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ESOTERICISM:

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Four Lectures by

CARL UNGER, Sc.Doc.

1930. H. COLLISON,

27 CLAREVILLE GROVE, S.W.7.

The following are the authorised translations of Dr. Carl Unger's works now available:-

1. What is Anthroposophy? 2. Cosmic Understanding. 3. Principles of Spiritual Science.

(L) The Ego and the Nature of Man. (IL) Natural Science and Spiritual Science. (III.) The Philosophy of Contradiction.

4. Life Forces from Anthroposophy. 5. Thinking, Feeling, Willing. 6. Esotericism.

(L & IL) Word, Thought, .. 1." (111.) The Esoteric. (IV.) The Langllage of Knowledge.

Authorised Translation. All rights reserved.

EDITORIAL NOTE.

The concluding lecture of the four here printed Was ,given at the Goetheanum, Dornach, Switzerland, on

"28th December, 1928. Besides its deeply Esoteric "', ,,,,,,.UL\:;, it will always carry a pathetic and tragic interest. < It was the last one given by Carl Unger, given at the

,',heighth of his spiritual and intellectual vigour at the " " age of fifty; and yet only a few days later-4th January, /:'1928-as he was about to deliver another lecture at

"", Nuremberg, he was shot dead by a man proved later to ,: be insane.

He had, from his youth, been a pupil and devoted , friend of Rudolf Steiner, and always enjoyed his warm

'confidence and esteem. He was a scientist, philosopher, and practical engineer, and was able to bring to all his

the independent judgmeritof a well-balanced At Rudolf Steiner's death he became one of the

most prominent members of the Steinerian movement. With no personal ambitions, it was his constant desire to keep this movement free from the allurements of personal sectarianism.

H. COLLISON.

Esotericism.

INTRODUCTION.

:'TImSc!l a;;n:!: ~::e f~;rD~r~:~: f:!;,~ ... . ' members of the Anthroposophical,

: Society. They embrace a period which stretches from last Whitsuntide to last Christmas.* If one really studies the thought-sequence, one can feel how power-fully this continuity is directed by an inner

necessity . . In this way Carl Unger's work bears

'witness that it is possible to go Qn building . on what Rudolf Steiner had given, relying on the "new soul-substance" which is to grow in the common work of a faithful Discipleship. To this discipleship Rudolf Steiner entrusted what he had to give man­kind. But the" Mystery of Trust" requires

. an active readiness of spirit ; it is an act of sacrifice in which the sacrificer is himself turned into the victim.

* 1928.

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The traces of this service are to be found again in these lectures. One can follow their course in the inner susceptibility of the soul and receive the seeds which th

den

ne~ . ones own labour to bring them to frUItion.

Carl Unger wanted to help mankind to clear, strong and real ideas which are " f g d '11" h 0

00 . WI, so t at Anthroposophy may b~ :ecelVed as a revolutionary life-force. Listen­mg to his last lectures one could feel an approach, to something really tangible, a suspens~ of the soul as before the lifting of the veil. Through the strict thought-

. sequence "which sought no other end but to ad~ thought to thought according to their meamng poured a wave of spiritual light and warmth like' a proclamation of new hope and belief." .

. The.complete self-dedication of humanity In. ~he h~e 'Of thought alone can formulate spInt~al Ideas; ideas which have the power conscIously to bear the world's past, and have the courage to will the world's fut S h

. ure. uc Ideas Carl Unger created' the

hungers for them. ,age

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<l Here are a few words from a letter of Carl Unger's dated 16th April, 1928. They express the struggle of his spirit which filled his work in his last years:

Faith is concerned with the life before birth, Hope is concerned with the life after death-both raise the soul into the spiritual world. Love is concerned with the life between birth and death; it brings the spiritual to the soul ; it rises from Faith and flows into Hope; it is the final justification of the individual in the eyes of the IIierarchic Beings."

The struggle proceeded round this " justification" of the individual, as cosmic experience, as historical event, as a call in the loneliness of each separate Ego. In the intimacy of work done among groups of students Carl Unger has welded the thought­substance of which these lectures are built up. "J ustified " he approached the spiritual life. A preparer, a colleague in what Rudolf Steiner calls "conquest of evil, conquest of matter by idea."

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That these lectures, wh1'ch t k were not a en down in shorthand, still could be

preserved through the faithful reproduction of Frl. Gretel Kreuzhage,is a sign that these thoughts have life and can be lived.

P. COLAZZA, 1929.

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1.

WORD, THOUGHT, EGO (1).

Stuttgart, ~th June, 1928. At Whitsuntide in a short conversation

with Frau Dr. Steiner the stimulus was given to the speakers to link up their exposition with the lecture which Rudolf Steiner had given on 7th March, 1914, at Pforzheim. * This lecture had been

.•. previously read at Dornach, and had left a very . strong impression. In it Rudolf Steiner attempted to bring home the meaning of Pentecost to his hearers by means of a l1:ew interpretation of the living word .. Rudolf Steiner made in this lecture an attempt to introduce a variation to, and carry further, the beginning of the Gospel of St. John, based on the consciousness. and spiritual facts of to-day. The following gives the wording of this extension :-"In the Beginning was the Word,

And the Word was with God. And a God was the Word.

[pub!,: H. Collison, 1930.)

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This was in the Beginning with God. It was there where all things were made, And nothing came into being save through

the Word. In the Word was life, And Life was the Light of Men."

" In the Beginning is Thought, And Thought is with God, And Thought is a Divinity. In it is Life. And Life is to become the Light of my Ego. And may the Divine Thought shine into

my Self That the Darkness of my Self may

comprehend The Divine Thought."

" In the Beginning, is Thought, And Thought is an Infinity, And the Life of Thought is the Light of Self. May the shining Thought fill the Darkness

(J)f my Self, That the darkness of my Self may

comprehend the living Thought, And I may live and have my being in its

Divine Beginning." 10

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~'Not I, but Christ in me."

"In the Beginning lives Memory, And Memory continues living, And Memory is Divine, And Memory is, Life. And this Life is the Self in Man, That itself streams in Man. Not he alone, but Christ in him. When he remembers the Divine Life Christ is in his Memory. ' And Christ will shine into the bright

Memory-Life, Into that directly-present Darkness."

\

" In the Beginning was the Power of Memory. The Power of Memory is to become Divine; Is to become a Divinity. All that arises in the Ego That it consists of Memory pervaded by

Christ and by God. In it shall Life be. And in it shall be the

shining Light Which streams out of the Self-remembering

Thought Into the Darkness of the Present.

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And may the Darkness, which now is, comprehend the

Light of Memory that has become Divine."

Word, Thought, Ego; it is an idea­sequence, or better, a concept-sequence, which is taken from the older esoteric connections, in which Rudolf Steiner gave them as an exercise. These older connections are to-day suspended, but whatever has emerged through meditation and study in the way of knowledge and soul-activity survives, and may rightly, even if only in the shape of an address, be translated into Anthroposophical terms.

Rudolf Steiner's lecture breathes strong hope, and it is hope which always filled the soul as it contemplated the experience of Pentecost. On the first Pentecost the Disciples hoped to recover the living risen Cosmic Word; and hope strengthened the Disciples of the first centtuies to partake at Whitsuntide of the PaiIline experience, "Not I, but Christ in me." With us hope may also be associated with the Pentecostal experience which Rudolf Steiner brought

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anew to mankind by opening up to the powers of consciousness of to-day the way to the Mystery of Golgotha. ..

Word, Thought, Ego. If you let thIS idea-sequence sink meditatively into the soul, you can realise how it contains broad. developing lines of the growth of human consciousness. It is a concept-sequence which contains the march of humanity from

......•. security in God to separation of individual .. human beings from God: the substance . matter of man's sufferings on the evolutionary . path to the birth of the Ego.

" Word." Its force worked as an. inspiration in all that was potent in t~e ¥ystery-centres of the third post-at1an~lc

civilisation. Ephesus stood on the frontler facing the oriental Mysteries. Into ~phesus poured the different Mystery-revelatlons of Asia in their final echo. In Ephesus the magic-working Word had its last ~lOme,

In the Ephesian Mysteries one ex~enence~ in a quite specially intensive way, WIth on~ s whole person, that which later found l~S expression in the opening words of St. John s Gospel.

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Rudolf Steiner showed in the lectures that were part of the Christmas celebration of 1923 how at Ephesus the student of the Mysteries was put in front of the statue of Artemis, and in so far as he identified himself utterly with this statue" which was full of life, which everywhere radiated life" the student wove himself into the World-Ether. With his inner being he lifted himself up above the mere Earth-life; through language, which he realised as the human copy of the cosmic Logos, it was made clear to him "in what way the World-Word is wafted creatively through the Cosmos." The

. student was led to see the events which are bound up with speech. When man speaks, when he stamps the word, on the breath, through this act the course of his human life is imprinted on the element of air. And " while the breath formed into words streams outward from our breast, the, rhythmic swing descends into the watery element," the vehicle of our feelings. "But upwards, to the head, goes the element of warmth,".. and the waves of warmth, streaming upwards, produce the result that we accompany the

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thoughts. The student learnt these events as the microcosmic reproduction

'.' of the creative world-events; he learnt to consider and form the human word as an echo of the world-word which had magically made the world. (

With the fall of Ephesus (336 B.C.) the direct connection with the spiritual origin, which had been fostered till then by the Mysteries of the third post-atlantic civilis­

, ", ation, ceased, and only vibrated further in the memory-inhabiting longing of the

,'rdigious individual. In all this ritual, which ,', '.later went on working through tradition to

our own time, one can sense an echo· of the 'irevelation of the Word; the Word itself was

lost. The effectiveness of the third post­

',' .• , atlantic civilisation grew through the striving , of .the initiated to preserve the magic COll'"

nection with the Primeval Word. The third civilisation is marked by the symbol of the Lost Word.

Let us go on to Greek civilisation. Guenther Schubert showed in his lecture on Heraclitus, at Whitsuntide, how Heraclitus

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still carried a lively memory of the World Word. He showed also. how Heraclitus fought in his "fiery" way against the rise of thought .. :1ife, how he tried "scoldingly" to keep this down, because he discovered that with it would follow for mankind a further separation from the spiritual co~­

nection. Heraclitus saw in his lifetime how the Word perishes in Thought, but he was powerless in face of the urgent development of man towards individualisation. Aristotle shut the Temple door on Thought and set it out on a physical plane. Thus the symbol of the fourth civilisation became the. Sealed Thought.

. Then came the Mystery of Golgotha. In Gnosis we see, following Plato, the

thinking consciousness of the fourth civilisa­tion in intuitive ideas struggling with the Mystery of Golgotha, and we see in the resultant development a mighty battle taking place over the question of Pentecost-· Are Father and Son revealed in the Holy Ghost, or only the Father Spirit? On that little word" and" hung immense decisions, which led to the separation of the Eastern and Western Churches.

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.There developed later, after Aristotle, .' broad school of thought called Schola­

which had for its object to bring the Logos to the human understanding.

·.l?ut here appeared already the twofold facet . . thought in the struggle of the scholiasts, .' y in the struggle between Thomas

.Aquinas and A verrhoes. A verrhoes regarded thought in its reality as still being in the sph~re of etheric worlds, an experience that echoed from former ages of cosmic perception. . Word was for him only a symbol of

and for him thought had universal . Individual man descended after

into the Divine Thought-Sphere; i and should strive already on earth to free

.u.u.u ........ .u, from the Ego. Thomas Aquinas on other hand fought for the. existence of

$eparatehuman individuality. He had the .. '. teness of the Scholastic School, and raised his thought to the threshold of the Spiritual World. Then he stopped, and sought in

i revelation, as handed down by Church 'tradition, experience of the Spirit of Christ, -and found preserved in it each human

In this contest there was a 17 B

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great strife concerning the human Ego, which .. must die out if it could find no hope in the meaning of Pentecost.

In this conflict about man's dying Ego arose the fifth post-atlantian civilisation, our own age. We have to-day to reckon with the A verrhoes-experience in its proper meaning; every man must go through it. The first part of The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity,* which unfolds the contraries of experience as SUbject and Object, leads thought as far as the Averrhoes-phenomenon, viz., the thinking that carries itself in pure thought. To-day only he can reach it whose

thought is trained.

The second part goes beyond Averrhoes, and answers the last question of Thomas

. Aquinas-How is thought made Christian ? Thomas himself could find the answer ortly in the revelation which was lit by ecclesiastical tradition. After him the impulse of Scholas­ticism was diverted and led, as the spiritual content of tradition failed. to the later

* .. The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity," in one vol., with .. Truth and Science." by R. Steiner (see advert. at back of book).

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Unfolding of Materialism. The Ego dies; thought, according to the modern view,

only to deny the Spirit. The Ego .... deteriorates in the forms of abstract Scholastic

, and becomes Anti-Logos. 'fhe stimulus of Thomas Aquinas is

up by the German Mystics. They the meaning of Pentecost as a direct

, for the Ego still stands as ... receptacle in face of the results ·of thought,

brings to silence that which through tradition speaks as revelation ; the Ego then .. lit as a spark from the Holy Ghost.

This is the position of Cardinal Nicholas Cusa or Cusanus at the beginning of the

Era. He was a Churchman, but, at same time, a personality who had bed all the knowledge of his day;

stood on the sound basis of the Scholiasts' of thought. Nicholas of Cusa

.appears at the opening of the new Era as the bearer of the Ego-doctrine. Alone he sought for the Pentecostal inspiration, and atthe Council of Basel he wanted to establish

. jt as a direct experience. He hoped to overcome .. the schism of the Church on the

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question of communion-experience; if the best minds of all lands were called together in council to discuss and form conclusions on spiritual matters, then-so he hoped­this communion of the best might possibly, result in the common experiencing . of Pentecost.

Instead of this, at this Council, the: general question of the receiving of the Holy Ghost was taken out of its control and handed over to the College of Cardinals. In 1870 i

grew out of t'his the Dogma of Papal Infallibility. What Cusanus wished to win back for all men was reserved for one individual :-when the Pope acts and resolves. officially, the Holy Ghost reveals itself through him.

Nicholas of Cusa~ as he could not gain his point, retired, laid aside all he possessed as a man of culture and learning, and went into solitude. In this step of his lies an endless tragedy. He turned his back at the same time on the consecration of thought, , which he had received as the fruit of the fourth civilisation; he turned his back on the consecration of the " W~rd " of the third

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vilisation and took his stand in I. learned ' ..... ,UV.La,.L.L'-'-" solely on the experience of the

, the divine spark of the Mystic, awaiting . direct spiritual experience the awakening

the Holy Ghost, If the Pentecostal of the Apostles was that they

as" a community received from without the (:otning of Fiery Tongues in order to speak . all languages to all men, the meaning of

was how sought from the starting of the innermost individual Ego, of

personality. - From the Ego was to up the light of the Holy Ghost. This

:Li...,.",t><"1£'>1'.r-t> of the Mystic, as the innermost of the soul, was safe from all

Cusanus himself remained a Priest, his path as a Mystic led him near to y.

.••• , . Faust originally II laying the Bible on :the shelf for a while" set aside the Church,

j

In the book 111 ysticism and Modern "'Thought, * Rudolf Steiner shows how i modern Natural Science grew methodically

*." Mysticism and Modern Thought," by Rudolf Steiner (sef;ladvt.).

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and entirely out of' Mysticism. Meditation and observation, the two elements of the., Ego-life, are the bases of Natural Science; It has tended to materialism only through breaking away from the original spiritual ' impulse. As the Mystic through the deepest' exercises of the soul, refusing all knowledge, and all tradition, reaches complete silence in the Ego and prepares himself for the ' direct spiritual revelation, so the Natural, Scientist should in the same reverent attitude • of soul' receive the revelations of the senses, ' Then observation of Nature becomes spiritual knowledge. This path Rudolf Steiner points out in the second part of The PhilosoPhy ot Spiritual Activity, leading as he does the thought of man beyond the Averrhoes- ,: experience and opening up for him in medita­tion the way to spiritual experience.

If the way out of the past was Word, Thought, Ego, to-day progress must be based' on the reversed order: Ego, Thought, Word.

In meditation it is important to bring' thought as well as observation to the point, of silence ; it is into the silence of the soul ,'. that the will must enter, it is the will which

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'sets'the Ego alight. This Ego thus created , fill itself with new experience, for it

into being a self-chosen content of a nature, and resting therein, the Sealed Thought into actual

pictorial experience, the Power of Imagina­,tion.The "Lost Word" calls up the Ego

,the ,central part of the soul to new spiritual birth. In Inspiration Pentecost

with the soul as a new Word­as "Sounds of the Voice," as

;, The rustle of Thoughts," as " The lighting of. the Ego." 'The dying Ego is re-born originally and

Vely out of the Holy Ghost. In this way man justifies himself as

in relation to the beings of spiritual world . . Observation .and thought, the elements

, , ,his ,experience in the world of senseS, man ~OllCe:lltlrates in his El?o as human reflection bLthat' which Rudoif Steiner describes as

>" the revelation of existence/' and" spiritual " £ulfi1me1).t of the beings of the third Hier­

archy." 111 the re-birth of the Ego he rea,lises in himself the Angel or (third Hierarchy).

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Thus man purifies himself bit by bit i 1 his existence up to the kind of existence of the Hierarchy above him, and becomes a member of the fourth or human Hierarchy. I:ut then a new task is put before him which Lorn to-day and getting ever more important vrith time will face mankind; to invent a language which carries news of human life b the Spirit Beings, messages from the Earth en which Christ suffered death.

If the revelation of existence has led the Evolution of mankind out of the past and out cfspiritual worlds, the spiritual communica­t ion of men with Spirit Beings must show the way into the future; they wait for alld llunger after the spirit message of man.

Anthroposophy can give the world what it is its task to give only if man's Ego is 1 ekindled every moment by it. Anthro- . 1 )osophical activity must be remade ever llew from the source of individual experience. Nothing in an Anthroposophical Society must 1 )ecome merely stereotyped, nothing of : ,piritual Science must become a mere system. :~udolf Steiner gave in his published books all he wished to give man in formal thought.

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. All else must, in accordance with esoteric life, be formed anew inl each age. The cyc1es* also must not be. obliterated in tradition. They were established in esoteric

, connections, and must be taken up in different places with full regard for the requirements

. 'Of the human soul. They represent at the same time for the whole of ,Anthroposophy

.. historic wanderings through soul-spheres. Word, 'Thought, Ego: the path out of

,the past. Ego, Thought, Word: -the path to hope

'Of new Pentecostal experience.

* Refers to the many courses or cycles of lectures g~ven by Rudolf Steiner at different places. They can be obtaIned at -the Rudolf Steiner Bookshop (see advt.).

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II.

WORD, THOUGHT, EGO (2).

Stuttgart, lIth June, 1928. We saw how by means of the words of

the Gospel of St. John and their variation and continuation in Rudolf Steiner's lecture of 7th March, 1914, we find it possible to absorb into ourselves the sequence of ideas "Word, Thought, Ego." This sequence of ideas carries in itself wide phases of evolution, and is given in order to see gradu'ally by meditative practice the world-wide vistas which it contains. For this reason it was brought into esoteric connections ; it was to be re-created over and over again for soul­exercises. We often find in the spiritual history of man such means of bringing esoteric good to mankind. Thus, for example, at Chartres, where whole " Catalogues of Terms" of the soul-exercises were handed down in books, and so also the Aristotelian Thought-Categories, which to-day are still waiting to come to life by the/exercise of creative powers.

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.' Elsewhere also Rudolf Steiner gave out ' ..•.•... similar spiritual truths which only ~equire , to be grasped. Think of the senes of

Hierarchies in Occult Science: " Spirits of Will, .... of Wisdom, of Movement; and of Form" ; and

in out studies upon his" Leading Thoughts " : '." Being, Revelation, Activity, Work." Realise' the steps from one to the other,

'. realise what lies between as in Tone­, Eurythmy you realise the transition from o~e

';"interval to the next. In other words reahse \. the living movement from Will to Wisdom, Movement, Form, and in the same way the continuous thread from Word, to Thought, to ,Ego. ", We saw the third, fourth and fifth post-atlantic civilisations rising before us, :the third under the Symbol of the Lost "Void, the fourth ,under that of the Sealed Thought, and the fifth as the bea:er .of. :he Dying Ego. Our fifth,JPost-at~ant1c clv~hsa­tion was born of man's seeking to kmdle a new Ego' at Pentecost from the Mystery of Golgotha. .

The lectures which Frau Dr. Stemer read during Whitsuntide showed how the

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Disciples experienced the Ascension in gloomy and anxious mood. In the picture of Christ's Ascension the fact stood out as a warning to them: what Christ had done for mankind on earth can also disappear again from the earth. Before their eyes the spiritual body vanished into the distant ether. The question faced the Disciples: Will map of himself be able to do something in order to keep alive the act of Christ? Hence the hopeful atmosphere which emanates from Whitsuntide. Whitsuntide was the affirmative reply to the warning question of the Ascension. In the individual Ego man can kindle the flame, can seize the tongue of flame, to form audibly the" World Word." For this reason the search for the Pentecostal impulse is at the opening of our age so significant.

That which the Disciples experienced at Whitsuntide was afterwards sought by mankind in the most diverse ways. The controversy of "Gnosis" and of Scholas­ticism round the Mystery of Golgotha was in vain. The historical impulse of the Crusades went awry, the effort of Nicholas

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of Cusa in his time remained without effect ; and in Mysticism only a few individuals could become messengers of the Pentecostal impulse.

Rudolf Steiner describes the new thing . which man must of his own accord bring to the cosmic act of Christ as the road of meditative exercise to the crossing of the threshold in his Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and its Attainment.* It concerns the fact that a man can add to selflessness of. thought, which he can acquire by the method of Natural Science, selflessness of feeling and of will. Man must not stand ,still at the "Ego of the Mystic," but if in the quiet of his soul he has kindled

. his Ego at the spirit then he must let that .' spiritual conte?-t pour forth in picture or word into his strengthened soul, so that his thought itself moves in lively pictorial creation; in other words that it attains the Power of Imagination. 1).e advance into. the future is made in the reversed sequence; from the past to now: Word, Thought, Ego; from now to the future: Ego, Thought, Word ..

, * .. Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and its Attainment .. by Rudolf Steiner (see advert,).

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What Rudolf Steiner would put before us as "Memory" in the further explanation of the Gospel Word is to be understood from the point of view of the imaginative power of experience; the Power of Memory which in ordinary experience is exhibited in . the physical body flames up in the etheric world into imaginative power. There it is no longer retrospective, but becomes prospective.

In the lecture which gives us the variation and continuation of the Gospel Word, Rudolf Steiner pictures in a comprehensive manner what, cosmically speaking, had been done for man before the Mystery of Golgotha. In doing so he refers to another lecture on the same event which he had given at Stutt.., gart two days earlier. In this Rudolf Steiner described how at the beginning of human evolution-in the Lemurian age-the human organism was disturbed in its functions by the Luciferic interference. And, in fact, had the system of the senses been disorganised through it, they would not have led the perceptions altruistically to the Ego, but the most intense sensations of burning pain or

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highest pleasure would have been connected .with every impression. It was then that a Spiritual Being, who had not shared human . evolution since the age of Adam, but till the Luciferic-Ahrimanic temptation had been kept back" in the lap of the gods "-that .Being who later was incarnated as the Nathanic Being-permeated himself in spiritual worlds with Christ, and thus harmonised the human senses. * .. " At the beginning of the Atlantic age the

'vital functions became disorganised, so that endless greed and' intense horror were inseparable from every taking of food; and

,:~gain· it was that Spiritual Being who : . permeated himself with Christ and harmonised

vital functions.

At the end of the Atlantic age human thought, feeling, and will tendedin different

. directions, and a third Clfristianising of that . v

primeval Spirit Being harmonised these three human soul-forces.

* This and the next two paragraphs are a very epitomized description of certain lectures by R. Steiner dealing with the gradual incarnation of Our Lord.

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In the Pforzheim lecture the same. arrangement was put by Rudolf Steiner as follows :-

At the end of the Lemurian age man' found his orientation in space; he achieved the erect posture. At the beginning of the Atlantean age he acquired the capacity to express audibly his inner feelings; he' achieved speech, in so far as speech is the ' expression of the inner feelings of man. The third thing was that, at the end of the Atlantean age, he discovered his relationship to outer things, and created speech so far as it expresses relationship with the world around him. Man could achieve these three steps in spite of the Luciferic-Ahrimanic interference only because three times that Spiritual Being was permeated in Spiritual Worlds by Christ.

In this double presentation of one and the same happening a mighty task and warning is given us. Realise the great difference in the presentations. You must grow into it and create a way from one presentation to the other by conscious practice. Rudolf Steiner did not want to

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down Anthroposophic truth, but to give .~as an. exercise for the. growing, changing,

to . understand. The attempt to grasp the' connection between

two presentations was to lead us to four meanings, which preceded the three,

otd;Thought, Ego." We can give to what Rudolf Steiner

in the Stuttgart lecture an expression . he himself always used in this con­

.u~."."J.VJ.J.·: the harmonising of the human QI~~aIJ.l~a:r;:·lon so. that the Ego could control it.

last step was taken in the Mystery of . There an Ego which contained in

the sum of the Spiritual Hierarchies, . to incarnation in a human body

exterior was provided by that pre­Spirit which in primeval times had

the three-fold permeation of

the Pforzheim lecture we meet, in . v

. variation and continuation of the opening of St; John's Gospel, the last three

of civilisation. The procession from "Word to Thought to Ego follows the past

the Egyptian-Chaldean, Epoch to the 33 c

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beginning _of modern times, and contains an echo of human evolution from the Lemurian age to the end of Atlantis.

At the opening of the Lemurian age the human form had advanced so far that souls ' could return from the planets into human bodies. At this age the physical body found its orientation in space; man raised up his head, the concentration point of the twelve sensory powers, to heaven, in order to receive' by means of his senses, the cosmic forces from the twelve signs of the Zodiac. He achieved the erect posture. This orientation of the human figure towards the twelve powers of stellar space was the work of the ",Spirits of Form." From the twelve cosmic directions they poured their substance that was to become the Ego-force of man. They perfected the spiritual prototype to the physical form of man to which the spiritual creative force of all the Hierarchies since Saturn had tended. It is just the human physical body-the human form of the Ego in process of becoming-w1:~ich the Hierarchies had had as their main object from the be­ginning of the world.-form (physical body).

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,The Ego-form of man succumbed to the . Luciferic temptation in. the Lemurian age. It was thrown into disorder, but placed in ,correct objective relationship to the cosmic forces through the act of deliverance by that Spiritual Being, after permeating himself with the Christ. The human form, with its twelve senses, was withdrawn from the earth's gravity and turned, in the resting head, to the cosmos. Here the "Word" works as a creator of form.

In the third civilisation, which reflected . its events the previous happenings of these

epochs, "the Word "as a creative force of '.VV\../U.\"L" is lost; the germ of the human Ego

<by. means of its sense-life psychically becomes of its surroundings; it learns experience.

as a sensitive soul. The" Word" becomes the "unutterable Name of God," Who revealed Himself to Moses in the burning

'·'bush. .~

Something new happened at the begin­.nirig of the Atlantic period. The human ·'.form is strengthened by. the vital functions,

so as to become independent of its surround­. ings. Organically this was expressed by the

35

!:I I'

i'

ESOTERICISM

powerful formative force body, which had till then surrounded as it were the, physical body, invading into the individual human shape. It adapted its form to the physical body and regulated the vital functions, bring­ing with it the powers of growth and reproduction. The individual etheric, body enters into the physical body.

But that is also the period in which the human Ego accustoms itself natura11y to the body possessed of these powers and begins to sound forth its experience from inner consciousness in first speech-form., Again, it was the Spirits of Form which gave' men the power of forming life within" and, with the power of speech awoke the first imaginative and thinking powers in man.­Power (etheric body).

Through Luciferic influence the vital functions and their spiritual activity in speech fe11 into confusion, and speech must have become ignoble. "Then for the second time that Spirit-Being of the later Nathan Jesus, having been permeated in Spirit­Worlds by Christ, brought help to man in his cosmic life in the universe. '

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ESOTERICISM

The Greek exhibits an echo' of these 'events; he produced his art from an Ego ,that lived and developed in the etheric ,body, and his thought from the pictures of the. world that existed in his mind and understanding. But the Greek found him­

,.self forsaken by the World-Forming Word, ·"·,and his gods silenced; at the' most, oracles

'and sibyls a110wed him to advance as far as the gods of Nature. The knowledge of his sages, edged eVer closer to the physical world; the Categories of Aristotle stand at

, " the turning point of the decline of cosmic thought-experience. Through them thought became sealed. The Greek feared death,

: because experience from within in the body i of Power was closed to him. ,

After the vital functions had reached their objective expression; the human Ego began to penetrate more and more into the

',physical organisation also with his astral "body. At the end of the Atlantic era those

men were most advanced who had the strongest Ego-consciousness and retained .least the atavistic clairvoyance, i.e., dream­consciousness. And here we touch on the

37

ESOTERICISM

secret which it is most difficult to under­stand, the secret of " Shooting into Number." The human Ego, which was conceived as the substance of the Spirits of Form, "shot" out of the universal into the individual into "Number," through its experience in the astral body of the physical and etheric body. The forces of inner experience, Thought, Feeling and Will, achieved their own stamp through Lucifer, the Ego showed itself in individual soul-forms.-Number (Astral Body).

It was now necessary to harmonise anew the soul-forces which had been disorganised by Lucifer with the experience of the world, and this third harmonisation of the human being was brought about again by that Spiritual Being of the pre­Adamite period letting himself for the third time be permeated in Spirit Worlds by Christ. He provided thereby the possibility for men to grasp the ciuter world objectively with his soul and· make his language a reflection of the world.

This event repeated itself at the opening of the fifth post-atlantean civilisation. The

38

ESOTERICISM

:'human intellect sought then to understand .the world, and was itself lost. The Spiritual . Soul-consciousness created itself from

< . experience in the outer world, but the Ego 'perished.

We might try to approach the secret Number through a parable. In the

his,tory· of mankind the "Shooting into Number" happened repeatedly, and it is

. in the oldest historical document that we find the dates of these happenings recorded .

. . The first creation of man in the Lemurian Period was connected with a "Shooting

. into Number." The old Testament gives us the event literally: God created Adam and Eve, a human pair, to whom He said cafter the temptation and the expulsion from Paradise: "Go and multiplY and fill the earth." The form· was, turned into the power of procreation, the prototype of the

,. human form" Shot into Number." . But this prototype was more and more

condensed and corrupted by Lucifer; passion pushed it into the sub-human, so that, "God repented of having created man on earth." And thus we come to the second

39

ESOTERICISM

.. Shooting into Number," after the -Atlantean flood which destroyed everything except Noah whom God found just. At God's bidding Noah took with him his wife, his three sons and their wives, and a male and female of all creature, "to keep them alive with thee." After the Flood God blesses Noah and his sons: " Be fruitful, and multiply and replenish the earth." If in the first instance it was something human, a prototype, of all humanity, it is now a multiplying in three directions: Shem, Ham, J aphet; racial distinction was implanted in human evolution.

And we see it happening a third time with Abraham: "His progeny shall be divided according to the number of the stars." This represents the division into peoples, i.e., the twelve tribes.

Out of this current the body of Jesus was born, into which entered the Christ. The Nathan Infant Jesus was the bearer of that pre-Adamite Spirit entity. Of the Nathan Entity Jesus jt is said in the third chapter Df St. Luke's Gospel, after the enumeration .of births through (7 x 11=77) generations:

40

ESOTERICISM

·.~Which was the Son of Seth, which was the ,"son of Adam, which was the Son of God." " ' 'He was not there to be tempted by Lucifer ,

he was kept back "in the lap of the gods" "(see above).

In the twelfth year of' His life the "viduality of Zarathustra was united with

the Ego of the Solo monic Jesus-Child descent from Abraham can be traced

three times fourteen generations.

The prototype of man, made by the tive Word of the World, which was

Adam in thelapof the gods, combined the bearer of supreme wisdom in the

:corPC)re:l1 shell of the Nathan Jesus in order " offer the three sheaths, after their : permeation with the life of the Zarathustra-

, to Christ in John's baptism.

With the Mystery of Golgotha is bound up a big event in the development of the

• human form. In *Cycle XIX. Rudolf Steiner 'describes in detail the prototype of' the 'physical human body, and calls it "the . phantom." Through' Lucifer's and Ahri-

* ,Cycle ," From Jesus to Christ," see. advt.

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ESOTERICISM

man's temptation the astral being of man. was suppressed' and thereby the phantom. became more and more 0 bscured and hardened. It died away, so that to-day when man dies nothing is left. physical body is destroyed by death, leaving' no residue behind. With this was bound up .... the disappearance of the Ego as a spiritual. being.

To save the Ego of man was the act of the Mystery of Golgotha. The Christ, gave resurrection to the original spirit-form of man, he brought the powers of resurrection to the spirit-body, the phantom" shot ip.to number." He thereby created the possibility of resurrection for the Ego of man in his., Spirit. In the Mystery of Golgotha the Ego .• of the human race was saved in the \.:U;o,HH''- .. ,

sense as a fourth Hierarchy through the rebirth of the Phantom. Now it resolves itself into a taking part of the individual. hunian Ego in the Cosmic Act.

Here is to be found the reason for the anxiety of the Disciples when they experienced, the Ascension. Sorrowfully they watched. the Phantom disappearing into space. Before

42

ESOTERICISM

eyes the question presented itself: man himself grasp the resurrection­

pulse in Christ, or will the Mystery Of :Golgotha leave the earth, will Christ's . sacrifice have been. nlade in vain? Hence

joyful hope that pervades Pentecost. The certainty of Christ's presence was like

;':3. release to the Disciples. At Pentecost ", they experienced the birth of the Ego out

the Spirit of Christ. Thus to the thoughtful mind stand

the spiritual contents of Word, Ego, as a continuation of the

,'pr'ece:dulg ideas of Form, Power and Number. them stands the little word

Harmony," unifying human' powers and .. its climax in the act of the Mystery of Golgotha. Out of its spirit the new Ego

'·of man is born which in its 'next step forms •. the future force of Memory and Imagination.

Form (Physical Body). Power (Etheric. Body). Number (Astral Body).

Harmonising Ego. Word (Sentient-Soul). Thought (Intelligence-Soul).

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ESOTERICISM

Ego (Consciousness-Soul), Memory. Imagina- ' tion. During the whole of the time of man's

controversies on Peritecostal experience," though tradition, the Councils, the research' .of Scholasticism, and of the Mystics a1l, failed, one ritualistic way of mediation had remained open :. the Holy Sacrament. In its exoteric meaning the Lord's Supper made, it possible to experie1!-ce the unity of and spirit, to reach the spirit through matter " The resurrection of the body, of the Phan " was retained for the consciousness of in this image and this ritual.

Rudolf Steiner shows the esoteric pa leading to the inner spiritual communion" by which man proceeds. from conscious thought to meditation. In The Philosophy of Spiritual A ctivity Rudolf Steiner dear how experience of the world in ideas leads to Spiritual Communion with the, world. By thus liberating his powers of' thought from the body by, means of pure thought, an~ by taking a further step towards meditation and spiritual things, part of man's physical body is set free of the sin

44

ESOTERICISM

by his Astral, Etheric, and Physical .,' body through the temptation of Lucifer~ IIi this liberated physical body the Christ ,Act can operate, His powers of resurrection ;c~n seize hold of the Physical body by degrees and can animate the Phantom of

man. Thus, in the sequence of seven spiritual

meanings which we created in our soul by practice of common striving after the

the image of an ever-growing human­presents itself to us. Here stand

:,u.U.u,<;.u. what in the first two lectures seemed

From beyond the Atlantean catastrophe " words": Form, Power, Number act

a force creating the Physical, Etheric and Astral body. This outer form is

to-day by the infant in the first three years of its life, when he learns to walk, to speak, and think.

In the third, fourth and fifth post­Atlantic Civilisation, Word (Sentient Soul), Thought (Intelligence Soul), Ego (Conscious­ness Soul) are still fairitly active in man. In the middle i~ the harmonising fulfilment

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·of the Mystery of Golgotha which brings;. resurrection of the Spiritual Body to the human Ego.

Thus in our anthroposophical Circle the true impulse of Pentecost can be alive all through the year. We can strive to . fulfil the task which has been set to· anthroposophical work for the benefit of humanity: to point to the redeeming act Df the Mystery of Golgotha and to the coming." Df Christ in the Etheric Body in our time ..

46

III.

THE ESOTERIC.· Stuttgart, 29th October, 1928·

;. He who would speak on Esotericism ······.·finds himself in the same difficult position

the artist who would speak on Art. One can speak on the Esoteric only in the same

. way as one speaks on Art. But to speak ;truly about Art means to speak about gods·

recall in this connection Rudolf Steiner's lecture on I< The Nature and Origin of the

," which was read by Frau Marie at Michaelmas on the occasion of

. opening of the Goetheanum. There he that to speak on Art is justified only

the speech is itself a work of art. Frau :~.~~.~ ... ~ Steiner .. puts this lecture of Rudolf St~iner's before our sou1s as a powerful verbal work of art. I wou1d also remind you of the many introductions of Rudolf

.. Steiner to the essence of Eurythmy; the form in movement . becomes itself

the living vehicle of the Word. In the, same way it is possible to speak

about Esotericism only if the words can 47

ESOTERICISM

find a way to the innermost essence of the human soul. This way into the innermost part of man can rightly be termed esoteric. In Rudolf Steiner's sense esoteric striving­means transforming the soul itself gradua11y by practice to see the spiritual; and as this concerns intimate events in one's experience,. one tries a11 the more not to speak about it~

"Can it be of importance· to speak from ordinary consciousness on the Esoteric?", I asked Rudolf Steiner this question many years ago ; and I could read into the answer he gave that it might be not only justifi~d. and good, but even necessary. And he' added in this connection that one can speak from ordinary consciousness on any subject, if one has studied the contents deeply beforehand, so that one can speak from real experience. But a11 the same one can easily" understand that one keeps silent for years and even tens of years.

Two facts induce me to give this address .. The first· is that the Goetheanum has been. dedicated to its purpose: the·presentation. of Rudolf Steiner's Mystery Plays. This purpose is derived from the Mystery-

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ESOTERICISM

·performances at Munich. The building of the Goetheanum was origina11y undertaken for Mystery Plays, and everything else has

.,been added later. But what did Rudolf Steiner himself

wish to attain through the Mystery Dnpnas? That can be inferred from the addresses

: which he gave in connection with the Munich performances. There he te11s us that for

.seven years the important thing in the Society was the giving of the teachings of

... the Spiritual Worlds, i.e., of Spiritual 'Science, and that its members should :;incorporate this wisdom as the property of·

soul. But after these first seven years became necessary to bring together more

the people who had met in the .i . • later the anthroposophical . Society, because they desired to be brought

.. nearer to the experience of the Spiritual

. World. Rudolf Steiner wished to introduce into the work an esoteric feature; and he

. ,:did that by means of the Mystery Dramas. . . To those who on the strength of many

years' stuQ-y were in a position to take up the Esotericism he presented it through the

49 D

ESOTERICISM

art of his Dramas. Rudolf Steiner displayed in them pictures of psychical and spiritual events just as they stand before the eyes of. the spiritual investigator. The spectators are expected to take a much greater part than is usual at Dramatic. performances : .' in a certain sense the audience belong to the total events. It is important to break· down the barriers between the events on the stage and the audience, for it is just in this mutual inter-dependence that the Esoteric lies .. It is like the character of Johannes Thomasius, who in the first ..... Mystery Drama is first of all present at the psychical events as spectator, though outside the real stage scene, but afterwards, in the seventh scene, steps into the frame of events and becomes himself apIa yer. So it is also. for the spectator; he becomes a player.

The second thing is this, that there is a fellowship among members through the opening of the Goetheanum, a common· striving of hearts, in. which the true spiritual.· meaning of Anthroposophy lives. And this is something which corresponds with what Rudolf Steiner wanted to implant at the

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ESOTE;RICISM

Chris.tmas Celebration :. he wanted an esoteric atmosphere to pervade the -society. Those

'. Rudolf· Steiner's words at Christmas 1923.' "

.' . . After Rudolf Steiner had left us in the •.•. body, the gifts of the spirit which were ()ffered us by him in such overflowing measure ·could not continue. It must now be that a community of human beings takes over

results of his research into the spiritual them in trust in such a way that the;

alive . in the community. People • must come together in anthroposophical work, in a union of such a sort that Anthro­

. yosophy comes into its own. This union of .hearts waS alive in the thousands of people

ho swarmed up in to the building; these hearts were united by the true Esotericism

'. as it welled up out of love of Anthroposophy.

In this community of life also everything was to find a fruitful reception which the individual had worked out . for himself ,everything which he had won of capabilit; and experience,. even experience of an ·esoteric kind. . .

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ESOTERICISM

It is impossible to define the essence,' of the Esoteric in a few words. I want to. try to get a few aspects of the position of: present-day Esotericism.

Rudolf Steiner often declared that there was always something esoterlc in the dl1tet'ent epochs, but that something else wa$ always described as Esotericism. Nevertheless, in.; all ages Esotericism included an attitude of soul which lay outside the ordinary capaci for living and knowledge of that age, a type of soul which had to be won and 'which a man had to take pains to develop.

Here I would like to point to the tran-.: sitions from the Third Civilisation to the. Fourth, and from this to the Fifth Epoch .. ' The impulse of the Third Epoch is just' appearing again in our time, and therefore there is very great reason for us to occupy',. ourselves with it.

From Rudolf, Steiner's Occult we know how the cosmic evolutionary events of a former period become the way of initiation of a later.

In this sense we can look upon the old Indian Mysteries as the repetition of the

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." ESOTERICISM

. Saturn-Evolution in the Polarian Epoch, and the Persian way of initiation as the old

;Sun-Evolution which had repeated itself in Hyperborean Period. Then we stand in

. the third Post-Atlantic Civilisation, the Egyptian-Chaldean Epoch, whkh covers also

'. the story of the Hebrew Race. The ancient '.

-cult reappears again in the form it had taken on through the Lemurian Age.

I . ancient Lemuria man lived still in magical .' union with the elements of the earth; to a

extent he could influence and control fotces of nature. We find this magic

.power of the ancient time changed but surviving in the Third Civilisation; in its Mystery-centres; the Esotericism to be found

.. ' them must undoubtedly be described as

.';magical. What remained as a mark of tion from that period could be set

•..• up only under the influence of a magical . Esotericism, only a few chosen ones, who .. :were trained up to it by incredibly hard and

difficult tests had access to it. Selected '.' .often as young children they had to be

prepared ,to experience the, Mystic Death through many years, by psychical and

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ESOTERICISM

spiritual training which affected even the organic force-relationships -of their bodies To this end the unconditional submission: of the pupil to the teacher was a necessity, who by manipulation of spiritual forces' released their higher membersfronl the. physical body and brought them back again~,; The initiation could be attained only through the magical co-opetationof the Hierophant, and by means of magical forces and powerful; suggestion the peoples of the Mystery- .. , Centres were led on to an advanc~ in civilisation.

The Mystery-Centres themselves were .. protected bi magic means against the intru.;.i' sion 'of the unauthorised. Whoever pushed" in without authority, whoever even did not give proof, was smitten dead. '. References to this protection of the holy places are found, even in the Old Testament; . no one but,' the High Priest may enter the Holy of Holies; , every uninitiated person Who went near it· suffered death. I know of course that there are materialistic explanations for this even to the smallest details ; but they show that····'·. those who give them or believe them under- .....

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ESOTERICISM

know nothing of' the things

.. '.' Then followed' the Gre~k Period, in '" hich the Mystery-Cult was pervaded 'by a

partichlarly·· lively memory of Atlantis. It ' .. had a. It Secret Esotericism" which acted

longer indir~ct1y on what concerned the -corporeal, but directly on the psychic

. in the awakening consciousness. ... encouraged enthusiasm, the forces of

, « the being filled with God," and through Art spirit-creating forces

human life.

In proportion as the power· of protecting Mysteries through Magic was lost, the

secrecy of Esotericism was introduced, and attempt to achieve it' through oaths threats. He who betrayed the Mysteries

vvas pursued and punished with death. We.' ",have still at present traces of the secret

.• ' Esotericismin various secret societies ; they .still keep up in fornls and rituals, which they . Jake great care to keep secret, the survivals Of:"ancient times. And here also betrayal

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ESOT.EinCISM

But to-day we have to deal with quite" different impulses. We are past the age of magical activity,and the secret Esotericism, for the Mystery was conducted in the light of pUblicity. The Mystery of Golgotha brought about the change, for Christ' consciously broke through the walls. of ancient activity-and then with His Death qnd Resurrection "fulfilled ,i the mystery wisdom of all ages, and indeed, " in the face of all people." The wise men of that time recognised it, too, and for that reason -He was accused of betraying the Mysteries. In the New Testament it is s.aid of Christ " For He has made signs before the people" ; and they sought how "they Inight find" something against Him."

Rudolf Steiner in his book Christiam:ty as Mystical Fact, and in many. )ectures, shows just this basic difference between the act of Christ and all previous Dedications. The Mystery of Golgotha is meant for the ,,' whole world, it is a cosmic experience; in it we have the liberation of the mystery-life. Since the Mystery of Golgotha we have to recognise Esotericism as free, that is the

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ESOTERICISM

.•.• important thing. Rudolf Steiner laid hold oLthis fact' and during the second period

, "of, his work in the Anthroposophical Society " 'led us with the Gospels ever deeper into the Mystery of Golgotha. By communicating

,ito us the spiritual-scientific results of his : research into the cosmic act of Jesus, Christ, he opened to us also a new understanding of the Biblical presentation; genuine awe

anew 'in the soul with such a glimpse the sacred documents. Each single of the Bible, placed in such a conjunc­

regained its holy world-embracing truth, single word was vivified in its esoteric

Rudolf Steiner wanted to convey to, the pIe who are gathered together in the

,-Anthroposophical Society an Esotericism 'that corresponds with the spjritual ,basis of

".'our Fifth Period of Civilisation. He wanted , show them the way to a Christian esoteric " development, by using his' understanding

old occult tradition to win the further of the transcendental methods

,,'of research 'which correspond with the con­'temporary age of the Consciousne~s Soul.

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ESOTERICISM

I should like to amplify this a little with· words which he hiinself used. Rudolf Steiner· once said: " People don't realise that eacK of my Lectures, even the public ones, are, ftill of Esotericism.But one must be able to receive and understand . the Lectures properly." He said this after it had become, impossible during the years of war to stt1dy Esotericism in the same manner as before, and members came to him with the request to take it up again .. Rudolf Steiner wanted in this saying to define what he wished to be understood to-day by "the Esoteric:", Another time he said: " I want to draw your attention to an esoteric book, which; though it lies in front of everybody's eyes, is under7" stood as such by nobodY. namely Fichte's '·'Lore of Science." In the same sense Rudolf Steiner described every logarithm table as esoteric, i.e., an understanding of it requires that a man masters through learning ,. the scientific premises, and must have the good will to work out the necessary preliminaries. It is our duty, to take· such words seriously to heart.

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ESOTERICISM

But how did Rudolf Steiner cultivate' . Esotericismin our Society?

. ' Whoever has accompanied his progress S1nce the turn of the century might have had the following experience : . Rudolf Steiner

,perpetually sought the right soil for certain presentations, and so it could happen that he communicated-, ... by way of trial-so me­

.• '.' thing f~om his spiritual research to quit~ a ;small CIrcle, sometimes only to three; two, ,a?d even only to one person. At the same

'bme he was making an experiment to see how '.'".'., far modern consciousness can bear in such .' things. It was some new research which (he put, in this way before a few people. One could ask questions and discuss things.

,But after a time one noticed that he took : ,. . same . question to a larger circle, e.g., to the CIrcle of people who formed an

'. Esoteric Group. ' Then it wotild come about ,that he brought it before all the Members ' .. of the Anthroposophical Society' and if one

:wait:d a little longer he beg:n to gIve 'Pubhc Lectures. on the same subject. . You see how Esotericism, 't.e., the Spiritual which is still out of reach of

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ESOTERICISM

ordinary experience, had to be implant~d step by step in present day consciousness. The soil had to be ploughed furrow by furrow so that the seed could be str~wn. But from the very begin~ing these things were meant. for all men. Rudolf Steiner penetrated the . wall which till the end of the Kaliyuga surrounded the spiritual life of the New Age. There are to-day still people dedicated to· different views, "Progressionists" and "Conservatives." But Rudolf Steinerwant~d to give. men everything for which they would show themselves ready. Just· as Christ Jesus suffered the Mystery of Golgotha for all men, so here none was to be shut out.

lt is however to be remembered that the spiritual world also has its Jaws, and does not allow a man to draw near who has not the will to prepare himself beforehand. That no unauthorised person approaches these. things is guaranteed by the assiduity which the individual has to exercise, and by the circumstances and the condition.of his consciousness. The Mystery protects itself through itself; to-day it requires no Bonger a means, either of magic or of sec.'ecy. "

60

ESOTERICISM

Rudolf Steiner revealed the protection the Mystery in his System of approa'~h

to· Esotericism. This approach is of such a kind that in the preparation, in that whkh

. Rud()lf Steiner calls the "Studium" of . Anthroposophy, lies the power to awake 1lli~n to self-knowledge. The cry" 0 Man knew thyself," which resounds from the Mysteries, rings in the soul which is earnestly striving

,'i with the spiritual knowledge of Anthw­.. 'posophy. In exercises of the soul it changes

.... th~ usual Ego-experiences into veritable Se:.f­consciousness, out of which in a new sense

'grows the responsibility of man: the respoa-'sibi1i~y of the spirit. In the awakening : of Spirit-Self the soul finds its home among

:.i spiritual beings: under their eyes it acquires ... " a new moral attitude. Just as "ancielt . ····.knowledge " required the protection of magic

or secrecy, so' the new knowledge stands grounded on the true self-knowledge of m(~n and on the spiritual responsibility th lt blossoms out of it. For this reason Rud< Ilf

\ Steiner at Christmastide; 1923, broUglt ... everything out into the open. He wanted a

new, Mystery movement whose impulses, 61

ESOTERICISM

could lead direct to the Christ-event; free Esotericism is to-day the only possible one. Just as magic Esotericismacted on the physical happenings, as secret Esoteridsm awoke new powers of experience for the soul through Art, so. free Esotericism turns to the spirit of man.

Now I want once more to look backou hist~rical events, so that we maY learn to understand the separate details.

A few centilries after the Mystery of ..... Golgotha we find an attempt on the part of the Church to set up again the ancient power of esoteric functions. In the first Christian time we see the facts brought ab()ut by the mystery of Golgotha standing in'a certain way before "the eyes of all." But then through the Priesthood of the Catholic Church. the Act of Christ was appropriated to itself; the Mediatorship of the priests. was founded. The Church created a worship and reserved for her Priesthood the spiritual-active participation in the. practice of initiation. With the help of the methods and. melilllS of the third Civilisation. the free Mysteries of Christ were in this way withheld

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ESO'l'ERICISM

jrom It all people,"This is an unusuall:r ..,. important event, in history, which show,:; ~hat it was not yet possible in that age to maintain the freedom of Esotericism. And

,from .. it resulted a Postponement of the . uprising of spiritual consciousness in th~ ,fifthPost-Atlantic epoch. Whatever eulturE 'lives in our time through religious tradition

all based on the forms of. the magical . of the third Civilisation, and

'. ,,1-"'no.,. the Priesthood denies to the Lay-.men arises from the impulses of the fourth. .

Most of the battles which the Christian .. ·'Church ' had . to fight were round these

, . What a terrific struggle arose t the Lord's Supper, about the question

, the Chalice was to be handed also ·.·' .... the layman, or if it was to be given to the Priesthood alone !The people of that . . felt something of the direct activity of 9hrist; these questions harassed their souls to the· depths. The battles were so earnest

··.·.·because men saw part after part of their vividpartidpation taken back into

·:"secret:" , .. On the other hand there was ·.~mpla~ted in their souls What had survived

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i i I:

I I t

r ) if

ESOTERICISM

in the way of artistic form from the impulses . of the fourth epoch. '. . ....

The meaning of Christianity is, accor~mg t the traditional religious view, contamed o "d " S t ,~ in the Sacraments. The wor acramen',

is found for the first time in the Vulga~e:;s a translation of the Greek "Mystenon/' Elsewhere "Secret" took the place of. the, word "Mysterium." The Sacraments have really been substituted for what t~e Mysteries were in the earlier times; and m '., the Sacraments lay the Esotericism of t~e " newer time. Esotericism was locked up in the Sacraments by the Priests. The problem is to release the Esoteric content, an~ to 1 't for our present-day consclou. s~ "" smpe 1 anew

ness. Sanctification through the Sacraments" must be made directly available to each individual human-being. .

The Sacraments of the, Cathohc Church .•.• are as is known, seven in number.. I should '.' lik~ to arrange them for the sake of· clearness in a somewhat different order from the .. ' one: Baptism, Confirmation, Marna~e; '," Extreme-Unction; then Penance, Commull1otl, <:"

and Ordination. I have grouped them thus. 64

ESOTERICISM

that one can realise that they are four and three. The first fotlr concern the life of man, and accompany him from birth to

,death. The last three refer to the inner ,life and concern inner changes.

Let us now look more closely at the jirst four. The first is Baptism. It was in origin a part of the third Civilisation,

. something in the nature of a' magic act; . was first an Adult-Baptism, and we find , so in the case of John the Baptist. In

pre,-Christian Epoch the act of Baptism meant to bring the person who under­it into' renewed relationship with the of the Father.. After the Mystery of

'-'V.L«CVL • .LLa.. the Adult is meant through Baptism be taken into the Fellowship of the Holy

The transition was made by John's ptism of Christ, As John baptised Jesus

the Heavens were opened unto him, and saw the Spirit of God descending like a . " and lighting upon. him: and 10, a Voice . heaven, saying, (This is my beloved

.in whom I reveal Myself.' " , At a later period the baptism of infants

introduced by the Church, and with it 65

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the meaning. of Baptism was changed. It changed in so ·far as Infant-Baptism was.­performed, not in the Name of the Holy Ghost, as was the case in Adult-Baptism, but in the name of Jesus Christ. With this goes also the fact that Baptism was reserved to' Priests. By extending Baptism to infants, they were justified in baptising in the Name

.' of Christ, for infants were supposed to be. received in Baptisim on the earth on which.'. Christ had dwelt. The sma1l child was to be taken on earth into the 'Fellowship of Christ, whereas Baptism in the Name of the Holy Ghost means that the person himself" has something to say and to do in the matter.,:"

'If we look at these ,events from ali;l: anthroposophical point of view , we· shall), be able to perceive that there are two things" concerning Baptism which come into question. On one side we must note the manner in, which the child is received into human life ;' and on the other, how man through birth, emerges from the Spiritual world. If we look upon pre-natal existence as life in the spiritual home of the soul, we say: " OU~.J God' we are born" out of the Father-Splnt.

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]jut if we speak from the point of view of the earth, in the Christian sense, we want to

. receive on earth the being who is born of the Father, in the Name of Christ. '. Thus we find anthroposophically a rather different attitude to Baptism from that which is . to-day current in the Church' and this may become, ·for us, an experien~e of

significance, If . we look now at the Sacrament of

,{·J:~xt:relm Unction, we find the reve~se

'happening .. Here also we must consider has happened froin two aspects. We regard death from the point of view of

man who is about to leave the earth' . , '::;'''''-V.UU.LJ, how death here connotes birth

the beyond, into the Spiritual World. . we approach the threshold of death 'Y'ith the words, "Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit." When one leaves the

one gives up the' spirit in the name 6f Father.' One shoUld really consider

"·"·H.V1-."o.,.,.,o Unction as' being given on the

-principle. If we look, in the moment death, on the act of being born in the

,,·'''h .... ,i-l- t~en we may say "Unless ve become 67

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as little children, ye can in no wise enter into the Kingdom of Heaven."

This other view we must, from the position of Anthroposophy, add to the," Church's interpretation of Extreme Unction, and express as the spiritual birth in death; "In Christo Morimur:" Against. the' Church's interpretation of 'Baptism and Extreme Unction let us set, from the Anthro~ posophical point of view, the two Rosicrucian' definitions: Birth as "Ex Deo nascimur," "Out of God we are born," and .Death in, the sense of the "In. ClIristo Morimur/",;" " In Christ· we die," Only in this way we reveal the mysteries which lie in the Sacraments, of Baptism and Extreme' Unction.

Let us take the two intermediate steps, .. Confirmation and Marriage. Confirmation' can be traced to the Blessing through the :'; laying-on of hands of the. Apostles. Confirmation the Church 'performs a, rit~ for the adolescent child by means of the: laying-on of the Priest's hands! whereby the, Holy Ghost is to enter the individual being. The religious feeling of YOung people is to"-day

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<iirected on to quite specific religious doctrines and· d()gmas. Originally Confirniation was meant to sanctify the inner creative energies

.... of the young, and to point to the acf of Christ's Sacrifice, but the Church soon

tervened with one-sided interests of its own. As opposed to this, from his knowledge

human nature, Rudolf Steiner brought . into. relationship with the

of the young child. If education really enter into those creative powers stir in a child, which are given their

before birth, then it can address his religious side as such, so that

child carries with him the Spiritual into awakening consciousness. That points

a true sanctification of each individuality. • the point, qf view of Anthroposophy . shall have to add to Confirmation what

.' Steiner has given Pedagogy in free unimpeded . Sunday Scripture lessons,

to t.qeage of children. It is not .a . society; the teachers carry out,

Rudolf Steiner's direction, an education the soul. . This free, unfettered religious

was begun at the request of 69

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children and parents; of children who lo'uged ... for something religious, and of parents, who': as Anthroposophists begged Rudolf Steiner·· to give religious instruction to .their children; . In this way this religious instruction came about like a branGh of the Anthtoposophical Society in the *Waldorf School at Stuttgart. We can see how it proceeds, not from a religious act, but rather that it hangs together .. with a growing consciousness of what is· Anthroposophical.

Let us look at the Sacrament of Marriage. The Church view of it takes its stand on the words of St. Paul in the Epistle to the'" Ephesians v., "Wives· submit yourselves;: unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the Church:.· and he is the Saviour·of the body. Therefore,'; as the Church is subject unto Christ, so let; the wiyes be to their own husbands in every-: thing. Husbands love your wives, even. as' Christ also loved the Church, and gave. Himself for it." .'

* The Waldorf School for children, founded by Rudolf·': Steiner, has been a great success; and the method has drawn the: attention of educationists throughout the· world.· .

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.... . One can feel how St. Paul with thesr~ ; words clothes the protot""'pe of a 11. .Ch .. '. . .Y rea T . r~stlan .ull1~n. A social life together, whicjl carnes wlth It a freedom which b 1 '·t .. e ongs () err

ery . belllg through Christ, cannot h~ proscnbed ~ny further by means of externa l

, a~d s~ St. Paul stamps the secret 0: ull1~n 1n pictures which at that timf: . still considered sacred. Marriage i~;

~sed . as .. an" example of the much wide]' . s~?Jectton, within the Christian com.

,. ~Ull1ty. In this period of his life man seek~ .>hls relationship to other men, and was i

those d~ys .really taken, through marriag: . .. . soclal hfe as it was formed through the ,feehngs . of men .among themselves. Fo! . every step .into this life St. Paul points men ·to the relatlonshipof Christ to His community:

. Paul says: ~'This is a great Mystery; I >:speak of Chnst and the community." '. In the anthroposophicalmeaning, the . Astral. bod~ carries those powers which place ,man 1U. hls relationship with other men Each individual, from his knowledge of

'. 11~man. nature, suchas Anthroposophy gives 111m; :V111 have much to experience and much

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to work at in himself, in order to purify the . Astral body up to such impulses as ca,n make him the bearer of a union based on the spirit of mankind.

So we have in the first four Sacraments studied religious cultural actions which accompany man in his earthly life to the day . of death, and which are meant to sanctify the separate stages of his development. We .. can feel how the real nature of man remains sealed in the Sacraments. Rudolf Steiner released, as it were, also this hidden nature, by discovering to us the separate parts of

. human nature in their development. We learn to understand how in Baptism the physical body of the child is to be surrendered' to the earth-forces. Through Confirmation, the life-forces, the etheric b.ody are to be kept in purity. The . Sacrament of Marriage is concerned with the nature of the astral body; man forms through it. his relationship to other men. Extreme·· Unction was to lead the human Ego to the awakening in the spirit;

The three last Sacrame~ts of Penance,. of Communion; and of Ordination, were

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" ...... , ......... ·.'-u by the Church entire1y for the narrow of the Pri"ests.

.' Penance was taken in the sense of a tion ,'ofthe passions. Holy Com­

as a participation of the human Christ's sacrifice, and Ordination

/:repn~seJl1te~d the highest step of the spiritual ty of the Priests.

If we go back to origins we find, instead . the words "Do penanr::e" the esoteric

" Change the disposition." That man's resolution is called upon to

his inner life. Everything which to the details of repentance and

to-day still bears clearly the ·';;~"''''I'>''''''''U.L· marks of conversion; self-knowledge

practised as a conversion of the soul. astral body must be purified from the

point of the ego. The Sacrament of is in this sense the way to .the

Spirit-Self"· of man.

The striving for inner conversion is the ..... ~'-I'> ... " .............. .LF. of the esoteric Hfe, and, therefore,

'.' the last three Sacraments especially we point to the esoteric element. We tOUch subject which Rudolf Steiner has dealt

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with i~ his book How to Acquire Knowledge of the Higher Worlds. .

In the Sacrament of the Last Supper we have a Sanctification of what can be an illumination from Spiritual Worlds. When man as an "awakened one" receives the power of the Holy Ghost in his Spirit-S~lf. '.' he.is able to impart it to the dead matenal··

. powers by his spirit. and transmute them to .. living ones. " Lifeaspirit" in Anthroposophy is experiencing Christ with the forces ,~f ~he ... etheric body converted by the Ego. Life-, spirit" is the substance of Christ w~i~h at, the last Supper he distributed t6theDlsclp~es! • in the Mysteries of the Bread and Wille. In Holy Communion man experiences the" cosmic communion out of the spirit. 1ft ): Anthroposophy, Holy Communion can .. ' longer exist. as a ceremonial religi~us act,:, but is a summons to the present consclOUSne~? ..•... of' man, to raise himself to the cosmlC .' experience in order to receive the gif~ of the .. Life-Spirit. In the sense of the Phtloso~hY of Spiritual Activity cosmic, c~mmUtii0n represents the objective of SCientific By the power of the Life-spirit it has

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good sense, 'a magic creative effect. Per· meated with the power of Christ man is ablE to accomplish' the 'Transubstantiation. .

In connection with Christmas 1922, 'Rudolf Steiner spoke on the spiritual com­

"munion of mankind. In his last lecture delivered in the old Goetheanum (31st Dec., 1922), Rudolf Steiner says: "Thus spiritual knowledge is rea:1 communion, the beginning - < \~

for man of a cosmic religion adapted to the present;" .

Here Rudolf Steiner. created a new religion, which is connected with the old, .but ill such a manner that individual man can .:find his way through the, old Mysteries, by taking up Anthroposophy, and with its

'aid transform his Thought, Feeling and Will into higher powers of knowledge.

The last' stage of the Sacraments is . ... Ordination. In the. meaning of the Church . that is the ceremony by which the Priest '" receives spiritual maturity for his service. It

is not an outward introduction into a teaching office, but the witness of spiritual maturity. It is not surprising that this introduction

the Catholic Church follows from the 75

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Hierarchy, for mediatorship in goes by grades.

We learn· from Rudolf Steiner the spiritual reality which underlies Ordination. In the book Theosophy Rudolf Steiner writes about it in the Introduction in a simple way which can easily be read. Here he differentiates three stages of experience' of spiritual events; the vision of the Seer corresponds with the pure sense perception, and the knowledge-activity of the spiritual' researcher with the scientific work on the earth. But to be a "Teacher" for the spiritual province of existence ,a "spiritual . . call" is required. The first favour which can be won by man is the revelation of Spiritual Beings. One cannot force it, one. must know how to wait for it.

The second stage is that one becol1:ies wiser and more initiated. Only then can the third step come in, that the Spiritual .. World calls in the initiate as a co-operator, . which is the "spiritual call" and is what Ordination should mean. It is a will­expression of Spiritual Beings which lays'

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upon him who receives it "a responsibilitr that passes all measure." ,

.. It is all a question of seeing that in th! sp1r1tual. call, the Spiritual World speaks to man. Slllce Rudolf Steiner experienced .thi(~ call, the anthroposophical movement wa~,

'made possible. We all live in Anthro­phy through the function of this call. In this way Rudolf Steiner released the

three higher . elements of the human being Were enclosed in the Church Sacra­of Penance, Holy Communion and

u.,u"a"j·,u.lL; the "Spirit-Self," the "Life­" and the" Spirit-Man." He put before

eyes the Mysteries of free Esotericism' the anthroposophical esoteric experienc~

.' the Sacraments something of the impulse • •.• ?f the Mystery of Golgotha is released, ·.and can be grasped again by the individual by means of a step by step effort. . The Esotericism of to-day must be free . . . ,

use. 1t can only be Christian; and ...... that is bound by ancient means >18 Luciferic. .. , . The knowledge which Anthroposophy gIves ()f the rise of civilIsations. is suited to

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call up in the t:ight way that which is preserved .. in us as memory of the past. All esotericism is an inner calling up of human nature through knowledge of the cosmic evolution-processes .... of the past and their future objective. That· has been established as far as concerns the different post-Atlantic civilisations. ·The Mystery-Life of to-day has nothing more to repeat; as content and impulse of the new Esoteric, Christ "fulfilled" the Mystery of Golgotha as a divinely free act before all. men. Rudolf Steiner is the founder of the free Esotericism by revealing to our time. the·. secret of the cosmic origin of the Christ-

. Nature. But the traces of the old civilisations

deeply penetrate our whole life,· whether in the religious views and dogmas which. repudiate Science, or in the power of Science which reduces Art to pure Aestheticism, or even in the fading experience of. the religious person which still at most shows itself at work in artistic matters.

In old time religion, art and s9ience represented a Spirit-filled unity. As the human soul-forces of Will, Feeling, and.

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:Thought in the age-s~quences· of thE· Egyptians and the Greeks up to our own

•. age were released from the Mystery-existence, the three spheres, till then a unity, separated.

. Rudolf Steiner re,..created them into a new . unity, by freeing Science from Dogma; for .he pointed out the way for Thought to

•.• liberate itself from its corporeal fetters, and to raise itself by artistically vivid

..• education to the power of Imagination; dead Science was revived through the

of Art. But new life grows out of up Art, for man's sense of feeling is

•.. created the art of speech for spiritual experience; religious power renews the· creation in Art. But Religion is freed from

• its paralysis, for knowledge of Spiritual Worlds, that is Spiritual Science, takes the place of the, old. beliefs.

Thus Rudolf Steiner changed the . which was hemmed in by· cults

and secrecy in.to the Science which to-day .•. is alone possible. In place of the protection

through Magic and Oath, we have free self consciousness and free power of the moral i:espons~l?i1ity which know only one vow ~

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that of truthfulness to one's own higher ,. self.

Esotericism consists 6f spiritual facts which, received by the human consciousness' work for its recreation. The whole of Rudolf Steiner's Spiritual Science is Esoteric; -and the product of meditation.. ..•...

. Apart from the content of meditatio.n, there is also, and especially, the form. While' in the case of the content it is necessary for man to shape it with his habitual mental faculties, the form of meditation depends ·on the soul, completely at rest, opening '., itself to its power of creating super-sensual,. spiritual organs. In this event, of thesom, strengthening itself, Esotericismstill. has: to-'day a magic element, but in its right '. place. Rudolf Steiner. always, in. every meditation which he gave, started. from, :general human values; for instance, from the sun's light flooding the earth or from' the warmth quivering in the air.' He sought· to lead man through the content of . Meditation out of himself into the Cosmos,' The Cosmic past produces spirituality in 'soul at rest in it, and produces in man's"

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thought wiSdom, in feeling love, and 1:1

,will morality. The Cosmic past unfold:; to the earth-bound soul in ordinar: T

consciousness as Destiny. In the meditativ/! ·'soul man, led by Michael, experiences Chris1;

the Cosmos, experiences how Christ, . striding through the ranks of the HierarchieE

the originally divine substance into . a human body and there revealed it; His

th enabled man to travel back from Cosmos to his Self, and lends the Ego power to maintain itself in the truth

the saying: tt Not I, but Christ in me." Every meditation and even every real

involves a double journey; a ----------0 out into the Cosmos in the light

idea-carried power of Michael up .to , and a return to the Ego, through the " of Christ; Rudolf Steiner has built

. free Esotericism on man's insight into . We all see how hard it is to attain

insight froni the difficulties we have our Teacher 'left us. He laid a test

. mankind; we must learn to become 'of it~· Freedom is not something

man has or has not, but something 81

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ESOTERICISM

which has to be won by way of inner

development. '. . . . 'the way to this inner unfoldlllg is s~l~wn

in The Philosophy of Spiritual Act~v~ty; it is an esoteric book through and throug~. In it he leads the human spirit to Cosmic Communion. People do not notice that in the Philosophy ot Spiritual Activit~ ?race . is dealt with in ati extremely llltlmate sense, for they forget that man derives ~1l knowledge out of that which comes to hun. intuitively from above, from Grace. But· the most important thing for our . ". efforts is that we take our attitude of soul from 'the Philosophy ot Spiritual Activity.

So I wanted ,to make an attempt to break the spell which lies on the :w~rd "Esotericism," to break with everything" which to-day still has influence in the anthro..;·

, posophical movement· from the cU!ilJtoms' the 'theosophical Society. One cannot .....• Esotericism on anyone, nor can one mak: a.'. profession of it. In the Anthroposophlcal Society can only free insight and ~ree' fellowship be sought. It should be .posSlble. in the Society that in its fellowship there

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.a "plus," over and above what the individual can contribute. All Esoteric effort of an individual is Luciferic ; one can only complete it if one brings its fruits into ~,so.cial fellowship, so that this fellowship'

'. is Witness for the message of the shepherds ,which is to last for all time: To-day and here :<our Saviour is born! That is the esoteric .·.u~".au..LJ.·J.~ of Anthroposophy. It depends on

fellowship whether it can carry this ,:~",'-";:'al;!:C; . through. One can speak only of . anthroposophical work where one can hope to find entrance to the heart. . . It was just that which the Sacrament surrounded with the cloak of secrecy. What

know cannot be abused; in universal . . lies the protection. I felt. 0 bliged

say all this in the Society at the moment this struggle is put before us in the

.. rd-"' ... ·" Plays in the new Goetheanum. Mystery Dramas lie open to all beholders, only those souls which contain in them-

ves esoteric impulses can break down the so that the figures live among

in spiritual reality. We are· summoned take a part in· the Drama. In the

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Goetheanum, where the Spiritual nurtured, where the Mystery Plays. appear .. before our eyes, spiritual life and the Impulse .. to freedom will best be able to show them- .•.. selves. All mankind should be able to enter .' the doors of the Goetheanum. and come to. these plays! 'the free Esoter~c of 0.ur day

- must function in the spiritual It.self ; It m~st ' .. , be a science, a spiritual SCIence, whIch

t ins in itself the artistic eletnent, aJ1.d. con a. . . h . of leads thereligious-mmded ·to t e power • experience.

84

...

IV,

THE LANGUAGE OF KNOWLEDGE. Dornach, 28th Dec., 1928.

In . the primal beginning of human development, the soul of man had its being .and lay in the divine lap of the world. The image of man sprat;lg out of the power of the Word. Ceaselessly Rudolf Steiner

'pictured for us in cosmic images the creative adyance of the. Logos through world-reons

·'.up to the point where earth history begins. . The first earthly periods reflect in a changed • form the previous events of past evolution, and Rudolf Steiner s1;lowed again and again

.• how the first historical eras of human history ..... on earth contain consequences of cosmic . past. The Lemurian could still be connected

the power of the Word in direct weight . and authority, and could make the life­element of fire subject to his will. The Atlantean.could hear the World-:-word through ·the power of the Planet-mysteries. Echoing still from' this experience the Sun-word, which revealed itself in the mysteries of the

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first post-Atlantean civilisations" magic power, till, spreading out elemental utterances of the Greek pythian goddess, it lost the effectiveness which it had brought out of the past. A lament for the lost Word now filled men's souls, and the deepest longing for it harassed the ' times in which the central event of the whole process of human development became a, legend. The World-Word advanced to incarnation in an earthly body. After the' Mystery of Golgotha we must look in Earth­forces, for what could in bId times be found'; only in Cosmic experience.

There was a time when the Word had to remain a secret of the Mysteries, and the tradition of this secrecy lasts itlto OUf time. But for this reason all ,the dangers of subjective experience were woven ,into it. To-day one may not speak of the" Lost Word" ; to-day the power of the Word has become knowledge: Rudolf Steiner made, in Anthroposophy, "the Word" ' ipto knowledge-language, and this for all men.

Rudolf Steiner often brought before our eyes the transition from the old world-age

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... to the new ; again and again he pictured the advance from the third to the fourth and into our fifth post-Atlantean civilisation, so that we can recognise the old Egyptian and the old Greek in our natures to-day. We must make a· great point of following thoughtfully the ways which enabled Rudolf Steiner to

..re-discover the lost Word. They will lead us to. the impulses which can make our present work give' direction for the future.

, A 'letter of Rudolf Steitler'sto Friedrich Eckstein, which was published in The Goetheanum of 23rd December, 1928, is particularly illuminating. And if we ask, who is Friedrich Eckstein, we find him ill

.. RUclolf Steiner's book The Story of my Life; ,po 281 et seq., when Rudolf Steiner was faced, 'with the most weighty decision. We reac. the following :--

. " In imparting to the public that whicll ' .. Anthroposophy ~ contains as knowledge 0:: :.the spiritual world, decisions are necessarv

" ... which are not altogether easy. The charact~~ ," of these decisions q:m best be understood i E

one glances at a single historical fact. 87

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:]11 'j

ill .:1

".Ii

Ai + 'ji: 'Iii .1

ESO'fERICISM

" In accordance with the quite differently constituted temper of mind of. an earlier . humanity, there has always been a knowledge of the spiritual world up to the beginning of the modern age, approximately until the fourteenth century. This knowledge; however, was quite different from Anthro­posophy, which is adapted to the conditions of cognition characterising the present day.

" After the period mentioned, humanity could at first bring forth no knowledge of the spiritual world. . Men could only confirm. ' the 'ancient knowledge,' which the mind.' had beheld in the form of pictures, and which •. was also available later only in symbolic-'

picture form. . . . .:. " This' ancient-knowledge' was practlsed

in remote times only within the · mysteries.'" It was imparted to those who had first been made ripe for it, the 'initiates.' It was not to reach the public because there the tendency was too strong to use it in an unworthy manner. This practice has been maintained ' only by those later personalities who received the lore of the • ancient knowledge' and continued to foster it. They did this in ."

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.' . most restricted circles with men whom they had' previously prepared.

"And thus it has continued even to .thepresent time.

'.' ." '. '. '.' "Of the persons maintaining such a '1?osition, in relation to .. spiritual knowledge : whom I have' encountered, I may select one

was active within the Viennese circle 'of Frau Lang to which I have referred but whom I also met in other circles with which

was. associated in Vienna. This. was .l.LU.J.J.LU E~kstein, the 'distinguished expert

• ancient knowledge.' While I was with Friedrich Eckstein he had.

written much,but what he did write . filled with the spirit. No one, however,.

se::nse:.C1 • fron: his essays the intimate expert the anClent knowledge.' This was active the background of his spiritual work.

after life had removed me from this also, I' read in a collection of his

a very significant paper on the Brothers.

. •• Friedrich .Eck;stein represented the. earnest . conviction' that esoteric spiritual

should not. be publicly propagated 89

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like ordinary knowledge. He was. not in this conviction; it was and is that·· almost all experts in the ' ancient wisdom .. To what extent this conviction of the dians of' the 'ancient wisdom,' strongly' enforced as a rule, was broken through in . Theosophical Society, founded by H. ' .• Blavatsky-of this I shall have occasion to

speak later~ "Friedrich Eckstein wished that

'initiate in the ancient knowledge,' should clothe what one treats publicly the force which comes from this ' . but that one should separate the strictly from the esoteric, which remain within the most restricted circles those who fully understood how to

it. " If I was to develop a public acti

on behalf of spiritual knowledge, I had. determine to break with this tradition. found myself faced by the requirements the contemporary intellectual life. In presence of these the preservation of such as were inevitable in ancient times an impossibility .. We live in the time

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.... '. . p'ublicity wherever any sort of ,,:knowledge appears. The point of view favouring the preservation of mysteries is an . anachronism. The sole and only possibility is that persons should be taught

. knowledge by stages, and that no should be admitted to a stage at which

, . : higher portions of this knowledge are to ,be imparted until he knows the lower. This, ·.p.U.lCCIll.. corresponds with the practice in lower

higher s.c11ools· even of an ordinary sort. H Moreover, I was uuder no obligation

anyone to guard mysteries, for I received . from the < ancient wisdom' ; what

possess of spiritual knowledge is entirely , result of my own researches. When any

has come to me, only then I set it whatever of the' ancient knowledge'

already been made public from any side, order to point out the harmony in mood, -

at the same time, the advance which is ble to contemporary research. ~'So, after a certain point of time. it . ' qUlte clear to me that in coming before public with spiritual knowledge I shoUld

be doing the right thing." 91

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At the beginning of Chapter XXX., p.

284 Dr. Steiner says :-. : , . " The decision to give publicexpresslOn

to the esoteric from my own inner experience impelled me to write for the Magazine for 28th August, 1899, on the occasion of the' one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of' Goethe's birth, an article on Goethe's fairy tale of The Green' Sna!?e and the Beautiful. Lily. under the title 'Goethe's Geheime Offe~barung' ; , Goethe's Secret Revelation.'"

So we learn how Rudolf Steiner had to struggle to find the ways he wanted to go.:. He speaks of " decisions" which" had to .... taken," of the" will" .which " drove." future of humanity depends on the act of one man. Here is Drama in its form, emb,racing the fates of men and Rudolf Steiner had to decide whether break with the" tradition of long' ages. spoke to us of two currents in Occultism.· '. that of the Right and of the Left. . ,. described himself as belonging to the Left; for to him secrecy was to-day .

" anachronisnl." 92

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That meant the separation of Rudolf •• Steiner from Friedrich Eckstein.

Rudolf Steiner's struggle with his decisions took place in a solitude of which the "Life" repeatedly and in the plainest

.,.lU.a,UJl.lC:.l bears witness. He found the answer to his search for the " Lost Word" in his Knowledge of human nature. His decision to give again the Word to be takenup by all men led to the " language of knowledge "­

Anthroposophical way of knowledge ted in· spiritual activity. . .

Here we find, as Rudolf Steiner thinks . and decides on his path, that Speech Word have a destiny as well as man. wing this path in the light of his

s'piritual science, I wish to lead you to..;day .. the three last periods in the formation

,human consciousness. Let me put it <to you in an illustration.

There are transitions from the old stages knowledge to present,;.day experience.

. Riddles of· Philosophy Rudolf Stdner . traces the development of human soul­experience from antiquity to the present,

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ESOTERIC-ISM

and he does itin such a way that his expo­sition includes at the same time the meaning of everything philosophical. Following the. path of our soul's changes we find in ourselves the traces . of this path as spiritual facts,. Rudolf Steiner wanted to prove that in' the

. course of evolution, as he saw it from old times.' to now, the soul would reach self­consciousness and become master of . itself.

In the " Riddles of Philosophy" we can. discern three great epochs.

In the beginning, so it is pictured, the intuition of the spiritual was placed in the' world as a gift,' in which man shared.···· •. · Thought-life was also intuition. When men, regarded the things of the world with external observation, they took in also at the same time the concept of them. Only gradually did thought make its appearance in an inner'. perception, and with it the soul beg3:n to separate itself from the world. Full of deep longing the Greek Jelt the duality of sout and world.

In the next epoch the human soul strove, for its self-assertion with the questions of

94,

ESOTERIC-ISM

'religious' e~perience. It sought a connection of. the mental contents with the impulses,

.' such as had been bwught into being by the : Christ-Event. Thought's capacity to observe

:, disappeared more and more. The ideas and : ~onceptions had to be produced much more

by inner activity, which allowed the soul to share the revelation . of the universally

.. And in this struggle for the life awoke human consciousness.

'. In the transition from the Middle Ages i i " . the New Age the Ego frees itself from the

in self-conscious experience, as earlier soul· had freed itself from the world.

. At the third' stage the Ego finds itself , a part of the .. spiritual world, struggling . the forces of nature. The New Age

('t .... "r"' ... " the pro blem of the soul between and spirit. The soul feels itself

O,C.tJ.l.U.u;LJ;:. .. between two worlds, yet a part from Its observation by means ofthesenses nothing more of the world, it is

ective; its thought is human thought, longer world-thought. So it stands before

.its own" life as a riddle in nothingness, a · stranger to the, world both of the body and

Cl 95

ESOTERICISM

of the spirit. It is this proble~ of the between worlds with which Philosophy must deal. Philosophy is becoming trichotomy of human nature: that is the first,,' 'Sound of Rudolf Steiner's " language." In the book Theosophy invokes human nature asbody~soul spirit. He shows the soul's dependence on the body, but also the ' of its spirit in the re-incarnation of individu-;" ality. The discovery of the threefold character of human nature gave to' sciences a new creative incentive.

_ We stand in the turmoil of times. Rudolf Steiner's life chanced in transition where the destiny of gods human tragedy meet. The, strife applies to the ,individual. The gods suffer destiny, and men too. But destiny also the word and conceptions and ideaS.

The loss of the Word, the' sealing Thought, the death of the Ego are marks in the destiny of the Lopn~~-the separation of the soul from the world, of the ego from the soul, point out to cotlSCllOU~S"

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ness the path to the three-fold division of ':hu.~an nature based on body, soul and

splnt .. Aristotle stood at the completion of the

first tra~sition, the separation of the soul ,from the resounding World-Word. He is :thefouuder of the science of thought, of

; and he created it purely out of the phenomenology of thought, by which he

•. pleted the step from human soul to ., spiritual world. Plato still saw the Real

the spiritual prototypes that hovered things, and so turned his face away

, • j, na~ure. Aristotle. seized the spiritual In thlllgS. Ideasvamsh, through Aristotle

the grave of God, into the outer world. seals up the ancient wisdom through the

o~ thought. In logic, thought senses Volce of the vVord, in logic the Logos "Therefore logic demanded absolute

" " and man may not resist it. Its laws , are the description of thought-phenomena themselves, of, magic word-force. This

, is complete in itself. Till now advance has been made on Aristotelian

In its province it is conclusive.

• 97 G

, ESOTERICISM

Another individual is witn:ss of the most..

d ' 'fi nt fight m the second ,',

intense an slgnl ca , ,

h th Middle Ages: Thomas Aqumas.

epoc, e ~ , , f d to as the T' M'ddl Ages are often re erre

r!.:k ~ge:, though in that, timeir:~:alm~~:, critical questions of, human sp 'e'

, d The religious questlOns wer , were ralse . f r whiCh

'd l'th a'n l'nwardness of ee mg , Presse w . ' "

,t day hardly realise. It IS a ,question we can 0- , b" . " to be or not to e ',' for men of an, mner IT' ht was

f r the human personality,J..houg , f'i o d 'th 11 the force 0 ,,' schooled and inspire w:' a, , : the soul fighting for its eXlstence. From E ',. . 'battles the soul wrested the human go. Inner, . f his time Thomas '. As representative 0 '

Aquinas stood at the zenith of the school of thought. He fought severest spiritual battle for the 0, Oll·Ull,Ua,~·~'., of human individuality after death, ,and

1 d his name for all tlme , fight has coup e , that of his opponent Averrhoes. ,

In order to appreciate the contro t look more closely for

properly we mus , t at the Averrhoes

momen '. f Averrhoes was a representative 0'.

1· . m as it had reached Europema lanlS , ' ' 98

ESOT:ttRICISM

"He represented, quite in the sense of antiquity, the thought-life as universally cosmic, of which only a drop is revealed in the thought of single men on earth; in the same way the ,thought of 'each individual man is the

" out flowIng of an absolute power. Averrhoes saw it as flowing out of universal World­Thought, out of God the Father, and return­

:ing again at, death to Him,

Bttt Thomas wanted the taking up of :'the "Word" to be through the power of

Son, He, did not wish to give the lie Averrhoes, ,but to prevail over him and

, the ancient thought method which left "!Jilt of account the Mystery of Golgotha. ;' verrhoes wanted to find the absoluteness

thought in the Ego which had released from the soul, and to regard the coming

the I.,ogos in the sense of antiquity, But • the time had already come when the deeper forces of the human soul were no longer

in' this direction and so it was possible for the absoluteness of thought to become' a force which worked inimically ctJ;<:\,H' 1;' the reception of the Son-power.

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ESOTERICISM

The A verrhoes-phenomenon of ~hought must be properly understood; we still meet .... . it everywhere to-day, and we must see how ...... .

far it is justified. . . ' R d 1f Steiner describes this m the first

u 0 A ' 't part of his Philosophy of Spiritttal ctt~t y.' He pictures it by leading thought, described ... in the sense of a phenomenon, to pure, thou ht. And there we have the Averrhoes:

g.. . 'fi d' day The content··. experience Just! e m our ,'. . , of a conception is absolute, and mferences .• from the absolute are irrefutable; they can have no individuality; as far as ~he contents, of the conception are concerned 1t makes no difference if 'A or B or C thinks i:.

For this reason Thomas Aqutnas

to prevail against Aver~hoes and call deeper powers of expenence than

'. absolute thought. He wanted to absorb. the power of the soul, ;Vhich. he had won' by schooling and clarifymg h1S . thought the uttermost, into the very depths of heart, so that feeling should. .. bec?me selfless as to be able to practise the.o " .... 1"'1+·'"

of thought. He wanted to carry mto / the power of . the I{ogos which hitherto had,

.100

ESOTERICISM .

obtained only in thought; he founded the Logic of . Feeling. In innermost soul­struggles he fought so to refine and clarify

". feeling that it might attain the certainty of thought. and become knowledge-powet. He brought the .logical knowledge-power that had grown out of the ancient thought­observation to the highest perfection, as we

'. . meet it in .. the most flourishing period of Scholastic:ism, and then transferred it into

. heart~power, to revive feeling and purify it

. into universal knowledge-power. As Aristotle had founded the Logic of

so Thomas Aquinas founded the . Logic of . 'Feeling. With this feeling,

<'permeated by the Logos, he turned to ·.religious revelations, and with his soul glowing ,with the power of Christ, he won in Him the vindication of human individuality beyond. death;

That which Thomas had won in untold , inner conflict with his own soul resulted,ill . the course of the following centuries, in the

development of German Mysticism as the , fruits qf the life of feeling. Thus Thomas

crefLted, in the Logic of Feeling, 101

ESOTERICISM

a way to the" "rord" as the power of

Son. . In modern tim~s however Rudolf . . ...

stands as the founder of the. Logic of. WilL:, He points out a way by which the Wi~ can be translumined by the' Logos and attalUs to <,

the accuracy and clearness of thought. . .. ' the Philosophy of Spiritual Activity he lays down clearly and strongly the' will a.s a new; spiritual province. Just as in the ~td4lesol. Philosophy he fashioned the. h~story of philosophic evolution from antiqUity up to-day for the purpose of stimulating development of our own spiritual ness so, in his method of ~_r,"''''''''''

in~he Philosophy. of Spiritual Rudolf Steiner. turns' also to the . powers of the soul. It is ~n~~nt to and found.; the spiritual activity of man a spontaneous act of the human so~l.. .' took upon himself the task of form.mg ou~, of the facts of present-day conSClOusness and a new phenomenology a new and a new path of knowledge. . .

In the quest for the spiritual act1Vity' of man he shows the fallacy in which

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ESOTERICISM

blem had till now been set out, and makes ~n ad vance towards its solution by putting

thus: What h~ppens to Will when one L.llJ.j.U~::; of its nature?

At ,the end of the first chapter we must . notice the' 'paiticularly important turn of

sentence, p. 13: "From whatever point regard the subject, it. becomes more and

clear that the question of the nature of action presupposes that of the origin

thought." ,This origin of thought is us in the next chapter, "Why the Desire

., . KtlOwledge is Fundamental," as a part l1aturaL:forces in man: "This quality of

in us we must seek out (p. 22) I • •• "

in the third chapter, preceding know-is brought into review. In practising

0n the subject of thought, where is spontaneously "creature" (object),

" creator" (observing subject), you have origin of thought as something willed.

page 39: " In thinking we have got hold one bit of the world process which requires

presence if anything i~ to' happen." This being-present, actively, Rudolf

defines in another connection as the 103

", )' •. " , ". ,.,., I.,

ESOTERICISM

condition of meditation. In Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and Its Attainment, he' describes how in meditation one can put before one's soul a pictorial and synoptic thought-connection; how then, letting 'go .. the separate thoughts, one must remain '.' quite still in the visual image, in the creation: of images. When thought stands still, it· reveals its origin as Will, as creative Will. The origin of thought is found to be Will.

There Rudolf Steiner puts forward as a. solution of the natural . (Antinomy) the generative power of con diction as an active soul-impulse: in·· way he founds the Logic of Will.

The first part of the Philosophy Spiritual Activity is not merely theory of knowledge, but it is a practical path leadmgto human nature itself. The second part show~' how the 'Logic of Will can be practised each individual, in order that the Will be raised in its function to the absolu.",_u,-,,,. of ideas. The Logic of \Vill has to be by showing how the will can be purified such a state of spirituality that it draws'

. the moral. bltuition of spiritual worlds.' 104

ESOTERICISM

. unison with moral intuitions man creab~s. •..•........... his spiritual activity.

. So there stand before us three great figures-Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas an d.

. RUdolf Steiner-three landmarks of the greateSt transition periods in the evolution Df hU1i1,an soul-life. .

"The battles which have been fought in. eac~ of these epochs have had an immen se

\~ffect. ri~ht up to our present experience, ", <.111 WhICh It sleeps like the seed of future hope ..

Reflecting on the path of Rudolf Steiner :,et us awa]<:e in ourselves the tnices of these past batt1~s, because all the stages of past development must be traversed in the mi nd

'. in;a shortened repetition. For the m)st' part these traces'remain in us as host Ie,.

. hindering forces, because we do not 'examine ~hem and transform them in a proper w::ty,. lnto forces that give future strength.'

Rudolf Steiner has shown us by an, example the transformation and continuation

.o~ forces through consecutive ~ges. In ,h1s ',book Mysticism and Modern ThouJht

"he describes how the attitude of soul" i~, 105

ESOTERICISM

mysticism grew out of the germs of Thomas Aquinas' Logic of Feeling, but found its real continuation in that whichledto the methods of Nature-Study in its beginning. Later however the impulses were diverted through that Arabian Aristotelianism, saturated one­sidedly with the A verrhoes experience, which had pushed through, to Europe by w~y of Spain. This current ~;ed Natural SCience into Materialism.

To-day the conscious experietH~e A verrhoes phenomenon in the sense of the Philosophy of Spiritual ActivUy is the first step on the road of knowledge; it must become a self-understood factor of consciousness.

Only when we have realised the growth , out of the pastas a personal experience may, we approach the mystery' of spiritual, activity. In the sense of this mystery dearness of ,thought sinks in as far as the will. The doings of men are then deeds

,which germinate as ideas in the spiritual' world and in the natural' world become , . events, caused by' man's free creation. Goethe notices moral effects in natural

106

E~OTERICISM

, causes when' he speaks of the acts aUli ; sUffering of light.

" " Knowledge of divine intention kindle 3

the P?wers of love in the heart of man to work 111 free-will in the sense of a wholes~m:! advance of man and world.

This freeqom to which Rudolf Steiner opens the way by taking up the impulses of

,the Mystery of Golgotha was not previous!-T to be found on earth. In antiquity th:~

"secret power of destiny ruled beyond men •• 'and, beyond gods. The unsympatheti~

ughter of the gods at the fate of men run :; Romer's descriptions, and yet th:!

are subject ~o the same power of destiny. arose In the individual struggl:!

,''''f~U..LJ''.':''" fate; but tragedy also stalks throug:'l gods' heaven; it is reflected in Genna'l

in The Twilight of the Gods. Tb'=" " , Age in Greece arose with the courag = ',and strength to" endtlre the might of destiny.

When the" soul was released' from it~ in divine regions, and individual sOu]:'

.'e~m~~rHmc:e actually came to pass, the safety the Mysteries as a guide gradually ppeared." The "Word" was silent, the

107

ESO'l'ERICISM

Greek Oracles were no longer understood.; Aristotle closed the door to the ancient knowledge of the gods, to the ancient "Mythos." He saw the spiritual active in things themselves, atld turned his face ..... therefore towards the outer world, in ordeJ;' to fathom the· inevitability of its idea~ carried behaviour and form. His Logic of Thought is witness that.in man a destiny. .can become consciousness-power.

This development from destiny to' consciousness-power showed itself in quite another way among· the 'Old Testament peoples. There the all-powerful idea was.·· .. that of the world derived from the' This race was faced by the revelation of the .... " Word" through the Law. As a parallel to Aristotle's Logic . in this case stands the Law; Jehovah gives the Law on Sinai;: amid thunder and lightning, to Moses i-the Ten Commandments. The Father makes terms with the people whom he has . chosen.· Just as Logic does for thought,: so the Law is to preserve the with the power of the Father for the' J..LLU."''-'''

will flowing in the blood of a people to vv HUHJ.

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ESO'l'ERICISM

the expectation of the Son had b h

... een prop eSled. Here 1 . ; .'" a so we see later as lndlv.ldual consciousness appears like a seed

,gr0.wmg out of ~atiortal feeling, e.g., in Job, ... frUltless struggling 'against the Al . h n. .. .. mig ty

... IV1~e Will. Let us look at Greece. What . was m Palestine prophecy and expectation

'. appeared there as longing for release from destiny.

. 'Through the Mystery of Golgotha the pro~lem of fate and spiritual activity was ,enhrely changed.· In pre-Christian times fate , ru~ed. the "world-the Law as Father-.~nnclple; in the Mystery of Golgotha the

'. Son through Grace released mankind from thE Law. ~egarded with the consciousness oj ,~lder hmes appears next spiritual activity, the power of the Son as Grac~, in the senSE 'ofreleasefrbm the Law. In this sense GracE ,~ppeared among the Gnostics who observe<5 ,the approach of the Son; in this sense J o hI. ,was the first to bear witness :-" And of ,. F~ness have all we ~eceived, and Grac{! ".' Grace. For theI.aw was given by Mose~l

but Grace and Truth came by Jesus Christ." 109

\

ESOTERICISlY.[

Rudolf Steiner gives the following definition of Grace: "One defines Grace in the Christian sense as the capacity of the." free soul, out of its inner self, to do the good. Grace and Truth that one recognises in one's own heart have come through Christ."* "The capacity of the . free 'soul out of its inner self to do the good "-that means the release from the Fall, which- was completed in thought. So we can follow the genesis of a conception to its origin in cosmic history. But through the knowledge of good and eVil. the impulse of spiritual activity was implanted· in mankind. The coming.of Grace in Christ' completed the freedom of man before the gods.

In the Middle Ages the Church began the unfolding of its power ; th~ idea of Grace , .• as a freedop1-impulse became an obstacle to " it. Therefore the institution of the Church· cut off the real impulse of Grace by extending . it to include the destiny-law. Long lasted'· the fight over the question: Does Grace·· proceed from the Father or theSon ? and the Church always took car~ to attribute it to ..•. the Father. It could not· do with release

.. Cycle III., lecture IV.

110

ESO?,ERICISM.

from the Law; Grace was taken over inb the ~eeping of the Church, which meant the locklllg up of the impulse of spiritual activity. In place of Grace through the Son, the Churc~ developed. the conception of original sin, out of. a destlllY working in thought. pestiny mlllUS Grace equals original sin.

,w. e find in Augustine the first repn -. se~tatlvel of. the doctrine of original sin, 8S th1S ~onceptlOn. wormed itself deep into th e so~-life of the whole Middle Ages. Inb .th1S .came. theqa.ttle of the Church agaimt the!lberatlon of Grace in the sense of esoteric Chnstendom. .

. Later the idea of Predestination, d divine preordination of human destiny· in ·after-death ,experi~nce without man being able to doanythlllg to free himself, w::s pound ~p. with the idea of original sin. In

·.t~e; doct:llle of Predestination mankind :8

,dlvldedmto one part 'to which Gra . d .. re .8 . r ~llled, and all. the remaining part

Isdoomed to original sin. . To-day. ma~ carries the· fact of origin:ll

. .. only In .h1S . consciousness. But old pIctures representing the Judgment with He

III

ESOTERICISM

Lamb of God in the midst give us a deep insight into the struggles of that ~time.· The Son-power was sealed by the·Aristotelian Logic .. In thought which had separated itself from its cosmic origin, which arose in ,a world which had become empty of gods, we have the rule of original sin.

Thomas Aquinas fought with all his being for the originally Christian gift of Grace. He was faced with the question:..--, "How can thought be made Christian? " 'The Father-principle as it held the field in the Dogmas of his Church had diverted'; Grace into the doctrines of original sin and, predestination; but he wanted to have' preserved the co-operation of individual in Grace. The h~art-forces of man be. able to fill themselves with the act Christ, who brought " fullness" upon earth,' and with it freedom for . gods ~nd men. '. Original sin arose in the individual, its fa consequences concern all mankind. Grace. has come to aU men on earth; the individual must call up in himself the strength to gain,

his share of it. , 112

ESOTERICISM

. .' Since the Reform t' who h 'b a Ion the . , . IC efore mostl question 5

Played ." . y concerned th. e Churc]

. an lUcreaslUg rt. 1 Science took up A . pa .lU all civilised life.

b. . nstotel1an Lo . .

.0 Jectlve in its ab 1 glC, made 1: as law to th" so uteness, and applied i-

. e outer ld . -created .a metaph sic wor. ' and thereb:

r

. beyond the bY' whIch reached ou·; .... A .' .... . 0 served world Th . ' .. nstotle describes as he . at WhlcI t still withil1 h . P ~omenon of thought

. . uman conscIoUs . . . ' two concepts f .' . ness, under th(~

• . .' '.' 0 cause and ~Clence applied to th ..' consequence, i.ndependent. obJ' t' e

l vIsIble world as thE!

f .. .' , ec lve y active o' cause and ff .' , natural lav.'

.thi . .' . e ect. The impU1 f .' rd post-Atlantean C' T" se 0 thE:

... . finds it" ~V1ls.atlon, namely law, .. ' . s expressIOn lUn t 1 ,lll the outward f ". a ura sciencE: , .' . . ". orm naturall ,,' . , .. the sense of AntI"t aw. Desttny . . ." . qUI y, law 10' " Slll, survlvei'n the th ,gIC, onglllaJ .

..• ~1Uder . the 'concepti oughft of natural SciencE .. .'. . ons 0 natural nece 't

.. ..... lllescapable causalit . T SSl Y:

. nature testify m y he modern lawf

.' . ore concernin th' ,

....•. man than .the n t . g e natUrE: '. " On ...•. a ure of Nature ..

. ' the other hand th '. ''I.)r,eOf,c::t1 t' . e conceptlon of

. . Ion changed. It . str 1 appeared 'ong y in Cal vinisln and ha::

113 H

ESO'tEIHCISM

. u to the extremebf become matenal . p (D Roman Boos

. dern AmericaUlsm. r. mo . 'b dthis in his lectures.) has desCrl e . .. ether it penetrates

tt\h' view of hfe, wh. . t of .L 1S.. -- sand stra a . '. 11 provmce .

as a technlque a d fi s as a philosophY, . ·ty or e ne , , . th human soCle, . kn wledge, IS . e.

b ndaries of human 0,.. . the oU s iritual activlty. " death of human P , . d'.'c'ted . , rk IS 1!e .... f St iner s wo .,..

,. But Rudol e, h·' humanity t() .. d f preserVlng IS .

to the en 0.. . f human nature H develops out 0 ~ , T

man. e d consc10usness .~, 0 k of mo ern.. ) the two tas s reefold division (trich()to1U!: •• create the th, .'. 'ty ThePh'tZo: ... . . 't 1 aetlV! . ' and human. S?1!! ua . vit· seeks to point a .. ' sophy at sp'tntual Act~ or ~odern thought-,. way of knowledge ott h s that human •

, .., . This way s ow. . k Posslblhtles. .. d 1 pment and sees .•

. . bie of eve 0 b' t· , nature IS capa . ," the 0 Jec .... . . S' r defines as. . . 't· Rudolf teme .. d unfoldlng, 1 .. " the" all-roun .... of all knowledge " The word

, 1 h man nature~ of the ~h~,e u , he idea of developme~t "unfoldmg ta~es \ nature into the psychlc of the modernvlew 0 . along' natural-:-,

Advancmg , .. ' life . of man. ht ,Rudolf Stemer ..

. tl'fic lines of thoug , selen . . 114

ESO'tERICISM

" ... created the new language of knowledre. . " He often set the task of freeing the origi1l al . -ideas· of Aristotelian Philosophy from tIe

abstractness in which they are used to-day. The ,two basic elements of mode:n

knowledge are observation and thoug1.t~ Nature in her completeness reveals hersc~lf to, man through his senses of observation. Observation is "simply something given," man is passive towards it ; he does nothing to help, so that one could say-through mat.'s senses 'the world is observed. He must wait for what appears. Something of the old fate obtains in observation. But new Rudolf Steiner opens up a province with in the world of the "simple gift," where lUan must be 'actively "present" if he wishes

'to observe anything; this is the thougbt­.'. activity of man, the power of logic givl~n

him by God. Man forms imag~s,-judgmen1:s, .' and concepts. In the act of ordina ~y ,perception he. connects observation altd conception with reality. But rtow thoug It

'. itself has. become observation. Observation thought has become thought's ovrn

vity. Observatiortand conception here . 115 Hl

ESOTERICISM

.' . the Ego, which has to be become one, ~,e" 'f 1 and creatively by comprehended intUl 1Ve y. hurled backinto the Will, otherwi~e luan 1S fthinkingabbut

, . ':th1s way 0 nothlllgness . . d that divides the thought leads. to the oorld of spirit' ego-

d f the wo~ " sense wor1 ro~ thought givlllg up

·t' In pure ' willing, res lng. . t' . through the 1 d and percep lon

all know e liSe . new knowledge in n may recelve a " '1

senses, ma ~ the revelation ofSp1rttua ." '. the form of Gtace " . 1ft snesS is, the green

. Where thls se es .' .* .. Bemgs, 'the bridge over the stream; . serpent can bUl1d. l' d to itself leads The formality of loglC, app le 'f ". observing

. . ' "power 0 .' .•.. to the "format1ve .' ':the .' real"

" t ImagmatlOn".... .; thought, . of' t ;.;day is to kmdle the,; historical lmpulse 0 0" ... ' .•••.•••

. '11" upon " the Law, . . ... ' "free-WI . , . nd . , h h the Law a Christ entered t roug ·.·t . the

. f 1fi1 ent of the Law on 0 ..... , brought the u m". lculab' Ie ", as th. e. ' of the Inca ' . . .' '.' earth out . . " u ht the power of, " Son of Man, he bro. g f S irit-Self; . In: ' Hol Ghost, the dawn:ng o..p .' ...•

y, w'n t whIch wIthlll the .' .. ', the log1C o,f 1 h' 0 fspiritual actiyity .';' of the ph110soP yo. '. . ." -'. S ke See advt; •..•

. " F' Tale of the Green na . '" Refers to 'Goethe s airy

116

"."~,

BSOTERICISM

is revealed, Rudolf Steiner discovers the fr =e : mysteries of the Holy Ghost ..

-In thece1!.tral chapter of his book Theosophy Rudolf Steiner shows modern thought the way to realising the doctrbe

. of Re;.incarnation, with its Karma activity, by proceeding from the idea of species to tIe idea of, biography which is applicable alo:le to man; Here he arms theconsciousne~s­soul with the means of knowledge so that it . comprehends its nature in the Ego wi:h spirit-strengthened thought, In" ':the Leading Thoughts" and letters which he wrote at tIe last we find the most significant: "Anthro-posophy Js a way of kll10wledge which can lead the. spiritual in human nature· to t~e spiritual in the universe."

Going beyond the book Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and its Attainment, he

'. turns. here in a new sense and with a dE ar .call to the new esoteric power of experien(:e, .to the awakening of our minds to see the

. spirittiaLWe can see in it a witness of the ,hour in which we live, That which the seul

:' in 'the study of Anthroposophy 'hammered '" out for it~elf.· as individual" knowledge it

117

ESO':rERICISM

f m" into an active d ingly trans or W'11 :nust ungru g , ht Feeling and' 1

"t 1 organ. 'fhoug , ., -nplr1 ua , '. th powers of Imagma :trow in the soul lnto e.. ,. :> .' t' nand Intult10 tl· tion, Insp1r~ 10 f the Spirit-Self man stands

In the hght 0 ld' the transformed then on the thres~o t 111, , he stands in the

f emory JUs as power 0 m' icture of memory life after death bef.orel'fthe p der the " judicial

k pon hlS 1 e un . bf 1 and 100 s u . . ~h pow, er of falt u,.. " f the Sp1!ltS, .1. e t eyes 0 " S irit-Self comes 0

nesS towards hlS own p ,

him from memory hi h therwise speaks to And tha~ w cOn inl u1se from his

him as ' consclence-as a p in his 1 ex erience-changes ' , .

pre-nat~, . P, e ower of moral intUltlOn, ,,' perceptlve wlll to .th P 11 it in his PhilosophY , Rudolf Ste111er ca s , ,

or, as .' the moral fantasy. ot spiritual Actwdy,. '., bear witness ,

and conSclence , ." Memor~ 'r;;, and destiny, working

of repeated 111carnat~on", f human life in the in 'them, is the VOlce 0 d th and re-birth.

1 h s between ea . spiritua sp ere f' h Logos that lives 1ll

~h power 0 t e . , t .1. e , th expulsion in 0 , h . freed from e ' "

thoug t lS d . " unsealed thought , the grave of t~e .go s. 't the rule of spiritual

. for itself inSight 1U 0 Wlns 118

ESOTERICISM

being in cosmic and human history. This ,insight works to establish new being, and 10 form the seed for all men who " are of goo d wilL" Let us try by selfless practice to make Anthroposophy, our own as the ne'v language of knowledge, for then it cannct lead to pride or vanity; it becomes a sou}­enlightening power. We learn to understan,l RUcl,olf Steiner's oft repeated warning:

, Spiritual knowledge cannot be forced; mall must learn to wait until it opens itself to him.-This capacity to wait leads the. humalL will,to'selfless meditations,; opening the soul in inner peace lends it moral power and b a guard against deception, One must b(~

able to wait for Grace with the help of the inmost soul.

The knowledge which in this way grow~ in the soul is spiritual; the spiritually moraJ

, ' becomes effeCtive on earth through the free ',' conscious activity of man.

The Holy Ghost ruled as Comforter over history of gods and men. In Rudolf

s "Language of Knowledge" the , •• ' Word" becomes the mediator between

, ture and spirit. It contains the message 119

"ESO'rERICISM

of the Parac1ete, which as w6rld~Comforter, as giver of Grace to the world, reveals the power of the Logos in the present period. Its influence as Comforter is to be seen already in the Middle Ages; the "Consolations" of Boethius speaks of it. May we in the same way, pondering on the way of Rudolf Steiner ,make the spiritual call of his work into a living soul-impulse. "AntbroposopbY is a way of kilOw\edge wbich can lead tbe spiritual in man to tbespiritual in tbe

Universe." That is the message of Anthroposophy.

THE END.

[Dr. unger's last lecture; exactly a week later he killed when about to deliver another lecture.]

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