Lectures to Priests: The Apocalypse
GA 346
Dornach, 15 September 1924
Lecture XI
Let's imagine that we are in the world into which the Apocalypticer wants to translate men during the next earthly period. He describes his visions of the breaking in of spiritual worlds and of how they will take possession of earthly human beings. He precedes this by three stages which we must become familiar with; three stages,—in a certain sense each of these represents something which must fall before mankind will become worthy and capable of obtaining the spiritual world in a pure form for their working, thinking and feeling.
The first stage is the fall of Babylon; we will call it this to begin with. The second stage is the fall of the beast and his companion the false prophet who spreads the teaching of the beast. The third stage is the fall of the divine counter powers which are usually called Satan. These three stages become quite objective and real in connection with the spiritual perception of future human evolution.
A great deal concerning human evolution will be decided in our century, and one has good reason to direct the eye of one's soul upon these three falls'. For they will break in upon us in a certain form; they will occur after the first appearance of Christ on earth in his etheric body, which is really his second appearance upon earth. And mankind will have to prepare itself and make itself strong enough in order to go through this threefold fall of the adversaries of the Christ impulse without endangering their soul development. We shouldn't forget how precise the Apocalypticer really is, for each time such a fall occurs he lets an angel come down from the spiritual worlds, and we notice something which can give someone who hasn't acquired a spiritual conception of the world a rather strange feeling. He lets the angel who comes down rejoice about the great suffering and terrible things which accompany this terrible fall, and it will be necessary for us to understand this rejoicing. But before we do that let's take a look at the three stages of the fall of the powers who oppose the Christ.
First comes what is called the fall of Babylon. Here we can place the sum of all the errors which men and mankind can fall into through their human nature before our souls. Everything which tends to drag human beings down below the spiritual level at which they really belong is included in what the Apocalypticer calls the Babylonian temptation.
Man is really only a human being—although of course he has to acquire this humanness first, and he can't just have it at every moment in his evolution—man is only truly human if there is a complete harmony between the material and spiritual principles in him, that is, if the material doesn't play up into emotions which are not controlled by the spiritual. This is the important thing and we must understand it quite well, for even the Apocalypticer could not speak the way he does if he assumed that passions, desires and everything which comes from the will sphere was quite unjustified right from the beginning. To say that this is unjustified—this ascetic striving in a false sense—also arises from the sphere of passions and desires, for someone who doesn't feel strong enough to permeate his passions from the spiritual side in such a way, that he places them in the service of good world evolution is indulgencing his weak emotions. He wants the good evolution, but he wants to impoverish it in this way and he wants to indulge his weakness. For the Apocalypticer it's not a question of tearing out emotions or of tearing out passions and desires, it's a question of their not remaining uncontrolled by the spiritual world.
Babylon is the city in which a falling away from spirituality through passions held sway in an almost stereotyped way at a certain period in its mystery development, and everything which represents emotions in human life, which remain out of control on a smaller or larger scale is summarized by this city. Here we should translate the strong, coarse expressions which were used at that time (they weren't coarse then) into our language. The people in ancient times didn't form abstract concepts, they always referred to concrete things, always pointed to something characteristic and looked at concrete things. And so the Apocalypticer speaks of Babylon. Why of Babylon?
Really deep mysteries existed in Babylon or in the mystery centers of Babylon in which one could be initiated into the secrets of the super-earthly cosmos, far out into star worlds, and in which one could learn about starry secrets concerning the star worlds and their spiritual content. The earliest priests in ancient Babylon used human powers of clairvoyance and dreams in a way which we would call mediumistic today; this was the case in ancient Babylon. A wonderful, ancient Babylonian teaching developed in this somewhat mediumistic way. However, as one can also see today, mediums—even though they are suited for spiritual mediations, and they are often used in this way, although the process must be controlled by discerning initiates—have very questionable moral characteristics. Mediums become morally degenerate, and because there is a certain discrepancy between what they reveal and what they are, they can eventually no longer distinguish between truth and lies. Here one gets into a region where morality and immorality are no longer distinct.
You must understand how mediums get into this condition. Someone is a medium if his ego and astral body are pulled out of his physical and etheric bodies by an external force, and this was also what happened at the time of the Babylonian priests. However, another power sits in this ego and astral body as soon as they have been pulled out of the medium's physical and etheric body. Depending on whether the initiate who brings this about has good or bad intentions and belongs to the left or the right, this can be a good power or an evil one. Excellent things came to light in this way in ancient Babylonian times, but the problem was with what occurred when the medium returned to his physical body. You see, one cannot get by in the spiritual world with the logic and discrimination between lies and truth which one has in the physical world. It is a complete error to think that one can use the concepts of lies and truth which one rightly uses in the physical world, in the spiritual world. There is nothing there which one could distinguish in such a way. Some of the beings there are good and others are evil. One has to know them through themselves, and in fact, they tell one the kind of being they are. Even the evil ones are truthful in their own way. Of course this is difficult to understand, just as it is difficult to understand what happens in the spiritual world as soon as one enters it. For instance, here in the physical world we say that a straight line is the shortest path between two points. However, in the spiritual world it is the longest distance between two points and every other one is shorter. So that we cannot apply anything which we have to use in the physical world to the spiritual world.
Hence a true initiate must have the right attitude of soul for the spiritual world, but he must also feel fully responsible for the fact that the moment he returns to the physical world he has to work with physical concepts. A medium cannot do this because he doesn't leave his body consciously. When he comes back again his ego and astral body fill the physical and etheric bodies with a line of thought which is no doubt appropriate for the spiritual world, but it corrupts all moral feelings in the physical world. Hence mediums become corrupted, and the corruption with respect to truth and lies then' extends to other forms of corruption. Hence the fact is that Babylon went through this development from the greatest revelations of spiritual worlds to a terrible corruption; first with respect to the principle of spiritual revelation, and then also with respect to human life in general, so that the previous corruption in the spiritual sphere extended to the latter. This spiritual corruption is very powerful; so that someone becomes more immoral if he becomes corrupt after he has gone into spiritual realms than he did before with his ordinary human tendencies. This is why Babylon was considered to be a representative of moral corruption.
The expressions for corruption which we find here are ones which were in common use. The whole of humanity over the entire earth imitated the Babylonians and thereby became a kind of city of Babylon. And this is what the Apocalypticer means. The city of Babylon is to be found among mankind on earth; it exists wherever human beings have succumbed to the Babylonian temptation. It is this human attitude which must fall before that fin—al condition of which the Apocalypticer speaks can come. And if we investigate what is active in the Babylonian corruption, we find that the Ahrimanic principle is active in it everywhere. Ahriman is sitting in men, and he is a power who stands close to them in the whole world, as it were. He is in our emotions, which thereby degenerate. The Ahrimanic and Luciferic principles are opposite poles. The Ahrimanic element is present in what falls here, as for instance when Babylon falls, and it is opposed to the Luciferic element. What kind of an image must the Apocalypticer use when he sees this? The image of jubilating Luciferic, angelic sentiments. We must be aware of this.
It's a big mistake to look upon the worst world conceptions as the best ones, as for instance the idea about the evil principle being down below and the good principle being in everything which comes to meet it from above. This is not the actual state of affairs. The Ahrimanic principle is down below and one has the Luciferic principle above where the angels are rejoicing about the falls. The rejoicing one hears is the voice of Lucifer which accompanies the diving angels, for the actual Christ principle is the balance between the two.
One can only understand something like what the Apocalypticer is presenting if one understands this threefoldedness in the world's makeup in the right way. For anyone with ordinary human feelings it is completely incomprehensible why pure and good spirits would begin to scream for joy when the misery which is described here befalls other beings. This is of course immediately comprehensible if one sees it as the jubilant cries of those who were basically opposed to the creation of the world in which man experiences his spiritual development. They want to keep his whole evolution on a very different spiritual level. They didn't want that connection or marriage of the spirit with matter which took place in earthly existence. So that when what is grasped by Ahriman is eliminated from earthly existence, what they're really feeling in their souls is: we now have the satisfaction that one part of earth-existence will no longer be continued; it is falling during earth evolution he world view which speaks out of the images which the Apocalypticer describes for each fall is wonderfully honest in this respect.
Now the first one, the fall of Babylon, is all the errors men can fall into when they are also influenced by the initiation principle, it is human perversions. When Babylon falls the remaining human aberrations will be eliminated from further world evolution, at a point in time which we will discuss later. To begin with we will place coming events before our soul in a qualitative way.
The second thing is where man is no longer just involved by himself. The beings who fall with Babylon are men; it is human aberration. However, in the case of the fall of the beast and the false prophet who supports the teaching of the beast, what falls is something spiritual and superhuman, and not something human.
Something which is outside of the human kingdom falls, namely, the beast who breaks in upon human communities, and the one who proclaims the teaching of this beast. Hence one is dealing with something which can take possession of' human beings where something superhuman is working directly in men with an evil impulse, and it's not a matter of a weak nature working, as in the case of a medium. We can add the following to make the Imagination even clearer. All those who will participate in the fall of Babylon will have become degenerate through the fact that they tried to do things which their organization couldn't stand; their organization became weak with respect to these things, and therefore they became corrupt. In the fall of Babylon man's organization acts out of weakness. In the fall of the beast and the false prophet it's not as if a medium became corrupt because he got weak, but it's as if the spirit which overpowers the ego and astral body of the medium during hypnosis would then go into his physical and etheric body and make use of the physical body in order to wreak havoc on earth through the human being.
This is exactly the idea which we encounter here in the Apocalypticer. He wants to say that a time will come when we will see human beings walking around on earth who couldn't stand what really, lay in the Christian annunciation who took the Christ into their souls, but who didn't get to the level of the Christ with their etheric and physical bodies, and therefore became corrupt and devoted to other spirits; but they didn't devote themselves to them with full consciousness, so that they became corrupt. These are the first ones, who are included in the fall of Babylon.
The other ones walk around like men, but their fate is that their human ego is not in them, so that one can no longer speak of them as human beings, for they are possessed by the beast and the false prophet. This will come after the fall of Babylon. There will be people walking around on earth who will be demons, for Ahrimanic powers will act in them directly.
Many of the preliminary conditions for all of these things already exist today; one could say that all of this is already present in a germinal form. After all we already have the terrible case where Ahriman appeared amongst us as an author, perhaps not through a human being entirely, but at least through the temporary weakness of a human being. Nietzsche was a wonderful and brilliant writer, but the Nietzsche individuality was not in him when he wrote the AntiChrist and Ecce Homo. I know this individuality in Nietzsche, and I even described it in my autobiography; but Ahriman becomes a direct author here, and Ahriman is a much more brilliant writer than Nietzsche.
Ahrimanic powers will intervene more and more and Ahrimanic spirits will also use human bodies for other things. A time will come when Christians will have to ask themselves seriously when they meet this or that human being: Is that really a human being or is it a very loose mantle for Ahrimanic spirits? In the future one will have to make this distinction in addition to the other ones one has to make today. This will be the second fall, and the beast and his herald will take possession of human bodies. Thereby these demons will have fallen. So first we have the fall of corrupt human beings and then the fall of certain corrupt spirits, who are close to men. These spirits take a tumble in the second fall.
Then we have the third fall, which is the fall of Satan in the Apocalypse. Here we have a very high being who does a different kind of work than the one which can be done on earth. The beast and the false prophet are powers who lead mankind astray; they want to steer men in the wrong direction in a moral and intellectual respect. However, the power which is meant in the fall of Satan wants something quite different. It wants to throw the whole earth off its course, and not just mankind. Seen from a human, earthly standpoint, this power is a terrible adversary of the Godhead.
One can only ask the following in a hypothetical way, and one can't look at it from the viewpoint of human or earthly evolution, if one doesn't want to commit an intellectual or spiritual sin. If one looks at it from other viewpoints, how does this satanic power in the universe compare with other spirits?
Now Michael has a different standpoint than human beings do, and it's no wonder that his opinion about Satan is quite different from that of men. Human beings tend to be rather abstract, and they think that Satan is an evil power. But he is also a great power from the viewpoints which are important for the earth, a great power that has gone astray. And archangel Michael does not have the rank of Satan, who is at the level of a principality or an archai; Michael is only an archangel. Satan is a very terrifying power from Michael's standpoint and not a despicable one, because he thinks that this power who belongs to the Archai is higher than he is. Except that Michael holds views which are in line with earth evolution.
With respect to everything which is connected with the orbits of the planets, Michael decided a long time ago to travel in the orbits which are prescribed by the sun's existence. Satan is a power who is continually lurking around in our cosmos. There is something sinister about this lurking of Satan. One can perceive this at the moments when one sees a comet shooting through our cosmos, with its different orbit (drawing).
If one draws it according to Copernicus which is not quite correct, although it doesn't make much difference here one has sun, Mercury, Venus, earth, Mars; those are the inner planets: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune—one can see that such comets have very irregular orbits with respect to these regular orbits. The view that these comets describe long ellipses is nonsense, but we don't have to go into that now. But in any case, the segments of the cometary orbits which lie within our planetary system do not agree with the planetary orbits at all.
And so this Satan lies in wait in order to catch every comet that comes along, and to use its momental inertia so that—when he has collected enough comets—he can throw the planets out of their orbits, and the earth with them. This situation exists in the universe; Satanic powers are continually lying in wait so that they can transform the entire planetary system. Thereby this planetary system would be taken away from the divine, spiritual powers in whose footsteps men should be walking, and it would be taken into quite different directions of world evolution. This intention is a terrible mistake from Michael's point of view, but an intention about which Michael would have to say: I couldn't even do it, for it would be impossible for a being who is in the archangel class to do something like that. Only beings who are in the archai class might have enough forces to carry out something along these lines. Michael—who decided to move in the sun's orbit a long time ago, and who therefore (in the sense of the Ptolemaic system) has become what is known in occultism as an archangel of the rotation of time for the planets and has decided to remain entirely within the orbital periods.
The angels had to decide to remain in these scheduled orbits at some point. In a certain epoch of Atlantean evolution the gods descended into the mystery centers, and one could really perceive that the hosts of archangels which include Oriphiel, Anael, Zachariel and so on, resolved to move within the prescribed planetary orbits. So this came about at a certain time.
However, the mighty hosts which are led by Satan have not made this decision up to the present time and they're still trying to use every cometary orbit in order to give a different configuration to the entire planetary system. Here one is dealing with an adversary of Christ who not only wants to corrupt individual human beings, and who doesn't just want to corrupt groups of human beings like the beast and the false prophet, but we have to do with Satan and his hosts and with direct attacks upon the earth's connection with the planetary system, as it were. This will have to be the third fall. In both of these last two falls we again have the rejoicing of the Luciferic kind of spiritual beings.
One must foresee these things. For the first stage, the Babylonian stage, will have straying human beings who have drawn an aberration into themselves through their physical constitution, so that there is no hope that anything particularly good will become of these walking human bodies over which the ego and astral body have entirely lost control. These bodies must be given up for lost although perhaps not the ego and astral body which belong to them. The former will then go on as such along the karmic paths of humanity. At a particular point in time we see certain men walking around in their bodies, who are men who have succumbed to the Babylonian temptation and whose bodies and what is in them fall out of evolution: the fall of Babylon.
The second thing is that human beings will walk around—one will be able to see this—of whom one will have to say that Ahrimanic power's, are living in them. Here Ahriman is acting directly; this is the beast; the fall of the beast and of the false prophet of the beast, who is a superhuman being and not a man.
The third thing is that one will notice that something about the laws of nature is becoming unexplainable. This will be the greatest and most important experience that people will be able to have, when they notice that something is becoming unexplainable about natural laws and that phenomena are not taking place in accordance with the laws of nature. It will often happen that one will have something which is not merely an erroneous calculation, but is calculated correctly, let's say that a planet should be in a certain place, but it doesn't get there.
Satan will make some first successful attempts to bring disorder into the planetary system. Mankind will have to develop a very strong spirituality in order to counteract this. For the disorder that can be brought about in this way will and can only be harmonized through the strong spirituality of human beings. These are the things which we can foresee today if we place future stages of human and earth evolution before our soul. This is what we see again when the Apocalypticer speaks to us. You should try to feel your way into this coincidence with what can really be gained from Anthroposophy or can gradually be disclosed through Anthroposophy.
For one will be able to speak of comets and one can already speak about them today to the effect that Satan is lying in wait for them in the cosmos, and that he wants to use their orbits to replace cosmos with chaos. For if you take what can be gained through Anthroposophic understanding into yourself and you can discover it again in the Apocalypse, there is something important about this rediscovery. A kind of soul encounter with the Apocalypse and therewith the Apocalypticer himself is present in this; that is important,—thereby with the Apocalypticer himself. For this will be very important, that the priest who is living into the future should increasingly get the longing to meet the Apocalypticer who looked into the future in this way after the Mystery of Golgotha,—the Apocalypticer at any time, regardless of whether he is living on earth or not.
For priests must get the feeling that the help that can come from John, the creator of the Apocalypse, to the one who wants to work in a Christian way that this help is an extremely important one, and one that one needs. However, we will only really be able to accompany John the Apocalypticer if we approach the Apocalypse with the attitude of soul that I described. Then John becomes our ally, and after all he is closely connected with Christ Jesus, he was initiated by Christ Jesus himself, he is an initiate of Christ Jesus. Therefore, he is an important ally. It is tremendously important to come to the Christ through him.
It is really true that a real understanding of the Apocalypse leads deep down into the region where one has the greatest imaginable prospects of meeting John and then the Christ himself. There is a deep truth connected with this and a truth which one can hope will have a very deep aftereffect upon your thinking and feeling, for it is a real priests' truth, that is, a truth which draws a priest into the spiritual realm in a legitimate way. We will continue with this tomorrow.
Elfter Vortrag
[ 1 ] Meine lieben Freunde! Versetzen wir uns einmal in die Welt, in die der Apokalyptiker die Menschen durch die Schilderung der nächsten Erdenzeit versetzen will. Er schildert ja seine Visionen vom Hereinbrechen geistiger Welten und dem Ergreifen des irdischen Menschenwesens durch diese geistigen Welten. Nun läßt er diesem Ereignis vorangehen drei Etappen, die wir kennenlernen müssen. Mit jeder dieser drei Etappen wird etwas dargestellt, was in gewissem Sinne zuerst fallen muß, bevor die Menschheit würdig und fähig sein wird, in aller Reinheit die geistige Welt in ihr Arbeiten, Denken und Empfinden aufzunehmen.
[ 2 ] Die erste Etappe ist die des Falles Babylons - wir wollen sie zunächst mit diesen Worten des Apokalyptikers benennen. Die zweite Etappe ist der Sturz des Tieres und des ihm beigesellten, ja eben die Lehre des Tieres verbreitenden falschen Propheten. Die dritte Etappe ist der Sturz der göttlichen Gegenmächte, wie sie gewöhnlich genannt werden: des Satans. Diese drei Etappen, sie werden im Hinblick auf die Menschheitszukunft, im Hinblick auf eine zukünftige spirituelle Anschauung der Menschheitsevolution, wahrhaft recht gegenständlich, recht real. Und man hat wohl Grund, gerade innerhalb unseres Jahrhunderts, in unserer Zeit, in der sich viel für die Menschheitsevolution entscheiden wird, auf diese drei Stürze das seelische Augenmerk zu richten. Denn sie werden in einer gewissen Gestalt ja hereinbrechen, hereinbrechen nach der Zeit der ersten Erscheinung des Christus auf Erden im Ätherleibe, also eigentlich nach der zweiten Erscheinung des Christus auf Erden. Die Menschheit hat sich darauf vorzubereiten, wie sie sich einmal stark wird erweisen müssen, um diesen dreifachen Sturz der Widersacherschaft des Christus-Impulses ungefährdet für die Entwickelung der Seele durchmachen zu können.
[ 3 ] Wir dürfen nicht vergessen, wie genau der Apokalyptiker ist. Er läßt jedesmal, wenn ein solcher Sturz geschieht, einen Engel aus den geistigen Welten herunterfahren, und wir merken - es ist das eigentlich etwas, was einen Menschen, wenn er nicht tiefer eindringt in eine geistige Auffassung der Welt, zunächst merkwürdig berühren kann -, wir merken, er läßt den herunterfahrenden Engel frohlocken über die großen Qualen, über die furchtbaren Dinge, die dann geschehen bei diesem Sturz; und es ist nötig für uns, dieses Frohlocken zu begreifen.
[ 4 ] Aber sehen wir uns zuerst die drei Etappen des Sturzes der Widersachermächte Christi an, zunächst dasjenige, was der Fall Babylons genannt wird. Wir können uns vor die Seele stellen die Summe aller Verirrungen, in die die Menschen verfallen können durch die eigentliche menschliche Natur. Alles, was geeignet ist, den Menschen unter das ihm eigene spirituelle Niveau zu bringen, ist miteingeschlossen in dasjenige, was der Apokalyptiker eben die babylonische Versuchung nennt.
[ 5 ] Der Mensch ist nur dann wahrhaft Mensch — obwohl er diese Menschlichkeit natürlich nicht in jedem Moment seiner Evolution haben kann, sondern sich erst erringen muß -, der Mensch ist nur dann wahrhaft Mensch, wenn in ihm eine völlige Harmonie zwischen dem Prinzip des Materiellen und des Spirituellen vorhanden ist, das heißt, wenn das Materielle nicht heraufspielt in vom Spirituellen unbeherrschte Emotionen. Das ist es gerade, um was es sich handelt und das müssen wir nur ja recht gut verstehen. Denn auch der Apokalyptiker könnte nicht so reden wie er redet, wenn er voraussetzen würde, daß Affekte, Leidenschaften und alles, was aus der Willenssphäre und der Gemütssphäre kommt, von vornherein ganz unberechtigt wäre. Gerade die Affekte und Leidenschaften für unberechtigt zu erklären, gerade dieses asketische Streben im falschen Sinne, das entspringt auch wiederum dem Emotionellen, dem Leidenschaftlichen. Denn derjenige, der sich nicht stark genug fühlt, seine Leidenschaften von Spirituellem so zu durchdringen, daß er sie in den Dienst der guten Weltevolution stellt, der huldigt eben seiner Emotion der Schwäche. Auch wenn er die gute Evolution will - wenn er in seiner Gemütssphäre verarmt, wird er seiner Schwäche huldigen.
[ 6 ] Also nicht um das Ausreißen der Emotionen, nicht um das Ausreißen der Affekte und Leidenschaften handelt es sich bei dem Apokalyptiker, sondern darum, daß die Emotionen nicht unbeherrscht bleiben durch das Spirituelle. Und alles dasjenige, was im Menschenleben die Emotionen darstellt, seien es große oder kleine, die unbeherrscht bleiben vom Spirituellen, alles das ist in der Apokalypse zusammengefaßt in dem Namen jener Stadt Babylon, in welcher geherrscht hat — ich möchte es stereotyp ausdrücken - der Abfall von der Spiritualität durch die Leidenschaften. Wir müssen dabei nur die damaligen starken, derben Ausdrücke — für die damalige Zeit waren sie nicht derb - in unsere Sprache übersetzen. Es ist ja die alte Vorstellungsart durchaus so, daß man sich nicht abstrakte Begriffe bildet, sondern daß man immer auf das Konkrete hinweist, auf etwas, was charakteristisch ist. So spricht auch der Apokalyptiker von Babylon. Warum gerade von Babylon?
[ 7 ] In Babylon, oder vielmehr an der Stätte von Babylon, waren in alter Zeit wirklich hohe Mysterien, in denen man eingeweiht werden konnte in die Geheimnisse des überirdischen Kosmos, in denen man Geheimnisse über die Sternenwelten und ihren geistigen Inhalt erfahren konnte. Gerade in Babylon war es so, daß die ältesten babylonischen Priester die menschlichen TraumHellseherkräfte in einer Weise benutzten, die wir heute als mediales Hellsehen bezeichnen würden. Und auf einem solchen, in gewissem Sinne medialen Wege gestaltete sich heraus die wunderbare alte babylonische Lehre. Wir können ja heute sehen, daß Medien, auch wenn sie zunächst geeignet erscheinen, Geistiges zu vermitteln — es geschieht das ja vielfach, nur müßte es kontrolliert werden von einsichtigen Initiaten —, Einflüssen ausgesetzt sind, die moralisch stark bedenklich sind. Medien können, weil in ihnen stattfindet ein bestimmtes Mißverhältnis zwischen dem, was sie offenbaren und dem, was sie sind, zuletzt oft nicht mehr Wahrheit von Lüge unterscheiden; und das kann sich ausdehnen bis zu einem Gebiet, wo Moral von Unmoral nicht mehr getrennt wird.
[ 8 ] Sie müssen nur einsehen, meine lieben Freunde, wie das beim Medium zustandekommt. Nicht wahr, ein Mensch wird dadurch zum Medium - und das war auch so bei den babylonischen Priestern —, daß durch äußere Gewalt herausgezogen werden Ich und astralischer Leib aus dem physischen und dem Ätherleib. Aber in dem Augenblick, wo Ich und Astralleib beim Medium aus dem physischen und ätherischen Leib herausgezogen sind, sitzt auch schon eine andere Macht in diesem Ich und Astralleibe drinnen. Je nachdem, ob der Initiator, der so etwas bewirkt, gute oder böse Absichten hat, ob er der linken oder der rechten Richtung angehört, kann das eine gute oder eine böse Macht sein. In der alten babylonischen Zeit kamen auf einem solchen Wege ganz ausgezeichnete Erkenntnisse und Offenbarungen zutage. Aber in späterer Zeit und heute zeigt sich der Nachteil: Wenn das Medium wieder zurückkommt in den physischen Leib, was tritt dann ein? Sehen Sie, mit der Logik, die man in der physischen Welt hat, um in der physischen Welt zwischen Lüge und Wahrheit zu unterscheiden, kommt man in der geistigen Welt nicht zurecht. Es ist ein völliger Irrtum, zu glauben, daß man die Begriffe von Lüge und Wahrheit, wie man sie in der physischen Welt mit Recht braucht, auch in der geistigen Welt anwenden kann. In der geistigen Welt ist nichts da, was man so unterscheiden sollte. Dort sind Wesenheiten da, die gut sind und solche, die böse sind. Man muß sie aus sich heraus erkennen, denn sie sagen einem nicht, welcher Art sie sind. Aber auch die bösen sind in ihrer Art wahr. Natürlich ist das schwer zu begreifen, wie überhaupt alles das schwer zu begreifen ist, was uns beim Betreten der geistigen Welt entgegentritt. Hier in der physischen Welt sagen wir zum Beispiel: Es ist die Gerade der kürzeste Weg zwischen zwei Punkten. In der geistigen Welt kann das der längste Weg sein und jeder andere ist kürzer. Und so ist tatsächlich nichts von der Logik, die wir hier in der physischen Welt notwendig brauchen, in der geistigen Welt anwendbar.
[ 9 ] Daher muß der wahre Initiat eine bestimmte Seelenverfassung für das Schauen in der geistigen Welt haben. Er muß sich voll verantworlich dafür fühlen, daß er in dem Augenblick, wo er wieder in die physische Welt zurückkehrt, mit physischen Begriffen zu arbeiten hat. Das kann das Medium nicht, weil es nicht mit Bewußtsein in die geistige Welt hinübergeht. Wenn es wieder zurückkommt, füllen Ich und Astralleib den physischen und ätherischen Leib aus mit einer Denkrichtung, die wohl richtig ist für die geistige Welt, die aber alles in der physischen Welt geltende moralische Fühlen und Empfinden korrumpiert. Daher wird das Medium korrumpiert gegenüber Wahrheit und Lüge, und das wirkt dann in alles andere hinein. Man kann in der Tat sagen, daß Babylon diese Entwickelung durchgemacht hat von der höchsten, bedeutsamsten Offenbarung der geistigen Welten bis zu einer furchtbaren Korruption. Was sich zunächst auf das Prinzip geistiger Offenbarung bezieht, auch in bezug auf das allgemeine Menschenleben, in das es sich hineinerstreckt, das kann zu einer starken Korruption führen, so daß der Mensch, nachdem er in Spirituelles hineingekommen ist, unsittlicher wird, als er vorher war mit seiner gewöhnlichen Menschlichkeit. Daher wurde Babylon eben als der Repräsentant für moralische Korruption genommen. Und die Ausdrücke, die in der Apokalypse vorkommen, bedeuten nichts anderes als diese, die eben damals für Korruption gang und gäbe waren.
[ 10 ] Aber seit damals ist die ganze Menschheit, die dasjenige fortgeführt hat, was in dem Babylonischen gelebt hat, über die ganze Welt zu einer Stadt Babylon geworden. Das meint der Apokalyptiker. Unter der Erdenmenschheit ist heute die Stadt Babylon zu finden. Sie ist da, wo Menschen sind, die der babylonischen Versuchung zum Opfer gefallen sind. Und diese Haltung der Menschen ist das, was fallen muß, bevor jener Endzustand kommen kann, von dem der Apokalyptiker spricht. Wenn wir untersuchen, was da tätig ist in der «babylonischen Korruption», so finden wir, daß überall in dieser babylonischen Korruption tätig ist das ahrimanische Prinzip. Ahriman steckt in den Menschen, und er ist eine Macht, die zunächst dem Menschen nahesteht innerhalb des Weltganzen. Er steckt in den Emotionen, die in dieser Weise korrumpiert werden. Dem Ahrimanischen steht als sein entgegengesetzter Pol das Luziferische gegenüber. In dem, was da in Babylon fällt, lebt das Ahrimanische, und dem ist das Luziferische entgegengesetzt. Was für ein Bild muß sich dem Apokalyptiker darstellen, wenn er das anschaut? Das Bild der frohlockenden Gesinnung der luziferischen Engel. Das dürfen wir uns nicht verhüllen, meine lieben Freunde.
[ 11 ] Es war immer der große Irrtum mancher Weltanschauungen, daß das Schlechte gerade entgegengesetzt dem Besten zu finden sei, daß zum Beispiel dem bösen Prinzip unten immer von oben das gute entgegenkomme. So ist es aber nicht! Hier in diesem Kapitel der Apokalypse (Apk. 19) ist unten das Ahrimanische — Babylon -, und oben, wo die Engel frohlocken über den Sturz Babylons, ist das Luziferische. Das, was oben angestimmt wird als ein Frohlocken der Engel, das ist die Stimme Luzifers. Das Christus-Prinzip ist immer der Ausgleich zwischen diesen beiden.
[ 12 ] Erst wenn die Dreifaltigkeit der Weltkonstitution in der richtigen Weise verstanden wird, kann man auch das verstehen, was der Apokalyptiker hier sagt. Es ist dem gewöhnlichen menschlichen Empfinden schlechterdings unbegreiflich, zu denken, daß reine, gute Geister jenes Jubelgeschrei da oben anstimmen, wenn unten solche Qualen über die Menschen kommen, wie sie hier geschildert werden. Das wird natürlich sofort verständlich, wenn man dies als Jubelgeschrei derjenigen Wesen ansieht, welche im Grunde genommen, bevor die Welt entstand, in der der Mensch seine geistige Ausgestaltung erfährt, dagegen waren, daß die Welt in dieser Weise entsteht, Die luziferischen Wesenheiten wollen die ganze Evolution auf einem ganz anderen geistigen Niveau halten; sie wollen nicht jene Verbindung, jene Ehe des Geistes mit der Materie, die im Erdendasein Platz gegriffen hat, so daß sie in ihren Seelen eigentlich empfinden: Jetzt, wo vom Erdendasein das ausgeschieden wird, was von Ahriman erfaßt ist, jetzt haben wir die Befriedigung, daß wenigstens ein Teil des Erdendaseins nicht fortgeführt wird und stürzt aus der Erdenevolution. In dieser Beziehung spricht eine grandiose Ehrlichkeit der Weltauffassung aus diesem Bild, das der Apokalyptiker geschildert hat.
[ 13 ] Nun, der erste Sturz, der Fall Babylons, das ist dasjenige, was an Verirrung durch den Menschen selbst heraufgebracht wird. Auch wenn es influenziert ist vom Initiationsprinzip, es ist menschliche Verirrung. Indem Babylon fällt durch die menschliche Verirrung, wird ein Teil der Menschheit ausgeschieden von der weiteren Evolution der Welt zu einem Zeitpunkte, den wir in späteren Betrachtungen noch ausführen werden. Zunächst wollen wir nur qualitativ vor unsere Seele stellen, was eben kommen wird.
[ 14 ] Der zweite Sturz ist das, wo nicht mehr der Mensch allein beteiligt ist. Bei denjenigen, die mit Babylon fallen, sind die eigentlich Beteiligten die Menschen; es ist menschliche Verirrung. Bei dem Sturz des Tieres und des falschen Propheten, der die Lehre des Tieres vertritt, fällt nicht Menschliches, sondern Übermenschliches, es fällt Geistiges. Es fällt dasjenige, was nicht innerhalb des Menschenreiches ist: das Tier, das hereinbricht über die menschliche Gemeinschaft, und es fällt derjenige, der die Lehren des Tieres verkündet: der falsche Prophet. Man hat es also zu tun mit etwas, was die Menschen von sich besessen machen kann, wo aber nicht die Schwäche der menschlichen Natur wirkt wie beim Medium, sondern es bewirkt direkt Übermenschliches im Menschen den Impuls zum Bösen.
[ 15 ] Wollten wir das Bild noch deutlicher machen, so könnten wir etwa das folgende sagen: Alle diejenigen, die am Sturz Babylons beteiligt sein werden, sie werden korrumpiert sein dadurch, daß sie Dinge angestrebt haben, die ihre Organisation nicht aushielt, Dinge, denen gegenüber ihre Organisation schwach geworden ist, so daß sie eben korrumpiert wurde. Also die menschliche Organisation handelt aus Schwäche beim Sturz Babylons. Beim Sturz des Tieres und des falschen Propheten ist es nicht so, wie wenn etwa ein Medium korrumpiert würde, weil es schwach geworden ist, sondern es ist so, als ob der Geist, der Ich und Astralleib des Mediums in Anspruch genommen hat, nun, nachdem die Hypnose aufgehört hat, in den physischen und ätherischen Leib hineinfahren würde und sich nun des physischen Leibes dieses Menschen bedienen würde, um durch ihn Unheil auf Erden anzurichten.
[ 16 ] Das ist genau die Vorstellung, die uns hier beim Apokalyptiker begegnet. Es wird eine Zeit kommen - das will der Apokalyptiker sagen —, in der wir auf der Erde Menschen werden herumgehen sehen, die das nicht aushalten können, was in der christlichen Verkündigung liegt, die zwar den Christus in ihre Seelen aufnehmen, aber mit ihrem physischen und ätherischen Leibe nicht bis zur Höhe des Christus kommen können und deshalb anderen Geistern sich hingeben, dies aber nicht mit vollem Bewußtsein tun und deshalb der Korruption verfallen. Das sind die ersten, diejenigen, die in den Fall Babylons einbegriffen sind.
[ 17 ] Andere werden zwar als Menschen herumgehen, sie werden aber verfallen sein dem Lose, daß eigentlich ihr Menschen-Ich aus ihnen heraus ist, so daß man sie nicht mehr als Menschen ansprechen kann auf Erden, weil sie besessen sind von dem Tier und dem falschen Propheten. Das wird nach dem Sturz Babylons kommen. Nach dem Sturz Babylons werden Menschen auf Erden sein, die werden wie herumwandelnde Dämonen sein, in denen werden die ahrimanischen Mächte unmittelbar handeln.
[ 18 ] Für alle diese Dinge sind heute schon genügend Vorbedingungen da. Ich möchte sagen, keimhaft ist das alles schon vorhanden, Hat sich doch der furchtbare Fall ereignet, daß sich Ahriman durch einen Menschen — wenn auch nicht im ganzen Menschen, aber doch durch die temporäre Schwäche eines Menschen — bereits als Schriftsteller unter uns zeigen konnte. Nietzsche war ein glänzender, großartiger Schriftsteller, aber in den Zeiten, in denen er den «Antichrist» und «Ecce homo» geschrieben hat, war nicht die Nietzsche-Individualität in ihm. Ich kenne diese Nietzsche-Individualität, ich habe sie sogar beschrieben in meinem «Lebensgang»; aber da ist Ahriman direkt Schriftsteller geworden, und Ahriman ist ein viel glänzenderer Schriftsteller als die Menschen.
[ 19 ] Es wird mehr und mehr so werden, daß die ahrimanischen Mächte eingreifen, indem die ahrimanischen Geister sich zu mancherlei Verrichtungen der Menschenleiber bedienen werden. Und es wird eine Zeit kommen, in welcher ernsthaft die Christen werden die Frage stellen müssen, wenn sie dem oder jenem Menschen begegnen: Ist das eigentlich ein Mensch oder eine ganz lose Hülle für ahrimanische Geister? - Zu den Unterscheidungen, die man heute hat, wird man in Zukunft diese hinzunehmen müssen. Das wird der zweite Sturz sein: die Dämonie des Tieres und seines Verkünders; sie werden die Menschenleiber von sich besessen machen. Aber das Tier und sein Verkünder werden gestürzt werden. Wir haben also zuerst den Sturz der korrumpierten Menschen und dann den Sturz gewisser korrumpierter Geister, die dem Menschen nahestehen. Diese Geister selbst fallen beim zweiten Sturz.
[ 20 ] Dann haben wir in der Apokalypse als dritten Sturz den Sturz des Satans. In Satan haben wir ein ganz hohes Wesen, welches aber andere Wege geht als diejenigen, die auf Erden gegangen werden können. Bei dem Tier und dem falschen Propheten haben wir es mit Menschen-verführenden Mächten zu tun, die den Willen haben, die Menschheit in moralischer und intellektueller Beziehung in falsche Bahnen zu bringen. Jene Macht, meine lieben Freunde, die gemeint ist bei dem Sturze Satans, will noch etwas ganz anderes. Die will nicht bloß die Menschheit aus ihrer Bahn bringen, sondern die ganze Erde. Diese Macht ist vom menschlich-irdischen Standpunkt aus gesehen ein furchtbarer Widersacher der Gottheit.
[ 21 ] Aber sehen Sie, man kann hypothetisch — denn nur so ist es möglich, ich möchte sagen, ohne in intellektuelle Sündhaftigkeit und namentlich in spirituelle Sündhaftigkeit zu verfallen — das folgende sagen. Wenn man es nicht vom Gesichtspunkt der menschlichen irdischen Entwickelung ins Auge faßt, wenn man andere, höhere Gesichtspunkte nimmt — wie steht dann im Weltenall diese Macht des Satans da gegenüber anderen Geistern?
[ 22 ] Ja, sehen Sie, es ist kein Wunder, daß Michael, der ja einen anderen Standpunkt hat als die Menschen, ganz anders über Satan denkt als die Menschen. Die Menschen bleiben im Abstrakten und denken, daß der Satan eine böse Macht ist. Aber Satan ist zugleich eine hohe Macht, wenn auch für die Richtungen, die für die Erde in Betracht kommen, eine verirrte Macht, aber er ist eine hohe Macht. Und Michael, der die Würde eines Erzengels hat, hat nicht den Rang des Satans, der die Würde einer Urkraft, eines Archai hat. Michael ist «nur» Erzengel. Vom michaelischen Standpunkt aus ist eigentlich Satan nicht eine zu verachtende Macht, sondern eine ungeheuer zu fürchtende Macht, weil Michael diese Macht, die in die Hierarchie der Archai hineingehört, höherstehend erscheint als er selbst. Nur schlägt Michael eben die Richtung ein, die im Sinne der Erdenentwickelung ist.
[ 23 ] Michael hat vor langer Zeit schon beschlossen, in denjenigen Planetenkreisen zu wirken, die durch das Sonnendasein vorgezeichnet sind. Satan ist eine Macht, die fortdauernd in unserem Kosmos lauert. Es hat etwas Unheimliches, dieses Lauern des Satans. Man kann dies wahrnehmen, meine lieben Freunde, in den Augenblicken, wo man einen Kometen durch unseren Kosmos schießen sieht, der eine ganz andere Bahn hat als die Planeten (es wird an die Tafel gezeichnet).
[ 24 ] Wenn man es kopernikanisch zeichnet - es ist ja astronomisch nicht ganz richtig, aber das ist hier schließlich einerlei -: Sonne; Merkur, Venus, Erde, Mars, das sind die inneren Planeten, und die äußeren: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptun -, so muß man sich vorstellen, daß Kometen in bezug auf die regelmäßigen Planetenbahnen ganz unregelmäßige Bahnen haben. Die Vorstellung, daß diese Kometen lange Ellipsen beschreiben, ist ja ein Unsinn, aber darauf brauchen wir jetzt nicht einzugehen. Jedenfalls stimmen die Bahnen der Kometen, soweit sie innerhalb unseres planetarischen Kosmos liegen, ganz und gar nicht überein mit den Bahnen der Planeten.
[ 25 ] Und da lauert Satan, um jeden Kometen, der da kommt, abzufangen und ihn in seiner Schwungrichtung zu benutzen, damit er die Planeten aus ihrer Bahn herausbringen kann und damit auch die Erde. Das ist wirklich vorhanden im Weltall, daß die satanischen Mächte fortwährend lauern, um das ganze Wandelsternsystem umzugestalten. Dadurch würde aber dieses System der Wandelsterne, in deren Bahnen die Menschen sich bewegen sollen, jenen göttlich-geistigen Mächten weggenommen und in ganz andere Weltenevolutions-Richtungen hineingebracht werden. Diese Absicht wird von Michael als eine ganz furchtbare Verirrung angesehen, von der sich aber Michael sagen muß: Ich könnte die Absicht nicht einmal haben, weil sie für ein Wesen, das in der Hierarchie der Archangeloi steht, von vornherein eine aussichtslose Aufgabe wäre. - Nur bei Wesen, die in der Hierarchie der Archai stehen, können die Kräfte ausreichen, um so etwas zu vollführen. Michael, der innerhalb der Planetenbahnen aus der Sonne wirkt und der das geworden ist, was man im Okkultismus den Erzengel der Umlaufzeiten oder einen Planetengeist nennt, er hat längst beschlossen, in seinem Wirken bei diesen Umlaufzeiten zu bleiben. Es ist eine Engel-Entscheidung, bei diesen Umlaufzeiten zu bleiben.
[ 26 ] In einem gewissen Zeitraum der alten atlantischen Entwickelung konnte man in den Mysterien, zu denen die Götter dazumal herunterstiegen, wirklich wahrnehmen, wie die Heere der Archangeloi, also die Erzengel wie Oriphiel, Anael, Zachariel und so weiter damals den Entschluß gefaßt haben, in den vorgezeichneten Planetenbahnen sich zu bewegen. Das ist allerdings in einer bestimmten Zeit zustandegekommen.
[ 27 ] Jene mächtigen Scharen, welche unter Führung des Satans stehen, haben diesen Entschluß bis heute nicht gefaßt; sie streben heute noch an, jede Kometenbahn dazu zu benutzen, um das ganze Planetensystem zu einer anderen Konfiguration zu bringen. Da hat man es zu tun mit einem Widersacher Christi, der nicht nur den einzelnen Menschen korrumpieren will, der auch nicht nur eine Summe von Menschen, eine Menschengemeinschaft korrumpieren will, wie es das Tier und der falsche Prophet wollen, sondern wir haben es bei Satan und seinen Scharen zu tun mit Bestrebungen, die der Erde in ihrem Zusammenhang mit dem Planetensystem direkt - wenn ich es so ausdrücken darf - an den Leib gehen. Das ist der dritte Sturz in der Apokalypse. Bei den beiden ersten Stürzen haben wir das Frohlocken der luziferisch gearteten geistigen Wesenheiten.
[ 28 ] Diese Dinge, die der Apokalyptiker uns sagt, müssen auch wir voraussehen. Die erste Etappe, der Sturz Babylons, wird verirrte Menschen zeigen, die die Verirrung schon in ihre physische Konstitution gezogen haben, so daß keine Aussicht ist, daß diese Menschenkörper, über die das Ich und der Astralleib die völlige Herrschaft verloren haben, in der Zukunft noch brauchbar sein werden. Diese Leiber müssen aufgegeben werden, wenn auch nicht das Ich und der Astralleib, die dazugehören; diese gehen dann in den Bahnen des Karma in der Menschheit als solche weiter. Wir sehen zu einem gewissen Zeitpunkt mit ihren Leibern herumwandelnde Menschen, die der babylonischen Versuchung anheimgefallene Menschen sind, deren Leiber herausfallen aus der Entwickelung. Das ist der Sturz Babylons.
[ 29 ] Die zweite Etappe ist, daß Menschen herumgehen werden — und das wird sichtbar werden -, von denen wird gesagt werden müssen: In ihnen leben die ahrimanischen Mächte selbst. Da handelt direkt Ahriman. Das ist das Tier, der Sturz des Tieres und des falschen Propheten des Tieres, der aber kein Mensch ist, sondern ein Übermensch.
[ 30 ] Das dritte ist, daß bemerkt wird: In den Naturgesetzen selber wird etwas unerklärlich. Das wird die größte und bedeutsamste Erfahrung sein, die die Menschen in der Zukunft werden machen müssen, zu erkennen: In den Naturgesetzen selber wird etwas unerklärlich, es laufen Erscheinungen nicht in den Naturgesetzen. - Das wird in hohem Maße eintreten, und es wird nicht bloß eine irrtümliche Berechnung sein, daß ein Wandelstern an einer bestimmten Stelle stehen sollte, und er kommt nicht dorthin.
[ 31 ] Es werden erste Schritte dem Satan gelingen, Unordnung in das Planetensystem hineinzuschaffen. Demgegenüber wird die Menschheit selber eine starke Spiritualität entwickeln müssen. Denn nur durch die starke Spiritualität der Menschen wird dasjenige ausgeglichen werden können, was so an Unordnung bewerkstelligt werden wird.
[ 32 ] Sehen Sie, das sind die Dinge, die wir heute voraussehen müssen, wenn wir die künftigen Etappen der Erden- und Menschheitsevolution uns vor die Seele stellen. Das sind die Dinge, die wir sehen müssen, wenn der Apokalyptiker zu uns spricht. Ihr sollt erstreben, meine lieben Freunde, Euch hineinzuversetzen in dieses Zusammenfallen desjenigen, was aus der Anthroposophie heraus gewonnen werden kann mit dem, was der Apokalyptiker offenbart.
[ 33 ] Über die Kometen kann aus den vorhandenen Offenbarungen heute schon so gesprochen werden, daß der Satan im Weltall lauert, um die Kometenbahnen zu benützen und an die Stelle von Kosmos zu setzen. Wenn Ihr dies durch anthroposophisches Begreifen in Euch aufnehmt und es in der Apokalypse wiederfinden könnt, dann liegt in diesem Wiederfinden etwas, was wichtig ist, eine Art seelisches Treffen der Apokalypse und damit des ApokaIyptikers selbst. Das ist wichtig: des Apokalyptikers selbst. Das wird außerordentlich wichtig sein, daß der in die Zukunft hineinlebende Priester immer mehr und mehr die Sehnsucht bekommen soll, dem Apokalyptiker, der ja nach dem Mysterium von Golgatha so in die Zukunft hineingeschaut hat, jederzeit - ob er auf Erden oder nicht auf Erden weilt - begegnen zu können.
[ 34 ] Denn das Gefühl muß entstehen in der Priesterschaft: Die Hilfe, die von Johannes, dem Schöpfer der Apokalypse, kommen kann zu demjenigen, der in christlichem Sinne wirken will, diese Hilfe ist eine ungeheuer bedeutende und eine solche, die man braucht. Wirklich aber mit dem Apokalyptiker Johannes zu gehen, wird nur möglich, wenn wir mit einer solchen Seelenhaltung, wie ich sie geschildert habe, der Apokalypse entgegenkommen. Dann wird Johannes unser Bundesgenosse. Er ist ja eng verbunden mit dem Christus Jesus, er ist ja von Christus Jesus selber initiiert, er ist ein Initiierter des Christus Jesus. Er ist daher ein bedeutsamer Bundesgenosse, und durch ihn zu dem Christus zu kommen, ist von einer ungeheuren Bedeutung.
[ 35 ] Das wirkliche Verständnis der Apokalypse führt schon tief hinein in das Gebiet, wo man mit der denkbar allergrößten Aussicht zur Begegnung mit Johannes und dann mit dem Christus selber kommen kann. Das ist von einer tiefen Wahrheit, aber einer Wahrheit, von der gewünscht werden kann, daß sie recht tief in Eurem Gemüt nachwirke. Denn es ist eine rechte Priesterwahrheit, das heißt, eine den Priester auf rechtmäßige Weise in das spirituelle Gebiet hineinziehende Wahrheit. Hier wollen wir morgen fortfahren.
Eleventh Lecture
[ 1 ] My dear friends! Let us imagine ourselves in the world into which the apocalyptic writer wants to transport people through his description of the next earthly epoch. He describes his visions of the dawn of spiritual worlds and the seizure of earthly human beings by these spiritual worlds. He precedes this event with three stages that we must learn about. Each of these three stages represents something that, in a certain sense, must first fall away before humanity will be worthy and capable of receiving the spiritual world in all purity into its work, thinking, and feeling.
[ 2 ] The first stage is the fall of Babylon—let us first name it with these words from the Apocalypse. The second stage is the fall of the Beast and its companion, the false prophet who spreads the Beast's teachings. The third stage is the fall of the divine counterforces, as they are usually called: Satan. These three stages become truly concrete and real in view of the future of humanity, in view of a future spiritual view of human evolution. And we have good reason, especially in our century, in our time, when much will be decided for the evolution of humanity, to focus our spiritual attention on these three falls. For they will indeed come about in a certain form, after the time of the first appearance of Christ on earth in the etheric body, that is, after the second appearance of Christ on earth. Humanity must prepare itself, for it will have to prove itself strong in order to be able to go through this threefold fall of the opposition to the Christ impulse without endangering the development of the soul.
[ 3 ] We must not forget how precise the apocalyptic writer is. Every time such a fall occurs, he has an angel descend from the spiritual worlds, and we notice — and this is actually something that can initially strike a person as strange if they do not delve deeper into a spiritual understanding of the world — we notice that he has the descending angel rejoice over the great torments, over the terrible things that then happen during this fall; and it is necessary for us to understand this rejoicing.
[ 4 ] But let us first look at the three stages of the fall of the adversarial powers of Christ, beginning with what is called the fall of Babylon. We can picture before our minds the sum total of all the errors into which human beings can fall through their very human nature. Everything that is capable of bringing man below his own spiritual level is included in what the apocalyptic writer calls the Babylonian temptation.
[ 5 ] Human beings are only truly human—although, of course, they cannot possess this humanity at every moment of their evolution, but must first attain it—human beings are only truly human when there is complete harmony within them between the material and spiritual principles, that is, when the material does not play up in emotions that are not controlled by the spiritual. That is precisely what it is all about, and we must understand this very well. For even the apocalypticist could not speak as he does if he assumed that emotions, passions, and everything that comes from the sphere of the will and the sphere of the mind were completely unjustified from the outset. Declaring emotions and passions to be unjustified, this ascetic striving in the wrong sense, also springs from the emotional, the passionate. For those who do not feel strong enough to permeate their passions with the spiritual in such a way that they place them at the service of good world evolution, are simply paying homage to their emotion of weakness. Even if they want good evolution, if they become impoverished in their emotional sphere, they will worship their weakness.
[ 6 ] So the apocalypticist is not concerned with the outburst of emotions, the outburst of affects and passions, but with the fact that emotions do not remain uncontrolled by the spiritual. And everything in human life that represents emotions, whether large or small, that remain uncontrolled by the spiritual, is summarized in the apocalypse in the name of that city Babylon, in which — to put it stereotypically — the fall from spirituality through passions reigned. We only have to translate the strong, crude expressions of that time — for which they were not crude — into our language. It is indeed the old way of thinking that one does not form abstract concepts, but always points to the concrete, to something that is characteristic. This is also how the apocalyptic writer speaks of Babylon. Why Babylon in particular?
[ 7 ] In Babylon, or rather at the site of Babylon, there were truly high mysteries in ancient times, in which one could be initiated into the secrets of the supernatural cosmos, in which one could learn secrets about the star worlds and their spiritual content. In Babylon in particular, the oldest Babylonian priests used human dream clairvoyance in a way that we would today call mediumistic clairvoyance. And in this way, which was in a sense mediumistic, the wonderful ancient Babylonian teachings took shape. We can see today that mediums, even if they initially appear suitable for conveying spiritual knowledge — which often happens, but should be controlled by discerning initiates — are exposed to influences that are morally highly questionable. Because there is a certain imbalance between what they reveal and what they are, mediums are often ultimately unable to distinguish truth from lies; and this can extend to an area where morality is no longer separated from immorality.
[ 8 ] You only have to understand, my dear friends, how this comes about in the medium. It is true that a person becomes a medium — and this was also the case with the Babylonian priests — when the ego and astral body are drawn out of the physical and etheric bodies by external force. But the moment the I and astral body are drawn out of the physical and etheric bodies in the medium, another power already sits within this I and astral body. Depending on whether the initiator who brings this about has good or evil intentions, whether he belongs to the left or the right, this can be a good or an evil power. In ancient Babylonian times, such methods brought forth quite remarkable insights and revelations. But in later times and today, the disadvantage becomes apparent: when the medium returns to the physical body, what happens then? You see, the logic that one uses in the physical world to distinguish between lies and truth does not work in the spiritual world. It is a complete mistake to believe that the concepts of lie and truth, as they are rightly used in the physical world, can also be applied in the spiritual world. In the spiritual world, there is nothing that should be distinguished in this way. There are beings there that are good and beings that are evil. You have to recognize them from within yourself, because they do not tell you what kind they are. But even the evil ones are true in their own way. Of course, this is difficult to understand, just as everything that confronts us when we enter the spiritual world is difficult to understand. Here in the physical world, for example, we say that a straight line is the shortest distance between two points. In the spiritual world, this may be the longest path, and every other path may be shorter. And so, in fact, none of the logic that we necessarily need here in the physical world is applicable in the spiritual world.
[ 9 ] Therefore, the true initiate must have a certain state of mind for seeing in the spiritual world. He must feel fully responsible for the fact that, the moment he returns to the physical world, he has to work with physical concepts. The medium cannot do this because he does not cross over into the spiritual world with consciousness. When he returns, the ego and astral body fill the physical and etheric bodies with a way of thinking that is correct for the spiritual world but corrupts all moral feelings and sensibilities that apply in the physical world. Therefore, the medium becomes corrupted with regard to truth and falsehood, and this then affects everything else. One can indeed say that Babylon underwent this development from the highest, most significant revelation of the spiritual worlds to a terrible corruption. What initially relates to the principle of spiritual revelation, also in relation to general human life, into which it extends, can lead to severe corruption, so that after entering into the spiritual realm, people become more immoral than they were before with their ordinary humanity. That is why Babylon was taken as the representative of moral corruption. And the expressions that appear in the Apocalypse mean nothing other than those that were commonplace for corruption at that time.
[ 10 ] But since then, the whole of humanity, which has continued what was lived in Babylon, has become a city of Babylon throughout the world. That is what the apocalyptic writer means. Today, the city of Babylon can be found among the people of the earth. It is where there are people who have fallen victim to the Babylonian temptation. And this attitude of people is what must fall before the final state of which the apocalyptic writer speaks can come about. When we examine what is at work in “Babylonian corruption,” we find that the Ahrimanic principle is at work everywhere in this Babylonian corruption. Ahriman is within human beings, and he is a power that is initially close to human beings within the whole world. He is within the emotions that are corrupted in this way. The Ahrimanic stands in opposition to the Luciferic as its opposite pole. In what falls in Babylon, the Ahrimanic lives, and the Luciferic is opposed to it. What image must present itself to the apocalypticist when he looks at this? The image of the jubilant disposition of the Luciferic angels. We must not hide this from ourselves, my dear friends.
[ 11 ] It has always been the great error of many worldviews that evil is to be found directly opposite the best, that, for example, the evil principle below is always met by the good above. But this is not the case! Here in this chapter of the Apocalypse (Rev. 19), the Ahrimanic — Babylon — is below, and above, where the angels rejoice over the fall of Babylon, is the Luciferic. What is intoned above as the rejoicing of the angels is the voice of Lucifer. The Christ principle is always the balance between these two.
[ 12 ] Only when the Trinity of the world constitution is understood in the right way can one also understand what the apocalyptic writer is saying here. It is utterly incomprehensible to ordinary human feeling to think that pure, good spirits raise that cry of jubilation above when such torments befall human beings below, as described here. Of course, this becomes immediately understandable when one sees this as the cries of joy of those beings who, before the world came into being in which man experiences his spiritual development, were opposed to the world coming into being in this way. The Luciferic beings want to keep the whole of evolution on a completely different spiritual level; they do not want the connection, the marriage of spirit and matter that has taken place in earthly existence, so that they actually feel in their souls: Now that what is grasped by Ahriman is being eliminated from earthly existence, we have the satisfaction that at least part of earthly existence will not be continued and is falling out of earthly evolution. In this respect, a grandiose honesty of worldview speaks from this image, which the apocalypticist has described.
[ 13 ] Now, the first fall, the fall of Babylon, is that which is brought about by human error itself. Even if it is influenced by the principle of initiation, it is human aberration. As Babylon falls through human aberration, a part of humanity is eliminated from the further evolution of the world at a point in time that we will discuss later. For now, let us simply hold before our souls, in qualitative terms, what is about to come.
[ 14 ] The second fall is one in which humans are no longer the only ones involved. Among those who fall with Babylon, the actual participants are humans; it is human aberration. In the fall of the beast and the false prophet who represents the teachings of the beast, it is not the human that falls, but the superhuman, the spiritual. That which is not within the human realm falls: the beast that breaks into the human community, and the one who proclaims the teachings of the beast, the false prophet. So we are dealing with something that can possess people, but where it is not the weakness of human nature that is at work, as in the case of the medium, but rather something superhuman that directly causes the impulse toward evil in human beings.
[ 15 ] If we wanted to make the picture even clearer, we could say something like this: All those who will be involved in the fall of Babylon will be corrupted by having striven for things that their organization could not withstand, things to which their organization has become weak, so that it has been corrupted. So human organization acts out of weakness in the fall of Babylon. In the fall of the beast and the false prophet, it is not as if a medium were corrupted because it had become weak, but rather as if the spirit that had taken possession of the medium's ego and astral body would now, after the hypnosis has ceased, enters the physical and etheric bodies and now makes use of the physical body of this person to wreak havoc on earth.
[ 16 ] This is precisely the idea we encounter here in the apocalyptic writer. A time will come — this is what the apocalyptic writer means — when we will see people walking around on earth who cannot bear what is contained in the Christian message, who indeed take Christ into their souls, but whose physical and etheric bodies cannot rise to the level of Christ, and who therefore give themselves over to other spirits, but do so without full consciousness, and thus fall into corruption. These are the first ones, those who are included in the fall of Babylon.
[ 17 ] Others will walk around as human beings, but they will have fallen prey to the fate that their human ego has left them, so that they can no longer be addressed as human beings on earth because they are possessed by the beast and the false prophet. This will come after the fall of Babylon. After the fall of Babylon, there will be people on earth who will be like wandering demons, in whom the Ahrimanic powers will act directly.
[ 18 ] All the preconditions for these things already exist today. I would say that the seeds of all this are already present, for the terrible event has already occurred in which Ahriman, through a human being — not through the whole human being, but through the temporary weakness of a human being — has already been able to show himself among us as a writer. Nietzsche was a brilliant, magnificent writer, but at the time when he wrote “The Antichrist” and “Ecce Homo,” it was not the Nietzsche individuality that was in him. I know this Nietzsche individuality, I have even described it in my “Lebensgang”; but there Ahriman became a writer directly, and Ahriman is a much more brilliant writer than human beings.
[ 19 ] It will increasingly be the case that the Ahrimanic powers will intervene, with the Ahrimanic spirits making use of human bodies for various tasks. And a time will come when Christians will have to ask themselves seriously, when they encounter this or that person: Is this actually a human being, or just a loose shell for Ahrimanic spirits? In addition to the distinctions we have today, we will have to add this one in the future. This will be the second fall: the demonism of the beast and its herald; they will take possession of human bodies. But the beast and its herald will be overthrown. So first we have the fall of corrupted human beings, and then the fall of certain corrupted spirits who are close to human beings. These spirits themselves fall in the second fall.
[ 20 ] Then, in the Apocalypse, we have the third fall, the fall of Satan. In Satan, we have a very high being, but one who follows paths other than those that can be followed on earth. In the beast and the false prophet, we are dealing with powers that seduce humans and have the will to lead humanity astray in moral and intellectual terms. That power, my dear friends, which is meant by the fall of Satan, wants something else entirely. It wants not only to lead humanity astray, but the whole earth. From a human-earthly point of view, this power is a terrible adversary of the Godhead.
[ 21 ] But you see, hypothetically — for only in this way is it possible, I would say, without falling into intellectual sinfulness and especially spiritual sinfulness — one can say the following. If one does not consider it from the point of view of human earthly development, if one takes other, higher points of view — how then does this power of Satan stand in relation to other spirits in the universe?
[ 22 ] Yes, you see, it is no wonder that Michael, who has a different point of view from human beings, thinks very differently about Satan than human beings do. Human beings remain in the abstract and think that Satan is an evil power. But Satan is at the same time a high power, even if for the directions that are relevant to the earth, he is a misguided power, but he is a high power. And Michael, who has the dignity of an archangel, does not have the rank of Satan, who has the dignity of a primal force, an archai. Michael is “only” an archangel. From Michael's point of view, Satan is not actually a power to be despised, but a power to be greatly feared, because Michael considers this power, which belongs to the hierarchy of the archai, to be higher than himself. Only Michael takes the direction that is in the sense of Earth's development.
[ 23 ] Michael decided long ago to work in those planetary circles that are predestined by the existence of the sun. Satan is a power that constantly lurks in our cosmos. There is something eerie about Satan's lurking. You can perceive this, my dear friends, in those moments when you see a comet shooting through our cosmos, following a completely different path than the planets (drawn on the blackboard).
[ 24 ] If you draw it in the Copernican way—it is not entirely correct astronomically, but that is irrelevant here—: Sun; Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, these are the inner planets, and the outer ones: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune—then you have to imagine that comets have completely irregular orbits in relation to the regular planetary orbits. The idea that these comets describe long ellipses is nonsense, but we don't need to go into that now. In any case, the orbits of comets, insofar as they lie within our planetary cosmos, do not correspond at all to the orbits of the planets.
[ 25 ] And there Satan lies in wait to intercept every comet that comes along and use its momentum to knock the planets out of their orbits, including the Earth. This is really happening in the universe, that the satanic powers are constantly lying in wait to transform the entire system of wandering stars. But this would take this system of wandering stars, in whose orbits human beings are supposed to move, away from those divine-spiritual powers and bring it into completely different directions of world evolution. Michael regards this intention as a terrible aberration, but Michael must say: I could not even have this intention, because for a being who stands in the hierarchy of the Archangeloi, it would be a hopeless task from the outset. Only beings in the hierarchy of the Archai have sufficient power to accomplish such a thing. Michael, who works within the planetary orbits from the sun and who has become what is called in occultism the archangel of the orbital periods or a planetary spirit, decided long ago to remain in his work with these orbital periods. It is an angelic decision to remain with these orbital periods.
[ 26 ] During a certain period of ancient Atlantean development, in the mysteries to which the gods descended at that time, one could truly perceive how the hosts of the Archangeloi, that is, the archangels such as Oriphiel, Anael, Zachariel, and so on, made the decision to move in the predetermined planetary orbits. This, however, came about at a specific time.
[ 27 ] Those mighty hosts who are under the leadership of Satan have not yet made this decision; they still strive today to use every comet's orbit to bring the entire planetary system into a different configuration. Here we are dealing with an adversary of Christ who not only wants to corrupt individual human beings, nor even a group of human beings or a human community, as the beast and the false prophet want to do, but we are dealing with Satan and his hosts who are striving to directly attack the earth in its connection with the planetary system, if I may put it that way. This is the third fall in the Apocalypse. In the first two falls, we have the rejoicing of the Luciferic spiritual beings.
[ 28 ] We too must foresee these things that the apocalyptic writer tells us. The first stage, the fall of Babylon, will show people who have gone astray, who have already drawn this aberration into their physical constitution, so that there is no prospect that these human bodies, over which the ego and the astral body have lost complete control, will still be usable in the future. These bodies must be abandoned, though not the ego and astral body that belong to them; these will then continue in the paths of karma in humanity as such. At a certain point in time, we will see people walking around with their bodies who have fallen prey to the Babylonian temptation, whose bodies are falling out of development. That is the fall of Babylon.
[29] The second stage is that people will walk around — and this will become visible — of whom it will have to be said: The Ahrimanic powers themselves live in them. Ahriman is acting directly here. This is the beast, the fall of the beast and the false prophet of the beast, who is not a human being, but a superhuman.
[ 30 ] The third is that it will be noticed that something in the laws of nature themselves becomes inexplicable. This will be the greatest and most significant experience that people will have to go through in the future, to recognize: something in the laws of nature themselves becomes inexplicable, phenomena do not run according to the laws of nature. This will happen to a great extent, and it will not just be an erroneous calculation that a variable star should be in a certain place and it does not get there.
[ 31 ] Satan will succeed in taking the first steps toward creating disorder in the planetary system. In response, humanity itself will have to develop a strong spirituality. For only through the strong spirituality of human beings will it be possible to balance out the disorder that will be brought about.
[ 32 ] You see, these are the things we must foresee today when we consider the future stages of the evolution of the earth and humanity. These are the things we must see when the apocalyptic writer speaks to us. You should strive, my dear friends, to put yourselves in this convergence of what can be gained from anthroposophy with what the apocalypticist reveals.
[ 33 ] Based on the existing revelations, we can already say today that Satan lurks in the universe, waiting to use the comet paths and replace the cosmos. If you take this in through anthroposophical understanding and can find it again in the Apocalypse, then there is something important in this rediscovery, a kind of spiritual encounter with the Apocalypse and thus with the apocalypticist himself. This is important: the apocalypticist himself. It will be extremely important that the priest living into the future should increasingly long to be able to encounter the apocalypticist, who, after the Mystery of Golgotha, looked so deeply into the future, at any time — whether he is on earth or not.
[ 34 ] For the feeling must arise in the priesthood: The help that can come from John, the creator of the Apocalypse, to those who want to work in a Christian sense, is tremendously important and much needed. But truly walking with John the apocalypticist is only possible if we approach the Apocalypse with the kind of soul attitude I have described. Then John becomes our ally. He is closely connected with Christ Jesus, he is initiated by Christ Jesus himself, he is an initiate of Christ Jesus. He is therefore an important ally, and coming to Christ through him is of tremendous significance.
[ 35 ] A true understanding of the Apocalypse leads deep into the realm where one can encounter John and then Christ himself with the greatest possible prospect. This is a profound truth, but a truth that you may wish to let sink deep into your mind. For it is a true priestly truth, that is, a truth that draws the priest into the spiritual realm in a lawful manner. We will continue here tomorrow.