The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Dear attendees!

In our time, theosophy should deepen our entire cultural life on the spiritual side, so that through the theosophical cultural movement, humanity is once again pointed to the fact that everything in our physical, sensual life is based on the spiritual, the supersensible life.

All theosophical worldviews are based on two fundamental truths. The first fundamental truth is that our world, which is perceptible to our senses and our minds, is based on a supersensible, a spiritual one. And the other fundamental truth is that it is possible for man to penetrate into this supersensible, into this spiritual world.

In doing so, anyone who stands on the ground of this theosophical world view will very soon encounter resistance from some of our contemporaries and from those who claim that our science is beyond prejudice, that behind our physical world there is no superphysical, no supersensible world.

Others come and say: Of course, one may admit that there might be a supersensible, a superphysical world somewhere, but man's powers of knowledge, his faculties of perception, are in any case insufficient to reach such a world. The secret-scientific or theosophical world view should make man aware that although those powers of perception and abilities that make it possible for us to perceive the ordinary world around us do not lie in the supersensible world, the powers that lie dormant in every soul, when awakened, lead man into supersensible worlds. And if we want to clarify the whole relationship of man to the supersensible world in the sense of the theosophical world view, we do this best by means of a comparison, which shows that it is not fantasy and superstition when the theosophist speaks of distant spiritual worlds, but that these spiritual worlds are there, just as our world is there.

Let us assume that we could lead someone born blind into this room. He is surrounded by darkness and gloom, while you can see objects in light and color and shine. All that is around you is not there for the blind man. In the moment that we have the good fortune to operate on this blind man and give him the gift of sight, light and color and radiance emerge from the darkness. The whole world is now filled with new qualities and facts. And why? Because an organ of knowledge has been opened for him.

Just as a physical organ has been opened for this person, and a great experience is entering his soul, flooding it with a new world, so it is also possible that spiritual powers of knowledge and soul abilities, which lie dormant in every person, are awakened and that unknown worlds with spiritual facts and spiritual beings flow into the human soul. We cannot operate on everyone born blind, but these dormant abilities can be awakened in every human soul, enabling him to enter the [spiritual] worlds around him.

All that the spiritual, esoteric and theosophical spiritual current has to say to people today comes from such higher insights.

Now, our contemporaries who believe themselves to be on solid scientific ground will think that such a worldview will make us unworldly, will lead us away from the world, and will alienate people from the practical side of life.

Today we shall deal with a subject that is particularly suitable for showing how esoteric science or theosophy, based on its esoteric knowledge, is particularly suited to intervene directly in practical life; how it is precisely by revealing the forces and facts of the spiritual world that it becomes a useful means for people to work safely and appropriately in life.

We will follow a human life, a human course from birth to death, follow it from this theosophical or esoteric point of view, and see what practical aspects this theosophical school of thought can give us for such a view of life, which directly addresses the everyday, what is around us.

We do not want to talk about what Theosophy can bring in terms of knowledge for people, what extends beyond birth and death, not talk about repeated life on earth, not talk about the fact that Theosophy speaks of spiritual causes. We only want to look at the individual human life between birth and death with all the joy and pain, with all the expectations and hopes, with all the strength we need to lead this life as valuable as possible.

We see the human being enter life. But you all know that when a person enters life, they have already completed an important, essential part of their life, which is the part they go through as a human germ in the mother's body. There he is enveloped in a protective mother's shell, there he lives in this shell, and what does birth consist of other than in the fact that the human being, so to speak, sheds this protective mother's shell and steps out, so that his senses and his organism freely face the world and the elements?

Then, however, if we want to look at the effects of this external world on the human organs, we have to understand that the teaching of esoteric science does not only take this being as that which the external senses of human beings see, what the eyes perceive, what the hands can grasp, that for the theosophical view this is only part of the whole human being. When physical science takes this one part of the human being for the whole human being, it is not aware of the life that lies behind it in the superphysical.

In occult science, there is also talk of other garments, of a second garment; and you will immediately get an idea of what is meant by this second garment if we realize that spiritual science, like physical science, is based on facts, that [in the world of the supermundane life] the same substances are united by the same forces as outside in our seemingly inanimate environment.

There is a great difference between how these forces occur in a mineral and how they occur in human life or in any living life. This living life is the same forces that are out there in the inanimate world in the mineral kingdom, they are so intricately combined, so complicated, that this combination would immediately disintegrate if there were not a fighter against this disintegration of life in every moment of life. And this fighter is the second garment of the human being. We call it the etheric body or life body. And we say: every living being has such an etheric body, which prevents physical substances and forces from following their own laws between birth and death. Look at a crystal or another mineral. It has a form in which it presents itself to you. Through its chemical power it remains as it is.

A living being would never remain as it is through these forces. This is evident at the moment of death. Why then does the living being become a corpse according to its physical body? Why does it die? [Because at the moment of death the physical body has separated from the etheric body or life body.] Then the physical body follows its own substances and forces, its own laws, then it decays.

But spiritual science is well aware of the objections of physical science against the ether. However, this is not what we want to deal with today. We just want to sketch out how we have to consider the body according to the teaching of secret science.

We therefore have this second garment, which is a constant fighter against the disintegration of physical life. Then there is a third garment. This third garment is to be imagined as being in front of the soul. If you imagine a person standing before you and you ask yourself: Is there not something about this person that is much closer to them than a large part of their physical body and than their etheric body, they would admit: Within the skin of their physical body, they have something that is closer to them than their physical body and their etheric body. There is something even closer, especially if he is a naive person, if he is a primitive person who has not first convinced himself through scientific studies of what the inner man - his blood, his nerves, his muscles, everything that makes up a person - looks like, that is his urges, instincts, desires and passions. That is the body of sensations and perceptions, which flows up and down. This body of sensations and perceptions, the bearer of these cravings and passions, is the third garment of the human being, the astral body, as it is called for certain reasons in Theosophy.

This body is no longer shared by man with the plants. This body is shared only by the animals. The animals have just, like man, an astral body.

[But what makes man – the crowning glory of creation – stand out from animals is the fourth garment.] It is the sum of powers that command him to call himself an “I”. These abilities to call oneself an “I” mean more than many people consider.

This 'I' - or as one also says 'I am' - was, for example, called the 'unspeakable name of God' in Old Testament religions. Why? Because it was said that everything else in our environment, when it speaks or wants to speak to our soul, will speak to us in such a way that it speaks to our soul through the organs of the physical, etheric and astral bodies.

But that which flows through the world from divine beings does not need an organ to come to life in the soul. This announces itself to us indirectly in the soul. And when the soul says to itself, 'I am', and recognizes its own existence, at that moment it is rightly thought of as a drop or spark of divinity in the soul.

Some might object: Then you theosophists make a god out of man when [you claim] that the divine substances are contained in his ego. Anyone who makes such an objection could also say: If we take a drop from the sea and claim that this drop is of the same substance and essence as the sea water, then we claim that the drop is the sea. [Man's innermost self is divine in nature. It is a drop, a spark of the sea, of the divine, and therefore man also participates in the divine that flows through the world.] Just as the drop is part of the sea, so man is part of the divine.

These are the four garments. The physical body, the etheric body, the astral body and the body in which the powers lie, whereby man can express his “I am”.

If man has even the slightest grasp of the facts of life, then he can understand the various facts of life in relation to these different garments of the being. He would soon see the difference between sleeping and waking. One would see that during sleep, only the physical and etheric bodies lie in bed. The astral body and the I are lifted out of the physical and etheric bodies, and because the astral body is the carrier of joy, pain, desire and suffering, of all perceptions and sensations, the experiences of the soul, when the astral body is lifted out, descend into unconsciousness. Why is that the case? Where then is this astral body, where then is this “I” in the night?

It would be illogical if any person were to say that man dies every night and is born again in the morning. [Only this can make it understandable, if one understands that the ego and the astral body submerge into the physical and etheric body in the morning, that the ego and the astral body use the hands, the eyes, the ears, the whole physical body with the brain, use the physical body as a tool to be able to do everything.]

The ego is the spiritual essence of man, which in the morning descends into physical life and which in the evening, when man falls asleep, goes into other worlds, into spiritual worlds.

This is an experience that every person has every day from the alternation of sleeping and waking. But in death there is a completely different experience. Then the physical body separates from the etheric body and the astral body and I, which remain together for a while in the next moment. And because the physical body separates from the etheric and astral bodies, because the fighter who was there from birth to death is no longer there, the physical body follows its own forces and laws and falls apart.

We had to learn this in order to understand the course of human life, because in spiritual science, only the physical human being is born at the moment of birth, the physical birth, when the human germ leaves the mother's body. What is initially exposed to the external elements is initially only the physical human body, because from a theosophical point of view, we are not just talking about one birth, but about several births, and this language of multiple births makes the course of a person's life fully understandable.

We speak first of a second birth of man, which occurs approximately around the seventh year, or rather when the human being changes teeth. For many people, speaking of a second birth seems very strange.

Just as the germ is in the mother's womb until physical birth, so is the human being's etheric or life body, the second garment of the body, enclosed by an etheric sheath, by the etheric mother, until the change of teeth, and only then is this etheric sheath gradually pushed aside.

At first this may seem like a gray theory, but it is not. Only those who know that physical life is born at the time of physical birth and that the etheric body is only present at the change of teeth, only then does this etheric body freely face the world, can unfold principles for the education of the child. Now we present what follows from this: as long as the human germ is in the mother's womb, it does not come into contact with external light or external influences. This would be impossible, otherwise the germ would be destroyed. They have to wait to influence the light until the eyes, until the person is born. Every materialistically thinking person can see that. But they do not know that it is just as bad for the spiritual person to allow influences to flow into the etheric body that should only flow in after the change of teeth, when the etheric body is exposed on all sides. This means nothing other than that we have to base our educational principles on this.

However, until the age of seven, when only the physical body is exposed to external conditions, particular attention must be paid to the development of the body in the growing person, because all the forms in which the physical body must take shape are developed by the year the teeth change. And whatever is not laid down in the body in terms of form, in coarse or fine form, is lost for the whole of human life. The human being grows and develops, but the forms that become larger are laid down in the finest form up to that point. Therefore, during this time, when one does not have an effect on the etheric body, everything must be done to make the forms as good as possible.

We can only mention a few aspects that will show how to do this. There is a word that comes before the soul like a magic word in development, for this time until the seventh year, that is, until the change of teeth, and this word is: “imitation.” There is nothing as important for the development of the physical body as imitation. Everything that affects a person only works through imitation. What the child sees in his environment affects him through the senses. And not only physical things, but everything that happens in the physical world, including the moral things that the child sees around him, also affect the forms until the teeth change.

Imagine a child who has seen only evil and wickedness for seven years. This has an effect on his physical body. It causes such forms in the brain that these forms will be particularly suitable for becoming a special instrument for immorality, and it is no longer possible to improve in education what one has neglected to teach the child through ignorance.

I will give you an example from which you will see that everything we show the child, everything we teach him as principles, is imitated by the child.

Let's take a very good boy - a really good boy - who embarrasses his parents by taking some money from the till one day. The thought arises in the parents' minds: How can it be that a boy we have raised in this way takes money from the till? The child has stolen, the parents think. No, they say from the theosophical point of view. It is precisely because he is a good boy that he has done this. But what have you done? Day after day you did it, every day you took money from the cash box, the boy saw it every day. He should do everything that his parents do, and that is right. Therefore, he also took money. The boy was not a thief, he did not want to use the money for himself at all, or use it, he gave it to another boy. He just showed himself to be particularly moral, especially in this act. You have to make it a principle to only do in the children's environment what the child could actually do. What it must not do must not happen in its environment.

This is also very important for the plastic development of the organs, and only spiritual science can provide the right principles for this.

You know that a muscle becomes more plastic when it is used correctly. At this age, everything must be shaped plastically. The colors that are in the environment – be it red, blue, green and so on – all have a certain deep meaning for the development of the internal organs, as far as the physical organs are concerned; and many mistakes are made here. Because, as you know, there are many people who talk about what have been called nervous children, children who have a very restless nature. They believe that green, blue and dark colors should be introduced into the environment to calm them down. Others have very calm children and they believe that they should be dressed in light, red and white clothes. The opposite is true, because it is not the colors that affect these children. It depends on how these colors affect the children's inner being. For example, if you see a red spot on a black background, you will soon see that green lingers. This means that while you are looking at red, the inner organism perceives green. And so, when a child is excited and you bring red into its environment, red will not affect the child as you think it will. And it is precisely this that the child needs until the second dentition, that is, until the seventh year. Therefore, you have to dress a child who is restless in red clothes, while conversely, when a child is very calm, too calm, lethargic, green, blue, dark colors are needed.

You have to listen to me carefully. It is very easy to make the following objection, which is made again and again. People then say to me: “You see, when I put a red umbrella on the lamp in the evening, it makes me feel agitated.” The answer I have to give to such a lady or gentleman is: “Yes, but you are not a child before the change of teeth either. Of course, one must not forget that, and should bear in mind that for further development, other conditions are also present.

As soon as the soul has left the etheric shell, it is a matter of finding the right occupation for the child, and there is much in life for which a materialistic approach is quite, quite wrong.

One could – although someone who is grounded in spiritual science should not do this – one could become sentimental when looking at the many mistakes and their effects that are made in these areas. One could cite many things from the youth and life of a person who has become a great materialist, who denies everything else because he believes that everything results from the combination of molecules and atoms. This is because this person did not receive the right toy in his childhood, the one that can present life to him. If, for example, you give a child a toy like this, where it can create a whole new picture by putting together stones, thereby combining them, then new forms are formed through this. Any toy that evokes imagination is the right toy. This toy creates the impulse for the child to develop. For example, give a healthy child a doll that you made out of an old handkerchief, with two plaits for legs, two plaits for hands and a few eyes drawn on with ink. In the long run, the healthy child will most likely enjoy such a doll more than a real doll with real hair and beautifully painted cheeks, because such a beautiful doll – which is nevertheless always hideous – does not activate the powers of creative imagination, whereas if you give the child a doll made out of a handkerchief, it will see that this is not a human form. Then the imagination must be allowed to work. Then the inner plastic forms are called upon to be formed, and must be formed. These forms lie fallow if you give the child a toy that does not allow it to use its imagination. If you are aware that, as with the change of teeth, the child has to shape itself plastically, then you will find a great deal of support for the whole of education in theosophy, all of which has a good, deep foundation. We can only mention a few points here, for example, in the feeding of children, how the child is to be “educated”.

It used to be thought that young children should be fed a lot of eggs. Now, the best principle for this age is to absolutely not exceed the necessary protein requirement, because an excess of protein causes the child to lose its food instincts and the ability to shape its forms. A child to whom you do not give much protein will only demand what is healthy for him, and that is what the child needs to develop plastically. What is in the protein is something that, through its power, makes the plastic form exceed itself, and in this way secure instincts are not developed. By overfeeding the child with protein, you kill the power.

This, then, is the care of the physical body, the body that is born first. Now, with the change of teeth, the etheric covering withdraws, and the physical body and etheric body are now there. Now is the time to work with all our might from the outside to develop the etheric body. We must therefore first realize what forces the life body is the carrier of. Today, we want to give special consideration to the spiritual. This body is also the carrier of everything, especially memory, and then it is the carrier of the worldly power of imagination. Everything that a person does not grasp with his dry intellect, but rather what he can grasp through the image. If one knows this, then one will realize that at the moment the etheric body is born, an education must take place that takes particular account of this. This is therefore the second birth.

[The third garment is now still surrounded by an outer shell, by a protection.] This protection, the astral shell, will also be withdrawn, repulsed, and stripped off later, but only around the fifteenth year, at the time of sexual maturity.

Then, in the fifteenth year, the third birth takes place, and everything that penetrates the astral body from the outside and sends out its effects without realizing that it is still enveloped, has the same effect as light would have on a germ while it is still in the mother's womb. Now, for the second period of human development, which runs between the change of teeth, i.e. the seventh year, and sexual maturity around the fifteenth year, there is again a certain path that we have to follow. Here, too, there is another magic word that is just as important as imitation for the first seven years, and the word for this second period of life is 'authority'.

There is nothing that could ever replace the tremendously beneficial influence of the right authority in this age of life in later life. Just as everything around us awakens us to imitation up to the age of seven, so between the ages of seven and fifteen, no intellectual judgments have any effect on the human being. No moral principles can influence this person. That is all a matter for the astral body, and that has not yet been born. But when we look at the embodiment, the ideal striving, and confront the child with a true authority, then the right forces are awakened in the soul, which could not otherwise be reached later. If only people knew how important and significant the right kind of authority is! This authority is something very important for the human being in his life between birth and death. And in this time between the change of teeth and sexual maturity, all teaching and education must be built upon it. It is not enough for us to only say good things to the child; we must influence it through authority. We must teach the child everything there is to know through pictures, because only when the child has absorbed the image for the various 'whys' of nature within itself will it be able to receive everything it has seen in concrete forms so far in abstract concepts of the mind when the astral body is born.

It is necessary for the child to know how everything relates to the soul. You have to teach it this in pictures. When you show the child the butterfly puppet and show how the puppet develops until the butterfly flies out, and you tell him that the immortal soul leaves the body just as the butterfly flies out of the puppet, how it goes to the other world. Now, in our time, one can object: But children don't believe that! Do you know why they don't believe it? Because the teachers, because the educators themselves do not believe it. Now the materialistically thinking person says: Now you demand not only that children believe it, but also that teachers believe it!

Theosophy wants to make it clear again how the soul continues to exist after it has left the physical body, just as it is the case with the chrysalis and the moth. Yes, we will be able to believe in it again, and that is the most beautiful achievement of theosophy, that we do not see these things as a mere intellectual exercise, but that we have truths again that can also be understood through feeling. When people understand this, then faith is also passed on to the child, and the more the child is supposed to grasp of it, and the more the child is taught about it, the better it is for the child to learn to understand it through imagination. It is quite a different matter whether a child has experienced the secrets of nature through feeling and thus comes to the abstract concept, than whether a child has to understand the dry concept beforehand, without feeling coming into it. And this feeling works best when the etheric body is developing – and that is why particular emphasis must be placed on this in education.

In our time, in many areas of Europe, there are views that one should not turn the child into a memory machine. It is said that the child must learn to think. They teach him that Ix1=1 very early on, and the child must learn many other things soon. But there is nothing worse than having to exert the pure powers of reason too early. First, a fund of knowledge must be available, then one can judge what one knows. Today, children are taught history without understanding it, because children cannot yet judge cause and effect. The child must first have a sufficient amount of thoughts, and when the child sees many things in his soul, he can compare. If you only know a little and you start judging, you cannot compare, and [then] man is stupid. You cannot do anything worse for development in this [section] of life, in which our memory should really be enriched, than not to pay close attention to the child's ability to compare, which enables him to judge better. This is not yet understood today, [and that has already led to bad things]. Young people today give their judgment on everything, and we have to experience that articles appear in newspapers written by young people whose astral body has only recently been born.

If one knew how the laws work, then one should know that the astral body is only really born at the time of sexual maturity – around this time – and before this time the child does not yet have the ability to judge. The time from the change of teeth to sexual maturity should have the magic words: 'authority', 'image' and 'memory'. We could mention many things here, but one thing is particularly important: as soon as the astral body is born, the development of the powers of the mind and the aesthetic disposition of the human being come into consideration. Just as during the first seven years the physical body was developed, from the seventh to the fifteenth year the etheric body was developed, so now the astral body comes into consideration. If we want to assess this correctly, we need to be clear about a great many things, because during this time a great many images are placed before the soul. During this time, the human being must have good role models and ideals to strive for. The magic word for this epoch of human development is “emulation”. One must give these people pictures of great men and women and make clear to them what these people have done in the development of the world. And what has been neglected during this time in order to educate the senses for the beautiful and artistic cannot be made up for later. With sexual maturity, what has been inherited from previous generations, from the family and so on, comes out with the person, so to speak.

Then, when a person has reached sexual maturity, when he has shed his astral shell, the qualities that he has brought with him from previous lives come to light. Their shadows had already been cast over the young child, but if we look at the essential, what emerges is what goes beyond death and birth: individuality.

At puberty, the astral covering is pushed back and the astral body is released. And now there come times for the person when other things are important. Now, consideration is given to education, to the power of judgment, to a person's sound judgment. But something else is even more important. That which the person has brought with them from their previous life comes to the fore in a special way, that they want to shape in this life between birth and death. During this time, the human being is not yet capable of observing the external world in an objective way. But that which enters the world is of a beautiful, ideal nature. [This nature also wants to come out, and here it is a matter of how this nature, insofar as it comes out as idealism, will face life as hope.] This hope and idealism reveal themselves in their true form between the ages of 14, 15 and 21 to 22. During this time, everything that wants to come out reveals itself, even if it contradicts reality. These are all memories from previous lives, with the new fresh powers of the astral body. Woe betide people whose ideals of hope are clouded during this time, whose expectations are dimmed, who are told that a large part of these things will later appear merely as spring hopes, that these are merely unattainable ideals and hopes. That is not the point. It does not matter whether the ideals can be achieved, but rather it is a matter of the forces that lie within them. These are the favorable life forces that, if well trained, make our astral body safe and secure for life. When we have these ideals, we make ourselves a strong third garment, and there is nothing worse than not taking care for this time, that idealism can develop, when one encounters this idealism with a Philistinism that wants to try to break the idealism.

Because it is only around the twentieth year that the actual self in man, which has been in its shell until now, is fully born. And with that, the human being enters the world in free communication, and has become a being that places itself in absolutely free communication with the outside world.

Only then is everything that was in him out. Now he has to educate himself by grinding down. This takes a long time. It continues like this until the thirty-fifth year. This is an important year in a person's life. This thirty-fifth year is considered a turning point by those who stand on the ground of theosophical spiritual science.

If we look at the average lifespan, we see that the thirty-fifth year marks the end of everything that was predisposed in the human being. Up to this point, he has acquired everything he could practise. Towards the end of the thirty-fifth year, when the time of apprenticeship and wandering is over, he begins to exercise his powers and abilities. But then the powers begin to decline again. From the age of thirty-five, the astral body, which until then had been in free contact with the outside world and in which everything that had been established was engraved, now begins to harden and regress. This lasts until the age of forty. This is an important epoch in the development of man, because this degeneration is one side of the matter - and the other side is much more important.

The moment the shell, the astral body, begins to recede, the moment the forces of the astral body are consumed, that is the moment the core in man, the eternal core, is emphasized. If a person is educated correctly, this core can develop all the more for the times after death. While the temporal disappears downwards, this eternal in man grows. This is very evident in the fortieth year, when, after the astral body, the etheric body also begins to disintegrate. Just as it happened first with the astral body, so it now happens with the etheric body, which has now begun to regress. We can see this clearly in many people who, around this time, remember a lot of what they experienced as a child. Especially from the seventh to the fourteenth year, while they have completely forgotten many things that they have experienced recently. These old memories come back when the etheric body recedes.

The last epoch is when the physical body declines. This is, by and large, when the physical organs, the entire bone system, deteriorates. We do not need to describe this physical deterioration, but we point it out so that you can see what can actually be said about this epoch of life.

Now all this is no longer generally known, but there were times, very long, long ago, when all this was known, when it was known, for example, that the thirty-fifth year is the midpoint of life, and that only after this time, when you are completely finished with yourself - and that is around the thirty-fifth year - that you are only then mature enough to give to others, to spend what you have in abundance. Only after the thirty-fifth year do you have an abundance. Until then, man has to take care of the development of his clothes. So until his thirtieth year, man has to deal with himself. When he no longer has to deal with himself – only after his thirty-fifth year, because then the bodies regress – then the forces that previously flowed into his physical body flow into his spiritual body, in order to have an effect on his environment. In the times when people had an inkling of these things, this thirty-fifth year was therefore considered so important. A person was only trusted with judgment after he had reached the age of thirty-five, when he had received all his powers. Only then, it was said, did a person become capable of judgment. Other people should listen to his judgment when he no longer has anything to do with himself; and then it was valid as long as the person had his astral body. When the etheric body begins to fade away, then his judgment is not only decisive to be listened to, but to be accepted as something that applies not only to him, but to the community in which he finds himself.

In ancient times, when this was understood, when it was known that the one who had entered this age no longer needed to add anything to his etheric body because it was already declining, in that age the person could give his judgment in the council of the community. In the times when people knew about this, when they knew life in this way, they organized their lives accordingly, and they said something wonderful in those times when they felt these things. They said: Only when a person has reached the age at which his physical body gradually decays, so that he no longer demands anything and his time fades away, only then can you listen to him, only then is his judgment exalted. You can accept his judgment. Such things have existed, and many were aware of them.

I will remind you of just one fact. Just read the beginning of Dante's 'Commedia'. Then read how he describes what he experienced, where he writes that the most powerful thing he experienced was in the middle of his life – that is when he was thirty-five. There he experienced this initiation, which could be called the 'initiation into the mysteries of existence'. And there is a secret training, an initiation into the secrets of existence in special schools, in mystery schools, under such conditions that a person is never declared mature enough to speak about the facts of secret science, a person who still has something to do with himself, who is not already on the descending line.

If you take all this together from the spiritual-scientific point of view, you will see that on the one hand you have a path along which the various bodies - the physical body, the etheric body and the astral body - develop, and a path along which these bodies regress, an ascending and a descending path. But it is on the latter, on which the eternal in man grows, on which the source decreases, and man then has to pass through the gate of death. Then the powers that have been mysteriously developing in the sheaths emerge. And the more a person strives to develop himself in his life, and the more he applies theosophical views in the practical world, the better he has understood the true spirit of them.

We have now seen that we have gained practical principles directly from these theosophical views, and yet there are many people who say: There are such strange people in the world who call themselves Theosophists, who claim such strange things about a world that [in addition] is supposed to still exist [which we cannot possibly know about]. A reasonable person considers all this to be fantasy. You can say all that, but we assume that such people rise up until they say: Now, when you meet and talk to a theosophist like that, they do have a reasonable judgment about other things. So let us listen to the matter for once, even if they tell us something that we cannot yet understand directly; perhaps there is something good in what these strange people claim, but we can try it.

You can make life itself the proof. You can prove through life what is right. All the talking and discussing is only partially very good, but it is not the right thing. With discussion, you can prove virtually anything you want. It is the same with remedies. The healer thinks that his remedy is the best. But someone else may come along and say that what he has is definitely better, that his remedy is the best there is. Then someone else may come along and say: none of it is worth anything, and he proves it too. You don't get anywhere with such discussions. You only get ahead by using the remedy. If this remedy helps, then it is proven that it is good. If it does not help, then it is not proven.

If Theosophy is to have any influence on our lives, then life must be the proof for such things. Let man dare to put life under the facts that Theosophy talks about. You will then see that man comes up higher, healthy in body and soul, that man will develop better. You will see that life is the proof of the correctness of what Theosophy has to give, and you may place your whole life under the sign of the views, the facts, and you will see that the whole of life will develop more beautifully. You will see that it is not necessary for our hopes and our efforts to wane for it. If we fail to prove the correctness of our views to you, then they were not correct for you. But we know that what we say is right. We feel and know that the temporal dies and that the eternal grows. We run counter to the moments when we are to pass through the gate of death.

Thus, Theosophy, spiritual science, gives us the means to intervene in our immediate, practical lives in a healthy way, and the lives that have been influenced by this will provide the best proof of its truth. People today need the influence of Theosophy in their everyday lives. And life becomes healthy and fresh and hopeful and capable of work when man knows everything that confronts him in the outer world through the strong powers of the spirit, on which everything is based. Then everything should be a reflection of spiritual facts. Then, in all truth, spirit encounters spirit in evolution, and when spirit ignites spirit in evolution, then this development truly progresses, upward to the salvation of all life, to the salvation of all existence.

The delay in arriving yesterday prevented me from speaking to you, as was my wish, about what has been happening in the Anthroposophical Society since the Christmas Foundation Meeting at the Goetheanum. As the purpose and intentions of that Meeting will have become known to friends through the News Sheet, I propose to speak briefly about the most important points only and then to continue with more intimate studies concerning the significance of this Christmas Foundation Meeting for the Anthroposophical Society.

The Christmas Meeting was intended to be a fundamental renewal, a new foundation of the Anthroposophical Society. Up to the time of the Christmas Foundation Meeting I was always able to make a distinction between the Anthroposophical Movement and the Anthroposophical Society. The latter represented as it were the earthly projection of something that exists in the spiritual worlds in a certain stream of the spiritual life. What was taught here on the Earth and communicated as anthroposophical wisdom—this was the reflection of the stream flowing in spiritual worlds through the present phase of the evolution of mankind. The Anthroposophical Society was then a kind of ‘administrative organ’ for the anthroposophical knowledge flowing through the Anthroposophical Movement.

As time went on, this did not turn out satisfactorily for the true cultivation of Anthroposophy. It therefore became necessary that I myself—until then I had taught Anthroposophy without having any official connection with the Anthroposophical Society—should take over, together with the Dornach Executive, the leadership of the Anthroposophical Society as such. The Anthroposophical Movement and the Anthroposophical Society have thereby become one. Since the Christmas Foundation Meeting in Dornach, the opposite of what went before must be recognised: no distinction is to be made henceforward between Anthroposophical Movement and Anthroposophical Society, for they are now identical. And those who stand by my side as the Executive at the Goetheanum are to be regarded as a kind of esoteric Executive. Thus what comes about through this Executive may be characterised as ‘Anthroposophy in deed and practice,’ whereas formerly it could only be a matter of the administration of the anthroposophical teachings.

This means, however, that the whole Anthroposophical Society must gradually be placed upon a new basis—a basis which makes it possible for esotericism to stream through the Society—and the essence of the Anthroposophical Society in the future will be constituted by the due response and attitude on the part of those who desire to be Anthroposophists. This will have to be understood in the General Anthroposophical Society which henceforward will be an entirely open Society—so that, as was announced at Christmas, the Lecture-Courses too will be available for everyone, prefixed by the clauses laying down a kind of spiritual boundary-line.

The prosperity and fruitful development of the anthroposophical cause will depend upon a true understanding of the esoteric trend which, from now onwards, will be implicit in the Anthroposophical Movement. Care will be taken to ensure that the Anthroposophical Society is kept free from bureaucratic and formal administrative measures and that the sole basis everywhere is the human element to be cultivated within the Society. Naturally, the Executive at the Goetheanum will have much to administer: but the administration will not be the essential. The essential will be that the Executive at the Goetheanum will act in this or that matter out of its own initiative. And what the Executive does, what in many ways it has already begun to do—that will form the content of the Anthroposophical Society.

Thereby a great many harmful tendencies that have arisen in the Society during recent years will be eliminated; difficulties will be in store for many Members, because all kinds of institutions, founded out of good-will, as the saying goes, did not prove equal to what they claimed to be and have really side-tracked the Anthroposophical Movement. Henceforward the Anthroposophical Movement will, in the human sense, be that which flows through the Anthroposophical Society.

The more deeply this is realised and understood the better it will be for the Anthroposophical Movement. And I am able to say the following.—Because that impulse prevailed among those who gathered at the Goetheanum at Christmas, it has been possible since then to introduce a quite different note into the Anthroposophical Movement. And to my deep satisfaction I have found heartfelt response to this in the different places I have so far been able to visit. It can be said that what was undertaken at Christmas was in a certain sense a hazard. For a certain eventuality existed: because the leadership of the Anthroposophical Society was now combined with the presentation of the spiritual teachings, those Powers in the spiritual world who lead the Anthroposophical Movement might have withdrawn their guiding hands. It may now be said that this did not happen, but that the contrary is true: these spiritual Powers are responding with an ever greater measure of grace, with even greater bounty, to what is streaming through the Anthroposophical Movement. In a certain sense a pledge has been made to the spiritual world. This pledge will be unswervingly fulfilled and it will be seen that in the future things will happen in accordance with it. And so not only in respect of the Anthroposophical Movement but also in respect of the Anthroposophical Society, responsibility is laid upon the Dornach Executive.

I have only spoken these few preliminary words in order to lead up to something that it is now possible to say and is of such a nature that it can become part of the content of the Anthroposophical Movement. I want to speak about something that has to do with the karma of the Anthroposophical Society itself.

When we think to-day of how the Anthroposophical Society exists in the world as the embodiment of the Anthroposophical Movement, we see a number of human beings coming together within the Anthroposophical Society. Any discerning person realises that there are also other human beings in the world—one finds them everywhere—whose karma predisposes them to come to the Anthroposophical Society but, to begin with, something holds them back, they do not immediately, and in the full sense, find their way into it—though eventually they will certainly do so, either in this or in the next incarnation. We must, however, bear the following in mind: Those human beings who through their karma come to the Anthroposophical Movement are predestined for this Movement.

Now everything that happens here in the physical world is foreshadowed in spiritual worlds. Nothing happens in the physical world that has not been prepared for spiritually, in the spiritual world. And this is the significant thing: What is coming to pass here on the Earth in the twentieth century as the gathering together of a number of human beings in the Anthroposophical Society, was prepared for during the first half of the nineteenth century when the souls of those human beings who are now in incarnation and are coming together in large numbers, were united in the spiritual realms before they descended into the physical world. In the spiritual worlds at that time a kind of cult or ritual was lived through by a number of souls who were working together—a cult which instigated those longings that have arisen in the souls of those who now, in their present incarnations, come to the Anthroposophical Society. And whoever has a gift for recognising such souls in their bodies, does indeed recognise them as having worked together with him in the first half of the nineteenth century, when, in the spiritual world, mighty, cosmic Imaginations were presented of what I will call the new Christianity. Up there—as in their bodies now—the souls were united in order to gather into themselves out of what I will call the Cosmic Substantiality and the Cosmic Forces, that which, in mighty pictures, was of cosmic significance. It was the prelude of what was to become anthroposophical teaching and practice here on the Earth. By far the majority of the Anthroposophists who now sit together with one another would be able, if they perceived this, to say: Yes, we know one another, we were together in spiritual worlds, and in a super-sensible cult we experienced mighty, cosmic Imaginations together!

All these souls had gathered together in the first half of the nineteenth century in order to prepare for what, on Earth, was to become the Anthroposophical Movement. In reality it was all a preparation for what I have often called the ‘stream of Michael,’ which appeared in the last third of the nineteenth century and is the most important of all spiritual intervention in the modern phase of human evolution. The Michael stream—to prepare the ways for Michael's earthly-heavenly working—such was the task of the souls who were together in the spiritual world.

These souls, however, were drawn together by experiences they had undergone through long, long ages—through centuries, nay, in many cases through thousands of years. And among them two main groups are to be distinguished. The one group experienced the form of Christianity which during the first centuries of the Christian era had spread in Southern Europe and also, to some extent, in Middle Europe. This Christianity continued to present to its believers a Christ conceived of as the mighty Divine Messenger who had come down from the Sun to the Earth in order thereafter to work among men. With greater or less understanding, Christ was thus pictured by the Christians of the first centuries as the mighty ‘Sun God.’

But throughout Christendom at this time the faculty of instinctive clairvoyance once possessed by men was fading away. Then they could no longer see in the Sun the great spiritual kingdom at whose centre the Christ once had His abode. The ancient clairvoyant perception of the descent of the Christ to the Earth became superseded by mere tradition—tradition that He had come down from the Sun to the Earth, uniting Himself with Jesus of Nazareth in the physical body. The majority of Christians now retained little more than the concept that once upon a time a Being had lived in Palestine—Christ Jesus—whose nature now began to be the subject of controversy. Had this Being been fully God? Or was He both God and Man and, if so, how was the Divinity related to the Humanity? These questions, with others arising from them, were the problems and the causes of strife in the Church Councils. Eventually the mass of the people had nothing left to them but the Decrees issued by Rome.

There were, however, among the Christians certain individuals who came more and more to be regarded as heretics. They still preserved as a living remembrance the tradition of the Christ as a Being of the Sun. To them, a Sun Being, by nature foreign to this Earth, was once incarnate. He descended to existence in this physical, material world. Until the seventh and eighth centuries these individuals found themselves placed in conditions which caused them to say: In what is now making its appearance in the guise of Christianity there is no longer any real understanding of the nature of the Christ! These “heretics” became, in effect, weary of Christianity. There were indeed such souls who in the early Christian centuries until the seventh and eighth centuries passed through the gate of death in a mood of weariness in regard to Christianity. Whether or not they had been in incarnation in the intervening period, the incarnation of importance for them was that which occurred in the early Christian centuries. Then, from the seventh and eighth centuries onwards, they were preparing in the spiritual world for that great and powerful action of which I told you when I said that in the first half of the nineteenth century a kind of cult took place in the super-sensible world. These individuals participated in this cult and they belong to the one group of souls who have found their way into the Anthroposophical Society.

The other group of souls had their last important incarnation in the latest pre-Christian—not the first Christian—centuries, and in the ancient Pagan Mysteries prior to Christianity they had still been able to gaze with clairvoyant vision into the spiritual world. They had learnt in these ancient Mysteries that the Christ would come down one day to the Earth. They did not live on Earth during the early centuries of Christianity but remained in the super-sensible worlds and only after the seventh century descended to incarnations of importance. These are souls who, as it were from the vantage-point of the super-sensible, witnessed the entry of the Christ into earthly culture and civilisation. They longed for Christianity. And at the same time they were resolute in a desire to work actively and vigorously to bring into the world a truly cosmic, truly spiritual form of Christianity.

These two groups united with the other souls in that super-sensible cult during the first half of the nineteenth century. It was like a great cosmic, spiritual festival, lasting for many decades as a spiritual happening in the world immediately bordering on the physical. There they were—the souls who then descended, having worked together in the super-sensible world to prepare for their next incarnation on the Earth, those who were weary of Christianity and those who were yearning for it. Towards the end of the nineteenth century they descended to incarnation and when they had arrived on Earth they were ready, having thus made preparation, to come into the Anthroposophical Society.

All this, as I have said, had been in course of preparation for many centuries. Here on the Earth, Christianity had developed in such a way that the Gospels had gradually come to be interpreted as if they spoke merely of some kind of abstract “heights” from which a Being—Jesus of Nazareth—came down to proclaim the Christ. Men had no longer any inkling of how the world of stars as the expression of the Spiritual is connected with the spiritual life; hence it was also impossible for them to understand what is signified by saying: Christ, as a divine Sun Hero, came down into Jesus in order that He might share the destiny of men. It is precisely those facts of most significance that escape the ordinary student of history. Above all, there is no understanding of those who are called “heretics.” Moreover, among the souls who came down to Earth as the twentieth century approached—the souls weary of Christianity and those longing for it—there is, for the most part, no self-recognition. The “heretic-souls” do not recognise themselves.

By the seventh and eighth centuries such traditions as had been kept alive by the heretics who had become weary of Christianity had largely disappeared. The knowledge was sustained in small circles only, where until the twelfth century—the middle of the Middle Ages—it was preserved and cultivated. These circles were composed of Teachers, divinely blessed Teachers, who still cultivated something of this ancient knowledge of spiritual Christianity, cosmological Christianity. There were some amongst them, too, who had directly received communications from the past and in them a kind of Inspiration arose; thus they were able to experience a reflection—whether strong or faint, a true image—of what in the first Christian centuries men had been able to behold under the influence of a mighty Inspiration of the descent of the Sun God leading to the Mystery of Golgotha.

And so two main streams were there. One, as we have seen, is the stream which derives directly from the heretical movements of the first Christian centuries. Those belonging to it were fired still by what had been alive in the Platonism of ancient Greece. So fired were they that when through the tidings emanating from ancient times their inner vision opened, they were always able, under the influence of a genuine, albeit faint Inspiration, to perceive the descent of the Christ to the Earth and to glimpse His work on the Earth. This was the Platonic stream.

For the other stream a different destiny was in store. To this stream belonged those souls above all who had their last important incarnation in the pre-Christian era and who had glimpsed Christianity as something ordained for the future. The task of this stream was to prepare the intellect for that epoch which had its beginning in the first half of the fifteenth century. This was to be the epoch when the human intellect would unfold—the epoch of the Spiritual Soul. It was prepared for by the Aristotelians, in contrast—but in harmonious contrast—to what the Platonists had accomplished. And those who propagated Aristotelian teachings until well into the twelfth century were souls who had passed through their last really important incarnation in ancient Pagan times, especially in the world of Greek culture. And then—in the middle of the Middle Ages, in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries—there came about that great and wonderful spiritual understanding, if I may call it so, between the Platonists and the Aristotelians. And among these Platonists and Aristotelians were the leaders of those who as the two groups of souls I have described, advanced the Anthroposophical Movement.

By the twelfth century a certain School had come into being—as it were through inner necessity—a School in which the afterglow of the old Platonic seership lit up once again. It was the great and illustrious School of Chartres. In this School were great teachers to whom the mysteries of early Christianity were still known and in whose hearts and souls this knowledge kindled a vision of the spiritual foundation of Christianity. In the School of Chartres in France, where stands the magnificent Cathedral, built with such profusion of detail, there was a concentration, a gathering-together, as it were, of knowledge that only shortly before had been widely scattered, though confined to the small circles of which I have spoken. One of the men with whom the School was able to forge a living link was Peter of Compostella. He was able, with inspired understanding, to bring the ancient spiritual Christianity to life again within his own heart and soul. A whole succession of wonderful figures were teachers in Chartres. Truly remarkable voices spoke of Christianity in the School of Chartres in this twelfth century. There, for example, we find Bernard of Chartres, Bernardus Sylvestris, John of Salisbury, but above all the great Alanus ab Insulis. Mighty teachers indeed! When they spoke in the School of Chartres it was as if Plato himself, interpreting Christianity, were working in person among them. They taught the spiritual content and substance of Christianity. The writings that have come down from them may seem full of abstractions to those who read them to-day. But that is due simply to the abstract trend that characterises modern thinking. The impulse of the Christ is implicit in all the descriptions of the spiritual world contained in the writings of these outstanding personalities. I will give you an idea of how Bernardus Sylvestris and Alanus ab Insulis, above all, taught their initiated pupils. Strange as it will seem to the modern mind, such revelations were indeed given at that time to the pupils of Chartres.

It was taught: New life will come to Christianity. Its spiritual content and essence will be understood once again when Kali Yuga, the Age of Darkness, has come to an end and the dawn of a new Age breaks. And with the year 1899 this has already come to pass for us who are living at the present time; this is the great and mighty change that was to come for humanity at the end of Kali Yuga, the mighty impulse given two decades previously through the advent of Michael. This was prophetically announced in the School of Chartres in the twelfth century, above all by Bernardus Sylvestris and Alanus ab Insulis. But these men did not teach in the Aristotelian way, they did not teach by way of the intellect. They gave their teachings entirely in the form of mighty, imaginative pictures—pictures whereby the spiritual content of Christianity became concretely real. But there were certain prophetic teachings; and I should like by means of a brief extract to give you an indication of one such teaching.

Alanus ab Insulis spoke to the following effect to a narrow circle of his initiated pupils:—‘As we contemplate the universe to-day, we still regard the Earth as the centre, we judge everything from the Earth, as the centre. If the terrestrial conception which enables us to unfold our pictures and our imaginations... if this conception alone were to fertilise the coming centuries, progress would not be possible for mankind. We must come to an understanding with the Aristotelians who bring to humanity the intellect which must then be spiritualised so that in the twentieth century it may shine forth in a new and spiritual form among men. We, in our time, regard the Earth as the centre of the Cosmos, we speak of the planets circling around the Earth, we describe the whole heaven of stars as it presents itself to physical eyes as if it revolved around the Earth. But there will come one who will say: Let us place the Sun at the spatial centre of the cosmic system! But when he who will thus place the Sun at the centre of the spatial universe has come, the picture of the world will become arid. Men will only calculate the courses of the planets, will merely indicate the positions of the heavenly bodies, speaking of them as gases, or burning, luminous, physical bodies; they will know the starry heavens only in terms of mathematical and mechanical laws. But this arid picture of the world that will become widespread in the coming times, has, after all, one thing—meagre, it is true, yet it has it none the less. ... We look at the universe from the Earth; he who will come will look at the universe from the standpoint of the Sun. He will be like one who indicates a “direction” only—the direction leading towards a path of majestic splendour, fraught with most wonderful happenings and peopled by glorious Beings. But he will give the direction through abstract concepts only.’ (Thereby the Copernican picture of the world was indicated, arid and abstract yet giving the direction...) ‘For,’ said Alanus ab Insulis, ‘everything we present through the Imaginations that come to us must pass away; it must pass away and the picture men now have of the world must become altogether abstract, hardly more than a pointer along a path strewn with wonderful memorials. For then, in the spiritual world, there will be One who will use this pointer—which for the purposes of world-renewal is nothing more than a means of directive—in order that, together with the prevailing intellectualism, he may then lay the foundations of the new spirituality ... there will be One who will have this pointer as his only tool. This One will be St. Michael! For Him the ground must be made free; he must sow the path with new seed. And to that end, nothing but lines must remain—mathematical lines!’

A kind of magic breathed through the School of Chartres when Alanus ab Insulis was giving such teachings to a few of his chosen pupils. It was as if the ether-world all around were set astir by the surging waves of this mighty Michael teaching.

And so a spiritual atmosphere was imparted to the world. It spread across Western Europe, down into Southern Italy, where there were many who were able to receive it into themselves. In their souls something arose like a mighty Inspiration, enabling them to gaze into the spiritual world.

But in the evolution of the world it is so that those who are initiated into the great secrets of existence—as to a certain degree were Alanus ab Insulis and Bernardus Sylvestris—such men know that it is only possible to achieve this or that particular aim to a limited extent. A man like Alanus ab Insulis said to himself: We, the Platonists, must go through the gate of death; for the present we can live only in the spiritual world. We must look down from the spiritual world, leaving the physical world to those others whose task it is to cultivate the intellect in the Aristotelian way. The time has come now for the cultivation of the intellect. Late in his life Alanus ab Insulis put on the habit of the Cistercian Order; he became a Cistercian. And in the Cistercian Order many of these Platonic teachings were contained. Those among the Cistercians who possessed the deeper knowledge said to themselves: Henceforward we can work only from the spiritual world; the field must be relinquished to the Aristotelians.

These Aristotelians were, for the most part, in the Order of the Dominicans. And so in the thirteenth century the leadership of the spiritual life in Europe passed over to them.

But a heritage remained from men such as Peter of Compostella, Alanus ab Insulis, Bernard of Chartres, John of Salisbury and that poet who from the School of Chartres wrote a remarkable poem on the Seven Liberal Arts. It took significant hold of the spiritual life of Europe. What had come into being in the School of Chartres was so potent that it found its way, for example, to the University of Orleans. There, in the second half of the twelfth century, a great deal penetrated in the form of teaching from what had streamed to the pupils of Chartres through mighty pictures and words—words as it were of silver—from the lips of Bernardus Sylvestris, of Alanus ab Insulis.

The spiritual atmosphere was so charged with this influence from Chartres that the following incident happened.—While a man, returning to Italy from his ambassadorial post in Spain, was hastening homeward, he received news of the overthrow of the Guelphs in Florence, and at the same time suffered a slight sunstroke. In this condition his etheric body loosened and gathered in what was still echoing through the ether from the School of Chartres. And through what was thus wafted to him in the ether, something like an Intuition came to him—an Intuition such as had come to many human beings in the early Christian centuries. First he saw outspread before him the earthly world as it surrounds mankind, ruled over, not by ‘laws of Nature,’ as the saying went in later times—but by the great handmaiden of the Divine Demiurgos, by Natura, who in the first Christian centuries was the successor of Proserpine. In those days men did not speak of abstract laws of Nature; to the gaze of the Initiates, Being was implicit in what worked in Nature as an all-embracing, divine Power. Proserpine, who divides her time between the upper and the lower worlds, was presented in the Greek Mysteries as the power ruling over Nature. Her successor in the early Christian centuries was the Goddess Natura.

While under the influence of the sunstroke and of what came to him from the School of Chartres, this personality had gazed into the weaving life of the Goddess Natura, and, allowing this Intuition to impress him still more deeply, he beheld the working of the Elements—Earth, Water, Air, Fire—as this was once revealed in the ancient Mysteries; he beheld the majestic weaving of the Elements. Then he beheld the mysteries of the soul of man, he beheld those seven Powers of whom it was known that they are the great celestial Instructors of the human race.—This was known in the early Christian centuries. In those times men did not speak, as they do to-day, of abstract teachings, where something is imparted by way of concepts and ideas. In the first Christian centuries men spoke of being instructed from the spiritual world by the Goddesses Dialectica, Rhetorica, Grammatica, Arithmetica, Geometria, Astrologia or Astronomia, and Musica. These Seven were not the abstract conceptions which they have become today; men gazed upon them, saw them before their eyes—I cannot say in bodily reality but as Beings of soul—and allowed themselves to be instructed by these heavenly figures. Later on they no longer appeared to men in the solitude of vision as the living Goddesses Dialectica, Rhetorica and the rest, but in abstract forms, in abstract, theoretic doctrines.

The personality of whom I am now speaking allowed all that I have related to work upon him. And he was led then into the planetary world, wherein the mysteries of the soul of man are unveiled. Then in the world of stars, having traversed the “Great Cosmic Ocean,” he was led by Ovid, who after he had passed through the gate of death had become the guide and leader of souls in the spiritual world. This personality, who was Brunetto Latini, became the teacher of Dante. What Dante learned from Brunetto Latini he then wrote down in his poem the Divina Commedia. And so that mighty poem is a last reflection of what lived on here and there as Platonism. It had flowed from the lips of Sylvestris at the School of Chartres in the twelfth century and was still taught by those who had been so inwardly fired by the old traditions that the secrets of Christianity rose up within them as Inspirations which they were then able to communicate to their pupils through the word.

The influence of Alanus ab Insulis, brought into the Cistercian Order, passed over to the Dominicans. Then to the Dominicans fell the paramount task: the cultivation of the intellect in the Aristotelian sense. But there was an intervening period: the School of Chartres had been at its prime in the twelfth century—and in the thirteenth century, in the Dominican Order, the intensive development of Aristotelian Scholasticism began. The great teachers in the School of Chartres had passed through the gate of death into the spiritual world and were together for a time with the Dominicans who were beginning to come down through birth and who, after they had descended, established Aristotelianism on the Earth. We must therefore think of an intervening period, when, as it were in a great heavenly Council, the last of the great teachers of Chartres after they had passed through the gate of death were together with those who, as Dominicans, were to cultivate Aristotelianism—were together with them before these latter souls came down to Earth. There, in the spiritual world, the great “heavenly contract” was made. Those who under the leadership of Alanus ab Insulis had arrived in the spiritual world said to the Aristotelians who were about to descend: It is not the time now for us to be on the Earth; for the present we must work from here, from the spiritual world. In the near future it will not be possible for us to incarnate on the Earth. It is now your task to cultivate the intellect in the dawning epoch of the Spiritual Soul.—

Then the great Schoolmen came down and carried out the agreement that had been reached between them and the last great Platonists of the School of Chartres. One, for example, who had been among the earliest to descend received a message through another who had remained with Alanus ab Insulis in the spiritual world for a longer time than he—that is to say, the younger man had remained longer with the spiritual Individuality who had borne the name ‘Alanus ab Insulis.’ The younger one who came down later worked together with the older man to whom he conveyed the message and thus within the Dominican Order began the preparation for the Age of Intellectualism. The one who had remained somewhat longer in the spiritual world with Alanus ab Insulis first put on the habit of the Cistercian Order, exchanging it only later for that of the Dominican. And so those who had once lived under the influence of what came into the world with Aristotle, were now working on the Earth, and up above, keeping watch, but in living connection with the Aristotelians working on the Earth, were the Platonists who had been in the School of Chartres. The spiritual world and the physical world went hand in hand. Through the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth centuries it was as though Aristotelians and Platonists were stretching out their hands to one another. And then, as time went on, many of those who had come down in order to introduce Aristotelianism into Europe were in the spiritual world with the others once again.

But the further course of evolution was such that the former leaders in the School of Chartres, together with those who held the leading positions in the Dominican Order, placed themselves at the head of those who in the first half of the nineteenth century, in that mighty super-sensible cult enacted in the pictures already indicated, made preparation for the later anthroposophical stream. In the nature of things, the first to come down again were those who had worked more or less as Aristotelians; for under the influence of intellectualism the time for a new deepening of spirituality had not yet come. But there was an unbreakable agreement which still works on. In accordance with this agreement there must go forth from the Anthroposophical Movement something that must find its culmination before this century has run its course. For over the Anthroposophical Society a destiny hovers: many of those in the Anthroposophical Society to-day will have to come down again to the Earth before, and at the end of, the twentieth century, but united, then, with those who were either the actual leaders in the School of Chartres or were pupils at Chartres. And so, if civilisation is not to fall into utter decadence, before the end of the twentieth century the Platonists of Chartres and the Aristotelians who came later will have to be working together on the Earth.

In the future, the Anthroposophical Society must learn to understand, with full consciousness, something of its karma. For a great deal that is unable to come to birth—above all at the present time—is waiting in the womb of the spiritual evolution of mankind. Also, very many things to-day assume an entirely different form; but if one can discern the symptoms, the inner meaning of what is thus externalised becomes evident and the veils are drawn aside from much that continues to live spiritually through the centuries. At this point I may perhaps give a certain indication. Why, indeed, should it not be given, now that the esoteric impulse is to flow through the Anthroposophical Society?—I should like to speak of something that will show you how observation of surrounding circumstances opens up a vista into manifold connections.

When I myself, in preparing for the Anthroposophical Movement, was led along a particular path of destiny, this showed itself in a strange connection with the Cistercian Order, which is closely connected, in its turn, with Alanus ab Insulis. [Let me say here, for those who like to weave legends, that I, in respect of my own individuality, am in no way to be identified with Alanus ab Insulis. I only want to prevent legends arising from what I am putting before you in an esoteric way. The essential point is that these things stem from esoteric sources.] In an altogether remarkable way my destiny allowed me to discern through the external circumstances, such spiritual connections as I have now described. Perhaps some of you know the articles in the Goetheanum Weekly entitled, Mein Lebensgang (The Course of My Life). I have spoken there of how in my youth I was sent, not to a Gymnasium, but to a Real Schule, and only later acquired the classical education given in the Gymnasia. I can only regard this as a remarkable dispensation of my karma. For in the town where I spent my youth the Gymnasium was only a few steps away from the Real Schule and it was by a hair's breadth that I went, not to the Gymnasium but to the Real Schule. If, however, at that time I had gone to the Gymnasium in the town, I should have become a priest in the Cistercian Order. Of that there is no doubt whatever. For at this Gymnasium all the teachers were Cistercians. I was deeply attracted to all these priests, many of whom were extremely learned men. I read a great deal that they wrote and was profoundly stirred by it. I loved these priests and the only reason why I passed the Cistercian Order by was because I did not attend the Gymnasium. Karma led me elsewhere ... but for all that I did not escape the Cistercian Order. I have spoken of this too in my autobiography. I was always of a sociable disposition, and in my autobiography I have written of how, later on, in the house of Marie Eugenie della Grazie in Vienna, I came into contact with practically every theologian in the city. Nearly all of them were Cistercian priests. And in this way a vista opened out, inducing one to go back in time ... for me personally it came very naturally ... a vista leading through the stream of the Cistercian Order back to the School of Chartres. For Alanus ab Insulis had been a Cistercian. And strange to say, when, later on, I was writing my first Mystery Play, The Portal of Initiation, I simply could not, for reasons of aesthetic necessity, do otherwise than clothe the female characters on the stage in a costume consisting of a long tunic and what is called a stole. If you picture such a garment—a yellowish-white tunic with a black stole and black girdle—there you have the robe of the Cistercian Order. I was thinking at the time only of aesthetic necessities, but this robe of the Cistercian Order came very naturally before me. There you have one indication of how connections unfold before those who are able to perceive the inner, spiritual significance of symptoms appearing in the external world.

A beginning was made at Christmas more and more to draw aside the veils from these inner connections. They must be brought to light, for mankind is waiting for knowledge of inner reality, having for centuries experienced only that of the outer, material world, and civilisation to-day is in a terrible position. Among the many indications still to be given, we shall, on the one side, have to speak of the work of the School of Chartres, of how Initiates in this School passed through the gate of death and encountered in the spiritual world those souls who later wore the robe of the Dominicans in order to spread Aristotelianism with its intellectuality and to prepare with vigour and energy the epoch of the Spiritual (or Consciousness) Soul. And so—let me put it in this way—in the Anthroposophical Society we have Aristotelianism working on, but in a spiritualised form, and awaiting its further spiritualisation. Then, at the end of the century many of those who are here to-day, will return, but they will be united, then, with those who were the teachers in the School of Chartres. The aim of the Anthroposophical Society is to unite the two elements. The one element is the Aristotelianism in the souls who were for the most part connected with the old Pagan wisdom, who were waiting for Christianity and who retained this longing until, as Dominicans, they were able through the activity of the intellect to promulgate Christianity. They will be united with souls who had actually experienced Christianity in the physical world and whose greatest teachers gathered together in the School of Chartres. Up to now, these teachers of Chartres have not incarnated, although in my contact with the Cistercian Order I was able again and again to come across incorporations of many of those who were in the School of Chartres. In the Cistercian Order one met many a personality who was not a reincarnation of a pupil of Chartres but in whose life there were periods when—for hours, for days—he was inspired by some such Individuality from the School of Chartres. It was a matter, in these cases, of incorporation, not incarnation. And wonderful things were written, of which one could only ask: who is the actual author? The author was not the monk who in the Cistercian Order at that time wore the yellowish-white robe with the black stole and girdle, but the real author was the personality who for hours, days or weeks had come down into the soul of one of these Cistercian Brothers. Much of this influence worked on in essays or writings little known in literature.—I myself once had a remarkable conversation with a Cistercian who was an extremely learned man. I have mentioned it, too, in The Course of My Life. We were going away from a gathering, and speaking about the Christ problem. I propounded my ideas which were the same, essentially, as those I give in my lectures. He became uneasy while I was speaking, and said: ‘We may possibly hit upon something of the kind; we shall not allow ourselves to think such things.’ He spoke in similar terms about other problems of Christology. But then we stopped for a short time—the moment stands most vividly before me—it was where the Schottenring and the Burgring meet in Vienna, on the one side the Hofburg and on the other the Hotel de France and the Votiv-Kirche ... we stopped for a minute or two and the man said: “I should like you to come with me. I will give you a book from my library in which something remarkable is said on the subject you have been speaking about.” I went with him and he gave me a book about the Druses. The whole circumstances of our conversation in connection with the perusal of this book led me to the knowledge that when, having started from Christology, I went on to speak of repeated earthly lives, this deeply learned man was, as it were, emptied mentally in a strange way, and when he came to himself again remembered only that he possessed a book about the Druses in which something was said about reincarnation. He knew about it only from this one book. He was a Hofrat (Councillor) at the University of Vienna and was so erudite that it was said of him: “Hofrat N. knows the whole world and three villages besides.” ... so great was his learning—but in his bodily existence he knew only that in a book about the Druses something was said about repeated earthly lives. This is an example of the difference between what men have in their subconsciousness and what flows as the spiritual world through their souls.—And then a noteworthy episode occurred. I was once giving a lecture in Vienna. The same person was there and after the lecture he made a remark which could only be interpreted in the sense that at this moment he had complete understanding of a certain man belonging to the present age and of the relation of this man to his earlier incarnation. And what the person said on that occasion about the connection between two earthly lives, was correct, was not false. But through his intellect he understood nothing; it simply came from his lips.

By this I want only to indicate how spiritual movements reach into the immediate present. But what to-day shines in as it were through many tiny windows must in the future become a unity through that connection between the leaders of the School of Chartres and the leading spirits of Scholasticism, when the spiritual revival whereby intellectualism itself is lifted to the Spirit, sets in at the end of the twentieth century. To make this possible, let human beings of the twentieth century not throw away their opportunities! But everything to-day depends upon free will, and whether the two allied groups will be able to descend for the re-spiritualisation of culture in the twentieth century—this depends very specially upon whether the Anthroposophical Society understands how to cultivate Anthroposophy with the right devotion.

So much for to-day.—We have heard of the connection of the anthroposophical stream with the deep mystery of the epoch which began with the manifestation of the Christ in the Mystery of Golgotha and has developed in the way I have described. More will be said in the second lecture.

Yesterday I spoke of the karma of the Anthroposophical Society. To-day I propose to speak of certain cognate matters, and in such a way that the present lecture will be comprehensible in itself.

Everything that will have to be achieved in the present epoch of evolution as a preparation for spiritual happenings in the near and more distant future, is connected with what, among anthroposophists, I have often called the Michael Event. And in connection with this Michael Event I want to speak to-day about something that concerns the Anthroposophical Movement.

In speaking of a happening such as this Michael Event, it must always be remembered that the world develops by stages. When we study the evolution of the world with the faculties which man's earthly life between birth and death enables him to possess to-day, we see humanity evolving on the Earth, we see ancient peoples arising from still earlier peoples; we see that from the background of very ancient Oriental civilisations, from the Indian, the Chinese, the Arabian and the Chaldean-Egyptian peoples, the Greeks and the Romans gradually emerge; then we come to the Middle Ages and finally to our own age—our modern age with all its aberrations but also with its great technical achievements. Yet not only is there this external development of the peoples but as it were behind it, evolution is also taking place. We can perceive evolution being passed through not only by mankind but also by spiritual Beings who are connected in certain ways with the evolution of humanity. In their ranks are those Beings called the Angeloi—the Angels in Christian terminology. They are directly connected with the individual human being. They lead, or guide him in so far as he needs guidance, from one earthly life to another and are his Guardians, his Protectors, whenever and wherever he needs their protection. Therefore, super-sensible though they be and imperceptible to earthly sight, the Angeloi are directly connected with mankind's evolution.

In the next immediately adjacent spiritual realm, the Beings whom we call the Hierarchy of the Archangeloi, the Archangels, unfold their activity. The Archangeloi have to do with much that also plays a part in the evolution of humanity. They have to do, not with the individual human being, but with groups of human beings. Thus, as I have said in many anthroposophical lectures, the evolution of the peoples is under the rulership of Archangelic Beings. But it is also the case that certain epochs in Earth-evolution receive their essential impulses from individual Archangeloi. For example, during the three centuries preceding the last third of the nineteenth century, namely during the nineteenth, eighteenth, seventeenth centuries and part of the sixteenth, we must think of the civilised world as being essentially under the dominion of the Archangel known to Christians capable of speaking of these things, as Gabriel. This period was therefore the Age of Gabriel.

This particular Gabriel Age is of great significance for the whole evolution of mankind in modern times, for the following reason. Since the Mystery of Golgotha took place it has been possible for men on the Earth to have this realisation: Through the Mystery of Golgotha, Christ, the sublime Being of the Sun, has come down to the Earth. He has descended from the Sun to the Earth, entering into the body of Jesus and uniting Himself with Earth's destiny. But although the Christ Being has remained united with the Earth, it has not been possible through the succeeding rulerships of Archangeloi from the time of the Mystery of Golgotha until that of the dominion of Gabriel, for the Christ Impulse itself actually to lay hold of the inner physical and etheric forces of mankind. This became possible for the first time under the Gabriel impulse which began to work about three hundred years before the last third of the nineteenth century. Thus, in reality, it is only since that time that by way of the forces of heredity themselves the Christ Impulse has been able to penetrate humanity inwardly. As yet this has not been achieved.

Gabriel rules over the whole realm of the physical forces of heredity within humanity. He is the super-sensible Spirit who is connected essentially with the sequence of the generations, who is—if I may put it so—the great Guardian Spirit of the mothers who bring children into the world. Gabriel has to do with births, with the embryonic development of the human being. The forces of Gabriel work in the spiritual processes underlying the physical process of propagation. And so it is only since this recent Gabriel rulership that the physical propagation of mankind on Earth has come into connection in the real sense with the Christ Impulse.

From the end of the eighteen-seventies, the rulership of Michael begins. It is a rulership altogether different in character from that of Gabriel. Whereas the rulership of the Archangel in the three preceding centuries comes to expression in spiritual impulses working in the physical, Michael is the Archangel who in his rulership has paramountly to do with the powers of the intelligence in mankind, with everything, therefore, that concerns the intellectual, the spiritual evolution and culture of mankind. In any study of the earthly circumstances of humanity it is extremely important to realise that the Gabriel rulership which in the spiritual sphere has an effect upon what is most deeply physical, is always followed by the regency of Michael, who has to do with the spiritual element in culture. The Archangel Gabriel, therefore, is the Divine Guardian of the process of physical propagation. The Spirit who has to do with the development of the sciences, of the arts, of the cultural element of the epoch, is the Archangel known in Christianity as Michael. Over those civilisations which are predominant in every epoch, seven successive Archangel-rulerships take place. Six other such rulerships have therefore preceded the present rulership of Michael. And if, beginning with Gabriel, we go backwards through these rulerships, we come to an epoch when Michael again held sway. Every such rulership, therefore, is always the repetition of earlier, identical rulerships, and the evolution of the Archangels themselves takes place through this cyclic progress. After a period of about two thousand years, the same Archangel always assumes the rulership again within the predominating civilisation.

But these periods of rulership, each of which lasts for a little over three hundred years, are essentially different from one another. The difference is not always as great as it is between the Michael rulership and the Gabriel rulership, but the rulerships are, nevertheless, essentially different. And here we can say: Each reign of Gabriel is preparatory to an age when the peoples become more widely separated from one another and more differentiated. In the age following his dominion the nationalistic tendency also becomes accentuated. So, if you ask yourself why it is that such strong nationalistic feeling is asserting itself to-day under the rulership of Michael, which has now begun, the answer is that preparation took place spiritually a long time ago; the influence worked on and then began to decline, but the after-effects—often worse than the event itself—continue. It is only by degrees that the impulse of Michael can make its way into what is, to a great extent, a legacy from the past reign of Gabriel. But always when an age of Michael dawns, a longing begins to arise in mankind to overcome racial distinctions and to spread through all the peoples living on the Earth the highest and most spiritual form of culture produced by that particular age. Michael's rulership is always characterised by the growth of cosmopolitanism, by the spread of a spiritual impulse among peoples who are ready to receive it, no matter what language they speak. Of the seven Archangels who send their impulses into the evolution of humanity, Michael is always the one who gives the cosmopolitan impulse—and at the same time the impulse for the spreading of whatever is of most intrinsic value in a particular epoch.

If we turn now to past times in the evolution of humanity, asking ourselves in what period the previous Michael Age occurred, we come to the epoch which culminated in those cosmopolitan deeds springing from the impulse of the lofty spiritual culture of Greece, whose fruits were carried over to Asia through the campaigns of Alexander. There, developing from the foundations of the ancient culture, we see the urge to take the spiritual culture of Greece—the little land of Greece—over to the Oriental peoples, to Egypt; there is an urge to spread a cosmopolitan impulse in this way among all the peoples able to receive it. This cosmopolitan impulse, this urge of the earlier Age of Michael, to spread over the world all that the Greek culture had achieved for humanity, was of the very greatest possible significance. The crowning triumph of that Age was represented, in a certain sense, by the city of Alexandria in its prime, standing yonder in North Africa.

These things came to pass in the preceding Age of Michael. Thereafter the other six Archangels assume in time their dominions. And in the last third of the nineteenth century, at the end of the seventies, a new Michael Age begins. But never yet in the whole of earthly evolution has the difference between two Ages of Michael been as great as that between the Michael Age at the time of Alexander and the one in which we have been living since the end of the seventies of the last century. For between these two reigns of Michael falls the Event which gives Earth-evolution its true meaning: the Mystery of Golgotha.

Let us now consider what it is that Michael has to administer in the spiritual Cosmos. It is Michael's task to administer a power that is essentially spiritual, reaching its zenith in man's faculty of intellectual understanding. Michael is not the Spirit who, if I may put it so, cultivates intellectuality per se; the spirituality he bestows strives to bring enlightenment to mankind in the form of ideas, of thoughts—but ideas and thoughts that grasp the spiritual. His wish is that man shall be a free being, but one who discerns in his concepts, in his thoughts, what comes to him as revelation from the spiritual worlds.

And now think of the Michael Age at the time of Alexander. As I have so often said, human beings in our day are extremely clever—that is to say, they form concepts, they have ideas; they are intellectual, possessing as it were a self-made intellectuality. People were clever, too, in the days of Alexander. Only if in those times they had been asked: Whence do you derive your concepts, your ideas?—they would not have said: We have produced them out of ourselves. ... No, they received into themselves the spiritual revelations, and together with these revelations, the ideas. They did not regard the ideas as something which man evolves out of himself, but as something revealed to him in his spiritual nature. The task of Michael at that time was to administer this heavenly Intellectuality—in contrast to earthly Intellectuality. Michael was the greatest of the Archangels who have their abode on the Sun. He was the Spirit who sent down from thence to the Earth not only the Sun's physical-etheric rays but, within them, the inspired Intellectuality. And in those past days men knew: the power of Intelligence on Earth is a gift of the Heavens, of the Sun; it is sent down from the Sun. And the one who actually sends the spiritual Intellectuality down to the Earth, is Michael. In the ancient Sun Mysteries this wonderful Initiation-teaching was given: Michael dwells on the Sun; there he administers the Cosmic Intelligence. This Cosmic Intelligence, inspired into human beings, is a gift of Michael.

Then came the epoch when man was to be made ready to unfold intellect out of his own, individual force of soul; he was not merely to receive the Cosmic Intelligence through revelation but to evolve Intelligence out of his inner forces. Preparation for this was made by Aristotelianism—that remarkable philosophy which arose in the twilight period of Greek culture and was the impulse underlying the campaigns of Alexander the Great in Africa and Asia.

By means of Aristotelianism, earthly Intelligence emerged as though from the shell of the Cosmic Intelligence. And from what came to be known as Aristotelian Logic there arose that intellectual framework on which the thinking of all subsequent centuries was based; it conditioned human intelligence.

And now you must conceive that through this single deed the Michael Impulses culminated: the earthly-human Intelligence was established, while, as a result of the campaigns of Alexander, the culture of Greece was imprinted upon those peoples who at that time were ready to receive the cosmopolitan impulse.

The epoch of Michael was followed by that of Oriphiel. The Archangel Oriphiel assumed dominion. The Mystery of Golgotha took place. At the beginning of the Christian era, those human souls who had been conscious of the leadership of the Archangel Michael in Alexander's time and had participated in the deeds of which I have just spoken, were gathered around Michael in the realm of the Sun. Michael had relinquished his dominion for the time being to Oriphiel, and in the realm of the Sun, together with those human souls who were to be his servants, Michael witnessed the departure of Christ from the Sun.

This, too, is something of which we must be mindful.—Those human souls who are connected with the Anthroposophical Movement may say to themselves: We were united with Michael in the realm of the Sun. Christ, who hitherto had sent His Impulses towards the Earth from the Sun, departed from the Sun in order to unite Himself with earthly evolution!—Try to picture to yourselves this stupendous cosmic event that took place in realms beyond the Earth: it lies within the mighty vista open to those human souls who at that time were gathered around Michael as servants of the Angeloi, after his rulership on Earth had ended. In the realm of the Sun they witnessed the departure of the Christ from the Sun. “He is departing!” ... such was their great and overwhelming experience when He left in order to unite His destiny with the destiny of earthly humanity.

Truly it is not only on the Earth but in the life between death and rebirth that the souls of human beings receive the impulse for the paths they take. Above all was it so in the case of those who had lived through the time of Alexander. A great and mighty impulse went forth from that moment in cosmic history when these souls witnessed the departure of Christ from the Sun. They saw clearly: the Cosmic Intelligence is passing over gradually from the Cosmos to the Earth! And Michael, together with those around him saw that all the Intelligence once streaming through the Cosmos was now sinking down, stage by stage, upon the Earth.

Michael and those who belonged to him—no matter whether they were in the spiritual world or incarnate for a brief earthly life—were able to visualise the rays of the Intelligence arriving, in the eighth century of the Christian era, in the earthly realm itself. And they knew that down upon the Earth the Intelligence would unfold and develop further. Now, on the Earth, the appearance of the first ‘self-made’ thinkers could be observed. Hitherto, great human beings who were ‘thinkers’ had received their thoughts by way of Inspiration; the thoughts had been inspired into them. Only now, from the eighth century A.D. were there those who could be called ‘self-made’ thinkers—those who produced their own thoughts out of themselves. And within the Archangelic host in the realm of the Sun, the mighty proclamation rang forth from Michael: The power belonging to my kingdom and under my administration in this realm is here no longer; it streams downwards to the Earth and must there surge onwards!

From the eighth century onwards this was the spectacle of the Earth as witnessed from the Sun. And within it was the great mystery: The forces which are pre-eminently the forces of Michael have descended from the Heavens and are now upon the Earth. This was the profound secret which was known to Initiates in Schools such as those I spoke of yesterday, for example, the renowned School of Chartres. In earlier times, when men wished to discover the true nature of Intelligence they had been obliged, in the Mystery Centres, to look upwards to the Sun. Now the Intelligence was upon the Earth, though not as yet very clearly perceptible. But gradually there was recognition that human beings were now evolving who possessed an individual intelligence of their own. One of those in European civilisation in whom the first sparks of personal thinking were alight was Johannes Scotus Erigena. I have often spoken of him. But there had been a few others, even before him, whose thoughts were not merely inspired, who no longer received revelations, but who could be called self-made thinkers. And now this individual thinking became more and more widespread.

There was a possibility in Earth-evolution of making this self-produced thinking serve a particular end. Consider what it represented: it was in actuality the sum-total of those impulses from Michael's realm in the Heavens which had found their way to the Earth. And for the time being Michael was called upon to allow the Intelligence to unfold without his participation. Not until the year 1879 was he to re-assume his rulership. In the meantime, the Intelligence developed in such a way that at the first stages he could not have exercised his dominion. His influences could not be exerted over men who were unfolding their own, individual thoughts. His time had not yet come.

This profound secret of the descent of the pan-Intelligence in the evolution of humanity was known in a few Mystery Centres over in the East. And so, within these particular Oriental Mysteries, a few chosen pupils could be initiated into this secret by certain deeply spiritual, highly developed men. Through dispensations of a nature which it is difficult for the earthly intellect to comprehend, the illustrious Court of which I have spoken at the Goetheanum and in other places, came into touch with this secret of which certain Oriental Mysteries were fully cognisant. In the eighth and at the beginning of the ninth century, under the leadership of Haroun al Raschid, this Court wielded great power over in Asia. Haroun al Raschid was a product of Arabian culture, a culture tinged with Mohammedanism. The secret of which I have spoken found its way to some of Haroun al Raschid's initiated Counsellors—or to those who possessed at least a certain degree of knowledge—and the brilliance of his Court was due to the fact that it had come in touch with this secret. At this Court were concentrated all the treasures of wisdom, of art, of the truths of religious life to be found in the East—coloured, of course, by Mohammedanism. In the days when, in Europe, at the Court of Charlemagne who was a contemporary of Haroun al Raschid, men were occupied in collating the first rudiments of grammar and everything was still in a state of semi-barbarism, there flourished in Baghdad that brilliant centre of Oriental, Western Asiatic spiritual life. Haroun al Raschid gathered around him men who were conversant with the great traditions of the Oriental Mysteries. And he had by his side one particular Counsellor who had been an Initiate in earlier times and whose spiritual driving forces were still influenced by the previous incarnations. He was the organiser of all that was cultivated at the Court of Haroun al Raschid in the domains of geometry, chemistry, physics, music, architecture, and the other arts—above all, a distinguished art of poetry. In this renowned and scintillating assembly of sages, it was felt, more or less consciously: the earthly Intelligence that has come down from the Heavens upon the Earth must be placed in the service of Mohammedan spiritual life!

And now consider this: from the time of Mohammed, from the time of the early Caliphs onwards, Arabian culture was carried from Asia across North Africa into Europe, where it spread as the result of warlike campaigns. But in the wake of those who by means of these campaigns spread Arabism as far even as Spain—France was affected by it and, spiritually, the whole of Western Europe—there also came outstanding personalities. The wars waged by the Frankish kings against the Moors, against Arabism, are known to all of you ... but that is the external aspect, that is what happens in external history ... much more important is it to know how the spiritual streams flow on perpetually within the evolution of mankind.

Haroun al Raschid and his wise Counsellor passed through the gate of death. But after their life between death and rebirth they continued to pursue their earthly aims in remarkable ways. It was their aim to introduce Arabian modes of thinking into the European world with the help of the rudiments of the Intelligence now spreading in Europe. And so after Haroun al Raschid had passed through the gate of death, while his soul was traversing spiritual, starry worlds, we see his gaze directed unswervingly from Baghdad across Asia Minor, to Greece, Rome, Spain, France and then northwards to England. Throughout this life between death and rebirth his attention was directed to the South and West of Europe. And then Haroun al Raschid appeared again in a new incarnation—becoming Lord Bacon of Verulam. Bacon himself is the reincarnated Haroun al Raschid who in the intervening time between death and rebirth had worked as I have just described.

But the other, the one who had been his wise Counsellor, chose a different direction—from Baghdad across the Black Sea, through Russia and then into Middle Europe. The two individualities took different paths and directions. Haroun al Raschid passed to his next earthly goal as Lord Bacon of Verulam; the wise Counsellor during his life between death and a new birth did not divert his gaze from the sphere where influences from the East can be increasingly potent, and he appeared again as Amos Comenius (Komenski), the great educational reformer and author of “Pan-Sophia.” And from the interworking of these two individualities who had once been together at the Court in Baghdad there subsequently arose in Europe something which unfolded—more or less at a distance from Christianity—in the form of Arabism derived from influences of that past time when the Intelligence had first fallen away from Michael on the Sun.

What came outwardly and physically to expression in wars was, as we know, repelled by the Frankish kings and the other European peoples. We see how the Arabian campaigns which with such a powerful initial impetus were responsible for the spread of Mohammedan culture, were broken and brought to a halt in the West; we see Mohammedanism disappearing from the West of Europe. Nevertheless, divested of the outer forms it had assumed and the external culture it had founded, this later Arabism became modern natural science, and also became the basis of what Amos Comenius achieved for the world in the domain of pedagogy. And in this way the earthly Intelligence, ‘garrisoned’ as it were by Arabism, continued to spread right on into the seventeenth century.

Here we have indicated something that lies as sub-strata of the soil into which we to-day have to sow the seeds of Anthroposophy. We must ponder deeply over the inner and spiritual reality behind these things.

In Europe, while this stream was flowing over from Asia as the spiritual continuation of that Illustrious Court of Baghdad, Christianity was also developing and spreading. But the spread of Aristotelianism in Europe was fraught with great difficulties. The natural science of Aristotle had been carried to Asia by the mighty deeds of Alexander and the impulses flowing from Hellenistic spiritual life, but here it had been seized upon by Arabism. In Europe, within the expanding Christian culture, Aristotelianism was at first known in a diluted form only. Then, in the manner which I have already indicated, Aristotelianism joined hands with Platonism—Platonism, which was based directly upon the ancient teachings of the Greek Mysteries.

But at the very outset, Aristotelianism spread in Europe by slow degrees while Platonism took the lead and prompted the establishment of schools, one of the most important being the School of Chartres. At Chartres, the scholars of whom I spoke yesterday—Bernard Sylvestris, Bernard of Chartres, John of Salisbury and, foremost among them all, Alanus ab Insulis—were all working in the twelfth century. In this School men spoke very differently from those whose teachings were merely an echo of Arabism. The teachings given in the School of Chartres were pure and genuine Christianity, illumined by the ancient Mystery-wisdom still remaining within reach of men. And then something of immense significance took place. The leading teachers of Chartres, who with their Platonism had penetrated deeply into the secrets of Christianity and who had no part in Arabism, went through the gate of death. Then there took place, for a brief period at the beginning of the thirteenth century, a great ‘heavenly conference.’ And when the most outstanding of the teachers—foremost among them Alanus ab Insulis—had passed through death and were in the spiritual world, they united in a momentous cosmic deed with those who at that time were with them but who were destined in the very near future to come into earthly existence for the purpose of cultivating Aristotelianism in a new way. Among those preparing to descend were individualities who had participated with deep intensity of soul in the working of the Michael Impulse during the time of Alexander. And at the turn of the twelfth century we may picture, for it is in keeping with the truth, a gathering-together of souls who had just arrived in the spiritual world from places of Christian Initiation—of which the School of Chartres was one—and souls who were on the point of descending to the Earth. In the spiritual realms, these latter souls had preserved, not Platonism, but Aristotelianism, the inner impulse of the Intelligence deriving from the Michael Age in ancient times. Now, in the spiritual world, the souls gathered together ... among them, too, were souls who could say: We were with Michael and together with him we witnessed the Intelligence streaming down from the Heavens upon the Earth; we were united with him too in the mighty cosmopolitan Deed enacted in earlier times when the Intelligence was still administered from the Cosmos, when he was still the ruler and administrator of the Intelligence.

And now, for the time being, the teachers of Chartres handed over to the Aristotelians the administration and ordering of the affairs of the spiritual life on Earth. Those who were now to descend and were by nature fitted to direct the earthly, personal Intelligence, took over the guidance of spiritual life on Earth from the Platonists, who could work truly only when the Intelligence was being administered “from the Heavens.”

It was into the Dominican Order above all that those individualities in whose souls the Michael Impulse was still echoing on from the previous Age of Michael, found their way. And from the Dominican Order issued that Scholasticism which wrestled through many a bitter but glorious battle to master the true nature and operation of the Intelligence within the human mind. Deeply rooted in the souls of those founders of Dominican Scholasticism in the thirteenth century was this great question: What is taking place in the domain of Michael?

There were men, later on known as Nominalists, who said: Concepts and ideas are merely names, they have no reality. The Nominalists were under an Ahrimanic influence, for their real aim was to banish Michael's dominion from the Earth. In asserting that ideas are only names and have no reality, their actual aim was to prevent Michael's dominion from prevailing on Earth. And at that time the Ahrimanic spirits whispered to those who would lend their ear: The Cosmic Intelligence has fallen away from Michael and is here, on the Earth: we will not allow Michael to resume his rulership over the Intelligence! ... But in that heavenly conference—and precisely here lies its significance—Platonists and Aristotelians together formed a plan for the furtherance of the Michael Impulses.—In opposition to the Nominalists were the Realists of the Dominican Order who maintained: Ideas and thoughts are spiritual realities contained within the phenomena of the world, they are not merely nominal.

If one understands these things, one is often reminded of them in a really remarkable way. During my last years in Vienna, one of my acquaintances among other ordained priests was Vincenz Knauer, the author of the work, Hauptprobleme der Philosophie, which I have often recommended to Anthroposophists. In the nineteenth century he was still involved in this conflict between Nominalism and Realism. He was trying to make it clear that Nominalism is fallacious and he had chosen a very apt example to illustrate his arguments. It is also given in his books. But I remember with deep satisfaction a certain occasion when I was walking with him along the Wahringstrasse in Vienna. We were speaking about Nominalism and Realism. With all his self-controlled enthusiasm which had something remarkable about it, something of the quality of genuine philosophy in contrast to the philosophy of others who had more or less lost this quality—Knauer said on that occasion: I always make it clear to my students that the Ideas made manifest in the things of the world have reality—and I tell them to think of a lamb and a wolf. The Nominalists would say: A lamb is muscle, bone, matter; a wolf is muscle, bone, matter. What receives objective existence in lamb-flesh as the form, the idea of the lamb—that is only a name. “Lamb” is a name there and not, as idea, a reality. Similarly, as idea, “wolf” is not anything real but only a name. But—Knauer went on—it is easy to refute the Nominalists for one need only say to them: Give a wolf nothing but lamb's flesh to eat for a time and no other food whatever. If the idea “lamb” contains no reality, is only a name, and if the lamb is nothing but matter, the wolf would gradually become a lamb. But it does not do so! On the contrary, it goes on being the reality “wolf.” In what stands there before us as the lamb, the idea “lamb” has, as it were, gathered the matter and brought it into the form. Similarly with the wolf: the idea “wolf” has gathered the matter and cast it into the form.

This was the fundamental issue in the conflict between the Nominalists and the Realists: the reality of what is apprehensible only by the intellect.

Thus we see that it was the task of the Dominicans to work in advance, at the right time, for the next Michael rulership. And whereas in accordance with the decisions of that heavenly conference at the beginning of the thirteenth century, the Platonists—the teachers of Chartres, for example—remained in the spiritual world and had no incarnations of significance, the Aristotelians were to work at that time for the cultivation of the Intelligence, on Earth. And from Scholasticism—which only much later, in the modern age, was distorted, caricatured and made Ahrimanic by Rome—from Scholasticism there has proceeded all intellectual striving in so far as it has kept free from the influence of Arabism.

So at that time when these two streams of spiritual life are to be perceived in Middle and Western Europe: on the one side, the stream with which Bacon and Amos Comenius were connected; on the other side, the stream of Scholasticism that was and is Christian Aristotelianism takes its place in the evolution of civilisation in order to prepare, as was its task, for the new Age of Michael. When, during the rulership of the preceding Archangels, the Schoolmen looked up into the spiritual realms they said to themselves: Michael is yonder in the heights; his rulership must be awaited. But some preparation must be made for the time when he once again becomes the Regent of all that which, through the dispensation of cosmic evolution, fell away from him in the Cosmos. This time must be prepared for! ... And so a stream began to flow which, though diverted into a false channel through Ultramontanism, continued and carried with it the impulse of preparation proceeding from the thirteenth century.

It was a stream, therefore, whose source is Aristotelian and whose influence worked directly on the ordering of the Intelligence that was now in the earthly realm. With this stream is connected that of which I spoke yesterday, saying that one who had remained a little longer with Alanus ab Insulis in the spiritual world, came down as a Dominican and brought a message from Alanus ab Insulis to an older Dominican who had descended to the Earth before him.

An intense will was present in the spiritual life of Europe to take strong hold of the thoughts. And in realms above the Earth these happenings led, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, to a great, far-reaching Act in the spiritual world where that which later on was to become Anthroposophy on the Earth was cast into mighty Imaginations. In the first half of the nineteenth century, and even for a short period at the end of the eighteenth, those who had been Platonists under the teachers of Chartres, who were now living between death and rebirth, and those who had established Aristotelianism on Earth and who had long ago passed through the gate of death—all of them were united in the heavenly realms in a great super-earthly Cult or Ritual. Through this Act all that in the twentieth century was to be spiritually established as the new Christianity after the beginning of the new Michael Age in the last third of the nineteenth century—all this was cast into mighty Imaginations.

Many drops trickled through to the Earth. Up above, in the spiritual world, in mighty, cosmic Imaginations, preparation was made for that creation of the Intelligence—an entirely spiritual creation—which was then to come forth as Anthroposophy. What trickled through made a very definite impression upon Goethe, coming to him in the form, as it were, of little reflected miniatures. The mighty pictures up above were not within Goethe's ken; he elaborated these little miniature pictures in his Fairy Tale of the Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily. Truly, it opens up a wonderful vista! The streams I have described flow on in such a way that they lead to those mighty Imaginations which take shape in the spiritual world under the guidance of Alanus ab Insulis and the others. Drops trickle through, and at the turn of the eighteenth century Goethe is inspired to write his Fairy Tale. It was, we might say, a first presentation of what had been cast in mighty Imaginations in the spiritual world at the beginning of the nineteenth, indeed by the end of the eighteenth century. In view of this great super-sensible Cult during the first half of the nineteenth century, it will not surprise you that my first Mystery Play, The Portal of Initiation—which in a certain respect aimed at giving dramatic form to what had thus been enacted at the beginning of the nineteenth century—became alike in outer structure to what Goethe portrayed in his Fairy Tale. For having lived in the super-earthly realms in Imaginative form, Anthroposophy was to come down to the Earth. Something came to pass in the super-earthly realms at that time. Numbers of souls who in many different epochs had been connected with Christianity came together with souls who had received its influences less directly. There were those who had lived on Earth in the Age when the Mystery of Golgotha took place and also those who had lived on Earth before it. The two groups of souls united in order that in regions beyond the Earth, Anthroposophy might be prepared. The individualities who, as I said, were around Alanus ab Insulis, and those who within the Dominican stream had established Aristotelianism in Europe, were united, too, with Brunetto Latini, the great teacher of Dante. And in this host of souls there were very many of those who, having again descended to the Earth, are now coming together in the Anthroposophical Society. Those who feel the urge to-day to unite with one another in the Anthroposophical Society were together in super-sensible regions at the beginning of the nineteenth century in order to participate in that mighty Imaginative Cult of which I have spoken.

This too is connected with the karma of the Anthroposophical Movement. It is something that one discovers, not from any rationalistic observation of this Anthroposophical Movement in its external, earthly form only, but from observation of the threads that lead upwards into the spiritual realms. Then one perceives how this Anthroposophical Movement descends. At the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth centuries it is, in very truth, the “heavenly” Anthroposophical Movement. What Goethe transformed into little miniature images in the Fairy Tale of the Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily were drops that had trickled through. But it was to come down in the real sense in the last third of the nineteenth century, since when Michael has been striving—but now moving downwards from the Sun to the Earth—to take hold of the earthly Intelligence of men.

We know that since the Mystery of Golgotha Christ has been united with the Earth—with humanity on Earth. But, to begin with, He was not outwardly comprehended by human beings. We have seen also that in the age of Alexander the last phase of the rulership of Michael over the Cosmic Intelligence was taking place. By the eighth century A.D., the Cosmic Intelligence had descended to the Earth. In accordance with the agreements reached with the Platonists, those who were connected with Michael undertook to prepare this earthly Intelligence in Scholastic Realism in such a way that Michael would again be able to unite with it when, in the onward flow of civilisation, he would assume his rulership at the end of the seventies of the nineteenth century.

What matters now is that the Anthroposophical Society shall take up this, its inner task—this task which is: not to contest Michael's rulership of human thinking! Here there can be no question of fatalism. Here it can only be said that men must work together with the Gods. Michael inspires men with his own being in order that there may appear on the Earth a spirituality consonant with the personal Intelligence of men, in order that men can be thinkers—and at the same time truly spiritual. For this and this alone is what Michael's dominion means. This is what must be wrestled for in the Anthroposophical Movement. And then those who are working to-day for the Anthroposophical Movement will appear again on Earth at the end of the twentieth century and will be united with the great teachers of Chartres. For according to the agreement reached in that heavenly conference at the beginning of the thirteenth century, the Aristotelians and the Platonists were to appear together, working for the ever-growing prosperity of the Anthroposophical Movement in the twentieth century, in order that at the end of this century, with Platonists and Aristotelians in unison, Anthroposophy may reach a certain culmination in earthly civilisation. If it is possible to work in this way, in the way predestined by Michael, then Europe and modern civilisation will emerge from decline. But verily in no other way than this! The leading of civilisation out of decline is bound up with an understanding of Michael.

I have now led you towards an understanding of the Michael Mystery reigning over the thinking and the spiritual strivings of mankind. This means—as you can realise—that through Anthroposophy something must be introduced into the spiritual evolution of the Earth, for all kinds of demonic, Ahrimanic powers are taking possession of men. The Ahrimanic powers in many a human body were exultant in their confidence that it would no longer be possible for Michael to take over his rulership of the Cosmic Intelligence which had fallen down to the Earth. And this exultation was particularly strong in the middle of the nineteenth century, when Ahriman already believed: Michael will not again recover his Cosmic Intelligence which made its way from the heavens to the Earth. And this exultation was particularly strong in the middle of the nineteenth century, when Ahriman already believed that Michael would not again recover his Cosmic Intelligence which made its way from the Heavens to the Earth. Verily, great and mighty issues are at stake! For this reason it is not to be wondered at that those who stand in the midst of this battle have to go through many extraordinary experiences.

Stranger things have been said about the Anthroposophical Movement than about any other spiritual Movement. The curious statements made indicate in themselves that with its spirituality and its connection with the Mystery of Golgotha, it is beyond the comprehension even of some of the most enlightened minds of the present day.—Does anyone ever tell you that he has seen a man who is black and white at the same time? I hardly think you would regard him as sane if he said such a thing to you. But to-day people are quite capable of writing in a similar strain about the Anthroposophical Movement. In his book, The Great Secret [Le Grand Secret. Bibliothèque Charpentier, 1921. The passages concerned have been translated from the German version of Maeterlinck's book from which Dr. Steiner was quoting. The original French of these passages will be found on page 182 of the present volume.], Maurice Maeterlinck, for example, taking me to be the pillar of the Anthroposophical Movement, applies in regard to myself a kind of logic entirely similar to that used by someone who claims to have seen a man who is black and white, a European and a Moor at the same time. Now a man can be one of the two, but certainly not both simultaneously! Yet Maeterlinck says: “What we read in the Vedas, says Rudolf Steiner, one of the most erudite and also one of the most confusing among contemporary occultists ...” If somebody were to say he had seen a man who was a European and a Moor at the same time, he would be considered crazy; but Maeterlinck uses the words “erudite” and “confusing” in juxtaposition. He also says: “Rudolf Steiner who, when he does not lose himself in visions—plausible, perhaps, but incapable of verification—of the prehistoric ages, and in astral jargon concerning life on other planets, is a clear and shrewd thinker who has thrown remarkable light on the meaning of this judgement” (he is referring to Osirification) “and of the identification of the soul with God.” In other words, therefore: when Rudolf Steiner is not talking about Anthroposophy, he is a clear and shrewd thinker. Maeterlinck allows himself to say this—and other remarkable things too, for example the following: “Steiner has applied his intuitive methods, which amount to a kind of transcendental psychometry, in order to reconstruct the history of the Atlanteans and to reveal to us what takes place on the sun, the moon and in other worlds. He describes the successive transformations of the entities which become men, and he does so with such assurance that we ask ourselves, having followed him with interest through the introductions which denote an extremely well-balanced, logical and comprehensive mind, if he has suddenly gone mad or if we are dealing with a hoaxer or with a genuine seer.” ... Now just think what this means.—Maeterlinck states that when I write books, the introductions are admittedly the product of an “extremely well-balanced, logical and comprehensive mind.” But when he reads on he does not know whether I have suddenly gone mad or whether I am a hoaxer or a genuine seer. Well, after all I have not written only books! It is always my custom to write an introduction to each book first. Very well, then ... I write a book. Maeterlinck reads the introduction and I seem to him to have an “extremely well-balanced, logical and comprehensive mind.” Then he reads on, and I turn into someone who makes him say: I don't know whether Rudolf Steiner has suddenly gone mad or whether he is a hoaxer or a seer. Then it happens again ... I write a second book: when he reads the introduction Maeterlinck again accepts me as having an “extremely well-balanced, logical and comprehensive mind.” Then he reads the further contents and again does not know whether I am a lunatic or a hoaxer or a seer. And so it goes on ... But suppose everybody were to say: when I read your books you seem, at the beginning, to be very clever, balanced and logical, but then you suddenly go mad! People who are logical when they begin to write and then as they write on suddenly become crazy, must indeed be extraordinary creatures! In the next book they switch round, are logical at the beginning and later on again lunatics! There seems to be a rhythmical sequence ... well, after all there are rhythms in the world!

Such examples indicate how the most enlightened minds of the present age receive what must be established as the Michael Epoch in the world and what has to be done in order that the Cosmic Intelligence which in accordance with the World-Order fell away from Michael in the eighth century A.D., may again be found within earthly humanity. The whole Michael tradition must be renewed. Michael with his feet upon the Dragon—it is right to contemplate this picture which portrays Michael the Warrior, defending the Cosmic Spirit against the Ahrimanic Powers under his feet.

This battle, more than any other, is laid in the human heart. There, within the hearts of men, it is and has been waged since the last third of the nineteenth century. Decisive indeed will be what human hearts do with this Michael Impulse in the world in the course of the twentieth century. And in the course of the twentieth century, when the first century after the end of Kaliyuga has elapsed, humanity will either stand at the grave of all civilisation—or at the beginning of that Age when in the souls of men who in their hearts ally Intelligence with Spirituality, Michael's battle will be fought out to victory.

The rulership of Michael in its cosmic, spiritual aspect shows us, as you will have gathered from what I have already told you, that he occupies a special position among those spiritual Beings whom we call the Archangeloi. And precisely because of its bearing upon the central theme of these lectures, we shall appreciate the significance of the fact that in the centuries preceding the founding of Christianity, Michael sent his impulses—his ‘cosmopolitan’ impulses—from the Sun to the Earth. As time went on, these cosmopolitan impulses disappeared: the Cosmic Intelligence fell away from Michael and by the eighth century A.D. had arrived on Earth. In earthly evolution we then find men whose thoughts were produced out of themselves, who are, as it were, ‘self-made’ thinkers. This personal, self-engendered thinking was then cultivated in preparation for the next reign of Michael. As we have seen, the wise Masters of the School of Chartres worked in unison towards this end with those souls who had been connected with the previous reign of Michael and who were predestined to develop the once cosmic but now earthly Intelligence. They were predestined to carry their work on into the nineteenth century when—at first in the spiritual world—it became possible, through the Imaginative Cult I have described to you, to prepare for what the Anthroposophical Movement was intended to achieve.

Since the last third of the nineteenth century we have been living in the initial stage of the new reign of Michael; throughout this time, and above all in our own day, preparation has to be made for what must come to pass in the twentieth century. For before the end of this present century a considerable number of human beings who have unfolded real understanding of Anthroposophy will have passed through a briefer period between death and rebirth than is usual and will again be united on the Earth under the leadership of those who were the Masters of Chartres and with those who have remained in direct connection with the sovereignty of Michael. This will take place in order that under the spiritual guidance of these two groups of beings the final, hallowed impulse may be given for the development of the spiritual life on Earth.

Anthroposophy can only be of real significance for those who want to ally themselves with it, when with a certain inner, reverent fervour they become conscious that they may indeed have their place within a sphere of happenings like those described yesterday. This realisation will not only kindle inner enthusiasm but also be a source of strength, giving us the knowledge that it is our task to be the continuers of what was once alive in the ancient Mysteries.

But this consciousness must be, and indeed can be, deepened in every direction. For in the light of what was said yesterday, we look back to the time when, united with a host of super-earthly Beings in the spiritual realm of the Sun, Michael sent down upon Earth those impulses and signs which inspired the deeds of Alexander on the one side and the Aristotelian philosophy on the other. Out of these impulses arose the last phase of the inspired Intelligence on Earth. Then, together with human souls who on his behalf carried out this work on Earth, together with his spiritual hosts and the hosts of human souls around these leading spirits, Michael witnessed the Mystery of Golgotha from his abode on the Sun. Truly our souls may be stirred by picturing that moment when Michael, together with a host of Angeloi, Archangeloi and human souls, witnessed the Christ departing from the Sun in order to enter the bodily sheaths of a man and, through what He could experience in a human body on Earth, to unite Himself with the further evolution of humanity. But for Michael himself this was at the same time the sign that henceforward he must allow the heavenly Intelligence, hitherto in his keeping, to stream down like holy rain upon the Earth, to fall away gradually from the Sun. And when the ninth century of the Christian era had come, those around Michael perceived: The content of what had been guarded hitherto under Michael, is now down below, upon the Earth.

What mattered now was that in complete harmony with the sovereignty of Michael there should arise all that came into the world through the Masters of Chartres and also through certain chosen souls in the Order of the Dominicans. In short, there came about the phase of evolution which from the beginning of the fifteenth century inaugurated the epoch of the Consciousness Soul—it is the phase of evolution in which we ourselves are living. Approximately in the first third of the preceding epoch, that is to say during the first third of the epoch of the Intellectual or Mind-Soul, as an outcome of Alexandrianism, the super-earthly Intelligence had spread in Asia, Africa and parts of Europe. Following upon this, came the time when Michael, the foremost Archangel-Spirit of the Sun, knew that the Cosmic Intelligence was passing away from this realm, away from his administration: the conditions were now established for the development of the Intelligence on the Earth. A further phase of development on Earth began in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries of the Christian era, when Gabriel became the administrator—as I explained in my previous lecture—while Michael was free from his earlier obligations in the Cosmos.

Michael was now in an unusual position. In other circumstances, when an Archangelos is not himself the ruling Spirit in the affairs of Earth, he lets his impulses pour, nevertheless, into what the other Archangeloi are bringing to pass. The impulses from all the seven consecutive Archangelic rulerships flow in continually—it is simply that one rulership predominates in a particular age. When, for example, in earlier epochs of evolution, Gabriel was the leading Spirit, it was paramountly those impulses of which he was the actual ruler that flowed into earthly evolution; but the other Archangeloi were also at work. Now, however, when Gabriel was exercising his dominion, Michael was in the unusual position of being unable to participate from the Sun in the affairs of the Earth. Truly it is a strange position for a ruling Archangelos to perceive that the activity he has been wielding through long ages has, for the time being, come to an end. And so it was that Michael said to those who belonged to him: For the time during which we cannot send impulses to the Earth (it is the period which ended about the year 1879) we must set about a special task, a task within the realm of the Sun. It was to be possible for those souls who have been led by their karma into the Anthroposophical Movement, to behold in the realm of the Sun the deeds performed by Michael and his hosts while Gabriel was holding sway upon the Earth.

This was detached from the otherwise regular sequence of deeds taking place between gods and men. The souls connected with Michael—the leading souls of Alexander's time, the leading Dominicans with those of less eminence who had gathered around them, and a large number of aspiring human souls in association with the leading spirits—these souls felt torn away from the age-long connection with the spiritual world. There, in super-sensible worlds, those human souls predestined to become Anthroposophists experienced something never previously experienced by human souls between death and rebirth in the super-earthly realm. In earlier times during the period between death and a new birth, the karma for the future earthly existence had been elaborated by human souls in connection with leading spiritual Beings. But no karma had ever previously been elaborated in the same way as was the karma of those predestined to become Anthroposophists. Never before in the realm of the Sun between death and rebirth had there been accomplished such work as was possible under the leadership of Michael when, as was now the case, he was free of the concerns of the Earth.

Something came to pass in the super-sensible worlds. It was something that lies implanted deep down in the hearts of the majority of Anthroposophists to-day, although in the unconscious, wrapt in sleep or dream. And the Anthroposophist speaks truly when he says to himself: Within my heart there lies a secret although I am yet unconscious of it. It is a secret mystery wherein are reflected the deeds of Michael in realms beyond the Earth when, before my present incarnation, I was serving him. In the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries Michael, being free of his wonted tasks, was enabled to work in a special way, and I was working under him.

Michael gathered his hosts, he gathered from the realms of the Angeloi and the Archangeloi the super-sensible Beings who belonged to him, but he gathered, too, human souls who in one way or another had been connected with him. And thus there arose a kind of School—a great and ever-widening super-sensible School. In the same way that a kind of heavenly Conference had taken place at the beginning of the thirteenth century between those who worked together as Platonists and Aristotelians, a super-sensible tuition now took place, from the fifteenth into the eighteenth centuries, under the direct leadership of Michael—a super-sensible schooling in which the great Teacher, ordained by cosmic decree, was Michael himself. Thus, before the super-sensible cult that took its course during the first half of the nineteenth century in mighty Imaginations, as I have told you, numbers of human souls had already received a super-sensible schooling whose results they now carry subconsciously within them. These results come to expression in the urge felt by such people to come to Anthroposophy. The urge that brings them to Anthroposophy is indeed the outcome of this schooling. And it can truly be said: At the end of the fifteenth century, Michael gathered his hosts of gods and of human souls in the realm of the Sun and gave them teaching which extended over long periods of time. This teaching was to somewhat the following effect.—

Since the human race has peopled the Earth in human form, Mysteries have existed upon the Earth: Sun Mysteries, Mercury Mysteries, Venus Mysteries, Mars Mysteries, Jupiter Mysteries, Saturn Mysteries. Into these Mysteries the gods poured their secrets; in these Mysteries men were initiated when they were fit for Initiation. Thus it has been possible for the human being on the Earth to know what proceeds on Saturn, on Jupiter, on Mars and so forth, to know, too, how happenings in these spheres work into the evolution of mankind on Earth. Always there have been Initiates who, in the Mysteries, communed with the Gods. With an old, instinctive clairvoyance, these Initiates received the impulses coming to them in the Mysteries. But even meagre traditions (thus spoke Michael to those who belonged to him) even meagre traditions of this have almost vanished from the Earth. The impulses can no longer stream into the Earth. It is only in the lowest-lying region—that of physical procreation—it is there and there alone that Gabriel still has the power to let the Moon-influences flow into the evolution of humanity. The ancient traditions have almost disappeared from the Earth and therewith the possibility to nurture and cultivate the impulses streaming into the subconscious life and into the differently constituted bodily natures of men. We, however, turn our gaze back to all that once was brought in the Mysteries as a gift of the Heavens to men; we survey this wonderful tableau. And also we look downwards across the flow of the ages. And there we find the places of the Mysteries, we see how the heavenly wisdom streamed into these Mysteries, how men were initiated, how from our hallowed realm in the Sun the Cosmic Intelligence poured down to men in such a way that the great Teachers of humanity received truly spiritual ideas, thoughts, concepts. These ideas and thoughts were inspired into them from our hallowed realm in the Sun. These inspirations have vanished from the Earth. We see them only when we look back into epochs of antiquity ... stage by stage we see them disappearing from earthly evolution during the time of Alexander and its aftermath—and down there below we see the Intelligence that has now become earthly, spreading gradually among men. But the vista has remained with us. We yet behold the secrets that were once divulged to the Initiates of the Mysteries. Let us bring this fully into our consciousness! Let us bring it to the consciousness of those spiritual Beings who are around me, those Beings who never appear in earthly bodies but have their existence only in an etheric form. But let us bring it, too, to those souls who have often lived on Earth in physical bodies, those who are actually there now, and who belong to the Michael community—let us bring it to the consciousness of these human souls. We will image forth the great Initiation-teaching which once streamed down in the ancient fashion, through the Mysteries, to the Earth. We will present this to the souls of those who in their life of Intelligence were linked with Michael.—

And then—if I may use an earthly, and in such a context an almost trivial expression—then the ancient Initiation-Wisdom was “worked through.” In a great and comprehensive heavenly School, Michael taught the contents of what he was now no longer able to administer himself. It was an overwhelming deed—something that in the fifteenth, sixteenth, seventeenth centuries and on into the eighteenth, caused such profound disquiet and alarm to the Ahrimanic demons on Earth that a remarkable thing happened. Between heavenly deeds and earthly deeds at this time polaric contrast was established. In the heights, in the spiritual world, there was this sublime School, gathering together the old Initiate-Wisdom in a new form, calling up into the Intelligence-filled consciousness, into the Consciousness Soul of predestined human beings between death and rebirth, what in earlier times had been man's treasury of wisdom in the Intellectual Soul, the Sentient Soul, and so forth. In inner words, seeming stern in many respects when they were uttered, Michael placed before those who belonged to him the picture of cosmic relationships, the anthroposophical relationships. These souls received teaching which unveiled the secrets of worlds. Below, on the Earth, the Ahrimanic spirits were at work.—And here it is necessary to point without reserve to a secret. Outwardly regarded it will seem unacceptable in face of modern culture, but it is nevertheless a divine secret and one of which Anthroposophists must be cognisant in order to be able to lead civilisation in the right way to the end of the twentieth century.

While Michael above was teaching his hosts, there was founded in the realm lying immediately below the surface of the Earth, a kind of sub-earthly, Ahrimanic school. The Michael School was in the super-earthly world; in the region beneath our feet—for the spiritual is actively at work in the sub-earthly region also—the opposing Ahrimanic school was founded. And in that particular period, when no impulses were streaming down from Michael bringing heavenly inspiration to the Intelligence, when the Intelligence on the Earth was, for the time being, left to itself, the Ahrimanic hosts strove all the harder to send their impulses up from below into the development of the Intelligence in mankind. It is a truly overwhelming picture. The Earth's surface—Michael above, teaching his hosts, revealing to them in mighty, cosmic language the ancient Initiate-Wisdom, and below, the Ahrimanic school in the sub-strata of the Earth. Upon the Earth, the Intelligence that has fallen from the Heavens is unfolding. For the time being, Michael holds his School in heavenly isolation from the earthly world—no impulses stream down from above—and there below are the Ahrimanic powers, sending up their impulses with all the greater strength.

There have always been souls incarnated on the Earth who were aware of this sinister situation. Anyone conversant with the spiritual history of this epoch, especially the spiritual history of Europe, will everywhere find evidence of the fact that there were individuals here and there—often quite simple men—who had an inkling of this sinister situation: abandonment of humanity by the Michael rulership, and impulses rising from below like demonic vapours, striving to conquer the Intelligence.

It is remarkable how closely the revelations of wisdom are bound up with the human being, if all that springs from such revelations is to be beneficial. This is the secret which must here be touched upon.—A human being whose task it is to proclaim the Michael wisdom feels that in a certain respect he is following the right course when he tries to put into words, when he wrestles to find the terminology to express, what is, in very truth, the wisdom of Michael. Such a one feels, too, that he is further justified when with his own hand he writes down this wisdom; for then the flow of the spiritual is directly connected with him and streams, as it were, into the forms of what he is writing, into what he is doing. Thus he willingly communicates this wisdom to others in the form of reading material when it is written down by him in his own hand. But when through mechanical means, through the medium of the printed book, he sees his work duplicated, he has a feeling of uneasiness. This has to be endured, for the method is in keeping with our age. Nevertheless, the feeling of uneasiness is never absent from one who stands within the life of the Spirit together with what he has to proclaim.

In connection with the lecture yesterday, somebody has asked me whether, as Swedenborg has hinted, the letter (Buchstabe) is not, after all, the ‘last outflow’ of the spiritual life. That indeed is so! It is the last outflow of the spiritual life so long as it flows through a man in a continuous stream from the Spirit. But when it is fixed by mechanical means as it were from the other pole, when it comes before the eyes of men as printed letters, it becomes an Ahrimanic spiritual power. For, strange to say, it is that Ahrimanic school which worked in opposition to the School of Michael in the fifteenth, sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries—it is that Ahrimanic school which brought the art of printing, with all its consequences, to Europe. Printing can be the soil from which demonic powers, well adapted to combat the rulership of Michael, may spring.

An Anthroposophist must be able to perceive the significance and meaning of realities in life; he must recognise that printing is a spiritual power but precisely that spiritual power which Ahriman has placed in opposition to Michael. Therefore to those who in his School at that time were being taught by him, Michael constantly gave this warning: When you descend again to the Earth in order to give effect to what has here been prepared, gather men around you, make known the essentials by word of mouth, and do not regard the ‘literary’ effects produced in the world through the printed book as of foremost importance.—Hence the more intimate method of working from man to man is more truly in accord with Michael's way. If, instead of working merely through books, we meet together with one another, letting the impulses flow into us in the sphere of the human and the personal, and only then using the books as aids to memory, shall we be able to inaugurate the stream that—imponderably at first—is destined to flow through the Anthroposophical Society. It is inevitable that we should make use of books for we must also become masters of this art of Ahriman's—otherwise we should be delivered into his hands. We must be able to reckon truly with the Ahrimanic spirit of the times, otherwise tremendous power would be given to him. Thus it is not a matter of merely ousting the printed book but of bringing it into relationship with what works in a directly human way. So it would not be right, as a result of what I have just put before you, to say: ‘Away with all the anthroposophical books!’ Thereby we should be delivering up the art of printing to the most powerful enemies of the Michael wisdom; we should be making it impossible for our anthroposophical work to thrive, as thrive it must, until the end of the century is reached. What we must do is to ennoble the art of printing through our reverence for the Michael wisdom. For what is it that by way of the art of printing Ahriman is intent upon achieving in opposition to Michael? Ahriman is intent upon conquest of the Intelligence. There is evidence of it everywhere to-day. Conquest of the Intelligence, which asserts itself wherever conditions are favourable. And when do we find the Ahrimanic spirits most potent in their attacks against the coming age of Michael? We find them at those times when a diminution or lowering of the consciousness takes place in human beings. These Ahrimanic spirits then take possession of human consciousness, they entrench themselves within it. For instance, in the year 1914, many individuals in a lowered state of consciousness became entangled in events which led to the outbreak of the terrible World War. And within the lowered consciousness of such men the hosts of Ahriman promoted the World War—promoted it by way of human beings. The real causes of that War will never be brought to light by documents contained in archives. No, one must rather look deeply into history and perceive that there, at some particular point, stood an influential personality, at this point another, and there again another—and these men were in a lowered state of consciousness. That was the opportunity for Ahriman to take possession of them. And if you want to realise how easy it is in our age for men to be possessed by Ahriman, you need think only of this example.

What happened, when, with the printed volumes they had brought with them, the Europeans arrived in North America in times when Indians were still to be found in the eastern part of the land? When the Indians saw these volumes with their strange characters of script they took the letters to be little demons. They had the right perception for these things. They were terribly frightened when they looked at all these little demonic entities—a, b, and the rest, as they appear in print. For these letters, reproduced in such a different way, do contain something that fascinates, something that casts a spell over the modern mind; and only the good outlook of Michael, with eyes open to the human element in the proclamation of wisdom, can lead men beyond the danger of this lure. But evil things may happen in this domain.

At this point let me say the following.—There are certain secrets connected with the vision of world-existence which cannot be penetrated before a somewhat advanced age in life. Each particular period of life enables one who possesses Initiation-science to behold the individual secrets of existence. Thus between the twenty-first and forty-second years of life—not before—such a man is able to gaze into the Sun-existence; between the forty-second and forty-ninth years into the Mars secrets; between the forty-ninth and fifty-sixth years into the Jupiter secrets. But to behold the secrets of worlds in their interconnections, one must have passed the age of sixty-three.¹ Therefore before I myself was in this position, I should not have been able to speak of certain things of which I now speak without any reserve. Before the vision can penetrate into anything related to the Michael Mysteries, to the influences working from the spiritual realm of the Sun, one must look upwards from the Earth through the Saturn existence into the secrets of worlds. One must be able to experience, to live within that twilight of the spiritual world which proceeds from the ruler of Saturn, from Oriphiel, who was the leading Archangelos at the time of the Mystery of Golgotha and who will again assume the leadership when the Michael Age has run its course.

To such vision, however, shattering, overwhelming truths connected with the present age are revealed. As we have seen, the art of printing spread over the Earth through the Ahrimanic school working in opposition to the School of Michael, and because of this, ‘authorship’ on a wide scale has arisen on the Earth. Who, then, were ‘authors’ in earlier times, before printing was in existence? They were men whose writings could be known only in the narrowest circles, in circles, moreover, that were properly prepared. Into how many hands did a book find its way before printing was in use? Think of the following, and you will be able to judge how things were. A kind of substitute for the later art of printing was already in existence in ancient Chinese civilisation and had reached a high level of perfection. A kind of printing art had been established there—also in an Age when Michael was ruling above; and when below there was an Ahrimanic anti-rulership. But nothing very much came of it. In those times the power of Ahriman was not yet so powerful and he was still unable to make really effective attempts to wrest from Michael the rulership of the Intelligence. The attempt was renewed in the time of Alexander but then again was unsuccessful.

Ahriman's influence in the printing art of the modern age, however, has assumed deep significance. Authorship has, so to speak, been popularised. And something has become possible, something that is as great in a wonderful, brilliant, dazzling way as, on the other hand, the necessity is great to receive it in absolute equableness of soul and to estimate it according to its true significance. First attempts have been made, attempts which from Michael's realm may be characterised by saying: Ahriman has appeared as an author. For Michael and his circle, this is a deeply significant happening to-day. Ahriman as an author! Not only have men been possessed by him as I indicated in the case of the outbreak of the War, but in that he manifested on Earth through human souls, he himself appeared as an author. That he is a most brilliant author need be no cause for astonishment; for Ahriman is a mighty, all-embracing spirit. True, he is not by nature fitted to promote the evolution of mankind on the Earth according to the intentions of the good gods; he opposes it. Nevertheless in his own sphere he is not only a thoroughly useful but a beneficent power—for beings who on one level of world-happenings are benefactors are exceedingly harmful on another. It need not be assumed, therefore, that in characterising the works of Ahriman they must come in for unqualified rebuke. Provided one is conscious of what they are, one can even admire them. But the Ahrimanic character must be recognised!

Michael teaches how recognition can be made to-day if men are willing to listen to him. For the Michael schooling has worked on and still to-day it is possible for men to draw near it. Then it teaches how Ahriman himself as an author has made attempts—first attempts of a deeply shattering, deeply tragic character—working, of course, through a human being. Nietzsche's Anti-Christ, his Ecce Homo, his autobiography, and the annotations in The Will to Power—those most brilliant chapters of modern authorship with their often devilish content—Ahriman was their writer, exercising his sovereignty over that which in letters on the Earth can be made subject to his dominion through the art of printing! Ahriman has already begun to appear as an author and his work will continue. On Earth in the future alertness will be necessary in order that not all the productions of authorship shall be deemed of the same calibre. Works written by men will appear, but some individuals at least must be aware that a Being is training himself to become one of the most brilliant authors in the immediate future: that Being is Ahriman! Human hands will write the works, but Ahriman will be the author. As once the Evangelists of old were inspired by super-sensible Beings and wrote down their works through this inspiration, so will the works of Ahriman be penned by men.

The further history of the evolution of humanity will present itself in two aspects. Endeavours must be made to propagate in the earthly realm—to the greatest extent possible—what was once taught by Michael in super-sensible Schools to souls predestined to receive it; endeavours must be made in the Anthroposophical Society to be reverently mindful of this knowledge and to impart it to those who will be incarnated in the coming times, until the end of the century has arrived. And then, many of those who for the first time are learning of these things to-day will come down to the Earth again. The time will be short. But meanwhile on Earth much that has been written by Ahriman will appear.

One task of Anthroposophists is this: steadfastly to cultivate the Michael Wisdom, to bring courageous hearts to this Michael Wisdom, and to realise that the first penetration of the earthly Intelligence by the spiritual sword of Michael consists in this sword being wielded by those into whose hearts the Michael wisdom has found its way. And so the picture of Michael in a new form may inspire each single Anthroposophist—Michael standing there within the hearts of men, beneath his feet the production of Ahrimanic authorship. Such a picture need not be painted in that external form in which during the time of the Dominicans the image was often fixed—above, the Dominican Schoolmen with their books, below, crushed under their feet, the heathen wisdom as represented by Averröes, Avicenna and the rest. Wherever it was a matter of portraying the battle waged by Christian Scholasticism against heathendom, these pictures are to be found. But in the spirit there must be this other picture: Devotion to Michael as he enters into the world, laying hold of the Intelligence upon Earth; and—in order that one may not be bedazzled—alertness with regard to the brilliant work of Ahriman as an author through the whole of the twentieth century. Ahriman will write his works in the strangest places—but they will be there indeed—and he is preparing pupils for his purposes. Even in our day, much in the subconscious is being schooled in such a way that souls will be able to incarnate again quickly and become instruments for Ahriman as an author. He will write in all domains: in philosophy, in poetry, in the sphere of the drama and the epic; in medicine, law, sociology. Ahriman will write in all these domains!

This will be the situation into which mankind will be led when the end of the century is reached. And those who are still young to-day will witness many samples of how Ahriman appears as an author. In every sphere watchfulness will be needed—and reverent enthusiasm for the Michael Wisdom.

If we can permeate ourselves with these things, if we can feel ourselves standing within the spiritual life in the sense of the indications here given, then, my dear friends, we shall place ourselves as true Anthroposophists into the civilisation of the present time. Then, maybe, we shall realise more and more deeply that a new Impulse is going out from the Christmas Foundation at the Goetheanum, that in truth only now are there being presented to the Anthroposophical Society things whereby this Society can see itself as it were in a great cosmic mirror—in which the individual, too, together with the karma which leads him into the Anthroposophical Society, can see himself reflected.

That is what I wanted to lay on your hearts in these lectures. For it is to hearts that the words are chiefly spoken. The hearts of men must become the helpers of Michael in the conquering of the Intelligence that has fallen to the Earth. Just as once the old Serpent was destined to be crushed by Michael, so must the Intelligence that has now become the Serpent be conquered by Michael, be spiritualised by Michael. And whenever the Serpent appears in its unspiritualised state, made Ahrimanic, it must be recognised through the vigilance, the alertness which belongs to the anthroposophical spirit and is developed through the Michael-like tenor of soul.

• 1. See True and False Paths in Spiritual Investigations. Lecture 6. (Rudolf Steiner Press.)

You have come to this Youth Conference with all the questions and problems in your hearts that assail young people today everywhere in the world—some more, some less—ever since the turn of the century, the time which those who can see deeply into human evolution call the end of Kali Yuga and the beginning of an epoch of light.

We don't see much light yet. You can even say that events in these last two decades have become even darker and more chaotic than before. But just as in ordinary natural phenomena there is resistance in an object to changing either its motion or its lack of motion, inertia is also a property of human beings. We can observe this in the many people who don't seem to belong at all to the 20th century; sometimes we feel we must have seen them a hundred years ago or even earlier. Not only have they remained at a certain age but they are still (however ridiculous this sounds) at the same standpoint where they were before they were born.

Nevertheless we should look at the divine forces concerned with the destiny of the earth. Then we will discover that we have emerged from an epoch in time when we were unconsciously guided by creative spiritual forces that led our souls with supernatural strength. Now we have matured into a new era; certain spiritual beings have withdrawn, while others, whose central impulse is the growing freedom to be allotted to human beings, have begun to influence our development. Young people born since the turn of the century feel this in their unconscious, feel it inwardly, like an earthquake shaking human evolution. But people merely say, “It's the same as always. Youth continually rampages against everything their elders or traditions have brought about.” The clever ones put it like this: “The emperor's enemy is the crown prince.” Certainly in every epoch the young have rebelled against the old.

However, what is living and working today in young people, more or less unconsciously, has never before been experienced. And one must say, there has never been such a discrepancy, such a total contradiction, between what comes to the surface in response to this inner experience they are having and the actual inner experience itself. We have already seen the various groups and the movements young people are taking up—Wandervögel¹ and other youth groups—we've seen them all; they were attempts to escape from what older people call civilization, a flight to the powers which cannot yet be identified.

You see, it's been clear to me from the very beginning that in the deep subconscious of most of today's young people there is the peculiarly solid realization: that an earth-shaking change must take place in human evolution. Sometimes you can observe this quite intensely, as happened to me in Norway. A very young high school lad wanted to see me but was being discouraged away; people in the house thought such a young fellow would only bother me. (In these matters it's usually just the opposite.)

However, fate decreed that I should step out of my door just at that moment, and I realized that even though he was so young, in ninth or tenth grade, I should listen to him. “All of us High School students want to begin something our High School doesn't have, a publication for young people, doing everything ourselves. Couldn't you help us?” “I will help in every way possible,” I told him, “if you can get things started.” We talked together and what he said showed clearly that subconsciously in him was what older people call “the adolescent crisis” they can hardly understand.

I have asked many of these older people what they think about adolescence; their answer was usually, “Young people have always been rebels.” I have also asked many young people about the “adolescent crises” some of them claim to be taking part in—but they, too, haven't had much of an answer for me. Yet I know that many of them know very well this youth experience in their subconsciousness but are not able to describe it. Even though young people can say very little about it, it is clearly present within them. What they feel clearly and very strongly emerges, for one thing, on looking at a beautiful landscape. People in the past have always admired “scenery,” but not in the same way as the younger generation does today. Perhaps they go at it less perfectly but as they look out at nature, their distinct feeling is, “We are helpless. Even to come to a primitive kind of appreciation for nature, we should develop the most elementary forces within us!”

You see, when you are aware of such an attitude, you will feel deeply, very deeply indeed, the inner meaning of these youth movements. We all remember the powerful claims for nature and the natural order, for instance, by Rousseau and his disciples. That was also a youth movement, one that burst out like an explosion, much more alarming than any in our own time. What was the result of that early 19th century rebellion? Imagine! It was followed by the greatest amount of narrow-mindedness and pedantry than at any time in the last century. Its result was the loneliness that young people feel today within modern civilization. They feel that the world has grown old. The young feel this strongly. They feel even much more. (However, in this regard I put greater value on the mind than on feelings).

Today there is a lot of revolution and too much horrible willingness thereby to commit suicide. Young people born around the turn of the century find this sort of thing, if they are honest with themselves, not altogether what they are looking for. They feel that they did not grow up, even as children, alongside older people who could have helped them develop a really joyful enthusiasm for nature. Actually, we have had to see souls maturing alone into something quite wild. Therefore their urge: Away! Get away—anywhere! Leave behind everything the centuries have piled up on us!

Indeed, you notice that I'm speaking about these matters rather indecisively. Sometimes this is necessary in life—but at the same time one must be warmly concerned, even though indecisive. It's better not to falsify the issue by spelling it out with ordinary narrow-minded logic.

I saw this “youth crisis” in its very dawning; now it is already noonday. I observed it in its first misty light, when the youth of the 1870s were also full of enthusiasm and later kept their enthusiasm into what they regarded as grey middle age, still acting like the young people they had been. Such a young person—to put it concretely—I met in the 1880s, giving vent to his enthusiasm in an oration on the death of a workman killed in the 1848 revolution. As I listened to the oration, I thought to myself, “There is a conservative attorney general stuck inside that young man,” and this he really did become some years later. On the other hand, I knew several in that period who were not able to grow into the traditional professions awaiting them. I saw young people in those years die early when it seemed impossible to them to step into the human conditions of the time. There seemed to be an unconscious youth movement that I'd like to describe—please don't misunderstand the phrase—as filled with shame. Young people were not able to reveal what they felt. What was underneath did not rise to the surface. Rather than appear in daylight it turned sick inside. Above all, it could not be brought into the stream of ordinary life.

Years went by, decades even, and one could say the vessel was full and spilling over. The feeling of shame could no longer continue. Young people had to ask themselves the reason for their suffering and what they were actually longing for. This has been moving them into the various youth groups of our time.

Not so long ago a number of these young people came also into the anthroposophical movement. A singular understanding came about between the anthroposophical movement and what was living in their hearts. Today, although it's been only a short time, many of them have grown into the various activities of the movement. However, what we need from young persons is first and foremost the will to try to understand other people in the most human way. Otherwise we won't get beyond the endless unproductive discussions. The will to understand human beings humanly! All the subjects of the discussions we have with each other are downright unimportant; the essential thing is that our hearts recognize what the others are feeling. In this way we can find some agreement, can always discover how much we really agree. What is so necessary is that we fully and heartily understand others; it is also necessary that the individual leaders within the youth movements acquire more confidence in the integrity of the anthroposophical movement and its principles. Otherwise we will not be able to accomplish very much with our Youth Section.

This Section, I originally believed, I had to found for all those who clearly and honestly perceived in themselves “hunger for a truly modern life style.” If they can actually find their way to the anthroposophical movement, we will be able to achieve everything I wrote about in the Mitteilungen [Anthroposophical Newssheet] concerning youthful sagacity, something that should not be at all pedantic but rather distinguish itself through heartfelt action and heartfelt efforts at human understanding. You see, it was an attempt to search out and explore warmly what is alive in the young today. We tried first of all sending around a questionnaire to find out what young people imagined a Youth Section should be; we hoped to hear what thoughts were emerging or if not thoughts, even better, what strong, “balled-fist” feelings, what spade-thrusts of will. We were ready to accept anything like this—but there was no response. Now I have gone at it more rigorously and have sent out the following question to young people, which you yourselves may have read by now: “How do you imagine the world and humanity should be by 1935, if what you are now hoping for shall have a rightful place in it?” If someone could take this question seriously it would require plenty of good solid thought and sensitivity. How we are to proceed depends actually on our honest efforts, without a lot of blather.

What is this old world steering towards? If we're comfortable in it, we're not living in the three dimensions revealed by the threefold nature of the world order. Instead, we're living in clichés, in convention, in routine, and habit. Cliché, convention, routine—we find them everywhere in every sphere of life. We hear from childhood on how we are to relate to other people—just so or so, one particular way or another. But a young person can't agree to that, for since the turn of the century there has been a completely new impulse entering our souls.

Routine is what can be learned very quickly, for it remains just on the surface of things. Leave everything else for later on, people say. What, however, is very much needed in the world, is something that I could feel emerging many years before the end of Kali Yuga [The “dark ages” up to 1879, when the regency of the Archangel Michael began.]: one cannot be pressed into a profession or work in the old, traditional way. I took this very seriously. I myself never entered any specific profession. Had I done so, there would be no anthroposophical movement today, for this had to be created entirely free from tradition. Even the smallest link to something from the past would have made it impossible. Anyone who cannot understand this is an enemy of what we have tried to do from the very beginning.

The anthroposophical movement is therefore one of pure youthfulness. Shouldn't youth find its way to youth? If this anthroposophical movement is sincere and if young people find it necessary to be honest, what is needed above all?—Courage! Something one learns very fast or not at all. Real courage! The courage to say: the world as it is today must get a new foundation underneath it. This is clearly inscribed in the subconsciousness of the young; I have never seen anything different but what is written there: the world must be changed to its very foundation.

But you can cover up this inscription with negation, argumentative remarks and lots of discussion; you can cover it up and pervert what lies there in the subconscious that wants to be completely honest and courageous. The anthroposophical movement can well be the school par excellence to develop courage, since for many people today anthroposophy is not given first place but is rather something incidental. You can observe this at our lecture series and other events. It seems to be becoming more and more fashionable (and one has to get used to it somehow) to be invited to take part in workshops and seminars held in the country, as though on a holiday trip. And why shouldn't one have a bit of anthroposophy while there instead of band concerts?

But it is a symbol—not bad in itself but nevertheless a symbol—of the lack of thoroughgoing courage in grasping the living substance of anthroposophy, the spiritual essence of anthroposophy in its full reality, not just the shadow of anthroposophy. It is really a matter of our feeling life. I am not criticizing but rather pointing out symptoms.

The youth movement must be able to find its way to unite with what I have described as the great task of the century, the spur to action of the Archangel Michael. To do this, however, young people should learn to descend more deeply into themselves, while giving up all their abstract kind of dreaminess. Then the big problems will turn up. No narrow-minded man on the street will understand what you mean when you say: Michael has lost the cosmic intelligence; he himself has remained in the cosmos; now human beings must rise up and win back with Michael what he once had under his dominion. Young people will begin to understand this when they begin to understand themselves. To others, today, it will sound like abstractions dressed up in a poetic costume. But this it certainly is not. We must realize that the spirit is alive and real; we must learn how to deal with it. We have also to begin to feel how everything spiritual is different in our time than it was in any earlier time.

A century ago the morning sunrise, shining mistily, was an image of the spiritual world. Behind the glimmering image like a curtain one saw the spirit, alive and luminous. But during the 19th century up into our time this was changing. The sunrise has become flaming red. Out of the shining sun, flames break forth. If we describe for modern times the kind of sunrise Herder or Goethe wrote about we would be guilty of untruthfulness—for it has become altogether different. In Herder and Goethe's time it was a shining glimmer; today it is fiery. Out of the flames comes a summons to active, fervent spirituality. The spiritual world has taken on a new gesture towards our physical world.

If we can begin to understand these gestures of the spiritual world we can perhaps prevent the youth movement of the 20th century from becoming the sort of middle-class narrow-mindedness and pedantry that came after Rousseau. If today's youth can become enthusiastic about what is truly young, if today's youth, with understanding, can lay hold of the real spiritual world that is here, then Michael's time will come. If today's youth cannot do this, the middle-class narrow-mindedness and pedantry will be infinitely greater in our century than that which followed Rousseau. In all the many centuries before, there were never better or more proper citizens than in the 19th century; people in the earlier times never knew Rousseau or his ideas.

We have been talking a good deal here in Arnhem about the new education and the principles of Waldorf education.² The most important principle is to continue growing. Every day there's danger that things will get sour. We have to make sure that when we have to plan something new or get something done, we don't fall asleep sticking to our old habits. Let us try to divide our sleeping and waking, to keep a clear gulf between them. We must be able to sleep in the right way but also to be awake in the right way. Unfortunately we're continually sleeping when we should be awake. It is just not in our nature to tell ourselves over and over to wake up, otherwise all the reform movements and revolutions will be useless; it is almost always the best endeavors that suffer the most when they are taken over by narrow-mindedness and pedantry: a strong light produces a strong shadow. What should we do?—not think out something to be done one way or another, but rather to feel how different the sunrise is now in our time and how nature with its flaming color speaks to us of the spirituality that surrounds us.

Our hearts, too, have changed. We have a different kind of heart in our body. Our physical heart has become hard, but our etheric heart is more flexible. We must find the way to make use of this supersensible heart of ours. It then will help us to understand spiritual science. To put it plainly, just about everybody and his uncle are talking about spiritual science but only because most science can be taken in lazily. We have to be quite clear about it: spiritual science must come alive in our hearts. And the hearts of young people are perfectly formed to feel what is true in this sphere—if there's enough courage for such thoughts.

Friedrich Schiller³ with his warm enthusiasm had much to give the world. He died in very peculiar circumstances. There was an autopsy. His heart was examined; it was found to have become an empty pouch, completely dried up, burned out.

All our hearts will burn out like this if we can lay hold of them and make them new. And if we are to be serious about spirituality we will have to tell ourselves with a certain amount of courage: “Whenever we seem not to be able to live with the rest of the world, it is because we need to have a new kind of heart!”

However, this should not be just a phrase. Let us be awake to the fact that our new hearts should be aware of the world in quite a different way from the old hearts. If wetake this very seriously the youth movement will become something like a flame blazing towards the flames of the sunrise. This will not result from discussions about being young or from talk about inner feelings; in this regard peculiar things can happen. In Breslau the elderly members in their welcome called me “Papa”; in the youth group there they said I was the youngest of all, though I was three times older than most of them.

Indeed it is important to be able to admit this about oneself. The flames from within, the flames from outside, the two flames must strike against each other. It is not at all important to decide or define anything. It is important that we bring about a new kind of enthusiasm. It comes down to this: we should not only learn to sit down but we should learn to stand up. Nietzsche had an apt phrase for Carlyle, who impresses many people with his talent for enthusiasm. “Carlyle's enthusiasm,” said Nietzsche, “is the kind that takes off its coat.” In other words, Carlyle always had time to take off his coat whenever he was seized by enthusiasm. Carlyle always had time as he got warmly enthusiastic, without hesitation, to take off his coat. One can imagine how this fellow would pull on a silk vest after he has had time to get fully into his enthusiasm and slowly to take off his coat.

But the right enthusiasm is the kind that doesn't give you time to take off your coat; it makes you sweat, wearing your coat, and you don't even notice how you're perspiring! This is the right enthusiasm, my dear friends! It should overpower us so completely that we keep our coats on.

That enthusiasm we should feel compelled to bring into being out of the fullness and immediacy of life itself. We need today to overcome our heavy, sticky tiredness. It is actually lazy to insist on “being clear.” There may well be no time to become clear in the old sense of the word. But there is the real necessity to become enthusiastic—for enthusiasm will be able to accomplish everything. The word itself will then reach its true meaning. The German word Begeisterung carries Geist, spirit, in itself. That is self-evident: we need spirit. The English-Greek word enthusiasm has the divine within it (Gr. Theos). A god is in the word.

Grow inwardly with the flame that is kindled in you today, for then the Michael impulse will be achieved! Without fire, it cannot be achieved. But if you are to live and work, glowing through and through, you yourself will have to become a flame. The only thing not burned up by flames is a flame; when we can begin to feel we are becoming one, and cannot be burned up by other flames, we can safely let our physical heart remain behind as an empty pouch, for we have an etheric heart. It is our etheric heart that will understand that humanity is moving into a new epoch, into a life in the spirit. Our growing into this life in the spirit will form the youth movement, the youth experience, in all its strength.

• 1. we call them hippies today. Tr.
• 2. In these July days of 1924, Dr. Steiner was giving the course published in English as Human Values in Education, Rudolf Steiner Press, London 1971
• 3. Poet and dramatist 1759-1805. See also Rudolf Steiner, The Karma of Human Vocation, Lecture 2, Anthroposophic Press 1944.

It will be necessary for me to begin this evening with a sort of introductory lecture, and deal with the actual subject itself in the two following lectures. I must do this because there are so many people in the audience to whom Anthroposophy is still but little known; and lectures dealing with a special subject would remain rather in the air if I did not begin with some introductory remarks treating of Anthroposophy in general before coming to definite observations in the domain of medicine.

Anthroposophy is indeed not as is so often said of it, some kind of craze, or a sect; it stands for a serious and scientifically-considered conception of the world; but a conception of the world which is applied just as seriously to the spiritual domain as we are accustomed to apply our modern scientific methods to the material domain. Now it might appear to begin with to many people that any suggestion of the spiritual at once introduces something unscientific, for the reason that people are generally inclined to the idea that only those things can be grasped scientifically which can be experienced by the senses, and carried further by means of the reason and intellect. It is the opinion of many people that directly we step over into the spiritual it implies renunciation of Science. It is said that decisions with regard to spiritual questions rest upon subjective opinion, upon a kind of mystical feeling, which everyone must manufacture for himself; “faith” must take the place of scientific knowledge. The task of this introductory lecture shall be to show that this is not the case.

Above all, Anthroposophy does not set out to be “Science” in the generally-accepted sense of the word as something that lies apart from ordinary life and is practised by single individuals who are preparing for some specialised scientific career; on the contrary, it is a conception of the world which can be of value for the mind of every human being who has a longing to find the answers to questions regarding the meaning of life, the duties of life, the operation of the spiritual and material forces of life, and how to turn this knowledge to account. Hitherto in the Anthroposophical field there has been unfailing success in achieving entirely practical methods of applying Anthroposophical principles, more especially in the sphere of education. We have founded schools, which are organised on the basis of these conceptions. And in many well-recognized ways we have succeeded in a similar manner with regard to the art of healing. Anthroposophy does not wish to create obstacles in any sphere, or to appear in opposition to anything that is in the nature of “recognized science;” it will have nothing to do with dilettantism. It is above all anxious that those who wish earnestly to work out what has been given as Anthroposophical knowledge, shall prize and admire all the great achievements that have resulted—with such fullness in recent times—from every kind of scientific endeavour. Therefore there can be no question (in the medical sphere or any other) of anything like dilettantism, nor of any opposition to modern science. On the contrary, it will be shown how by following certain spiritual methods one is in a position to add something to that which is already accepted, and which can only be added when the work of serious investigation is extended into the spiritual world itself.

Anthroposophy can do this because it strives after other kinds of knowledge which do not prevail in ordinary life or in ordinary science. In ordinary life, as in our customary scientific methods, we make use of such knowledge which we attain when in the course of our development we add to our inherited tendencies and capabilities what we can gain through the usual lower or higher grades of schooling, and which together make us into ripe human beings in the sense in which that is understood to-day. But Anthroposophy goes further than this; it desires to start from what I may call intellectual modesty. And this intellectual modesty (which must be there to begin with if we are to develop a feeling for Anthroposophy) I should like to characterise in the following manner.

Let us consider the development of a human being from earliest childhood onwards. The child first appears in the world showing outwardly in its life and inwardly in its soul nothing of that by which a fully- developed human being finds his orientation in the world through actions and knowledge. There must be education and up-bringing in order to draw out of the childlike soul and bodily organism those capacities which have been brought into the world in a dormant or “unripe” state. And we all admit that we cannot in the true sense of the word become active inhabitants of the world if we do not add to our inherited tendencies all those things which can only come by a process of unfolding and drawing them out. Then sooner or later, according to whether we have completed a higher or lower grade of education, we step out into life, having a particular relation to life, having the possibility of unfolding a certain consciousness with regard to our surroundings. Now anyone who approaches the intentions of Anthroposophy with true understanding, will say: Why should it not be possible—seeing that it is possible for a child to become something entirely different when its soul- qualities are developed—for such a thing to take place also in a man who is “ripe” according to the standard of to-day? Why should not a man who enters the world fully equipped with the best modern education, also contain hidden capacities in his soul which can be developed further, so that he can progress by means of this development to still further knowledge, and to a practical conduct of life which to some extent can be a continuation of that which has brought him as far as the ordinary state of consciousness?

Therefore in Anthroposophy we undertake a kind of “self-development”—which is to lead out beyond the ordinary condition of consciousness.

There are three faculties in the human soul which are developed normally in life up to a certain point, but which we can unfold further; and Anthroposophy provides the only means in this our modern age of culture and civilisation which will create the necessary stimulus for the further development of these faculties. All three faculties can be so transformed as to become the faculties of a higher kind of knowledge.

First there is the Thinking. In the culture that we have acquired we use our thinking in such a way that we give ourselves over quite passively to the world. Indeed, Science itself demands that we should employ the least possible inner activity in our thinking, and that that which exists in the outer world should only speak to us through the observation of our senses; in fact that we must simply give ourselves over altogether to our sense-perceptions. We maintain that whenever we go beyond this passivity we are only led into dreams and fantastic notions. But where Anthroposophy is concerned, there is no question of fantasy or dreaminess, but of the exact opposite; we are guided to an inner activity which is as clear as any method leading maybe to the attainment of mathematics or geometry. In fact we comport ourselves with regard to Anthroposophy precisely in the same way as we do with regard to mathematics or geometry, only in Anthroposophy we are not developing any special attribute, but on the contrary, every faculty that is connected with human hearts and minds—the whole sum of what is human. And the first thing that has to be done is something which, if people are only sufficiently free from prejudice, can be readily comprehended by everyone. It is simply that the capacity and the force of Thinking should be directed for a time not in order to grasp or understand some external thing, but just in order to allow a thought to remain present in the soul—such a thought as may be easily observed in its totality—and to give oneself up entirely to this thought for a certain length of time.

I will describe it more exactly. Anyone having the necessary feeling of confidence might turn to someone who was experienced in these matters and ask what would be the best kind of thought to which he might devote himself in this way. This person would then suggest some thought which could be surveyed with ease but which would at the same time be as new to him as possible. If we use an old familiar thought, it is very easy for all kinds of memories and feelings and subjective impressions to arise out of the soul, so that only a dreamy condition would be induced. But if the enquirer is directed to a thought which is quite certainly a new one, which will arouse no memories, then he will be able to give himself up to it in such a way that the thought-forces of the soul will become stronger and stronger. In my own writings, and especially in my books—“Knowledge of the higher Worlds” and “An Outline of Occult Science,” I call this kind of thinking, which can be inwardly cultivated, Meditation. That is an old word: but to-day we will only use it in the particular connection which I will now describe. Meditation consists in turning the attention away from everything that has been either an inner or an external experience, and in thinking of nothing except that one thought, which must be placed in the very centre of the soul's life. By thus directing all the strength that the soul possesses upon this single thought something takes place with regard to the forces of the soul which can only be compared to the constant repetitions of some movement of the hand. What is it that takes place when one does that? The muscles become stronger. It is exactly similar in the case of the soul's powers. When they are directed again and again to one thought they gain force and strength. And if this goes on for a long time—(though to spend a long time at it on each occasion is certainly not necessary, because it is rather a question of entering into a state of soul produced by concentration on a single thought)—and the length of time depends also on predisposition, for with one person it might take a week, and with another three years, and so on—so, if we go on for a long period doing such exercises again and again perhaps for five minutes or fifteen minutes every day, then we begin at last to have an inner sense that our being is becoming enfilled with a new content of force.

Previously, the forces of the nerves have been felt in the process of ordinary thinking and feeling, as we feel the forces of the muscles active in the grasping of objects or in whatever we perform. Just as we have been feeling these things gradually more and more in growing up from childhood, so in the same way we gradually begin to learn how to feel that something new is permeating us when we apply ourselves to such thought-exercises—of which I can now only indicate the general principles. (You will find them described in greater detail in my books.) Finally there comes a day when we are aware that we can no longer think about outer things in the same way as we used to think about them; but that now we have attained an entirely new soul-power; that we have something in us that is like an intensified, a stronger quality of thinking. And at last we feel that this kind of thinking enables us actually to take hold of what previously was only known to us in quite a shadowy way.

What we are then enabled to grasp is the essential reality of our own life. In what manner do we thus recognize our own earthly life—the life we have lived since birth? We know it through our memory, which reaches back as far as a certain point in our childhood. Rising out of undefined depths of the soul appears the remembrance of our past experiences. They are like shadows. Think how shadowy those emerging memory pictures of our life are in comparison with the intense full- blooded experiences we have from day to day! If we now take hold of our thinking in the way that I have described, the shadowy quality of these memories ceases. We go back into our own actual earth-life; we experience again what we experienced ten or twenty years ago with the same inner forces and strength with which we originally experienced these events. Only the experience is not the same as formerly, inasmuch as we do not again come into direct contact with the external objects or beings, but we experience instead a kind of “extract” of it all. And that which we experience can, paradoxical as it may sound, be described as having definite significance. All at once, as in a mighty panorama, we have the whole of our life up to the time of birth before us. Not that we see the single events simply in a time- sequence, but we see them as a complete life-tableau. Time turns into Space. Our experiences are there before us, not as ordinary memories, but so that we know that we stand before the deeper being of our own humanity—like a second man within the man we know with our ordinary consciousness.

And then we arrive at the following: This physical human being that we confront in our ordinary consciousness is built up out of the matter which we take out of the Earth which is round about us. We continually discard this matter, and take in fresh matter, and we can definitely say that all the material substances which have been discarded by our body are replaced by new substances within periods of time of from seven to eight years. The material in us is something that is in constant flux. And so, learning to know our own life through our intensified thinking, we come to know that which remains—which endures throughout the whole of our earth-life. It is, at the same time, that which builds up our organism out of outer material substance; and this latter is itself at the same time that which we survey as the tableau of our life.

Now what we see in this manner is distinguished in yet another way from ordinary memory. In ordinary memory the events of our life appear before the soul as though approaching us from outside. We remember what such and such a person has done to us, or what has accrued to us from this or that event. But in the tableau which arises from our intensified thinking, we learn to know ourselves as we really are ourselves—what we have done to other human beings, how we have stood in relation to any occurrence. We learn to know ourselves. That is the important point. For in learning to know ourselves, we also learn to know ourselves intensively, and in such a way that we know how we are placed within the forces of our growth, yes, even within the forces of our nourishment; and how it is we ourselves who build up and again disintegrate our own bodies. Thus we learn to know our own inner being.

Now the important thing is that when we come to this self-knowledge, we immediately experience something which can never be experienced by means of any ordinary science or through the ordinary consciousness. I must admit that nowadays it is really very difficult to express what is now arrived at, because in face of what is considered authoritative to-day, it sounds so strange. But so it is. At this point we experience something through our intensified thinking, of which we must say the following:—There are the laws of Nature which we study assiduously in the sciences; we even learn about them in the elementary schools. We are proud of this; and prosaic humanity is justly proud of what has been learnt of these laws of Nature in physics, chemistry and so on. Here I must emphatically declare that Anthroposophy does not set itself in any amateurish opposition to Science. But because of our grasp of inner intensive thinking we say that the natural laws which are learnt in connection with physics and chemistry are only present in the matter of the Earth, and they cease to be of any account so soon as we pass out into universal space.

Here I must state something which will not seem so very implausible to anyone who thinks over it without prejudice: suppose we have somewhere a source of light, we know that the more widely the light is distributed from its source the more it loses in intensity; and the further we go out into space the weaker it becomes, so that we are tempted to speak of it no longer as “light” but as “twilight,” and finally when we have gone far enough it cannot be accounted as light any more. It is the same with the laws of Nature. They have a value for the region of the Earth, but the further we go out into the Cosmos they become less and less of value, until at length they cease to be of any account at all as laws of Nature. On the other hand, those laws which we come to apprehend through intensified thinking, which are already active in our own life, these show us that as human beings, we have not grown out of the natural laws of the Earth, but out of higher, cosmic laws. We have brought them with us in coming into earthly existence. And so we learn to recognize that the moment we have grasped our intensified thinking we can only apply natural law to the mineral kingdom. We cannot say—and this is a very reasonable error made by the newer physics—that natural laws can be applied to the Sun or the Stars. That cannot be done; for to wish to apply natural laws to the Universe would be just as artless as to wish to illumine the worlds of space with the light of a candle. Directly we ascend from the mineral, which as mineral is only apparent to us on this Earth, up to what is living, then we can no longer speak of the natural laws of the earthly realm, but we must speak of laws which worked down into the earthly realm from out of the Cosmos—from universal space. That is already the case with regard to the vegetable kingdom.

We can only use the laws of the Earth to explain the mineral—laws, for example, such as the law of gravity and so on, which work from the centre of the Earth towards the circumference. When we come to the vegetable kingdom, then we must say that the entire globe is the central point, and that the laws of life, are working towards it from every side of the Cosmos—the same laws of life which we have first discovered in ourselves with our intensified thinking, and of which we have learnt to know that we build ourselves up between birth and death by their means.

To these laws, then, which work from the centre of the Earth outward, we add knowledge of the laws which work inwards towards the centre of the Earth from every direction, and which are already active in the vegetable kingdom. We look at the plants springing up out of the Earth and tell ourselves that they contain mineral matter. Chemistry to-day has gone very far in its knowledge of the respective activity of these mineral substances. That is all quite justifiable and quite right. And chemistry will go yet further. That will also be quite right. But if we want to explain the nature of plants we must explain their growth, and that cannot be done through the forces that work upwards from the Earth, but only through those forces that work inwards from the surroundings, from the Cosmos, into the Earth- existence. Hence we have to admit that our knowledge must ascend from an earthly conception to a cosmic conception; and moreover in this cosmic conception is contained the real human Self-knowledge.

Now we can go further than this and transform our Feeling. To have “Feeling” in ordinary life is a personal affair, not actually a source of knowledge. But we can transform that which is ordinarily only experienced subjectively as feeling, into a real objective source of knowledge.

In Meditation we concentrate upon one particular thought; we arrive at intensified or “substantial” thinking and thereby are able to grasp something that works from the periphery of the Universe towards the centre of the Earth, in contradistinction to the ordinary laws of Nature, which work from the centre of the Earth outwards in all directions. So when we have reached this intensified thinking, and have perceived that our own life and also the life of the plants is spread out before our souls like a mighty panorama, then we go further. We come to a point, after having grasped something through this forceful thinking, when we can cast these strong thoughts aside. Anyone who knows how difficult it is, in ordinary life, to throw aside some thought which has taken hold of one, will understand that special exercises are necessary to enable this to be done. But it can be done. It is not only possible to cast out with the whole strength of our soul this thought that we have concentrated upon, but it is also possible to cast out the whole memory-tableau, and therewith our own life, and entirely to withdraw our attention from it.

Something then begins to occur by which we clearly see that we are descending further into the depths of the soul, into those regions which are usually only accessible to our feeling. As a rule in ordinary life, if all impressions received by sight or hearing are shut off, we fall asleep. But if we have developed intensified thinking, we do not fall asleep even when we have thrown aside every thought—even the substantially intense ones. A condition arises in which no sense-perceptions and no thoughts are active, a condition we can only describe by saying that such a person is simply “awake;” he does not fall asleep; but he has nevertheless at first nothing in his consciousness. He is awake, with a consciousness that is empty. That is a condition revealed through Spiritual Science to which a person can attain who can be quite systematically and methodically developed—namely to have an empty consciousness in complete waking awareness.

In the usual way, if our consciousness is empty we are asleep. For from falling asleep to waking up we do have an empty consciousness—only—we are asleep in it. To have an empty consciousness and yet be awake, is the second stage of knowledge for which we strive. For this consciousness does not remain empty for long. It fills itself. As the ordinary consciousness can fill itself with colour through the perceptions of sight, or by the ear fill itself with sounds, so this empty consciousness fills itself with a spiritual world which is just as much in our surroundings “there” as the ordinary physical world is in our surroundings here. The empty consciousness is the first to reveal the spiritual world—that spiritual world which is neither here on the Earth, nor in the Cosmos in Space, but which is outside Space and Time, and which nevertheless constitutes our deepest human nature. For if at first we have learnt to look back with the intense consciousness of thinking upon our whole earth-life as a script—now, with a consciousness that was empty and has become filled, we gaze into that world where we passed a life of soul and spirit before we came down into our earthly existence. We now learn to know ourselves as Beings who were spiritually present before birth and conception, who lived a pre-earthly existence before the one wherein we now are. We learn to recognize ourselves as beings of spirit and soul, and that the body that we bear we have received in that it was handed on to us by parents and grandparents. We have had it delivered to us in such a way that, as I have said, we can change it every seven years; but that which we are in our individual being has brought itself to Earth out of a pre-natal existence. But none of this is learnt by means of theorising, or by subtle cogitation; it can only be learnt when the suitable capacities are first of all unfolded in intellectual modesty.

Thus we have now learnt to know our inner humanity, our own individual being of spirit and soul. It comes to meet us when we descend into the region of feeling and not merely with feeling, but also with knowledge. But first we must mark how the struggle for knowledge is bound up with strong inner experiences which can be indicated as follows: If you have bound up one of your limbs tightly, so that you cannot move it—even if someone perhaps only bandages two of your fingers together—you feel discomfort, possibly even pain. Now when you are in a condition where you experience what is soul and spirit without a body, you do not possess the whole of your physical being, for you are living in an empty consciousness. The passing-over into this state is connected with a profound feeling of pain. Beyond the feeling of pain, beyond the privation, we wrestle for the entrance into that which is our deepest spiritual and soul-being. And here many people are arrested by terror. But it is impossible to gain any explanation of our real human nature by any other means; and if we can learn it in this way, then we can go still further.

But now we have to develop a strength of knowledge which in ordinary life is not recognised as such at all; we have to develop Love as a force of knowledge—a selfless out-going into the things and processes of the world. And if we perfect this love ever more and more, so that we can actually lift ourselves out into the condition I have described, where we are body-free—and in this liberation from the body gaze at the world—then we learn to realise ourselves wholly as spiritual beings in the spiritual world. Then we know what man is as Spirit; but then we also know what dying is; for in Death man lays his physical body altogether aside. In this knowledge, which as a third form, is experienced through the deepening of Love, we learn to know ourselves outside our body; we accomplish separation from it by the constructive quality of knowledge.

From this moment we know what it will mean when we lay aside our body in this Earth-existence and go through the Gate of Death. We learn to know death. But we also learn to know the life of the soul and spirit on the other side of death. Now we know the spiritual- soul-being of man as it will be after death. As at first we had learnt to recognize our being as it is before the descent into earthly life, so now we know the continuation of the life of this being in the world of soul and spirit after death.

Then something else occurs which causes us to mark clearly how imperfect is the consciousness of to-day; for it speaks of “immortality,” out of its hope and faith. But immortality—deathlessness—is only one half of Eternity—namely the everlasting continuation of the present point of time. We have to-day no word such as was to be found in the degrees of knowledge of an older time, which points to an immortality in the ether half of Eternity—“unborn-ness.”

Because just as man is deathless, so is he also unborn; that is to say, with birth he steps out of the spiritual world into physical existence, just as at death he passes from the physical world into a spiritual existence. Therefore in this manner we learn of the true being of man, which is spiritual, and which goes through birth and death; and only then are we in a position to comprehend our whole being.

The principles which I have briefly outlined have already formed the content of a wealth of literature, which has imbibed a conscientiousness and a responsibility towards its knowledge out of the realm of exact Science, on which alone this sense of responsibility can rest to-day. So we attain to a Spiritual Science, which has grown out of ordinary Science.

And just on account of this, we learn something else—namely how life consists of two tendencies or streams. People speak in a general way to-day about development; they say the child is small—it develops—it grows; it is full of energy—strong—it blossoms with life. They say that a lower form of life has evolved to a higher;—-quickening, blooming life—growing ever more and more complicated! And that is right. But this stream of “life” is there, however, in opposition to another stream, which is present in every sentient living being—namely, a destructive tendency. Just as we have a budding and sprouting life in us, integrating life—so we have also the life of disintegration. Through knowledge such as this we perceive that we cannot merely say that our life streams up into the brain and nervous system, and that this matter organises itself so that the nervous system can become the bearer of the life of the soul. No—it is not like that. The life is germinating and sprouting, but at the same time there is continual destruction incorporated into it.

Our life is incessantly going to pieces ... the blossoming life is always giving place to the decaying life. We are actually dying by degrees and at every moment something falls to ruin in us, and every time we build it up again. But, whereas matter is being destroyed, it leaves room wherein what is of the soul and spirit can enter and become active in us. And here we touch upon the great error made by materialism, for materialism believes that the sprouting and budding life evolves up to the nervous system in man so that the nerves are built up in the same way as the muscles are built up out of the blood. It is true they are. But no thinking is developed by means of building up the nerves; neither is feeling. On the contrary, in that the nerves decay to a certain extent the psychic-spiritual incorporates itself into what is decaying. We must first disintegrate matter in order that the psychic-spiritual can appear in us and enable us to experience it for ourselves.

That will be the great moment in the development of a rightly-understood Natural Science, when the opposite to evolution will be recognized as carrying evolution forward at the corresponding point; when it will recognize not only integration, but also disintegration—thus admitting not only evolution but devolution. And thus it will be understood how the spiritual in the animal and in man—but in the latter in a self-conscious way—takes hold of the material. The spiritual does not take hold of the material because the latter is developing itself against it, but because matter, by a contrary process, is destroying itself; and the spiritual comes into evidence, the spiritual reveals itself, in this process. Therefore we are filled with the spirit; for it is everywhere present in devolution but not in evolution, which is Earth-development. Then we learn to observe that man as he stands before us in his entirety, is as though contained within a polar antithesis. Everywhere, in every single organ, wherever there is an upbuilding process there is also a destructive process going on. If we look at any one of the organs, it may be the liver, or the lungs, or the heart, we see that it is in a constant stream which consists of integration—disintegration, integration—disintegration. Is it not really rather an extraordinary expression that we use when we say for example “Here flows the Rhine?” What is “the Rhine?” When we say “Here flows the Rhine,” we do not as a rule mean that “there is the river-bed `Rhine,'“ but we mean the flowing water which we look at. Yet it is different every moment. The Rhine has been there a hundred years, a thousand years. But what is it which is there every moment? It is what is realised as being in alteration every moment in the flowing stream. In the same way everything that we contain is held within a stream of change, in integration and disintegration, and in its disintegration it becomes the bearer of the spiritual. And so in every normal human being there exists a state of balance between anabolism and catabolism, and in this balance he develops the right capacity for the soul and spirit. Nevertheless, this balance can be disturbed, and can be disturbed to such an extent that some organ or other may have its correct degree of anabolism in relation to too slight a degree of catabolism, and then its growth becomes rampant. Or contrariwise, some organ may have a normal process of disintegration against too slight an anabolism, in which case the organ becomes disturbed, or atrophies; and thus we pass out of the physiological sphere into the pathological.

Only when we can discern what this condition of balance signifies, can we also discern how it may be disturbed by an excess of either integrating or disintegrating forces. But when we recognize this, then we can turn our gaze to the great outer world, and can find there what, under certain conditions, will act so as to equalise these two processes.

Suppose we take for example a human organ that is disturbed by reason of too strong a destructive process, and then look with sight made clear by spiritual-scientific knowledge at something outside in Nature, say at a plant; we shall know that in a particular plant there are anabolic—building-up—properties. Now it becomes apparent that in the habit of certain plants there are always anabolic properties and that these correspond precisely to the anabolic forces of human organs. Thus, we can discover—when we make use of these conceptions which have now been developed by me—that there are anabolic forces in the kidneys. Let us suppose the kidneys are too weak, that their destructive forces are excessive. We turn to the plants, and we find in the common marestail, Equisetum Arvensae, anabolic forces which exactly correspond to those which belong to the kidneys. If we make a preparation from equisetum and administer it through the digestive process into the blood-circulation and thus conduct it in the right way to the region in the body where it can work, we strengthen the debilitated anabolic forces of the kidneys. And so we can proceed with all the organs. Once we have grasped this knowledge we have the possibility of bringing back into a condition of balance the unbalanced processes of integration and disintegration by using the forces which can be found in the outside world. If on the other hand we have to deal with forces of anabolism either in the kidneys or elsewhere which have become over- strong, then it will be necessary to reinforce the destructive processes. In this case we must have recourse to the lower type of plants, let us say the fern species, which have this property.

In this way we pass beyond the point of mere experiment and test in order to discover whether a preparation will be beneficial or not. We can look into the human organism in respect of the relative balance of the organs themselves; we can penetratingly survey Nature for the discovery of the anabolic and catabolic forces, and thus we make the Art of Healing into something wherein we can really see that a remedy is not administered just because statistics confirm that in such and such cases it is useful—but because by a really penetrating survey both of the human being and Nature we know with exactitude in every case the natural process in a Nature-product that can be transformed into a healing factor—that is, for the human organs in respect of the anabolic and catabolic forces.

I do not mean to say that in recent times Medicine has not made immense progress. Anthroposophy recognises this progress in Medicine to the full. Neither have we any wish to exclude what modern medical science has accomplished; on the contrary we honour it. But when we examine what has been brought out in the way of remedies in recent times we find that they have only been arrived at by way of lengthy experimentation. Anthroposophy supplies a penetrating knowledge which by its survey of human nature has fully proved itself in those spheres where Medicine has already been so happily successful. But in addition to this, Anthroposophy offers a whole series of new remedies also, a fact which is made possible by the same insight applied to both Nature and Man.

Therefore if we learn to look into the human being spiritually in this way—(and I will later show how the Art of Healing can be made fruitful in every single sphere through a true knowledge of the spirit)—we also learn to look into the spiritual life together with the material life, and then we arrive—and this no longer in the old dreamlike way which had its overflow in Mythology, but in an exact way—then we can arrive at a bringing together of perfectly rational knowledge with a “message” of Healing.

Man learns to heal by means of a real and artistic conception of an art that has grown out of the world itself. Therewith we come again into touch with what existed in ancient times—though it was not then to be found in the way in which we to-day must aspire to find it now that we have the great wealth of Science behind us;—for what existed in ancient times through a kind of dreamlike knowledge, can lead us to-day to the application of forces and spiritual forces in connection with human health and sickness.

In ancient times there were the Mystery Centres in which a knowledge was cultivated which could solve humanity's religious problems and satisfy the longings of the soul; and in connection with the Mysteries there were Centres of Healing. To-day, quite rightly, we regard the things that were cultivated there as somewhat childish. But there was nevertheless a sound kernel in them;—it was known that the knowledge of the so-called normal world must go forward into knowledge of the abnormal world. Is it not strange that we, on the other hand, say that in his healthy state man comes forth out of Nature, and that then we have to explain the unhealthy man also by the laws of Nature? For every illness can be explained by these laws. Does Nature then contradict herself? We shall see that she does not do so with regard to disease. But our knowledge must be a continuation from the normal physical into the pathological. Knowledge can attain value for life only in so far as that side by side with those places where the normal aspects of life are cultivated, there must also be found those that are concerned with the illnesses of life.

There was to have been a centre of knowledge at the Goetheanum at Dornach in Switzerland, in the building which most unfortunately was burnt down, but which we hope will soon be rebuilt. It was to be a centre of knowledge where mankind would have been able to satisfy those longings of the soul which seek to penetrate into the sources of life. And out of what I might call a natural sequence it came to be regarded as a matter of course that there should be added to the Goetheanum a centre of Healing. True, this could only be, at first, of a modest kind. Such a thing must be there wherever there is to be a real knowledge of humanity. And we have it in the Clinical-Therapeutical Institute at Arlesheim which is the result of the efforts of Frau Dr. Wegman, and which has been followed by the founding of a similar Institute under Dr. Zeylmans van Emmichoven at The Hague. And so at Dornach there is established once again, side by side with the centre of Knowledge, a centre of Healing. And whereas courage must always be a part of everything that pertains to knowledge of the Spirit, so courage belongs above all things, to the way of Healing. This vital element lives in that Institute at Arlesheim—the courage to heal; in order that all which comes forth out of the whole human being as the possibility to control the forces of healing, may be used as a blessing for humanity. Therefore, such a centre of Knowledge, which once more strives towards the Mysteries—albeit in the modern sense—and where the great questions of existence are dealt with, must have beside it, even though it may be only in a modest way, a centre of Healing where knowledge of the smallest details of life is cultivated and where the effort is made to deepen the Art of Healing in a spiritual sense.

In the external nearness of Knowledge-Centre and Healing-Centre to one another we have the outer image of how close a connection should exist between Anthroposophical knowledge and the practical work of Healing, and that this should exist as such a spiritual Art that out of a conception of conditions of illness in the human being, there should grow a conception of Therapeutics, of Healing, so that the two may not fall asunder, but that the diagnostic process may be carried on into the healing process. The aim of Anthroposophy herein is that while one makes a diagnosis in the knowledge one has of what is happening in a person when he is ill, at the same moment one sees that such and such a thing is taking place, or something is happening in the anabolic processes. One then recognizes Nature for example in occurrences brought about by destructive forces; one knows where the destructive forces are to be found, and in administering these as a healing agent one is thus able to act so that these destructive forces can work against the upbuilding forces in the human being. And vice versa. So one is able to perceive clearly in what is going on in the human being, an unhealthy condition; but even in perceiving this unhealthy condition one immediately perceives also the nature of the working of the healing agent.

To-day I wished only to demonstrate the nature of a spiritual way of knowledge, and point out that the effect of this spiritual knowledge is such that man does not merely approach natural and spiritual forces in a theoretical way, but that he also learns to handle them, and out of his spiritual learning to mould life.

With advancing civilisation, life becomes continually more and more complicated. At the present time a longing is dominating the subconscious life of many souls—a longing to find what may be the source out of which this more and more complicated life has grown. Anthroposophy tries above all to assuage these longings. And we shall see that against much that is destructive in the life of to-day it honestly desires to co-operate in all that is constructive, that is advancing, that tends to prosperity in our civilisation—not with helpless phrases but actively, in all the practical questions of life.

In the last lecture I tried to point out how by means of the kind of knowledge cultivated by Anthroposophy, man may be seen in his whole nature—consisting of body, soul and Spirit. I tried to show also how an inner knowledge of the conditions of health and disease can only be arrived at when the entire nature of man can be perceived in this way; and how in learning to know the true connections between the things which take place within man and the external processes and conditions of substances in Nature, we also succeed in establishing a connecting link between pathology and therapy.

Our next task will be to explain in detail what was only given in general outline in the first lecture. And for this it will above all be necessary to observe how disintegration is proceeding in the human organism and how, on the other hand, there is a constant process of integration. Man has, to begin with, an external physical organisation which is perceptible by means of the outer senses, and whose manifestations can be comprehended by the reason. Besides this physical body there is also the first super-sensible body of the human being: the etheric, or life-body. These two principles of the constitution of man serve to build up (integrate) the human organisation.

The physical body is continually renewed as it casts off its substance. The etheric body—which contains the forces of growth and of assimilation—is, in the entirety of its constitution, something of which we can gain a conception when we behold the growing and blossoming plant-kingdom in the spring; for the plants, as well as human beings, have an etheric or life-body. In these two members of the human organisation we have a progressive, constructive evolution.

In so far as man is a sentient being, he bears within himself the next member, the astral body. (We need not feel that such terms are objectionable; we should perceive what they reveal to us.) The astral body is essentially the mediator of sensation, the bearer of the inner life of feeling. The astral body contains not only the upbuilding forces but also the forces of destruction. Just as the etheric body makes the being of man bud and sprout, as it were, so all these processes of budding are continually being disintegrated again by the astral body; and just because of this, just because the physical and etheric bodies are continually being disintegrated, there exists in the human organisation an activity of soul and Spirit.

It would be quite a mistake to suppose that the soul and Spirit in man's nature inhere in the upbuilding process and that this process at last reaches a certain point—let us say in the nervous system—where it can become the bearer of soul and Spirit. That is not the case. When eventually (and everything points to this being soon), our very admirable modern scientific research has made further progress, it will become apparent that an anabolic, a constructive process in the nervous system is not the essential thing; it is present in the nervous organisation merely in order that the nerves may, in fact, exist. But the nerve-process is in a continual, though slow state of dissolution; and because it is so, because the physical is always being dissolved, a place is set free for the Spirit and soul.

In a still higher degree is this the case as regards the actual Ego-organisation, by means of which man is raised above all the other beings of Nature surrounding him on the Earth. The Ego-organisation is essentially bound up with katabolism; it is of greatest moment in those parts of the human being that are in a state of disintegration.

So when we look into this wonderful form of the human organism, we see that in every single organ there is construction, integration (whereby the organ ministers to growth and progressive development), and also destruction, whereby it ministers to retrogressive physical development, and by so doing gives foothold for the soul and Spirit. I said in the last lecture that the state of balance between integration and disintegration which is present in a particular way in every human organ, can be disturbed. The upbuilding process can become rampant; in that case we have to do with an unhealthy condition. When we look in this way into the nature of the human being (to begin with I can only state these things rather abstractly; they will be expressed more concretely presently), when we proceed conscientiously, with a sense of scientific responsibility and do not talk in generalisations about the presence of integration and disintegration, but really study each individual organ as conscientiously as we have learnt to do in scientific observations to-day—then we shall be able to penetrate into this condition of balance that is necessary for the single organs and so find it possible to obtain a conception of the human being in health. If in either direction, either with respect to constructive or with respect to destructive processes, the balance of an organ is upset, then we have to do with something that is unhealthy in the human organism.

Now, however, we must discover how this human organism stands in relation to the three kingdoms of Nature in the outer world—the mineral, plant and animal kingdoms—from which we have of course to extract our remedies. When we have studied this inner state of balance in the manner described, we shall see how everything that is present in the three kingdoms of Nature outside man is, in every direction, being overcome within the human organism.

Let us take the simplest example:—the condition of warmth in man. Nothing of the outer conditions of warmth must be carried on unchanged when it is once within the human organism. When we investigate the manifestations of warmth outside in Nature, we know that warmth raises the temperature of things in the outer world. We say that warmth penetrates into things. If we, in our organisation, were to be penetrated in the same way by warmth we should be made ill by it. It is only when, through the forces and quality of our organisation we are able to receive this warmth-process which is being exercised upon us, into our organism and immediately transform it into an inner process, that our organisation is in a state of health. We are harmed by either heat or cold directly we are not in a position to receive it into our organisation and transform it.

In respect of warmth or cold everyone can see this quite easily for himself. Moreover the same holds good for all other Nature processes. Only careful study, sharpened by spiritual perception, can lead to the recognition that every process taking place in Nature is transformed, metamorphosed, when it occurs within the human organism. We are indeed incessantly overcoming what lives in our earthly environment.

If we now consider the whole internal organisation of man we must say that if the inner force of the human being which inwardly transforms the external events and processes that are always working in upon him—for example, when he is taking nourishment—if this force were removed, then all that enters man from outside would work as a foreign process, and in a sense—if I were to express it crudely or trivially—man would be filled with foreign bodies or foreign processes. On the other hand, if the higher members of man's being, the astral body and the Ego-organisation develop excessive strength, then he does not only so transform the outer processes of his environment that enter into him as they should be transformed, but he does so more rampantly. Then there is a speeding-up of the processes which penetrate him. External Nature is driven out beyond the human—becomes in a certain sense, over-spiritualised; and we are faced with a disturbance of the health.

What we have thus indicated as an abstract principle is realty present in every human organ and must be studied individually in the case of them all. Moreover the human being is related in a highly complicated manner, to all the different ways in which he transforms the external processes.

He who strives to get beyond the undisputed testimony of up-to-date anatomy and physiology, who tries to develop his understanding so that he can transform the conception of the human organism yielded by a study of the corpse or pathological conditions, observing them not merely in regard to their “dead” structures but according to their living nature, will find himself faced with endless enigmas of the human organism. For the more exact and the more living our knowledge becomes, the more complicated does it appear. There are, however, certain guiding lines which enable us to find our way through the labyrinth. And if I may be allowed to make a personal observation here, it is that the discovery of such guiding lines was a matter with which I occupied myself for thirty years before I began to speak about it openly—which was about the year 1917. As a comparatively young man, in the early twenties, I asked myself whether there was any possibility of research into this complicated human organisation. Were there certain fundamental principles which would enable one to arrive at a comprehensive understanding? And this led me—(I have just said that the study took me thirty years)—to the fact that one can regard the human organisation from three different aspects: the system of nerves and senses, the rhythmic system, and the metabolic and limb system.

What we can call the organisation of nerves and senses predominates over all the others. It is, moreover, the bearer of all that can be described as the life of concepts. On the other hand, what we describe as the rhythmic organisation is, in a certain respect, self-contained. There is the rhythm of the breath, the rhythm of the circulation, the rhythm manifested in sleeping and waking, and countless other rhythmic processes. It was by making a practical and accurate distinction between the rhythmic organisation and the nerves-and-senses organisation that I first discovered how one could distinguish between the different constituent parts of the human being. I was compelled to ask myself the question—it is now nearly forty years ago, and to-day human hearts are more than ever burdened with baffling physiological problems—I was compelled to ask myself whether on this basis it is really possible to say that the whole inner life of thinking, feeling and willing is bound up with the system of nerves and senses. At the same time I felt that there was a contradiction: how can thinking, feeling and willing be bound up with the nerves and senses? Naturally I cannot go into all this detail to-day, I can only indicate it; but when we come to consider the domain of therapeutics much will be explained. For instance if from the physiological standpoint we carefully and accurately study the effect of music upon the human organisation, if we know the intimate connection that exists between our experience of music and the rhythmic processes within us, if we understand the quality of soul in music itself, and study the measure of our feelings with regard to melody and harmony, we say to ourselves at first that the feeling-life of man is not altogether directly connected with the nervous system; on the contrary, it is experienced in the rhythmic system. It is only when we rise to a higher conception of what we feel at first to be directly connected in musical experience with the rhythmic system that we find that the conception of it is actually carried by the nervous system. Thus we come to the conclusion that the nervous system and the rhythmic system are really inwardly organised as two entirely separate things.

Take modern physiology with all that it has to offer, especially all that it can tell you with regard to the experiences you can have in connection with music. If you study, for instance, such a thing as the human ear as it perceives the different sounds and tones, you will certainly say that audible phenomena (i.e. one particular class of sense-perception), are first of all incorporated into the rhythmic system of man, rise rhythmically to the sense-organisation, rhythmically approach the nervous system and then become a concept created by means of the nervous-system. The rhythmic system is in immediate connection with the nervous system, which is the bearer of thought—but it is the bearer of feeling only in so far as we become aware of our feelings through thoughts and these thoughts are carried by the nervous system. We can proceed in the same way if we apply physiology to the metabolic-limb-system. It may seem strange to connect metabolism and limbs together; but you need only consider how everything that has to do with movement and which belongs to the limb-system, reacts upon the metabolism. The metabolism and the limbs taken together are certainly a uniform whole.

When we investigate these things accurately and not in a confused way, it becomes evident once more that the system of metabolism and limbs is the direct bearer of all manifestations of the human will. Once more, then, it is as follows:—When that which is taking place in the metabolic-limb-system as the bearer of the manifestations of will, works upwards, sends its force up into the rhythmic system, then it passes into the realm of feeling. We unfold our feelings in our will and our will is directly inherent in our metabolic processes—absolutely directly. We experience the will as ‘feeling’ in the rhythmic system, indirectly. And we make thoughts for ourselves about our volitional acts because the metabolic system and rhythmic system drive their forces up into the nervous system.

Thus we have guiding lines for penetrating into the human organisation. For if we first of all perceive what has been given in regard to the nervous system—(to begin with we will leave the rhythmic system lying between the two others)—then we shall find a polar antithesis in every direction: the nervous system and the metabolic system are polarically opposite. As the metabolic-limb-system builds up, so the system of nerves and senses destroys and vice versa. This and many other things demonstrate the polarity. Everything that constitutes the Ego-organisation is intimately bound up with the system of nerves and senses; everything that constitutes the etheric body is intimately bound up with the metabolic and limb system; everything that constitutes the astral body is bound up with the rhythmic system; the physical body permeates the whole, but is continually overcome by the three other members of the human organisation. Only when we observe the human organism in this way can we leam to penetrate into the so-called normal or abnormal processes.

Let us take first the organisation of nerves and senses. But first, so that I may not be misunderstood, I would like to make a short digression. A very sceptical naturalist who had heard in quite a superficial way about these members which I posit as the basis of man's nature, said that I had attempted to distinguish between “head-organisation,” “chest-organisation,” and “abdominal organisation:” thus that I had in a sense located the system of nerves and senses only in the head, the rhythmic organisation in the chest, and the metabolic-limb system in the abdomen. But that is a very unjust statement. For without separating the systems spatially, the nerves and senses may be said to be organised principally in the head, but they are also to be found in the other two systems. The rhythmic system is principally located in the middle organisation; but it again is spread over the whole man; similarly the metabolic organisation. It is not a question of making a spatial separation between the organs, but of understanding their qualitative aspect and what is living in and permeating the single organs.

When we study the system of nerves and senses from this standpoint, we find that it spreads throughout the whole organism. The eye or the ear, for example, are organised in such a way that they pre-eminently contain the nerves and senses, in a lesser degree the rhythmic, and in a still less degree the metabolic system. An organ like the kidney, for instance, does not contain so much of the nerves and senses system as of the rhythmic or metabolic organisation, yet it contains something of all three. We do not understand the human being if we say: here are sense-organs, or there are digestive organs. In reality it is quite different. A sense-organ is only principally sense-organ; every sense-organ is also in a certain way a digestive and a rhythmic organ. The kidneys or the liver are to be understood as being principally assimilatory or excretory organs. In a lesser degree they are organs of nerves and senses. If, then, we study the whole organisation of man with its single organs from the point of view of the system of nerves and senses (in its reality, and not according to the fantastic concepts often formed by physiology), we find that man ‘perceives’ by means of his separate senses—sight, hearing and so on; but we also find that he is entirely permeated by the sense-organisation. The kidney, for instance, is a sense-organ which has a delicate perception of what is taking place in the digestive and excretory processes. The liver too, is—under certain conditions—a sense-organ. The heart is in a high degree an inner sense-organ and can only be understood if it is conceived of as such.

Do not imagine that I have any intention of criticising the science of to-day; I know its worth and my desire is that our view of these things shall be firmly grounded upon it. But we must nevertheless be clear that our science is, at present, not able to penetrate fully and precisely into the being of man. If it could, it would not relate the animal organisation so closely to the human in the way it does in our time. In respect of the life of sense, the animal stands at a lower level than the human organisation. The human nerves and senses organisation is yoked to the Ego-organisation; in the animal it is yoked to the astral body. The sense-life of man is entirely different from that of the animal. When the animal perceives something with its eyes—and this can be shown by a closer study of the structure of the eye—something takes place in the animal which, so to say, goes through the whole of its body. It does not happen like that in man. In man, sense-perception remains far more at the periphery, is concentrated far more on the surface. You can understand from this that there are delicate organisations present in animals which, in the case of the higher species, are only to be found in etheric form. But in certain of the lower animals you find, for instance, the xiphoid process which is also present in higher animals but in their case it is etheric; or you may find the pecten or choroid process in the eye. The way in which these organs are permeated by the blood, shows that the eye shares in the whole organisation of the animal and is the mediator to it of a life in the circumference of its environment. Man, on the other hand, is connected with his system of nerves and senses quite differently and therefore lives, in a far higher sense than the animal, in his outer world, whereas the animal lives more within itself. But everything which is communicated through the higher spiritual members of the human being, which lives itself out through the Ego-organisation by way of the nerves and senses, requires—just because it is present within the domain of the physical body—to receive its material influences from out of the physical world.

Now if we closely study the system of nerves and senses at a time when it is functioning perfectly healthily, we find that its working depends on a certain substance, and on the processes that take place in that substance. Matter is something which is never at rest; it merely represents what is, actually, a ‘process.’ (A crystal of quartz, for instance, is only a self-contained, definitely shaped thing to us because we never perceive that it is a ‘process,’ though indeed it is one which is taking place extremely slowly.) We must penetrate further and further into the human organism and learn to understand its transformative activity. That which enters into the organism as external physical substance has to be taken up by it and overcome, in the way described in the introductory lecture.

Now it is especially interesting that when the system of nerves and senses is in a normal, i.e. a healthy state (which must of course be understood relatively), it is dependent upon a delicate process which takes place under the influence of the silicic acid which enters the organism. Silicic acid, which in the outer realm of Nature forms itself into beautiful quartz-crystals, has this peculiarity: when it penetrates into the human organism it is taken up by the processes of the nerves and senses; so that if we look at the system of nerves and senses with spiritual sight, we see a wonderfully delicate process going on in which silicic acid is active. But if we look at the other side of the question—as when I said that man has senses everywhere—then we shall notice that it is only in the periphery, that is, where the senses are especially concentrated, that the silicic acid process is intensified; when we turn to the more inner parts of the organism, to the lungs, liver or kidneys, it is far less strong, it is ‘thinner’; while in the bones it is again stronger. In this way we discover that man has a remarkable constitution.

We have, so to say, a periphery and a circumference where the senses are concentrated; then we have that which fills out the limbs and which carries the skeleton; between these we have the muscles, the glands and so on.

In that which I have described as the “circumference” and the “centralised,” we have the strongest silicic acid processes; we can follow them into the organs that lie between these two, and there we find that they have their own specific silicic acid processes but weaker than those in the circumference. Thus in respect of the outer parts, where man extends in an outgoing direction from the nerves into the senses, he needs more and more silicic acid; in the centre of his system he requires comparatively little; but where his skeleton lies, at the basis of the motor system, there again he requires more silicic acid. Directly we perceive this fact we recognize the inexactitude of many assertions of modern physiology. (And again let me emphasise that I do not wish to criticise them, but merely to make certain statements.) For instance, if we study the life of the human being according to modern physiology, we are directed to the breathing-process. In certain respects this is a complex process, but—speaking generally—it consists in taking in oxygen out of the air, and breathing out carbonic acid. That is the rhythmical process which is essentially the basis of organic life. We say that oxygen is breathed in, that it goes through certain processes described by physiology, within the organism; that it combines with carbon in the blood, and is then ejected on the breath as carbonic acid. This is perfectly correct according to a purely external method of observation. This process is, however, connected with another. We do not merely breathe in oxygen and combine it with carbon. Primarily, that is done with that portion of the oxygen which is spread over the lower part of the body; that is what we unite with the carbon and breathe out as carbonic acid.

There is another and a more delicate process behind this rhythmical occurrence. That portion of the oxygen which, in the human organisation, rises towards the head and therefore (in the particular sense which was mentioned previously) to the system of nerves and senses, unites itself with the substance we call silica, and forms silicic acid. And whereas in man the important thing for the metabolic system is the production of carbonic acid, so the important thing for the nerves and senses system is the production of silicic acid. The latter is a finer process which we are not able to verify with the coarse instruments at our disposal, though all the means are there by which it can be verified. Thus we have the coarser process on the one hand, and on the other the finer process where the oxygen combines with the silica to form silicic acid, and as such, is secreted inwardly in the human organisation.

Through this secretion of silicic acid the whole organism becomes a sense-organ—more so in the periphery, less so in the separate organs.

If we look at it this way, we can perceive the more delicate intimate structure of the human organism, and see how every organ contains, of necessity, processes related to substances each in its own distinct degree.

If we are now to grasp what health and illness really are, we must understand how these processes take place in any one organ. Suppose we take the kidney, for sake of example. Through some particular condition or other—some symptomatic complication, let us say—our diagnosis leads us to assume that the cause of an illness lies in the kidneys. If we call Spiritual Science to the aid of our diagnosis, we find that the kidney is acting too little as a sense-organ for the surrounding digestive and excretory processes; it is acting too strongly as an organ of metabolism; hence the balance is upset.

In such a case we have above all to ask: how are we to restore to it in a greater degree the character of sense-organ? We can say that because the kidney proves to be an insufficient sense-organ for the digestive and excretory processes, then we must see that it receives the necessary supply of silicic acid.

Now in the anthroposophical sense, there are three ways of administering substances that are required by a healthy human organism. The first is to give the patient a remedy by mouth. But in that case we must be guided by whether the whole digestive organism is so constituted that it can transmit the substances exactly to that spot where they are to be effective. We must know how a substance works—whether on the heart, or the lungs, and so forth, when we administer it by mouth and it passes into the digestive tract. The second way is by injections. By this means we introduce a substance directly into the rhythmic system. There, it works more as a ‘process;’ there, that which in the metabolism is a substantial organisation, is transformed at once into a rhythmic activity and we directly affect the rhythmic system. Or again, we try the third way: we prepare a substance as an ointment to be applied at the right place, or administer it in a bath; in short we apply our remedy in an external form. There are, of course, a great many different methods of doing this.

We have these three ways of applying remedies. But now let us observe the kidneys which our diagnosis reveals as having a diminished capacity as a sense-organ. We have to administer the right kind of silicic acid process. Therefore we have to be attentive, because, in the breathing process as described just now, where the oxygen combines with silica and then disperses silicic acid throughout the body, and because during that process too little silicic acid has reached the kidneys, we must do something which will attract a stronger silicic acid process to them. So we must know how to come to the assistance of the organism which has failed to do this for itself; and for this we must discover what there is externally which is the result of a process such as is wanting in the kidneys. We must search for it. How can we find ways and means to introduce just this silicic acid process into the kidneys?

And now we find that the function of the kidneys, especially as it is a sense-function, is dependent upon the astral body. The astral body is at the basis of the excretory processes and of this particular form of them. Therefore we must stimulate the astral body and moreover in such a way that it will somehow carry the silicic acid process which is administered from outside, to an organ such as the kidney. We need a remedy that, firstly, will stimulate the silicic-acid process, and, secondly, which will stimulate it precisely in the kidneys. If we seek for it in the surrounding plant world, we come upon the plant equisetum arvensæ, the ordinary field “horse-tail.” The peculiar feature of this plant is that it contains a great deal of silicic acid. If we were to give silicic acid alone it would, however, not reach the kidneys. Equisetum also contains sulphurous acid salts. Sulphurous acid salts alone work on the rhythmic system, on the excretory organs and on the kidneys in particular. When they are intimately combined as they are in Equisetum Arvensæ (we can administer it by mouth, or if that is not suitable, in either of the other ways)—then the sulphurous acid salts enable the silicic acid to find its way to the kidneys.

Here we have touched upon a single instance—a pathological condition of the kidneys. We have approached it quite methodically; we have discerned what can supply what is lacking in the kidneys; and we have erected a bridge that can be followed step by step, from pathology to therapy.

Now let us take another case. Suppose we have to do with some disturbance of the digestive system—such as we usually include under the word ‘dyspepsia.’ If we again proceed according to Spiritual Science, we shall discover that here we have to do principally with a faulty and inadequate working of the Ego-organisation. Why is the Ego-organisation not acting strongly enough? That is the question. And we must search somewhere in the functional regions of the human organism for what it is that is causing this weakness of the Ego-organisation. In certain cases we find that the fault lies in the gallbladder secretions. If that is so, then we must come to the assistance of the Ego-organisation (just as we came to the assistance of the kidneys with the equisetum) by administering something which, if it reaches the required spot by being prepared in a certain way, will there strengthen the inadequate working of the Ego-organisation. Thus, even as we find that the silicic acid process (which lies at the root of the nerves-and-senses system) when introduced in the right way to the kidneys enhances their sense-faculty, so we now find that such a process as the gall-bladder secretions (which corresponds primarily with the Ego-organisation) is really connected in quite a special manner (also in relation to other things) with the action of carbon. Now a remarkable thing to be observed is that if we wish to introduce carbon into the organism in the correct way for treating dyspepsia, we find that carbon—(though it is contained in every plant)—is contained in chichorium intybus (chicory) in a form that directly affects the gall-bladder. When we know how to make the correct preparation from chicorium intybus, we can lead it over into the functions of this organ as a certain form of carbon-process, in the same way as is done with regard to the silicic-acid process and the kidneys.

With these simple examples—which are applicable either to slight or in certain circumstances to very severe cases of illness—I have tried to indicate how, by a spiritual-scientific observation of the human organism on the one hand, and on the other of the different natural creations and their respective interchanges with each other, there can be brought about firstly an understanding of the processes of illness, and secondly an understanding of what is required in order to reverse the direction of those processes. Healing becomes thereby a penetrating Art. This is what can be achieved for the art of medicine, the art of Healing, by the kind of scientific research that is called Anthroposophy. There is nothing of the nature of fantasy about it. It is that which will bring research to the point of extreme exactitude with regard to the observation of the whole human being, both physically, psychically and spiritually. The condition of illness in man depends upon the respective activity of the physical, the psychic and the spiritual. And because man's constitution consists of nerves and senses system, rhythmic system, metabolic and limb system, we are enabled also to penetrate into the different processes and their degrees of activity. We learn to know how a sense-function is present in the kidneys as soon as we direct our attention to the essential nature of sense-functions; otherwise, we only seek to discover sense-functions under their cruder aspect as they appear in the senses themselves. Now however, we become able to comprehend illness as such.

I have already said that in the metabolic and limb system processes take place which are the opposite of those that take place in the system of nerves and senses. But it can happen that processes which primarily are also nerves and senses processes, and are, for instance, proper to the nerves of the head where they are ‘normal’—it can happen that these processes can in a certain sense become dislodged by the metabolic and limb system; that through an abnormality of the astral body and Ego-organisation in the metabolic-limb-system something can happen which would be ‘ correct’ or ‘normal’ only if taking place in the system of nerves and senses. That is to say, what is right for one system can be in another system productive of metamorphosis or disease. So that a process which properly belongs, for instance, to the system of nerves and senses makes its appearance in another system, and is then a process of disease. An example of this is found in typhoid fever. Typhoid represents a process which belongs properly to the nervous system. While it should play its part there in the physical organisation, it plays its part as a matter of fact in the region of the metabolic system within the etheric organisation—within the etheric body—works over into the physical body and appears there as typhoid. Here we see into the nature of the onset of illness. Or it can also happen that the dynamic force, or those forces which are active in a sense-organ—(and must be active there in a certain degree in order that a sense-organ as such may arise)—become active somewhere where they should not. That which works in a sense-organ can be in some way or another transformed in its activity elsewhere. Let us take the activity of the ear. Instead of remaining in the system of nerves and senses, it obtrudes itself (and this under circumstances which can also be described) in another place—for example in the metabolic system where this is connected with the rhythmic system. Then there arises, in the wrong place, an abnormal tendency to produce a sense-organ; and this manifests itself as carcinoma—as a cancerous growth. It is only when we can look in this way into the human organism that we can perceive that carcinoma represents a certain tendency, displaced in respect of the systems, to the formation of a sense organ.

When we speak of the fertilisation of medicine through Anthroposophy, it is a question of learning how abnormal conditions in the human organism arise from the fact that what is normal to one system transplants itself into another. And only by perceiving the matter thus is one in a position really to understand the human organism in its healthy and diseased states, and so to make the bridge from pathology to therapy, from observation of the patient to healing the patient.

When these things are represented as a connected whole, it will be seen how nothing that is said from this standpoint can in any way contradict modern medicine. As a first step in this direction I hope that very soon now the book [Fundamentals of Therapy, by Dr. Rudolf Steiner and Dr. Ita Wegman. (Anthroposophical Publishing Co.) Price 7/6.] will be published that has been written by me in collaboration with Dr. Wegman, the Director of the Clinical and Therapeutic Institute at Arlesheim. This book will present what can be given from the spiritual-scientific standpoint, not as a contradiction of modern medicine but as an extension of it. People will then be able to convince themselves that it has nothing to do with the kind of superficiality which is so prevalent to-day. This book will show, in a way that will be justified by modern science, the fruitfulness that can enter into the art of healing by means of spiritual scientific investigation. Precisely when these things can be followed up more and more in detail and with scientific conscientiousness, will those efforts be acknowledged which are being made by such an Institution as the International laboratories of Arlesheim, where a whole range of new remedies is being prepared in accordance with the principles here set forth.

In the third lecture it will be my endeavour to consolidate still further (in so far as that can be done here in a popular manner), what has already been indicated as a rational therapy, by citing certain special cases of illness and the way in which they can be cured. Anyone who can really perceive what is meant will certainly not have any fear that the things stated cannot be subjected to serious test. We know that it will be the same in this as in all other domains of Anthroposophy; to begin with, there will be rebuffs, abuse and criticism by those who do not know it in detail. But those who do learn to know it in detail will stop their abuse. Therefore, in my third lecture I will go more into the particulars which will show that we are not evading modern science but are in full agreement with it, and that we proceed from the desire to enlarge the boundaries of science by spiritual knowledge in the sphere of anthroposophical medicine.

Only when this is understood will the art of healing stand upon its true foundations. For the art of healing concerns man. Man is a being of body, soul and Spirit. A real medicine can therefore only exist when it penetrates into a knowledge which embraces man in respect of all three—in respect of body, soul and Spirit.

In the first two lectures I dealt with the general principles by means of which the knowledge of healing can be made fruitful through anthroposophical research, and to-day I would like to enlarge upon this by giving certain details—such details as will at the same time show that in so far as Anthroposophy works into practical life, it will lead also to a "handling," if I may use the expression, of life as a whole which will be in accordance with reality.

In the previous lectures I spoke of the way in which Anthroposophy must necessarily regard the constitution of the physical body which we know by means of our senses, but the substance of which is continually being thrown off and newly constructed during the course of life. Within this physical body lives the so-called etheric or life-body, which contains the forces of growth and of nourishment and which man possesses in common with the plants. We must also recognise that man is the bearer of sentient life—that life which inwardly reflects the outer world. This is the astral body. (As I said before, we need not take exception to the terminology but simply accept it in the sense in which it is here explained.) Man has this astral body in common with the animal kingdom, but he excels all other kingdoms of Nature in the surrounding world inasmuch as he possesses the Ego-organisation.

If we merely speak of these constituent parts of the human being in a general way, we shall never come to the point of being able to estimate them at their true value. If, however, we perceive the real significance of these four members of our being, then we have no longer a mere philosophically conceived classification, or a mere division of phenomena before us, and we realise that such a conception really adds something to our comprehension of the being of man. We need only consider a daily event of human life—the interchange of waking and sleeping—and we shall at once understand the significance of this threefold constitution.

Every day we observe the human being passing from that condition wherein he has an inner impulse to move his limbs and when he takes in the impressions of the outer world so that he may work them over within himself, into that other condition where he lies motionless in sleep and his consciousness (if it does not rise to the point of dream) sinks down into an inner, indefinite darkness. If we refuse to admit that the functions of willing, feeling and thinking are annihilated in sleep and simply appear again when he wakes, we must ask ourselves: What is the relation of waking man to sleeping man ?

During sleep, the astral body and Ego-organisation have separated from the physical body and the etheric body. As soon as we have realised that the astral body and Ego-organisation—the soul-and-Spirit—separate from man's physical organisation during sleep, we come to something else, namely, that this radical extraction during sleep can also occur in a lesser degree—partially—during the waking state. Certain conditions call forth a certain tendency to sleep but do not bring about total sleep—I mean conditions of faintness, unconsciousness and the like. These are conditions in which the human being commences to sleep but does not achieve it completely; he hovers, as it were, between sleeping and waking.

In order to understand such conditions we must be able to look into the nature of the human being. We must remind ourselves of what was said in the last lecture when the results of anthroposophical research were explained. I said that it is possible to divide the whole organisation of man into three systems: (1) the nerves and senses; (2) the rhythmic system (which includes all rhythmical processes); (3) metabolic-limb system. I also said that the metabolic-limb system is the polar antithesis of the system of nerves and senses, while the rhythmic system is the mediator between the two. Each of these three systems is permeated by the four members of man's being—physical body, etheric body, astral body and Ego-organisation. Now the constitution of man is very complicated. It cannot be said that in sleep the astral body and Ego-organisation pass entirely out of the physical and etheric bodies. It can so happen that the organism of nerves and senses is only partially forsaken by the higher principles. Then, because the system of nerves and senses has its main seat in the head, the head is constrained to develop something which gives an inclination towards sleep. Yet the man is not really asleep, for his metabolic-limb system and his rhythmic system still contain the astral body and Ego-organisation. These have only left the head. Hence there arises a state of dullness, or faintness, while the rest of the organism functions as in waking life. What I have here described does not necessarily arise from within; it can occur when something is applied from without—for instance if a certain quantity of lead is administered or lead combined with some other substance. Comatose states or vertigo, which are caused by the separation of the astral body and Ego-organisation from the head, can be brought about by the administration of certain quantities of lead. We see, therefore, that this substance, this lead, when it is taken inwardly, drives the astral body and Ego out of the head. Here we look deeply into the human organisation in its relation to the surrounding world; we see in this way that it can become dependent upon what is taken in by way of substance.

But now let us suppose that a person exhibits the opposite condition—that his astral body and Ego cling too firmly to his head, work too strongly upon it. This becomes clear to us when we examine how the head-organisation works upon the whole man, when we study how the organism builds itself up. We see all the hard parts forming themselves—the bony structures; we see the other softer parts, the muscles and so on. If we study man's whole development from childhood onwards, we find that that part of the organism which shows us, first by its outer shape how it inclines towards ossification, and has its essential nature in its bony consistency—namely the head—we find that the head throws out, during the course of its development, precisely those forces which work formatively in respect of the whole skeleton and which therefore tend to harden and stiffen the human being. We gradually come to know what tasks the Ego-organisation and astral body perform when they permeate the head; they work in such a way that the forces which harden man inwardly, which cause the hard parts of his being to separate from the more fluid organisation, stream out from his head. Now if the astral body and the Ego-organisation work too strongly in the head, the hardening forces stream out too vigorously and the result is what we see in the ageing organisation, when a tendency to bone-formation is present. This tendency manifests as arterio-sclerosis, where chalky deposits are present in the arteries. In sclerosis the stiffening, hardening principle, which otherwise works into the bones, works into the whole organism. We have therefore an excessively strong working of the Ego-organisation and the astral body; they impress themselves too deeply into the organism.

At this point the conception of the astral body begins to be a very real factor. For, if we administer lead to the organism in its normal condition, we drive the astral body and Ego out of the head. But if these principles are too closely bound to the head and we give a proper dose of lead, we are acting rightly because then we loosen the astral forces and the Ego to some extent from the head and thus we can combat sclerosis. Here we see how external influences can work upon this connection of the different members of man's being. If we administer lead to the healthy organism, we can bring it to the point of illness; comatose conditions or faintness are caused because the astral body and the Ego are separated from it, giving rise to a condition which in the ordinary course of events is only there in sleep. If, however, the astral body and the Ego are too closely united with the head, the human being is over-wakeful and the effect of this continued over-wakefulness is an inward hardening. The ultimate consequence will be sclerosis and in this case the right thing to do is to drive the astral body and the Ego slightly out of the lead. Thus we begin to understand the inner working of the remedy directly we take the different members of man's being into account.

Now let us turn to the metabolic-limb system. When we are sound asleep, our astral body and Ego have separated from this system. But we can drive them out of this system without driving them out of the head; just as we drive them out of the head by means of lead and cause comatose conditions, etc., so by giving a certain dosage of silver or some combination of silver, we can drive the astral body and Ego out of the metabolic-limb system. We then get corresponding manifestations in the digestion—solidifying of the excreta and other disturbances of the digestive tract.

But suppose the astral body and Ego are working too actively in the digestive organs. Now the astral body and Ego stimulate the digestive functions precisely in the metabolic-limb system. If they work too strongly, penetrate too deeply, then there is excessive digestive activity. There is a tendency to diarrhoea and other kindred symptoms which are the result of too rapid and superficial digestion.

Now this is connected with something else, namely that in this condition the metabolic-limb system comes too much to the fore. In the human organism everything works together. If the metabolic-limb system predominates, it also works too strongly—works moreover not only on the rhythmic organisation but also on the head-organisation, principally, however, on the former; for the digestive organisation continues on into the rhythmic system. The products of digestion are transformed in the blood. The rhythm of the blood is dependent upon what enters it by way of material substances. If, then, there is excessive activity on the part of the astral body and Ego, symptoms of fever and a rise of temperature will occur. Now if we know that the astral body and the Ego-organisation are driven out of the metabolic-limb system by the administration of a certain dosage of silver, we know further that if the astral organism and the Ego-organisation are too deeply embedded in the metabolic-limb system, we can raise them out of the latter by giving a remedy consisting of silver or silver combined with some other substance.

This shows us how we can master these connections within the being of man. Spiritual Science therefore makes researches into the whole of Nature. In the last lecture [See Anthroposophy, Midsummer, 1928.] I attempted to show, in principle, how this can be done in respect of the plants. To-day I have explained how it can be done in respect of two mineral substances, lead and silver. We gain an insight into the relation between the human organism and its surroundings by directing our attention to the manner in which these different substances in the outer world affect the different members of the constitution of man.

We will now take an example which shows that it is possible, out of an inner insight into the nature of the activity of the human organisation, to pass from the realm of pathology to an understanding of therapy.

We have a certain remedy continually present within us. The being of man requires healing all the time. The natural inclination is always for the Ego-organisation and the astral body to press too strongly into the physical body and the etheric body. Man would prefer to look out into the world, not clearly, but always more or less dully; he would prefer to be always at rest. As a matter of fact, he suffers from a constant illness: the 'desire to rest.' He must be cured of this, for he is only well if his organism is constantly being cured. For the purpose of this cure, he has iron in the blood.

Iron is a metal which works on the organism in such a way that the astral body and Ego are prevented from being too strongly bound to the physical and etheric bodies. There is really a continual healing going on within man, an ' iron-cure.' The moment the human organism contains too little iron, there is a longing for rest, a feeling of slackness. Directly there is too much iron, an involuntary over-activity and restlessness sets in. Iron regulates the connection between physical body and etheric body on the one hand, and the astral body and Ego-organisation on the other. Therefore if there is any disturbance of this connection it may be said that an increase or a decrease of the iron-content in the organism will restore the right relation.

Now let us observe a certain kind of illness that is not of particular importance in medicine. We can quite well understand why not. It is, to begin with, apparently so intricate that its cause is not easy to discover. And so every possible kind of remedy is given for this illness, to which, as I have said, medicine gives little heed although it is very unpleasant for the sufferer—I mean migraine.

In the head-organisation we observe, first of all, the continuations of the sense-nerves which are most wonderfully intertwined and interwoven. The nerves as they continue on into the centre of the brain from the senses, form a marvellous structure. It represents the highest point of perfection in respect of the physical organisation, for there the Ego of man impresses the most intense form of its activity upon the physical body. The way in which the nerves pass inwards from the senses and are linked together, bringing about something like an inner articulation within the organism, places the human organism at a much higher level than the animal. And it is possible, just because the Ego-organisation must take hold at this point in order to control this marvellous structure, that it may occasionally fail and then that part of the physical organisation gets left to itself. It may happen that the Ego-organisation is not powerful enough to permeate this so-called “white matter” of the brain or to organise it thoroughly.

Now the white matter of the brain is surrounded by the grey matter—a substance which is far less delicately organised but which is indeed regarded by ordinary physiology as being the more important of the two. This it is not, for the reason that it is connected much more with nutrition. We have a far more mobile activity in respect of nutrition—of inner accumulation of substance—in the grey brain-matter, than in the white matter which lies in the middle and which in a much greater degree is a foundation for the Spiritual.

Now everything in the human organism belongs together, for every member works upon every other. Directly, therefore, that the Ego begins to withdraw to some extent from the central—the white brain-substance—the grey matter becomes disordered. The astral body and the etheric body can no longer take proper hold of the grey matter; and so the whole of the interior of the head gets out of order. The Ego-organisation withdraws from the central brain, the astral organisation withdraws more from the periphery of the brain; and the whole organisation of the head is dislocated. The central brain begins to be less serviceable for the forming of concepts, more akin to the grey matter, developing a kind of digestive process which it ought not to do; the grey matter begins to unfold an excessively strong digestive process. And then foreign bodies are absorbed; a strong excretory process permeates the brain. All this reacts upon the finer breathing processes, principally, however, upon the rhythmic processes of the blood-circulation. Thus we get, not perhaps a very deeply penetrating, but still a very significant disorder arising in the human organism and the question is: How are we to restore the Ego-organisation to the system of nerves and senses? How are we to drive the Ego back again to the place it has left—into the central part of the brain ?

This we can do if we administer a substance of which I spoke in the earlier lectures, namely, silicic acid. If, however, we were to give only silicic acid, we should, it is true, send back the Ego into the central nerves-and-senses system in the head, but we should leave the surrounding part, i.e., the grey matter of the brain, untouched. Thus we must at the same time so regulate the digestive process of the grey matter that it no longer ' overflows,' that it incorporates itself rhythmically into the whole organisation of the human being. Therefore we must simultaneously administer iron — which is there in order to regulate these connections—so that the rhythmic organisation shall be placed once more in its right relation to the system lying at the basis of spiritual activity.

At the same time, however, there will be irregularities in the ' digestive ' processes in the larger brain. In the organism, nothing takes place in one system of organs without influencing others. Therefore in this case, slight and delicate disorders will arise in the digestive system as a whole. Once more, if we study the connections between outer substances and the human organism, we find that sulphur and combinations of sulphur work in such a way that starting from the digestive system they bring about a regularising of the whole process of digestion.

We have now three standpoints from which migraine can be considered: (1) regulation of the digestion, the disorder of which is evident in the irregular digestive process of the brain; (2) regulation of the nervous and sensory activity of the Ego by means of silicic acid; (3) regulation of the disordered rhythm of the circulatory system by the administration of iron. In this way we are able to survey the whole process. As I have said, migraine is an ailment somewhat despised by ordinary medicine but it is by no means so complicated as it appears when we really penetrate into the nature of the human organism. Indeed we discover that the organism itself calls upon us to administer a preparation of silicic acid, sulphur and iron—combined in a certain way. We then obtain a remedy for migraine (Biodoron) which, however, also has the effect of regulating the influence of the Ego-organisation, causing it to take hold of the organism and to work upon everything of the nature of disturbed rhythm in the blood-circulation and also upon all that is taking place as the out-streaming digestive process in the organism.

Migraine is only a symptom of the fact that the etheric body, astral body and Ego are not working properly in the physical body. Therefore our remedy for migraine is peculiarly adapted to restore the co-operation of these three higher principles with the physical. When these members are not working properly together, our remedy—which is not a mere 'cure for headache'—can help a patient under all circumstances. It is a remedy for migraine just because it attacks the most radical symptoms; and it is especially by speaking of this remedy that I can make clear to you the anthroposophical principles of therapy, the essential nature of illness and how to prepare a medicament.

Before such remedies can be prepared we must understand the relationship that exists between the human organism and the surrounding world. But for this it is necessary to approach the study of the nature of this relationship in all seriousness. In the last lecture, in indicating how we arrive at plant-remedies, I mentioned equisetum arvensæ as an example. We can say of every plant that it works in such and such a way on this or that organ. But as we study these things we must be quite clear that a plant—growing here or there in Nature—is not at all the same in Spring as it is in Autumn. In Spring we have a sprouting and growing plant before us—a plant that contains the physical and ethereal forces just as man contains them. If, then, we administer a substance from this plant to the organism we shall be able to produce an especially strong effect upon the physical body and etheric body. If, however, we leave the plant growing all through the Summer and pluck it when Autumn is drawing near, then we have a plant which is on the point of drying up and shrivelling.

Now let us look again at the human organism. Throughout the development of the physical body there is a budding and sprouting caused by the working of the etheric body. The astral body and the Ego-organisation cause disintegration. All the time in the physical body there is a budding and sprouting life, caused by the etheric body. If this process alone were to take place in the human being, he would never be able to unfold self-consciousness; for the more the growth-forces are stimulated, the more this budding and sprouting takes place, the more we lack self-possession. When the astral organism and Ego-organisation separate from the other two members in sleep, we are unconscious. The forces which build man up, which cause growth and give rise to the process of nutrition do not bring him to the point where he can feel and think. On the contrary, to be able to feel and think, something in the organism must be destroyed. This is the work of the astral body and the Ego-organisation. They bring about a continual Autumn in man. The physical organisation and etheric body bring about a continual Spring—a budding and sprouting life—but no self-consciousness, nothing of the nature of soul and Spirit. The astral body and the Ego-organisation destroy; they cause the physical body to dry up and harden. But this has to be. The physical body has continually to oscillate between integration and disintegration. Outside in Nature we find the forces alternating between Spring and Autumn. In man too, there is rhythm; while he is asleep, it is wholly Spring for him—the physical and etheric bodies bud and blossom; when he is awake the forces of the physical and etheric bodies are thrust back, hemmed in, and conscious self-possession sets in—Autumn and Winter are there.

By this we can see how superficial it is to base our judgments merely on outer analogies. External observation might well result in describing the waking life of man as ' Spring ' and ' Summer ' and in speaking of sleep as analogous to Winter. But in reality this is not correct. When we fall asleep, the astral body and the Ego pass out and the physical-etheric part of our being begins to bud and blossom; the forces of the etheric body are very active. It is a condition of Spring and Summer. If we could look back upon our physical and etheric bodies and observe what is going on when the astral body and Ego have forsaken them, we should be able to describe this budding and sprouting, and the moment of waking would seem to be like the approach of Autumn. But this, of course, requires the faculty of spiritual perception. It cannot be seen with physical eyes.

Now let us imagine that we are looking for plant-remedies. Gentians gathered in the Spring will have a healing influence on certain forms of dyspepsia. If we gather the plant in the Spring and then prepare it as a medicament, we shall be able to work upon disturbed forces of nutrition. The roots of the gentian should be boiled and given in order to regulate the forces of nutrition. But if we give gentian roots that have been dug up in the Autumn when the plant as a whole is decaying, when its forces will resemble the functions performed by the astral body, we shall not effect any cure; on the contrary, we shall rather increase the irregularity in the digestive process. It is not enough simply to know that any particular plant is a remedy for this or that ailment; we must also know when the plant must be gathered if it is to act as a remedy.

We must therefore observe the whole being and becoming of Nature if we are to apply effective plant-remedies and develop a rational therapy. We must also know in making up our preparations that it is not the same to gather the plants in the Autumn as to gather and administer them in the Spring. When we are preparing medicaments we must also learn to know what it means if we pick gentian, for instance, in the first weeks of the month of May; for what man bears within him during the course of twenty-four hours, namely Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter, is spread in Nature over a period of 365 days. The process which is enacted in the human being in a period of 24 hours, needs 365 days in Nature.

By this you will see what is involved when we speak of applying anthroposophical principles to therapy. At the present time we have a very serviceable science of healing, and as I have said again and again, what Anthroposophy has to give in respect of an art of healing must certainly not come into opposition with what is given by the recognised medicine of to-day. Anthroposophical medicine will stand firmly on the foundations of modern medical science in so far as these foundations are justified. But something more has to be added, namely spiritual insight into the being of man.

Consider once more what I have said in these lectures about the system of nerves and senses being permeated by all four members—by the physical body, etheric body, astral body and Ego. The metabolic-limb system is also permeated by all four members. But each system is permeated by the other members in a different way. In the metabolic-limb system, the Ego-organisation functions in the activity of will. Everything that causes man and his whole organism to move is contained in the metabolic-limb system; everything that leaves him at rest and fills him with inner experiences, concepts, thoughts and feelings, is contained in the system of nerves and senses. An essential difference is shown here. In the system of nerves and senses, the physical body and etheric body are of far greater importance than the Ego and astral organisations, while in the metabolic-limb system it is these higher members that are essential. Therefore if the Ego and astral body work too strongly in the nerves and senses, something will arise which this latter system then drives into the other members of the being of man.

Over-emphasis of the Ego and astral organisations within the nerves and senses drives this latter system somehow or other into the metabolic-limb system. There are various ways in which this may take place; the result is what may—in a very general sense—be described as ' swellings.' We learn to understand the nature of these swellings when we realise that because of excessive activity of the Ego or the astral body, the system of nerves and senses is driven into the rest of the organism.

And now consider the opposite condition: the Ego and astral body withdraw from the metabolic-limb system; the physical and etheric organisations become too strong—they radiate into the system of nerves and senses and flood it with those processes which properly belong to the metabolic-limb system: the result is an inflammatory condition. Now we can understand that swellings and conditions of inflammation present a certain polaric contrast to one another. If, then, we know how to drive back the system of nerves and senses when it is beginning to be active somewhere in the metabolic-limb system, we shall arrive at a possible means of healing.

Now one instance where the system of nerves and senses is working with terrible consequences in some region of the metabolic-limb system, is carcinoma. Here there is evidence that the system of nerves and senses has entered into the metabolic-limb organisation and is making itself effective there. In my second lecture I spoke of a tendency to the formation of a sense-organ which can arise at the wrong place, within the metabolic-limb system. The ear, when it is formed in the right place, is normal; but if a tendency to ear-formation or a tendency to form any other sense-organ—even in the very slightest degree—occurs in the wrong place, then we have to do with carcinomatous growth. We must work against this tendency of the human organism, but a very deep understanding of the whole of the evolution of the world and man is necessary here.

If you study anthroposophical literature, you will find that it gives quite different teaching in regard to cosmology to that given by materialistic science. You will find it stated that the creation of our Earth was preceded by another creation when man did not as yet exist in his present form, but was, in certain respects, still spiritually higher than the animal kingdom. The senses of man, as we know them, did not exist. They only arose in their perfected state during Earth-evolution. As tendencies, of course, they were there long before, but in their final form, as they now are, penetrated by the Ego organisation, they did not come into being until the Earth was formed. The human Ego 'shot,' as it were, into eyes, ears and the other senses during this period. Hence if the Ego-organisation becomes too active, a sense does not only form in the organism in a normal way but there is too great a general tendency to create senses. This results in carcinoma. What, then, must we do in order to discover a remedy for this disease? We must go back to earlier conditions of Earth-development and search for something that is a last remnant, a heritage, from earlier periods of evolution. We find such a remnant in plants that are parasitic—such as viscum: forms that grow as the mistletoe grows upon trees—forms that have not come to the point of being able to root themselves in the Earth as such but must feed upon what is living. Why must they do this? Because they have, as a matter of fact, evolved before our Earth assumed its solid, mineral form. We have in mistletoe to-day something that could not become a pure Earth-form; it had to take root upon a plant of another character—because the mineral kingdom was the latest of the kingdoms to evolve upon the Earth. In the substance of mistletoe we have something which, if it is prepared in the proper way, will have a beneficial effect upon carcinoma and work in the direction of driving the misplaced formation of a sense-organ out of the human organism.

If we penetrate into Nature, it is possible to fight against those things which, appearing in the form of some illness, have fallen away from their normal evolution. Man is too much ' Earth ' when he develops cancer; he brings forth the Earth-forces too strongly within his being. We must combat these exaggerated Earth-forces with something that is the result of a state of evolution when the mineral kingdom and the present Earth were not yet in existence. Therefore, working on the basis of anthroposophical research, we make a special preparation from viscum.

I have now put certain brief details before you. I could add a great deal more, for we have already worked out and produced a number of remedies. Let me, for example, mention the following. If the metabolic system radiates into the extreme periphery of the senses-organisation, a certain form of illness is produced—so-called hay-fever. And here we have the opposite of what I described just now. When the system of nerves and senses slips downwards so to speak into the metabolic-limb system, this gives rise to swellings. On the other hand, if the metabolic-limb system enters into the region of nerves and senses, we get such manifestations as are present, for example, in hay-fever. In this case it is a question of paralysing those centrifugal processes where the metabolic-limb system is induced too strongly towards the periphery of the organism, by giving something which will stem back the etheric forces. We try to do this with a preparation (Gencydo) made from fruits which are covered with rind; the forces connected with this rind-formation have the effect of driving back the etheric forces in the metabolism. The excessively active centrifugal forces which give rise to hay-fever are combated by strong centripetal forces. Both the pathological and therapeutical processes can be quite clearly perceived. And indeed we find that the best results are obtained with our remedies precisely in those cases that are the most resistant to treatment at the present time. Instances of the treatment of hay-fever show that excellent results have been obtained.

And so I could give you many details to show that the insight into the nature of man which is gained by anthroposophical research builds the bridge between pathology and therapy. For how, in the last resort, do the Ego and astral organism work? They destroy. And because of this destructive process we are beings of soul and Spirit. When something is being disintegrated, a purely poisonous activity is taking place and that destroys the organs. If an organ becomes rampant or hypertrophied, we must disintegrate it. The disintegrative activity belongs to the astral body and Ego. Poisons in an external form—they may be either metallic or vegetable poisons—are, in their effect upon the human organism, related to the astral body and Ego. We must realise to what extent a poisonous process is taking place in the human organism inasmuch as the Ego and astral body are at work. There is a correspondence between the budding and sprouting forces of the plants—which we eat without harm—and the physical and etheric forces in the human being; and we must learn to recognise the correspondence between the activity of the Ego and the astral body upon the human organism and the working of the forces and substances of those plants which we cannot eat because they are harmful but which, because they resemble the normally destructive processes in man, can work as remedies.

Thus we learn to divide the whole of Nature, firstly into those forms of life which resemble our physical and etheric bodies and which we eat for the purposes of growth and development; and secondly into the destructive elements, i.e., the poisonous forces which resemble the working of astral body and Ego-organisation. If we understand the four members of man's being in this sense, we shall regard the polarity between the nutritious substances and the poisonous substances quite differently. The study of illness will then be a continuation of the study of Nature. By an insight into both health and disease—a spiritual insight—our whole conception of Nature will be immeasurably enriched. But there is one condition attached to such study. In our present age, people prefer to embark upon some particular study when the object in question is quite still. They like to bring this object as far as possible into a state of complete rest so that the longest possible time can be spent in observing it. Anthroposophy, on the contrary, prefers that whatever is being studied should be as far as possible in a state of movement; everything must be mobile and living, observed in the presence of Spirit, for only so do we draw near to life and reality. To this we must add something else, and that is the courage to heal. This courage is just as necessary as the actual knowledge of how to heal; it is not nebulous or fantastic optimism but a feeling of certainty which makes us feel in any case of illness: 'I have insight into this and I will try to cure it.' Great things result from this. But if we are to gain this certainty, it is above all necessary to have the courage to win through to an understanding of the being of man and of Nature. Naturally, therefore, the kind of remedies that we obtain can only come from a living contact with medicine.

Close to the Goetheanum, where we are striving for anthroposophical knowledge which shall satisfy the souls of men, there is a centre which is devoted to healing—near to the Mystery-centre, a therapeutical centre, because a comprehensive knowledge of the relation between the human being and the world must include not only an understanding of the healing processes but also of the processes of disease. A profound insight into the Cosmos is only possible when we are able to survey not only the tendencies which lead to sickness but equally those which lead to health.

If the forces connected with growth in the organism were not continually being repressed, man's being of soul and Spirit could never function. The very manifestations which in the normal condition of mankind turn to illness, to retrogression of development, must indeed exist in order that he may become a thinking being. If man could not be ill, he could not be a spiritual being. If the functions of thinking, feeling and willing manifest in an abnormal form, man falls ill. The liver and kidneys must carry out the very same processes that give rise to thinking, to feeling and to willing; but these processes lead to disease when they arise in exaggerated form. The fact that man can be ill makes it also possible for him to be a being who can think, feel and will.

Anthroposophical science can enrich the science of healing with spiritual knowledge as I have shown; but it can also do so because it fills the doctor with devotion and readiness for self-sacrifice. Anthroposophy not only deepens our thinking, our intellectuality, but also our feeling—indeed our whole nature. The answer to the question: What can the Art of Healing gain through Spiritual Science? is this: the doctor, as a healer, can become wholly man; not merely one who thinks about a case of illness with his head but who has inner realisation of the state of illness, knowing that to heal is a noble mission. The doctor will only find the right place for his profession in the social order when he perceives that illness is the shadow-side of spiritual development. In order to understand the shadow he must also gaze upon the light—upon the nature and the being of the spiritual processes themselves. If the doctor learns thus to behold spiritual processes, to behold the light that is working in the being of man, he will be able to judge of the shadow. Wherever there is light, there must be shadow; wherever there is spiritual development there must be manifestations of illness as its shadow-forms. Only he can master them who can truly gaze upon the light.

This, then, is what Anthroposophy can give to the doctor and to the art of healing.

The Anthroposophical Society here has invited me to give a course of lectures on Education and has expressed the wish that I should also give one or two Public Lectures dealing with anthroposophical Spiritual Science in relation to the Art of Healing.

It will be necessary for me to begin this evening with a sort of introductory lecture, and deal with the actual subject itself in the two following lectures. I must do this because there are so many people in the audience to whom Anthroposophy is still but little known; and lectures dealing with a special subject would remain rather in the air if I did not begin with some introductory remarks treating of Anthroposophy in general before coming to definite observations in the domain of medicine.

Anthroposophy is indeed not as is so often said of it, some kind of craze, or a sect; it stands for a serious and scientifically-considered conception of the world; but a conception of the world which is applied just as seriously to the spiritual domain as we are accustomed to apply our modern scientific methods to the material domain. Now it might appear to begin with to many people that any suggestion of the spiritual at once introduces something unscientific, for the reason that people are generally inclined to the idea that only those things can be grasped scientifically which can be experienced by the senses, and carried further by means of the reason and intellect. It is the opinion of many people that directly we step over into the spiritual it implies renunciation of Science. It is said that decisions with regard to spiritual questions rest upon subjective opinion, upon a kind of mystical feeling, which everyone must manufacture for himself; “faith” must take the place of scientific knowledge. The task of this introductory lecture shall be to show that this is not the case.

Above all, Anthroposophy does not set out to be “Science” in the generally-accepted sense of the word as something that lies apart from ordinary life and is practised by single individuals who are preparing for some specialised scientific career; on the contrary, it is a conception of the world which can be of value for the mind of every human being who has a longing to find the answers to questions regarding the meaning of life, the duties of life, the operation of the spiritual and material forces of life, and how to turn this knowledge to account. Hitherto in the Anthroposophical field there has been unfailing success in achieving entirely practical methods of applying Anthroposophical principles, more especially in the sphere of education. We have founded schools, which are organised on the basis of these conceptions. And in many well-recognized ways we have succeeded in a similar manner with regard to the art of healing. Anthroposophy does not wish to create obstacles in any sphere, or to appear in opposition to anything that is in the nature of “recognized science;” it will have nothing to do with dilettantism. It is above all anxious that those who wish earnestly to work out what has been given as Anthroposophical knowledge, shall prize and admire all the great achievements that have resulted—with such fullness in recent times—from every kind of scientific endeavour. Therefore there can be no question (in the medical sphere or any other) of anything like dilettantism, nor of any opposition to modern science. On the contrary, it will be shown how by following certain spiritual methods one is in a position to add something to that which is already accepted, and which can only be added when the work of serious investigation is extended into the spiritual world itself.

Anthroposophy can do this because it strives after other kinds of knowledge which, do not prevail in ordinary life or in ordinary science. In ordinary life, as in our customary scientific methods, we make use of such knowledge which we attain when in the course of our development we add to our inherited tendencies and capabilities what we can gain through the usual lower or higher grades of schooling, and which together make us into ripe human beings in the sense in which that is understood to-day. But Anthroposophy goes further than this; it desires to start from what I may call intellectual modesty. And this intellectual modesty (which must be there to begin with if we are to develop a feeling for Anthroposophy) I should like to characterise in the following manner.

Let us consider the development of a human being from earliest childhood onwards. The child first appears in the world showing outwardly in its life and inwardly in its soul nothing of that by which a fully-developed human being finds his orientation in the world through actions and knowledge. There must be education and upbringing in order to draw out of the childlike soul and bodily organism those capacities which have been brought into the world in a dormant or “unripe” state. And we all admit that we cannot in the true sense of the word become active inhabitants of the world if we do not add to our inherited tendencies all those things which can only come by a process of unfolding and drawing them out. Then sooner or later, according to whether we have completed a higher or lower grade of education, we step out into life, having a particular relation to life, having the possibility of unfolding a certain consciousness with regard to our surroundings. Now any one who approaches the intentions of Anthroposophy with true understanding, will say: Why should it not be possible—seeing that it is possible for a child to become something entirely different when its soul-qualities are developed—for such a thing to take place also in a man who is “ripe” according to the standard of to-day? Why should not a man who enters the world fully equipped with the best modern education, also contain hidden capacities in his soul which can be developed further, so that he can progress by means of this development to still further knowledge, and to a practical conduct of life which to some extent can be a continuation of that which has brought him as far as the ordinary state of consciousness?

Therefore in Anthroposophy we undertake a kind of “self-development”—which is to lead out beyond the ordinary condition of consciousness.

There are three faculties in the human soul which are developed normally in life up to a certain point, but which we can unfold further; and Anthroposophy provides the only means in this our modern age of culture and civilisation which will create the necessary stimulus for the further development of these faculties. All three faculties can be so transformed as to become the faculties of a higher kind of knowledge.

First there is the Thinking. In the culture that we have acquired we use our thinking in such a way that we give ourselves over quite passively to the world. Indeed, Science itself demands that we should employ the least possible inner activity in our thinking, and that that which exists in the outer world should only speak to us through the observation of our senses; in fact that we must simply give ourselves over altogether to our sense-perceptions. We maintain that whenever we go beyond this passivity we are only led into dreams and fantastic notions. But where Anthroposophy is concerned, there is no question of fantasy or dreaminess, but of the exact opposite; we are guided to an inner activity which is as clear as any method leading maybe to the attainment of mathematics or geometry. In fact we comport ourselves with regard to Anthroposophy precisely in the same way as we do with regard to mathematics or geometry, only in Anthroposophy we are not developing any special attribute, but on the contrary, every faculty that is connected with human hearts and minds—the whole sum of what is human. And the first thing that has to be done is something which, if people are only sufficiently free from prejudice, can be readily comprehended by everyone. It is simply that the capacity and the force of Thinking should be directed for a time not in order to grasp or understand some external thing, but just in order to allow a thought to remain present in the soul—such a thought as may be easily observed in its totality—and to give oneself up entirely to this thought for a certain length of time.

I will describe it more exactly. Anyone having the necessary feeling of confidence might turn to someone who was experienced in these matters and ask what would be the best kind of thought to which he might devote himself in this way. This person would then suggest some thought which could be surveyed with ease but which would at the same time be as new to him as possible. If we use an old familiar thought, it is very easy for all kinds of memories and feelings and subjective impressions to arise out of the soul, so that only a dreamy condition would be induced. But if the enquirer is directed to a thought which is quite certainly a new one, which will arouse no memories, then he will be able to give himself up to it in such a way that the thought-forces of the soul will become stronger and stronger. In my own writings, and especially in my books—Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and An Outline Of Occult Science, I call this kind of thinking, which can be inwardly cultivated, Meditation. That is an old word: but to-day we will only use it in the particular connection which I will now describe. Meditation consists in turning the attention away from everything that has been either an inner or an external experience, and in thinking of nothing except that one thought, which must be placed in the very centre of the soul's life. By thus directing all the strength that the soul possesses upon this single thought something takes place with regard to the forces of the soul which can only be compared to the constant repetitions of some movement of the hand. What is it that takes place there? The muscles become stronger. It is exactly similar in the case of the soul's powers. When they are directed again and again to one thought they gain force and strength. And if this goes on for a long time—(though to spend a long time at it on each occasion is certainly not necessary, because it is rather a question of entering into a state of soul produced by concentration on a single thought)—and the length of time depends also on predisposition, for with one person it might take a week, and with another three years, and so on—so, if we go on for a long period doing such exercises again and again perhaps for five minutes or fifteen minutes every day, then we begin at last to have an inner sense that our being is becoming enfilled with a new content of force.

Previously, the forces of the nerves have been felt in the process of ordinary thinking and feeling as we feel the forces of the muscles active in the grasping of objects or in whatever we perform. Just as we have been feeling these things gradually more and more in growing up from childhood, so in the same way we gradually begin to learn how to feel that something new is permeating us when we apply ourselves to such thought-exercises—of which I can now only indicate the general principles. (You will find them described in greater detail in my books). Finally there comes a day when we are aware that we can no longer think about outer things in the same way as we used to think about them; but that now we have attained an entirely new soul-power; that we have something in us that is like an intensified, a stronger quality of thinking. And at last we feel that this kind of thinking enables us actually to take hold of what previously was only known to us in quite a shadowy way.

What we are then enabled to grasp is the essential reality of our own life. In what manner do we thus recognize our own earthly life—the life we have lived since birth? We know it through our memory, which reaches back as far as a certain point in our childhood. Rising out of undefined depths of the soul appears the remembrance of our past experiences. They are like shadows. Think how shadowy those emerging memory pictures of our life are in comparison with the intense, full-blooded experiences we have from day to day! If we now take hold of our thinking in the way that I have described, the shadowy quality of these memories ceases. We go back into our own actual earth-life; we experience again what we experienced ten or twenty years ago with the same inner forces and strength with which we originally experienced these events. Only the experience is not the same as formerly, inasmuch as we do not again come into direct contact with the external objects or beings, but we experience instead a kind of “extract” of it all. And that which we experience can, paradoxical as it may sound, be described as having definite significance. All at once, as in a mighty panorama, we have the whole of our life up to the time of birth before us. Not that we see the single events simply in a time-sequence, but we see them as a complete life-tableau. Time turns into Space. Our experiences are there before us, not as ordinary memories, but so that we know that we stand before the deeper being of our own humanity—like a second man within the man we know with our ordinary consciousness.

And then we arrive at the following: This physical human being that we confront in our ordinary consciousness is built up out of the matter which we take out of the Earth which is round about us. We continually discard this matter, and take in fresh matter, and we can definitely say that all the material substances which have been discarded by our body are replaced by new substances within periods of time of from seven to eight years. The material in us is something that is in constant flux. And so, learning to know our own life through our intensified thinking, we come to know that which remains—which endures throughout the whole of our earth-life. It is, at the same time, that which builds up our organism out of outer material substance; and this latter is itself at the same time that which we survey as the tableau of our life.

Now what we see in this manner is distinguished in yet another way from ordinary memory. In ordinary memory the events of our life appear before the soul as though approaching us from outside. We remember what such and such a person has done to us, or what has accrued to us from this or that event. But in the tableau which arises from our intensified thinking, we learn to know ourselves as we really are ourselves—what we have done to other human beings, how we have stood in relation to any occurrence. We learn to know ourselves. That is the important point. For in learning to know ourselves, we also learn to know ourselves intensively, and in such a way that we know how we are placed within the forces of our growth, yes, even within the forces of our nourishment; and how it is we ourselves who build up and again disintegrate our own bodies. Thus we learn to know our own inner being.

Now the important thing is that when we come to this self-knowledge, we immediately experience something which can never be experienced by means of any ordinary science or through the ordinary consciousness. I must admit that nowadays it is really very difficult to express what is now arrived at, because in face of what is considered authoritative to-day, it sounds so strange. But so it is. At this point we experience something through our intensified thinking, of which we must say the following:—There are the laws of Nature which we study assiduously in the sciences; we even learn about them in the elementary schools. We are proud of this; and prosaic humanity is justly proud of what has been learnt of these laws of Nature in physics, chemistry and so on. Here I must emphatically declare that Anthroposophy does not set itself in any amateurish opposition to Science. But because of our grasp of inner, intensive thinking we say that the natural laws which are learnt in connection with physics and chemistry are only present in the matter of the Earth, and they cease to be of any account so soon as we pass out into universal space.

Here I must state something which will not seem so very unplausible to anyone who thinks over it without prejudice: suppose we have somewhere a source of light, we know that the more widely the light is distributed from its source the more it loses in intensity; and the further we go out into space the weaker it becomes, so that we are tempted to speak of it no longer as ‘light’ but as ‘twilight,’ and finally when we have gone far enough it cannot be accounted as light any more. It is the same with the laws of Nature. They have a value for the region of the Earth, but the further we go out into the Cosmos they become less and less of value, until at length they cease to be of any account at all as laws of Nature. On the other hand, those laws which we come to apprehend through intensified thinking, which are already active in our own life, these show us that as human beings, we have not grown out of the natural laws of the Earth, but out of higher, cosmic laws. We have brought them with us in coming into earthly existence. And so we learn to recognize that the moment we have grasped our intensified thinking we can only apply natural law to the mineral kingdom. We cannot say—and this is a very reasonable error made by the newer physics—that natural laws can be applied to the Sun or the Stars. That cannot be done; for to wish to apply natural laws to the Universe would be just as artless as to wish to illumine the world of space with the light of a candle. Directly we ascend from the mineral, which as mineral is only apparent to us on this Earth, up to what is living, then we can no longer speak of the natural laws of the earthly realm, but we must speak of laws which worked down into the earthly realm from out of the Cosmos—from universal space. That is already the case with regard to the vegetable kingdom.

We can only use the laws of the Earth to explain the mineral-laws, for example, such as the law of gravity and so on, which work from the centre of the Earth towards the circumference. When we come to the vegetable kingdom, then we must say that the entire globe is the central point, and that the laws of life are working towards it from every side of the Cosmos—the same laws of life which we have first discovered in ourselves with our intensified thinking, and of which we have learnt to know that we build ourselves up between birth and death by their means.

To these laws, then, which work from the centre of the Earth outward, we add knowledge of the laws which work inwards towards the centre of the Earth from every direction, and which are already active in the vegetable kingdom. We look at the plants springing up out of the Earth and tell ourselves that they contain mineral matter. Chemistry to-day has gone very far in its knowledge of the respective activity of these mineral substances. That is all quite justifiable and quite right. And chemistry will go yet further. That will also be quite right. But if we want to explain the nature of plants we must explain their growth and that cannot be done through the forces that work upwards from the Earth, but only through those forces that work inwards from the surroundings, from the Cosmos, into the Earth-existence. Hence we have to admit that our knowledge must ascend from an earthly conception to a cosmic conception; and moreover in this cosmic conception is contained the real human Self-knowledge.

Now we can go further than this and transform our Feeling. To have ‘Feeling’ in ordinary life is a personal affair, not actually a source of knowledge. But we can transform that which is ordinarily only experienced subjectively as feeling, into a real objective source of knowledge.

In Meditation we concentrate upon one particular thought; we arrive at intensified or ‘substantial’ thinking and thereby are able to grasp something that works from the periphery of the Universe towards the centre of the Earth, in contradistinction to the ordinary laws of Nature, which work from the centre of the Earth outwards in all directions. So when we have reached this intensified thinking, and have perceived that our own life and also the life of the plants is spread out before our souls like a mighty panorama, then we go further. We come to a point, after having grasped something through this forceful thinking, when we can cast these strong thoughts aside. Anyone who knows how difficult it is, in ordinary life, to throw aside some thought which has taken hold of one, will understand that special exercises are necessary to enable this to be done. But it can be done. It is not only possible to cast out with the whole strength of our soul this thought that we have concentrated upon, but it is also possible to cast out the whole memory-tableau, and therewith our own life, and entirely to withdraw our attention from it.

Something then begins to occur by which we clearly see that we are descending further into the depths of the soul, into those regions which are usually only accessible to our feeling. As a rule in ordinary life, if all impressions received by sight or hearing are shut off, we fall asleep. But if we have developed intensified thinking, we do not fall asleep even when we have thrown aside every thought—even the substantially intense ones. A condition arises in which no sense-perceptions and no thoughts are active, a condition we can only describe by saying that such a person is simply ‘awake;’ he does not fall asleep; but he has nevertheless at first nothing in his consciousness. He is awake, with a consciousness that is empty. That is a condition revealed through Spiritual Science to which a person can attain who can be quite systematically and methodically developed—namely to have an empty consciousness in complete waking awareness.

In the usual way, if our consciousness is empty we are asleep. For from falling asleep to waking up we do have an empty consciousness—only—we are asleep in it. To have an empty consciousness and yet be awake, is the second stage of knowledge for which we strive. For this consciousness does not remain empty for long. It fills itself. As the ordinary consciousness can fill itself with colour through the perceptions of sight, or by the ear fill itself with sounds, so this empty consciousness fills itself with a spiritual world which is just as much in our surroundings ‘there’ as the ordinary physical world is in our surroundings here. The empty consciousness is the first to reveal the spiritual world—that spiritual world which is neither here on the Earth, nor in the Cosmos in Space, but which is outside Space and Time, and which nevertheless constitutes our deepest human nature. For if at first we have learnt to look back with the intense consciousness of thinking upon our whole earth-life as a script—now, with a consciousness that was empty and has become filled, we gaze into that world where we passed a life of soul-and-spirit before we came down into our earthly existence. We now learn to know ourselves as Beings who were spiritually present before birth and conception, who lived a pre-earthly existence before the one wherein we now are. We learn to recognize ourselves as beings of spirit-and-soul, and that the body that we bear we have received in that it was handed on to us by parents and grandparents. We have had it delivered to us in such a way that, as I have said, we can change it every seven years; but that which we are in our individual being has brought itself to Earth out of a pre-natal existence. But none of this is learnt by means of theorising, or by subtle cogitation; it can only be learnt when the suitable capacities are first of all unfolded in intellectual modesty.

Thus we have now learnt to know our inner humanity, our own individual being of spirit-and-soul. It comes to meet us when we descend into the region of feeling and not merely with feeling, but also with knowledge. But first we must mark how the struggle for knowledge is bound up with strong inner experiences which can be indicated as follows: If you have bound up one of your limbs tightly, so that you cannot move it—even if someone perhaps only bandages two of your fingers together—you feel discomfort, possibly even pain. Now when you are in a condition where you experience what is soul-and-spirit without a body, you do not possess the whole of your physical being, for you are living in an empty consciousness. The passing-over into this state is connected with a profound feeling of pain. Beyond the feeling of pain, beyond the privation, we wrestle for the entrance into that which is our deepest spiritual and soul-being. And here many people are arrested by terror. But it is impossible to gain any explanation of our real human nature by any other means; and if we can learn it in this way, then we can go still further.

But now we have to develop a strength of knowledge which in ordinary life is not recognised as such at all; we have to develop Love as a force of knowledge—a selfless out-going into the things and processes of the world. And if we perfect this Love ever more and more, so that we can actually lift ourselves out into the condition I have described, where we are body-free—and in this liberation from the body gaze at the world—then we learn to realise ourselves wholly as spiritual beings in the spiritual world. Then we know what man is as Spirit; but then we also know what dying is; for in Death man lays his physical body altogether aside. In this knowledge, which as a third form, is experienced through the deepening of Love, we learn to know ourselves outside our body; we accomplish separation from it by the constructive quality of knowledge.

From this moment we know what it will mean when we lay aside our body in this Earth-existence and go through the Gate of Death. We learn to know death. But we also learn to know the life of the soul-and-spirit on the other side of death. Now we know the spiritual-soul-being of man as it will be after death. As at first we had learnt to recognize our being as it is before the descent into earthly life, so now we know the continuation of the life of this being in the world of soul-and-spirit after death.

Then something else occurs which causes us to mark clearly how imperfect is the consciousness of to-day; for it speaks of ‘immortality,’ out of its hope and faith. But immortality—deathlessness—is only one half of Eternity—namely the everlasting continuation of the present point of time. We have to-day no word such as was to be found in the degrees of knowledge of an older time, which points to an immortality in the other half of Eternity—‘unborn-ness.’

Because just as man is deathless, so is he also unborn; that is to say, with birth he steps out of the spiritual world into physical existence, just as at death he passes from the physical world into a spiritual existence. Therefore in this manner we learn of the true being of man, which is spiritual, and which goes through birth and death; and only then are we in a position to comprehend our whole being.

The principles which I have briefly outlined have already formed the content of a wealth of literature, which has imbibed a conscientiousness and a responsibility towards its knowledge out of the realm of exact Science, on which alone this sense of responsibility can rest to-day. So we attain to a Spiritual Science, which has grown out of ordinary Science.

And just on account of this, we learn something else—namely how life consists of two tendencies or streams. People speak in a general way to-day about development; they say the child is small—it develops—it grows; it is full of energy—strong—it blossoms with life. They say that a lower form of life has evolved to a higher;—quickening, blooming life—growing ever more and more complicated! And that is right. But this stream of life is there, however, in opposition to another stream, which is present in every sentient living being—namely, a destructive tendency. Just as we have a budding and sprouting life in us, integrating life—so we have also the life of disintegration. Through knowledge such as this we perceive that we cannot merely say that our life streams up into the brain and nervous system and that this matter organises itself so that the nervous system can become the bearer of the life of the soul. No—it is not like that. The life is germinating and sprouting, but at the same time there is continual destruction incorporated into it.

Our life is incessantly going to pieces ... the blossoming life is always giving place to the decaying life. We are actually dying by degrees and at every moment something falls to ruin in us, and every time we build it up again. But, whereas matter is being destroyed, it leaves room wherein what is of the soul-and-spirit can enter and become active in us. And here we touch upon the great error made by materialism, for materialism believes that the sprouting and budding life evolves up to the nervous system in man so that the nerves are built up in the same way as the muscles are built up out of the blood. It is true they are. But no thinking is developed by means of building up the nerves; neither is feeling. On the contrary, in that the nerves decay to a certain extent, the psychic-spiritual incorporates itself into what is decaying. We must first disintegrate matter in order that the psychic-spiritual can appear in us and enable us to experience it for ourselves.

That will be the great moment in the development of a rightly-understood Natural Science, when the opposite to evolution will be recognized as carrying evolution forward at the corresponding point; when it will recognize not only integration, but also disintegration—thus admitting not only evolution but devolution. And thus it will be understood how the spiritual in the animal and in man—but in the latter in a self-conscious way—takes hold of the material. The spiritual does not take hold of the material because the latter is developing itself against it, but because matter, by a contrary process, is destroying itself; and the spiritual comes into evidence, the spiritual reveals itself, in this process. Therefore we are filled with the spirit; for it is everywhere present in devolution but not in evolution, which is Earth-development. Then we learn to observe that man as he stands before us in his entirety, is as though contained within a polar antithesis, Everywhere, in every single organ, wherever there is an upbuilding process there is also a destructive process going on. If we look at any one of the organs, it may be the liver, or the lungs, or the heart, we see that it is in a constant stream which consists of integration—disintegration, integration—disintegration. Is it not really rather an extraordinary expression that we use when we say for example ‘Here flows the Rhine?’ What is ‘the Rhine?’ When we say ‘Here flows the Rhine,’ we do not as a rule mean that there is the river bed ‘Rhine,’ but we mean the flowing water which we look at. Yet it is different every moment. The Rhine has been there a hundred years, a thousand years. But what is it which is there every moment? It is what is realised as being in alteration every moment in the flowing stream. In the same way, everything that we contain is held within a stream of change, in integration and disintegration, and in its disintegration it becomes the bearer of the spiritual. And so in every normal human being there exists a state of balance between anabolism and catabolism, and in this balance he develops the right capacity for the soul-and-spirit. Nevertheless, this balance can be disturbed, and can be disturbed to such an extent that some organ or other may have its correct degree of anabolism in relation to too slight a degree of catabolism, and then its growth becomes rampant. Or contrariwise, some organ may have a normal process of disintegration against too slight an anabolism, in which case the organ becomes disturbed, or atrophies; and thus we pass out of the physiological sphere into the pathological.

Only when we can discern what this condition of balance signifies, can we also discern how it may be disturbed by an excess of either integrating or disintegrating forces. But when we recognize this, then we can turn our gaze to the great outer world, and can find there what, under certain conditions, will act so as to equalise these two processes.

Suppose we take for example a human organ that is disturbed by reason of too strong a destructive process, and then look with sight made clear by spiritual-scientific knowledge at something outside in Nature, say at a plant; we shall know that in a particular plant there are anabolic—building-up—properties. Now it becomes apparent that in the habit of certain plants there are always anabolic properties and that these correspond precisely to the anabolic forces of human organs. Thus, we can discover—when we make use of these conceptions which have now been developed by me—that there are anabolic forces in the kidneys. Let us suppose the kidneys are too weak, that their destructive forces are excessive. We turn to the plants, and we find in the common horsetail, Equisetum arvense, anabolic forces which exactly correspond to those which belong to the kidneys. If we make a preparation from equisetum and administer it through the digestive process into the blood-circulation and thus conduct it in the right way to the region in the body where it can work, we strengthen the debilitated anabolic forces of the kidneys. And so we can proceed with all the organs. Once we have grasped this knowledge we have the possibility of bringing back into a condition of balance the unbalanced processes of integration and disintegration by using the forces which can be found in the outside world. If on the other hand we have to deal with forces of anabolism either in the kidneys or elsewhere which have become over-strong, then it will be necessary to reinforce the destructive processes. In this case we must have recourse to the lower type of plants, let us say the fern species, which have this property.

In this way we pass beyond the point of mere experiment and test in order to discover whether a preparation will be beneficial or not. We can look into the human organism in respect of the relative balance of the organs themselves; we can penetratingly survey Nature for the discovery of the anabolic and catabolic forces, and thus we make the Art of Healing into something wherein we can really see that a remedy is not administered just because statistics confirm that in such and such cases it is useful—but because by a really penetrating survey both of the human being and Nature we know with exactitude in every case the natural process in a Nature-product that can be transformed into a healing factor—that is, for the human organs in respect of the anabolic and catabolic forces.

I do not mean to say that in recent times Medicine has not made immense progress. Anthroposophy recognises this progress in Medicine to the full. Neither have we any wish to exclude what modern medical science has accomplished; on the contrary we honour it. But when we examine what has been brought out in the way of remedies in recent times we find that they have only been arrived at by way of lengthy experimentation. Anthroposophy supplies a penetrating knowledge which by its survey of human nature has fully proved itself in those spheres where Medicine has already been so happily successful. But in addition to this, Anthroposophy offers a whole series of new remedies also, a fact which is made possible by the same insight applied to both Nature and Man.

Therefore if we learn to look into the human being spiritually in this way—(and I will later show how the Art of Healing can be made fruitful in every single sphere through a true knowledge of the spirit)—we also learn to look into the spiritual life together with the material life, and then we arrive—and this no longer in the old dreamlike way which had its overflow in Mythology, but in an exact way—then we can arrive at a bringing together of perfectly rational knowledge with a ‘message’ of Healing.

Man learns to heal by means of a real and artistic conception of an art that has grown out of the world itself. Therewith we come again into touch with what existed in ancient times—though it was not then to be found in the way in which we to-day must aspire to find it now that we have the great wealth of Science behind us;—for what existed in ancient times through a kind of dreamlike knowledge, can lead us to-day to the application of forces and spiritual forces in connection with human health and sickness.

In ancient times there were the Mystery Centres in which a knowledge was cultivated which could solve humanity's religious problems and satisfy the longings of the soul; and in connection with the Mysteries there were places of Healing. To-day, quite rightly, we regard the things that were cultivated there as somewhat childish. But there was nevertheless a sound kernel in them;—it was known that the knowledge of the so-called normal world must go forward into knowledge of the abnormal world. Is it not strange that we, on the other hand, say that in his healthy state man comes forth out of Nature, and that then we have to explain the unhealthy man also by the laws of Nature? For every illness can be explained by these laws. Does Nature then contradict herself? We shall see that she does not do so with regard to disease. But our knowledge must be a continuation from the normal physical into the pathological. Knowledge can attain value for life only in so far as that side by side with those places where the normal aspects of life are cultivated, there must also be found those that are concerned with the illnesses of life.

There was to have been a centre of knowledge at the Goetheanum at Dornach in Switzerland, in the building which most unfortunately was burnt down, but which we hope will soon be rebuilt. It was to be a centre of knowledge where mankind would have been able to satisfy those longings of the soul which seek to penetrate into the sources of life. And out of what I might call a natural sequence it came to be regarded as a matter of course that there should be added to the Goetheanum a centre of Healing. True, this could only be, at first, of a modest kind. Such a thing must be there wherever there is to be a real knowledge of humanity. And we have it in the Clinical-Therapeutical Institute at Arlesheim which is the result of the efforts of Frau Dr. Wegman, and which has been followed by the founding of a similar Institute under Dr. Zeylmans van Emmichoven at The Hague. And so at Dornach there is established once again, side by side with the centre of Knowledge, a centre of Healing. And whereas courage must always be a part of everything that pertains to knowledge of the Spirit, so courage belongs above all things, to the way of Healing. This vital element lives in that Institute at Arlesheim—the courage to heal; in order that all which comes forth out of the whole human being as the possibility to control the forces of healing, may be used as a blessing for humanity. Therefore, such a centre of Knowledge, which once more strives towards the Mysteries—albeit in the modern sense—and where the great questions of existence are dealt with, must have beside it, even though it may be only in a modest way, a centre of Healing where knowledge of the smallest details of life is cultivated and where the effort is made to deepen the Art of Healing in a spiritual sense.

In the external nearness of Knowledge-Centre and Healing-Centre to one another we have the outer image of how close a connection should exist between Anthroposophical knowledge and the practical work of Healing, and that this should exist as such a spiritual Art that out of a conception of conditions of illness in the human being, there should grow a conception of Therapeutics, of Healing, so that the two may not fall asunder, but that the diagnostic process may be carried on into the healing process. The aim of Anthroposophy herein is that while one makes a diagnosis in the knowledge one has of what is happening in a person when he is ill, at the same moment one sees that such and such a thing is taking place, or something is happening in the anabolic processes. One then recognizes Nature for example in occurrences brought about by destructive forces; one knows where the destructive forces are to be found, and in administering these as a healing agent one is thus able to act so that these destructive forces can work against the upbuilding forces in the human being. And vice versa. So one is able to perceive clearly in what is going on in the human being, an unhealthy condition; but even in perceiving this unhealthy condition one immediately perceives also the nature of the working of the healing agent.

To-day I wished only to demonstrate the nature of a spiritual way of knowledge, and point out that the effect of this spiritual knowledge is such that man does not merely approach natural and spiritual forces in a theoretical way, but that he also learns to handle them, and out of his spiritual learning to mould life.

With advancing civilisation, life becomes continually more and more complicated. At the present time a longing is dominating the subconscious life of many souls—a longing to find what may be the source out of which this more and more complicated life has grown. Anthroposophy tries above all to assuage these longings. And we shall see that against much that is destructive in the life of to-day it honestly desires to co-operate in all that is constructive, that is advancing, that tends to prosperity in our civilisation—not with helpless phrases but actively, in all the practical questions of life. Anthroposophy wishes knowledge everywhere to flow into life, to give knowledge in a form which can help wherever help is needed in the affairs of life.

In the last lecture I tried to point out how by means of the kind of knowledge cultivated by Anthroposophy, man may be seen in his whole nature—consisting of body, soul and spirit. I tried to show also how an inner knowledge of the conditions of health and disease can only be arrived at when the entire nature of man can be perceived in this way; and how in learning to know the true connections between the things which take place within man and the external processes and conditions of substances in Nature, we also succeed in establishing a connecting link between pathology and therapy.

Our next task will be to explain in detail what was only given in general outline in the first lecture. And for this it will above all be necessary to observe how disintegration is proceeding in the human organism and how, on the other hand, there is a constant process of integration. Man has, to begin with, an external physical organisation which is perceptible by means of the outer senses, and whose manifestations can be comprehended by the reason. Besides this physical body there is also the first super-sensible body of the human being: the ether body, or life body. These two principles of the constitution of man serve to build up (integrate) the human organisation. The physical body is continually renewed as it casts off its substance. The ether body—which contains the forces of growth and of assimilation—is, in the entirety of its constitution, something of which we can gain a conception when we behold the growing and blossoming plant-kingdom in the spring; for the plants, as well as human beings, have an ether, or life body. In these two members of the human organisation we have a progressive, constructive evolution.

In so far as man is a sentient being, he bears within himself the next member, the astral body. (We need not feel that such terms are objectionable; we should perceive what they reveal to us). The astral body is essentially the mediator of sensation, the bearer of the inner life of feeling. The astral body contains not only the upbuilding forces but also the forces of destruction. Just as the ether body makes the being of man bud and sprout, as it were, so all these processes of budding are continually being disintegrated again by the astral body; and just because of this, just because the physical and etheric bodies are continually being disintegrated, there exists in the human organisation an activity of soul-and-spirit.

It would be quite a mistake to suppose that the soul-and-spirit in man's nature inhere in the upbuilding process and that this process at last reaches a certain point—let us say in the nervous system—where it can become the bearer of soul-and-spirit. That is not the case. When eventually (and everything points to this being soon), our very admirable modern scientific research has made further progress, it will become apparent that an anabolic, a constructive process in the nervous system is not the essential thing; it is present in the nervous organisation merely in order that the nerves may, in fact, exist. But the nerve-process is in a continual, though slow state of dissolution; and because it is so, because the physical is always being dissolved, a place is set free for the spirit-and-soul.

In a still higher degree is this the case as regards the actual Ego-organisation, by means of which man is raised above all the other beings of Nature surrounding him on the Earth. The Ego-organisation is essentially bound up with katabolism; it is of greatest moment in those parts of the human being that are in a state of disintegration.

So when we look into this wonderful form of the human organism, we see that in every single organ there is construction, integration (whereby the organ ministers to growth and progressive development), and also destruction, whereby it ministers to retrogressive physical development, and by so doing gives foothold for the soul-and-spirit. I said in the last lecture that the state of balance between integration and disintegration which is present in a particular way in every human organ, can be disturbed. The upbuilding process can become rampant; in that case we have to do with an unhealthy condition. When we look in this way into the nature of the human being (to begin with I can only state these things rather abstractly; they will be expressed more concretely presently), when we proceed conscientiously, with a sense of scientific responsibility and do not talk in generalisations about the presence of integration and disintegration, but really study each individual organ as conscientiously as we have learnt to do in scientific observations to-day—then we shall be able to penetrate into this condition of balance that is necessary for the single organs and so find it possible to obtain a conception of the human being in health. If in either direction, either with respect to constructive or with respect to destructive processes, the balance of an organ is upset, then we have to do with something that is unhealthy in the human organism.

Now, however, we must discover how this human organism stands in relation to the three kingdoms of Nature in the outer world—the mineral, plant and animal kingdoms—from which we have of course to extract our remedies. When we have studied this inner state of balance in the manner described, we shall see how everything that is present in the three kingdoms of Nature outside man is, in every direction, being overcome within the human organism.

Let us take the simplest example:—the condition of warmth in man. Nothing of the outer conditions of warmth must be carried on unchanged when it is once within the human organism. When we investigate the manifestations of warmth outside in Nature, we know that warmth raises the temperature of things in the outer world. We say that warmth penetrates into things. If we, in our organisation, were to be penetrated in the same way by warmth we should be made ill by it. It is only when, through the forces and quality of our organisation we are able to receive this warmth-process which is being exercised upon us, into our organism and immediately transform it into an inner process, that our organisation is in a state of health. We are harmed by either heat or cold directly we are not in a position to receive it into our organisation and transform it.

In respect of warmth or cold, everyone can see this quite easily for himself. Moreover the same holds good for all other Nature processes. Only careful study, sharpened by spiritual perception, can lead to the recognition that every process taking place in Nature is transformed, metamorphosed, when it occurs within the human organism. We are indeed incessantly overcoming what lives in our earthly environment.

If we now consider the whole internal organisation of man we must say that if the inner force of the human being which inwardly transforms the external events and processes that are always working in upon him—for example, when he is taking nourishment—if this force were removed, then all that enters man from outside would work as a foreign process, and in a sense—if I were to express it crudely or trivially—man would be filled with foreign bodies or foreign processes. On the other hand, if the higher members of man's being, the astral body and the Ego-organisation develop excessive strength, then he does not only so transform the outer processes of his environment that enter into him as they should be transformed, but he does so more rampantly. Then there is a speeding-up of the processes which penetrate him. External Nature is driven out beyond the human—becomes in a certain sense, over-spiritualised; and we are faced with a disturbance of the health.

What has thus been indicated as an abstract principle is really present in every human organ and must be studied individually in the case of them all. Moreover the human being is related in a highly complicated manner, to all the different ways in which he transforms the external processes.

He who strives to get beyond the undisputed testimony of up-to-date anatomy and physiology, who tries to develop his understanding so that he can transform the conception of the human organism yielded by a study of the corpse or pathological conditions, observing them not merely in regard to their “dead” structures but according to their living nature, will find himself faced with endless enigmas of the human organism. For the more exact and the more living our knowledge becomes, the more complicated does it appear. There are, however, certain guiding lines which enable us to find our way through the labyrinth. And if I may be allowed to make a personal observation here, it is that the discovery of such guiding lines was a matter with which I occupied myself for thirty years before I began to speak about it openly—which was about the year 1917. As a comparatively young man, in the early twenties, I asked myself whether there was any possibility of research into this complicated human organisation. Were there certain fundamental principles which would enable one to arrive at a comprehensive understanding? And this led me—(I have just said that the study took me thirty years)—to the fact that one can regard the human organisation from three different aspects: the system of nerves and senses, the rhythmic system, and the metabolic and limb system.

What we can call the organisation of nerves and senses predominates over all the others. It is, moreover, the bearer of all that can be described as the life of concepts. On the other hand, what we describe as the rhythmic organisation is, in a certain respect, self-contained. There is the rhythm of the breath, the rhythm of the circulation, the rhythm manifested in sleeping and waking, and countless other rhythmic processes. It was by making a practical and accurate distinction between the rhythmic organisation and the nerves-and-senses organisation that I first discovered how one could distinguish between the different constituent parts of the human being. I was compelled to ask myself the question—it is now nearly forty years ago, and to-day human hearts are more than ever burdened with baffling physiological problems—I was compelled to ask myself whether on this basis it is really possible to say that the whole inner life of thinking, feeling and willing is bound up with the system of nerves and senses. At the same time I felt that there was a contradiction: how can thinking, feeling and willing be bound up with the nerves and senses? Naturally I cannot go into all this detail to-day, I can only indicate it; but when we come to consider the domain of therapeutics much will be explained. For instance, direction: the nervous system and the metabolic system are polarically opposite. As the metabolic-limb-system builds up, so the system of nerves and senses destroys and vice versa. This and many other things demonstrate the polarity. Everything that constitutes the Ego-organisation is intimately bound up with the system of nerves and senses; everything that constitutes the ether body is intimately bound up with the metabolic and limb system; everything that constitutes the astral body is bound up with the rhythmic system; the physical body permeates the whole, but is continually overcome by the three other members of the human organisation. Only when we observe the human organism in this way can we learn to penetrate into the so-called normal or abnormal processes.

Let us take first the organisation of nerves and senses. But first, so that I may not be misunderstood, I would like to make a short digression. A very sceptical naturalist who had heard in quite a superficial way about these members which I posit as the basis of man's nature, said that I had attempted to distinguish between ‘head-organisation,’ ‘chest-organisation,’ and ‘abdominal organisation’; thus that I had in a sense located the system of nerves and senses only in the head, the rhythmic organisation in the chest, and the metabolic-limb system in the abdomen. But that is a very unjust statement. For without separating the systems spatially, the nerves and senses may be said to be organised principally in the head, but they are also to be found in the other two systems. The rhythmic system is principally located in the middle organisation; but it again is spread over the whole man; similarly the metabolic organisation. It is not a question of making a spatial separation between the organs, but of understanding their qualitative aspect and what is living in and permeating the single organs.

When we study the system of nerves and senses from this standpoint, we find that it spreads throughout the whole organism. The eye or the ear, for example, are organised in such a way that they pre-eminently contain the nerves and senses, in a lesser degree the rhythmic, and in a still less degree the metabolic system. An organ like the kidney, for instance, does not contain so much of the nerves-and-senses system as of the rhythmic or metabolic organisation, yet it contains something of all three. We do not understand the human being if we say: here are sense-organs, or there are digestive organs. In reality it is quite different. A sense-organ is only principally sense-organ; every sense-organ is also in a certain way a digestive and a rhythmic organ. The kidneys or the liver are to be understood as being principally assimilatory or excretory organs. In a lesser degree they are organs of nerves and senses. If, then, we study the whole organisation of man with its single organs from the point of view of the system of nerves-and-senses (in its reality, and not according to the fantastic concepts often formed by physiology), we find that man ‘perceives’ by means of his separate senses—sight, hearing and so on; but we also find that he is entirely permeated by the sense-organisation. The kidney, for instance, is a sense-organ which has a delicate perception of what is taking place in the digestive and excretory processes. The liver too, is—under certain conditions—a sense-organ. The heart is in a high degree an inner sense-organ and can only be understood if it is conceived of as such.

Do not imagine that I have any intention of criticising the science of to-day; I know its worth and my desire is that our view of these things shall be firmly grounded upon it. But we must nevertheless be clear that our science is, at present, not able to penetrate fully and with exactitude into the being of man. If it could, it would not relate the animal organisation so closely to the human in the way it does in our time. In respect of the life of sense, the animal stands at a lower level than the human organisation. The human nerves-and-senses organisation is yoked to the Ego-organisation; in the animal it is yoked to the astral body. The sense-life of man is entirely different from that of the animal. When the animal perceives something with its eyes—and this can be shown by a closer study of the structure of the eye—something takes place in the animal which, so to say, goes through the whole of its body. It does not happen like that in man. In man, sense-perception remains far more at the periphery, is concentrated far more on the surface. You can understand from this that there are delicate organisations present in animals which, in the case of the higher species, are only to be found in etheric form. But in certain of the lower animals you find, for instance, the xiphoid process which is also present in higher animals but in their case it is etheric; or you may find the pecten or choroid process in the eye. The way in which these organs are permeated by the blood, shows that the eye shares in the whole organisation of the animal and is the mediator to it of a life in the circumference of its environment. Man, on the other hand, is connected with his system of nerves-and-senses quite differently and therefore lives, in a far higher sense than the animal, in his outer world, whereas the animal lives more within itself. But everything which is communicated through the higher spiritual members of the human being, which lives itself out through the Ego-organisation by way of the nerves and senses, requires—just because it is present within the domain of the physical body—to receive its material influences from out of the physical world.

Now if we closely study the system of nerves-and-senses at a time when it is functioning perfectly healthily, we find that its working depends on a certain substance, and on the processes that take place in that substance. Matter is something which is never at rest; it merely represents what is, actually, a ‘process.’ (A crystal of quartz, for instance, is only a self-contained, definitely shaped thing to us because we never perceive that it is a ‘process,’ though indeed it is one which is taking place extremely slowly.) We must penetrate further and further into the human organism and learn to understand its transformative activity. That which enters into the organism as external physical substance has to be taken up by it and overcome, in the way described in the introductory lecture.

Now it is especially interesting that when the system of nerves-and-senses is in a normal, i.e., a healthy state (which must of course be understood relatively), it is dependent upon a delicate process which takes place under the influence of the silicic acid which enters the organism. Silicic acid, which in the outer realm of Nature forms itself into beautiful quartz-crystals, has this peculiarity:

when it penetrates into the human organism it is taken up by the processes of the nerves and senses; so that if we look at the system of nerves-and-senses with spiritual sight, we see a wonderfully delicate process going on in which silicic acid is active. But if we look at the other side of the question—as when I said that man has senses everywhere—then we shall notice that it is only in the periphery, that is, where the senses are especially concentrated, that the silicic acid process is intensified; when we turn to the more inner parts of the organism, to the lungs, liver or kidneys, it is far less strong, it is ‘thinner;’ while in the bones it is again stronger. In this way we discover that man has a remarkable constitution.

We have, so to say, a periphery and a circumference where the senses are concentrated; then we have that which fills out the limbs and which carries the skeleton; between these we have the muscles, the glands and so on.

In that which I have described as the ‘circumference’ and the ‘centralised,’ we have the strongest silicic acid processes; we can follow them into the organs that lie between these two, and there we find that they have their own specific silicic acid processes but weaker than those in the circumference. Thus in respect of the outer parts, where man extends in an outgoing direction from the nerves into the senses, he needs more and more silicic acid; in the centre of his system he requires comparatively little; but where his skeleton lies, at the basis of the motor system, there again he requires more silicic acid. Directly we perceive this fact we recognize the inexactitude of many assertions of modern physiology. (And again let me emphasise that I do not wish to criticise them, but merely to make certain statements.) For instance, if we study the life of the human being according to modern physiology, we are directed to the breathing-process. In certain respects this is a complex process, but—speaking generally—it consists in taking in oxygen out of the air, and breathing out carbonic acid. That is the rhythmical process which is essentially the basis of organic life. We say that oxygen is breathed in, that it goes through certain processes described by physiology, within the organism; that it combines with carbon in the blood, and is then ejected on the breath as carbonic acid. This is perfectly correct according to a purely external method of observation. This process is, however, connected with another. We do not merely breathe in oxygen and combine it with carbon. Primarily, that is done with that portion of the oxygen which is spread over the lower part of the body; that is what we unite with the carbon and breathe out as carbonic acid.

There is another and a more delicate process behind this rhythmical occurrence. That portion of the oxygen which, in the human organisation, rises towards the head and therefore (in the particular sense which was mentioned previously) to the system of nerves-and-senses, unites itself with the substance we call silica, and forms silicic acid. And whereas in man the important thing for the metabolic system is the production of carbonic acid, so the important thing for the nerves-and-senses system is the production of silicic acid. The latter is a finer process which we are not able to verify with the coarse instruments at our disposal, though all the means are there by which it can be verified. Thus we have the coarser process on the one hand, and on the other the finer process where the oxygen combines with the silica to form silicic acid, and as such, is secreted inwardly in the human organisation.

Through this secretion of silicic acid the whole organism becomes a sense-organ—more so in the periphery, less so in the separate organs.

If we look at it this way, we can perceive the more delicate intimate structure of the human organism, and see how every organ contains, of necessity, processes related to substances each in its own distinct degree.

If we are now to grasp what health and illness really are, we must understand how these processes take place in any one organ. Suppose we take the kidney, for sake of example. Through some particular condition or other—some symptomatic complication, let us say—our diagnosis leads us to assume that the cause of an illness lies in the kidneys. If we call Spiritual Science to the aid of our diagnosis, we find that the kidney is acting too little as a sense-organ for the surrounding digestive and excretory processes; it is acting too strongly as an organ of metabolism; hence the balance is upset.

In such a case we have above all to ask: how are we to restore to it in a greater degree the character of sense-organ? We can say that because the kidney proves to be an insufficient sense-organ for the digestive and excretory processes, then we must see that it receives the necessary supply of silicic acid.

Now in the anthroposophical sense, there are three ways of administering substances that are required by a healthy human organism. The first is to give the patient a remedy by mouth. But in that case we must be guided by whether the whole digestive organism is so constituted that it can transmit the substances exactly to that spot where they are to be effective. We must know how a substance works—whether on the heart, or the lungs, and so forth, when we administer it by mouth and it passes into the digestive tract. The second way is by injections. By this means we introduce a substance directly into the rhythmic system. There, it works more as a ‘process;’ there, that which in the metabolism is a substantial organisation, is transformed at once into a rhythmic activity and we directly affect the rhythmic system. Or again, we try the third way: we prepare a substance as an ointment to be applied at the right place, or administer it in a bath; in short we apply our remedy in an external form. There are, of course, a great many different methods of doing this.

We have these three ways of applying remedies. But now let us observe the kidneys which our diagnosis reveals as having a diminished capacity as a sense-organ. We have to administer the right kind of silicic acid process. Therefore we have to be attentive, because, in the breathing process as described just now, where the oxygen combines with silica and then disperses silicic acid throughout the body, and because during that process too little silicic acid has reached the kidneys, we must do something which will attract a stronger silicic acid process to them. So we must know how to come to the assistance of the organism which has failed to do this for itself; and for this we must discover what there is externally which is the result of a process such as is wanting in the kidneys. We must search for it. How can we find ways and means to introduce just this silicic acid process into the kidneys?

And now we find that the function of the kidneys, especially as it is a sense-function, is dependent upon the astral body. The astral body is at the basis of the excretory processes and of this particular form of them. Therefore we must stimulate the astral body and moreover in such a way that it will somehow carry the silicic acid process which is administered from outside, to an organ such as the kidney. We need a remedy that, firstly, will stimulate the silicic-acid process, and, secondly, which will stimulate it precisely in the kidneys. If we seek for it in the surrounding plant world, we come upon the plant Equisetum arvense, the ordinary field ‘horsetail.’ The peculiar feature of this plant is that it contains a great deal of silicic acid. If we were to give silicic acid alone it would, however, not reach the kidneys. Equisetum also contains sulphurous acid salts. Sulphurous acid salts alone work on the rhythmic system, on the excretory organs and on the kidneys in particular. When they are intimately combined as they are in Equisetum arvense (we can administer it by mouth, or if that is not suitable, in either of the other ways)—then the sulphurous acid salts enable the silicic acid to find its way to the kidneys.

Here we have touched upon a single instance—a pathological condition of the kidneys. We have approached it quite methodically; we have discerned what can supply what is lacking in the kidneys; and we have erected a bridge that can be followed step by step, from pathology to therapy.

Now let us take another case. Suppose we have to do with some disturbance of the digestive system—such as we usually include under the word ‘dyspepsia.’ If we again proceed according to Spiritual Science, we shall discover that here we have to do principally with a faulty and inadequate working of the Ego-organisation. Why is the Ego-organisation not acting strongly enough? That is the question. And we must search somewhere in the functional regions of the human organism for what it is that is causing this weakness of the Ego-organisation. In certain cases we find that the fault lies in the gall-bladder secretions. If that is so, then we must come to the assistance of the Ego-organisation (just as we came to the assistance of the kidneys with the equisetum) by administering something which, if it reaches the required spot by being prepared in a certain way, will there strengthen the inadequate working of the Ego-organisation. Thus, even as we find that the silicic acid process (which lies at the root of the nerves-and-senses system) when introduced in the right way to the kidneys enhances their sense-faculty, so we now find that such a process as the gall-bladder secretions (which corresponds primarily with the Ego-organisation) is really connected in quite a special manner (also in relation to other things) with the action of carbon. Now a remarkable thing to be observed is that if we wish to introduce carbon into the organism in the correct way for treating dyspepsia, we find that carbon—(though it is contained in every plant)—is contained in Cichorium intybus (chicory) in a form that directly affects the gall-bladder. When we know how to make the correct preparation from Cichorium intybus, we can lead it over into the functions of this organ as a certain form of carbon-process, in the same way as is done with regard to the silicic-acid process and the kidneys.

With these simple examples—which are applicable either to slight or in certain circumstances to very severe cases of illness—I have tried to indicate how, by a spiritual-scientific observation of the human organism on the one hand, and on the other of the different natural creations and their respective interchanges with each other, there can be brought about, firstly, an understanding of the processes of illness, and secondly an understanding of what is required in order to reverse the direction of those processes. Healing becomes thereby a penetrating Art. This is what can be achieved for the art of Medicine, the art of Healing, by the kind of scientific research that is called Anthroposophy. There is nothing of the nature of fantasy about it. It is that which will bring research to the point of extreme exactitude with regard to the observation of the whole human being, both physically, psychically and spiritually. The condition of illness in man depends upon the respective activity of the physical, the psychic and the spiritual. And because man's constitution consists of nerves-and-senses system, rhythmic system, metabolic-and-limb system, we are enabled also to penetrate into the different processes and their degrees of activity. We learn to know how a sense-function is present in the kidneys as soon as we direct our attention to the essential nature of sense-functions; otherwise, we only seek to discover sense-functions under their cruder aspect as they appear in the senses themselves. Now however, we become able to comprehend illness as such.

I have already said that in the metabolic-and-limb system, processes take place which are the opposite of those that take place in the system of nerves-and-senses. But it can happen that processes which primarily are also nerves and senses processes, and are, for instance, proper to the nerves of the head where they are ‘normal’—It can happen that these processes can in a certain sense become dislodged by the metabolic-and-limb system; that through an abnormality of the astral body and Ego-organisation in the metabolic-limb-system something can happen which would be ‘correct’ or ‘normal’ only if taking place in the system of nerves-and-senses. That is to say, what is right for one system can be in another system productive of metamorphosis or disease. So that a process which properly belongs, for instance, to the system of nerves-and-senses makes its appearance in another system, and is then a process of disease. An example of this is found in typhoid fever. Typhoid represents a process which belongs properly to the nervous system. While it should play its part there in the physical organisation, it plays its part as a matter of fact in the region of the metabolic system within the etheric organisation—within the ether body—works over into the physical body and appears there as typhoid. Here we see into the nature of the onset of illness. Or it can also happen that the dynamic force, or those forces which are active in a sense-organ (and must be active there in a certain degree in order that a sense-organ as such may arise)—become active somewhere where they should not. That which works in a sense-organ can be in some way or another transformed in its activity elsewhere. Let us take the activity of the ear. Instead of remaining in the system of nerves-and-senses, it obtrudes itself (and this under circumstances which can also be described) in another place—for example in the metabolic system where this is connected with the rhythmic system. Then there arises, in the wrong place, an abnormal tendency to produce a sense-organ; and this manifests itself as carcinoma—as a cancerous growth. It is only when we can look in this way into the human organism that we can perceive that carcinoma represents a certain tendency, displaced in respect of the systems, to the formation of a sense organ.

When we speak of the fertilisation of Medicine through Anthroposophy, it is a question of learning how abnormal conditions in the human organism arise from the fact that what is normal to one system transplants itself into another. And only by perceiving the matter thus is one in a position really to understand the human organism in its healthy and diseased states, and so to make the bridge from pathology to therapy, from observation of the patient to healing the patient.

When these things are represented as a connected whole, it will be seen how nothing that is said from this standpoint can in any way contradict modern medicine. As a first step in this direction I hope that very soon now the book [‘Fundamentals of Therapy,’ by Dr. Rudolf Steiner and Dr. Ita Wegman.] will be published that has been written by me in collaboration with Dr. Wegman, the Director of the Clinical and Therapeutic Institute at Arlesheim. This book will present what can be given from the spiritual-scientific standpoint, not as a contradiction of modern medicine but as an extension of it. People will then be able to convince themselves that it has nothing to do with the kind of superficiality which is so prevalent to-day. This book will show, in a way that will be justified by modern science, the fruitfulness that can enter into the art of Healing by means of spiritual scientific investigation. Precisely when these things can be followed up more and more in detail and with scientific conscientiousness, will those efforts be acknowledged which are being made by such an Institution as the International Laboratories of Arlesheim, [Now “Weleda,” A. G., Arlesheim.] where a whole range of new remedies is being prepared in accordance with the principles here set forth.

In the third lecture it will be my endeavour to consolidate still further (in so far as that can be done here in a popular manner), what has already been indicated as a rational therapy, by citing certain special cases of illness and the way in which they can be cured. Anyone who can really perceive what is meant will certainly not have any fear that the things stated cannot be subjected to serious test. We know that it will be the same in this as in all other domains of Anthroposophy; to begin with, there will be rebuffs, abuse and criticism by those who do not know it in detail. But those who do learn to know it in detail will stop their abuse. Therefore, in my third lecture I will go more into the particulars which will show that we are not evading modern science but are in full agreement with it, and that we proceed from the desire to enlarge the boundaries of Science by spiritual knowledge in the sphere of anthroposophical medicine.

Only when this is understood will the art of Healing stand upon its true foundations. For the art of Healing concerns man. Man is a being of body, soul and spirit. A real medicine can therefore only exist when it penetrates into a knowledge which embraces man in respect of all three—in respect of body, soul and spirit.