The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Seventh Lecture

[ 1 ] I would like to structure today’s and tomorrow’s lectures in such a way that they may provide some guidelines for shedding light, on the one hand, on the effects of karma and, on the other, on the significance of insights relating to human karma for the general history of development—particularly that of spiritual life. We cannot understand the workings of karma if we look only at the successive earthly lives of any given individual. It is certainly the case that within an earthly life—where one is confronted, in stark relief, with the earthly path of this or that person, or one’s own—one is, above all, deeply interested in the question: How do the results of previous earthly lives carry over into later ones? — But this mode of operation would never become clear if one were limited to earthly lives alone, for between earthly lives, a person experiences the life between death and rebirth. And in this life between death and rebirth, the actual karma is worked out from what occurs in an earthly life in connection with other human souls who are disembodied, who are karmically linked to them, who are also in the life between death and rebirth, and in connection with spirits of the higher hierarchies, as well as with spirits of the lower hierarchies. And this karma, as it is worked out, becomes understandable only when one is able to look toward the extraterrestrial star being, which, as it appears to the physical eye, reveals only its outer aspect.

[ 2 ] One must say time and again: Physicists would be greatly astonished if they were to go to the places where the stars they observe through their telescopes are located—stars whose substances, indeed their very constitution, are analyzed in spectroscopes. These physicists would be astonished if they were to ascend to the places where these stars are—the ones they observe through their telescopes—and then see that what they find there is not at all what they expect! What a star reveals when observed from Earth is, in fact, merely an outward radiance that is quite insignificant in relation to its own existence; whereas what the star contains is of a spiritual nature, or, if it is of a physical nature, it appears, one might say, as a remnant of something spiritual.

[ 3 ] My dear friends, the best way to understand what is happening here is as follows. Just imagine that an inhabitant of another star were to observe Earth in much the same way that we astronomers and astrophysicists observe other stars: he would describe a disk glowing and shining out into the cosmos, on which he might find dark and bright spots that he would interpret in some way. His interpretation would likely not match what we Earthlings know among ourselves. Perhaps, if Vesuvius were spewing fire and he could observe it, he would speak of comets approaching from outside and the like. In any case, what such an astronomer would describe would have very little to do with what actually constitutes the essence of our Earth.

[ 4 ] And what, then, constitutes the essential nature of our Earth? Just think about it: Our Earth emerged from what I described in my Occult Science as the Saturn state. At that time, there was no air, no gases, no liquids, and no solid components of the Earth; there were only thermal differentiations. And within this differentiation of heat lay the embryonic potential for everything that later became the mineral, plant, and animal kingdoms—as well as the human kingdom. We humans were also still present within this Saturn, within this heat.

[ 5 ] Then this process continued: Air was separated from heat, water was separated, and solids were separated; these are all remnants that were separated—things that humans cast aside in order to achieve their own development. Everything that is a mineral solid belongs to us, after all; it is merely a residue left behind, just as the watery and the airy are. So the essential on our Earth is not what exists in the realms of nature, nor is it what we carry in our bones and muscles—for these, in turn, are composed of what has been separated and what we have taken back in—but rather, the essential is our souls. And the rest is, in essence, more or less an illusion or a byproduct and the like.

[ 6 ] Truly, one could only describe the Earth by describing it as a colony of human souls in outer space. And so all the stars are colonies of spiritual beings in outer space—colonies that one can come to know. Our own soul, having passed through the gate of death, moves through these stellar colonies, continuing its path of development until a new birth—in communion with those souls who are already there as human souls, in communion with the beings of the higher hierarchies or even the lower hierarchies— and then, depending on how karma has been worked out and how the human being has matured, returns once more to take on an earthly body. Thus, if we wish to understand karma, we must turn once again to stellar wisdom—to a spiritual investigation of the human journey between death and rebirth in connection with the stellar beings.

[ 7 ] However, right up until the dawn of the Michael Kingdom, people of the modern era face great difficulties in gaining access to true stellar wisdom. And since anthroposophy nevertheless had to gain access to this stellar wisdom, it is grateful for the fact that the Michael Kingdom broke in upon the events of humanity on Earth during the last third of the nineteenth century. And among the many things to which we owe a debt of gratitude to the Michael Era is precisely this: that we have once again gained unhindered access to the study of what must be investigated in the worlds of the stars, so that we may understand karma and the formation of karma within humanity.

[ 8 ] I would like to demonstrate this to you today using an example, in order to gradually introduce you to the extraordinarily difficult questions associated with the study of karma. I would like to present an example that will allow you, so to speak, to see clearly what must all take place before one can speak about the workings of karma in the way that is being done in this lecture. After all, don’t you know that if the content of these lectures were to be discussed in any way in public—in today’s ordinary, popular public sphere—what is in fact very precise research would be regarded as folly, as nonsense. But this is, in fact, very precise research, and you must become acquainted with all the responsibilities one becomes aware of in such research; you must become acquainted with all that stands in the way of such research—the “thorn hedges,” so to speak, that one must pass through in such research. For it is necessary that a number of people be able to understand, with all those karmic characteristics of the Michaelic community of which I have spoken, that these matters involve serious spiritual research and not what the uninformed person, who stands outside the anthroposophical movement, thinks about such things today.

[ 9 ] Most of you, my dear friends—as I have already mentioned in part—will recall a figure who appears again and again in my Mysteries: the figure of Strader.

[ 10 ] This character, Strader, is—insofar as that is possible in a work of fiction—in a certain sense drawn from life. I have already mentioned this to some of you here. And the character of Strader was modeled on a real person who lived through the developments of the last third of the nineteenth century and, in a certain sense, arrived at a form of rationalist Christianity. A figure who, after an extraordinarily difficult youth—a hint of which shines through in the portrayal of Strader—became a Capuchin friar, but could not endure life within the Church and subsequently found his way to a professorship.

[ 11 ] This figure, having been driven from theology into philosophy, had become an enthusiastic advocate of Lessing’s free-thinking religion. This individual was such that he had entered into a kind of inner conflict with official Christianity and, quite consciously, sought to establish a kind of rationalistic Christianity based on reason. And the inner struggles that one finds in Strader in my Mystery Dramas had already played out, with certain variations, in this individual’s life.

[ 12 ] Now, as you know, the character of Strader dies in my latest Mystery Drama. And when I myself look back on the way Strader’s character has been woven into the fabric of my Mystery Dramas as a whole, I must say: Even though there would have been no external obstacle whatsoever to letting Strader live on, just as the others continue to live—he dies out of an inner necessity! So it is even possible to view Strader’s death as a surprise in the Mystery Drama. Strader dies at a certain moment: I had the feeling that I could no longer deal with the character of Strader in the Mystery Dramas.

[ 13 ] Why is that? Well, you see, my dear friends, in the meantime—if I may put it that way—the original has died. And you can imagine how deeply I was interested in this original being’s course of development, since I had just created the character of Strader. I remain interested in this original being, even after it has passed through the gates of death.

[ 14 ] But now there is a certain peculiarity here. When we are led to follow, with the eye of the beholder, a personality through the time that follows death—a period lasting approximately one-third of one’s physical earthly life (for earthly life is, in a sense, repeated in reverse, but at three times the speed)—what does a person actually experience during those decades that immediately follow earthly life?

[ 15 ] If you imagine a human life here on Earth, it breaks down into days and nights, waking states, and sleeping states. During the sleeping states, there are always vivid recollections of daily life. When one looks back on life in this way, one usually remembers only the daytime states, the waking states; one doesn’t pay any attention to them at all—for one would actually have to structure the memories like this: I remember from morning to evening, now it breaks off, from morning to evening—breaks off again, from morning to evening—breaks off again.

[ 16 ] But because there is nothing in our memory from that night, we simply draw a straight line through it and falsify our memories by stringing the days together. But after death, we must relive—in stark reality—what existed during the nights, roughly during the third part of life, and we must relive it in reverse. And that is precisely what is peculiar: One has, so to speak, a certain sense of being—I would say, a sense of reality—regarding what one encounters on earth. If one did not have this sense of reality, one could indeed regard everything one encounters during the day as dreams. So one does have a certain sense of reality. One knows that things are real; they push back when one bumps into them; they send light and sounds our way. In short, there are many things that give rise to our sense of reality here during our earthly life between birth and death.

[ 17 ] But if you take everything we experience here as a sense of reality—if you, my dear friends, take everything you describe as the reality of the people you encounter here—then all of that, in terms of its intensity, is like the reality of a dream compared to the immensely intense reality one experiences in the decades immediately following death, and which the observer witnesses firsthand. All of that seems much more real; earthly life seems as if it were a dream—it is as if the soul were only now awakening to the true intensity of life. That is what is so peculiar about it.

[ 18 ] And as I followed this example set by Strader, the reality—the true individuality that lived on after death—naturally captivated me far more than the memory of earthly life, which, compared to what appears in death, seems like a dream. As a result, in the face of the powerful impressions left by the deceased, I could no longer have mustered the interest in the living necessary to describe them.

[ 19 ] So I can speak here from my own experience about how little intensity there is in earthly life compared to the life that one encounters when following a person after death—which is the most intense life of all. And if, precisely at the point where this particular interest in life after death is aroused by heightened earthly interest, one tries to follow attentively how things proceed from there, then one becomes aware of the conflicting difficulties. For if one observes very closely, intently, one sees how in this backward journey after death—which takes up about one-third of one’s lifetime—it already becomes apparent that the deceased is preparing to shape their karma. They see everything they went through during their life in this reversed, this re-experiencing of the past. If they have offended someone, they experience that all over again. If I die at the age of seventy-three and, in my sixtieth year, offended someone, I experience that again during this journey backward; but I experience it in such a way that I do not feel the emotions I had when I offended them, but rather the emotions the other person felt as a result of my offense. I fully immerse myself in the other person. And so, in a sense, I live through my own experiences within those people who have been affected by these experiences—for better or for worse. And this is where the tendency to bring about karmic balance begins to take shape within oneself.

[ 20 ] Now, the interest I had in this earthly model of Strader—who now stood before me as a supernatural individuality—was particularly fueled by the fact that this model truly sought to grasp Christianity in a penetrating, incisive, and rationalistic way. One admires the thinker in this regard; but throughout this rationalistic presentation of Christianity in the books that man wrote on earth, one notices how the thread of rationalism the thread of concepts snaps, how, at the end of the day, something terribly abstract emerges, how the person in question cannot enter into a spiritual understanding of Christianity, how he cobbles together a sort of “religion of concepts” using philosophical terms, and so on. In short, the entire weakness of modern intellectualism is evident in this personality.

[ 21 ] This, in turn, becomes evident in a remarkable way when we trace the course of one’s life after death. In people who do not encounter such difficulties, we find that they gradually settle into the sphere of the Moon. That is the first stage. And when we enter the lunar region as the dead, we find there all those—I would call them the “recorders” of our destiny—who were once the wise teachers of humanity in primeval times, of whom we have often spoken here, and who, when the Moon physically separated from the Earth and became a celestial body of its own from the Earth’s substance, followed the Moon. So that today, when we pass through the lunar region as the dead, we first encounter the great primordial teachers of humanity, who were not present in physical bodies but who laid the foundation for primordial wisdom, of which only a faint reflection remains in what has been handed down in literature. Provided no obstacles arise, we find ourselves, so to speak, moving unhindered along the path into this lunar region.

[ 22 ] The personality who serves as the archetype of Strader seemed to be unable to freely experience this spiritual life immediately following death as it relates to the lunar region: there were constant obstacles, as if the lunar region did not want to allow this individuality to approach it.

[ 23 ] And when one used vivid imagination to trace what was actually there, the following became apparent: It was as if the spirits—that is, the primordial teachers of humanity who once brought humanity its original spiritual science—were constantly calling out to this primordial image of Strader: “You cannot come to us, for because of your particular human nature, you are not yet permitted to know anything about the stars; you must wait; you must first relive various experiences from what you have gone through not only in your last incarnation but also in earlier ones, so that you may become mature enough to be permitted to know anything at all about the stars and their nature.”

[ 24 ] And then this curious phenomenon arose: that one was faced with an individuality that, in truth, cannot—or can only with great difficulty—develop in harmony with the spiritual realm of the stars. It will, of course, develop in harmony with it, but it can do so only with great difficulty. And so, with regard to this particular personality, I made the remarkable discovery that for such newer, rationalistic-intellectualistic individuals, an obstacle in the shaping of their karma is that they cannot approach the stars in their essence so freely. Further investigation revealed that this personality had drawn all the strength for her rationalism from the time that preceded the dawn of the Michael Reign. She had not yet been properly touched by the Michael Reign.

[ 25 ] However, the further examination of this personality’s past karma now posed a very serious challenge. For I had to admit to myself: There is clearly something here that, based on the results of past earthly lives, has karmically shaped this personality in such a way that it not only has an effect during earthly life, but also extends into the life that lies beyond death. This is indeed a rather remarkable phenomenon.

[ 26 ] It then became clear that the life which preceded this earthly life—which I have outlined for you and which is reflected in the form of Strader—the life that preceded this earthly life in the spiritual worlds, was a life of severe trials, a true life of trials in the supersensible realm: How, then, should I relate to Christianity?

[ 27 ] One might say that something is slowly taking shape in the supersensible realm that makes this personality uncertain about her understanding of Christianity in her earthly life. This also shines through in the character of Strader: He is uncertain about everything, rejects the supersensible in a certain way, wants to grasp it only with the intellect, yet still wants to see something. Recall the description of Strader. That is indeed the case; this personality has also grown out of his karma from an earlier time in his life. And it becomes evident that this personality, in fact, during the passage through life between death and a new birth—prior to this earthly life at the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century—passed through the astral life in a very greatly subdued state of consciousness, experiencing precisely this life between death and a new birth in a subdued manner. As a result, a reaction set in during this life, leading to the formation of clearer, more definite concepts in contrast to the dull mental images this personality had experienced between death and a new birth.

[ 28 ] When one now moves beyond these phenomena—which, I might say, always appear as if shrouded in mist—to this personality’s previous earthly life, one discovers something most remarkable. One is first led—at least I was—to the “Singer’s War at Wartburg” in 1206, precisely during the period I have described to you as the one in which the ancient Platonists—for example, those of the School of Chartres—had ascended into the spiritual world, while the others, the Aristotelians, had not yet descended, and where, alongside the actual ongoing Michaelic events, a sort of heavenly conference between the two—a discussion—took place. The Singers’ Contest at Wartburg Castle falls within this period.

[ 29 ] It is always interesting to explore: What is here on earth, and what lies beyond? And so we have an event in The Singers' Contest at Wartburg that is not directly related to the ongoing Michaelian movement.

[ 30 ] Well, who took part in the Singers’ Contest at Wartburg Castle? The most prominent German poets were gathered there, competing against one another through song. It is well known what the Singers’ Contest at Wartburg was all about—how Walther von der Vogelweide, Wolfram von Eschenbach, and Reinmar von Zweter competed for the glory of their princes and for their own prestige—but there was one who was, in essence, pitted against all the others: Heinrich von Ofterdingen. And in this Heinrich von Ofterdingen, I rediscovered the individuality that lay at the heart of the archetype of Strader.

[ 31 ] So we are dealing with Heinrich von Ofterdingen—and we must turn our attention to this: Why does Heinrich von Ofterdingen, after passing through the gate of death, find it difficult to pass through the world of the stars, as if in a twilight state? Why?

[ 32 ] One need only follow the story of Der Sängerkrieg a little: Heinrich von Ofterdingen takes up the fight against the others. The executioner has already been summoned: he is to be hanged if he loses. He withdraws from the contest. But to bring about a renewed contest, he summons the sorcerer Klingsor from Hungary. He actually brings the sorcerer Klingsor from Hungary to Eisenach.

[ 33 ] Now a new kind of Wartburg War is unfolding there, in which Klingsor plays a part. But it is quite clear: Klingsor, who now stands up for Heinrich von Ofterdingen—who himself appears fighting and singing—does not fight alone, but enlists spiritual beings to fight alongside him. And in order to have spiritual beings fight alongside him, he, for example, allows a young man to be possessed by such a spiritual being and then has him sing in his place. And he brings even more powerful spiritual forces to the Wartburg.

[ 34 ] Everything that comes from Klingsor’s side is countered by Wolfram von Eschenbach. One of the procedures Klingsor carries out consists specifically in having such a spiritual being determine whether Wolfram von Eschenbach is a learned man or not. Klingsor is, in a sense, cornered by Wolfram von Eschenbach. For when Wolfram von Eschenbach realizes that something spiritual is at play, he sings of the Holy Communion, of transubstantiation, of the presence of Christ in the Eucharist—and the spirit must retreat; it cannot bear it. Behind these things lie very real realities, if I may use this tautology.

[ 35 ] And Klingsor succeeds, with the help of certain spiritual beings, in proving to Wolfram von Eschenbach that Wolfram von Eschenbach may indeed have a “starless” Christianity—a Christianity that no longer takes the cosmos into account—but is entirely unschooled in all cosmic wisdom. That is what matters now. Klingsor has proven that even at that time, the singer of the Grail knew only that part of Christianity which had cast off its cosmic dimension. And Klingsor can only appear in this spiritually supported manner because he possesses stellar wisdom. But one can see from the very way he uses it that what is called “black magic” is intertwined with his arts.

[ 36 ] And so we see how the knowledge of the stars was, in an incorrect manner, set in opposition to Wolfram von Eschenbach, a layman in matters of the stars. We are in the thirteenth century, before the appearance of those Dominicans of whom I have spoken; we are in an era when Christianity, precisely where it was particularly strong, had cast aside all understanding of the world of the stars, and when, essentially, astrological wisdom still existed only where there was an inner estrangement from Christianity—as in the case of Klingsor from Hungary.

[ 37 ] Heinrich von Ofterdingen had now summoned Klingsor, and had thus entered into a pact with unchristian astrological wisdom. As a result, Heinrich von Ofterdingen remained connected in a certain way not only to the personality of Klingsor—who later actually disappeared from his spiritual life—but remained connected, first and foremost, to the de-Christianized cosmology of the Middle Ages. And so he continued to live between death and a new birth; he is then reborn in the manner I have described to you, and finds himself living within a certain uncertainty regarding Christianity.

[ 38 ] But the essential point is this: He dies again, makes his way back, and as he makes his way back through the world of souls, he is confronted at every turn with the necessity of once again approaching the world of the stars, of going through the hard struggle that Michael had to wage—as he asserted his dominion—precisely in the last third of the nineteenth century against those demonic forces connected with the unchristian cosmology of the Middle Ages. And to complete this picture: One could see quite clearly how, among those who were now fiercely opposing Michael’s dominion—against whom Michael’s spirits had to take action—there are still precisely those spiritual beings who were once summoned by Klingsor at the Wartburg to oppose Wolfram von Eschenbach.

[ 39 ] So what we have here is that someone who, due to his other karmic consequences, had even been temporarily driven into the service of the Capuchins, could not come to terms with Christianity, could not come to terms with it because he carried within himself the antagonism toward Christianity that he had aroused back then when he called upon Klingsor from Hungary to help him against Wolfram von Eschenbach, the bard of Parsifal. And while the unchristian cosmology still lingered in the twilight of this man’s unconscious, his ordinary consciousness was occupied by a rationalistic Christianity that is not even particularly interesting. What is interesting is only his life’s struggle to use Christian rationalism to establish a kind of rationalistic religion.

[ 40 ] But you see, my dear friends, the most important, the most significant thing is what we now perceive as the connection between abstract rationalism, abstract, incisive thinking, and that which weaves in the subconscious: subdued, paralyzed ideas about the stars and relationships to the stars rise up into consciousness as abstract thoughts.

[ 41 ] And when one examines the nature of the karma of the most intellectually gifted people of our time—in a materialistic sense—one comes to the conclusion that most of these people, in previous earthly lives, were involved in a cosmological deviation into black magic. This is a significant connection.

[ 42 ] It has instinctively persisted among the peasants, who from the outset feel a certain aversion when someone who is overly clever in a rationalistic sense walks among them. They don’t like such people. Instinctively, there is something in this view that belongs in such contexts.

[ 43 ] Yes, my dear friends, but now consider all of this in our broader context. One encountered such minds in the last third of the nineteenth century and at the beginning of the twentieth. They were among the most interesting. A reincarnated Heinrich von Ofterdingen, who had dealings with the darkest magician of his time, Klingsor, proves to be particularly interesting precisely because of his rationalistic mind!

[ 44 ] But this shows the difficulties that arise when one seeks to approach stellar wisdom in the proper way. And this proper approach to the wisdom of the stars—which is necessary to penetrate karma—is possible only in the light of a correct understanding of the Michael Kingdom and by aligning oneself with Michael.

[ 45 ] This, in turn, testifies to you how, throughout the entire reality of modern times—I have shown you this today using a single example, that of Strader as a role model—a current of spiritual life has arisen that makes it difficult to approach the science of the stars, and thus the science of karma, in an unbiased manner. How one can nevertheless do this—and be certain that, unhindered by the challenges that are possible today from the side I have described, one can still gain access to the wisdom of the stars and the shaping of karma—is what we will discuss further tomorrow.