The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Twelfth Lecture

[ 1 ] In the course of our reflections, we will gradually turn our attention to what karma can mean in the life of the individual, although even there I will repeatedly turn my gaze to certain karmic connections that have arisen through personalities who have become prominent in history. For even the most specific aspects of our own karma—those that concern us most deeply—are illuminated in the way we need them to be when we look at the broader historical manifestations of karma. First of all, it should be noted that it is by no means necessary to possess any clairvoyant insights in order to approach the sense or feeling of the existence of karma. Certainly, to grasp the full scope of karmic laws, such insights are necessary, and much of what I have taught here in recent days can, of course, only be gained through such insights. But the path to such insights is paved by— I would say, the sensation—the distinct sensation of karma—which can intervene in every single human life, provided that this human life does not merely skim superficially over things and focus solely on outwardly sensational events, but rather, if this human life can find a way to gain an overview of the more intimate experiences of existence, to penetrate them emotionally, and thereby to gain for themselves a kind of inkling of how certain fateful connections exist in life—connections that, by their very nature, show that they cannot be grounded solely in the single earthly life between birth and death.

[ 2 ] Let’s take a look at the ways in which we as human beings can encounter others in life. After all, the vast majority of our destinies in life depends on our encounters with others. We encounter one person, then another. What we experience together with them has an impact on our existence. And it is precisely in these shared experiences with people in these or those life circumstances that attentive observation will clearly reveal that karma by no means contradicts what we carry within us as our free perception—the perception of what in our actions is subject to free decisions. After all, as children we are first placed into existence during a stage of life in which there can be no question of freedom, as far as the earthly impulse is concerned. And how much does depend on the way in which we are placed into existence as children! Which abilities are drawn out from within us, which paths are assigned to us—this is of infinite, fateful significance for our entire earthly life. Certainly, we can later intervene in our own lives to a greater or lesser extent as independent individuals, but we can do so only within the framework established for us by our childhood. And so, if we look closely, we will see what fate clearly and distinctly influences our free actions.

[ 3 ] Now let’s consider the following scenario: We encounter people in life. There turns out to be a clear difference between one type of encounter we have with people and another. It may be that we are meeting a person for the very first time in this earthly life, and we immediately have the feeling that a bridge spans from our soul to that person’s soul. And it may well be that we feel intensely toward this person, but we may not be nearly as interested in the more superficial details—such as what they look like, whether they are beautiful or ugly, or whether they appear friendly or unfriendly. What draws us to this person wells up from within us; we develop feelings of sympathy. Indeed, in one case or another, we may develop feelings of antipathy that depend solely on the fact that we have come into close proximity with this person and have become aware of their presence; but what we feel toward them does not depend on the impression they make through their actions or the words they first say to us. Such experiences arise in our earthly existence like great question marks, like the all-encompassing problems of life that reality presents to us. And then it is probably the case that we do not feel compelled at all to reflect, once we have made such an acquaintance: What kind of person is he, and what does he do? Everything that draws us to him coalesces, as it were, into a sum of feelings, into a sum of inner experiences and the fulfillment of our soul’s state, and we feel no need whatsoever to justify these in light of what he does.

[ 4 ] But there are other kinds of encounters with people where no such feeling arises. Yet these people begin to interest us without us actually sensing that particular, deeply moving feeling of sympathy or antipathy. We find these people interesting. We feel compelled to find out whether they are good, evil, benevolent, or malevolent, whether they have abilities or lack them. And in the time that follows such an acquaintance—let’s say, when we happen to meet someone who also knows the person we’ve met and with whom we now talk about that same person—it becomes clear that we feel inspired to discuss that person. We like to ask about them—who they are, what they’re up to in life, and so on; we’re interested in their outward appearance. With people of the first type, it can even happen that we find it extremely unpleasant when we meet someone else who also knows them and who immediately starts chatting about them. We don’t want to talk about this person at all. When something like this occurs in life—and the methods of spiritual science seek to uncover such mysteries— it turns out that when we experience an inexplicable feeling—in a certain sense, one that makes us like or dislike someone—upon encountering a person, it means we were somehow karmically connected to that person through the past, and that what we shared with them has, in fact, guided our paths throughout our entire earthly life to meet them at a certain moment in life. And what we shared with them in past lives shapes our feelings; it shapes our sensations toward them. And these sensations, these feelings, are decisive—not whether they are beautiful or ugly, or whether they are a benevolent or malevolent person. Precisely when one feels something like this very clearly and distinctly, one will—if spiritual scientific research sheds light on such a matter—find that feeling justified by what spiritual scientific research has to say about karma formed in the past. And we will find confirmation of what I am saying here through many other things as well.

[ 5 ] When we sleep—when we have left our physical and etheric bodies and exist in the world spiritually only in our “I” and our astral body, while our physical and etheric bodies remain in bed, separated from our actual spiritual-soul being—that is when dreams arise for ordinary consciousness. But isn’t it true—ask yourself this during a period of intense self-observation—that when we have certain encounters of a nature that stirs up inner sensations and feelings, we immediately have all sorts of dreams about that person? We can so easily dream about one person or another. This shows that this person is connected to our spiritual-soul entity—which has journeyed with them through many earthly lives, or through several earthly lives, or through a single earthly life—and that this spiritual-soul entity, in which we alone now exist—the “I” and the astral body—has something to do with this person. We encounter other people; some professional matter or the like brings us together with them. They interest us in the way I have described. Yes, it even happens that we may have a great deal to do with them; life initially places us alongside them, but we cannot dream of them. We simply cannot; dreams do not come. We are then connected to them only in this earthly life, and the connection is initially established through that which binds the human soul-spirit to the physical and the etheric. And because the physical body and the etheric body are primarily involved in this interest of ours—which is linked to external actions and outward appearance—and because these physical and etheric bodies remain in bed while our spiritual-soul being is gone, we cannot dream of such people. Here, spiritual science shows us once again that karma is indeed at work, but it works in such a way that karma is only now beginning to take shape; that it is only from the spiritual experience after death that one will look back on this earthly life and be able to say: “There, karmic connections were established.” That is when one enters into a karma that is still in the making.

[ 6 ] We have seen how this karma is woven, how, over a long period of time, that which we experience together with higher spiritual beings between death and a new birth works to weave this karma. But if you consider what has been said here in light of the laws of karma, you will have to conclude: People are brought together through their earthly lives; what brings them together in their earthly lives also binds them karmically. They then journey together through the life between death and a new birth, and it is precisely there that they shape their karma for their next earthly life together with the higher beings. What, then, does this imply for human life on Earth in the grand scheme of things? In the grand scheme of things, it follows that people who are together in one earthly life—precisely because that is where their karma is being woven—will also strive toward one another in the next earthly life. There they will once again establish karmic connections, will once again journey through life between death and a new birth—but this will now forge them more closely together—in order to seek out another shared earthly life. And this is where the remarkable fact emerges that, in the course of Earth’s evolution, human beings actually live together in groups. That is indeed the case. If we visualize this matter schematically, it is as follows: Time passes; a certain group of people who live together at some point in time and are karmically connected to one another reappears on Earth after having passed through the life between death and a new birth. Another group of people, who in turn are karmically connected to one another, reappears together on Earth; a third group does the same. And since the periods between death and a new birth are by far the longer ones, it follows that most people on Earth actually only encounter one another between death and a new birth, and that those who are particularly karmically connected to one another pass through the evolution of humanity in groups and meet again and again on Earth. That is also the rule. As a rule, we do not encounter people on Earth who were incarnated in a different era than our own in the past.

[ 7 ] You see, one comes to understand this when, in spiritual contemplation of the world, one truly delves into the events of human relationships. If one simply reflects on life with an open mind, one will find that these things—which are stated here based on spiritual observation—are indeed confirmed. As you know, I spent a long time in my youth studying Goethe. Since my intellectual engagement with Goethe touched me deeply, I often found myself asking: What if I had been a contemporary of Goethe’s? — Viewed from the outside, such a thing would seem utterly delightful! If you love Goethe, if you take immense pleasure in engaging with what he created, if you devote part of your life to explaining and interpreting him, shouldn’t the thought occur to you that it must have been delightful to have lived in Weimar at the same time Goethe walked its streets, to have seen him, and perhaps even to have spoken with him? But that is, after all, only a superficial view, one that is immediately corrected when one examines the matter more closely. At least I told myself: The thought of having lived at the same time as Goethe would actually be quite unbearable. For Goethe has become particularly precious to me precisely because everything he left behind was there, because it exerted its influence over a period of time, and because it could in turn be rediscovered from the spiritual depths of the world’s becoming. And the fact is: It would not have been bearable at all to have lived at the same time as Goethe! Only when one considers the concrete relationship one has with him as a later-born, and then turns to the finer connections of the soul—especially in a case like this, where one approaches a personality with whom one does not live at the same time, with whom one’s life karma cannot immediately bring one together, but where more complex karmic relationships exist— then spiritual contemplation reveals: Had one lived at the same time as such a personality, it would have acted like poison on the soul. — I know that is a strong statement, but it is true. One would not have been able to maintain one’s inner spiritual equilibrium at all had one been a contemporary of this personality.

[ 8 ] Even in the big picture, it is precisely through such a perspective that one’s insight into human life, into inner truth, and into the inner connections of human life is sharpened. One no longer speaks vaguely. One is not at all tempted to resort to the common, clichéd expression: “Oh, if only I had lived back then!” Karma, so to speak, anchors one—when properly understood—in one’s life circumstances and places one precisely where one lives out one’s earthly existence. And in this very fact, the truly fateful nature of karma becomes evident. This becomes evident when we begin to reflect on why we entered earthly life at a specific time. It was precisely the fact that we prepared our karma together with other souls with whom we are karmically connected—preparing it for the time when we would enter this physical earthly existence—that brought us here at this time.

[ 9 ] Now, what I have explained is the rule, but in the spiritual world, everything is individual. Rules have their significance, but not to the extent that we should regard them as principles. Anyone who is a stickler for principles—who takes rules so strictly that they allow for no exceptions whatsoever—can never truly enter the spiritual world. For in the spiritual world, everything is different from the physical world. Even the simplest things are different in the spiritual world than in the physical world. I’d like to give you an example of this. What could be clearer to a person living in the physical world than the general mathematical principle: The whole is greater than any of its parts, or: A straight line is the shortest distance between two points. Well, one would have to be truly insane to deny that the whole is greater than any of its parts. Such things are called axioms because they are true in and of themselves and, as the saying goes, are neither capable of nor in need of proof. That is the formula. The same applies to the proposition: “A straight line is the shortest path between two points.” But neither of these propositions holds true in the spiritual world. In the spiritual world, the following proposition even holds true: The whole is always smaller than any of its parts. And we find this confirmed and proven true even in the human being. For when you observe the spiritual aspect of your physical self in the spiritual world, it is roughly the same size—slightly larger, but roughly the same size—as you yourself are in the physical world. But when you observe your lungs or liver in the spiritual world, they are enormous, and yet they are parts of a small being. We must learn to rethink this. In the spiritual world, the straight line is by no means the shortest path, but rather the very longest, because in the spiritual world, when we travel from one point to another, things work quite differently. In the physical world, things are rigid: this path is long, that path is longer, and the other path is the shortest—the straight line. — In the spiritual world, it is not like that; rather, coming “straight” presents such great difficulties that every winding path is shorter than the straight one. And it also makes no sense to say: “The straight line is the shortest path between two points”—because it is, in fact, the longest.

[ 10 ] One must definitely come to terms with the fact that everything in the spiritual world is different from the physical world. That is why people find it so difficult to enter the spiritual world through the exercises they faithfully perform—because their judgment is bound by such prejudices as the belief that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, or that a straight line is the shortest path between two points. So it is with axioms. But one must also let go of all other truths pertaining to the physical world as soon as one wishes to enter the spiritual world. And the fact is that in the spiritual world there can be no principles; rather, everything is individual. One must get to know each thing individually. This dreadful logical generalization, this formulation of general rules, does not exist at all in the spiritual world. And so, of course, this truth—even though it is a truth and holds true on the whole: that human beings undergo the development of earthly life in groups—is also broken. And it is precisely when it is broken that one truly comes to understand its significance. Here is an example of that as well.

[ 11 ] You’ll have to forgive me for drawing examples from my own life. After all, how could one gain a deeper understanding of examples related to such matters than by drawing on one’s own life experiences? That’s where one’s individuality comes into play. In describing the course of my life, I mentioned a geometry teacher I had. This geometry teacher was not only exceptionally close to me while I was his student, but also long afterward. And I found it quite interesting to explore his karma and the circumstances of his life. I had, as they say, an extraordinary “weakness” for geometry. As early as age nine, a geometry book—which I had just happened to get my hands on from my teacher, who didn’t consider me ready to learn such things by a long shot—was, so to speak, my good fortune. Learning that the three angles of a triangle add up to 180 degrees seemed to me to be an extraordinary joy at the age of nine. But then I got this geometry teacher, who was truly a remarkable person. I was about twelve years old when I started having him as a teacher, and I had him for seven years. Truly, he was an interesting character, because he was, in fact, all about geometry—but in a very peculiar way: descriptive, constructive geometry. When I moved up to the higher grades and reached what’s called analytical geometry, I had to learn everything there was to know about analytical geometry from others, because he didn’t understand a thing about it. He was an excellent constructor; he could construct anything, and he made a magnificent impression. And I actually made quite significant progress in geometry precisely because I loved him so much. It was always a delightful hour for me when this particular teacher came into the classroom and expounded on his geometry in his own unique way.

[ 12 ] Later—because he held my attention—I realized that I really had no choice but to reflect on the context of his life. Now, when one wants to explore karma, the reality is that one cannot explore it at all by looking at the circumstances of life that are immediately apparent. If I had merely focused on the fact that he was an excellent geometry teacher, on everything he knew how to teach, I certainly would never have grasped the connections of his karma. But what made a deep impression on me, in the context of his entire life, was that this teacher had a clubfoot. One leg was shorter than the other.

[ 13 ] You see, these are the kinds of things that are usually regarded as lying outside of life. What interests one deeply are those things that, when one engages with them, lead one into karmic connections. It doesn’t always have to be something so conspicuous; one can experience being led into karmic connections simply because someone has a habit that one sees in them time and again, and which takes shape as an image. A small habit can take shape as an image and karmically introduce one to the past lives of the person in question. For example, with another teacher I had—whom I liked immensely—I was deeply introduced to certain karmic connections—which I do not wish to discuss now—based on the fact that every time this teacher stepped before us, the very first thing he did was take out his handkerchief and blow his nose. He never began a lesson any other way. It was precisely this repeated action that took shape in my mind as an image, leading me back, so to speak, karmically to this person’s past earthly lives. And so it was with the other person, who had a clubfoot. And lo and behold, it was only then, through this clubfoot, that a light was shed for me on this person’s entire spiritual capacity. People usually believe that forming lines into geometric figures comes from the mind. But that doesn’t come from the mind at all; it’s not true that a person experiences geometry with the mind. You wouldn’t come up with an angle if you weren’t walking. The fact that you experience the angle in your legs is what makes you know anything about the angle. The mind merely observes how the arm or the legs form angles and so on. In geometry, we actually experience our will weaving its way through our limbs. Our limbs teach us geometry. It’s only because we’ve become such abstract thinkers that we don’t realize this; we believe that we spin geometry out of our heads. The mind watches as we walk, dance, and so on in geometry, and then the mind forms the shapes it has in geometry. It watches. And this whole connection—this peculiar way of emphasizing geometry—became clear to me when I looked into the inner being of this very person, who had to walk with a clubfoot, and who, precisely because he felt this clubfoot so keenly, became such an outstanding geometer in one particular respect. These are the more intimate connections of life.

[ 14 ] But how did this lead me further? This teacher now appeared to me alongside another person with a similar disposition, namely the English poet Lord Byron. These two people, who were outwardly similar in character, stood side by side before me, and now it seemed to me that many aspects of Byron’s life were connected to everything that had crept into his moral and ethical circumstances from an earlier karma—which was also expressed in his clubfoot. And once you have grasped karma at such a point, it continues to unfold before you. And now I was able to discover how these two people had lived together during a certain period of the Middle Ages in Eastern Europe, how they had shared the same fate there. I came to understand the substance of their lives at that time.

[ 15 ] Byron’s earlier life was not like that of the nineteenth-century Byron; my teacher’s earlier life is not like his life in the nineteenth century, but both share a very intimate, parallel destiny. When they were residents of Eastern Europe, they learned of that significant legend: that once upon a time, the Palladium—which had been buried in Troy and revered as imbued with the magical power that sustained Troy’s might—was brought across Africa to Rome, where it remained for a long time; and that then, when Emperor Constantine founded Constantinople, he brought the Palladium—on which the power of Troy first, and then of Rome, was said to depend—to Constantinople at great sacrifice and with immense effort, and then had it buried there to replace the power of Rome with that of Constantinople. It is said—and this is indeed true to a large extent—that Emperor Constantine’s arrogance led him to have the Palladium brought from Rome to Constantinople; that he erected a mighty, heavy column in the square where he had the Palladium buried; and that he then selected a kind of statue of Apollo and had it placed atop the column. Well, it was indeed very difficult to transport the column to Constantinople and to the very spot where it was placed, for an iron rail track had to be built for that purpose. The column, which had once been brought from Egypt to Rome, was so heavy that every road along which it was transported sank, making the journey dangerous. Then the column was erected, with the Palladium safely stored in its base. Above it, at the top of the column, he had the statue of Apollo erected, but spread the word that the statue represented him, Emperor Constantine. He then had wood brought from the Cross of Christ in the East, which he concealed within the bronze statue, along with nails from the Cross of Christ, which he had fashioned into rays; with these, he had the head of Apollo encircled. Thus, in his view, Constantine stood up there, shining in rays taken from the very nails of the Cross of Christ. But a legend attached itself to this Palladium in later times, and this very legend even found its way into the will of Peter the Great: that this Palladium would be taken by people from the East to the capital of the East, and that one day the Slavic power of the East would likewise be founded upon the magical power of this Palladium, should it be buried further east or north of Constantinople, and that through this, power would pass to the Slavs, just as the power of Troy, the power of Rome, and the power of Constantinople were once bound up with this Palladium. Deep truths are indeed hidden in such matters, even if they appear in the form of legends.

[ 16 ] But after all, anyone who can make sense of the history of the Palladium can understand quite a lot about the course of European history. And these two men I have spoken of—Byron and his companion from the early Middle Ages—heard of this legend, and they once set out to retrieve the Palladium and bring it north, to Russia. They did not succeed; they failed, as was, of course, inevitable. But something of it remained with them. In karmic contexts, something remains with people in the most remarkable ways. Byron later sought the Palladium in a different way; he joined the Greek freedom movement, seeking to bring back a spiritual Palladium. And that was the impulse that remained with him from the time I described. And my teacher showed, to anyone who could observe him closely, that wherever he stood—even if he was a relatively insignificant person—he possessed an irrepressible sense of freedom that was deeply connected, within him, to his physical defect, just as it was with his comrade.

[ 17 ] Well, what actually happened there? You see, these two people had drifted apart; they never found their way back to each other: one was the famous poet Byron, the other the unremarkable geometry teacher who lived a little later. That was a breach of the rule I had been talking about. But life confirmed this breach to me in a strange way. You see, that geometry teacher whom I loved so dearly, whom I waited for every time he came into the classroom for class—that geometry teacher never, while he was my teacher, gave me the opportunity to exchange even a single private word with him. He carried himself as if he were a historical figure I’d only ever read about. He didn’t fit into his time; he seemed out of place in it. And it went on like this: When I later went to an anthroposophical lecture in the city where he was living in retirement, I looked up his name in the address book. I had a hunch that he must be there, and I simply wanted, so to speak, to speak privately with the old teacher—because I loved him—at least once after so many years—thirty years had now passed. He had grown old in the meantime and was living in Graz, Austria’s main university town. I went to Graz for the anthroposophical lecture, took the address book with me, and firmly resolved to visit him; but it didn’t happen—visitors kept coming, I was held up, and I couldn’t speak with him privately there either. He remained for me a figure who loomed like a shadow in my life, even though I loved him so immensely. When I returned to Graz, I wanted to visit him again: but he had already passed away. So it remained the case that I was faced here with a figure who, even though he was so close to me, seemed to me as if I were reading about him somewhere—as if he belonged to an entirely different era. That was the situation: I was his contemporary, but by no means karmically connected to him. He had not been my contemporary in any of his previous incarnations. In his last life, therefore, he was quite clearly outside the continuous karmic groups in which he was actually supposed to be. But the other man also showed me that he was no different in relation to these groups, for he had strayed from the sequence of incarnations in which he had been embedded, since he was not connected in this earthly life to the very individuality to which he had first been bound—so that they did not meet, Byron and he. I am telling you these things so that you may see how karma actually works, and how, when one delves more deeply into life—especially through experiences that must first become a mystery (and life becomes a mystery everywhere)—one can truly glimpse the mysterious, wondrous weaving of karma. But just as one can have contemporaries who seem like figures from a painting because they are set apart from their karmic sequence, so too does one become fully aware, on the other hand, of how the vast majority of people are placed within their time with a certain strong inner necessity. This is precisely what often becomes apparent in the case of historical figures.

[ 18 ] I’d also like to point out an example here. The Italian freedom fighter Garibaldi has, of course, become quite well known: a remarkable life. As a person, Garibaldi was just as unsympathetic to me as the one I mentioned yesterday and whose karma I investigated. In fact, he only became more sympathetic to me in the course of my karmic research on him, because before I explored the karmic connections surrounding him, certain aspects of him seemed unnatural and clichéd to me—which he was not at all. But in any case, this figure appears to be one who, despite having influenced life in such a practical, such a radically political-practical way, nevertheless—when one looks at him—stands out so strangely from life—as if living in a purely imagined world, as if hovering a little above the ground. As practical as Garibaldi was, he was just as idealistic. His outward life alone demonstrates this. One need only look at a few characteristic features of Garibaldi’s life for this to become immediately apparent. Since time is already pressing, I will mention just a few. It is unusual for a person to have, in such a courageous and daring manner during that time—the first half of the nineteenth century, when the Adriatic was so unsafe (Garibaldi was born in 1807)—repeatedly sailed across the Adriatic as a young man, repeatedly fallen into the hands of pirates, endured the greatest adventures, and freed himself again; but that might still be acceptable—it happens to others as well. Yet this certainly doesn’t happen to everyone: that he found himself in circumstances where he was cut off from the world, didn’t read newspapers, and when he finally got around to, so to speak, reading a newspaper properly for the first time, he read his own death sentence in the paper! This is how it came about: He had returned from some adventure at sea, and without knowing it, he had been accused of participating in certain political conspiracies. He had been sentenced to death in absentia and read about it in the newspaper. He seemed, as if by fate, to stand above life itself.

[ 19 ] But other aspects of his life are even more remarkable. For example, it happened that, as he was approaching the coast by sea to take part in the struggles of liberal movements in a foreign land, he looked toward the coast through his telescope. What he saw was a very lovely young lady, and lo and behold, Garibaldi fell in love with this lady through his telescope! That’s certainly not the usual way to fall in love! People who are fully engaged in life don’t fall in love through a telescope. But anyway, he really did fall head over heels in love, and he immediately set sail with all his might in the direction of the woman he had fallen for. When he arrived, however, his beloved was gone, but a man was standing there; the man took such a liking to him that he invited him to lunch, and lo and behold, it was the father of the lady with whom he had fallen in love through the telescope! And so he was able to join them for dinner right away, at which the lady was also present. He spoke only Italian, she only Portuguese, but through the language of the heart they understood one another: they became engaged. It was a life together that demanded heroism from the woman. She accompanied him on his military campaigns with true heroism. Nor does it happen very often that, in the husband’s absence—many miles away—their first child is born; that the wife must first search for her husband on the battlefield through terrible adventures; and that she ties the child to her neck with a rope so that it might be warmed against her own breast. And so she now rushes through all manner of trials to find the man she had heard had been killed; but she found him still alive. — It was, nonetheless, a magnificent marriage. She died, as those familiar with Garibaldi’s biography will know, before he did. And lo and behold, ten years later—as life would have it—he became engaged and married another woman in a completely ordinary, bourgeois manner, as is usually done among philistines. This marriage, which was now properly solemnized, lasted only one day; then they separated. You see, he was connected to earthly life in a different way than other people. I was interested in pursuing such a life.

[ 20 ] Once again, as I explored this life, I was led into the realm of the Irish mysteries. This Garibaldi, too, is a soul possessing an individuality that had passed through the mysteries of Hibernia and which, while to a certain extent a kind of Irish initiate, moved eastward and even worked together with others in the region of the Rhine. But what interested me most about Garibaldi’s life was the karmic aspect—that there is a personality within him whose life is difficult to explain. For Garibaldi is, in a certain sense, truth itself. Now, in his very deepest being, in his spiritual disposition, he was a Republican. And yet it was he who, despite his Republican convictions, elevated Victor Emmanuel to the throne of Italy. He promoted the monarchy in the person of Victor Emmanuel. At first glance, this seems unbelievable. How could this Republican have made Victor Emmanuel King of Italy? And look it up in history. Without Garibaldi, the Kingdom of Italy would never have existed. One can go further and discover that Garibaldi was connected to other figures who were actually far removed from him in terms of his inner disposition: Cavour, Mazzini. They were of entirely different natures: Mazzini, the idealist who did not concern himself with practical matters; Garibaldi, the practical military statesman everywhere, and yet also seeming to hover above the earthly realm; Cavour, the shrewd, clever politician. How did these people fit together? That became the question. It was precisely there that something became apparent which I would like to highlight to you as characteristic of karma. It became apparent that these three other individuals had followed Garibaldi’s individuality as disciples while he was an Irish initiate; they were his disciples. Now, it is precisely a distinctive feature of the Irish Mysteries that a vital bond is formed between the disciple and the teacher. They cannot be separated again, at least not over the course of certain incarnations. A karmic bond is formed; they cannot be separated again. Now the peculiar aspect comes into play: Around the year 1807, these four are reborn—one in Genoa, two in Turin, and the third in Nice—that is, in the very same part of the world and also at roughly the same time. They are born together at the same time, in the same region of Italy. And this shows that those who belong together are indeed brought together again, coming together even against their own inclinations. Thus, a staunch republican like Garibaldi found himself bound to the very different Victor Emmanuel, and human kinship proved to mean more than so-called conviction. I cite this example so that you may see what human bonds, which are karmically grounded, mean. One person may hold this to be true, another that: the karmic bond is more binding. It is human bonds that are at work in life, not so much the abstract concepts we hold in our minds. But how people are connected in life—and how they can pass through life like shadows when they are cut off from their karma—becomes apparent only when we trace karma in characteristic cases.

[ 21 ] I wanted to tell you that today. We'll continue this discussion tomorrow.