal vitality that lives in The Saint—one must be quite superficial to believe one can understand this without further thought.

[ 48 ] But when one realizes: in the beautiful forms—which possess at the same time something linear, something austere, that are both painted and yet not painted—the mosaics of Ravenna come to life; in the “sacred” lives a story that was once lived through by individuality itself, over which, however, a mist of the soul spread, so that a different form emerged from that mist—and when one realizes that it is the feminine spirit that has absorbed what lives in the Graubünden poetry of “Jürg Jenatsch,” and in much of what is jarring in this Graubünden poetry, there lives once again the veteran of the Thirty Years’ War, who was a rather philistine gentleman, yet nonetheless a veteran; when one knows that what comes over from earlier earthly experiences revives in the soul in a peculiar form—only then does one truly begin to understand. And one then says to oneself: In the early days of human evolution, people spoke openly about the way in which supernatural spirits descended to Earth, and how, in turn, people on Earth ascended to continue working from the spiritual world—and this is something that must return, otherwise humanity will remain stuck in its earthworm materialism. For what is called the scientific worldview today is, after all, an earthworm worldview.

[ 49 ] People actually live on Earth as if only the Earth were of concern to them, as if the entire cosmos did not influence earthly life and dwell within human beings, and as if past times did not live on through the fact that we ourselves carry over into later times what we have absorbed from them. And to understand karma does not mean being able to speak in abstract terms about successive earthly incarnations; rather, to understand karma means to feel in one’s heart what one can feel when, in later epochs, one sees flowing into human souls that very thing which existed in times past. When one sees how karma works, human life takes on an entirely different meaning. One feels oneself standing within human life in a completely different way.

[ 50 ] A spirit such as Conrad Ferdinand Meyer appears and senses his past earthly lives within his being as a fundamental tone, like undertones resonating from within. One can only understand what is there once one develops an understanding of these fundamental tones. And the progress of humanity in spiritual life will depend on being able to view life in this way—so that one can truly engage with what flows from people themselves, from earlier epochs of world development into later epochs of world development, The peculiar tendency of some to explain the nature of the soul—as psychoanalysts do, for example—in a foolish way as emerging from “hidden provinces of the soul”—since one can, after all, attribute everything to the hidden—will cease, and people will seek the real causes. For the activities of psychoanalysts—who, in a certain sense, do indeed accomplish quite a lot of good—sometimes remind one of someone saying: In 1749, a patrician in Frankfurt had a son who later showed exceptional talent; even today, one can still pinpoint the exact location in Frankfurt where this person, who later became known as Wolfgang Goethe, was born. Let’s dig into the earth to find out what vapors gave rise to his talents. — That’s how psychoanalysts sometimes strike me! They dig deep into the soil of the soul, into the “hidden provinces” that they themselves first discover hypothetically, whereas in reality one must search in previous earthly lives and in the lives that exist between death and a new birth. Then an understanding of human souls opens up. Human souls are truly far too rich for their contents to be understood on the basis of a single earthly life.