The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Seventeenth Lecture

[ 1 ] After I attempted the day before yesterday to present, so to speak, the cosmic-ritual image before your soul—one that depicts humanity in connection with the beings of the spiritual world, such that from this connection arises not only the formation of karma but also the embodiment of karma during physical life on Earth—I would like today to take up a thought that was already touched upon in the lecture the day before yesterday. I said that the present stage of human development, in the deepest sense of the word, raises questions of world history and karma in the soul of those versed in the science of initiation. And before we turn to considerations of the knowledge of karma, let us also examine karma from these world-historical perspectives, which actually concern all of present-day civilized humanity.

[ 2 ] It is indeed true that things are happening in the world today that deeply touch even ordinary consciousness—I would say, the heart that is connected to ordinary consciousness. A heavy cloud hangs over European civilization, and in a certain sense it is actually quite astonishing how little humanity in general is willing to allow itself to feel and sense this heavy cloud hanging over European civilization.

[ 3 ] We need only consider, for now, everything that stems today from a certain worldview held by large segments of humanity. Let us just look at what has become of Christianity in Eastern Europe; let us consider how, in a manner that is not entirely implausible, news is now reaching us that the current regime in Soviet Russia intends to pulverize Tolstoy’s writings, to render them invisible for all time. Even if, of course, such things do not immediately come to light in the manner announced, we must not close our eyes to the gravity of the moment—this moment in world history in which we live—and we should heed the warning of initiatory science, which it would actually like to offer daily: that the time has already come when the myriad small matters that occupy people’s minds should be set aside for a while, and as many souls as possible should turn their attention to the great matters. Yet interest in the great matters is waning rather than growing.

[ 4 ] And so we see how, today, worldviews that present themselves as creative—even if that “creativity” consists in destruction—are born purely out of a passionate, emotional element of humanity, an element that is firmly following Luciferic paths. And we observe today among a large portion of humanity that everything that is reality is rejected: for it is certainly not true that materialists acknowledge matter. Matter is recognized only when one becomes aware of the creative spirit within it. Therefore, anyone who denies the creative spirit within matter does not truly acknowledge matter itself, but rather an idolatrous image of matter.

[ 5 ] The idolatry that arises in this way is far more hideous than the idolatry of primitive humanity, which is so often referred to as an infantile stage of civilization. On the one hand, fantastical notions of the unreal dominate humanity.

[ 6 ] Certainly, such things have been manifold throughout the course of human history. But it is precisely the spiritual-scientific perspective—which examines how such things relate to the world order as a whole—that draws attention to just how seriously these matters should actually be considered.

[ 7 ] And so we must first turn our attention to what arises from the fact that, in a sense, social world orders are created under the influence of materialistic-fantastical ideas that are born entirely out of human nature gone astray, that have nothing to do with any reality, and that have their origin nowhere but in human beings themselves.

[ 8 ] Having thus presented a historical aspect—one that is, however, also a present-day reality—we now turn to a natural-elemental aspect that we also referred to last time: a natural-elemental aspect that comes to light when groups of people are suddenly torn from their earthly existence by elemental natural phenomena such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, or the like, are suddenly torn from earthly existence.

[ 9 ] There we learn that such a catastrophic event had taken place in the world. A large number of people had lost their lives or had their lives otherwise disrupted as a result.

[ 10 ] Then, moving from such elemental natural phenomena, we turn our attention to what is more closely connected with our entire culture. We see, for example, how karmic effects unfold through this or that train accident, whereas in other cases—now through cultural institutions—the thread of life is, so to speak, abruptly severed in the karmic effect. And if we take the consideration of karma seriously, we must ask, on the one hand: How does karma manifest when purely emotional or fantastical elements—which exist only within the human being and do not manifest externally—play out among the participants in such a social order on Earth? And how does karma take shape when the thread of life is abruptly severed by natural or civilizational elemental events?

[ 11 ] Here, my dear friends, lies one of the points at which the science of initiation truly has a profound impact on human emotional and spiritual life. For ordinary consciousness, the questions simply do not arise: How does something like this play out in the successive earthly lives of human beings? — And for ordinary consciousness—especially in the face of catastrophic events that shake the foundations of civilization—the question of human destiny in the broader sense does not arise. For in ordinary consciousness, one regards the destiny of a person struck by such a catastrophe as, so to speak, concluded.

[ 12 ] On the one hand, the science of initiation deals with what, so to speak, takes place in the foreground of human life on Earth; and in the background, it clearly reveals what occurs as the deeds of the gods in relation to human souls. And it is precisely from what takes place in the background that the science of initiation derives the prerequisites for its assessment of earthly life. For we shall see in our further consideration of karma how, precisely in earthly life, many things must take shape in one way or another so that the divine elements behind earthly life can be given human form—albeit in accordance with the will of the gods.

[ 13 ] For if one looks at the background, one does indeed see everything that human souls karmically shape with one another between death and a new birth. One also sees the collective activity of human souls with the beings of the higher hierarchies, as we have mentioned; but on the other hand, one sees the influence of Luciferic and Ahrimanic forces everywhere. Within that divine organism that stands behind the earthly organism, one sees the justification for the influence of Luciferic and Ahrimanic beings. One knows that for the deeper spiritual order of the world, Lucifer and Ahriman must be present. And yet, even though one faces this necessity, one sometimes observes with the deepest consternation the Luciferic and Ahrimanic forces intruding into the earthly world. The fact that various aspects must be considered together when one extends one’s gaze beyond the earthly world into the spiritual realm—aspects that need not be considered together by ordinary consciousness—is precisely what one should be mindful of.

[ 14 ] And that is why, in ancient times—when the science of initiation was already as sacred in its nature as it is destined to become once more—in those ancient times, whenever the question arose as to whether someone was an initiate, people knew how to conduct themselves appropriately in such a matter. And if, on the path of life, a person who took life seriously met another who also took life seriously, but they differed in their opinion about an initiate, then in those ancient times—when one person was uncertain whether a third person was an initiate—one could often hear the words: “Have you looked him in the eyes?” — For it was by what the gaze gains through the deepening of life’s seriousness that the Initiates were recognized in ancient times, when clairvoyant civilizations were spread across the Earth. And something similar will happen again. We will once more have to return to the seriousness of life, without necessarily losing the humor of life.

[ 15 ] But there is indeed much that can be gleaned from what is happening now, in connection with what has, of course, always happened, yet which must now present itself to humanity as a great mystery. For let us take a look at the facts. Let us imagine any set of facts.

[ 16 ] A certain region has been struck by a powerful earthquake. Numerous people are perishing together. If one considers the matter from the perspective of spiritual science, one cannot simply say that these people’s karmic thread for this earthly life has completely run its course. Let us examine the karmic thread of those who are perishing. For elderly people, who would in any case have soon exhausted their earthly karma for this life, the thread of life may be shortened by only a few months or a few years. Younger people, in the prime of their earthly lives, who have thought deeply about what they wanted to accomplish in the coming years—for themselves, their families, and for humanity at large—will have their lifelines shortened by many years. Children who are just beginning their upbringing, for whom one seeks to nurture the soul in a way that will introduce them to human life, are torn away from earthly existence alongside the elderly. Infants who have barely weaned from their mother’s breast, and those who have not yet done so, are swept away along with the old and the young. This gives rise to the great mystery: How does karma operate in such an event?

[ 17 ] And let us consider the difference that exists between such a natural event and a natural event brought about by civilization, such as a major railroad disaster: there is indeed a difference—a difference that becomes particularly important and significant when one approaches the matter from the perspective of karma.

[ 18 ] As a rule, when people perish together in an earthquake in the manner I have just described, they are karmically linked in some way—just as people who live together in a particular region are, more or less, generally karmically linked and, in any case, have something to do with one another— so that, within a certain shared destiny—into which they have been carried by the fact that they all descended at a certain location on Earth from pre-earthly existence into earthly existence—they face the severing of their life thread within this shared destiny.

[ 19 ] When we look at a train disaster, on the other hand, we will generally find that only a few of the people affected by that disaster actually belong together. Who, after all, finds themselves on the same train? As a rule, not people who have anything to do with one another, but rather those who are simply gathered together, brought together, without having even the slightest bond—a bond that is certainly always present when an earthquake strikes a particular region. One might say that fate brings together in one place those who perish together in a train disaster. Do we not see a very different workings of karma in one case compared to the other?

[ 20 ] And let us look at such a devastating earthquake disaster through the lens of the science of initiation. We certainly do not see there people who, at birth, had shaped their karma in such a way that the thread of their earthly life was destined to run out at the very time when the collective catastrophe struck. In a sense, these people were torn from their karma by such an event.

[ 21 ] How could they have been torn away? According to the gods’ decree, what matters is the working out of karma. You see, everything that occurs in natural phenomena such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, floods, and the like does not lie within the continuous course of Earth’s development according to natural laws; rather, something intervenes in Earth’s development—albeit in accordance with natural laws.

[ 22 ] That which intervenes in the Earth’s evolution was once favorable, necessary, and beneficial to that evolution—back in the time when humanity was not subject to birth and death in their present form. And if we wish to visualize something specific in light of what has just been said, we must look back to the ancient Lunar Age. In the ancient Lunar Age, which preceded the Earth Age, human beings were not subject to birth and death in such a way that they were brought into physical existence—as if through an abrupt transition—by birth or conception, and led out of physical existence by death. The transition was much gentler. It was more of a transformation, a metamorphosis, than a leap. Earthly human beings—or rather, lunar human beings—were not as material as they are today. Human beings in the spiritual world were not as spiritualized as they are today.

[ 23 ] That which once lived on the Moon as humanity also required entirely different natural laws—natural laws that revealed lunar life in an unchanging motion, internally moving and bubbling, undulating, surging. What was once bubbling, undulating, and surging from within is today, in part—but only in part—frozen within the Moon, our companion in the cosmos. But the Moon’s frozen state, which is actually a process of hardening, points back to the Moon’s ancient inner mobility. This makes itself felt in earthly processes when such elemental events occur as I have described. It is not the ordinary laws of earthly nature that are at work here; rather, the ancient Moon—which, to be sure, now orbits out in the cosmos in the form appropriate to it today, but which left forces behind in the Earth after it had departed from it—begins to stir.

[ 24 ] And now recall how I explained that a person’s karma is connected to those beings who were once the great primordial teachers of humanity—those who brought humanity the original great wisdom—who did not live on Earth in a physical body, but in an etheric one, and who, at a certain point in time, departed from Earth and now inhabit the Moon, so that we encounter them during that period—the initial phase—that we experience between death and a new birth. These are the beings who, with a true inner soul-spiritual script, inscribe human karma deep into the world-ether.

[ 25 ] But there is, I would say, a conspiracy in the universe that culminates in the fact that not only is that which accompanies our Earth—the Moon that is rightfully there today—being used, but also that which, as a lunar remnant, can remain rumbling within the Earth, has remained there. But this is exploited by the Ahrimanic forces. And this is where the Ahrimanic forces can intervene in the thread of human life. And so one can also see how it is the Ahrimanic forces that, in such a case, thrust their voluptuously satisfied faces forth from the depths of the Earth when such natural disasters occur.

[ 26 ] Therefore, with the help of the science of initiation, one can see in such a case how the person who perishes in the process has worked through a portion of their karma up to the moment when the thread of life is abruptly severed. Then a portion of life would still remain—a larger or smaller portion, depending on whether the person snatched from life was an elderly person, an adult, or an infant; then there would be the possibility that the thread of life, the entire life with all its events, would continue—and suddenly it intervenes, right into the human physical organism, as if everything that should have happened throughout that entire time were compressed into a single moment.

[ 27 ] Just think for a moment, my dear friends, about what is actually happening here. Let’s suppose a thirty-year-old person is struck by such a catastrophe. If he had not been struck by the catastrophe, he would, according to his karma—as far as I’m concerned—have reached the age of sixty-five. There is a wealth of events that he would have experienced in life. These exist only as possibilities. But in his karma, in the constitution of his etheric and astral bodies, and in the constitution of his ego-organization, all of this is contained. And what would have happened up to the age of sixty-five? Alongside the process of building up, the organism would have been continuously broken down; a slow process of breakdown would have taken place until it was completed in the sixty-fifth year of life—a breakdown that was subtle and gradual.

[ 28 ] This slow breakdown, which would have spanned another thirty-five years and proceeded at the slow pace characteristic of such a prolonged process, is, in a sense, accomplished in an instant, compressed into a single moment. This can be attributed to the physical body. It cannot be inflicted upon the etheric body, nor upon the astral body, nor upon the “I”-organization.

[ 29 ] And unlike in the case of karma that has been lived out, when the circumstances described here are present, a person enters the spiritual world. As a result, something is carried into the spiritual world that would otherwise not be there: an etheric body that could still have been on Earth, an astral body, and an “I”-organization that could still have been on Earth. Instead of remaining on Earth, they are carried into the spiritual world. What is destined for the earthly realm is carried into the spiritual world. And so we see earthly elements flowing into the spiritual world as a result of every such elemental catastrophe. People whose karma has been diverted in this way by the Ahrimanic forces thus arrive in the spiritual world in this state.

[ 30 ] Now we must ask ourselves a question that arises, my dear friends, from the fact that if we take spiritual science seriously, we must learn to ask questions from the perspective of the spiritual world and the spiritual beings in that world in exactly the same way that we ask questions with our ordinary consciousness about the physical-earthly world and the beings of that world. Therefore, the question may be raised: How do the beings of the three hierarchies react to the fact that human beings ascend to them, carrying earthly matters into the spiritual world in this way?

[ 31 ] And these beings are faced with the task of bringing back into the world order that which appears to have turned toward evil, that which appears to be directed against the world order. The gods must now grapple with what is before them in order to transform the Ahrimanic evil into a higher good. We then come to the idea of how, with regard to any given matter, those human beings are particularly chosen for the world order who arrive in the spiritual world in this particular way after passing through the gate of death. The following situation then presents itself to the spiritual beings of the higher hierarchies.

[ 32 ] Such entities must say to themselves: There was a human being in his previous incarnation. Through this previous incarnation and what preceded it in the human being’s entire life, a certain world of facts has been prepared—a world of experiences in the present incarnation. However, of what was prepared there, only the first part has come to expression; the second part has not. Therefore, we have here a portion of a human life course that should actually correspond karmically to this life course here (it is drawn), but which does not correspond to it—instead, we have only a fragment here. This fragment here thus corresponds in some way to the earlier earthly life, but not to the full earlier earthly life.

[ 33 ] Then the gods must look upon this earlier earthly life and say: “There is something here that has not experienced the effects it was meant to experience. There are unused causes.” And what exists there as unspent causes, the gods can now take, bring to the human being, and use it to strengthen him—precisely in regard to his inner life—for his next earthly life. So that, in a sense, the power of what acted as a cause in a previous incarnation now bursts forth all the more powerfully within him in the next incarnation. Then the human being appears—whereas otherwise, had such a catastrophe not befallen him, he might have appeared in the world with lesser abilities, or perhaps with abilities situated in a completely different field than they are when he appears in the next incarnation—the human being appears as a different being to balance out his karma. But they also appear with particular characteristics. For, in a sense, their astral body is densified because unspent causes are incorporated into it.

[ 34 ] Is it any wonder, my dear friends, that there is a legend about a philosopher who threw himself into the crater of a volcano? What could be the reason for such a decision on the part of someone who has been initiated into the mysteries of the world? The only possible reason is that human will itself brings about something that can otherwise only be brought about by elemental natural phenomena: the sudden snatching away of that which was only supposed to be snatched away gradually. And so what is recounted about such a philosopher may well stem from the intention to appear in the world in a future incarnation with special abilities. The world simply takes on a different form when we approach the profound questions of karma in this way.

[ 35 ] So let us first consider—I would say, in principle—how such elemental catastrophes occur. But let us turn our attention to another one. Let us consider how, in a catastrophe of civilization brought about by the Ahrimanic being, people who are not very strongly bound by karma are, so to speak, herded together to meet a collective downfall.

[ 36 ] The situation is quite different in this case. Here, too, the Ahrimanic forces are at work, but with people who are not initially connected as a group by karmic threads—yet who are brought together again precisely because of this. And now something occurs that differs significantly from what happens in the case of natural disasters.

[ 37 ] A natural disaster evokes in the person affected by it a heightened recollection of everything contained in their karma as a cause. For when a person passes through the gate of death, they are reminded of everything contained in their karma. A natural disaster in which a person perishes brings about an intensification of this, a vivid recollection, within the human soul.

[ 38 ] A railway disaster—or indeed any catastrophe of civilization—actually causes one to forget one’s karma. But because this forgetting of karma occurs, a strong receptivity arises to the new impressions that a person receives from the spiritual world after death. And the consequence of this is that such a person must now ask themselves: What is the state of the unspent karma within me?

[ 39 ] And while a person’s intellectual qualities, in particular, are condensed into their astral body during a natural disaster, their volitional qualities are condensed and strengthened during civilizational catastrophes. This is how karma works.

[ 40 ] But let us now look beyond these catastrophes. Let us turn our attention to what is being developed in a fanatical way by a group of people on an emotional level, as I have characterized it—where only that which comes from within the human being has an effect, where the human being lives entirely in the unreal and, moreover, acts destructively. Let us look at such a fantastically distorted structure of civilization as that of today’s Eastern Europe as it looks toward the West, and let us consider what happens there when people who belong to such contexts pass through the gate of death.

[ 41 ] Just as with other catastrophes, something is carried into the spiritual world. But what is carried into it is Luciferic. That which has a darkening and devastating effect in the spiritual world is carried into it. For in the case of natural disasters and civilizational catastrophes, it is, after all, light that is carried from the earthly world into the spiritual world. From the aberrations of civilization, darkness is carried into the spiritual world. People enter the spiritual world through the gate of death as if into a heavy, dark cloud through which they must make their way. For the light that Lucifer instigated in the emotions of people on Earth acts as the densest darkness in the spiritual world once a person has entered this spiritual world through the gate of death. And those forces that, so to speak, emerge from within the human being enter the spiritual world; passions that were meant to act only within the human being themselves are carried into the spiritual world and radiate there.

[ 42 ] These, in turn, are forces that can be transformed by Ahriman’s power in the spiritual world to make use of the lunar evolution that still exists within the Earth. Here, Lucifer truly extends his hand to Ahriman.

[ 43 ] What is carried up into the spiritual world by mere emotional cultural impulses—but which actually arises only from misguided earthly consciousness—is precisely what, transformed, blazes upward from the Earth’s interior in volcanic eruptions and earthquakes. And based on such premises, we learn to ask about Earth karma, about national karma, and thus also about individual human karma, insofar as this individual human karma is linked to national karma and to Earth karma. We learn to pose the question in such a way that we seek the seeds of Luciferic influences in any region of the Earth where ancient culture is being destroyed by human emotions, where wild instincts seek to create fantastically new things but can only have a destructive effect. And we must ask ourselves: Where on Earth will that which now blazes in the wild passions of human beings one day burst forth, blazing with fire or shaking the earth?

[ 44 ] When the science of initiation examines certain elemental events, it may and must ask: When was this elemental event prepared? In the horrors and atrocities of war, and in other atrocities that have occurred within the course of human civilization! For this is how things are interconnected. These are the things that take place in the background of existence. When viewed in this way, the events that come to the fore do not stand alone. They appear within the greater context of the world. But how do they fit into the individual destinies of human beings? Well, my dear friends, the gods are indeed there, connected to the development of humanity. Their task, as I have already mentioned, is always to transform what happens in this way into something favorable, into something that promotes human destiny.

[ 45 ] Such things happen ceaselessly within the context of the earthly-spiritual world: human destinies are snatched from the wings of Lucifer and the claws of Ahriman, for the gods are good. And whatever injustice is brought about in the world by Ahriman or Lucifer behind the scenes of existence—that, my dear friends, is in turn guided back onto the path of justice by the good gods, and ultimately the karmic connection is a good and just one.

[ 46 ] And our gaze—which, admittedly, must be sympathetic toward human karma, must be full of understanding—is diverted from human destiny toward the destiny of the gods. For as we observe the horrors of war, the guilt of war, and the scourges of war in connection with natural and elemental catastrophes that slaughter humanity, we see the struggle between the good gods and the gods who are evil on both sides playing out. We look beyond human life into the life of the gods, and see the life of the gods against the backdrop of human life. And above all, we do not perceive it through arid theoretical concepts, but rather with our hearts and with empathy; we perceive this divine life in such a way that we can, in turn, view it in connection with what is taking place in the individual karma of human beings on Earth, because we see human destiny interwoven with the destiny of the gods.

[ 47 ] But when we look at such things, only then does the world that lies beyond humanity truly come close to us. For then something is revealed to us that can only be contemplated with the very, very deepest involvement. Then it becomes clear how human destiny is embedded in the destiny of the gods, how, in a certain sense, the gods yearn for what they are to accomplish with human beings as a result of the course of their own struggle. And as we draw near to such ideas, we return with them to what was brought into the world through the mysteries even in the ancient times of the seers.

[ 48 ] The one who was initiated into the ancient mysteries was first introduced to the world of the elements; there he saw how his inner self—but in its moral quality—gradually moved outward. But then he learned—and this was a weighty, a mighty word spoken by the student of the ancient mysteries—to recognize the “lower and upper gods,” the Ahrimanic and the Luciferic gods. The good gods dwell in a state of equilibrium. And as the ancient mystery student came to know what the modern student must in turn come to know, a human being was gradually initiated into the depths of existence. For when one penetrates this connection, one arrives at the remarkable insight that, while startling, also enlivens and enlightens the world: What is the purpose of the sum of misfortune in the world? So that the gods may turn it into happiness! For mere happiness did not lead into worldly existence. Happiness that springs from misfortune during humanity’s passage through the sensory world is what truly leads into the depths of the world.

[ 49 ] Whenever we are considering karma, we must not rely solely on theoretical concepts; whenever karma is at issue, we must appeal to the whole person. For one cannot learn to recognize karma without involving the heart, the whole mind, and the will of the person in that recognition. But if one comes to know karma in this way, as it truly is, then this human life also deepens. And only then are the circumstances of life that bring people together karmically taken seriously enough.

[ 50 ] There are, however, moments—which must inevitably occur for anyone who is not superficial—when karma can weigh heavily upon him. But all these moments are balanced out by those in which karma gives them wings, so that they rise with their soul from the earthly realm into the divine realm. And we must feel the connection between the world of the gods and the human world deep within ourselves if we are to speak of karma in the true sense of the word.

[ 51 ] For what pertains to us and surrounds us here on earth during an earthly life is, first and foremost, that which perishes on the path between death and rebirth. But what remains is that by which the gods—that is, the beings of the higher hierarchies—take us by the hand. And no one will develop the right spiritual disposition toward the knowledge of karma unless they regard this knowledge as a helping hand extended by the gods.

[ 52 ] Therefore, my dear friends, try to understand the concept of karma in such a way that it evokes the following feeling in you: As I draw closer to the sacred spiritual ground where I can gain some clarity about karma, I must take the hand of the gods.

[ 53 ] Our perceptions must become this real if we are to gain genuine insights into the spiritual world—and such are the insights into karma.