GA068a.json

[
  {
    "id": "GA068a-22",
    "title": "Esoteric Christianity: The Gospel of St. John and Ancient Mysteries",
    "date": "27 Nov 1906",
    "city": "Düsseldorf",
    "source": "https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA068a/English/Singles/19061127p01.html",
    "book_title": "",
    "content": "The time has now come to make known in wider circles that which has been spoken of throughout the history of the evolution of mankind under the name of the Mysteries or Mysticism, the so-called Esoteric Wisdom.\nFor in the soul of man, behind what comes to the light of day lies a deeper wisdom which has hitherto remained unknown to mankind in general.\nLet us be quite clear what it is men have always understood by the term “Mysteries” or the “esoteric.” All that has been brought about in the world through civilisation goes back ultimately to a few great personalities, a few leading individuals. For example, a construction like the Simplon tunnel can be traced back to the mental work of great individuals, who were not themselves directly concerned with the building of the tunnel but who made it possible, by their Intellectual discoveries, for others to build it.\nThe “practical” man would perhaps be of the opinion that such things are accomplished by an activity that is purely external. It would be the very greatest mistake to accede to such an opinion. Neither the engineers who conceived the plan, nor the workmen who carried it out, are the spiritual originators. If it were not for what is called Higher Mathematics as elaborated by Leibnitz, Newton and others, such works could never be there at all. These thinkers were necessary in order to bring into being what is called “technics.” If we go to the root of the matter, we shall find that such works could never have been achieved, nor any goods have been manufactured, without the soul of the Thinker .\nIf this is so with regard to the outer materialistic culture, it is true in still greater measure of the spiritual currents that flow through human history.\nAll the Religion and all the Art that has ever been brought to mankind, all the Justice that has ever borne rule in states, all the order and Morality that has lived among men leads back to great Initiates, leads back to hidden sources of Wisdom. This is what we find when we set out to look for the deeper origin of things.\nConsider the works of Art which have succeeded each other through the centuries, and you will find that they can all be traced back to deeper sources. Whether we take a poet like Dante, or a mind and spirit like Goethe's, or a painter such as Raphael, or again some great religious event in history — all moral and religious streams, all art and all science, lead back into the hidden places, where was cultivated in secret that which is known as Mysticism or Esotericism.\nAnd as with all other religions so with Christianity too we find its foundations in the esoteric. It is only an evidence of shortsightedness when the objection is raised, that Christianity is for simple hearts and should speak to the feelings and be comprehensible for all. That is a very shortsighted view. All religions, it is true, ultimately clothe their truths in sentences so full of power and impulse that no soul is too simple to receive them. What emerges finally, however, in this simple form, has its origin in the heights, with the so-called Initiates.\nThroughout history there have always been Initiates. In ancient India it was the Rishis who taught a primeval Wisdom. In Persia Zarathustra was the teacher of Wisdom. We look to Greece, to Egypt, to Rome, everywhere we find to begin with, a religion of the people, but standing in the midst of the people are always those who may be called spiritual “Giants,” unknown to mankind by name. These are they who formed themselves into occult brotherhoods. Whosoever wished to be accepted into such a brotherhood had to undergo a strict and severe probation. The probation had no immediate relation to the intellectual life. It was far more a question of a man's wrestling his way through to an inner freedom of character , where feelings and passions had no power with him. Then he had to learn not to misuse his knowledge. Men who had passed through severe trials and tests of this nature became missionaries to the rest of mankind. They were not allowed to have any other feeling or purpose in their heart, save only this — to serve and help mankind. They had to be men who would make real the words — “He who would be first among you, let him be the servant of all” — And in intellectual striving also they must never lag behind but always press on to find the Higher Truths.\nToday it is frequently said to one who believes in the possibility of knowing the Spiritual Worlds: But we human beings have boundaries to our knowledge. But inside the Mystery circles it was said: Thou has capabilities which slumber in thee; if thou develop them, then canst thou strive through to a Higher Knowledge.\nThe development a man was enabled to undergo by the training of his inner talents and capacities was called in the Mystery Centres a Second Birth. It was said that such a one experienced on a higher plane what a man born blind experiences here in the world of the senses when he has undergone an operation and can see. This “operation” on the soul, the re-birth in the Spirit, was performed for the Mystics in the Mysteries.\nThat which was called in the Mysteries the Kingdom of Heaven, into which the Mystic was led, was not in some other place. The Kingdom of the Spiritual World is here where man is. As many worlds are around us as we have ability to realize and grasp. It was no dry and abstract Wisdom that was received in the Mysteries, but a Wisdom which was at the same time Religion and Art.\nIn the Mysteries of Greece the spiritual eye of the Mystic was opened. It was shown to him how once in primeval times man had been half animal and how the soul had striven upwards to that stage of humanity upon which he now beheld himself. Three stages were shown to him. He saw first forms as they lived in a very distant evolution of mankind, then forms half animal and half man, and finally perfect human forms. These three types of the evolution of mankind stood before him in the Greek Mysteries and they found their expression in Greek sculpture. There was (1) the Zeus type, with the straight nose and with the eyes rounded out upwards; (2) the type of the God Mercury with woolly hair and snub nose; and (3) the type of the Satyr , with quite different eyes, different nose and different corners to the mouth. These three types stand before us in Greek art as an image of the stages of the evolution of mankind. At another time it was shown to the Mystic how the God himself descended into nature, how he evolved upwards through the mineral kingdom, plant kingdom and animal kingdom to the human kingdom and was then born anew out of the human heart. That was called the descent of the God, his Resurrection and his Ascension. The whole process was represented in the Greek drama. All that was represented in the drama came originally from the Mysteries.\nJust as the trunk of the tree divides itself into different branches, so did religion, science and art become divided in the Mysteries. The ancient Mysteries which were celebrated in Greece — the Eleusinian — and the Mysteries of the Egyptian Priest-wisdom were called Mysteries of the Spirit. Those who stood high in these Mysteries as teachers and leaders had attained to the spiritual worlds; they associated with Spirits, they had intercourse with Spiritual Beings. Iamblichus shows us how the Gods descended in the Mysteries. Only after moral purification, and only when the intellect had been made clear and lucid, could one obtain admission into these places of wisdom.\nThis is how it was in the ancient heathen times, in the times of the Mysteries of the Spirit. Never without the most wonderful enthusiasm and the most inward devotion did the Mystics speak of that which could be experienced in the Mystery-schools. Aristides speaks thus: “I thought I touched the God and felt him near, I myself being at the time in a condition between waking and sleeping. My spirit was light, so as none can describe or realise who has not himself been initiated.” And in another passage he says: “It was as if the Spiritual World flowed and poured around me.” Plutarch says, “He who had received initiation in these Mysteries greeted the Godhead with the greeting of eternity.” Whoever had had this experience was called “re-born.”\nWe must now say a little about what formed the last act in every such Initiation into the Mysteries of the Spirit.\nThere had first to be the moral purification and the clarifying of the intellect. Then the pupil must learn to see with the eyes of the Spirit. Behind the consciousness which accompanies us through the waking condition, there is another consciousness. This consciousness does not sink into complete darkness when man falls asleep. Man remains conscious at night, he is there present. But the consciousness which accompanies him from morning until evening, that does not remain. There is however a way of overcoming the unconsciousness man has in sleep; there are methods whereby this end can be attained. By a culture of the soul which brings about certain intimate processes in the innermost being of the soul, man can win through to the possibility of finding new revelations in his dream life; he can experience things which he recognises in another way than with the eyes and ears of the senses. It is immaterial whether a man recognizes the truth in sleep or by day when awake; in either case he must learn to carry over into reality the world which he there experiences. When in this way he has come into the position of being able to see the Spiritual in the whole world, then he has attained the first stage of initiation.\nAt the second stage he has an experience which is like living in a flowing ocean of colour. At this stage there is a higher initiation; a consciousness is developed wherein is revealed to him a still higher Spiritual world. Today in ordinary life man is not capable of awakening the consciousness which lies behind the physical world.\nIn the last act of the Mysteries of the Spirit the pupil was put into a kind of sleep. Care had been taken in the preparation that when the day consciousness sank down, consciousness did not cease. For three days and three nights the man lay in another state of consciousness in the Mystery temple, citizen and participator in another world. Then he was awakened by the Priest. He received a new name. He was an Initiate, he had been “born again.” One could say of the Mysteries of the Spirit: “Blessed are they who have experienced them, blessed are they who now behold in the Mysteries of the Spirit.”\nAt the time of Christ Jesus, to the Mysteries of the Spirit were added the Mysteries of the Son , and these have been ever since the time of Christ. The Mysteries of the Father — the Mysteries of the Future — are only cultivated in a very small circle. The Mysteries of the Son are cultivated in the Rosicrucian Mystery which is also Christian, for those who require a Christianity that is armed to meet all Wisdom.\nToday we will concern ourselves with the Mysteries of the Son, and see how they differ from the ancient heathen Mysteries. If we would grasp what a mighty step forward has been taken by the coming of Christianity, we must learn to understand two important utterances. The one is: “Blessed are they who believe, even when they do not see,” and the other: “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life.” If we comprehend these utterances in all their depth, then we understand the very foundation of Christianity.\nWhilst to the world at large Paul spoke in powerful kindling words, he also gave teachings to his intimate pupils which were transmitted first by word of mouth and then in writing, teachings that are connected with the name of Dionysius, who was known as Dionysius “The Areopagite.” We have here to do with something founded by Saint Paul himself, wherein was proclaimed the deepest wisdom. These teachings of Saint Paul were written down for the first time in the sixth century, in the writings of the so-called Pseudo-Dionysius. It is not so much the historical fact, but the content of these documents which is of interest for us.\nAn esoteric Christianity does exist. This is not admitted in certain circles, with the result that a peculiar place has been assigned to the Saint John Gospel. The Saint John Gospel is looked upon by theologians as a book which emanated out of poetic genius. They have however no understanding for what the Saint John Gospel means.\nWhereas the three other evangelists relate the exoteric. Saint John relates what he experiences as an initiated seer, who could look into the Spiritual worlds. The writer of the Saint John Gospel wrote from the point of view of an initiate. Whoever looks upon it as a book that one should read and understand in the same way as one reads and understands any other book knows nothing of the Saint John Gospel. He alone has knowledge of it who can experience it. Most translators do not render the Spirit of it at all.\nThe first words of this Gospel, rightly translated, sound as follows:\nIn the primeval beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and with God was the Word.\nThe same was in the primeval beginning with God.\nAll things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made.\nIn Him was the Life and the Life was the Light of men.\nAnd the Light shineth in the darkness, and the darkness comprehendeth it not.\nThere was a man sent from God whose name was John.\nThe same came for a witness to bear witness of the Light, that all might believe on it.\nHe was not the Light, but a witness of the Light.\nFor the true Light which lighteth every man, was to come into the world.\nIt was in the world, and the world was made by It, but the world knew It not.\nIt came into each individual man (even into the ‘I’ man It came) but the individual man (the ‘I’ man) did not receive It.\nThose who did receive It, through It they could reveal themselves as Children of God.\nThey who trusted in His Name were not born of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of human will, but of God.\nAnd the Word became Flesh and dwelt among us and we have heard His Teaching, the Teaching of the only Son of the Father, filled with Grace and Truth.\nThese words with their mighty content — one should not take them and speculate over them, but rather allow them to work upon one in the same manner as countless human beings have done through the centuries. Early in the morning when the soul was still virginal, they have let these words resound in their soul, up to the passage: “And the Word become Flesh and lived among us ...” as above.\nWhen a man does this day by day, then something shows itself in the soul which gives him new life, he is reborn, he is spiritually transformed. He sees around him a spiritual world of which he had previously no idea.\nEveryone who takes the first verses of the Saint John Gospel and lets them work upon him for the education and training of his soul, experiences the Saint John Gospel itself in mighty pictures.\nThere before his spiritual sight stands John the Baptist, as he baptises the Christ; there he sees the picture of Nicodemus, as he has his conversation with the Christ. He sees how Christ cleanses the Temple, he has before him all the following scenes of the Saint John Gospel, he experiences the “stations” from the thirteenth chapter onwards.\nIn order for the pupil to receive aright the influence of these words and find the ‘word’ which is proclaimed by the Saint John Gospel, the teacher spoke as follows: “Thou must fill thy soul for weeks at a time with this one feeling. Think of the plant. It is rooted in the dead stone. If it had consciousness, it would have to bow down to the dead stone and say to it: ‘Without thee I could not live; out of thee I drew nourishment and strength: I owe to thee my being, I thank thee.’ The animal would have to speak in similar words to the plant: ‘Without thee I could not live, I incline myself towards thee in thankfulness, because out of thee I draw that which I require for my existence.’ And it is the same with all the kingdom. Man, who has attained to a higher stage of evolution, must also bow down, as the plant to the stone, to those who work for him, and thank them.” He who would become a Christian Initiate must develop this feeling during a period of many weeks — the feeling that he owes gratitude to him who stands beneath him. Then he experiences in the spirit the thirteenth chapter of the Saint John Gospel where this feeling is given sublime and eternal expression by Christ in the Washing of the Feet. Christ means to say: “Without you I could not be, I incline myself to you as the plant to the stone.” As an outer symbol the Initiate experienced at this stage a feeling as if water were flowing around his feet. It continued for a long time.\nWhen he had gone through this, the Christian Mystic could experience the next stage of initiation. For this he must cultivate the power to endure all the storms and stresses of life. Then he experienced a second picture. He saw himself scourged, and could feel in his own body something like pain at certain points. This went on for many weeks. He experienced the scourging.\nNow he could rise to the third stage. The teacher said to him: “Thou must cultivate a feeling which can endure that all thou holdest highest should be treated with scorn and derision.” The scorn and derision must be for him nothing, in comparison with his own inner strength and certainty. Then the pupil experienced two symptoms of Christian initiation. He experienced the crowning with thorns; spiritually he saw himself with the crown of thorns and experienced a kind of pain in the head which is the sign of this stage of initiation. Afterwards, as a fourth experience he had to develop the feeling that his body was no more for him than any other object in the world. He carried the body with him only as an instrument. In many Mystery-schools one learned to accustom oneself to speak in the following way: “My body goes through the door,” and so on. In this way the mystic experienced in himself the Crucifixion. He saw himself crucified. The outer symbol was that during the meditation stigmata appeared at the places of the wounds of Christ — in the hands, in the feet and in the right side. This is the blood-trial of the Mystic, the fourth stage of initiation.\nAfter this the pupil rose to the fifth station which is called the mystic death, a sublime experience of a spiritual nature, of which no more than an indication can be given. There are moments for a pupil when the whole of the physical world surrounds him as with a black veil. In these moments he learns to know the origins of evil. This was called the descent into hell. Then came a strange and wonderful feeling as if the whole curtain were torn asunder. The mystic death — followed by the mystic awakening!\nThe sixth stage is the so-called Laying in the Grave. All that the earth bears must become as precious to man as his own body. The physical body of man could not exist separated from the earth. If it were removed even a few miles from the earth it would wither, as the hand would wither when separated from the body. What my body is for my finger, that the earth is for men. The independence man attributes to himself is an illusion. And just as man is dependent physically on the earth, so is he dependent spiritually on the Spiritual World. When man comes to feel his unity with the whole planet — then is he “laid in the earth,” then does he undergo the “burial.”\nHereon follows the seventh stage, the “Resurrection” and the “Ascension.” Man experiences here the Eternal. This stage does not admit of description. The Egyptian Priests (who were also their Wise Men) did not make use of the symbols of writing to describe such things. The Mysteries must find a way to tell what cannot be expressed in words. Through the power and might, through the magical power of the Saint John Gospel itself, these things can be experienced.\nSuch an initiation is the initiation of the Son. It has only been possible since Christ came to earth. The outward Christ who walked in Palestine is related to the inward Christ whom the mystic experiences, as the sun is related to the eye. If there were no eye, then could the sun not be perceived. But the sun produced the eye. Where there is no light, the organ for the light is also lost. The eye was gradually created by the Sun. The eye was created for the light by the light, says Goethe. Whosoever allows the Saint John Gospel to work upon him, develops the inner eye. But, as without the sun the eye would never have come into being, so would spiritual seership never have been there if Christ, the Spiritual Sun, had not walked the earth in person. No Christianity without the personal Christ Jesus: that is the essential and all-important fact .\nAll other founders of religion could say of themselves: “I am the way and the truth.” All were teachers. Christianity has brought no new teaching. But that is not important. The important thing is that Christians feel themselves bound together with the personal Christ Jesus, as in a family. That is what matters — that He was there , and has lived and has said: “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life .”\nOriental teachers of religion have exoteric teaching and esoteric, in the same way as Christianity has. Christianity differs from them in that exoteric Christianity is more simple and popular, it speaks to the heart, to the feelings; while esoteric Christianity is essentially deeper than all oriental esoteric. The truth is, the Christian esotericism is the most profound which has ever been brought to mankind.\nChristian esotericism was brought to the earth by that very Being Himself with whom one must be united. It is a question of belief in the divinity of Christ. In the ancient Mysteries one had to behold personally during the three days of initiation. What formerly was only present in the Mysteries — that is, in the Mysteries of the Spirit — has in Christianity become an historical fact. The events in Palestine are historical fact and at the same time symbol. Christianity is of such a nature that the simplest heart can grasp it; and yet the wisest man will never outgrow it. For the deepest teachings of Wisdom lie therein.\nIf we understand the Saint John Gospel as a Book of Life , so that we wish to live with it, and let it come to life within us, then we shall come to know esoteric Christianity. Such esoteric Christianity has always existed, it has always been active wherever Christianity has been able to manifest in a worthy and noble way, wherever Christianity has brought the blessings of culture and civilisation to mankind.\nInto all those who had experienced union and fellowship with Christ Jesus there streamed such strength as enabled them to know that life will always gain the victory over death, and that death is never a reality.\nGoethe said that the great World Powers invented death in order to have “much life” in the world. Christianity is a proof that there can arise in the soul a consciousness of the fact that Life is continually and always the Victor in the world."
  },
  {
    "id": "GA068a-39",
    "title": "The Origin of Evil",
    "date": "20 Feb 1908",
    "city": "Kassel",
    "source": "https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA068a/English/Singles/19080220p01.html",
    "book_title": "",
    "content": "Translator Unknown\nLadies and Gentlemen,\nThere are world riddles which not only meet us when we turn our attention to the great events of life, but which meet us at every touch and turn in everyday life. We could bring forward many such riddles of life, one such is that which shall occupy us today: the question of the origin of evil. It is one of those riddles which meet us in everyday life but which can only find an answer if we go back to the sources and origin of life. Such a question especially shows us in the way it has been treated by man since ancient times that really it can only fruitfully be approached by what we call spiritual science or the theosophical world view. Without that important insight in the world, without that penetration to the sources of existence which can flow to us through this stream of cultural life, an answer is not possible. Hence you will have to undertake with me a really wide path to the sources of existence in order to penetrate this, in a certain connection, everyday enigma. He who only regards the world with that mood flowing out of materialism which follows the course of actions only with the senses cannot find an answer to this question in the remotest degree.\nEvil arises for us, but of course not in its real sense, in the inferior being in human life. The wise person who is also a believer asks how it is reconcilable with a wise ordering of the world which one also calls providence, that this providence lets man sink to what we call evil — that the Godhead lets man become evil in order then to punish him. Not merely the simple believer understands it thus but we hear the same in a poem which the young Goethe composed when he calls these words to a divine spirituality:\nThou let'st the poor man come to grief, Then leavest him to his pain.\nThis question becomes really impenetrable to one who stands on less religious ground. Without a soul-spiritual basis we come to no ordered concept of evil, let alone any connection with the cosmic spirit. Since man was able to think, the leaders of man, the thinkers, have tried to solve the question: Whence comes evil? What meaning has it?\nWe must look back for once into that past age of Persian myths and the continuous conflict of Ormuzd against the evil powers already designated as Ahriman, a continuous fighter against the good. Ahriman is there shown us as the force which in conflict causes a strengthening of the good spirit. If with a great leap we immerse ourselves in the deep meaning of a German thinker, Jakob Böhme, then we find his writings and the continuous course of his life entirely filled with the question as to the origin of evil. Jakob Böhme says that a multiplicity only arises out of a unity, but the multiplicity must be guided however only by the will of the unity, as for example the two hands, which if they are not directed by one will are separate members. Without this guiding unity we can create no great work. These hands can storm against each other, they can mangle each other. The possibility is just then given when that which we call freedom is given to the two. As long as the two hands are determined by the personality, and as long as one will rule them, they will not turn against each other.\nAnd here a feeling already flows into Jakob Böhme that evil has something to do with love. When the Divine Being flowing through the world so loves the world that it extends Being to everything and holds nothing back, in order to give to the multiplicity as great a freedom as possible then the many can strive against each other.\nWe could speak at length about this if we let the thinkers pass before us, we could bring forward many examples from the great epochs but we would always get only a kind of philosophical answer. Today however we do not want philosophical answers, and so without deviation we would occupy ourselves with the spiritual world in order to get a firm point for the answering of our question. In order not to expand our mode of observation too far I should like at once to go to the heart of the matter, and for this we must bring quite briefly the nature of man before the soul. We are clear that evil must have something to do with human nature.\nIf we consider man from the standpoint of what the eyes see and the hands grasp then we only have but one part of human nature in the sense of spiritual science. We only see the physical part of man which he has in common with all apparently lifeless beings. Everything to be found in the human body is also existing there, only of course these mineral forces exist in man in quite a special manner. They are so complicatedly interwoven) so manifoldly built up that the physical body would fall asunder through its own physical laws unless something penetrated it like water penetrates a sponge, something which combats in each man in each moment all disturbances in the physical body. We call this fighter the etheric or life body. In each one of you the physical body would be exposed in every moment to decay unless that fighter, that victor which we call the etheric or life body were in you. Man has this in common with the whole of living nature, this fighter is there in everything that lives. In the moment when at death the physical body is separated from the etheric body then it follows physical laws, it decays and passes over into lifeless nature. The etheric body is something that is regarded by science today as something impossible. Yet we cannot enter further into that but must bring forth the matter only sketchily. Besides the etheric body man has a third member of his being. For one whose spiritual eyes are opened this third member is always visible. You can present this third member logically to yourselves.\nWe ask ourselves — Are the physical and etheric bodies everything? A simple consideration is enough to show that there is really something existing which stands far nearer to man than his bones, muscles, blood and nerves. Something lies quite close as a reality that is the sum of what we call feelings, instincts, passions. That belongs to us in reality and is existing in the same space where blood, muscles, nerves, exist. We have this part of human nature in common only with the animals, not with the plants.\nNow there is a fourth member through which man is the crown of creation. The fourth member of his being is that which enables him to comprise everything which is in him, in the name ‘I’. This name ‘I’ is a name which already hides the secret nature of his being in the distinction which it shows compared with all other names which we have in language. Each person can call a chair “chair”, a table “table” etc., yet the name ‘I’ no one can hear from outside, it must come from one’s own soul. Each object can have its name resounding to us from outside, the ‘I’ can only be heard coming from oneself. All world views which were built on what we call spiritual science have always felt this. In the old Hebraic religion you find for this intimate name of the soul the unutterable Name of God. Why is it so called? If the soul is to hear her true name then something speaks in the soul which can be united with the soul without penetrating it through any organ from outside. The ‘I’ must resound from out of the soul itself. A spark of divine being is in the soul in which it utters its own name ‘I’.\nThat which a distorted philosophy has also wanted to find is the true significance of the word “Jahve”, the unutterable name of the divine soul-part in man. This was also meant when, in ancient Egypt, the veiled image of Sais was referred to. We can read the inscriptions: “I am Who was, Who is, and Who will be. My veil no mortal has lifted.” An investigator, a German romanticist said something correct out of an extraordinary instinct although he did not go deep enough: “No mortal has lifted the veil, we must become immortal.”\nIt was the view of the great Egyptian priestly magi that the ‘I’ was veiled but that the coverings must fall away. No other can solve the nature of the ‘I’ than the ‘I’ itself when it becomes conscious of its true nature by descending into its own depths where it grasps itself in its own immortality; then it knows what is concealed behind the veil. Of course only the very few today are inclined to gaze into the nature of the ‘I’, the utterance of Fichte still holds good: Most people would sooner regard themselves as a piece of lava in the moon than as an ‘I’. Since Fichte we have seen the coarse materialism flow into the culture of the 19th century. People today are very satisfied when they can partially know something physical and demonstrate it materialistically. They regard themselves as being more like a piece of lava in the moon than an ‘I’. It would be nonsensical to speak of the higher members of man's nature if in the sense of spiritual investigation one were to speak of the fourth member as a mere phenomenon of the physical body. Naturally spiritual investigation must have something in this sphere which must appear very stupid to a person who so often thinks today that everything must rest on the basis of scientific facts. That which occurs in the etheric body, the astral body and the ‘I’ is not the effect of the physical body but the reverse. What transpires in the physical and etheric bodies is the work of the astral body. Only when one gradually raises oneself to this view is one able to answer this question.\nJust consider for example processes which meet us every day. Something arouses in us the feeling of shame. There is something in me of which I desire my environment should see nothing — I blush. Another process is the feeling of fear, noticeable through pallor. With shame a stream of blood rises to the head. With fear the blood recedes back from the head into the inner part of the body. What has happened? A soul process works on the body. Each of these events appears as the result of a soul process. They are indications of how soul working plays into the material. These effects in what is material are not so easily perceptible today. They have more or less withdrawn because of the mighty transformations which the physical body has undergone (as compared with earlier forms of existence). But the further we go back in human evolution all the more do spiritual influences get the upper hand.\nThere are indeed people today who go so far as to deny the working of the soul on the material body. One might not think that people exist with such materialistic views but there is in America a theological school which calls itself pragmatism. They have brought their views to an expression which reveals the grotesqueness of the materialism advocated therein. We need merely bring this utterance for once to our mind: “Man does not weep because he is sad, but he is sad because he weeps.” It is obvious here how the materialistic world view comes into contradiction with the healthy human understanding.\nIt is a fact that must appear natural to us that such consequences are drawn, and they appear today in numerous spheres; only they do not come to the surface in such grotesque fashion. If we now keep firm that physical processes are effects of the spiritual-psychic then it will no longer appear wrong to us if, going back into very ancient times of human evolution we find these effects are all the more significant the further we go back, so that we have to reckon with far-reaching spiritual influences in ancient times of human evolution which today are concealed.\nYou know perhaps that the theosophical view says that human existence runs its course in repeated earth lives. We will only bring that forward briefly. Man goes through many earth lives in his evolutionary path to ever higher perfection. We say in spiritual investigation that everything that lives is subject to transformation. Everything in the world is subject to such transformation, not only man but also mighty worlds are subject to continual change. Just as when we regard the single human being and say “That which transpires in the present life between birth and death is the result of former incarnations,” so we can look to a whole heavenly body and we only understand such a body in the sense of spiritual science when we know that it has acquired in former lives that which it has become today. We also say of the earth and planets that they have passed through other incarnations. As the spiritually highly developed man can look back to former earth lives so earlier planetary conditions can be perceived from the standpoint of spiritual science. We point back to the previous planetary condition of the earth, and this pre-earth is called in spiritual science Cosmos of Wisdom.\nA glance at what is around you can make clear to you why we look back to this pre-earth as the cosmos of wisdom. Just regard man’s physical body. Look at one piece. Take a piece of the thigh bone which is composed of countless scaffoldings and members. It is an artistically constructed structure built with wonderful wisdom. It is so constructed through engineering art full of wisdom that the thigh bone, in spite of its relatively small strength, is able to carry the upper body. No engineer is able to construct such a bridge-like structure with such wisdom, and whoever looks at this wonderful human structure knows what great wisdom is contained in it. We know however also that other members of man are not yet so wise. We need merely think how the passions and impulses of the astral body work. What we eat and drink often contain heart poisons, and yet the heart is built so full of wisdom that it can bear these attacks for decades. Everywhere we find this Wisdom spread out. In the structure of the body we find this wisdom everywhere, in each blossom, in each animal, and we see how the world is penetrated by this wisdom.\nLet us look at the beaver and his dam, building it with marvellous art — if one measures the angles then one will find they are quite exactly measured. So we could observe bit by bit everything that surrounds us. Could we now extract this wisdom from out the world unless it were there within it? The materialistic mood denies that the wisdom which man draws out is in the phenomena. But a natural thinking would tell you that something which man extracts from nature must be contained in it. As little as one can drink water from a glass if none is in it, just as little can one extract wisdom from the world if none is in it. But this wisdom is there and spiritual science knows that this wisdom was in all things at the beginning of earth evolution. Thus in a plant seed for example was a beech; as a proof of this we see a beech tree grows from it and not an oak. The earth carried the wisdom which meets us today already when the things around us were still in germ. Just as truly as the seed comes not from the earth but from the plant, so truly the seed from which our earth was born arose from what the earth was previously. That was the cosmos of wisdom. That which you see today in each leaf, in each organ in man's form, in everything spread out around you, slowly and gradually arose, formed itself member by member and only appeared after wisdom had struggled with wisdom. We had an embodiment on the previous stage of our earth where the wisdom of things was worked out in which, so to say, the things in their wisdom were worked over. What has our earth, to which this Wisdom has come over, for a task? It has its special mission. Just as its predecessor developed the wisdom which surrounds us today bit by bit, similarly our earth today develops bit by hit another cosmic force, and this force is love. Therefore in spiritual investigation we call the earth the Cosmos of Love. The evolution of the earth so runs its course that love appears as a force becoming more and more dominant, and when the earth will have reached its goal then everything will be penetrated by the force of love. Hence we call the earth the cosmos of love. Just as on the previous cosmos the beginning was made with un-wisdom and only gradually was the form of wisdom worked out, so this earth runs its course so that gradually love is worked out. Then when the earth has reached its goal love will be spread out everywhere, everything will be permeated with love, and the earth will have beings on it who will find love just as we find wisdom in everything that surrounds us. Those who will be on the new embodiment of the earth will stand wonderingly before love, just as we stand in wonderment before wisdom. Our earth has the holy mission of letting flow the impulse of love into things. The impulse is here to fulfil this mission, to make it deed. Thus we have to think of the structure of our earth as the cultivation of love going through the entire earth evolution of man. If we see this then we have a handle for understanding today's question, only we must be clear that man is not the only being around us. You know the spiritual investigator does not speak of the spiritual worlds as of something far off in the clouds, but he speaks of them in a natural and self understood way. A person born blind who has his eyes opened suddenly sees everything flooded with light and radiance. He sees a new world around him which was existing before just as light and colours existed before his eyes were opened. In this world which only an unlogical thinking can deny, other beings are existing with other forms of spirituality than man has. We can form an idea of these spiritual beings by bringing to mind that man is in a continual evolution. He must ascend ever higher and higher. In each incarnat-ion he experiences something, he becomes an ever more perfect being.\nWhat perspectives thus open out? We see the great ideals of Man, the Man of the future elevated like a God. We see that as man today stands higher than animal and plant thus will the future man stand to his present existence. Spiritual science knows already today that beings stand above man at his present stage in evolution who are as perfect as we will be in a far future. They are beings highly exalted above man and who long ago passed through the stage we are at today, who have a purely spiritual life and no longer have need to descend to a physical body. Thus we see as man begins his earthly existence, as he leads over what was existing of him from the cosmos of wisdom, then not only he enters the cosmos of love but also higher spiritual guiding beings.\nWho are these? The same as those who let their wisdom flow into the cosmos of wisdom. The same as those who built that cosmos of wisdom out of their creative wisdom. What we have finished before us today has been created by these beings. They are the possessors of productive wisdom. They have put in their wisdom. Because previously in the cosmos of wisdom they developed creatively in reference to wisdom, they have acquired the power of letting love trickle as it were on the earth to all earth men, and bit by bit this love flows to the earth. We need merely cast a brief glance at this earth, then we see how love gradually developed. It appears to us in ancient times in the narrowest limits. Who loved each other in ancient times? At first only small groups of those blood-related. Then we see love spread beyond the narrowest blood relationship. The circle love draws together becomes ever wide. At first we see marriage only between those closely related. Then love spreads to a whole tribe, and then in the Old Testament the whole people is loved, and he who does not belong to the people is foreign. The way is far but we have taken the great step where love is led over from the principle of blood relationship into the spiritual, to the great brother-bond which should span the earth to the Christ-Principle. This is referred to in the utterance: Who does not forsake father and mother, brother and sister and follow Me … etc.\nThis utterance is not to be taken literally. It refers to the fact that love should leave the narrow circle of blood relationship and become spiritual. It should embrace each soul; that is the great mission of Christianity, to make love more and more spiritual until it reaches the form of an all embracing love with which the whole earth should be permeated, so that the beings of the next world will find this love in all things as we have found wisdom. So we see that during earth existence the mission is fulfilled in that what man has brought over from the pre-earth is permeated with love. The assimilation of love is the task man has to develop in the earthly course of the human race. Thus we can see that a whole force which leads men together, progresses ever further into ever widening circles.\nThat is possible only to love. Let us go back once more from the cosmos of love to the cosmos of wisdom. What was existing of man at the transition? That which I described as the four members of his being making man the crown of creation was not yet existing at the beginning of our earth evolution, only the beginnings of the physical, etheric and astral bodies. But just as a seed decays and yet rises again letting a plant arise, so man disappears at the transition from the cosmos of wisdom to the cosmos of love, to arise again on our present earth and gradually the ‘I’ develops. This I must be there as the counterpart to the force of love. Love has other conditions of existence than wisdom. Wisdom can run where all the single members are dependent on each other. Wisdom can rule where a being in love holds sway. But if love is to pass from one being to another that can only happen where it is a free gift which must be there as a Father force.\nOnly such beings have the force for love who have the divine force for the ever greater acquirement of freedom.\nThe I is the counter-pole of love. The I impressed itself in the same measure as love impressed itself. That could only happen gradually in evolution. In the beginning blood speaks, the blood which is related to the loved being. Here love appears to us at the most primitive stage. Love develops more and more to a soul-spiritual force, and therewith the ‘I’ makes itself free. But in order to understand the true evolution of man within the cosmos of love we must keep one thing in mind. We must see that in the cosmos things go on as in a school. Here some always remain behind. similarly this happens in the cosmos. Those beings of whom we have spoken who stand exaltedly above man, those created in productive wisdom could pass over to love. But some remained behind who did not reach the final goal of the cosmos of wisdom, who did not finish their task. They still had to work at wisdom and could not yet stream out love which was not yet given to them.\nThey are beings who stand between the exalted beings and man. Spiritual science calls them the Luciferic beings under the dominion of Lucifer. One may laugh but just as, for example, magnetic forces are around us, so are the luciferic. They extend into the cosmos of love from out of the cosmos of wisdom. They were the beings who endowed man with their small wisdom. They created the subjective, intellectual wisdom of man in the ‘I’ which first became impregnated as it were therewith. An independence was given to this I which only suited it on the cosmos of wisdom if this love-filled wisdom had reached a definite stage. Thus the ‘I’ got a force which it should now transform in independence. Only in the measure in which the Christ principle illuminated it did the ‘I’ become capable of placing itself in harmony with all the forces of its environment on the earth. Before this approach to the Christ ideal is attained such beings again and again take firm hold in man, who are the opposing powers of the ‘I’. Their force is a separating force which will separate the ‘I’ too soon. The Luciferic beings lead a conflict against everything which brings men together.\nThis force has also its good task. It hinders man falling into, as it were, a primeval mash of love. Just as man had to be prepared for love, so earlier they had to be prepared for wisdom. Thus this luciferic principle is to be seen as the principle of illumination of independence. So we have two forces which lead humanity in two different directions and therewith we have the principle of the independent I which consolidates itself out of this conflict. Without this independence love would not be possible; without this independence the origin of evil would not be possible; love makes evil necessary. Hence comes the principle of love which arises from the spirits of love, and the principle of wisdom which arises from the spirits of wisdom. Both lead us from soul to soul, spirit to spirit, I to I. Evil rests on this spiritual fact. The possibility of evil was given with the possibility of love. Only because the God of the earth is the God of Love, and beings became independent I-men was the origin of evil possible. Love made evil possible.\nMan first attains free love and true greatness through the Luciferic powers, and only thereby he takes the forces of evil into himself. The forces of love must penetrate the whole earth, must have overcome evil, have converted it as it were by the end of the earth's course. We see that what man owes to evil is a good. He owes to evil freedom. The origin of evil lies in the Luciferic principle as lies also the origin of freedom, with which is given the possibility of the development of love.\nIf we think of the earth without everything evil then only a tiny force of love is necessary to overcome the forces of evil. The forces of love grow because they have the task of transforming the existing evil in love. Thus we really see something of what Böhme felt, that evil strengthens the mission of love. Thus we see together with the origin of evil the meaning of evil, and if we consider evil spiritually scientifically then we see evil justified in a certain way. Then wherever it meets us we regard it with other feelings.\nIf this penetrates our feelings then it makes quite a different impression on us, not for one who just grasps it speculatively but for one who grasps it theosophically. If we have quiet hours and elevate our spirit to the great riddles then we must experience something so mighty that in evil we yet feel the good. Thus we permeate ourselves with feelings which then go with us in life at every step. We face the whole world thinking, feeling and acting, and that is most essential. Oh, we will become mild if we see what formerly enraged us. These feelings which result as the foundation from those quiet hours constitute the theosophical life. We shall consider this tomorrow even more applied to daily life. Today we have only been able to indicate the function of evil in fleeting outline.\nWe have attained the view that we are short-sighted if we bring forward as an objection to the evil, the wisdom, the love, the spirit of the world. We have seen that this spirit of love powerfully flows through the world, and is such a good spirit that once it brought evil into the world in order to bring about the most effective, beneficial good."
  },
  {
    "id": "GA068a-43",
    "title": "The Bible and Wisdom",
    "date": "5 Dec 1908",
    "city": "Hanover",
    "source": "https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA068a/English/Singles/19081205p01.html",
    "book_title": "",
    "content": "From shorthand report unrevised by the lecturer. English translation first printed by Rudolf Steiner Publishing Company, 1941. Second printing Steiner Book Centre, 1986. The original German text of this lecture can he found in the collected edition of Rudolf Steiner's works under the title: “ Der Kreislauf des Menschen innerhalb des Sinnes —, Seelen — und Geisteswelt ”, No. 68 in the Bibliographical Survey, 1961. This English edition is presented by permission of the Rudolf Steiner Nachlassverwaltung , Dornach, Switzerland.\nIt cannot he doubted that the influence of the Bible on Western Culture has been greater than that of any other document. It may truly be said that as a result of the influence of the Bible, the human soul has for thousands of years maintained a hold on the most inward being of man, — a hold which has extended to the life of feeling and also to the life of will. The influence in these two spheres of man's being has been stronger than in his thinking and conceptional life, although it may be said that all spiritual life, be it in the region of religion or of exact science, bears traces of the influence of the Bible. And it is evident to those who look more deeply into things, that the very arguments of men who to-day feel bound to attack the Bible — taking up in some cases the radical standpoint of downright denial — themselves show traces of its influence. There has never been any general recognition, and to-day there is practically none, of the extent of the influence of this document; but it exists nevertheless in actual fact to those who have an unbiased outlook. The attitude adopted towards the Bible by modern thought, feeling and perception, has for some time past changed very considerably from what it used formerly to be. The value of the Bible, the attitude adopted towards it by men who to-day take it seriously has altered essentially in the course of the 19th Century. We must not of course undervalue in any sense the standpoint of many modern thinking men who feel themselves bound to take a firm stand on the ground of Science. There are others who hold fast to the Bible, who derive all their deepest convictions from this most significant record, and who prefer to pay no attention when the value of the Bible is under discussion. The attitude of such people is: ‘Others may think as they like; we find in the teachings of the Bible all that our souls need and we are quite satisfied.’ Such a point of view, however justifiable it may be in individual cases, is, in a certain sense entirely egoistical and by no means without danger for spiritual evolution.\nThat which in a given epoch has become an universal blessing to men — or, let us say, an universal belief and conviction, has always originated with the few; and it may well be that an ever increasing stream of conviction may flow out to become universal in no very distant future from the few who to-day feel themselves compelled to attack the Bible because of their desire to build up their world-conception conformably with their Science. For this reason to ignore such spiritual and mental currents and to refuse to listen because one is oneself satisfied is not without an element of danger. Anyone who really takes the evolution of mankind seriously ought rather to regard it as a duty to take notice of the objections brought by sincere seekers for Truth, and to see what relation these objections have to the Bible.\nI have said that the attitude adopted by men, and especially by leaders of intellectual and spiritual life has changed. To-day we shall do no more than point to this change. Were we to look back into the past we should find civilisations where men, especially when they stood at the summit of their spiritual life, doubted not at all that the very highest wisdom flowed from the Bible; and that those with whom it originated were not just average men who were responsible for human errors in it, but were under lofty inspiration and infused it with wisdom. This was a feeling of reverent recognition among those who stood on the heights of spiritual life. In modern times this has changed.\nIn the 18th Century there was a French investigator who came to the conclusion that certain contradictions exist in the Old Testament. He noticed that the two Creation stories at the very beginning of the Bible contradict one another, that one story describes the work of the six or seven days including the creation of man, and that then there is a further account with a different beginning, which ascribes quite a different origin to man. This investigator was specially disconcerted by the fact that at the beginning of the Bible two names of the God-head occur, the name of the ‘Elohim’ in the narrative of the six days' creation, and then later the name of Jehova. There is an echo of this in the German Bible. In the German Bible the name of the God-head is translated ‘Lord,’ ‘God,’ and then Jehova is translated by ‘God the Lord’ or in some such way; at all events the difference is apparent. Upon noticing this the investigator suspected that something had given rise to the untenable statement that the Bible was written by a single individual, whether Moses or someone else, and that different accounts must have been welded together. And after much deliberation he came to the conclusion that all the existing accounts corresponding to the different traditions were simply welded together; one account being amalgamated with another and all the contradictions allowed to stand.\nAfter, and as a result of this, there appeared the kind of investigation which might well be called a mutilation of the Bible. To-day there are Bibles in which the various points of detail are traced back to different traditions. In the so-called Rainbow Bible it is stated for instance, how some portion or other that has come to be inserted into the collective statement has its origin in quite a different legendary tradition — hence it is said that the Bible must have been welded together from shreds of tradition. It became more and more general for investigators to proceed along this line in regard to the Old Testament, and then the same thing happened in the case of the New Testament. How could the fact be hidden that when the four Gospels are submitted to literal comparison they do not agree with each other? It is easy to discover contradictions in the Matthew, Luke and John Gospels. And so the investigators said: How can the single Evangelists have written their respective Gospels under lofty inspiration, when the accounts do not agree? The Gospel of St. John — that most profound writing of Christendom — was divested of all worth as an historical document in the minds of some investigators of the 19th Century. Men came more and more to be convinced of the fact that it was nothing but a kind of hymn, written down by someone on the basis of his faith and not an historical tradition at all. They said that what he had written down could in no way lay claim to being a true description of what had actually taken place in Palestine at the beginning of our era. And so the New Testament was torn into shreds. The Old and New Testaments were treated just like any other historical document; it was said that bias and error had crept into them, and that before all things it was necessary to show by purely historical investigation, how the fragments had been gradually pieced together. This is the standpoint which more and more came to be adopted by historical, theological investigation.\nOn the other side let us turn to those who felt compelled to stand firmly on the ground of the facts of Natural Science, — who said, quite sincerely and honestly as a result of their knowledge: ‘What we are taught by Geology, Biology and the different branches of Natural Science, flatly contradicts what the Bible relates. The Bible story of the development of the earth and living beings through the six days of creation, is of the nature of a legend or a myth of primitive peoples, whereby they tried, in their childlike fashion to make the origin of the earth intelligible to themselves.’ And such men alienated themselves from the New Testament in the same degree as from the Old Testament. Men who feel compelled to hold fast to the facts of Natural Science will have nothing to do with all the wonderful acts performed by the Christ, with the way in which this unique Personality arises at the critical point of our history, and they radically oppose the very principle on which the Bible is based. Thus we see on the one hand the Bible torn to pieces by historical-theological investigation, and on the other hand put aside, discredited by scientific research.\nThat may serve briefly to characterise the outlook of to-day; but if nobody troubled about this, and simply persisted in the attitude: ‘I believe what is in the Bible’ — that would be Egoism. Such men would only be thinking of themselves and it would not occur to them that future generations might hold as an universal conviction that which to-day is only the conviction of a few.\nWe may now ask: is there perhaps yet a further standpoint other than the two we have indicated? Indeed there is, and it is just this that we want to consider to-day. It is the standpoint of Spiritual Science, or Anthroposophy. We can in the first instance understand this best by means of comparison. The Anthroposophical standpoint with regard to the Bible offers to our modern age something similar to that which was accomplished three or four centuries ago by the mighty achievements of scientific research; Anthroposophy seeks to form a connecting link with what was achieved by such men as Kepler, Copernicus, Galileo.\nTo-day we build upon the foundations of what was achieved by such personalities as these. When we look back to the relation which in former days existed between men and nature, we find that in the old Schools or Academics, certain books carried just as much weight as the Bible does with many people to-day. Aristotle, the ancient Greek scholar, whose achievements were by no means confined to the sphere of Natural Science, was looked upon by the widest circles both in the early and later Middle Ages as a far-reaching Authority. Wherever men were taught about nature the books of Aristotle were taken as the basis. His writings were fundamental and authoritative not only in spheres where men pursued the study of Nature in a more limited, philosophical sense, but also in spheres of definitely scientific thought. It was not customary in those days to look out at Nature with one's own eyes, and it was not a question of instruments, apparatus and other things of that kind. In the time of Galileo a highly symptomatic incident occurred, and it has been handed down as a kind of anecdote. It was pointed out by a colleague to a man who was a convinced follower of Aristotle, that many of the master's utterances were not correct; for instance that the nerves proceeded from the heart, this being contrary to the real facts. A corpse was placed in front of the man and it was demonstrated to him that this utterance of Aristotle did not agree with the facts. He said: ‘Yes, when I look at that myself it seems a contradiction, but even if Nature does show it to me I still believe Aristotle.’ And there were many such men, — men who had more faith in the teachings and the authority of Aristotle than in their own eyes. To-day men's point of view about Nature and also about Aristotle has changed. In our time it would be considered ridiculous to derive from ancient books the knowledge of nature which men ought to possess. To-day the scientist confronts nature with his instruments and tries to explore her secrets in order that they may become a common good for all men. But circumstances were such that in the time of Galileo, those who were imbued with the teachings of Aristotle to the same degree as this above mentioned follower, did not understand the Greek Master in the very least, Aristotle meant something different, something very much more spiritual, than what we understand to-day by the nerves. And because of this we cannot do real justice to Aristotle — whose vision was in accordance with the age in which he lived — until we look into nature with free and impartial eyes.\nThat was the great change that took place three or four centuries ago — and we are experiencing such another now in reference to the Spiritual Science and those spiritual facts and processes which are the spiritual foundations of existence.\nFor centuries the Bible was taken by a very large number of men to be the only book able to give information about all that transcended the tangible, physical world. The Bible was the Authority so far as the spiritual world was concerned, just as Aristotle in the Middle Ages was the authority for the physical world.\nHow has it come about that to-day we are in a position to do greater justice to Aristotle? It is because we face the physical world from a position of greater independence. And what Anthroposophy has to give to man of modern times, is the possibility of acquiring direct cognition of the invisible world, just as centuries ago the new age began to acquire direct knowledge of the visible world. Spiritual Science states that it is possible for man to look into and perceive the spiritual world; that he need not be dependent upon tradition, but can see for himself. This is what true Spiritual Science has to achieve for modern humanity — it has to convince man that slumbering powers and faculties exist within him; that there are certain great moments in life when these spiritual faculties awaken just as when a blind man is operated upon and is able to see colour and light. To use Goethe's phrase: the spiritual ears and eyes awaken, and then the soul of man can perceive in its environment what is otherwise concealed. The awakening of the faculties slumbering in the soul is possible; it is possible for man to acquire an instrument whereby he call look into spiritual causes, just as with his physical instruments he looks into the physical world. We have all kinds of instruments for the perception of the physical world — and for perception of the spiritual world there is also an instrument — namely, man himself, transformed. From the standpoint of spiritual science the most important thing of all is that the word ‘Evolution’ should be taken in all seriousness, — ‘Evolution,’ which is a kind of magic word on many lips. It is not difficult to-day to perceive how the imperfect continually develops and evolves, and this evolution is carefully followed up in external Natural Science. To this conception Anthroposophy would not set up the slightest opposition where it remains in the region of scientific facts. But Anthroposophy takes the word ‘Evolution’ in its full meaning, — and so seriously that it points to those faculties which lie in the soul of man by means of which he can become aware of the Spiritual world. Spiritual beings are the foundation and basis of the physical world, and man only needs organs to be able to perceive them. I must here again lay stress upon the fact that today only a few men are in a position to transform their souls in this way. It requires a highly developed soul whose spiritual eyes are open before investigation of the spiritual world can be undertaken and information as to the events and beings there obtained. But if facts about the higher worlds are made manifest, then all that is necessary for the understanding of what is told by the spiritual investigator is healthy discernment, free from all bias pertaining to the intellect or to human logic. There is no justification for criticising the use of spiritual investigation, because we cannot see for ourselves. How many men are able to form a clear conception of Ernst Haeckel's researches and follow them up? It is exactly the same in regard to research in the region of senselife, where what is illuminated by the understanding passes over into the consciousness, as it is in regard to what the spiritual investigator has to say about the information he has gained in the super-sensible world. That which is known as the super-sensible world through direct perception and human powers of cognition must pass over into the universal consciousness of mankind as a result of the Anthroposophical conception of the world.\nOn the one hand then, we have the ancient Bible bringing before us in its own way the secrets of the super-sensible worlds and their connection with the sensible worlds, and on the other we have, in Spiritual Science, the direct experiences of the investigator in regard to the super-sensible world. This is surely a point of view similar to that which one finds at the dawn of modern Natural Science.\nThe question now arises: ‘What has Spiritual Science to say that is able to help us to understand the biblical truths?’ We must here enter into details. We must above all point out that when as a result of the methods laid down by Spiritual Science, man awakens his soul faculties, he sees into the spiritual world and develops what in comparison to objective cognition is an Imaginative Knowledge. What is this Imaginative Knowledge? It has nothing in common with those vague fantasies readily associated with the word ‘Imagination’ nor has it anything whatever to do with somnambulism and things of that nature, but fundamental to it is a strict discipline by means of which a man has to awaken these faculties. Let us proceed from external knowledge in order to make more intelligible what is really meant by ‘Imaginative Knowledge.’ What is characteristic of external objective cognition? There is for example, the perception of a ‘table’; when the table is no longer before us there remains an idea, a concept of it, as a kind of echo. First there is the object, and then the image. Certain systems of philosophy affirm that everything is only image, conception. This is incorrect. Let us take, for example, the conception of red hot steel or iron. The conception will not burn, but when we are faced by the reality the experience is different. The characteristic of objective cognition is that first the object is there and then the image is formed within us. Exactly the opposite process must take place in a man who wishes to penetrate into the higher world. He must first be able to transform his conceptual world in such a way that the conception may precede the perception. This faculty is developed by Meditation and Concentration, that is to say by sinking the soul into the content of certain conceptions which do not correspond to any external reality. Just consider for a moment how much of what lives in the soul is dependent upon the fact of your having been born in a particular town on a particular day. Suppose that you had not been born on that day, and try to imagine what other experiences would then live within your soul, and stream through it from morning to evening. In other words, make it clear to yourself how much of the content of the soul is dependent on your environment, and then let all that has stimulated you from outside, pass away. Then try to think how much would still remain in the soul. All conceptions of the external world which flow into the soul must, day by day, be expelled from it and in their place there must live for a time the content of a conception that has not in any way been stimulated from without and that does not portray any external fact or event.\nSpiritual Science — if our search is sincere — gives many such conceptions and I will mention one as an example. I want to show you how the soul may gradually be led up into the higher worlds through certain definite conceptions. Such conceptions may be considered to be like letters of the alphabet. But in Spiritual Science there are not only twenty-two to twenty-seven letters, but many hundreds, by means of which the soul learns to read in the spiritual world. Here is a simple example: suppose we take the well known Rose Cross and in its simplest form, the black cross adorned with seven red roses. Very definite effects are produced if for a quarter of an hour each day the soul gives itself wholly up to the conception of this Rose Cross, excluding everything that acts as an external stimulus. In order to be able to understand what comes to pass in the soul as a result of this, let us consider intellectually the meaning of the Rose Cross. This is not the most important element, but we shall do it to show that it is possible to explain the meaning. I shall give it in the form of an instruction given by teacher to pupil.\nThe teacher says to the pupil: — ‘Look at the plant standing with its root in the ground and growing upwards to the blossom. Compare the greater perfection of man standing before you, organised as he is, with the lesser perfection of the plant. Man has self-consciousness, has within him what we call an Ego, an ‘ I ’. But because he has this higher principle within him he has had to accept in addition all that constitutes his lower nature, the passion of sense. The plant has no self-consciousness; it has no Ego, hence it is not yet burdened with desires, passions or instincts. Its green beauty is there, chaste and pure. Look at the circulation of the chlorophyl fluid in the plant and then in man at the pulsation of the blood. That which, in man constitutes his life of passions and instincts, comes to expression, in the plant, as the blossom. In exchange for this man has won his self-consciousness. Now consider not only present day man, but look in a spiritual sense at a man of the far distant future. He will develop, he will over come, cleanse and purify his desires and passions and will obtain a higher self-consciousness. Thus, spiritually, you can see a man who has once more attained to the purity of the plant-nature. But it is because he has reached a higher stage that his self-consciousness exists in this state of purity. His blood is as pure and chaste as the plant fluids. Take the red roses to be a prototype of what the blood will be at some future time, and in this way you have before you the prototype of higher man. In the Rose Cross you have a most beautiful paraphrase of Goethe's saying: — “The man who is without this dying and becoming is a sad stranger on this dark earth”! Dying and becoming, — what does this mean? It means that in man there exists the possibility of growing out of and beyond himself. That which dies and is overcome is represented by the black cross which is the expression of his desires of senses. The blossoms in their purity are symbolical of the blood. The red roses and the black cross together represent the inner call to grow beyond oneself.’\nAs I said, this intellectual explanation is not the most important element and it is only given in order that we may be able better to understand these things. In a Meditation of this kind the point is that we shall sink ourselves into the symbol, that it shall stand as a picture before us. And if it is said that a Rose Cross corresponds to nothing real, our answer must be that the whole significance lies not in the experience of something pertaining to the external world through the Rose Cross, but that the effect of this Rose Cross upon the soul and its slumbering faculties is very real. No image pertaining to the external world could have the same effect as this image in all its varied aspects and in its non-reality. If the soul allows this image to work upon it, it makes greater and greater progress, and is finally able to live in a world of conceptions that is at first really illusory; but when it has lived sufficiently long in this conceptual world with patience and energy, it has a significantly true experience. Spiritual realities, spiritual beings which otherwise are invisible emerge from the spiritual environment. And then the soul is able quite clearly to distinguish what is merely conception, illusion, from true and genuine reality.\nOf course one must not be a visionary, for that is very dangerous; it is absolutely necessary to maintain reason and a sure foundation for one's experience. If a man dreams in a kind of phantasy, then it is not well with him, when the spiritual world breaks in upon his consciousness. But if he maintains a sense of absolute certainty in his perception of reality, then he knows how the spiritual events will be made manifest, and he ascends into the spiritual world.\nYou will perhaps have surmised from what I have said, that cognition of the spiritual world is quite different from that of the sense world. The spiritual world cannot be brought into the range of direct perception by means of conceptions having but one meaning, and anyone who thinks it possible to describe what he finds in the spiritual world in the same way as he would describe what he finds in the sense world — simply has no knowledge of the nature of the spiritual world. The spiritual world can only be represented in pictures, and in imagery, which must be regarded merely as such. When the spiritual investigator looks into the spiritual world he sees the spiritual causes behind the physical phenomena, and he sees not only what underlies the present but what underlay the past. One thing above all else is manifest to him; namely, that man as he stands before us to-day as a physical being, was not always a physical being. External Natural Science can only lead us back by way of physical phenomena to what man as a physical being once was, and the spiritual investigator has no objection to that. But what surrounds us physically, has a spiritual origin. Man existed as a spiritual being before he became physical.\nWhen the earth was not yet physical, man existed in the bosom of divine beings. As ice condenses from water, so did physical man condense from spiritual man. Spiritual Science shows that the physical is in perpetual contact with the spiritual. But what underlies the physical can only be expressed in pictures, if one wants to approximate to physical ideas.\nWhat happens when a man has re-attained the spiritual stage of evolution, — what comes before him? In a certain sense the spiritual investigator re-discovers the Bible imagery, as given in the six or seven days of Creation. The pictures as given there actually appear before him. These pictures are not, of course, a description of physical occurrences, but the investigator who looks into the spiritual world, sees in clairvoyant consciousness, in how wonderful a way the writer of Genesis has portrayed in these pictures the formation of man from out of the Spirit. And it is marvelous how, point by point, agreement is established between what is so perceived by the spiritual investigator and the Bible imagery. The spiritual investigator can follow in just as unbiased a way as the Natural Scientist approaches the physical world. He does not derive his wisdom directly from the Bible, but he finds emphatic agreement with Bible imagery.\nI will only mention one such point of agreement. When we go back to ancient times, it is seen that behind the evolution of man stand certain spiritual beings who are different from the beings who are there from a definite and later point of time onwards. Many of you will know that man as he is to-day is a fourfold being, consisting of physical body, etheric body, astral body (the vehicle of joy, passions and so forth), and the Ego, the bearer of human self-consciousness. The three lower members, physical body, etheric body and astral body, were in existence long before the Ego, which was incorporated into man last of all. Spiritual beings who are designated in the Bible as the Elohim worked on these three earlier principles. And when the Ego began to be incorporated into this three-fold nature, another being from the spiritual world co-operated in the work of the Elohim. If we penetrate more deeply into the Bible we shall find that this Spiritual Being is given the name of Jehova, and rightly so. And in accordance with the inner principles of evolution itself we see that at a certain point in the narrative a new name is introduced in place of the old name of the God-head. We see too, the circumstances surrounding the origin of man which is described in a two-fold way in the Bible. For in point of fact man as a threefold being was dissolved into the universe: as a three-fold being he came into existence afresh, and then from out of the transformed three-fold man, the Ego developed. So that the cleft that would seem to lie between the first and second chapter of Genesis, and that has been the subject of so many false interpretations, is explained by spiritual investigation. It is only a question of rightly understanding the Bible and that is not very easy to-day. Spiritual Science shows that in the beginning higher Spiritual Beings were present; the descendants of these Beings are men, man has emerged from the bosom of Divine Spiritual Beings. We may speak of man as the descendant of the Gods in the same sense as we speak of the child being the descendant of his parents. From the standpoint of Spiritual Science we must look upon the human being standing before us as an Earth-man, the descendant of divine-spiritual beings.\nDoes the Bible tell us anything about this? Indeed it does, but we first must learn how to read it. The fourth sentence of the Second Chapter of Genesis runs: ‘These are the generations of the heavens’ ... and so on. This sentence is misleading, for it does not give what is really to be found at this place in the Bible. The text ought really to stand as follows: ‘What follow here and will now be described are the descendants of the Heavens and the Earth as they were brought forth by the divine power.’ And by the words ‘the Heavens and the Earth,’ divine spiritual beings are meant, divine spiritual beings whose descendant is man. The Bible describes exactly what the spiritual investigator rediscovers independently. Many of those who fight against the Bible to-day are directing their attacks against something of which they have no real knowledge. They are tilting against straws. The Anthroposophical view is exactly expressed in this fourth sentence. We might show verse by verse through the Old and New Testaments how man, when he ascends into the spiritual world through his own faculties, rediscovers the results of his investigation in the Bible. It would lead us too far now if we tried to describe the New Testament in a similar way. In my book Christianity as Mystical Fact the Lazarus miracle among others is given in its real form. The manner of treating such subjects to-day makes it impossible for us to get at their real meaning, for modern commentators of the Bible are naturally only able to find what accords with their own personal knowledge. Their knowledge does not transcend sense-cognition, hence the many contradictory interpretations and expositions of the individual Biblical ‘Authorities.’ The only qualified expositor of the Bible is a man who, independently of the Bible, is able to reach the same truths as are there contained. Let us take for sake of example an old book — Euclid's Geometry. Anyone who understands something of Geometry to-day will understand this book. But one would of course only place reliance on someone who had really studied Geometry to-day. When such a man comes to Euclid he will recognise his teachings to be true. In the same sense a man who approaches the Bible with philological knowledge only can never be a real ‘Authority.’ Only a man who is able to create the wisdom from out of his own being can be a real Authority on the Bible.\nIt may be said then, that the Bible is intelligible to a man who can penetrate into the spiritual world, who can receive its influences into himself. The Bible induces in such a man an absolute certainty that it is written by Initiates and inspired souls; a man who can to-day penetrate into the spiritual world, understands the great Scribes of the Bible. He knows them to have been true Initiates, ‘awakened souls’ who have written down their experiences from the levels of the spiritual worlds; if he knows this, he also knows what is hidden within their words.\nI would like here to mention an experience of my own in reference to another matter. When I was engaged on special work in the Goethe Archives in Weimar, I tried to prove something quite externally. You all know Goethe's beautiful prose Hymn to Nature ‘Oh Nature we are encircled and embraced by thee,’ and so on. This hymn depicts in beautiful words that everything given to us by Nature is given in Love, that Love is the crown of Nature. This composition was lost sight of for a time by Goethe himself, and when he was an old man and what remained of his literary work was given over to the Duchess Amelia, it was found. Goethe was questioned about it, and said ‘Yes, I recognise the idea that came to me then.’ The composition was accepted as having been written by Goethe until certain hair-splitters refused to admit that he was the author and attributed it to someone else. My purpose was to investigate the truth about this composition. It had come to my knowledge that at an early period of his life Goethe had with him a young man called Tobler, who had an exceedingly good memory. During their walks together Goethe had elaborated his idea, Tobler had thoroughly assimilated it, and because of his marvelous memory had been able afterwards to write it down very nearly word for word. I tried to show that a great deal of what is to be found in Goethe's conceptions later on is intelligible in the light of this composition. The point is that someone other than Goethe had penned it on paper, but the idea itself in its phrasing and articulation was Goethe's — and that is what I tried to make clear. Later on, when my work was published, a celebrated Goethean scholar came to me and said: ‘We owe you a debt of gratitude for throwing light upon the subject, for now we know that this composition is by Tobler.’ You may well imagine how amused I was! This is how things present themselves to the minds of people who are at pains to prove that in the course of time some particular portion of the Bible was written by one man or another. Some people consider the most important thing to be who finally did the writing, and not which Spirit was the origin and source. But with us the essential thing is to understand how the Bible was able to come into being from the Spirits of those who looked into the Spiritual World and experienced it.\nAnd now let us examine whether there is in the Bible itself, anything that explains this way of looking at things.\nThe Old Testament lends itself to a great deal of controversy, for the events there have grown dim. But it will be clear to anyone who does not want to wrangle, that the Old Testament faithfully describes the significant process of the penetration of the Ego into the entire nature and being of man. Anyone who from the point of view of Spiritual Science, reads of the call to Moses at the Burning Bush will understand that in reality Moses was then raised into the Spiritual world. When God appeared to Moses in the Burning Bush, Moses asked: ‘Who shall I say to the people hath sent me?’ God said: ‘Tell them that One Who can say “I am” hath sent thee.’ And if we follow up the whole process of the incorporation of the Ego, step by step, then the Bible illuminates what is found in Spiritual Science independently.\nBut something else is evident as well, namely, that from a Christian point of view the Bible should not be considered from the same point of view as other historical documents. If we consider the figure of Paul we can learn a great deal that can lead us to this realisation. When we study the earliest form in which Christianity was promulgated, from which all its later forms are derived, we shall find that none of the Gospel narratives are given by Paul at all, but that he speaks of something quite different. What gave the impulse to Paul? How did this unique Apostle acquire his understanding of the Christ? Simply and solely as a consequence of the event of Damascus, that is, not as a result of physical but of super-sensible truths. Now what is at the basis of the teaching of Paul? It is the knowledge that the Christ — although he was crucified — lives; the event of Damascus reveals Christ as a Living Being who can appear to men who ascend to him; — it reveals, moreover that there is in very truth a spiritual world. And Paul makes a parallel between Christ's appearance to him and His appearance to others. He says: ‘First He appeared to Cephas, then to the Twelve, then to five hundred Brethren at once, to James and then all the Apostles, and last of all to me also as to one born out of due time.’ This reference by Paul to ‘one born out of due time’ is strange. But this very expression is evidence to experienced Initiates that Paul speaks with perfect knowledge of Spiritual Science. He says that he is ‘born out of due time.’ and from this we realise that his illumination is to be traced back to a certain fact. I will just hint at the meaning. He means to explain in these words that because he has been born out of due time he is less entangled in material existence. He traces back his illumination to his knowledge: the Christ lives and is here. He shows that he bases his Christianity upon this super-sensible truth and that it is conviction acquired as the result of direct perception.\nThe earliest form of Christianity as it spread abroad is based upon super-sensible facts. We could show that what is contained in the John Gospel is based upon super-sensible impressions which the writer of that Gospel gives as his own experience, and realising that originally it was possible for Christianity to win belief on the basis of super-sensible experiences of men who were able to look into the spiritual worlds, we can no longer imagine that it is right to apply to the Bible the same standard as we apply to other external documents.\nAnyone who examines the Gospels with the same methods as he employs in the case of other documents, is confronted by something whose inner contents he can never fathom. But a man who penetrates into the experiences of the writers of the Gospels will be led into the spiritual world and to those personalities who have built up their knowledge and their wisdom from out of the spiritual world and have given them to us.\nWe should realise that those from whom the Gospels proceeded were Initiates, awakened souls, taking into consideration as well that there may be different stages of awakening. Just imagine that different people are describing a landscape from a mountain; one stands at the bottom, another in the middle and another at the summit. Each of these men will describe the landscape differently, according to his point of view. This is how the spiritual investigator looks at the four Gospels. The writers of the four Gospels were Initiates of different degrees. It is understandable that there may be external contradictions, just as there would be in the description of a landscape from a mountain. The deepest of all is the Gospel of John. The writer of the John Gospel was the most deeply initiated into the mysteries of what took place in Palestine at the beginning of our era because he wrote from the summit of the mountain.\nSpiritual Science is able to elucidate the Gospels fully, and to prove that the various contradictions in Genesis at the beginning of the Old Testament disappear. Direct perception, then, of the spiritual worlds brings us again to an understanding of the Bible which is a most wonderful document. A man who engages in spiritual investigation will find that there are four standpoints to be distinguished among men who approach the study of the Bible. The first is the standpoint of the naive believer, who has faith in the Bible as it stands and pays no attention to any other consideration; the second is that of ‘clever’ people who stand neither on the ground of historical research, nor of Bible analysis, nor of Natural Science. They say: ‘We cannot recognise the Bible to be an uniform document.’ And when such men realise that Natural Science contradicts the Bible they become ‘Free Thinkers,’ so-called ‘Free Spirits.’ They are in most cases honest, sincere seekers after truth. But then we come to something that transcends the standpoint of the ‘clever’ people. Many Free Thinkers have held the point of view that the Bible is only suitable for a childlike stage of human evolution, and cannot hold its own against Science. But after a time it strikes them that much of what is given in the Bible has a figurative sense; that it is a garment woven around experiences. This is the third standpoint — that of the Symbolist. Here a pure arbitrariness reigns, and the view that the Bible is to be understood symbolically.\nThe fourth standpoint is that of Spiritual Science. Here there is no longer ambiguity, but in a certain sense literal interpretation of what is said in the Bible. We are brought back again to the Bible in order to understand it in a real sense. An important task of Spiritual Science is to restore the Bible to its real position. It will be a happy day when we hear in modern words what really is to be found in the Bible, different, indeed, from all that is said to-day.\nWe may pass from sentence to sentence and we shall see that the Bible everywhere contains a message to Initiates from Initiates; awakened souls speak to awakened souls. Spiritual investigation does not in any way alienate us from the Bible. A man who approaches the Bible by spiritual investigation experiences the fact that details become clear to him about which he formally had doubts because he could not understand them. It becomes evident that it was his fault when he was not able to understand. Now, however, he understands what once escaped him, and he gradually works through to a point of view where he says: ‘Now I understand certain things and see their deep content: others, again appear to be incredible. But just as formerly I did not understand what is now clear to me, so later I shall discover that it has a deep import.’ And then such a man will with gratitude accept what hashes up in him, leaving to the future what he cannot yet explain.\nThe Bible in all its depth will be revealed only in the future, when spiritual investigation, independently of any kind of tradition, penetrates into the spiritual facts, and is able to show mankind what this document really contains. Then it will no longer seem unintelligible, for we shall feel united with what streamed into spiritual culture through those who wrote it down. In our age it is possible for us, through Initiation, again to investigate the spiritual world. Looking back to the past we feel ourselves united with those who have gone before us, for we can show how step by step they communicated what they had received in the spiritual world. We can promise that the Bible will prove itself to be the most profound document of humanity, the deepest source of our civilization. Spiritual Science will be able to restore this knowledge. And, however much bigoted people may say: ‘The Bible does not need such a complicated explanation — it is the very simplicity that is right’ — it will be realised some day that the Bible, even when it is not fully understood works upon every heart by virtue of its intrinsic mysteries. It will be realised too that not only is its simplicity within our grasp, but that no wisdom is really adequate for a full understanding of it. The Bible is a most profound document not only for simple folk, but also for the wisest of the wise. Wisdom, therefore, investigated spiritually and independently, will lead back to the Bible. And Spiritual Science, apart from everything else that it has to bring to humanity, will be the means of accomplishing a re-conquest of the Bible."
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