The Rudolf Steiner Archive

The Christmas festival can be the occasion for comparing the Mystery upon which it is based with Mysteries that were the outcome of different conditions in the evolution of humanity. The Christmas Mystery—when it is conceived as a Mystery—belongs paramountly to Winter. It arose from conceptions of the spiritual world that had primarily to do with the link established between man and the scene of his life on Earth at the beginning of Winter.

When we turn our attention to Mysteries that were celebrated in certain parts of Asia long before the founding of Christianity and in which many sublime cosmic thoughts were given expression, or when we compare the Christmas festival with Mysteries that were celebrated also in pre-Christian times, in Middle, Northern and Western Europe, we are struck by the fact that they were preeminently Summer Mysteries, connected with the union between man and all that takes place in earthly life during the time of Summer. To understand the essential meaning of these Mysteries we must think, first of all, of that part of the evolution of humanity which preceded the Mystery of Golgotha.

Looking back into very ancient times we find that the Mysteries were institutions of men still possessed of the faculty of instinctive clairvoyance. In certain states of consciousness between those of full sleep and waking, in states where dreams were expressions of reality, the men belonging to that ancient humanity were still able to gaze into the spiritual worlds whence the human being descends into his physical body on the Earth. Every human being in those times could speak and think about the spiritual worlds, just as a man today can speak about the ordinary knowledge he has learnt at school. I have, as you know, often said that what the men of those olden times beheld of the spiritual-supersensible world presented itself to them in pictures—not the pictures of dreams but somewhat resembling them. Whereas we know quite well that the pictures in our dreams are woven from our reminiscences, that they rise up from the organism and, unlike our thoughts, do not mirror reality, through the very nature of the Imaginations of the old clairvoyance men knew that they were the expressions—not, it is true, of any external, material reality nor of any historical reality, but of a spiritual world lying hidden behind the physical world. Thus the spiritual world was revealed to men in pictures.

But it must not be imagined that those men of an earlier epoch had no thoughts. They had thoughts, but they did not acquire them as man acquires his thoughts today. If a man of the modern age is to have thoughts, he must exert himself inwardly; he must elaborate his thoughts by dint of inner effort. A similar kind of activity was, it is true, exercised by the men of old in connection with the pictures which mirrored for them a spiritual form of existence; but the thoughts came with the pictures. One may well be amazed at the power and brilliance of the thoughts of that old humanity; but the thoughts were not formulated by dint of effort; they were received as revelations.

Now just as we today have schools and colleges, so in those times there were Mysteries—institutions in which science, art and religion were undivided. No distinction was made between belief and knowledge. Knowledge came in the form of pictures; but belief was based securely on knowledge. Nor was any distinction made between what men fashioned out of various materials into works of art, and what they acquired as wisdom. Today the distinction is made by saying: What man acquires in the form of wisdom must be true; but what he embodies in his materials as a painter, sculptor or musician—that is fantasy!

Goethe was really the last survivor of those who did not hold this view. He regarded as truth both what he embodied in his materials as an artist and what he took to be science. The philistinism expressed in the distinction between the artistic and the scientific did not, in fact, appear until comparatively late, indeed after Goethe's time. Goethe was still able, when he saw the works of art in Italy, to utter the beautiful words: “I have the idea that in the creation of their works of art the Greeks proceeded by the same laws by which Nature herself creates and of which I am on the track.” In Weimar, before going to Italy, he and Herder had studied the philosophy of Spinoza together. Goethe had striven to deepen his realization that all the beings in man's environment are permeated by the divine-spiritual. He also tried to discover the manifestations of this divine-spiritual in details, for example in the leaf and flower of the plant. And the way in which he built up for himself a picture of the plant form and animal-form in his botanical and zoological studies was identical as an activity of soul with the procedure he adopted in his artistic creations.

Today it is considered unscientific to speak of one and the same truth in art, in science and in religion. But as I have said, in those ancient centres of learning and culture, art, science and religion were one. It was actually the leaders in these Mysteries who began gradually to separate out particular thoughts from those that were revealed to men with their instinctive clairvoyance and to establish a wisdom composed of thoughts. On all sides we see a wisdom composed of thoughts emerging in the Mysteries from clairvoyant vision. Whereas the majority of men were content with pictorial vision, were satisfied to have the revelation of this spiritual vision presented to them in the form of myths, fairy-tales and legends by those who were capable of doing so, the leaders of the Mysteries were working at the development of a wisdom composed of thoughts. But they were fully aware that this wisdom was revealed, not acquired by man's own powers.

We must try to transport ourselves into this quite different attitude of soul. I will put it in the following way.—When the man of today conceives a thought, he ascribes it to his own activity of thinking. He forms chains of thoughts in accordance with rules of logic—which are themselves the product of his own thinking. The man of olden times received the thoughts. He paid no heed at all to how the connections between thoughts should be formulated, for they came to him as revelations. But this meant that he did not live in his thoughts in the way we live in ours. We regard our thoughts as the possession of our soul; we know that we have worked to acquire them. They have, as it were, been born from our own life of soul, they have arisen out of ourselves, and we regard them as our property. The man of olden time could not regard his thoughts in this way. They were illuminations; they had come to him together with the pictures. And this gave rise to a very definite feeling and attitude towards the wisdom-filled thoughts. Man said to himself as he contemplated his thoughts: “A divine Being from a higher world has descended into me. I partake of the thoughts which in reality other Beings are thinking—Beings who are higher than man but who inspire me, who live in me, who give me these thoughts. I can therefore only regard the thoughts as having been vouchsafed to me by Grace from above.” It was because the man of old held this view that he felt the need at certain seasons to make an offering of these thoughts to the higher Beings, as it were through his feelings. And this was done in the Summer Mysteries.

In the Summer the Earth is more given up to its own environment, to the atmosphere surrounding it. It has not contracted because of the cold or enveloped itself in a raiment of snow; it is in perpetual intercourse with its atmospheric environment. Hence man too is given up to the wide cosmic expanse. In the Summer he feels himself united with the Upper Gods. And in those ancient times man waited for the Midsummer season—the time when the Sun is at the zenith of its power—in order at this season and in certain places he regarded as sacred, to establish contact with the Upper Gods. He availed himself of his natural connection in Summer with the whole etheric environment, in order out of his deepest feelings to make a sacrificial offering to the Gods who had revealed their thoughts to him.

The teachers in the Mysteries spoke to their pupils somewhat as follows. They said: “Every year at Midsummer, a solemn offering must be made to the Upper Gods in gratitude for the thoughts they vouchsafe to man. For if this is not done it is all too easy for the Luciferic powers to invade man's thinking and he is then permeated by these powers. He can avoid this if every Summer he is mindful of how the Upper Gods have given him these thoughts and at the Midsummer season lets his thoughts flow back again, as it were, to the Gods.” In this way the men of olden times tried to safeguard themselves from Luciferic influences. The leaders of the Mysteries called together those who were in a sense their pupils and in their presence enacted that solemn rite at the culmination of which the thoughts that had been revealed by the Upper Gods were now offered up to them in upward-streaming feelings.

The external rite consisted in solemn words being spoken into rising smoke which was thus set into waves. This act was merely meant to signify that the offering made by man's inmost soul to the Upper Gods was being inscribed into an outer medium—the rising smoke—through form-creating words. The words of the prayer inscribed into the rising smoke the feelings which the soul desired to send upwards to the Gods as an offering for the thoughts they had revealed.

This was the basic mood of soul underlying the celebration of the Midsummer Mysteries. These Midsummer festivals had meaning only as long as men received their thoughts by way of revelation.

But in the centuries immediately preceding the Mystery of Golgotha—beginning as early as the 8th and 9th centuries B.C.—these thoughts that were revealed from above grew dark, and more and more there awakened in man the faculty to acquire his thoughts through his own efforts. This induced in him an entirely different mood. Whereas formerly he had felt that his thoughts were coming to him as it were from the far spaces of the universe, descending into his inner life, he now began to feel the thoughts as something unfolding within himself, belonging to him like the blood in his veins. In olden times, thoughts had, been regarded more as something belonging to man like the breath—the breath that is received from the surrounding atmosphere and continually given back again. Just as man regards the air as something which surrounds him, which he draws into himself but always gives out again, so did he feel his thoughts as something which he did not draw into himself but which was received by him through revelation and must ever and again be given back to the Gods at the time of Midsummer.

The festivals themselves were given a dramatic form in keeping with this attitude. The leaders of the Mysteries went to the ceremonies bearing the symbols of wisdom; and as they conducted the sacrificial rites they divested themselves of the symbols one by one. Then, when they went away from the ceremonies, having laid aside the symbols of wisdom, they appeared as men who must acquire their wisdom again in the course of the year. It was like a confession on the part of those sages of olden times. When they had made the solemn offering it was as though they declared to the masses of those who were their followers: “We have become nescient again.”

To share in this way in the course taken by the seasons of the year, entering as Midsummer approaches into the possession of wisdom, then passing into a state of nescience (Torheit) before becoming wise again—this was actually felt by men to be a means of escape from the Luciferic powers. They strove to participate in the life of the cosmos. As the cosmos lets Winter alternate with Summer, so did they let the time of wisdom alternate in themselves with the time of entry into the darkness of ignorance.

Now there were some whose wisdom was needed all the year round, and who for this reason could not act or adopt the same procedure as the others. For example, there were teachers in the Mysteries who practised the art of healing—for that too was part of the Mysteries. Naturally it would not do for a doctor to become ignorant in August and September—if I may use the present names of the months—so these men were allowed to retain their wisdom, but in return they made the sacrifice of being only servants in the Mysteries. Those who were the leaders became ignorant for a certain time every year.

Reminiscences of this have remained here and there, for example in the figure described by Goethe in his poem Die Geheimnisse as the ‘Thirteenth,’ the one who was the leader of the others but was himself in a state of dullness rather than wisdom.

All these things are evidence that the attitude towards the guiding wisdom of mankind was entirely different from what it afterwards became when men began to regard their thoughts as produced by themselves. Whereas formerly man felt that wisdom was like the air he breathes, later on he felt that his thoughts were produced within himself, like the blood. We can therefore say: In ancient times man felt his thoughts to be like the air of the breath and in the epoch of the Mystery of Golgotha he began to feel that they were like the blood within him.

But then man also said to himself: “What I experience as thought is now no longer heavenly, it is no longer something that has descended from above. It is something that arises in the human being himself, something that is earthly.”—This feeling that the thoughts of men are earthly in origin was still significantly present at the time of the Mystery of Golgotha among those who were the late successors of the leaders of the ancient Mysteries. Those who stood at that time at the height of cultural life said to themselves: Man can no longer have such thoughts as had the sages of old, who with their thoughts lived together with the Gods; he must now develop purely human thoughts. But these purely human thoughts are in danger of falling prey to the Ahrimanic powers. The thoughts that were revealed to man from above were in danger of succumbing to the Luciferic powers; the human thoughts, the self-produced thoughts, are in danger of succumbing to the Ahrimanic powers.

Those who were capable of thinking in this way in the epoch of the Mystery of Golgotha—by the 4th century, however, the insight was lost—such men experienced the Mystery of Golgotha as the true redemption of mankind. They said to themselves: The spiritual Power indwelling the Sun could hitherto be attained only by superhuman forces. This Power must now be attained by human faculties, for man's thoughts are now within his own being. Hence he must inwardly raise these thoughts of his to the Divine. Now that he is an earthly thinker, he must permeate his thoughts inwardly with the Divine, and this he can do through uniting himself in thought and feeling with the Mystery of Golgotha.

This meant that the festival once celebrated in the Mysteries at Midsummer became a Winter festival. In Winter, when the earth envelops herself in her raiment of snow and is no longer in living interchange with the atmosphere around her, man too is fettered more strongly to the earth; he does not share in the life of the wide universe but enters into the life that is rooted beneath the soil of the earth.—But the meaning of this must be understood.

We can continually be made aware of how in the earth's environment there is not only that which comes directly from the Sun but also that which partakes in the life of the earth beneath the surface of the soil. I have spoken of this before by referring to some very simple facts.—Those of you who have lived in the country will know how the peasants dig pits in the earth during Winter and put their potatoes in them. Down there in the earth the potatoes last splendidly through the Winter, which would not be the case if they were simply put in cellars. Why is this?—Think of an area of the earth's surface. It absorbs the light and warmth of the Sun that have streamed to it during the Summer. The light and the warmth sink down, as it were, into the soil of the earth, so that in Winter the Summer is still there, under the soil. During Winter it is Summer underneath the surface of the earth. And it is this Summer under the surface of the earth in Winter time that enables the roots of the plants to thrive. The seeds become roots and growth begins. So when we see a plant growing this year it is actually being enabled to grow by the forces of last year's Sun which had penetrated into the earth.

When therefore we are looking at the root of a plant, or even at parts of the leaves, we have before us what is the previous Summer in the plant. It is only in the blossom that we have this year's Summer, for the blossom is conjured forth by the light and warmth of the present year's Sun. In the sprouting and unfolding of the plant we still have the previous year and the present year comes to manifestation only in the blossom. Even the ovary at the centre of the blossom is a product of the Winter—in reality, that is, of the previous Summer. Only what surrounds the ovary belongs to the present year. Thus do the seasons interpenetrate. When the earth dons her Winter raiment of snow, beneath that raiment is the continuation of Summer. Man does not now unite himself with the wide expanse but turns his life of soul inwards, into the interior of the earth. He turns to the Lower Gods.

This was the conception held by men who were in possession of the heritage of the ancient wisdom at the time of the Mystery of Golgotha. And it was this that made them realize: It is in what is united with the earth that we must seek the power of the Christ, the power of the new wisdom which permeates the future evolution of the earth. Having passed to the stage of self-produced thoughts, man felt the need to unite these thoughts inwardly with the Divine, to permeate them inwardly with the Divine, in other words, with the Christ Impulse. This he can do at the time when he is most closely bound to the earth—in deep Winter; he can do it when the earth shuts herself off from the cosmos. For then he too is shut off from the cosmos and comes nearest to the God who descended from those far spaces and united Himself with the earth.

It is a beautiful thought to connect the Christmas festival with the time when the earth is shut off from the cosmos, when in the loneliness of earth man seeks to establish for his self-produced thoughts communion with divine-spiritual-supersensible reality, and when, understanding what this means, he endeavors to protect himself from the Ahrimanic powers, as in ancient times he protected himself from the Luciferic powers through the rites of the Midsummer Mysteries.

And as under the guidance of the teachers in the Mysteries the man of olden time became aware through the Midsummer festival that his thoughts were fading into a state of twilight, the man of today who rightly understands the Christmas Mystery should feel strengthened when at Christmas he steeps himself in truths such as have now once more been expressed. He should feel how through developing a true relation to the Mystery of Golgotha, the thoughts he acquires in the darkness of his inner life can be illumined. For it is indeed so when he realizes that once in the course of the earth's evolution the Being who in pre-Christian ages could only be thought of as united with the Sun, passed into earthly evolution and together with mankind indwells the earth as a Spiritual Being. In contrast to the old Midsummer festivals where the aim was that a man should pass out of himself into the cosmos, the Christmas festival should be the occasion when man tries to deepen inwardly, to spiritualize, whatever knowledge he acquires about the great world.

The man of old did not feel that knowledge was his own possession but that it was a gift bestowed upon him, and every year he gave it back again. The man of today necessarily regards his world of thought, his intellectual knowledge, as his own possession. Therefore he must receive into his heart the Spirit Being who has united with the Earth; he must link his thoughts with this Being in order that instead of remaining with his thoughts in egotistic seclusion, he shall unite these thoughts of his with that Being of Sun and Earth who fulfilled the Mystery of Golgotha.

In a certain respect the ancient Mysteries had what might be called an ‘aristocratic’ character. Indeed the principle of aristocracy really had its origin in those old Mysteries, for it was the priests who enacted the sacrifice on behalf of all the others.

The Christmas festival has a ‘democratic’ character. What modern men acquire as that which really makes them man, is their inner store of thoughts. And the Christmas Mystery is only truly celebrated when the one does not make the sacrificial offering for another, but when the one shares with the other a common experience: equality in face of the Sun Being who came down to the Earth. And in the early period of Christian evolution—until about the 4th century—it was this that was felt to be a particularly significant principle of Christianity. It was not until then that the old forms of the Egyptian Mysteries were resuscitated and made their way via Rome to Western Europe, overlaying the original Christianity and shrouding it in traditions which will have to be superseded if Christianity is to be rightly understood. For the character with which Christianity was invested by Rome was essentially that of the old Mysteries. In accordance with true Christianity, this finding of the spiritual-supersensible reality in man must take place at a time not when he passes out of himself and is given up to the Cosmos, but when he is firmly within himself. And this is most of all the case when he is united with the Earth at the time when the Earth herself is shut off from the cosmic expanse—that is to say, in Midwinter.

I have thus tried to show how it came about that in the course of the ages the Midsummer festivals in the Mysteries changed into the Midwinter Christmas Mystery. But this must be understood in the right sense. By looking back over the evolution of humanity we can deepen our understanding of what is presented to us in the Christmas Mystery. By contrasting it with olden times we can feel the importance of the fact that man has now to look within himself for the secrets he once sought to find outside his own being.

It is from this point of view that my Occult Science is written. If such a book had been written in ancient times (then, of course, it would not have been a book but something different!) the starting-point of the descriptions would have been the starry heavens. But in the book as it is, the starting-point is man: contemplation, first of the inner aspect of man's being and proceeding from there to the universe. The inner core of man's being is traced through the epochs of Old Saturn, Old Sun, Old Moon, and extended to the future epochs of the Earth's evolution.

In seeking for knowledge of the world in ancient times, men started by contemplating the stars; then they endeavored to apply to the inner constitution of the human being what they learned from the stars. For example, they contemplated the Sun which revealed a very great deal to the Imaginative cognition of those days. To the orthodox modern scientist, the Sun is a ball of gas—which of course it cannot be for unbiased thought. When the man of ancient time contemplated the Sun externally, it was to him the bodily expression of soul-and-spirit, just as the human body is an expression of soul-and-spirit. Very much was learnt from the Sun. And when man had read in the Cosmos what the Sun had revealed to him, he could point to his own heart, and say: Now I understand the nature of the human heart, for the Sun has revealed it to me!—And similarly in the other heavenly bodies and constellations, man discovered the secrets of his organism.

It was not possible to proceed in this way in the book Occult Science. Although it is too soon yet for all the relevant details to have been worked out, the procedure is that we think, first, of the human being as a whole, with heart, lungs, and so on, and in understanding the organs individually we come to understand the universe. We study the human heart, for example, and what we read there tells us what the Sun is, tells us something about the nature of the Sun. Thus through the heart we learn to know the nature of the Sun; that is to say, we proceed from within outwards. In ancient times it was the other way about: first of all, men learnt to know the nature of the Sun and then they understood the nature of the human heart. In the modern age we learn what the heart is, what the lung is ... and so, starting from man, we learn to know the universe.

The ancients could only give expression to their awareness of this relation of man to the universe by looking upwards to the Sun and the starry heavens at the time of Midsummer, when conditions were the most favorable for feeling their union with the Cosmos. But if we today would realize with inner intensity how we can come to know the universe, we must gaze into the depths of man's inner being. And the right time for this is in Midwinter, at Christmas.

Try to grasp the full meaning of this Christmas thought, my dear friends, for there is a real need today to give life again to old habits such as these. We need, for example, to be sincere again in our experience of the course of the year. All that numbers of people know today about Christmas is that it is a time for giving presents, also—perhaps, a time when in a very external way, thought is turned to the Mystery of Golgotha!

It is superficialities such as these that are really to blame for the great calamity into which human civilization has drifted today. It is there that much of the real blame must be placed; it lies in the clinging to habits, and in the unwillingness to realize the necessity of renewal—the need, for example, to imbue the true Christmas thought, the true Christmas feeling, with new life.

This impulse of renewal is needed because we can only become Man again in the true sense by finding the spiritual part of our being. It is a ‘World-Christmas’ that we need, a birth of spiritual life. Then we shall once again celebrate Christmas as honest human beings; again there will be meaning in the fact that at the time when the Earth is shrouded in her raiment of snow, we try to feel that our world of thought is permeated with the Christ Impulse—the world of thought which today is like the blood within us, in contrast to the old world of thought which was like the breath.

We must learn to live more intensely with the course of the seasons than is the custom today. About 20 years ago the idea occurred that it would be advantageous to have a fixed Easter—a festival which is still regulated by the actual course of time. The idea was that Easter should be fixed permanently at the beginning of April, so that account books might not always be thrown into confusion owing to the dates of the festival varying each year. Even man's experience of the flow of time was to be drawn into the materialistic trend of evolution. In view of other things that have happened as well, it would not be surprising if materialistic thought were ultimately to accept this arrangement. For example, men begin the year with the present New Year's Day, the 1st of January, in spite of the fact that December (decern) is the tenth month, and January and February quite obviously belong to the previous year; so that in reality the new year can begin in March at the earliest—as indeed was actually the case in Roman times. But it once pleased a French King (whom even history acknowledges to have been an imbecile) to begin the year in the middle of the Winter, on the 1st of January, and humanity has followed suit.

Strong and resolute thoughts are needed to admit honestly to ourselves that the saving of human evolution depends upon man allying himself with wisdom. Many things indicate that he has by no means always done so but has very often allied himself with ignorance, with nescience. The Christmas thought must be taken sincerely and honestly, in connection with the Being who said: “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.” But the way to the Truth and to the Life in the Spirit has to be deliberately sought, and for this it is necessary for modern humanity to plunge down into the dark depths of midnight in order to find the light that kindles itself in man.

The old tradition of the first Christmas Mass being read at midnight is not enough. Man must again realize in actual experience that what is best and most filled with light in his nature is born out of the darkness prevailing in himself. The true light is born out of the darkness. And from this darkness light must be born—not further darkness.

Try to permeate the Christmas thought with the strength that will come to your souls when you feel with all intensity that the light of spiritual insight and spiritual vision must pierce the darkness of knowledge of another kind. Then in the Holy Night, Christ will be born in the heart of each one of you, and you will experience together with all mankind, a World-Christmas.

The Christmas festival can be the occasion for comparing the Mystery upon which it is based with Mysteries that were the outcome of different conditions in the evolution of humanity. The Christmas Mystery—when it is conceived as a Mystery—belongs paramountly to Winter. It arose from conceptions of the spiritual world that had primarily to do with the link established between man and the scene of his life on Earth at the beginning of Winter.

When we turn our attention to Mysteries that were celebrated in certain parts of Asia long before the founding of Christianity and in which many sublime cosmic thoughts were given expression, or when we compare the Christmas festival with Mysteries that were celebrated also in pre-Christian times, in Middle, Northern and Western Europe, we are struck by the fact that they were preeminently Summer Mysteries, connected with the union between man and all that takes place in earthly life during the time of Summer. To understand the essential meaning of these Mysteries we must think, first of all, of that part of the evolution of humanity which preceded the Mystery of Golgotha.

Looking back into very ancient times we find that the Mysteries were institutions of men still possessed of the faculty of instinctive clairvoyance. In certain states of consciousness between those of full sleep and waking, in states where dreams were expressions of reality, the men belonging to that ancient humanity were still able to gaze into the spiritual worlds whence the human being descends into his physical body on the Earth. Every human being in those times could speak and think about the spiritual worlds, just as a man today can speak about the ordinary knowledge he has learnt at school. I have, as you know, often said that what the men of those olden times beheld of the spiritual-super-sensible world presented itself to them in pictures—not the pictures of dreams but somewhat resembling them. Whereas we know quite well that the pictures in our dreams are woven from our reminiscences, that they rise up from the organism and, unlike our thoughts, do not mirror reality, through the very nature of the Imaginations of the old clairvoyance men knew that they were the expressions—not, it is true, of any external, material reality nor of any historical reality, but of a spiritual world lying hidden behind the physical world. Thus the spiritual world was revealed to men in pictures.

But it must not be imagined that those men of an earlier epoch had no thoughts. They had thoughts, but they did not acquire them as man acquires his thoughts today. If a man of the modern age is to have thoughts, he must exert himself inwardly; he must elaborate his thoughts by dint of inner effort. A similar kind of activity was, it is true, exercised by the men of old in connection with the pictures which mirrored for them a spiritual form of existence; but the thoughts came with the pictures. One may well be amazed at the power and brilliance of the thoughts of that old humanity; but the thoughts were not formulated by dint of effort; they were received as revelations.

Now just as we today have schools and colleges, so in those times there were Mysteries-institutions in which science art and religion were undivided. No distinction was made between belief and knowledge. Knowledge came in the form of pictures; but belief was based securely on knowledge. Nor was any distinction made between what men fashioned out of various materials into works of art, and what they acquired as wisdom. Today the distinction is made by saying: What man acquires in the form of wisdom must be true; but what he embodies in his materials as a painter, sculptor, or musician—that is fantasy!

Goethe was really the last survivor of those who did not hold this view. He regarded as truth both what he embodied in his materials as an artist and what he took to be science. The philistinism expression in the distinction between the artistic and the scientific did not, in fact, appear until comparatively late, indeed after Goethe's time. Goethe was still able, when he saw the works of art in Italy, to utter the beautiful words: “I have the idea that in the creation of their works of art the Greeks proceeded by the same laws by which Nature herself creates and of which I am on the track.” In Weimar, before going to Italy, he and Herder had studied the philosophy of Spinoza together. Goethe had striven to deepen his realization that all the beings in man's environment are permeated by the divine-spiritual He also tried to discover the manifestations of this divine-spiritual in details, for example in the leaf and flower of the plant. And the way in which he built up for himself a picture of the plant-form and animal-form in his botanical and zoological studies was identical as an activity of soul with the procedure he adopted in his artistic creations.

Today it is considered unscientific to speak of one and the same truth in art, in science and in religion. But as I have said, in those ancient centres of learning and culture, art, science and religion were one. It was actually the leaders in these Mysteries who began gradually to separate out particular thoughts from those that were revealed to men with their instinctive clairvoyance and to establish a wisdom composed of thoughts. On all sides we see a wisdom composed of thoughts emerging in the Mysteries from clairvoyant vision. Whereas the majority of men were content with pictorial vision, were satisfied to have the revelation of this spiritual vision presented to them in the form of myths, fairy-tales and legends by those who were capable of doing so, the leaders of the Mysteries were working at the development of a wisdom composed of thoughts. But they were fully aware that this wisdom was revealed, not acquired by man's own powers.

We must try to transport ourselves into this quite different attitude of soul. I will put it in the following way.—When the man of today conceives a thought, he ascribes it to his own activity of thinking. He forms chains of thoughts in accordance with rules of logic—which are themselves the product of his own thinking. The man of olden times received the thoughts. He paid no heed at all to how the connections between thoughts should be formulated, for they came to him as revelations. But this meant that he did not live in his thoughts in the way we live in ours. We regard our thoughts as the possession of our soul; we know that we have worked to acquire them. They have, as it were, been born from our own life of soul, they have arisen out of ourselves, and we regard them as our property. The man of olden time could not regard his thoughts in this way. They were illuminations; they had come to him together with the pictures. And this gave rise to a very definite feeling and attitude towards the wisdom-filled thoughts. Man said to himself as he contemplated his thoughts: “A divine Being from a higher world has descended into me. I partake of the thoughts which in reality other Beings are thinking—Beings who are higher than man but who inspire me, who live in me, who give me these thoughts. I can therefore only regard the thoughts as having been vouchsafed to me by Grace from above.” It was because the man of old held this view that he felt the need at certain seasons to make an offering of these thoughts to the higher Beings, as it were through his feelings. And this was done in the Summer Mysteries.

In the Summer the Earth is more given up to its own environment, to the atmosphere surrounding it. It has not contracted because of the cold or enveloped itself in a raiment of snow; it is in perpetual intercourse with its atmospheric environment. Hence man too is given up to the wide cosmic expanse. In the Summer he feels himself united with the Upper Gods. And in those ancient times man waited for the Midsummer season—the time when the Sun is at the zenith of its power—in order at this season and in certain places he regarded as sacred, to establish contact with the Upper Gods. He availed himself of his natural connection in Summer with the whole etheric environment, in order out of his deepest feelings to make a sacrificial offering to the Gods who had revealed their thoughts to him.

The teachers in the Mysteries spoke to their pupils somewhat as follows. They said: “Every year at Midsummer, a solemn offering must be made to the Upper Gods in gratitude for the thoughts they vouchsafe to man. For if this is not done it is all too easy for the Luciferic powers to invade man's thinking and he is then permeated by these powers. He can avoid this if every Summer he is mindful of how the Upper Gods have given him these thoughts and at the Midsummer season lets his thoughts flow back again, as it were, to the Gods.” In this way the men of olden times tried to safeguard themselves from Luciferic influences. The leaders of the Mysteries called together those who were in a sense their pupils and in their presence enacted that solemn rite at the culmination of which the thoughts that had been revealed by the Upper Gods were now offered up to them in upward-streaming feelings.

The external rite consisted in solemn words being spoken into rising smoke which was thus set into waves. This act was merely meant to signify that the offering made by man's inmost soul to the Upper Gods was being inscribed into an outer medium—the rising smoke—through form-creating words. The words of the prayer inscribed into the rising smoke the feelings which the soul desired to send upwards to the Gods as an offering for the thoughts they had revealed.

This was the basic mood of soul underlying the celebration of the Midsummer Mysteries. These Midsummer festivals had meaning only as long as men received their thoughts by way of revelation.

But in the centuries immediately preceding the Mystery of Golgotha—beginning as early as the 8th and 9th centuries B.C.—these thoughts that were revealed from above grew dark, and more and more there awakened in man the faculty to acquire his thoughts through his own efforts. This induced in him an entirely different mood. Whereas formerly he had felt that his thoughts were coming to him as it were from the far spaces of the universe, descending into his inner life, he now began to feel the thoughts as something unfolding within himself, belonging to him like the blood in his veins. In olden times, thoughts had been regarded more as something belonging to man like the breath—the breath that is received from the surrounding atmosphere and continually given back again. Just as man regards the air as something which surrounds him, which he draws into himself but always gives out again, so did he feel his thoughts as something which he did not draw into himself but which was received by him through revelation and must ever and again be given back to the Gods at the time of Midsummer.

The festivals themselves were given a dramatic form in keeping with this attitude. The leaders of the Mysteries went to the ceremonies bearing the symbols of wisdom; and as they conducted the sacrificial rites they divested themselves of the symbols one by one. Then, when they went away from the ceremonies, having laid aside the symbols of wisdom, they appeared as men who must acquire their wisdom again in the course of the year. It was like a confession on the part of those sages of olden times. When they had made the solemn offering it was as though they declared to the masses of those who were their followers: “We have become nescient again.”

To share in this way in the course taken by the seasons of the year, entering as Midsummer approaches into the possession of wisdom, then passing into a state of nescience (Torheit) before becoming wise again—this was actually felt by men to be a means of escape from the Luciferic powers. They strove to participate in the life of the cosmos. As the cosmos lets Winter alternate with Summer, so did they let the time of wisdom alternate in themselves with the time of entry into the darkness of ignorance.

Now there were some whose wisdom was needed all the year round, and who for this reason could not act or adopt the same procedure as the others. For example, there were teachers in the Mysteries who practised the art of healing—for that too was part of the Mysteries. Naturally it would not do for a doctor to become ignorant in August and September—if I may use the present names of the months—so these men were allowed to retain their wisdom, but in return they made the sacrifice of being only servants in the Mysteries. Those who were the leaders became ignorant for a certain time every year.

Reminiscences of this have remained here and there, for example in the figure described by Goethe in his poem Die Geheimnisse as the ‘Thirteenth,’ the one who was the leader of the others but was himself in a state of dullness rather than wisdom.

All these things are evidence that the attitude towards the guiding wisdom of mankind was entirely different from what it afterwards became when men began to regard their thoughts as produced by themselves. Whereas formerly man felt that wisdom was like the air he breathes, later on he felt that his thoughts were produced within himself, like the blood. We can therefore say: In ancient times man felt his thoughts to be like the air of the breath and in the epoch of the Mystery of Golgotha he began to feel that they were like the blood within him.

But then man also said to himself: “What I experience as thought is now no longer heavenly, it is no longer something that has descended from above. It is something that arises in the human being himself, something that is earthly.”—This feeling that the thoughts of men are earthly in origin was still significantly present at the time of the Mystery of Golgotha among those who were the late successors of the leaders of the ancient Mysteries. Those who stood at that time at the height of cultural life said to themselves: Man can no longer have such thoughts as had the sages of old, who with their thoughts lived together with the Gods; he must now develop purely human thoughts. But these purely human thoughts are in danger of falling prey to the Ahrimanic powers. The thoughts that were revealed to man from above were in danger of succumbing to the Luciferic powers; the human thoughts, the self-produced thoughts, are in danger of succumbing to the Ahrimanic powers.

Those who were capable of thinking in this way in the epoch of the Mystery of Golgotha—by the 4th century, however, the insight was lost—such men experienced the Mystery of Golgotha as the true redemption of mankind. They said to themselves: The spiritual Power indwelling the Sun could hitherto be attained only by superhuman forces. This Power must now be attained by human faculties, for man's thoughts are now within his own being. Hence he must inwardly raise these thoughts of his to the Divine. Now that he is an earthly thinker, he must permeate his thoughts inwardly with the Divine, and this he can do through uniting himself in thought and feeling with the Mystery of Golgotha.

This meant that the festival once celebrated in the Mysteries at Midsummer became a Winter festival. In Winter, when the earth envelops herself in her raiment of snow and is no longer in living interchange with the atmosphere around her, man too is fettered more strongly to the earth; he does not share in the life of the wide universe but enters into the life that is rooted beneath the soil of the earth.—But the meaning of this must be understood.

We can continually be made aware of how in the earth's environment there is not only that which comes directly from the Sun but also that which partakes in the life of the earth beneath the surface of the soil. I have spoken of this before by referring to some very simple facts.—Those of you who have lived in the country will know how the peasants dig pits in the earth during Winter and put their potatoes in them. Down there in the earth the potatoes last splendidly through the Winter, which would not be the case if they were simply put in cellars. Why is this?—Think of an area of the earth's surface. It absorbs the light and warmth of the Sun that have streamed to it during the Summer. The light and the warmth sink down, as it were, into the soil of the earth, so that in Winter the Summer is still there, under the soil. During Winter it is Summer underneath the surface of the earth. And it is this Summer under the surface of the earth in Winter time that enables the roots of the plants to thrive. The seeds become roots and growth begins. So when we see a plant growing this year it is actually being enabled to grow by the forces of last year's Sun which had penetrated into the earth.

When therefore we are looking at the root of a plant, or even at parts of the leaves, we have before us what is the previous Summer in the plant. It is only in the blossom that we have this year's Summer, for the blossom is conjured forth by the light and warmth of the present year's Sun. In the sprouting and unfolding of the plant we still have the previous year and the present year comes to manifestation only in the blossom. Even the ovary at the centre of the blossom is a product of the Winter—in reality, that is, of the previous Summer. Only what surrounds the ovary belongs to the present year. Thus do the seasons interpenetrate. When the earth dons her Winter raiment of snow, beneath that raiment is the continuation of Summer. Man does not now unite himself with the wide expanse but turns his life of soul inwards, into the interior of the earth. He turns to the Lower Gods.

This was the conception held by men who were in possession of the heritage of the ancient wisdom at the time of the Mystery of Golgotha. And it was this that made them realize: It is in what is united with the earth that we must seek the power of the Christ, the power of the new wisdom which permeates the future evolution of the earth. Having passed to the stage of self-produced thoughts, man felt the need to unite these thoughts inwardly with the Divine, to permeate them inwardly with the Divine, in other words, with the Christ Impulse. This he can do at the time when he is most closely bound to the earth—in deep Winter; he can do it when the earth shuts herself off from the cosmos. For then he too is shut off from the cosmos and comes nearest to the God who descended from those far spaces and united Himself with the earth.

It is a beautiful thought to connect the Christmas festival with the time when the earth is shut off from the cosmos, when in the loneliness of earth man seeks to establish for his self-produced thoughts communion with divine-spiritual-super-sensible reality, and when, understanding what this means, he endeavors to protect himself from the Ahrimanic powers, as in ancient times he protected himself from the Luciferic powers through the rites of the Midsummer Mysteries.

And as under the guidance of the teachers in the Mysteries the man of olden time became aware through the Midsummer festival that his thoughts were fading into a state of twilight, the man of today who rightly understands the Christmas Mystery should feel strengthened when at Christmas he steeps himself in truths such as have now once more been expressed. He should feel how through developing a true relation to the Mystery of Golgotha, the thoughts he acquires in the darkness of his inner life can be illumined. For it is indeed so when he realizes that once in the course of the earth's evolution the Being who in pre-Christian ages could only be thought of as united with the Sun, passed into earthly evolution and together with mankind indwells the earth as a Spiritual Being. In contrast to the old Midsummer festivals where the aim was that a man should pass out of himself into the cosmos, the Christmas festival should be the occasion when man tries to deepen inwardly, to spiritualize, whatever knowledge he acquires about the great world.

The man of old did not feel that knowledge was his own possession but that it was a gift bestowed upon him, and every year he gave it back again. The man of today necessarily regards his world of thought, his intellectual knowledge, as his own possession. Therefore he must receive into his heart the Spirit Being who has united with the Earth; he must link his thoughts with this Being in order that instead of remaining with his thoughts in egotistic seclusion, he shall unite these thoughts of his with that Being of Sun and Earth who fulfilled the Mystery of Golgotha.

In a certain respect the ancient Mysteries had what might be called an ‘aristocratic’ character. Indeed the principle of aristocracy really had its origin in those old Mysteries, for it was the priests who enacted the sacrifice on behalf of all the others.

The Christmas festival has a ‘democratic’ character. What modern men acquire as that which really makes them man, is their inner store of thoughts. And the Christmas Mystery is only truly celebrated when the one does not make the sacrificial offering for another, but when the one shares with the other a common experience: equality in face of the Sun Being who came down to the Earth. And in the early period of Christian evolution—until about the 4th century—it was this that was felt to be a particularly significant principle of Christianity. It was not until then that the old forms of the Egyptian Mysteries were resuscitated and made their way via Rome to Western Europe, overlaying the original Christianity and shrouding it in traditions which will have to be superseded if Christianity is to be rightly understood. For the character with which Christianity was invested by Rome was essentially that of the old Mysteries. In accordance with true Christianity, this finding of the spiritual-super-sensible reality in man must take place at a time not when he passes out of himself and is given up to the Cosmos, but when he is firmly within himself. And this is most of all the case when he is united with the Earth at the time when the Earth herself is shut off from the cosmic expanse—that is to say, in Midwinter.

I have thus tried to show how it came about that in the course of the ages the Midsummer festivals in the Mysteries changed into the Midwinter Christmas Mystery. But this must be understood in the right sense. By looking back over the evolution of humanity we can deepen our understanding of what is. presented to us in the Christmas Mystery. By contrasting it with olden times we can feel the importance of the fact that man has now to look within himself for the secrets he once sought to find outside his own being.

It is from this point of view that my Occult Science is written. If such a book had been written in ancient times (then, of course, it would not have been a book but something different!) the starting-point of the descriptions would have been the starry heavens. But in the book as it is, the starting-point is man: contemplation, first of the inner aspect of man's being and proceeding from there to the universe. The inner core of man's being is traced through the epochs of Old Saturn, Old Sun, Old Moon, and extended to the future epochs of the Earth's evolution.

In seeking for knowledge of the world in ancient times, men started by contemplating the stars; then they endeavored to apply to the inner constitution of the human, being what they learned from the stars. For example, they contemplated the Sun which revealed a very great deal to the Imaginative cognition of those days. To the orthodox modern scientist the Sun is a ball of gas—which of course it cannot be for unbiased thought. When the man of ancient time contemplated the Sun externally, it was to him the bodily expression of soul-and-spirit, just as the human body is an expression of soul-and-spirit. Very much was learnt from the Sun. And when man had read in the Cosmos what the Sun had revealed to him, he could point to his own heart, and say: Now I understand the nature of the human heart, for the Sun has revealed it to me!—And similarly in the other heavenly bodies and constellations, man discovered the secrets of his organism.

It was not possible to proceed in this way in the book Occult Science. Although it is too soon yet for all the relevant details to have been worked out, the procedure is that we think, first, of the human being as a whole, with heart, lungs, and so on, and in understanding the organs individually we come to understand the universe. We study the human heart, for example, and what we read there tells us what the Sun is, tells us something about the nature of the Sun. Thus through the heart we learn to know the nature of the Sun; that is to say, we proceed from within outwards. In ancient times it was the other way about: first of all men learnt to know the nature of the Sun and then they understood the nature of the human heart. In the modern age we learn what the heart is, what the lung is ... and so, starting from man, we learn to know the universe.

The ancients could only give expression to their awareness of this relation of man to the universe by looking upwards to the Sun and the starry heavens at the time of Midsummer, when conditions were the most favorable for feeling their union with the Cosmos. But if we today would realize with inner intensity how we can come to know the universe, we must gaze into the depths of man's inner being. And the right time for this is in Midwinter, at Christmas.

Try to grasp the full meaning of this Christmas thought, my dear friends, for there is a real need today to give life again to old habits such as these. We need, for example, to be sincere again in our experience of the course of the year. All that numbers of people know today about Christmas is that it is a time for giving presents, also—perhaps, a time when in a very external way, thought is turned to the Mystery of Golgotha!

It is superficialities such as these that are really to blame for the great calamity into which human civilization has drifted today. It is there that much of the real blame must be placed; it lies in the clinging to habits, and in the unwillingness to realize the necessity of renewal—the need, for example, to imbue the true Christmas thought, the true Christmas feeling, with new life.

This impulse of renewal is needed because we can only become Man again in the true sense by finding the spiritual part of our being. It is a ‘World-Christmas’ that we need, a birth of spiritual life. Then we shall once again celebrate Christmas as honest human beings; again there will be meaning in the fact that at the time when the Earth is shrouded in her raiment of snow, we try to feel that our world of thought is permeated with the Christ Impulse—the world of thought which today is like the blood within us, in contrast to the old world of thought which was like the breath.

We must learn to live more intensely with the course of the seasons than is the custom today. About 20 years ago the idea occurred that it would be advantageous to have a fixed Easter—a festival which is still regulated by the actual course of time. The idea was that Easter should be fixed permanently at the beginning of April, so that account books might not always be thrown into confusion owing to the dates of the festival varying each year. Even man's experience of the flow of time was to be drawn into the materialistic trend of evolution. In view of other things that have happened as well, it would not be surprising if materialistic thought were ultimately to accept this arrangement. For example, men begin the year with the present New Year's Day, the 1st of January, in spite of the fact that December (decem) is the tenth month, and January and February quite obviously belong to the previous year; so that in reality the new year can begin in March at the earliest—as indeed was actually the case in Roman times. But it once pleased a French King (whom even history acknowledges to have been an imbecile) to begin the year in the middle of the Winter, on the 1st of January, and humanity has followed suit.

Strong and resolute thoughts are needed to admit honestly to ourselves that the saving of human evolution depends upon man allying himself with wisdom. Many things indicate that he has by no means always done so but has very often allied himself with ignorance, with nescience. The Christmas thought must be taken sincerely and honestly, in connection with the Being who said: “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.” But the way to the Truth and to the Life in the Spirit has to be deliberately sought, and for this it is necessary for modern humanity to plunge down into the dark depths of midnight in order to find the light that kindles itself in man.

The old tradition of the first Christmas Mass being read at midnight is not enough. Man must again realize in actual experience that what is best and most filled with light in his nature is born out of the darkness prevailing in him. The true light is born out of the darkness. And from this darkness light must be born—not further darkness.

Try to permeate the Christmas thought with the strength that will come to your souls when you feel with all intensity that the light of spiritual insight and spiritual vision must pierce the darkness of knowledge of another kind. Then in the Holy Night, Christ will be born in the heart of each one of you, and you will experience together with all mankind, a World-Christmas.

If you were in the Cologne Cathedral last night you could have seen there in illuminated lettering: C.M.B. As is well known, these letters represent the names of the so-called Three Holy Kings, according to the tradition of the Christian Church called: Caspar, Melchior, Balthasar. For Cologne these names awaken quite special memories. An old legend tells us that the Three Holy Kings had become bishops and sometime after they had died their bones had been brought to Cologne. Related to this is another legend which tells that a Danish king had once come to Cologne, bringing with him three crowns for the Three Holy Kings. After he had returned home he had a dream. In his dream the three kings appeared to him and offered him three chalices—the first chalice contained gold, the second frankincense, and the third one myrrh. When the Danish king awoke the three kings had vanished, but the chalices had remained. There before him stood the three gifts which he had retained from his dream.

In this legend there is profound meaning. It is hinted to us that the king in his dream attained a certain insight into the spiritual world by which he learnt the symbolic meaning of the three kings. These three Magi of the Orient brought offerings of gold, frankincense and myrrh at the birth of Jesus Christ. From his realisation he retained a lasting possession: those three human virtues, which are symbolised in the gold, the frankincense and the myrrh—self-knowledge in the gold; self-devoutness, that is the devoutness of the innermost self, or self-surrender, in the frankincense; and self-perfection and self-development, or the preservation of the eternal in the self, in the myrrh.

How was it possible for the king to receive these three virtues as gifts from another world? He received this possibility because he had endeavoured to penetrate with his whole soul into the profound symbolism lying concealed in the three kings who brought their offerings to Jesus Christ.

There are many features in this Christ legend which lead us deeply into the most diverse meanings of the Christ Principle, and what it is to bring about in the world. Among the profoundest features of the Christ-legend are the adoration and the sacrifice by the three Magi, the three Oriental Kings, and we must not approach this fundamental symbolism of Christian tradition without a deeper understanding. Later the view developed that the first king was the representative of the Asiatic peoples; the second, the representative of the European peoples; and the third king, the representative of the African peoples. Wherever Christianity was to be understood as the religion of earthly harmony, the three kings and their homage were more often seen as a union of the various streams and religious movements in the world into the one principle, the Christ principle.

When this legend took shape, those who had penetrated into the mystery principles of esoteric Christianity saw in the Christ principle not only a force which had intervened in the course of human development, but they saw in the being that Jesus of Nazareth embodied a cosmic world-force—a force far transcending the humaneness that prevails merely in our present time. They saw in the Christ Principle a force that indeed represents for mankind a human ideal, part of a far distant future development, an ideal which can only be approached by man when he increasingly grasps the whole world in the spirit. They saw in man, in the first place, a small being, a small world, a microcosm, an image of the macrocosm, the great all-embracing world. This macrocosm comprises all that man can perceive with his external senses, see with his eyes, hear with his ears, but comprises, besides, all that the spirit could perceive including the perceptions of the least developed to those of the most clairvoyant spirit. This was how the world appeared to the esoteric Christian of the earliest times. All he saw in the firmament and on our Earth, all he saw as thunder and lightning, as storm and rain, as sunshine, as the course of the stars, as sunrise and sunset, as moonrise and the setting of the Moon—all this was for him a gesture, something like a facial expression, an external expression of inner spiritual processes.

The esoteric Christian views the world structure as he views the human body. When he looks at the human body, he sees it as consisting of different limbs: the head, arms, hands, and so on. When he looks at the human body he sees hand movements, eye movements, movements of the facial muscles, but the separate limbs and their movements are for him the expression of inner spiritual and psychic experiences. In the same way as he looked at the human limbs and their movements and perceived that which is the eternal spiritual in man—the esoteric Christian regarded the movements of the celestial bodies, the light that streams down from the celestial bodies to humanity, the rising and setting of the Sun, the rising and setting of the Moon, as the external expression of divine-spiritual Beings pervading all space. All these natural phenomena were to him deeds of the Gods, gestures of the Gods, mimic expressions of those divine-spiritual Beings. As was also everything that occurs among mankind, when people establish social communities, when they submit to moral rules and regulate their dealings through laws, when from the forces of nature they create tools for themselves—indeed they make these tools with the help of the forces of nature, but in a form in which they have not been directly provided by nature. All that was done by man more or less unconsciously, was for the esoteric Christian the external expression of inner divine-spiritual sway.

But the esoteric Christian did not confine himself to such general forms. He pointed to quite definite single gestures, single parts of the physiognomy of the universe, of the mimic of the universe, to see in these single parts quite definite expressions of the spiritual. When he pointed to the Sun he said, “The Sun is not merely an external, physical body. This external, physical solar body is the body of a psychic-spiritual Being who rules over those psychic-spiritual Beings who are the governors, the leaders of all earthly fate, the leaders of all external natural occurrences on Earth, but also of all that happens in human social life, in the lawful conduct of men among each other.” When the esoteric Christian looked up to the Sun, he revered in the Sun the external revelation of his Christ. In the first place the Christ was for him the Sun's soul, and the esoteric Christian said: “From the beginning the Sun was the body of the Christ, but human beings on Earth and the Earth itself were not yet matured for receiving the spiritual light, the Christ-light, which streams from the Sun. Mankind, therefore, had to be prepared for the Christ-light.”

Then the esoteric Christian looked up at the Moon and saw that the Moon reflects the light of the Sun, but more feeble than the Sun's light itself; and he said to himself: “When I look at the sun with my physical eyes, I am blinded by its radiant light; if I look into the Moon I am not blinded; it reflects to a lesser degree the radiant light of the Sun.” In this weakened sunlight, in this moonlight pouring down upon the Earth, the esoteric Christian saw the physiognomic expression of the old Jehovah-principle, the expression of the religion of the old law. And he said: “Before the Christ Principle, the Sun of Righteousness, could appear on Earth, the Jahve Principle had to prepare the way by sending this light of Righteousness, toned down in the Law to the Earth .”

What lay in the old Jehovah-principle, in the old law, the spiritual light of the Moon, was for the esoteric Christian the reflected spiritual light of the higher Christ Principle. And like the confessors of the ancient Mysteries, the esoteric Christian—until far into the Middle Ages—saw in the Sun the expression of the spiritual light ruling the Earth, the Christ-light. In the Moon they saw the expression of the reflected Christ-light, which would blind man in its full strength. In the Earth itself the esoteric Christian saw, like the confessors of the ancient Mysteries, that which at times disguised, and veiled for him the blinding sunlight of the spirit. The Earth was for him just as much the physical expression of a spirit, as was every other bodily form an expression of something spiritual. He imagined that when the Sun could be seen shining down on the Earth, when it sent down its rays, beginning in the spring and continuing through the summer, and called forth from the Earth all the budding and sprouting life, and when it had culminated in the long summer days—then the esoteric Christian imagined that the Sun maintained the external up-shooting life, the physical life. In the plants, springing from the soil, in the animals unfolding their fertility in these seasons, the esoteric Christian saw the same principle in an external physical form, that he saw in the beings whose external expression the Sun was. But when the days became shorter, when autumn and winter approached, the esoteric Christian said, the Sun withdraws its physical power more and more from the Earth. But to the same degree as the Sun's physical power is withdrawn from the Earth, its spiritual power increases and flows to the Earth most intensively when the shortest days come, with the long nights, that later were fixed by the Christmas festival.

Man cannot see this spiritual power of the Sun. He would see it, said the esoteric Christian, if he possessed the inner power of spiritual vision. The esoteric Christian was still conscious of the fundamental conviction and fundamental knowledge of the Mystery-pupils from the earliest times into the newer age.

During those nights, now fixed by the Christmas festival, the Mystery-pupils were prepared for the experience of inner spiritual vision, so that they could see inwardly, spiritually, that which at this time most withdraws its physical power from the Earth. In the long Christmas winter night, the Mystery-pupil was far enough advanced to have a vision at midnight. Then the Earth was no longer covering up the Sun,¹ which stood behind the Earth. It became transparent for him. Through the transparent Earth he saw the spiritual light of the Sun, the Christ-light. This fact, which marks a profound experience for the Mystery-student, was captured in the expression, “To see the Sun at midnight”.

There are regions where the churches, otherwise open all day, are closed at noon. This is a fact which connects Christianity with the traditions of ancient religious faiths. In ancient religious confessions the Mystery-students, on the strength of their experience, said, “At noon, when the Sun stands highest, when it unfolds the strongest physical power, the Gods are asleep, and they sleep most deeply in summer, when the Sun develops its strongest physical power. But they are widest awake on Christmas night, when the external physical power of the Sun is weakest.”

We see that all forms of life which desire to unfold their external physical strength look up to the Sun when the Sun rises in spring, and strive to receive the external physical power of the Sun. But when, on a summer noon, the Sun's physical power pours most lavishly on to the Earth, the Sun’s spiritual power is weakest. In the winter midnight, however, when the Sun rays the least physical power down to the Earth, man can see the Sun's spirit through the Earth, which has become transparent for him. The esoteric Christian felt that by immersing himself in Christian esotericism he approached more and more that power of inward vision through which he could completely fulfil his feeling, thinking and his will-impulses by gazing into this spiritual sun. Then the Mystery-student was led to a vision of highly real significance: As long as the Earth is opaque, the separate parts appear to be inhabited by people of different confessions, but the unifying bond is not there. Human races are as scattered as the climates. Human opinions are scattered all over the Earth and there is no connecting link. But to the degree in which human beings begin to look through the Earth into the Sun by their inner power of vision, to the degree in which the “star” appears to them through the Earth, their confessions will reconcile to form one great united human brotherhood. And those who guided the great separated human masses in the truth of the higher planes, towards their initiation into the higher worlds, were known as “Magi.” Whilst in the various parts of the Earth most diverse powers come to be expressed, there were three Magi. Humanity had, therefore, to be led in different ways. But as a unifying power there appears the star, rising beyond the Earth. It leads the scattered individuals together, and then they bring offerings to the physical embodiment of the solar star, appearing as the star of peace. Thus was the religion of peace, of harmony, of universal peace, of human brotherhood, placed in context cosmically and humanely with the ancient Magi, who laid the best gifts they had for humanity before the cradle of the Son of Man incarnate.

The legend has retained this beautifully, by saying that the Danish king attained an understanding of the Wise Men, of the three Kings, and because he had attained it they bestowed on him their three gifts: first the gift of wisdom, in self-knowledge; secondly, the gift of pious devotion, in self-surrender; and, thirdly, the gift of the victory of life over death, in the power and fostering of the eternal in the self.

All those who have understood Christianity in this way, have seen in it the profound idea of spiritual science of the unification of religions. For they had the firm conviction that whoever understands Christianity thus, can rise to the highest grade of human development.

One of the last of the Germans to understand Christianity esoterically in this way is Goethe. Goethe has laid down for us this kind of Christianity, this kind of religious reconciliation, this kind of Theosophy, in the profound poem, The Mysteries. Although it has remained a fragment² the inner spiritual development of one who is penetrated and convinced by the feelings and ideas that were just described.

We learn first, how Goethe invites us to follow the pilgrim-path of such a man, but indicates that this pilgrim-path may lead us far astray. It is not easy for man to find it, and one must have patience and devotion to reach the goal. Whoever possesses these will find the light that he seeks. Let us hear the beginning of the poem:

A wondrous song is here prepared for many.
Hear it with joy! Tell all from far and near!
The way will lead you out o'er mount and valley;
Now is the view obscured, now wide and clear,
And if the path should glide into the bushes,
That you have gone astray, you need not fear,
For by a persevering, patient climb
We shall draw near our goal, when it is time.

But no one will, despite profound reflection,
Unravel all the wonders hidden here:
Our mother earth brings forth so many flowers,
And many shall find something to revere;
Maybe that one will gloomily forsake us,
Another stays with gestures full of cheer:
For many wand'ring pilgrims flows the spring,
To each a different pleasure it will bring.

This is the situation into which we are put. We are shown a pilgrim who, if we were to ask him, would not be able to say, based on his understanding, what we have just explained to be the esoteric Christian idea—but a pilgrim, in whose heart and soul these ideas live transformed into feelings. It is not easy to discover everything that has been secreted into this poem called The Mysteries. Goethe has clearly indicated a process occurring within a person in whom the highest ideas, thoughts and conceptions are transformed into feelings and emotions. What causes this transformation to take place?

We live through many embodiments, from incarnation to incarnation. In each one we learn things of many kinds; each one is full of opportunities for gathering new experiences. It is impossible to carry over everything in every detail from incarnation to incarnation. When man is born again, it is not necessary for everything that he has once learnt to come to life in every detail. But if someone has learnt a lot in one incarnation, dies and is born again, although there is no need for all his ideas to revive, but he will return to life with the fruits of his former life, with the fruits of what he has learned. His emotions and feelings correspond to the realisations of his earlier incarnations.

In this poem of Goethe's we have a wonderful phenomenon: we encounter a man who, in the simplest words—as a child might speak, not in particularly intellectual or abstract terms—shows us the highest wisdom as a fruit of former knowledge. He has transformed this knowledge into feeling and experience and is thereby qualified to lead others who have perhaps learnt more in the form of concepts. Such a pilgrim with a mature soul that has transformed much of the knowledge it has gathered in earlier incarnations into direct feelings and emotions, such a pilgrim we have before us in Brother Mark. As a member of a secret Brotherhood he is sent out on an important mission to another secret Brotherhood.

He wanders through many different districts, and when he is getting tired, he comes to a mountain. At last, he journeys up the path to the summit. Every feature in this poem has a deep significance. When he has climbed the mountain, he sees in a nearby valley a monastery. This monastery is the abode of the brotherhood to which he has been sent. Over the gate of the monastery, he sees something special. He sees the Cross, but in unusual guise; the cross is entwined with roses! And at this point he utters a significant word that only he can understand who knows how very often that passcode has been spoken in secret brotherhoods, “Who added to the Cross the wreath of Roses?” And from the middle of the cross, he sees three rays radiating out as if from the Sun. There is no need for him to place before his soul conceptually the meaning of this profound symbol. The feeling and emotion of it already live in his soul, in his mature soul, that knows its inner meaning.

What is the meaning of the Cross? He knows that the Cross is a symbol for many things; among many others, for the threefold lower nature of man—the physical body, the etheric body, and the astral body. In him the “I”—the Self—is born. In the Rose-Cross we have the fourfold man: in the Cross the physical man, the etheric man, and the astral man, and in the roses the Self. Why roses for the Self?—The esoteric Christianity added roses to the Cross because it saw in the Christ principle a summons to raise the Self from the state in which it is born in the three bodies, to an ever higher and higher self. In the Christ Principle he saw the power to carry this Self up higher and higher.

The Cross is the symbol of death in a quite particular sense. This, too, Goethe expresses in another beautiful passage³ when he says,

And until thou truly hast
This dying and becoming,
Thou art but a troubled guest
O'er the dark earth roaming.

“Dying and becoming”—overcome what you have first been given in the three lower bodies—deaden it, but not out of a desire for death, but to purify what is in these three bodies so as to attain in your Self the power to receive an ever-greater perfection. By deadening, what is given to you in the three lower bodies, the power of perfection will enter into the Self. In the Christ Principle, the Christian is to take the power of perfection into his Self, right into the blood. This power must work right into the blood.

Blood is the expression of the Self. In the red roses the esoteric Christian saw the power of the Christ Principle purifying and cleansing the blood, thus purifying the Self and so guiding man upwards to his higher being—he saw the power that transforms the astral body into the Spirit Self, the etheric body into the Life Spirit, the physical body into the Spirit Man. Thus, we encounter in the Rose-Cross connected with the triple beam a profound symbol of the Christ Principle. The pilgrim, Brother Mark, who arrives here, knows that he is at a place where the profoundest meaning of Christianity is understood.

Full weary by a long and tiring journey,
With a sublimest motive underta'en,
A pilgrim, brother Mark, came through the thicket,
With staff in hand, his footsteps to sustain,
And longing for a little food and drinking,
One beauteous eve he reached a quiet plain.
Its wooded gorges soothing hope bestowed
Beneath a friendly roof to find abode.

But lo! a path he scarcely can distinguish,
High up a mountain steep before him wending.
He follows it, as more and more it rises,
In curvings in and out the boulders bending,
Until again by sunlight warm enveloped,
He turns and sees how fast he is ascending.
At last the summit comes within his sight,
Inspiring him with heart-felt, deep delight.

Next it the sun, majestic in its setting,
Enthroned 'mong clouds within the dark'ning sky.
Now for the peak! For all his weary toiling
He hopes to be rewarded there on high.
O'erlooking all the country 'fore him spreading,
A human home he will perchance espy.
And while he climbs, oh sound how full of cheer!
The chime of bells is wafted to his ear.

And as at length he has attained the summit,
Below a softly sloping valley lies.
His quiet look with inward pleasure brightens;
Before the forest full of joy he spies
A stately building in a greening field,
Which the departing sun with lustre dyes.
E'er long he nears through meadows dewy damp
A monastery lit with gleaming lamp.

He soon arrives outside the quiet homestead,
With hope and peacefulness his soul enfolding,
And on the arch above the closed portal
A symbol full of mystery beholding.
He stands and ponders, whispers words of prayer,
The deep devotion of his heart unfolding;
He ponders long: What does this sign convey?
The sun has set, the chiming dies away.

The sign he sees erected here on high
That brings consoling hope to all mankind,
Which many thousands pledged their lives to shield,
To which in fervour prayed the human mind,
That has destroyed the bitter powers of death,
On victors' banners fluttered in the wind:
A stream of comfort permeates his being,
He sees the cross and bows his head in seeing.

He feels anew the faith of all on earth,
The power of salvation streaming thence;
But as he looks, he feels his very soul
Pervaded by a new and unknown sense:
Who added to the cross the wreath of roses?
It is entwined by blooming, clusters dense,
Profusely spreading just as though they could
Endow with softness e'en the rigid wood.

While light and silv'ry clouds, around it soaring,
Seem heavenward with cross and roses flowing,
And from the midst like living waters streaming
A threefold ray from out one core is glowing;
But not a word surrounds the holy token,
The meaning of the symbol clearly showing.
And while the dusk is gath'ring grey and greyer,
He stands and ponders and is lost in prayer.

The spirit of deepest Christianity which pervades this dwelling is expressed in the Cross entwined by roses. As the pilgrim enters, he is actually received in this spirit. As he enters, he becomes aware that in this house not this or that religion holds sway—but that here rules the higher Oneness of the religions of the world. Within the house he tells an older member of the Brotherhood who lives there, at whose behest and on what mission he has come. He is made welcome and hears that in this house lives in perfect seclusion a Brotherhood of twelve Brothers. These twelve Brothers are representatives of diverse human groups from all over the Earth; every one of the Brothers is the representative of a religious faith. None is to be found here, who is accepted while still young in years and immature. One will only be accepted when one has explored the world, when one has struggled with the joys and sorrows of the world, when one has worked and been active in the world and has wrestled with oneself upwards to gain a free survey beyond one’s narrowly confined domain. Only then is one placed and accepted into the circle of the Twelve. And these Twelve, of whom each one represents one of the world religions, live here in peace and harmony together. For they are led by a thirteenth who surpasses them all in the perfection of his human Self, who surpasses them all in his wide survey of human circumstances.

And how does Goethe indicate that this thirteenth is the representative of true Esotericism, the carrier of the Rosicrucian confession? Goethe indicates this by one of the brothers saying, “He was among us. Now we are in deepest sorrow because he is about to leave us, he wishes to part from us. But he finds it is right to part from us now. He desires to rise to higher regions, where he no longer needs to reveal himself in an earthly body.”

He may now ascend, for he has risen to the point that Goethe describes as follows: In every confession there is the possibility to come closer to the highest unity. When each of the twelve religions is matured to establish harmony, the Thirteenth, who has before brought about this harmony externally, can rise up. And we are beautifully told how we can achieve this perfection of the Self. First, the life-story of the Thirteenth is related. But the Brother who has admitted Mark knows many more details, which the great Leader of the twelve could not share. Several features of profound esoteric significance are now told by this brother to the pilgrim Mark. He learns, that when the Thirteenth was born a star appeared to herald his life on earth. Here there is a direct link to the star that guided the Three Holy Kings, and its meaning. This star has an enduring significance: it shows the way to self-knowledge, self-surrender, and self-perfection. It is the star which opens the understanding for the gifts which the Danish king received from the vision in his dream. The star which appears at the birth of anyone mature enough to absorb the Christ Principle into oneself.

And other things became apparent. It became clear that he had developed to that height of religious harmony which brings peace and harmony of the soul. Profoundly symbolical in this sense is the vulture which swoops down at the birth of the Thirteenth, but instead of working destruction it spreads peace around it among the doves.

We are told still more. While his little sister is lying in the cradle a viper winds itself around her. The Thirteenth, still a child, kills the viper. Hereby is wonderfully indicated how a mature soul—for only a mature soul can achieve such a thing after many incarnations—kills the viper already in early childhood: that means he overcame the lower astral nature. The viper is the symbol for the lower astral nature. The sister is his own etheric body, around which the astral body winds itself. He kills the viper for his sister.

Then we are told how he submitted obediently to what at first the family demanded of him. He obeyed his harsh father. The soul transforms its realisations, ideas, and thoughts. Then healing-powers develop in the soul that can bring healing into the world. Miraculous powers develop; they find expression by him using his sword to strike a spring out of the rock. Intentionally, we are here shown how his soul follows the path of the Scripture.

Thus gradually there matures the superior, the representative of humanity, the Chosen one, who works as the Thirteenth here in the society of the Twelve, the great secret Brotherhood which, under the sign of the Rose-Cross, has taken upon itself the mission for all mankind to harmonise the religions scattered throughout the world. This is how we are made acquainted, in a profound manner, with the soul-nature of the one who has so far led the Brotherhood of the Twelve.

At last he knocks. The myriad stars above him
Look down with shining eyes as they appear.
The portal opens, and he is bidden welcome
By brethren wont to comfort and to cheer.
So he relates how far by hill and valley
The will of higher Beings led him here.
They stand amazed, for well they see their guest
Was sent to them by heavenly behest.

They crowd around him, and their inmost being
They feel by a mysterious power stirred,
Their breath they hold to listen, for he rouses
An echo in their hearts with ev'ry word.
Like deepest lore, yet uttered by a child,
The wisdom flowing from his lips is heard:
He seems so innocent, like crystal clear,
As though descended from another sphere.

At last an aged brother cries: Oh welcome,
If with consoling hope thy path is blessed!
Thou seest us, our souls are moved within us
By thee, and yet we can but stand oppressed:
Our greatest bliss from us is being taken,
Anxiety and dread disturb our rest.
Thou comest as a stranger, yet to share
Portentous hours of mourning and of care:

For he, alas! who all of us united,
to whom as father and as friend we bow,
who light and fortitude within us kindled—
Our leader—is prepared to leave us now.
Yea, he himself his passing has predicted,
refusing though to tell us when and how:
The mystery of what must needs befall
Brings bitter tribulation to us all.

Thou seest us grey and aged ev’ry one,
By nature destined for repose and rest:
Not one was here admitted who, a youth,
Desired to fly from wordly joy and zest.
Each one has met with life's vicissitudes,
Its burdens, pleasures and its anxious quest,
Until, matured, too old to longer roam,
Within these walls we found a shelt'ring home.

The noble man who led us to this haven,
Within his heart the peace of God does dwell;
Along the path of life we walked together,
His ev'ry action I remember well;
But now his fervent praying, his seclusion,
The hour of his departing must foretell.
How small is man! Oh would that he could give
His life, so that a greater one might live!

This is my heart's profound and only wish!
Fulfilment is denied to my desire.
How many have preceded me in death!
How bitter is the thought he must expire.
Had he been here, with hearty welcome's warmth
He would have given all thou didst require;
But now in spirit-regions dwells his mind,
Already far from those he leaves behind.

Each day one hour he lingers in our midst
And speaks to us, by strange emotion stirred:
The wondrous paths that Providence has led
Within his life he lauds with ev'ry word;
We hark and heed, for after-ages hoarding
With care the merest trifle that occurred,
While one writes down his words to make us sure
His memory shall live both true and pure.

I hear him speak, but oh, how much there is
That I would rather myself relate,
For all is still alive within my mind,
The least of circumstances I would state;
Impatiently I list, can scarce conceal
How sore it is thus silently to wait:
One day I shall no more restrain my zeal,
The splendours of this beauteous life reveal.

I should disclose how first an angel's voice
His coming to his mother prophesied,
And how, when he was christened, in the sky
A star with brilliant lustre was descried,
How down a vulture swooped with mighty wings
To settle by the gentle pigeons' side,
But not to pounce on them in greedy wildness,
A harbinger he seemed of peace and mildness.

How as a child a viper he destroyed,
This is a miracle he ne'er has told.
He found his sister peacefully asleep,
The clinging reptile round her arm was rolled.
The nurse had fled and left the babe alone,
He killed the pois'nous snake, resolved and bold;
His mother came and saw the daring deed
And thrilled with joy she found her daughter freed.

He ne'er related that a spring arose
From out the barren rock before his sword,
And as a brook, with rippling waves alive,
Its plenteous waters down the hill-side poured;
E'en now, as quick as forth it gushed at first,
It bickers silver sparkling o'er the sward.
But those who saw the wondrous stream appear,
Dared not to drink, o'ercome by solemn fear.

For when a man excels by gifts of nature,
It is no wonder if his life is blessed;
In him we worship the Creator's power,
Through feeble human clay made manifest;
But he who overcomes himself has gained
The greatest triumph, stood the hardest test,
And well may he to all the world be shown:
Yea, this is he, this deed is his alone!

With all our strength we strive to live and labour,
Where'er by fate our twisting paths be wended;
Whereas the world oppresses, e'er impeding,
And seeks to tear us from the way intended;
Within this inner storm and outer struggle
Our spirit hears a word scarce comprehended:
The power that holds constrained all humankind
The victor o'er himself it no more can bind.

This man who had overcome himself, that is, who had overcome that “I” which at first is allotted to man, has become the Superior of the chosen Brotherhood. And thus, he leads the Twelve. He has led them to a point at which they are mature enough for him to be allowed to leave them.

Our Brother Mark is then conducted further to the rooms where the Twelve work. How did they work? Their activity is of an unusual kind, and we are told that it is an activity in the spiritual world. A man whose eyes observe only the physical plane, whose senses only see the physical and only that what is done by people in the physical world, cannot easily imagine that there is still other work. Work which under circumstances may even be far more vital and important than what is done externally on the physical plane. Work from the higher planes is far more important for mankind. Naturally, whoever wishes to work on the higher planes can only do so on condition that he has first completed his tasks on the physical plane. These Twelve had done so. For this reason, their combined activity is of high importance as a service to mankind.

Our Brother Mark is led into the hall where the Twelve were accustomed to assemble. There he encounters in deep symbolic guise the nature of their combined activity. The individual contribution of each of the Brothers to this combined activity is expressed by a special symbol above the seat of each one of the Twelve. Symbols of many kinds are to be seen there, expressing meaningfully and in very different ways the contribution of each to the common task. This task consists in spiritual activity, so that these streams flow together here into a current of spiritual life that floods the world and invigorates the rest of mankind. There are such brotherhoods, such centres from where such streams emanate and impact on the rest of mankind.

Above the seat of the Thirteenth, Brother Mark again sees the sign: the Cross entwined with roses. This sign is at the same time a symbol for the four-fold nature of man, and in the red roses the symbol for the purified Blood- or Self-principle, the principle of the higher man. Then we see that which is to be overcome by this sign of the Rose-Cross installed as a special symbol to the right and left of the seat of the Thirteenth. On the right Mark sees the fiery-coloured dragon, representing the astral nature of man.

It was well known in Christian Esotericism that man's soul can surrender to the three lower bodies. If it succumbs to them, then it is dominated by the lower life of the threefold bodily nature. This is expressed in astral perception through the dragon. This is no mere symbol but a very real sign. The dragon expresses what first must be conquered. In the passions, in those forces of astral fire—which are part of man's physical nature—in this dragon, Christian Esotericism saw what mankind has received from the torrid zone, from the South. Christian Esotericism that has spread through Europe has inspired this poem. From the South stems what mankind acquired as fierce passions, tending chiefly towards the lower senses. The first impulse to fight and overcome was foreseen in the influences streaming from the cooler North. The influence of the cooler North, the descent of the I into the threefold physical nature of man, is expressed according to the old symbol taken from the Constellation of the Bear. It shows a hand thrust into the jaws of a bear. The lower physical nature expressed by the fiery dragon will be overcome. What has been preserved in the higher rank of animal life was represented by the bear. The I which has developed beyond the dragon nature was represented with profound appropriateness by the thrusting of a human hand into the bear's jaws. On both sides of the Rose-Cross there appears what must be overcome by it. It is the Rose-Cross which calls upon man to purify and raise himself up higher and higher.

Thus the poem describes to us in fact the principle of esoteric Christianity in the profoundest manner and, above all, illustrates us what we ought to keep before our soul, particularly at a festival such as we are celebrating today.

The eldest of the Brothers living here, belonging to the Brotherhood, tells the pilgrim Mark expressly that their combined activity is of the spirit, that it is spiritual life. This work for mankind on the spiritual plane means something special. The Brothers have experienced life's joys and sorrows, they have passed through conflicts outside; they have accomplished tasks in the world outside. Now they are here, but here also work is done continuously to further the development of mankind. The pilgrim Marcus is told, “You have seen as much now as can be shown to a novice to whom the first portal is opened. You have been shown in profound symbols what man's ascent should be. But the second portal hides greater mysteries—how from the higher worlds work is done on mankind. You can only learn these greater mysteries after lengthy preparation, only then can you enter through the other gate.” Profound secrets are expressed in this poem.

In him I scarce as virtue may denote
The power of good which e'en his youth inspired
And taught him to respect his father's word,
When harshly he his services required,
With duties burdening his leisure hours;
The son obeyed with ardour, never tired,
Like some poor boy who, friendless and astray,
Is glad to work for but a trifling pay.

On foot he joined the warriors in the field,
In lowering tempest and in dazzling light,
The horses he did tend, the meals prepare,
And armed the soldiers ready for the fight.
Oft as a messenger, both keen and fleet,
He hastened through the woods by day and night;
To live for others both in thought and action
Seemed but to give him joy and satisfaction.

And brave and cheerful always, in the strife
He sought the arrows scattered on the ground;
Then hastily he gathered curing herbs,
With which the burning wounds he cooled and bound;
And just as if his very touch were healing,
Ere long the sufferers were strong and sound;
How all regarded him with joy and pride!
Alone his father seemed not satisfied.

E'en as a ship, despite its heavy load
From port to port with speedy lightness sailing,
He bore the burden of his parents' word
That in obedience ne'er he should be failing;
As pleasure is for boys, for youths distinction,
For him his father's will was all-prevailing,
So that he might demand whate'er he would,
Each task was soon fulfilled, each test was stood.

At last the father yielded and acknowledged
The merit of his son in word and deed;
While of a sudden all his sternness vanished,
He gave the youth a swift and precious steed;
Henceforth a sword replaced the shorter dagger,
And from his lesser duties he was freed:
Thus, destined by his birth and well acquitted,
Into an Order he was now admitted.

Ah, well could I report for many days
Amazing things to every one who hears;
And higher than the most delightful tales
His life will be esteemed in coming years;
For what in poetry and fiction charms,
Yet to our mind incredible appears,
Will here with greater pleasure still be heard,
Because it has in real event occurred.

The name of him whom Providence has chosen
That wondrous things on earth he should achieve,
Whom I may often praise, though ne'er sufficing
Whose destiny we scarcely can believe,
His name—it is Humanus, Saint and wise one,
The best of men whom I did e'er perceive:
By origin another name he bears,
Which with illustrious ancestors he shares.

The aged brother would have spoken on.
Filled with the miracles that he did know,
And he shall gladden us for many weeks
With all the stirring facts he still can show;
But he was interrupted, just as now
His heart was pouring forth in fervent flow.
The others softly in and out had passed
And deemed it time to intervene at last.

When Mark had bowed before his hosts and prayed
In gratitude for the sustaining meal,
A bowl of crystal water he requested.
They brought what he had craved with friendly zeal.
Hereafter led him to their festive hall,
Therein a sight unwonted to reveal.
Of what he saw you soon will be aware,
For everything shall be described with care.

No ornament was here, the eye deluding,
A cross-arched vault rose sternly from the ground,
And thirteen chairs against the walls, he noticed.
Were like a pious chorus ranged around,
By clever hands full delicately carven;
In front of each a little desk he found.
Devotion seemed to fill the very air,
Fraternity and restfulness and prayer.

Above each chair was hung a special shield,
Thirteen in all the number he espied.
They seemed to be important, purposeful,
No boast of ancestors in shallow pride.
And brother Mark, with longing all aglow,
Desired to learn what secret they did hide:
Lo, in the middle one the mystic sign,
The cross which clustring roses do entwine.

Each object will arouse to life and action
The soul which to its inspiration yields;
Some places are adorned by swords and lances,
While helmets hang above these other shields;
Here battered weapons are to be discovered,
Such as one may collect on battle-fields:
There spears and banners, come from distant lands,
And even fetters here and iron bands!

Each brother sinking down before his chair,
In silent prayer profoundly wrapt they rested;
Then softly chanted fervent hymns of thanks,
By cheerfulness and piety suggested;
With mutual blessing they retired to sleep,
A short repose, by fancies unmolested:
But Mark remains, surrounded by a few,
Still wishing more attentively to view.

Though tired in body, full awake his mind,
Preoccupied by many hidden things:
For here, his thirst in raging flames appeasing,
A dragon is enthroned with fiery wings;
And here between his jaws a bear is holding
An arm from which the blood it loses springs,
Both shields, in distance corresponding quite,
Hung next the Rosy-Cross to left and right.

Wherever he now turns and gazes in amazement,⁴
The more he marvels at the art and splendours
Abundant wealth seems wasted here on purpose
Has everything just made itself?—he wonders.
Should he have doubts about the work’s fulfilment?
Who so conceived the plan? ― he ponders.
It seems to him, with heavenly delight,
He’s only just beginning to live each moment right.

The paths were wonderful that led thee here,
The aged brother speaks unto his guest:
Oh let these symbols bid thee stay until
The many heroes' deeds we manifest;
Our mysteries we will confide to thee,
For what is here concealed, can ne'er be guessed;
Although thou wilt divine what here was done,
Endured and lost, and last what triumph won.

Do not believe that but of times gone by
The brother spake. Here wonders never fail;
And more and ever more thou shalt behold,
Until withdrawn is the enshrouding veil.
One portal only 'tis that thou hast passed:
And if thou feelst the call, O friend, prevail!
The foremost court as yet thou didst attain,
But worthy art the very core to gain.

After a short sleep our Brother Mark learns to divine something at least of the inner mysteries. In powerful symbols he has let the ascent of the human Self work upon his soul. When by a sign he is awakened from his short rest he comes to a portal that he finds locked. He hears a strange threefold harmony sounding thrice, and the whole as if intermingled with the playing of a flute. He cannot look in, cannot see what is happening there in the room.

We do not need to be told more than these few words to indicate in a profound way what awaits the man who approaches the spiritual worlds. When he is so far purified and perfected by his endeavours to develop his Self that he passed through the astral world and then approaches the higher worlds. In those worlds are to be found the spiritual archetypes of the things here on earth. When he approaches what is called in esoteric Christianity the world of heaven, he approaches it first through a world of flowing colour. Then he enters into a world of sound, into the harmony of the universe, the music of the spheres. The spiritual world is a world of sound. He who has developed his higher Self to the level of the higher worlds must become at home in this spiritual world. It is indeed Goethe who clearly expressed the higher experience of a world of spiritual sounds in his Faust, when he lets him be enraptured by heaven and the world of heaven reveals itself to him through sound.⁵

“The sun-orb sings, in emulation
'Mid brother-spheres, his ancient round...”

The physical Sun does not sing, but the spiritual Sun sings. Goethe retains this image when, after long wanderings, Faust is transported up into the spiritual worlds:

“Sounding loud to spirit-hearing,⁶
see the new-born day appearing.”
“Pealing rays and trumpet-blazes
—eye is blinded, ear amazes:
The Unheard can no one hear!”

Through the symbolic colour world of the astral, man evolving higher approaches the world of the harmony of the spheres, the Devachanic domain, the spiritual music. Only softly, softly, does Brother Mark hear ― after passing through the first portal, the astral portal, the chiming sound of the inner world behind our external world. That inner world which transforms the lower astral world into that higher world is traversed by the harmonious triad. And by reaching the higher world a human being’s lower nature is transformed into the higher Trinity: our astral body is changed into the Spirit Self, the etheric body into the Life Spirit, the physical body into the Spirit Man.

Brother Marcus has a premonition at first when in the music of the spheres he senses the triad of the higher nature. In becoming one with this music of the spheres he has the first presentiment of the rejuvenation of man who enters into union with the spiritual world. He sees, as in a dream, rejuvenated mankind in the form of the three youths bearing three torches floating through the garden. This is the moment when Mark's soul woke up in the morning from darkness, and where some darkness still remains as the light has not yet penetrated it. But precisely at such a time the soul can look into the spiritual world. It can look into the spiritual worlds just as it can look into them when the summer noon has passed, when the Sun is gradually losing in power and winter has come, and then at midnight the Christ Principle shines through the Earth in the Holy Night.

Through the Christ Principle, man is exalted to the higher Trinity, illustrated for Brother Mark by the three youths who are representing the rejuvenated mankind. This is the meaning of Goethe's lines:

“And until thou truly hast
This dying and becoming,
Thou art but a troubled guest
O'er the dark earth roaming.”

Every year anew, Christmas must remind those who understand esoteric Christianity that what happens in the external world is mimicry, are the gestures of inner spiritual processes. The external power of the Sun runs free in the spring and summer sunshine. In the Holy Scripture this external power of the Sun, which is only the proclamation of the inner spiritual power of the Sun, is represented by John the Baptist, but the inner, spiritual power by Christ. And while the physical power of the Sun continuously abates, the spiritual power rises and grows more and more in strength until it reaches its zenith at Christmas time. This is the meaning underlying the words in the gospel of St. John, “I must decrease, but He must increase”.⁷ And He increases and increases until He appears where the sun-force has again attained the outer physical power.

So that man may henceforth be able to revere and worship in this external physical power the spiritual power of the Sun, he must learn the meaning of the Christmas festival. For those who do not learn to know this meaning, the new power of the Sun is nothing but the old physical power returning. But one who has familiarised himself with the impulses which esoteric Christianity and especially the Christmas festival should give him, will see in the growing power of the solar body the external body of the inner Christ which shines through the Earth, which gives it life and fruitfulness, so that the Earth itself becomes the bearer of the Christ-power, of the Earth-Spirit. Thus, what is born in every Christmas night will be born anew for us each time. Through Christ we shall perceive inwardly the microcosm in the macrocosm, and this perception will lead us higher and higher.

The festivals, which have long ago become something external to man, will again appear in their deep significance for man, if he is led by this profound esotericism to the knowledge that the occurrences of external nature―such as thunder and lightning, sunrise and sunset, moonrise and the setting of the moon―are the gestures and physiognomy of spiritual existence. And at the significant points of the times marked by our festivals, man should realise that these are also times of important happenings in the spiritual world. Thus he shall be led to the rejuvenating spiritual power represented by the three youths, which the Self can only win by devoting itself to the outer world, and not by egotistically shutting itself away from it. But devotion to the outer world does not exist if that outer world is not permeated by the Spirit. That this Spirit should appear anew each year as a light in the darkness for all human beings, even for the weakest, must be written afresh each year into the hearts and souls of mankind.

This is what Goethe wished to express in this poem, The Mysteries. It is at once a Christmas poem and an Easter poem. It aims to hint at profound secrets of esoteric Christianity. If we let what he wished to indicate of the deep mysteries of Rosicrucian Christianity work upon us, if we absorb its power even in part then for some few at least in our environment we shall become missionaries. We shall succeed in fashioning these festivals once more into something filled with spirit and with life.

When after short repose within his cell
A deep resounding bell awakes our guest,
His soul is filled with longing for devotion,
He rises quickly with unwearied zest
And hastens to the church, with all his heart
Responding to the gladly heard behest,
Obedient, peaceful and by prayer bestirred;
Alas! The door is locked, he stands deterred.

But hark! a blow on dull resounding ore
Three times in equal intervals renewed,
No chime it seems to be of clock or bells,
From time to time with tones of flute imbued;
The floating music fills the heart with joy,
Mysterious 'tis and scarce to be construed,
It sounds like singing, solemn and entrancing,
To which the couples interlace in dancing.

Bewildered and by strange emotion moved,
He hastens to the window there to gaze;
The day is dawning in the distant east,
The sky o'erflown by lucent streaks of haze.
And may he trust his eyes? A mystic light
Is fleeting through the garden's winding ways;
Three youths with torches in their hands he sees
Who haste along the paths between the trees.

He clearly sees their wonderful apparel,
The white resplendent garments which they wear,
Their girdles made of intertwining roses,
The wreaths of flowers in their curly hair;
They seem to come from some nocturnal dances,
With joy of movement thrilled, enlived and fair.
But as the stars will fade, when day is near,
Extinguishing their torch, they disappear.

• 1. A correction after the transcript by Walter Vegelahn. In the first Edition this sentence was due to a different transcript recorded in error as “then the Earth was no longer the hull”.
• 2. Goethe himself wrote an essay about this fragment in the year 1816, “The Mysteries, a fragment by Goethe”, in Essays on Literature, Contributions to the Morning paper for the educated classes, 1807-1816. Sophien Edition, Volume 41/1.
• 3. “And until thou truly hast” is the final verse of the poem by Goethe “Blessed Longings”, of the collection West Eastern Divan.
• 4. The verse “Wherever he now turns and gazes in amazement”, is missing from most Goethe Editions, but according to an original handwritten Goethe script it had been intended for The Mysteries. Refer Goethe’s works, Weimar Edition, Volume 16, Page 436.
• 5. “The Sun-orb sings, in emulation...”, Goethe, Faust Part I, Prologue in Heaven, Verse 243 et seq.
• 6. “Sounding loud to spirit-hearing..”, Faust Part II, Act 1, Ariel Scene, Verse 4666 et seq.
• 7. “I must decrease, but he must increase”. The literal translation would be “I must sink, but he has to rise”. John-3-30.

Anthroposophy, when properly understood, will guide us back more and more into that immediate life from which a materialistic way of thinking, quite paradoxically, estranges us.

We have said this frequently, here and at other places, at many different occasions, and always in order to characterize the mission of our anthroposophical movement. The above statement will make a strange impression on many of our contemporaries, for they are of the opinion that true life, or what they call life, is to be sought elsewhere than in what anthroposophy has to give; and they are also of the opinion that anthroposophy is least qualified to show them how to lead a practical everyday existence. Such is not the case. Anthroposophy will help us in all ways, great and small! Its teaching, when thoroughly assimilated, will enable those who are engaged in public or other matters to solve the problems of the day in the way in which they should be solved if mankind is to lead a complete life. The many disorders and unhealthy conditions of our age which are now being approached, from one standpoint or another, in a more or less amateurish manner, could, if our contemporaries were to permeate themselves with anthroposophical truths, be successfully handled. I just wanted to touch on this issue, it will not be the focus of our contemplation today.

Today it will be more the emotional aspect of anthroposophy with which I ask you to occupy your thoughts. It will be noticed how to a deeper, feeling permeated comprehension of life, a time like the present must seem to be abstruse, uninteresting, matter-of-fact and theoretical. When Christmas, Easter or Whitsuntide approaches, we can see how certain outward forms and external ceremonies are adhered to But there is very little left of what our forefathers felt to be alive in their very souls—that deep current of feeling penetrating into the soul which was peculiar to our forefathers with regard to the relationship of mankind to the whole cosmos and its divine foundations. This feeling was particularly alive at the time of such festivals. Then it was something tangible for the soul, for then it received impressions different from those gained during the rest of the year.

No true conception is formed today of that which filled the souls of our ancestors when the days grew shorter, the end of the year approached and the birthday of Christ Jesus was about to be celebrated; or when, at the festival of the resurrection of Christ Jesus, the snow was slowly melting, and what the earth had hidden appeared once more on the surface. It would seem indeed that our life were concrete. In reality the feelings of our contemporaries have become abstract, matter-of-fact and empty. People pass through the streets, and hardly feel more about Christmas than that it is a time for giving and receiving presents. Should they have any other feeling, there is little connection between it and that deep feeling which absorbed our forefathers at that time of the year. Mankind has lost its true relationship with life. To show how to regain this relationship is one aspect of the mission of anthroposophical spiritual science.

One who only grasps with his mind and understanding what is usually called the anthroposophical conception of the world has understood only the very least part of anthroposophy. It is only understood by him who realizes that the whole of man’s feelings and emotions must be altered when anthroposophy lives itself into the heart and soul. What was abstract for a certain time, and even forgotten in its significance—the true meaning of our festivals—will again penetrate into our souls when the intimate connection of the whole surrounding world with man is realized again, as it may be through a spiritual perception.

The deeper meaning of the Christmas festival has often engaged our attention at this time. Today, we shall look at it from another aspect. This can only be done if at first we make quite clear to ourselves what impression anthroposophical thoughts and ideas produce on our feelings, how they really have the power of making out of a human being something quite different from what he is at present, something through which he will again know what it is to have an immediate experience of the pulsation of the spiritual life of nature—actually to feel the warmth which passed through creation, animating every being. When a man looks today at the starry sky with the help of the abstruse science of astronomy, he sees it inhabited by abstruse material worlds. But these celestial bodies will again appear to him as the bodies of souls and spirits; space will once more appear to him permeated by spirit and soul. He will experience the whole cosmos as filled with warmth, and have the feeling that he has when reclining on the bosom of a friend; though of course experiencing the spirit of the cosmos is much more majestic and sublime.

We know that we have to seek in man alone such a soul as we are cognizant of in man—an individual soul, which, so to say, lives in a single body. The soul of the other creatures which surround us, we must seek in another way and in a different form. The animals which live in our midst also have souls, but we shall look in vain for them here on the physical plane. The animal-ego, which we name a “group ego”, is to be found on the astral plane; and a whole group of related animals, for example the lion-group, the tiger-group, the cat-group, all separate groups of related forms, have each of them a common soul, a common ego. The separation by space here on earth makes no difference; every lion belongs to the same lion-ego, whether one lion is here in a zoo, and another in Africa. The spiritual scientist can find the animal ego on the astral plane; and there these group-egos are individual personalities, just as your personality here on the physical plane is individual. As your ten fingers belong to your individual personality, so does every lion belong to the group-ego of the lions. If we could become acquainted with the individual group-egos on the astral plane, we would find that wisdom is their most conspicuous characteristic, although to us here on earth separate animals may not appear very wise. Nobody ought to judge the characteristics of the group-ego, of animal individuality on the astral plane, on the basis of the characteristics of the separate animals here on earth. Just as little as your ten fingers show the characteristics of an individual ego, just so little does the single animal show the characteristics of the group-ego.

These group-egos act very sagaciously, and are wiser than you imagine; for what you know here as the achievements of animals are brought about by these group-egos. They live in the atmosphere surrounding our earth, they are to be found round about us. If you follow the flight of birds as they migrate at the approach of autumn from the north-east to the south-west, and at the approach of spring return once more from the south-west to the north-east, you might ask yourself: who guides their flight so wisely? In your search for the individual directors and rulers you will come, as a student of spiritual science, to the group-egos of the different genera or species. The astral ego, which is just as much an ego on the astral plane as the human ego is here, lives in every animal community. The group souls or personalities or astral egos, who have their individual members here on the physical plane, are much wiser than the egos of mankind on the physical plane; everything which is so wisely organized in the animal-world is the manifested wisdom of the group-egos of animals. We walk differently through the world if we know that at every pace forward, we step through beings whose deeds we are able to see.

Now let us look at the plant kingdom: the egos of this plant world are to be found in a still higher world than the one in which the group-egos of the animals live. The egos of plants (there are actually very few of them) are to be found in the spirit-world or Devachan; each one of the plant-egos embraces many, very many, of the individual plants which are found here on earth in such great variety. If we should seek the place where these plant-egos are to be found in space, we would come to the center of the earth. All plant-egos are united at the center of the earth.

It would reflect a rather primitive mental life if, when considering the spirit of the egos, you were to ask: Is there room enough for all these different egos? In the spirit everything in-terpenetrates. He who does not understand this comes to the point of view expressed just now in a book which is particularly recommended to theosophists. This book certainly speaks of spiritual worlds, but speaks about them by using arguments such as: If in the course of a thousand years thirty billion people had lived whose souls are now in the atmospheric surroundings of the earth, then there would be such a great number of souls, that there would scarcely be room for them all in the earth’s periphery.—This book is well intentioned, but it is extremely trivial. (“Unknown Powers,” by C. Flammarion.)

We have to seek the plant-egos in the center of the earth, because the earth itself as a planet is a complete organism. In the same relation in which the hairs of your head art to your organism, so are the plants to the organism of our earth. These plants are not independent beings but are members of the earth organism.

Feelings of pleasure and pain in plants are the pleasure and pain of the earth’s organism; we need only recall what you were told a few weeks ago about pleasure and pain in the plant-kingdom. He who is able to observe these things knows that if you injure a plant in the part above the earth, the injury is not connected with a feeling of pain in our earth organism. On the contrary, it gives a pleasant feeling to the earth, in the same way in which the cow suckling her calf gets and bestows a pleasurable sensation. Thus the green of the plant which springs out of the earth, even though fixed, may be compared with the milk of the animal organism. And when in autumn the reaper cuts the grain with his scythe, it is more than an abstract occurrence to one who understands how to transform anthroposophical ideas into feelings of the soul. The reaping calls forth a breath of joy which goes over the whole field, and the mowing of the grass fills the field with pleasurable sensations.

Thus we learn to feel with the earth organism as we feel on the bosom of a friend. We feel pain with the earth when we understand that as soon as we tear out the plants by their roots, the earth feels pain. It ought not to be objected here that under certain conditions it might be better to transplant a whole plant with roots rather than to pick its blossoms. Such an objection is not relevant here. If a person begins to get grey hair, and in order to remain younger looking pulls out the first grey hairs, does the action hurt the less?

Thus we learn to feel with nature around us; more and more we learn to experience nature as permeated by soul and spirit. When we enter a quarry and watch the men breaking stones, this act remains with us as something concrete, not abstract, if we deepen our anthroposophical ideas on the subject into feelings of the soul. Then we do not only see the stones flying out of the rocks—not even if a rock were blasted would it seem abstract to us. On the contrary, we learn to feel what nature, permeated by soul and spirit, is feeling outside us. If we have a glass of water before us and throw into it some salt or a lump of sugar, and watch how the salt or sugar dissolves, this arouses the feeling that there is soul in it. If we would know what kind of a soul is contained therein we must not bring forward ordinary analogies. It would be very easy to believe that when the quarry-man breaks off the stone, his action causes nature to feel pain, but in reality the exact opposite is the case. What is called division into fragments in the mineral kingdom gives nature the greatest joy, an internal sensation of well-being. There is also an internal sensation of well-being when we dissolve a piece of sugar or salt in water. Feelings of pleasure flow through the water during the dissolving of the mineral bodies. It is different under different circumstances.

We can call to mind the primeval age on earth—that time when our earth was a fiery-fluid body with every mineral and metal dissolved in it. It was not possible for our earth to remain in such a state, it had to become the place on which we live, the solid body on which we can walk about. The metals and minerals had to solidify out of the liquid element; it was necessary for them to harden, to pull themselves together. Everything that was dissolved in the liquid element had to congeal and become crystallized. A similar process to what can be observed with salt dissolved in a glass of water: let the water evaporate and you will be able to see the salt crystals as firm particles. If you follow the feelings which are brought into action by such happenings you will see that pain can be felt even in the apparently dense mineral kingdom. Everything which appears to us as demolition and breaking into fragments gives a feeling of pleasure to the earth; whereas consolidation, compression, crystallization give a feeling of pain. The minerals and rocks of the planet on which we live have been formed under conditions of pain. And this has, more or less, been the case during the hardening of the earth’s crust.

If we look into the future development of our earth, we must imagine that what is firm and solid will become more and more flexible and liquid, until at last the earth changes into that which is called the “astral earth.” Thus the earth matter will have become rarer and rarer; so that we, in the first half of our earth’s evolution, must regard the elements of the mineral kingdom as that which, under the influence of pain and suffering, has formed the solid stage for our existence. Towards the end of the earth’s evolution there will be more peaceful feelings, the whole earth will be full of feelings of joy; it will change into a heavenly planet, which, in the cosmos, will be astral.

When the initiated talk about these things, deep mysteries lie hidden in their words. They express themselves in such a way that their words have several levels of meaning, because they contain so much. St. Paul, who was an initiate, spoke with words which always had several hidden meanings. The further we advance in the comprehension of the cosmos, of the spirit worlds, the better we shall understand these expressions of St. Paul and their hidden meaning. St. Paul knew that the earth suffered during the time it was becoming firm, and that it is longing for its release into a spiritual, heavenly state: “For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together, waiting for the adoption.” (Romans viii, 22) By these words the initiate Paul referred to the pain accompanying the formation of the hard minerals whereon we stand and move.

So long as we only consider Anthroposophy as a system of thought we do not understand it rightly. It is the characteristic mark of Anthroposophy, that ideas must change into feelings, and we become different beings when, at every step, we feel and are conscious of all that we see about us. Those who really understood the esoteric teaching of Christianity were also of this opinion. You can follow the Christian writers as far as the eighteenth century and discover many who had sympathy with all the pleasure and all the pain of living nature. In their writings they use words which are for mankind today but empty sounds, or at the most allegories or pictures, whereas to those who understand them they are truths: “You shall not alone think upon nature, but you shall perceive it and taste it and feel it!”

They meant that when the reaper cuts the grain, we should taste the feeling that passes over the field during this action.

When we see the man in the quarry breaking off the stone, we should enjoy with nature her sensation of well-being. When we notice a deposit of earth where a river flows into the sea, we should at the same time learn to feel the pain which accompanies the deposition of earth.

Thus we can begin to experience nature completely permeated by soul. Our souls will then gain the power of growing out of their confinement. Feeling streams into the world in which we live, and we become one with the whole of nature. When we become one with it, piece by piece, we will also feel the spirituality and soul-nature of the great yearly occurrences. In the spring, when the days gradually become longer and longer, and more light falls on the earth; when out of her womb the plants, whose seeds were in the earth, spring up, and when everything is once more clothed in green, then we feel that not only what we see—as the shimmering green- is coming forth, but we feel as well that something akin to soul activity is taking place.

When winter draws near, the days grow shorter, less light falls on our earth, the plants retire to their winter sleep, and the green changes, we too experience a similar feeling to that which we have at night when we fall asleep. On the other hand, the awakening of external nature in the spring draws from us its corresponding feeling, for these events are no allegory, but realities. We feel the changes in nature, and also the changes in the soul and spirit of nature. In the latter half of the summer we feel how everything seems to decline, how the soul of our earth approaches sleep.—Then in the evening, when we ourselves fee1 sleepy, we have a real example before us of the living process which we have often described. Gradually, the astral body with the ego withdraws from the physical and etheric body, frees itself, and floats as it were into its own, its very own original world. If a man could do today, in the present condition of the evolution of humanity, what he will be able to do in the future, a spiritual consciousness would light up when the astral body lifts itself out of the etheric and physical bodies; spiritual forces and a spirit world would surround the body; man would simply leave his physical body in order that he might enter into another form of existence. This, in fact, he does today too, but he knows nothing about it in his present stage of development.

The same thing also occurs to our earth. The astral body of our earth changes during the year. (The changes are not the same in the two opposite hemispheres, but this does not concern us today). The astral body of our earth is occupied with the external natural existence of our earth during the time in which plants and life generally spring up out of the earth. When plants grow, it is the astral body that looks after everything that grows and flourishes on the earth. In the autumn, when a kind of sleepiness comes over the earth, this astral body returns to its spiritual activity.

Those who are able to really feel this earth-process know that during the height of the sun—from spring right into autumn -in everything which grows and increases out of doors, they must see the outer revelation of the spirit of the earth. But when autumn approaches they are directly in contact with the liberated astral body of the earth; when the days are shortest, that is, when the outer physical life approaches nearest to sleep, then the spiritual life awakens. What is this “spiritual life” of the earth? Who is the “spirit of the earth?”

This “spirit of the earth” described Himself as such when He spoke these words: “He that eateth My bread, treadeth Me with feet”; and when He made reference to that which the earth brings forth as true nourishment for man and said, “This is My body!” and again when He was referring to that which flows as the sap of life and said, “This is My blood!” In these sayings He described the earth itself as His organism.

This was quite different in pre-Christian times—different from what it is in the Christian era at a definite moment of the earth’s evolution. During the short days when the sacred mysteries of the ancients were being observed, those who were initiated turned with their whole soul towards the sun; at midnight on the day which we know as Christmas Day, those about to be initiated into the sacred mysteries were advanced so far that they were able to see the sun at the midnight hour. They were then promoted to being clairvoyant. We today cannot see the sun at the midnight hour because it is then at the other side of the earth; but the physical earth presents no obstacle to the seer, he can see the sun. He sees it in its spiritual essence. When the seers saw the sun at the midnight hour in the holy mysteries they saw the sun’s sovereign ruler—the Christ. Those saw Him who were able to come into contact with Him, but at that time still in the sun.

The flowing of blood from His wounds on Golgotha was an event fraught with meaning for the whole of the earth’s evolution. Nobody understands that event who has not the power of understanding that Christianity is built upon a mystical fact. If someone with clairvoyant sight could have watched the development of the earth from a distant planet for some thousands of years, he would not only have seen the physical body, but the astral body of our earth as well. This astral body of the earth would have emanated definite lights, definite colors and definite forms during those thousands of years. In one moment this was changed.

Other forms appeared, other lights and colours shone forth -and this moment was when the blood flowed out of the wounds of our Saviour at Golgotha. This was not only a human, but a cosmic event. Through it the Christ-Ego, which up to this time could only be discovered in the sun, passed to the earth. It linked itself with the earth, and in the spirit of the earth we find the Christ-Ego, the sun ego. The initiate is henceforth able to see in Christ himself the sun-spirit which formerly, at the time of Christmas, was only to be seen at the midnight hour on the sun in the holy places of the ancients.

Christian consciousness, not only the consciousness of the ordinary Christian, but the consciousness of the Christian initiate, lies in the living feeling of union with the spirit of Christ. This takes place every year when the days are becoming shorter and the physical earth is beginning to fall asleep. It is then possible for us to come into direct connection with the spirit of the earth. Therefore, to place the birth of our Savior in the time of the shortest days and the longest nights was not the outcome of an arbitrary decision, but the result of initiation. Bound up with the shortening of the days and the lengthening of the nights, we see something infinitely spiritual, and we feel at the same time that in this event there is a living soul—the highest soul which we are able to feel in the earth’s evolution.

When the first Christians uttered the name of Christ, they did not express any doctrine or any particular mode of thought. It would have seemed quite impossible for them to call anyone a Christian who believed only the words which Christ Jesus spoke as a Christian teacher. It cannot be denied that these doctrines are also to be found in other religious beliefs, and no one wishes to regard them as something singular. Today, however, for the first time in history, par-ticularly in the educated classes, special stress is laid on the fact that the teaching of Christ Jesus is in harmony with other religious beliefs. It is quite true that it is difficult to find a single precept which had not already been taught before; but this has nothing to do with the matter. Not by doctrine alone is the Christian made one with Christ. He is not a Christian who believes in the doctrine, but he is a Christian who believes in the Christ-Spirit. In order to be a Christian we must have the feeling of union with Him, the feeling of union with the Christ who actually dwells on earth. Simply to avow the teaching of Christ is not preaching Christianity. To preach Christianity means to be able to see in Christ the Spirit Whom we have just characterized as the regent of the sun; Who in the moment when the blood flowed out of His wounds on Golgotha, transferred His work to the earth and through this act drew the earth into the work of the sun.

On this account those who were the first to preach Christianity laid very great stress on proclaiming the person of Christ Jesus, and very little stress on His words: “We have seen Him when He was with us on the holy mount.” They attached great value to the fact that He was there—that they saw Him. “We have placed our hands in His wounds.” They valued the fact that they had touched Him. What was felt at the time was that the whole of the future evolution of mankind on earth proceeds from this historical event. On this account the disciples said: “We value the fact that we were with Him on the holy mount; but we also think it a great thing that the words of the prophets have been fulfilled in Him—those words inspired by very truth and wisdom.” What the prophets foretold has been fulfilled. By “prophets” was then meant initiates, men who could predict the Christ, because they had seen Him at the midnight hour at Christmas time in the Holy Mysteries. The first disciples considered the event on Golgotha as a fulfillment of that which has always been known; and a rapid and total change took place in the feelings and thoughts of the initiated.

If we look into the time before the Christian era, and even let our thoughts wander further to a more remote time, we find that all love and affection is bound up with the tic of blood relationships. In the Jewish race, out of which Christ Himself issued, we see love only between those who are kinsfolk—we see that those love one another in whom the same blood flows; even earlier than this, love always rested on the natural foundation of a common blood-relationship. Spiritual love, which is independent of flesh and blood, was first introduced on earth by Christ. On this depends the fulfillment of the saying: “Who forsaketh not father and mother, brother and sister, wife and child, cannot be My disciple.” He who makes love conditional upon the natural foundation of blood-relationship, is not according to this sense a Christian. Spiritual love, which as a great fraternal bond will permeate all mankind, is the result of Christianity.

Christianity teaches mankind how to acquire the most perfect freedom and inner cohesiveness. The ‘Psalmist said, “I remember the days of old and ponder times long past”. To look back upon one’s first ancestors was a persistent experience of the olden times. The men of old could feel the blood of their ancestors flowing through their veins, and felt that their ego was connected with the ego of their ancestors. If it were desired to really feel this connection, even amongst the old Jewish people, it was customary to utter the name of Abraham; he who uttered this name felt that some of the blood which descended from Abraham flowed through his veins. When he wished to express his highest nature the Jew said: “I am one with Abraham!” After the death of his body, his soul returned into Abraham’s bosom—this has a deep, a very deep meaning. At that time man was not in possession of the self-dependence which first entered his consciousness through Christ Jesus. The conscious understanding of the “I am” was awakened by Christ Jesus. At that time they could not have felt the whole divinity of the inner divine being of man. They felt “I am,” but they connected it with their ancestors; they felt it in the common blood which flowed through their veins since the time of Abraham. Then Christ Jesus came and with Him the consciousness that there is something older and more independent in mankind. The “I am” is not only to be sought in what is common to a nation, but is something in the individual personality, which therefore must again seek love with its own personality, beyond itself. The ego which is today confined in you, cut off from everything outside itself, seeks spiritual love beyond itself.

This ego does not feel itself one with the father who was in Abraham, but with the spiritual Father of the world: “I and My Father are one!” A more profound saying than this—although this is the most impressive—because it appeals more to the understanding, is the one in which Christ made it clear to mankind that they are not expressing the utmost when they say, “I existed before in Abraham.” He points out that the “I am” is of older date, emanating from God Himself:

“Before Abraham was, I Am.” In this way does the saying appear in the original—which usually is so expressed that nobody quite understands what it means—“before Abraham was born, I am.” The “I am,” the innermost spiritual being, which everyone has within him, existed before Abraham.

One who understands this saying penetrates deeply into the essence of Christian intuition and life, and understands why Christ also refers to it in the words: “I am with you always, even unto the end of the world!” Therefore we also ought to feel the true hidden meaning of the expression in the Christmas hymn, which tells us every year anew at Christmas the original secret of the existence beyond time of the “I am.” The hymn is not sung as a reminder, “Today we remember that Christ was born”, rather we sing every time: “Christ is born in us today!” For this event is eternal, and that which once took place in Palestine can happen anew every Christmas night for those who have the power of transforming the teaching into feelings and experiences.

Anthroposophy will help mankind really to feel and understand again what is meant when we celebrate such a festival. Its mission is not to teach an abstract doctrine, an abstract theory, but to lead man back into fuller life—to make this life appear not as something abstract but as something which is filled with soul. We feel this soul when we go into the quarry and watch the stones being split off; when we see the migration of birds; when we see the scythe going through the grain; when the sun rises and sets. And the more profound the events we contemplate, the deeper do we feel their soul nature. At the great turning-points of the year we feel the most important soul events. What is most important for us is that we shall again learn to feel at those great turning-points of the year which are marked out in our festivals.

Thus our festivals will again become like a living breath permeating the soul of man; at the time of such festivals man will again become familiar with the whole weaving and working of the full soul and spirit nature. The anthroposophist must for the present act as a pioneer with regard to what these festivals may once more become when mankind understands their spirit anew—understands anew what is called “the festival spirit.” It will belong to those forces which will once more lead man out into the cosmos, when anthroposophists at such festivals feel and realize something of the feelings and sensations of nature, and remember at these important moments what Anthroposophy is able to restore to mankind through its teachings. Anthroposophy will then become a living factor in the soul, and will be genuine “life-wisdom”, vitaesophia. Anthroposophy can accomplish this best when the world-soul comes down amongst us, and is united with us in an especially intimate manner at the festival of the birth of Christ.

for the inauguration of the Vidar branch.

A number of friends from out of town have come to visit our friends in Bochum to see the branch of our spiritual endeavor that has been established here under the Christmas tree. And there is no doubt that all those who have come from out of town to celebrate the opening of this branch with our Bochum friends feel the beauty and spiritual significance of our Bochum friends' decision to found this place of spiritual endeavor and feeling here in this city, in the middle of a field of material activity, in the middle of a field that, so to speak, mainly belongs to the outer life. And in many ways, each of our dear branches, here in this area more than anywhere else, can be a symbol for us of the significance of our kind of anthroposophical spiritual life in the present day and for the future development of human souls.

We are truly not in a situation where we can look critically or disparagingly at what is going on around us when we are in the midst of a field of the most modern material activity, because we are rather in a field that shows us how it must become more and more in later outer life on earth. We would only show ourselves to be foolish if we wanted to say: ancient times, when one was more surrounded by forests and meadows and the original life of nature than by the chimneys of the present, should come back again. One would only show oneself to be unintelligent, for one would prove that one has no insight into what the sages of all times have called “the eternal necessities in which man must find himself.” In the face of the material life that covers the earth, as the 19th century in particular has brought about and which later times will bring to mankind in an even more comprehensive way, in the face of this life there is no justified criticism based on sympathy with the old, but there is only and alone the insight that this is the fate of our earth planet. From a certain point of view, one may call the old times beautiful, one may look upon them as a spring or summer time for the earth, but to rage against the fact that other times are coming would be just as foolish as it would be foolish to be dissatisfied with the fact that autumn and winter follow spring and summer. Therefore, we must appreciate and love it when, out of an inwardly courageous decision, our friends create a place for our spiritual life in the midst of the most modern life and activity. And it will be right if all those who have only come to visit our branch for the sake of today leave with a grateful heart for the beautiful activity of our Bochum friends, which is carried out in a truly spiritual scientific way.

What is so endearing about what we have been calling our “branch initiations” for years is that on such occasions, friends from outside the circle that has come together in a particular place often come from far and wide. As a result, these friends from afar can ignite the inner fire of gratitude that we must have for all those who found such branches, and that, on the other hand, these friends from afar can take with them a vivid impression of what they have experienced, which keeps the thoughts alive, which we then turn to the work of such a branch from everywhere, so that this work can be fruitful from all sides through the creative thoughts. We know that the spiritual life is a reality, we know that thoughts are not just what materialism believes, but that thoughts are living forces that, when we unite them in love, for example over any place of our work, there they unfold, there they are help.

And I would like to be convinced that those who have brought their visit here will also take with them the impulse from today's get-together to think often and often of the place of our work, so that our friends here can feel when they sit together in silence, into that which, by the grace of the hierarchies, becomes spiritual knowledge for us, so that our friends, when they sit together in silence again, may cherish the feeling that creative thoughts are coming from all sides into their working space, their spiritual working space.

Looking at what is, and not practicing an unjustified criticism of existence, is something we are gradually learning through our anthroposophical worldview. There is no doubt that the earth is undergoing a development. And when we, equipped with our anthroposophical knowledge, yes, when we look back with understanding, with what we can know outside of anthroposophical knowledge, to earlier times in the development of the earth, then earlier times appear to us in relation to the earth, which is is riddled with telegraph wires and swept by those electric currents, these times of the earth appear to us like spring and summer time, and the times we are entering appear to us like the autumn and winter time of the earth. But it is not for us to complain about this, but for us to call this a necessity. Nor is it for us to complain, just as it is not for a person to complain when summer comes to an end and autumn and winter arrive.

But when autumn and winter come, the human soul has been preparing for centuries to erect the sign for the living word to enter into the evolution of the earth in the depths of the winter night. And in this way the human heart, the human soul, showed that what is created from the outside by summer without human intervention must be created by human intervention from within.

When we rejoice in the sprouting, sprouting forces of spring, which are replaced by gentle summer forces from the outside, without our intervention, winter, with its blanket of snow, covers what would otherwise, without our intervention, please us during the summer and always brings new proof that divine-spiritual forces prevail throughout the world, so we receive during the cold, dark winter time, we receive what is placed in winter as the summer hope for the future, which tells us that just as spring and summer come after every winter, so too, once the earth has reached its goal in the cosmos, a new spiritual spring and summer will come, which our creative powers help shape. Thus the human heart erects the sign of eternal life.

In this very sign of eternal spiritual life, we feel united today with our friends in Bochum, who some time ago founded their branch here. It is wonderful that we can inaugurate it just before Christmas.

Perhaps to some who at first glance look at it superficially, all that has been discovered about Christ Jesus through our spiritual science, and all that has been revealed to it about Christ Jesus, will look at it superficially, it may seem as if we are replacing the former simplicity and childlikeness of the Christmas festival, with its memories of the beautiful scenes from the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, with something tremendously complicated. We must draw people's attention to the fact that at the beginning of our era two Jesus-children entered into earthly evolution; we must speak of how the ego of one Jesus-child moved into the bodies of the other Jesus-child; we must speak of how, in the thirtieth year of Jesus' life, the Christ-being descended and lived for three years in the bodies of Jesus of Nazareth. It might easily appear as though all the love and devotion which men through the centuries have been able to summon up for their own salvation, when they were shown the Christ Child in the manger, surrounded by the shepherds, when the wonderfully moving Christmas carol sounded to their ears, when the Christmas plays were celebrated here and there, when the lights appeared on the Christmas tree, delighting the most childlike hearts, it might appear that in the face of all what so immediately kindles the human heart to intimacy, to devotion, to love, when the warm feeling, the warm sensation, should fade away when one has yet to take in the complicated ideas of the two Jesus children, of the passing over of the one ego into the body of the other, of the descent of a divine spiritual being into the bodily shell of Jesus of Nazareth. But we must not indulge in such thoughts, for it would be a bad thing if we did not want to submit to the law of necessity in this area.

Yes, my dear friends, in the places that lay outside the forest or in the middle of the fields and meadows, the snow-capped mountains and distances or the wide plains and lakes spoke down and into them. In those places that were not traversed by railroad tracks and telegraph wires, hearts could dwell there that were immediately ignited when the manger was built and when one was reminded of what the Gospels of Matthew and Luke told of the birth of the wonderful child. What is contained in these narratives, what has happened on earth in such a way that these narratives bear witness to it, lives and will continue to live. It just takes time, which occurs, we may say, in the “earthly winter”, a time of railways and telegraph wires and meals, stronger forces in the soul, to ignite warmth and intimacy in the heart in the face of the external mechanism, in the face of the external materiality. The soul must grow strong in order to be so inwardly convinced of the truth of what has happened in preparation for the Mystery of Golgotha that it lives firmly in the heart, however outwardly the mechanical natural order may intervene in earthly existence. The knowledge of the child in Bethlehem must penetrate differently into the souls of those who are allowed to live on the edge of the forest, on mountain slopes, by the lakes and in the midst of fields and meadows; the knowledge of the same being must penetrate differently to those who must have grown to the newer conditions of existence.

For this reason, for our own time, those whom we call the Masters of Wisdom and of the Harmony of Feelings tell us of those higher contexts that we must consider when speaking of the Child of Bethlehem. With our newer insights, we stand no less soul-filled before the Christmas tree because we must know something different from what earlier times knew. On the contrary, we come to a better understanding of those earlier times, we come to understand why the hope and joy of the future spoke from the eyes of young and old at the Christmas tree and at the manger. We learn to understand how they lived in a way that went beyond what could be seen immediately, when we explain to ourselves, in our own terms, the reasons why we feel such deep, heartfelt love for the Child of Bethlehem. We may call the Jesus child, the one from the Nathanic line of the House of David, in the most beautiful sense, in the most beautiful sense, “the child of humanity, the child of man”. For what do we feel when we look at this child, whose essential nature shines through even in the descriptions of Luke's Gospel?

Humanity took its origin with the origin of the earth. But much has passed humanity in the course of the Lemurian, Atlantean and post-Atlantean times. And we know that this was a descent, that in primeval times there was an original knowledge and original looking, an original connection with the divine-spiritual powers, an old inheritance of a knowledge of the connection with the gods. What lived in the souls of human beings from divine beings has increasingly become less and less. Over time, people have come to feel their connection with the divine spiritual source less and less through their direct knowledge. They were increasingly thrown out into the field of mere material observation, of sensuality. Only in the early years of life, in childhood, did people know how to revere and love innocence, the innocence of the human being who has not yet taken up the descending forces of the earth.

But how, now that we know that with the Jesus child an entity came to earth that had not previously been on earth as such, that was a soul that had not gone through the rest of the evolution of mankind on earth — which I have indeed presented in my “Occult Science Outline», was held back, as it were, in the innocent state before the Luciferic temptation, that such a soul, a childlike human soul in a much, much higher sense than is usually meant, came to earth, how can one not recognize this human soul as the «child of humanity»? What we human beings, even in the most tender childhood, may no longer have in us, because we carry within us the results of our previous incarnations, which we cannot recognize in any of us, even in the moment when we first open our eyes on the field of the earth, is presented in the child who entered the earth as the St. Luke's Boy Jesus. For in this child there was a soul that had not previously been born on earth out of a human body, that had remained behind when the evolution of humanity began anew on earth, and that appeared on earth at the very beginning of our era, in the infancy of humanity. Hence the marvelous event that the Akasha Chronicle reveals to us: that this child, the Nathanic Jesus-child, immediately after his birth, uttered intelligible sounds to his mother only, sounds that were not similar to any of the spoken languages of that time or of any time, but from which sounded for the mother something like a message from worlds that are not the earthly worlds, a message from higher worlds. That this child Jesus could speak, could speak immediately at his birth, that is the miracle!

Then it grew up as if it were to contain, concentrated in its own being, all the love and loving ability that all human souls together could muster. And the great genius of love, that was what lived in the child. He could not learn much of what human culture has achieved in earthly life. The Nathanian Jesus Child was able to experience little of what had been achieved by people over the course of thousands of years until he was twelve years old. Because he could not, the other ego passed into him in his twelfth year. But everything he touched from the earliest, most tender childhood was touched by perfected love. All the qualities of the mind, all the qualities of feeling, they worked as if heaven had sent love to earth, so that a light could be brought into the winter time of the earth, a light that shines into the darkness of the human soul when the sun does not unfold its full external power during this winter time. When later the Christ moved into this human shell, we must bear in mind that this Christ-being could only make itself understood on earth by working through these shells.

The Christ-Being is not a human being. The Christ-Being is an Entity of the higher Hierarchies. On earth It had to live for three years as a human being among human beings. For this purpose, a human being had to be born to It in the way I have often described for the Nathanian Jesus child. And because this human child could not have received — since it had not previously set foot on earth, had no previous education from earlier incarnations — because it could not have received what external culture had worked for on earth, so a soul entered this child that had, in the highest sense, worked for what external culture can bring: the Zarathustra soul.

And so we see the most wonderful connection when Jesus Christ stands before us. We see the interaction of this human child, who had saved the best human aspiration, love, from the times when man had not yet fallen into Luciferic temptation, until the beginning of our era, when it appeared on earth for the first time, embodied, with the most developed human prophet Zarathustra, and with that spiritual essence which, until the Mystery of Golgotha, had its actual home within the realms of the higher hierarchies, and which then had to take its scene on earth by entering through the gate of the body of Jesus of Nazareth into its earthly existence. That which is the highest on earth, and which we can only glimpse in its purity in the still innocent gaze of the human being, in the eye of the child, that is what the human child brought with him to the highest degree. That which can be achieved on earth as the highest, that is what Zarathustra contributed to this human child. And that which the heavens could give to the earth, so that the earth might receive spiritually, which it receives anew each summer through the intensified power of the sun, that the earth received through the Christ-being.

We will just have to learn to understand what has happened to the earth. And in the times to come, the soul will be able to swell with intimacy, the soul will be able to strengthen itself through a power that will be stronger than all the powers that have so far been connected to the Mystery of Golgotha, in a time that can offer little outward support to the strengthening of those forces that tend towards man's true source of power, towards man's innermost being, towards an understanding of how this being flows from the spiritual-cosmic. But in order to fully understand such, we must first understand ourselves as one once understood the Christ Child on Christmas Day; we must first rise to the knowledge of the spirit. Times will come when, as it were, one will look at earthly events with the eye of the soul. Then one will be able to say many a thing to oneself that one cannot yet say to oneself in the broadest circles today, for which only spiritual science enables us today, so that we can already say many a thing to ourselves that one cannot yet say to oneself in the broadest circles today.

We see spring approaching. During the approaching spring, we see the plants sprouting and sprouting from the earth. We feel our joy igniting in what comes out of the earth. We feel the power of the sun growing stronger and stronger to the point where it makes our bodies rejoice, to the point of the Midsummer sun, which was celebrated in the Nordic mysteries. The initiates of these mysteries knew that the Midsummer Sun pours itself over the earth with its warmth and light to reveal the workings of the cosmos in the earth's orbit. We see and feel all this.

We also see and feel other things during this time. Sometimes lightning and thunder crash into the rays of the spring sun when clouds cover these rays. Irregular downpours pour over the surface of the earth. And then we feel the infinite, uninfluenced, harmonious regularity of the sun's course, and the — well, we need the word — changeable effectiveness of the entities that work on earth as rain and sunshine, as thunderstorms, and other phenomena that depend on all kinds of irregular activity, in contrast to the regular, harmonious activity of the sun's path through space and its consequences for the development of plants and everything that lives on earth, which cannot be influenced by anything. We feel the infinite regular harmony of the sun's activity and the changeable and fickle nature of what is going on in our atmosphere like a duality.

But then, when autumn approaches, we feel the dying of the living, the withering of that which delights us. And if we have compassion for nature, our souls may become sad at the dying of nature. The awakening, loving power of the sun, that which regularly and harmoniously permeates the universe, becomes invisible, as it were, and that which we have described as the changeable weather then prevails. It is true what earlier times knew, but what has faded from our consciousness due to our materiality: that in winter, the egoism of the earth triumphs over the forces that permeate our atmosphere, flowing down from the vast cosmic being to our earth and awakening life on our earth.

And so the whole of nature appears to us as a duality. The activity of spring and summer is quite different from that of autumn and winter. It is as if the earth becomes selfless and gives itself up to the embrace of the universe, from which the sun sends light and warmth and awakens life. The earth in spring and summer appears to us as showing its selflessness. The earth in autumn and winter appears to us as showing its selfishness, conjuring forth from itself all that it can contain and produce in its own atmosphere. Defeating the working of the sun, the working of the universe through the selfishness of earthly activity, the winter earth appears to us.

And when we look away from the earth and at ourselves with the eye that spiritual research can open for us, when we look beyond the material and see the spiritual, then we see something else. We know that, yes, in the elemental forces of the earth's atmosphere, which appear to be at work only in the unfolding of the sun's forces, in the spring and summer struggles that take place around us, the elemental spirits live, innumerable spiritual entities live in the elemental realm that swirl around the earth, lower spirits, higher spirits. Lower spirits, which are earthbound in the elemental realm, have to endure during the spring and summer season that the higher spirits, which stream down from the cosmos, exercise greater dominion, making them servants of the spirit that streams down from the sun, making them servants of the demonic forces that rule the earth in selfishness. During the spring and summer season of the earth, we see how the spirits of earth, air, water and fire become servants of the cosmic spirits that send their forces down to earth. And when we understand the whole spiritual context of the earth and the cosmos, then during spring and summer these relationships open up to our souls and we say to ourselves: You, earth, show yourself to us by making the spirits, which are servants of egoism, servants of the cosmos, of the cosmic spirits, who conjure up life out of your womb, which you yourself could not conjure up!

Then we move towards autumn and winter time. And then we feel the egoism of the earth, feel how powerful those spirits of the earth become, which are bound to this earth itself, which have detached themselves from the universe since Saturn, Sun and Moon time, feel how they close themselves off from the working that flows in from the cosmos. We feel ourselves in the egoistically experiencing earth. And then we may look within ourselves. We examine our soul with its thinking, feeling and willing, examine it seriously and ask ourselves: How do thoughts emerge from the depths of our soul? How do our feelings, affects and sensations emerge first? Do they have the same regularity with which the sun moves through the universe and lends the earth the life forces that emerge from its womb? They do not. The forces that reveal themselves in our thinking, feeling and willing in everyday life are similar to the changeable activity in our atmosphere. Just as lightning and thunder break in, so human passions break into the soul. Just as no law governs rain and sunshine, so human thoughts break out of the depths of the soul. We must compare our soul life with the changing wind and weather, not with the regularity with which the sun rules our earth. Out there it is the spirits of air and water, fire and earth, that work in the elemental realm and that actually represent the egoism of the earth. Within ourselves, these are the elemental forces. But these changing forces within us, which regulate our everyday life, are embryos, germinal beings, which, only as germs, but as germs, resemble the elemental beings that are found outside in all the vicissitudes of the weather. We carry the forces of the same world within us as we think, feel and will, which live as demonic beings in the elemental realm in the wind and weather outside.

When the times approached in which people, who were at the turning point of the old and the new times, felt: there will come a time reminiscent of the wintertime on Earth. Indeed, there were teachers and sages among these people who understood how to interpret the signs of the times and who pointed out: Even if our inner life resembles the changeable activity of the outer world, and just as man knows that behind the activity of the outer world, especially in autumn and winter, the sun still shines, the sun lives and moves in the universe, it will come again - so man may also hold fast to the thought that, in the face of his own fickleness, which lives in his soul, there is a sun, deep, deep in those depths where the source of our soul gushes forth from the source of the world itself. At the turn of the ages, the sages pointed out that just as the sun must reappear and regain its strength in the face of the earth's selfishness, so too must understanding develop from those depths of our soul for that which can reach this soul from the sources, where this soul is connected in its life itself with the spiritual sun of the world, just as earthly life is connected with the physical sun of the world.

At first this was expressed as a hope, pointing to the great symbol that nature itself offered. It was expressed in such a way that the winter solstice was set as the celebration for the days when the sun regains its strength, the time when it was said: however the selfishness of the earth may unfold, the sun is victorious over the selfishness of the earth. As if through the darkness of a Christmas in the world of elemental spirits, which represent the egoism of the earth, the spirits that come from the sun and show us how they make the egoistic spirits of the earth their servants.

At first it felt like a glimmer of hope. And when the great turning point had come, when nothing but desolation and despair should have been felt in human souls, the Mystery of Golgotha was preparing itself. It showed in the spiritual realm that, yes, there are forces at work within the human being that can only be compared to the changeable forces of the earth's atmosphere, to earthly egoism. They manifested themselves in ancient times, when people still carried within them the legacy of the ancient powers of the gods, like the forces that show themselves in spring and summer: they were servants of the old hierarchies of the gods. But in the time when it was heading towards the Mystery of Golgotha, the inner forces of human souls became more and more like the outer demonic elemental spirits in autumn and winter. These forces within us were to break away from the old currents and workings of the gods, just as the changeable forces of our earth withdraw from the activity of the sun in winter. And then, for man in his evolution on earth, what had always been symbolically depicted in the hope that it would come about in the victory of the sun over the winter forces, the winter solstice of the world began, in which the spiritual sun underwent for the whole evolution of the earth what the physical sun always undergoes at the winter solstice. These are the times in which the Mystery of Golgotha occurred.

We must really distinguish between two periods on earth. A time before the Mystery of Golgotha, when the earth is heading towards autumn through its summer, when the inner forces of human beings become more and more similar to the changeable forces of the earth, and the great Christmas festival of the earth, the time of the Mystery of Golgotha, when breaks over the earth, which is indeed winter time for the earth, but where out of the darkness the victorious spirit of the sun, the Christ, approaches the earth, bringing the souls within what the sun brings to the earth externally in the way of growth forces.

So we feel our whole human earthly destiny, our innermost human being, when we stand at the Christmas tree. So we feel intimately connected with the human child, who brought message from that time, where humanity had not yet fallen into temptation and thus the disposition to decline, brought the message that an ascent will begin again, as in the winter solstice the rise begins. On this day in particular, we feel the intimate relationship of the spiritual within the soul with the spirit that permeates and flows through everything, that expresses itself externally in wind and weather, but also in the regular, harmonious course of the sun, and inwardly in the course of humanity across the earth, in the great festival of Golgotha.

Should humanity not develop a new piety out of these thoughts, a piety that is not meant to remain a mere thought but can become a feeling and an intuition, a piety that cannot become dulled even by the most extreme mechanism, as it must unfold more and more on earth? Should not Christmas prayers and Christmas songs be possible again, even in the abstract, telegraph-wired and smoke-filled earth's atmosphere, when humanity will learn to feel how it is connected with the divine spiritual powers in its depths, by intuiting in its depths the great Christmas festival of the earth with the birth of the boy Jesus?

It is true, on the one hand, what resounds through all human history on earth: that the great Christmas festival of the earth, which prepared the Easter festival of Golgotha, had to come one day. It is true that this unique event had to occur as the victory of the spirit of the sun over the fickle earth spirits. On the other hand, it is true what Angelus Silesius said: “A thousand times Christ may be born at Bethlehem, and not in thee, thou art still lost forever.” It is true that we must find within us, in the depths of our soul, that through which we understand the Christ Jesus.

But it is also true that in the places at the edge of the forest, on the lakeshore, surrounded by mountains, people, after a summer spent in the fields and pastures, were able to look forward to the symbol of the Christ Child , that they felt something else in their souls than we do, who must also feel the power to sense the Christmas message in the face of our smoky, dry, abstract and mechanical times. If these strong thoughts, which spiritual science can give us, can take root in our hearts, then a solar power will emerge from our hearts that will be able to shine into the bleakest external surroundings, to shine with the power that will be like when in 'our inner being itself light kindled light on the tree of our soul life, which we, because its roots are the roots of our soul itself, are to transform more and more into a Christmas tree in this winter time. We can do it if we absorb, not just as theory, but as direct life, what the message of the spirit, what true anthroposophy can be for us. So I wanted to bring the thoughts of Christmas from our spiritual science into the space that we want to consecrate today for the work that our dear friends here have been doing for a long time.

In the name of that deity who is regarded in the north as the deity who is supposed to bring back rejuvenating powers, spiritual childhood powers of aging humanity, to which Nordic souls in particular tend when they want to speak of what, flowing from the Christ Jesus being, can bring our humanity a new message of rejuvenation, to this name our friends here want to consecrate their work and their branch. They want to call it the “Vidar Branch”. May this name be as auspicious as it is auspicious for us, who want to understand the work that is being done here, what has already been achieved and is intended by loving, spirit-loving souls here. Let us truly appreciate what our Bochum friends are attempting here, and let us give their branch and their work the consecration that is also intended to be a consecration for Christ today, by unfolding our most beautiful and loving thoughts here for the blessing, for the strength and for the genuine, true, spiritual love for this work. If we can feel this way, then we will celebrate today's festival of the naming of the “Vidar” branch in the right spirit with our friends in Bochum.

And let us let our feelings reach up to those whom we are naming as the leaders and guides of our spiritual life, to the Masters of the Wisdom and the Harmony of Feelings, and let us implore their blessing for the work that is to unfold here in this city through our friends:

You who guide the spiritual life, give people
what they need according to the times,
you work with us when our friends devotedly serve the spiritual life
here in this city.

We would like to send this up as a prayer to the spiritual leaders, the higher hierarchies, at this moment, which is solemn in two respects. And we may hope that what has been promised will prevail over this branch, despite all the resistance that is piling up more and more, despite all the obstacles and opposition, what has been promised for our work: that through it the mystery of Christ will be incorporated anew into humanity in the way it must happen.

That this may prevail, that may be our Christmas gift today: that this branch too may become a living witness to what flows as strength into the evolution of humanity from higher worlds and can ever more and more give human souls the consciousness of the truth of the words:

The senses speak
The things in the vastness of space,
They change in the stream of time;
Recognizing, the human soul,
From the vastness of space,
And unreachable by the stream of time,
Into the realm of eternity.

Our dear friends in Bochum will return to their work here imbued with this feeling. Those who, through their meeting with them, are now aware of their work will think of it often and with great intensity. These thoughts can unfold their special power all the more because we were able to consecrate the work immediately before Christmas this year, before the festival that can always be a symbol for us of all that the spirit has achieved in victory over the material, over all the obstacles that it can and must face in the world.

Yesterday I pointed out to you how the fact of Jesus' birth has only gradually conquered the hearts and souls of men, and how the Christmas play, as we have been able to let it affect us, has basically only gradually developed into this noble and beautiful form and at the same time with all the spirit of consecration with which it had been imbued during the times in which it had flourished. Basically, one can say of the first forms of this Christmas play: People were trying, out of a completely profane mood, to take part in what the people had seen for centuries in a way that was incomprehensible to them. The Christ Child only gradually won the hearts of the people. And it even took quite a long time to win the hearts of humanity. When we see in the 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th centuries that what the priests had gradually done was to involve the people, then this involvement is, as I indicated to you yesterday, not yet of the noble form that these Christmas plays had later, of which we have just seen two examples.

But I tried to make you aware that these two games are quite different in origin, and that this is clearly visible. The first game has something simple and folksy about it, so that you can see that the main thing in this game is to The main thing about it is to show how the child, in whom the great world spirit was later embodied and worked within earthly existence, how this child entered the world, how it was received on the one hand by the hosts, the two innkeepers, and on the other hand by the shepherds. And basically, this Christmas play, the first one we saw yesterday, shows very clearly how different the reception was with the innkeepers and with the shepherds. That is what particularly stands out for us.

The other Christmas play is quite different. There we are led straight to the fact that wise men – who at that time were wise kings for the peoples involved – read in the stars about the significant fate that awaits humanity. So we see occult ancient wisdom poured out into the action of the play at the same time. And then, as the story unfolds, we see how the being who now, in the sense of this occult wisdom, this wisdom divined from the stars, enters into earthly events, is confronted by the one at whose side we clearly see evil, the retarded principle, the devilish, the Ahrimanic-Luciferic principle — Herod. We see how the Christ principle and the Luciferic-Ahrimanic principle are set against each other. But we also see how that which is revealed out of spiritual spheres asserts itself in the course of events. As if proclaiming that they are guiding us from spiritual spheres, the angels appear and guide and direct the events so that what Herod wills does not come to pass, but something else happens. Human beings are permeated in their will by what comes from the spiritual worlds. So we have a play that, in terms of the forces it contains, points us beyond mere earthly events.

When we consider how these two plays face each other, the one steeped in primitive folk-watching, the other steeped in a wisdom that really refers us back to an ancient wisdom of the evolution of the earth , we are led to let many thoughts arise in us about what has happened in the course of time and what is connected with the full significance of the Mystery of Golgotha for the evolution of the earth. Let us consider that at the time when the Mystery of Golgotha took place, in a broader sense, there was a deep, profound wisdom in certain circles about spiritual matters. This wisdom is called Gnosis. In the outer world, in the progress of European spiritual culture, one can positively say that this gnosis, this gnostic science of the secrets of the spiritual world, had disappeared within European culture for the outer world. In the third, fourth, fifth and sixth centuries, within spiritual life, there was really still very little awareness of what this science contained. Those who knew something – I mean those who knew what one could easily know if one was a Christian priest or a Christian scholar – knew about this gnosis because there were opponents of this gnosis in the first centuries of Christianity and these opponents fought against the gnosis. Imagine that today all the books that we consider to be our literature and all the cycles were to be eradicated, burned, so that nothing of them remained, and only what the opponents had written – and in a few centuries someone would come across these books of the opponents that remained and would have to form an idea from them of what was written in our books: That was the case with Gnosticism! |

One of the most important church writers was Irenaeus, who was a student of Bishop Polycarp of Asia Minor, who himself was a student of the apostles. But Irenaeus wrote as an opponent of Gnosticism. Over the centuries, the only way to learn what the Gnostics taught was to see what Irenaeus stated and recorded in his book in order to refute it. So everything of this ancient wisdom had to be accepted, which was caused by the fact that this wisdom had only been handed down by an opponent. You see from this that the whole development of the Occident was actually based on the fact that something that came up from the old times was eradicated, properly eradicated. Outwardly, you can simply see from this fact how new the beginning was for Western culture, which was given with the Mystery of Golgotha; how basically it began with something completely new everywhere. I would say that just as a buried city is buried in the ground, so the ancient literature was buried for that which emerged from the ancient church fathers through Ambrose, Augustine, Scotus Erigena and so on. A new beginning! And just as a new city rises on what appears to be new ground, so the new rose — a new city, but on ground in which the old city lay submerged, without any hint of what it had looked like. Such was the case with the development of European civilization. Hence it can also be seen that in our time, if there is to be a spiritual deepening again, it is necessary that this spiritual deepening be achieved from the original strength of human beings, that human beings themselves again find what they have not received from outside, at least within the course of European spiritual development. And – I cannot speak of this today because it would lead too far – there can be no question of the fact that, for example, obtaining Oriental documents could be a substitute for what has disappeared in the way of external documents in Western intellectual life, for the simple reason that the Oriental documents actually give something much, much more primitive than what has become of it in the world that extended over Asia Minor, North Africa, Southern Europe and even partly over Central Europe. What spiritual knowledge had developed to in the first centuries of Christian development had been thoroughly eradicated; it only survived thanks to the writings of opponents.

Now in these writings, which have been eradicated, we have not only the knowledge, the spiritual knowledge that related to the spiritual worlds, apart from the Christ, but in these writings the application of all the old comprehensive spiritual wisdom to the mystery of Christ Jesus has also been lost. These Gnostics wanted to understand in their own way – if we may call them that – the process of evolution on earth and the nature of the Christ. The time had not yet come to understand the matter in the way we understand it now, by drawing from the original spiritual worlds truths that need not be written down because they are directly present in the spiritual world in a living way. It was not possible to extract the knowledge of the nature of Christ Jesus in this way. This is only possible in our time. But in the older way, certain things were known about Christ in a knowledge that has really been lost. Only recently have a few scant remains been found: the Pistis Sophia writings, then the writings on the “Secret of Jeü”, which are now there as if to draw people's attention to the fact that the knowledge of Christ, which is now being sought in our way, is not as foolish as the opponents of our movement would have us believe. The Book of Jeü — little of it remains, in Coptic script, but what little there is is as if to say: Look at what is in the Gospels — it is not the only thing that filled the minds of people in the early centuries of Christianity. This book Jeü contains messages about how the Christ spoke after the resurrection, after he had gone through the mystery of Golgotha, to those who could understand him at the time, who had become his disciples. The remarkable thing is that this book Jeü - I mean the small fragment that is there - speaks about the Christ and what he is in a completely different way than even the Gospel of John. The remarkable thing is that in this book one word recurs again and again, which clearly indicates to us that it is meant to draw attention to something. And this, to which attention is to be drawn, I would like to explain in the following way. Suppose someone at that time had wanted to make clear why Christ Jesus actually entered into the development of the earth, he would have spoken like this, he would have said to those who could understand: Behold, the time is coming when men will advance in the evolution of the consciousness soul. The time is coming when men will have to comprehend the world through the outer, physical organs, through the organs that are essentially anchored in the physical body. The time is past when men had original revelations through original primitive clairvoyance. The time is past when people knew something not only by applying their physical body with its tools, but by using their etheric body independently of the physical body for knowledge. People will now only have to use their physical body as a tool. But in the future it will also be possible to know something of what has so far only been known through the etheric body. In the outer world there will only be knowledge that is tied to the physical body, which is subject to death. But knowledge about the spiritual world cannot be had through the tools that are tied to the physical body. A helper must come who kindles in people that which only the etheric body can know. Someone must come who does not kindle the dead of the physical body, but who kindles the living in man, the etheric-living, who is with the living, who is with that which is not earthly in man on earth. There must be someone who can tear out of this inert, dead physical body the mind that can understand the spiritual world, the mind that is in man and is connected to heaven – the mind that cannot be crucified by the world because it belongs to heaven, which itself crucifies the world, that is, which overcomes the world.

One must imagine that in the past, before they could see the Christ in his true essence, when they went through the mystery of Golgotha, people felt connected to the spiritual world with their etheric body in primitive clairvoyance. How the physical body has become more and more hardened and hardened and has thus become an instrument; how one had to come, precisely the Christ, to bring out the living from the inert instrument of the physical body. This is what one must imagine.

And now let us consider this book Jeû: How the Christ, after going through the Mystery of Golgotha, speaks to those who have learned to hold to Him, to hold to the wisdom contained in His words: “I have loved you and desired to give you life.” We hear it from the sentence: “and desired to give you life”; he desired to bring this inert physical body out of its inertia and to give what only the etheric body can give.

“Jesus the Living One is the knowledge of the truth.” The Living One - that is, the One who has gone through the Mystery of Golgotha - speaks, presenting Himself as the Representative of the Living One.

The text continues: “This is the book of the knowledge of the invisible God by means of the hidden mysteries,” that is, the mysteries that are hidden in man, “showing the way to the chosen essence of man, leading in silence to the life of the Father of the World, in the coming of the Redeemer, the Savior of souls, who will receive the Word of Life, which is higher than all life , in the knowledge of Jesus, the living one, who came forth from the aeon of light in the allness of the pleroma, that is, of other aeons, of all spiritual beings, in the teaching, except for which there is no other, that Jesus, the living one, taught his apostles, saying, “This is the teaching in which all knowledge rests.”

So then, we have to imagine that the Risen One, who through the mystery of Golgotha has gone, speaks to the disciples who have learned to belong to him.

“Jesus, the living one, spoke to his apostles: ‘Blessed is he who has crucified the world and has not let the world crucify him’”, who can thus grasp in man that which is not overcome by matter, by external physical matter.

“The apostles answered unanimously, saying: ‘Lord, teach us this way of crucifying the world, so that it may not crucify us, and we may perish and lose our lives.’”

Jesus, the living one, answered and said: “He who has crucified the world is he who has found my word and fulfilled it according to the will of him who sent me.”

And the apostles answered, saying: “Speak to us, Lord, that we may hear you. We have followed you with all our hearts, leaving father and mother, leaving vineyards and fields, leaving goods, leaving the glory of the outward king, and have followed you that you may teach us the life of your Father who sent you.”

And now, at this invitation of the apostles, the Christ Jesus, the Living One, responded with what He has to say to them: “Christ, the Living One, answered and said: ‘My Father's life is this, that you receive your soul out of the human being of that understanding, which is not earthly’”.

So the Living One wills that His disciples learn to understand that there is an understanding of spiritual things in man that can be torn away from the physical body, that is not earthly. When they stir this up within themselves, then they understand His word in truth.

«‹This essence of all souls, which becomes understandable through what I tell you in the course of my word. And that you perfect it and before the Archon›», before the being of this eon, this age, «‹and his persecutions›», the ahrimanic-luciferic being, «‹and his persecutions, which have no end, so that you may be saved from them. But you, my disciples, hurry to carefully receive my word within yourselves, so that you may recognize it, and that the archon of this aeon, that is, Ahriman-Lucifer, may not dispute with you because he cannot find any of his commands in me. finds his orders outside of the one who has gone through the mystery of Golgotha, “so that you yourselves, O my apostles, fulfill my word with regard to me and I myself set you free, and you become holy through the freedom that is without blemish. As the Spirit of the Holy Spirit is holy, so you too will become holy through the freedom of the spiritual, the Holy Spirit.”

And all the apostles answered with one accord, Matthew and John, Philip and Bartholomew and James, saying: 'O Jesus, thou living one, whose goodness is spread abroad among those who have found thy wisdom and thy form in illumination , O Light, that in the light which has enlightened our hearts, we receive the light of life, O true Logos, that through Gnosis true knowledge of that which is alive has been taught to us.

Jesus, the living one, answered and said: “Blessed is the man who has recognized this and has been led down to heaven,” that is, who has become aware that there is something in him that is not connected with this earthly body, but is connected with the beings of the heavens, and who introduces what is connected with heaven in him, what is above, into earthly events below.

“Blessed is the man who has recognized this and led heaven down and carried the earth and sent it to heaven.” That which is earthly in him has connected with what is heavenly in him, so that when he goes through the gate of death, with the fruits of the earthly, through the heavenly, he can lead the earth back to heaven.

"The apostles answered, saying: 'Jesus, Thou Living One, explain to us the manner in which one leads heaven down. For we have followed thee that thou mightest teach us the true light.

And Jesus, the living one, answered and said: “The word that exists in heaven,” that is, he means what can be had as wisdom, as knowledge, independently of the physical being of the person. “The word that exists in heaven before the earth came into being, that earth which is called the world. But you, when you recognize my word, will lead heaven down, and the word will dwell in you. Heaven is the invisible word of the Father. But when you recognize this, you will lead heaven down. I will show you what it is like to send the earth to heaven so that you may recognize it; to send the earth to heaven is: the listener of the word of knowledge who has ceased to be the mind of an earth man only, but has become a heaven man, 'who has thus torn away his understanding in himself from the outer physical body, who has ceased to be an earth man and has become a heaven man. His mind has ceased to be earthly; it has become heavenly.

"That is why you will be saved from the archon of this aeon, from the Ahrimanic-Luciferic being.

They see a piece that has remained, has been rediscovered, and that could make people aware of the infinitely deep knowledge that was once associated with the secret of the Mystery of Golgotha in the first Christian centuries. Theologians in the present day usually get quite angry when one wants to draw attention to these or other similar writings. That they exist, they admit, certainly. Outwardly, historically, they treat them and publish editions of them. But they are convinced, these normal 'theologians of the present', that these writings have been forgotten to a certain extent with good reason, because they contain only all kinds of fantastic fantasies that the rational man of the present should no longer deal with; that this is no longer appropriate to an enlightened mind. But in a certain sense, these are indications that what we are now bringing out of the source of the spiritual worlds is in fact taking up something that was already there in the evolution of the earth, something that had only to flow underground for a time, like certain waters in the Alps flow underground after being above ground for a while; then they disappear into the depths and reappear later. So spiritual knowledge has flowed through the centuries as in underground worlds and is now to come out again. In order that those who cannot believe in such origins of the flowing out of spiritual sources into earthly existence may also receive an external indication, history has preserved some pieces, some scraps of a rich ancient literature that was spread out, that was great and powerful, and that is actually only really known in the counter-writings, for example those of Irenaeus and similar people who only wanted to refute it.

So we have to say: under extraordinarily difficult circumstances, the Mystery of Golgotha has been assimilated into Western culture. And the first thing was the result of the tremendous word of Paul, which flowed to him from his appearance of Damascus: the secret of death, of the passage through the Mystery of Golgotha. And then there were those far-reaching discussions about the way in which the Christ was connected to the Jesus, how the divine and human natures were connected to each other, how the three forms of manifestation of the divine, which enter into the development of Western Christian culture as the three persons, relate to each other, and so on. One could say that what was human wisdom receded. The power of knowledge also receded. It was an enormously strong power of wisdom that was present in those people who could come to something like what I have just read to you – a strong power of wisdom. It declined very, very much. And people were much more willing to listen to those who could say: The Jesus, the Christ, was there in person on earth. You know that he was there, because I knew Polycarp, and Polycarp knew the disciples of Jesus! There was an immediate personal tradition. In a certain way, belief in only that which was physically present, in physical development, begins to take hold. As spiritual wisdom gradually seeps away, belief in the merely physical arises. You can say: Irenaeus, for example — what kind of a mind was he? He was a thinker who said: There were Gnostics who claimed to know something through a mind that can work independently of the physical body. All this is wrong, all this is, as they said at the time, heretical, people must not believe in it. And he refuted it. More and more such refuters appeared, further and further afield. And of course there was the power of the Mystery of Golgotha, the power of the fact, the power of tradition. Through what had been handed down, what seemed to be fact, Christianity now propagated itself. What propagated itself as science actually seeped away. And the successor of Irenaeus in our time fights everything that comes from real knowledge of the spiritual world. Who is the forerunner and who is the successor? Irenaeus, the bishop of Lyon, who fought the Gnostics; and the Irenaeus of our time, the bishop of matter in Jena, is Ernst Haeckel — the successor of Irenaeus. That is the line of development, my dear friends! The others are only anachronisms, because the rejection of Ernst Haeckel also stems from the same spirit. In terms of thinking, there is a straight line of reproduction from Irenaeus, the bishop of Lyon, to Ernst Haeckel. These things must be taken objectively and historically, not with any sense of critical sympathy or antipathy, but quite objectively and historically.

When we imagine this entire process of spiritual development, we get a feeling for something that has already been touched on from a different angle: that what people could understand did not actually help this Christian development. Understanding, spiritual comprehension, is yet to come. For people had lost the strength to understand something that can only be understood spiritually, like the Mystery of Golgotha. That through which the Mystery of Golgotha conquered humanity was not through the intellect, but through the fact. And this fact actually worked in a very strange way.

Now, only a very faint echo of this remains. In the early centuries, when the story of the appearance of Christ on earth at Christmas was told, the first chapters of the creation story were read first. The Christmas mystery was directly linked to the creation story, the beginning of the Bible. Now only one thing remains in connection with it: if you look at the calendar, you have Christmas on December 25, Adam and Eve on December 24. That this appears in the calendar in direct connection is the last remnant of what was present in consciousness: that people thought together when Christmas was once established for a certain season of the year, the story of creation with the Christmas mystery. But not only that outwardly the story of Creation was first told and then the Christmas mystery, but also that attention was repeatedly drawn to one of the most profound legends, which sought to express the connection between the world, the beginning of the earth, and the mystery of Golgotha. Attention was called to the fact that when Adam had been driven out of Paradise, the tree through which he had sinned, the tree of knowledge of good and evil, had also been removed from Paradise; how fruits, seeds of this tree, were planted on Adam's grave, and this tree grew out of it. And then the wood of this tree, the tree of Paradise, came down from generation to generation to the time when the Christ appeared on earth. And then the cross was made out of this wood, out of the wood that had just grown again from the grave that was Adam's grave. The Redeemer hung on the cross.

This legend about the connection between the beginning of the world and the Mystery of Golgotha was repeated again and again in earlier centuries to those people who were able to understand such things. They were told: The tree of Paradise, which man had sinned against, was thrown out over Paradise, and seeds came into the soil that was on that grave of Adam. And from these germs arose again the tree, of which man had sinned in Paradise. And this wood of the tree was given from generation to generation and then came in many detours into the time of the Mystery of Golgotha, and the cross on which the Christ hung is made of this wood.

This legend also contains the connections between the beginning of the earth and the Mystery of Golgotha. But things are so interconnected, so intimately connected, that there are certain plays that were performed not only at Christmas as plays about Christ, but as plays about Paradise. These are plays about Paradise in which the mystery of Adam and Eve and the Fall of Man was presented to the people directly, when Christmas, or rather, when the Feast of the Epiphany, the Three Kings, approached on January 6.

Consider, my dear friends, the deeply spiritual facts to which we are led. We think of the Luciferic-Ahrimanic seduction of man, of what has become of man through the Ahrimanic-Luciferic seduction, and we think that this is represented by the figure of Adam, who succumbed to temptation. When we fully understand this Ahrimanic-Luciferic temptation, we must necessarily think that the evolution of the earth would have been quite different if the Luciferic-Ahrimanic temptation had not approached man. But this Luciferic-Ahrimanic temptation has only one meaning for life on earth in the physical body. It can only gain significance from the moment we enter earthly life from the spiritual world through birth, or, let us say, through conception. The Luciferic-Ahrimanic temptation cannot have this significance for the time between death and a new birth, because it has this significance here in earthly life.

Therefore, when we see the child enter into earthly life, we perceive correctly when we say: You appear, you soul, who are here in the flesh, you appear out of a world sphere that is still untouched by the nature of Lucifer and Ahriman. You only enter by growing more and more together with the flesh into the nature of Lucifer and Ahriman.

And when we look at the child, we see a spiritual mystery of the world. The moment a human being enters into earthly development, he is already predetermined by his previous incarnations to grow together with the flesh. But people should once feel what it means to enter into the earth without being predetermined for earthly life. That this thought should awaken in man, the thought of what actually dwells in man as an entity through which he is connected with the heavenly, with the solar, that this should awaken in man, for this the Christ-child conquered the spiritual development of mankind. And this Christ-child conquered the spiritual development of mankind in just the way He could conquer it.

There were basically two currents in the whole Christian development. We can understand these two currents very well. Through two bodies, the Christ entered the world: through the Nathanic Jesus and through the Solomonic Jesus. I would say that He entered through the Nathanic Jesus as through the earthly child. You can see how I have described it in the cycles and also in the book 'The Spiritual Leading of Man and Humanity'. Through the Nathanic Jesus, the Christ entered the earth in such a way that this Nathanic Jesus was a being, as preserved from the previous development on earth, as the substance from the beginning of the earth. But the Solomonic Jesus: an upward development that has gone through many, many earthly incarnations. So two paths that should then meet in the way I have described.

But now imagine that all this is happening at a time when spiritual wisdom is dying out, when there is no possibility of grasping this. Such infinite depth comes into play that two Jesus-children are there through whom the Christ is to come into the world. That infinite depth is entering in, which people who understand nothing of the whole matter, despite being officially appointed to do so, blaspheme and condemn today. That which could only have been understood through that wisdom that has been eradicated is entering in. It is no wonder that this fact has entered in a way that can only be understood little by little through our science. Therefore, the following endeavor was first made. When more of the old wisdom began to seep through, little by little, people wanted to place more emphasis on the appearance of Christ Jesus on Earth, on the onset of the great world events. That is why they established the Feast of the Epiphany, the manifestation of the Lord, on January 6th. This is more closely connected with the Solomon-like Jesus, with the Jesus who appeared as a king, who appeared from a royal line. He was also understood more through what was royal-magical wisdom. In contrast, the other, the Nathanic Jesus, who actually had nothing of what had happened on earth in his substance, was transferred to this deep winter time, which is now Christmas. People have not understood that these two belong together, and have even separated the dates of birth. For in older centuries, the birth of Jesus is still celebrated on January 6. But the fact that two births were celebrated is quite understandable to anyone who can speak of two Jesus boys. Even the way people thought about Jesus is actually available in two versions. One relates more to the Jesus who entered without having previously entered into connection with what human differentiations on earth have brought about through nations and classes and races: the Jesus who can enter, understood by the simplest popular feeling – the Luke Jesus, the Nathanic Jesus. The other Jesus, the Solomon-like Jesus, is more comprehensible through that which is heavenly wisdom, through a wisdom through which that which remains of the old magical wisdom seeps through.

It is not wrong to say: First we saw the first Jesus-Play, this simple Jesus-Play, to which the old remnants of the magical wisdom cannot be applied at all: this is the Nathanian Jesus-Child. In the other, there is the wisdom that still remained: the Jesus who entered the world from royal blood — the second play that had an effect on us. People did not know about it, but the two Jesus boys had an effect in that people made such fundamentally different plays out of them.

So, first of all, I wanted to give a few hints as to how the Paradise Play grew together with the Christmas Play, so that the whole has a meaning. We will talk about it again tomorrow. Today, however, I would just like to once again commend to you the words that I spoke at the end yesterday and also in the course of the reflections, that these Christmas Plays are at the same time - in a certain sense even the simplest - yet a warning. And they were also a warning to all those who listened.

Again, what we have to want should be a kind of world Christmas in a spiritual sense. The Christ should again be born, at least in human understanding, in a spiritual way. All this work within spiritual science is actually a kind of Christmas celebration, a birth of the Christ in human wisdom. The only question is whether people will come in large numbers who are now able to understand. Yes, I would like to say that one could hear many a farmer sitting there when such a Christmas play as yesterday's first play was performed in earlier centuries. The whole community came in and now the farmers were sitting there. Now it was like this: sometimes one of the farmers would say to the other: “Tell me, are you actually a host or are you a shepherd?” Then the other would reflect on whether he was a host or a shepherd. But I think that, in view of what is known about Christ in modern science, one could also ask people: “Are you a host or are you a shepherd?” For one hears the landlords railing quite vividly and saying: What do you want here at my door? Away with you, seek a lodging somewhere else, not with us! The others are the shepherds. There is also a skeptic among them, Mops, who also does not want to understand the appearance, but still lets himself be carried through the coridan by a certain sense of truth. I think it could make us think about the question and the answer in the soul with which some people used to go out after watching the Christmas play, the farmers in the 16th, 17th, 18th centuries: Well, tell me, are you actually a host, or are you a shepherd? – Let us hope, my dear friends, that, little by little, many shepherds will arise in our way, so that the innkeepers, who can be heard from afar, will gradually be silenced.

The time from Christmas until about now is actually an important, a significant time of the year, also in occult terms. It is called the time of the thirteen days. And the remarkable thing is that this period of thirteen days is sensed in its importance by those people who, in their entire soul disposition, have retained something of the old connection of the human soul with the spiritual world, of which we have often spoken. We know that more than the person of today's urban population has retained from the connection with the spiritual world that once existed in ancient times, the primitive person who lives out in the countryside or in a population that is even less affected by our urban culture. And there we find much that is related in folk poetry about the experiences of the soul, about experiences of the soul during the period from Christmas to Epiphany, January 6.

This is the time when, after the annual eclipse has most befallen the earth, immediately after the winter solstice, when the sun begins its victorious course again, with nature's deepest immersion and release and redemption, the human soul can also undergo very special experiences if it still has special connections with the spiritual world. Those people who no longer have the old clairvoyance but are still connected to the spiritual world in their soul feel a difference in the abnormal world of dreams at this time of year. What the soul can experience there becomes meaningful, because the soul, if it is still receptive, can really get most involved in the spiritual world then. For the modern man, the year really is such that he no longer particularly distinguishes the individual seasons, because while the snow storms outside, darkness already begins at four o'clock in the afternoon and it only gets light late, the city dweller feels the same as in the summer months, when the sun can unfold its full power. Man is torn out of the old connection with the cosmos in which he lived when he was outside in nature. But for those who have retained a connection with nature, it is not the same thing that falls during the Christmas season as what happens at another time, for example, at midsummer. While in midsummer the soul is most emancipated from what is connected with the spiritual world, in the time when nature is most dead, it is most connected with the spiritual world and used to experience special things during this time.

Now there is a beautiful folk tale in the old Norwegian language, a tale that was rediscovered only recently and has quickly become popular again due to the peculiar understanding of the Norwegian population. It is about a man who still had a connection to the spiritual world, about Olaf Åsteson. What Olaf Åsteson experiences in the time between Christmas and Epiphany is beautifully depicted in this poem.

At the New Year's celebration in Hannover in 1912, I first tried to put this folk tale of Olaf Åsteson into German lines so that it could also be performed before our souls. Tonight's program will begin with the Song of Olaf Åsteson, which contains Olaf Åsteson's experiences during the thirteen nights.

It was followed by a recitation by Marie von Sivers.

The poetry itself is old. But, as I said, it has recently been rediscovered by the Norwegian people as if by magic and is spreading rapidly. The fact that something like this is spreading will, among many facts prevailing at present, also be one that proves how it is pushing towards an understanding of the mysteries that anthroposophy can bring us today. For that something like what is described here is taking place in a soul, or at least could take place relatively recently, is not just a 'fiction'. This writing is not just fantasy, but reality, it is real. And with Olaf Åsteson, it is pointed out to people of those Nordic regions who, in the Middle Ages, around the middle of the Middle Ages, still had the opportunity, one might say, to literally experience something as it is expressed here.

When our Norwegian friends gave me this poem during my penultimate visit to Kristiania and wanted to hear something about it from me, it was initially this fact, interesting from a general spiritual scientific point of view, that was emphasized, that pushed itself into the soul. But what led to our wanting to include this poem in our spiritual scientific program, so to speak, is that one can also go into the details more and more. Through anthroposophical understanding, one finds oneself delving ever deeper into what comes to light in the poem. For example, it was significant to me that Olaf — which is an old Norwegian name — has the epithet Åsteson: Åsteson. The son of what? Of Äste. And I tried to find out what kind of mother this son actually is. Of course, one can argue about the meaning of the word “Äst” in many different ways, and there are also things that can be disputed. It is not possible today to sort out everything that comes into question. But if we take into account everything that is in question, then a name such as Olaf Åsteson means: he who is still a son of that soul that goes down from generation to generation and is connected with the blood that runs from generation to generation. But we have traced this name back to what we have so often discussed in the field of anthroposophy, that in ancient times, ancient clairvoyance was connected with the kinship of the blood that runs through the generations. And one would be able to translate Olaf Åsteson as: Olaf, born of many generations and still carrying the characters of many generations in his soul.

If we now go into the experiences, it is extremely interesting to see what the sleeping Olaf Åsteson goes through from Christmas Eve through thirteen days, during which he does not wake up, that is, is in a kind of psychic state. If one allows the individual verses to take effect, which allow the individual experiences to arise before the soul with a broad, folksy comfort, one is reminded of certain descriptions of the first stages of initiation, where it is said that such and such a one has been led to the threshold of death. The poem shows that Olaf Åsteson comes to the gates of death. And it will be particularly vivid when he feels like a corpse himself – except for the earth that he feels between his teeth. If we remember that the etheric body of the person to be initiated grows beyond the boundaries of the skin and the person becomes bigger and bigger, so that the person lives into wide cosmic spaces, then we are pointed to in this poem how the person descends deeply, empathizes with the depths of the earth and ascends to cloud heights. What a person has to go through after death, for example in the sphere of the moon, is also what Olaf Åsteson has to go through. It is poetically described how the moon shines brightly and how the paths stretch far and wide. Then the gulf that has to be crossed in the world is shown, the one that lies between the human and the one that leads out into the cosmic expanse. And the bridge of heaven connects what is human with what is cosmic. Then our attention is drawn to the interplay of the beings that find expression in the constellations of Taurus and Ophiuchus. But for those who can see into the world spiritually, the constellations are only the expression of what is present in the spiritual realm in the vastness of space. And then the world of Kamalokaw is depicted in the description of 'Brooksvalin'. It is shown how a kind of retribution takes place, how people there go through - but in a compensatory way - what they have not acquired here on earth. But one does not need to interpret all the details of this poetry, one should not do that at all with such poetry. But one should feel that they emerged from such an atmosphere, which is closely related to what was present in such a people for much longer than in peoples who lived more in the interior of the continents or came into contact with big city culture. The Norwegian people, who still have much in their vernacular that comes close to the boundary of occult secrets, had the possibility for longer to keep the souls connected with what lives and moves behind the outer material phenomena.

Do you remember how I have dealt with the way the course of the year has its spiritual parallel series of facts? How in spring, when plants sprout from the earth, when everything comes to life, when the days get lighter, we have to recognize what we can call a kind of falling asleep of the elementary and higher spirits that are connected to the earth. In spring, when the earth awakens outwardly, in spiritual contemplation we are dealing with a kind of falling asleep of the earth. When outer nature dies down again, we are dealing with the awakening of the spiritual nature of the earth. And when outer nature is asleep around Christmas time, then that is the time when the spiritual of the earth, which is connected with earthly existence both through elemental, less significant beings and through great, powerful beings, is most active. It only appears so when viewed superficially, as if we had to compare spring with the awakening of the earth and winter with its falling asleep. For occult observation, it is the other way around. The spirit of the earth, which consists of many spirits, awakens in winter and sleeps in summer. Just as in the human organism the organic and vegetative are most active during sleep, as the forces play up into the brain, and as the purely organic activity is killed off during waking, so it is with the earth. When the earth is most active, when everything has sprouted, when the sun is at its highest around Midsummer, the spirit of the earth sleeps. And it is not without connection to these occult truths that Christmas, the festival of the awakening of the spirit, has been moved to the winter season. The things that have come down to us as customs from ancient times correspond in many ways to these occult insights.

Those who know how to live with the spirits of the earth do not just celebrate Midsummer in the summer. For the celebration of St. John's Day in summer is already a kind of materialistic celebration. One celebrates what external materialistic revelation shows. But he who has the connection with the spirit of the earth, with that which lives spiritually in the earth, awakens to his inner self, that is, he sleeps for his outer self, like Olaf Åsteson, best at Christmas time during the thirteen days. This is also an occult fact, which means exactly the same for occultism as, for example, the fact of the external position of the sun for external materialistic science. Of course, materialistic science will take it for granted that within astronomy it describes the activity of the sun in summer and in winter in a certain purely external way; it will consider it foolishness what is a fact for the occultist that the spiritual position of the sun is most intense in the winter time and that therefore the conditions are most favorable for those who want to come close to a deepening of the soul, which is connected with the spirit of the earth and with all spiritual. Therefore, for someone who wants to seek a deepening of their soul, it may turn out that they can have the best experiences during the thirteen days of the Christmas season, when, without us realizing it, the experiences arise from the soul, although the modern person is already so emancipated from external events that the occult experiences can come at any time. But in so far as the external can nevertheless have an influence, the time between Christmas and New Year is the most important.

Thus we are reminded in a very natural way by this poem how much of what we could mention when discussing the time between death and the next birth was still quite close to certain areas of the world relatively recently, as some people still knew from direct experience.

The so-called “Traumlied” (Dream Song), which will be performed today, requires a few remarks to be made beforehand.

I already referred to this Dream Song in my Christmas address to you a few days ago. There I was able to say that the establishment of Christmas is by no means an imaginary one, one that has arisen from thought, but that the establishment of Christmas arises during the course of the year from very specific inner processes that can take place in the human soul when this soul comes to clairvoyant visions as the highest fruits of the soul, either through certain powers inherent in the natural course of things or through trained clairvoyance. We can best understand what may actually lie at the root of the human soul by visualizing the following thought.

All the plants, all the sprouting and sprouted growth that sunlight and solar warmth conjure up in spring and allow to flourish throughout the summer, all this, as it were, enters into a winter sleep, into winter darkness, on a kind of winter path at the time when Christmas was moved from the historical consciousness of humanity. The time in which Christmas is celebrated seems to us like sleep, like the darkness of the natural world. It is the opposite with the human soul as it is with the natural world. While the beings of nature descend into darkness and accompany the human soul into this realm of outer eclipse, it becomes, or can become, lighter in the human soul. She can, through the natural course of things, which we have often hinted at as a certain inherited clairvoyance, or through trained clairvoyance, dive straight into the brightest spiritual world, where the secrets of the spirit, hidden behind the outer sensual things, then dawn on her. And just as this descent of the plant world around the time of the winter solstice is subject to a regular law, so too the spiritual blossoming of human beings is subject to such a law, so that it coincides in its luminous brightness with the natural darkness into which the Christmas festival is placed.

It might seem as though such things are only being expressed out of today's schooled clairvoyance, or, as our opponents say, out of mere fantasy. But there will always be a living, fully valid proof of what people and nations experience outwardly. Therefore, it was extremely interesting for me that, after I had spoken about this Christmas clairvoyance within our movement for several years, which introduces us to the meaning of the Christ-being, to the arising of the Christ-being precisely when the human soul is most strongly immersed in clairvoyance , and I once again came to Norway, which is spiritually related to us, for a lecture cycle — that a remarkable vision was brought to me up there, of which, however, anyone who is familiar with such things must immediately say: Yes, it is reminiscent of many similar visions that have always been experienced by Germanic peoples, visions that many people have seen with their clairvoyant vision during the period of the thirteen nights from Christmas Eve to Epiphany, January 6. There the human soul can look into the spiritual world and see the fate of the human soul in the disembodied state, when it goes through Kamaloka and it then becomes clear to it how a relationship is established between the higher spiritual worlds and the deeds of people here on earth. And it is interesting that the person of whom we are told in this dream song and to whom these visions in this Nordic region are attributed through this dream song is a person who bears the name Olaf Åsteson. It is said of him that during these thirteen nights he underwent in a kind of clairvoyant experience what the Nordic man can feel as a vision in his way. He first learned how human deeds continue to unfold after the human being has passed through the gate of death, but he also learned how that which we call the Christ-being , how the office of judge of Jesus, the Christ, enters into the Nordic spiritual order of life after death, as the old world judge, the so-called face of Jehovah, the archangel Michael. So that, in addition to everything else that appears to the clairvoyance of Olaf Åsteson, the penetration of Christianity into the north can be heard, and that everything becomes clairvoyantly clear to him during the period of the Jesus birthday festival in the thirteen nights that he sleeps through.

Which consciousness becomes clear? It is now strange that this is already hinted at in the name, which quite obviously originally meant in the north such a human consciousness, which is inherited from the forefathers, from the ancestors. Olaf is truly himself in those times when the ancient, clairvoyant ancestral consciousness arises again in him. He who has inherited his consciousness, his inner being, from his ancestors: that is contained in the name Olaf. And Äste means love, the love that is passed down in the blood from generation to generation. Olaf is the son of this love, Åsteson, is the consciousness that has been passed down from generation to generation from the old clairvoyant times, is like resurrected ancestry. Olaf, who is born with this clairvoyant consciousness, recognizes the destiny of the human soul, and at the same time sees the intervention of the being we celebrate in Jesus' birthday festival as his entry into earthly existence. And strangely, while such visions have certainly always been experienced, especially in Germanic countries, this dream song seems to have been forgotten. In 1850, the preacher Landstad set out to collect folk songs in Telemarken, a lonely mountain valley where few people lived at the time. And among the many folk songs, he did not know since when, he did not know for how long, the song of Olaf Åsteson was alive in the vernacular – the song of Olaf Åsteson, who in the thirteen nights saw the destiny of the human soul after it had passed through the gate of death, and the coming into the world of Christ Jesus. He did not know when this song of initiation of the human soul came into being, for it was always recited in the vernacular, leaning on a musical mood. The few people in the lonely mountain valley enjoyed it, and there it was read by the preacher Landstad, in that it spoke to him of the secrets that had been uncovered – as if from the folk mind itself – about initiation in ancient times. And so it came to be that Landstad found it in the vernacular. Many people naturally believe that it alludes to Saint Olaf, who introduced Christianity in 1030 AD and whose mother was called Love. This is the case with many things that have both a historical and a spiritual significance.

Furthermore, it is interesting that this dream song has now quickly penetrated a large part of the Nordic people and lives in the hearts of the Norwegian people. There is, after all, a great movement in Norway to bring the old days back to life, and with that to revive the old language, which is very close to the ancient Germanic language, the Nordic language, in contrast to the Danish language, which was introduced later. Now this song is in a language that echoes the oldest language that has been preserved there, and the people who want to revive their antiquity in the first place, to whom this song spoke to the heart, and in the last ten to fifteen years it has not only penetrated into the hearts of the people, but also into the schools. It is sung and recited everywhere, and everywhere you hear, so to speak, where the soul awakens to the old folkways, the dream song of Olaf Åsteson, who in the thirteen nights from Christmas to January 6, so to speak, was naturally initiated into the sacred secrets of humanity. And for this reason, we would like to present this dream song of Olaf Åsteson to you today. Miss von Sivers will recite it. I tried to make a provisional arrangement so that it could be recited in German. Mrs. Lindholm helped me to make the peculiar language in which the song lives and now lives more and more and has become an aria of folk song possible in German. So we will now hear it in this provisional arrangement, which I was able to create in a few days.

The Dream Song

I.

So listen to my song!
I will sing to you
of a nimble youth:

It was of Olaf Åsteson,
Who once so long slept.

Of him I will sing.

II.

He went to rest on Christmas Eve.
A heavy sleep soon fell on him,
And he could not awaken
Before on the thirteenth day
The people went to church.

It was Olaf Åsteson,
Who once slept so long.
Of him I will sing.

He went to rest on Christmas Eve.
He slept for so long!
He could not wake
Before the thirteenth day
The bird spread its wings!

It was Olaf Åsteson,
Who once slept so long.
I will sing of him.

Olaf could not awaken
Before on the thirteenth day
The sun shone over the mountains.
Then he saddled his nimble horse
And rode hastily to the church.

It was Olaf Åsteson,
Who once slept so long.
I will sing of him.

The priest was already standing
At the altar reading the mass,
When at the church door
Olaf sat down to tell
The content of many dreams,
Which in the long sleep
Filled his soul.

It was Olaf Åsteson,
Who once slept so long.
Of him I will sing to you.

And young and old alike
Listened attentively to the words,
Which spoke of his dreams of Olaf.

It was Olaf Åsteson,
Who once slept so long.
Of him I will sing to you.

III.

“I went to rest on Christmas Eve.
A strong sleep soon embraced me;
And I could not awaken
Before on the thirteenth day
The people went to church.

The moon shone brightly
And the paths stretched far and wide.

I was raised up in the clouds
And thrown into the bottom of the sea,
And anyone who wants to follow me
Cannot be overcome by serenity.

The moon shone brightly
And the paths stretched far and wide.

I was raised up to the height of the clouds
Then plunged into gloomy swamps,
Beholding the terrors of hell
And also the light of heaven.

The moon shone brightly
And the paths stretched far and wide.

And I had to travel in the depths of the earth,
Where the streams of the gods rush terribly.
I was unable to see them,
But I could hear the rushing.

The moon shone brightly
And the paths stretched far and wide.

My black horse neighed not,
And my hounds did not bark,
Nor sang the morn's bird,
There was a single miracle everywhere.

The moon shone bright
And far the paths extended.

I must have traveled in the ghost land
er Dornenheide weites Feld,
My scarlet cloak was torn from me
And also the nails of my feet.

The moon shone brightly
And the paths stretched far and wide.

I came to the Gjallarbridge.
In highest wind heights this hangs,
With red gold it is studded
And nails with sharp points it has.

The moon shone brightly
And the paths stretched far.

The ghostly snake struck me,
The ghostly dog bit me,
The bull stood in the middle of the road.
These are the three creatures of the bridge.
They are of a terribly evil nature.

The moon shone brightly
And the paths stretched out wide.

The dog is snappy,
And the snake wants to sting,
The bull, he threatens mightily!
They let no one cross the bridge
Who does not want to honor the truth!

The moon shone brightly
And the paths stretched far and wide.

I crossed the bridge,
Which is narrow and dizzying.
I had to wade through the mire....
They are now behind me!

The moon shone brightly
And the paths stretched far and wide.

I had to wade through swamps,
They seemed bottomless to my feet.
When I crossed the bridge,
I felt earth in my mouth
Like dead people lying in graves.

The moon shone brightly
And the paths stretched out far and wide.

Then I came to water,
In which the ice masses shone brightly like blue flames
...
And God, he directed my mind
So that I avoided the area.

The moon shone brightly
And the paths stretched far and wide.

I turned my steps to the winter path.
On the right I could see it:
I looked as if into paradise,
Which shone brightly in the distance.

The moon shone brightly
And the paths stretched out wide.

And God's high Mother,
I saw her there in the splendor!
To Brooksvalin to go,
So she called me, announcing,
That souls are judged there!

The moon shone bright
And the paths stretched far and wide.

IV.

"In other worlds I dwelt
Through many a night's length;
And God only can know
How much of soul-afflict I saw —

In Brooksvalin, where souls
To the world's judgment are subject.

I could see a young man
who had murdered a boy:
Now he had to carry him forever
on his own arms!
He stood in the mud so deep

In Brooksvalin, where souls
Are subject to the judgment of the world.

I also saw an old man,
He wore a cloak of lead;
Thus he was punished for Living in greed on the earth,

In Brooksvalin, where souls
Are subject to the judgment of the world.

And men appeared,
Who carried fiery substances;
Dishonesty weighs
On their poor souls

In Brooksvalin, where souls
Are subject to the judgment of the world.

I could also see children
Who had glowing coals beneath their feet;
They did evil to their parents in life,
Which weighed very heavily on their spirits

In Brooksvalin, where souls
Are subject to the Last Judgment.

And to approach that house,
It was laid upon me,
Where witches were to work
In the blood they had angered in life,

In Brooksvalin, where souls
Are subject to the Last Judgment.

From the north, in wild hordes,
There came riding evil spirits,
Led by the prince of darkness,

In Brooksvalin, where souls
Are subject to the Last Judgment.

What came from the north
Seemed evil above all else;
He rode in front, the prince of darkness,
On his black steed.

In Brooksvalin, where souls
Are subject to the world's judgment.

But from the south came
Other hosts in lofty calm.
Saint Michael rode ahead
At Jesus Christ's side

In Brooksvalin, where souls
Are subject to the world's judgment.

The souls, laden with sins,
They had to tremble in fear!
The tears ran in streams
As evil deeds follow

In Brooksvalin, where souls
Are subject to the Last Judgment.

In majesty stood Michael
And weighed the human souls
On his scales of sin,
And standing by in judgment
The Judge of the world, Jesus Christ.

In Brooksvalin, where souls
Are subject to the Last Judgment.

V.

"Blessed is he who in life
Gives shoes to the poor;
He need not walk with bare feet
In the field of thorns.

Then speaks the tongue of the scales,
And world truth
Sounds in the spiritual state.

How blessed is he who in earthly life
Gives bread to the poor!
He cannot be hurt
By the dogs in the other world.

Thus the tongue of Libra speaks,
And world truth
Resounds in the spiritual state.

How blessed is he who in earthly life
Gives grain to the poor!
He cannot be threatened
By the sharp horn of the bull
When he must cross the Gjallar bridge.

Then the tongue of Libra speaks,
And world truth
Sounds in the mind.

How blessed is he who in earthly life
Clothes to the poor gives!
He cannot freeze to death
The ice masses in Brooksvalin.

Then speaks the tongue of Libra,
And world truth
Sounds in the mind.

VI.

And young and old alike
Listened intently to the words,
Which told of the dreams of Olaf. You have slept for so long... Wake up now, O Olaf Åsteson!

Yesterday I tried to point out an important fact in the context of the whole Christ problem, a fact that is undoubtedly surprising: the fact that a whole body of wisdom has actually disappeared, and is only known today in a few fragments, in a few remnants, some of which were presented here yesterday from one of the remnants, namely the beginning of the Book of Jeô. Now we must ask ourselves: can a body of wisdom that was available simply disappear without a trace? Can there only be external reasons for such a disappearance? I used a comparison: I said that it would be conceivable for everything that has now been printed and remains to be burned, leaving only the opposing writings, from which one could later reconstruct what we said. Now, certainly, the case could arise. But this hypothesis cannot really be put forward just like that. Because if you think that all the writings would really disappear, then many of us would still be around – at least one can assume that – who know what is in these writings and who, without needing the opposing writings, could pass on the matter further, and so the wisdom could well be passed on. For the matter to disappear completely, it would be necessary that in a certain way, little by little, the abilities to understand the matter and to pass it on from generation to generation would also disappear. But that must have happened in the past. In a certain way, it must have happened in the past that people lost the ability to understand something like the Gnosis of Valentinus, like the content of the Pistis Sophia writing, like the content of the Book of Jeû and so on. And that is really the case. We must absolutely imagine that on the broad basis of that old heritage, which was lived out in older times as the most primitive clairvoyance, then gradually petered out and faded away, but that higher knowledge, spiritual knowledge, was also developed. This was, of course, cultivated only by a few who were trained in the mysteries, but it was present in the wider community. And we must further imagine that through the gradual paralysis of the faculties to comprehend such things, the whole matter was not only forgotten but disappeared. People simply no longer had the ability to understand such things within Western culture. As a result, only what was wisdom could be lost. So we can truly say that by looking at the time immediately preceding and following the Mystery of Golgotha, we are looking at a time when, to a large extent, old abilities were disappearing and work was being done entirely from scratch, from the new. It can be said that as humanity developed towards the Mystery of Golgotha, there was a dimming out, a disappearance of a very special way of looking at things and thinking, which was of a spiritual nature and through which one could have understood the coming of the Christ into the world as a spiritual being.

Thus, precisely at the time when the Christ connects with the evolution on earth, the knowledge through which the nature and essence of this Christ could have been understood in the actual, deeper sense disappears. This is an important fact. I have already pointed out something very significant in various parts of our reflections. I said: the proclamation of Christ as such is not something that is so completely new, for example, with the event of Golgotha. No, the mysteries already spoke of the Christ as the Coming One. There were teachings in the mysteries that the Christ would come. This Christ Being was understood in the sense of the lost spiritual wisdom. But these mysteries had gradually fallen into disrepair, so that just as the Christ came, the time approached when people were least suited to speak about this Christ. This can be seen not only from everything I have already mentioned, but also from what remains with people who now want to form an idea of the Christ secret that is fresh and new.

In the first centuries of Christian development, we have such great minds as, for example, Clement of Alexandria and Origen, two eminent minds. If you want to characterize them from a certain point of view, this Clement of Alexandria, who thus followed the Gnostics, when Gnosticism had already dawned, as did Origen, then you have to say that they strive to recognize: What is the actual truth about this mystery of Golgotha? On the one hand, we are dealing with the Christ – they still knew that. This Christ can only be understood as a spiritual being that has to do with the spiritual, with the supersensible impulses. This Christ descends from cosmic spiritual regions. They no longer knew exactly how the old Gnosticism was able to understand the Christ, but they knew that He must be understood as a spiritual being with spiritual abilities. That they knew about the Christ. On the other hand, Jesus was an historical personality to them. The appearance of Jesus was an historical fact to them. They said to themselves, “So many years ago, in a certain part of the Near East, a personality was born, Jesus, who was the bearer of the Christ, a human being in whom God was present.” This became the riddle for them. They said to themselves, “We are dealing with an historical personality in the historical development, we are dealing with the Christ in the spiritual understanding.” How should one conceptualize the union of the two? And with such eminent, such great spirits as Clement of Alexandria and Origen are, we see a struggle, a fight with it: to be able to grasp how the Christ is in the Jesus, therein is.

If we first look at Clement of Alexandria, who headed the Catechetical School of Alexandria, where those who were to be trained and made into Christian teachers were trained, if we look at this significant personality, we find the following among the teachings of this personality. Clemens of Alexandria said to himself: The Christ belongs to those forces that were already active at the creation of the earth, of course he belongs to the spiritual world. He has entered into the evolution of the earth through the body of Jesus of Nazareth. So Clemens of Alexandria first turned his gaze to the Christ as a spiritual being, seeking to understand him in spiritual regions. Now Clement of Alexandria also knew the following, which we have also emphasized several times before. He knew that the Christ was actually always there for people, but not in the earthly region. Only those who developed powers within themselves through the mysteries were able to reach him, by virtue of which they could leave the body. When they, the people, emerged from the body through the powers of the mysteries and entered into the spiritual regions, they recognized the Christ and felt that He was the One Who was to come. This was known to Clement of Alexandria. He knew that in the old mysteries there was mention of the Christ as the Coming One, Who had not yet been united with the evolution of the earth. He expressed it thus: “Certainly, people were inspired to expect the Christ.” And he went so far as to say: “Specifically at two points in the spiritual development of humanity, was there a cultivation of that which could prepare for the coming of the Christ.” Clement of Alexandria said: “On the one hand, it was cultivated by Moses and the prophets.” What came into the world through Moses and the prophets, he said, was a preparation. People should first experience what came through Moses and the prophets, so that with the help of their own intuition they could then have a feeling for it: We have the Christ. That is what they were supposed to imagine. So he knew nothing of the ancient Gnostic wisdom, or at least he did not apply it. But he said that what came through Moses and the prophets to human abilities was “preparation.” And then – this is very significant – as a second thing that was to prepare for the coming of Christ, besides Moses and the prophets, Clement of Alexandria mentioned Greek philosophy: Plato and Aristotle – Greek philosophy. He said, as it were, that Moses and the prophets and Greek philosophy were there to prepare people for the event, for the fact of the Mystery of Golgotha.

And again Origen said to himself: We are dealing with the Christ: with the Christ who, as a spiritual being, can be understood by spiritual powers, we are dealing with the historical Jesus, with that personality that once existed as a real personality belonging to the world of the senses. How do the two come together – the god with the human being? How is the God-man created? — And Origen came up with a theory. He said to himself: the God cannot simply dwell in the physical man, but there first had to be a special soul in Jesus, so that this soul can mediate between the God and the man, that is, the God as a pure spiritual being with the physical man. So he added the soul. And so he distinguished in Christ Jesus the God, the pure pneumatic being, the pure spiritual being, then the psyche, the soul, and the physical body of Jesus of Nazareth. He therefore tried to form a concept of how the Christ could be in Jesus of Nazareth. He no longer had the old gnosis to imagine the Christ's dwelling on earth and the Christ's connection with the evolution of the earth. One had to work from the fresh, from the new. One had to make an effort to achieve this. So just when the Christ as a real being had united with the evolution of the earth, people had the greatest difficulty in even understanding this fact. The abilities were present to the very least extent.

And why that was, Clement of Alexandria had at least some understanding of it. He said to himself: How then were these old mystery people inspired? It was through the Christ, said Clement of Alexandria to himself, that the Christ also worked through them, but supernaturally, when they came out of themselves. This happened, as Clement of Alexandria very clearly expresses it, because he sent them the angels. So that Clement of Alexandria said it outright: when the Old Testament speaks of the appearance of an angel, it means that the Christ sends that angel. Yes, Clement of Alexandria makes it expressly clear: When Yahweh appears to Moses in the burning bush, it is actually the Christ who appears, who appears through the earthly-soul-spiritual appearance. So that Clement of Alexandria expressly states: In ancient times, before the Mystery of Golgotha, the Christ appeared to people through the angels. If they were able to perceive the message of the angels, then they actually stood face to face with Christ Himself as disembodied, initiated disembodied beings of the higher world.

So far went Clement of Alexandria. And then he said – and this is again contained in his work –: In the progress of time development, Christ has passed from the nature of an angel to the nature of a son. He has become a son. He could manifest Himself earlier, reveal Himself through the angels or as an angel, as a multitude of angels, as many angels. When He wanted to appear to one as an angel, when He wanted to appear to another as another angel, He appeared through many forms. Then He appeared through the one form: the Son.

Here a very important element comes into play. Please pay attention to this, it is extremely important! Clement of Alexandria still takes the view that the Christ was already present in the spiritual regions before the Mystery of Golgotha. He had reached the point where he could make himself known through angels, through messengers. But he progressed further, he came to be able to express himself as the Son. This is extremely important.

What is it that actually enters into human understanding? — If we go through all this old Gnosticism, it has a peculiarity. If, for example, I wanted to draw you a diagram of this Gnosticism, I could say the following: This Gnosticism imagines a person of evolution who emanated from the Father, the Primordial Father, from the so-called Silence or “iyn, from the Primordial Spirit. These ancient Gnostics indicated thirty different levels. They called them eons. So I could mention thirty here. Now, to some extent, a second stream; while the first stream is spiritual, they indicated a second stream that is soul-related. Within this stream, they recognized the two main eons of origin in Christ and Sophia. Then a number of eons came again. And they indicated a third current: the demiurge with matter. And these came together and formed the human being.

You can make such schematics from the way these Gnostics thought. These ideas are not entirely unreal, not entirely imaginary, because the human being is a complex creature. When I once explained how many seven-part aspects there are in the human being – you included it in one of the Norwegian cycles, I believe it is called “Man in the Light of Occultism, Theosophy and Philosophy” – our dear friends were quite amazed at how many, many differences actually have to be looked for in the human being. These differences are reminiscent of what the Gnostics already knew from their point of view. But when one approaches this Gnosis, one thing is always the same: the concept of time plays little role in it. One can express the Gnostic through spatial schematics. The concept of time does not play a special role, at least one does not penetrate it with understanding. And in this respect there is progress from Gnosis to Clement of Alexandria. Even if the entire comprehensive wealth of spiritual wisdom was lost, there was still progress in that Clement of Alexandria brought the concept of time into the development of the Christ and said: The Christ revealed Himself earlier, could make Himself known earlier through angels, then as a son, because He Himself had progressed. Development came into it, that is the significant thing. It cannot be emphasized often enough that the Western cultural development was there to then bring the concept of time into the world view in the right way, to understand the idea of development in the right way. This is so important, this is of far-reaching significance, to look at the development and to see how Christ originally could only make himself known through the angels, and then, after he has gone through the mystery of Golgotha, appears as the Son. Through the angels he is the messenger of something that is outside the world and indeed permeates the world, but which, if it is to be recognized, must be recognized from outside the world: Messenger, later, when he appears as a son, he permeates everything. Just as the son of a blood is one with the father within the physical world, so the spirit-son of a being is to be imagined with the father in the spiritual world. Being a son is different from simply being an angel. So when this entity reveals itself as a son, it is an advance over the earlier revelation, where it could only reveal itself as an angel, as a messenger.

So in Christianity there was a kind of more advanced understanding than there was within the old Gnosticism. But I would say that the after-effects of Gnosticism were still needed in order to say what Clement of Alexandria said. When Gnosticism gradually disappeared altogether, one could no longer even say what Clement and Origen said. People increasingly came to identify with those impulses that were the impulses of later times, the purely materialistic impulses. And so it came about that Origen's teaching was condemned. It was declared heretical. The element that caused it to be declared heretical consists in particular in the fact that one wanted to renounce such an understanding of the matter, coming from man himself and his powers. One felt: that can no longer be there. But how does the matter appear to us now? How must it appear to us? We see, after all, that an old spiritual wisdom had spread on the basis of old clairvoyance. That was there, it is gradually disappearing. Within this spiritual wisdom, even if it related to an extraterrestrial being, there was a wisdom about the Christ. Just when the Christ descended to Earth, this had disappeared. The real Christ was connected with the earth. The knowledge of the Christ had disappeared in time. There you have another case on a large scale, which I ask you to look at properly. We can look beyond the then known earth, beyond the earth before the mystery of Golgotha. The further back we go, the more knowledge of the Christ we find, even if it is the Christ who must be thought of in supersensible regions. But it is a knowledge that can only be imparted by angels. This is evolution. This knowledge, this idea of the Christ is distributed among many people. The Christ lived as the inspirer of many people: evolution.

This knowledge slowly recedes, disappears, fades away, and in the one being, in Jesus of Nazareth, everything that was once distributed is concentrated. Imagine a drop of Christ-inner-self within evolution in one of the mystery priests, a second, third, fourth and so on, in each of the mystery initiates one would find: he has something of the Christ in him when he leaves his body with his spirit. The Christ is multiplied in them. All this disappears. And in a single point, in the body of Jesus of Nazareth, all that was distributed contracts: involution.

Precisely that which had been withdrawn from all others appeared in the one body. And so we see that what was distributed, what lived in evolution, must disappear from the earth by concentrating on the one point, on the body of Jesus of Nazareth. That is this important fact. Within the most significant involution, evolution ceases. So now the time is coming when the Christ lives with the earth, but the Christ-knowledge does not live in the earth, the Christ-knowledge must first develop again.

Now the great difficulties are there, we have already hinted at them: on the one hand you have the Jesus, on the other hand you have the Christ. And do you think that the old wisdom of the connection in man has been lost at all? All this time, nothing has been known about what it is all about with man. Only now are we again dividing the human being into physical body, etheric body, sentient soul and so on. We are only just beginning to do this again. In the individual human being, we now distinguish again the physical-earthly, which continues in the line of inheritance, and the higher spiritual, which descended again from spiritual worlds. Origen did not know this, nor did Clement of Alexandria. They did not know enough about the spiritual and soul life and the physical life of the individual human being walking on earth. That is why they had difficulty understanding the individual aspects of the essence of Christ Jesus. Knowledge about the human being had been lost, hence this difficulty in understanding the God-man. And so the knowledge about Jesus and the knowledge about the Christ became more and more divergent. And it is of infinite importance for our time that we understand how this, as it were, affects the time again, inasmuch as that which our spiritual science contains must appear in it. It is tremendously important to look precisely at this falling apart of the Jesus and the Christ. This is an extremely serious, an extremely important matter. And it confronts us in so many ways.

We have seen these Christmas plays pass before us. In the second play, we felt something of the Christ; in the first, the pure figure of Jesus in the second, the simple and primitive. One can say that gradually the Jesus-child, that is, the starting point of Jesus, has conquered the minds of people. Only in the Middle Ages does one begin to look towards the child. Before that, Christians took part in the sacrifice of the Mass, they heard about the mystery that the Christ had gone through death, the Pauline doctrine and so on. But the Bible was not popular, the Bible was only in the hands of the priests. The faithful had to take part in the sacrifice of the Mass, which was offered to them in Latin. But there was no participation in the proceedings of the sacred action. And that which is contained in the Gospels only gradually conquered minds and souls. And so it was only really from the middle of the Middle Ages that such plays, such representations of the appearance of Jesus and so on, could be offered to people. Today one actually has the idea: The Mystery of Golgotha was, and from then on people would have known something of this Mystery of Golgotha. Yes, what they knew was that the Christ had died on the cross. People were especially aware of the Easter event. But the Christmas event was completely unknown, it crept into people's minds and hearts only very slowly and gradually. That was the external side, how people learned about what had happened in Palestine in pictures. Only gradually, through the dramatic presentation, did people begin to imagine what had happened in Palestine. It was the side of the mystery of Jesus. It was at the same time, just think, it was at the same time when, on the other hand, in mysticism, Tauler, Meister Eckhart and the others were again seeking the Christ through mysticism. So on the one hand we have the first emergence of Christmas plays: Jesus is sought as externally as possible, namely in direct external representation – Jesus is sought – and the mystics seek the Christ, they seek to develop the soul to such an extent that they see the Christ emerging in them, they seek to experience the completely transformed, completely unworldly, purely spiritual Christ in the soul. Mysticism on the one hand, Christmas plays on the other — the Jesus and the Christ are sought at the same time on two different, far-removed paths! What was a theoretical difficulty for Origen, the inability to reconcile the Christ with the Jesus, is encountered in the villages outside. Among the people, Jesus is shown in the form of a child. The deep mystics seek the Christ by wanting to lead their own soul to an inner feeling, almost to an inner sensing of the Christ. But where is the connection? Where is it, this connection? Things go side by side. Think how far apart what the simple person, the simple eye, sees in the Christmas plays is from the deep mysticism of a Meister Eckhart or a Johannes Tauler. But the beginnings of the Christmas plays fall into the time. Mysticism also lives on.

And in our time today - think of what the whole mystery of Golgotha has become for many theologians! Suppose: Those who are the most advanced theologians, what do they actually look at? They see that once at the beginning of our era in Nazareth or Bethlehem or somewhere, a chosen person was born, chosen especially to gradually feel within himself the connection between man and the spiritual world, a noble person - the noblest person, so noble that one can already say that he was almost - and even - not true, because the story is a bit patchy! One does not know how to find one's way around, what more can be said about the fact that in the course of Christianity he was after all conceived entirely as a god. And so one twists and turns, and there come all the Euckenisms and Harnackisms, which are so — yes, one cannot grasp it, but one wants in some way to be clever and yet have a way to understand Jesus as something, Christ as some kind of Christ. Well, and so one takes up the Gospels. Of course, as a modern person, one is embarrassed to admit the miracles. So one deletes what one can delete and constructs something highly natural out of it, something that can have happened for reasonable reasons. And then it goes to the event of Jerusalem, to the crucifixion. Up to the point of dying, that is still possible. But after the resurrection, that is no longer possible, and one then ventures into such things as Harnack, for example, ventures into saying: Yes, this resurrection, this grave from which Christ Jesus is said to have risen – the Easter mystery, yes, yes, the Easter mystery: one must indeed to the realization that from the Garden at the Skull this Easter secret has gone forth; the Easter secret has risen there – the thought of the resurrection has come from there, and to that we must cling and look no further for what has actually happened there; the idea of the resurrection has gone forth from there.

Now, isn't that something! Read “The Essence of Christianity” by Harnack, and you will find this peculiar resurrection idea! I once pointed this out at a meeting of the Giordano Bruno Society in a town and said: It is a strange idea that people want to deal with the resurrection in such a way that they say they do not want to touch what actually happened, but want to point out that the belief in the resurrection, the belief in the Easter mystery, has risen from that grave. — Then someone said to me: That can't stand with Harnack! That's almost Catholic, that's Catholic superstition. It's as if one should still believe that the Holy Shroud of Trier means something! That's superstition, that can't stand with Harnack. Yes, it is in Harnack after all, and I could do nothing else – I did not have the book at hand – than write a card to the gentleman in question the next day, saying that it was on page so and so. These are things that lead into difficulties. You can't get past them if you are to find the way from Jesus to the Christ. Someone once said to me: We modern theologians can no longer do anything with Christology, we can only use a Jesusology. — He said it, not me: It's a shame that the name Jesuit is already taken, because actually the confessors of modern theology should be called “Jesuits”. — Please, I didn't say it, but a confessor of modern theology!

Yes, well, that is one side of the story. The other side is that a number of modern theologians, in turn, adhere more to the Christ. They take the Gospels as their starting point. They do not take certain sayings in the Gospels in the same way as those I have just mentioned take what a reasonable person in the world can believe of a person even if he is a divine person. But when someone is called a “divine man,” it is not clear how far one should go in applying the divine: “Noble man, but more than Socrates” — but, well, it is not right. Now, there are those who are Jesusologists, for theologians, that is a word that is difficult to apply to them. Theology would mean divine wisdom. But the “divine” is to be deleted here. Then there are the others; they take the sayings a little more seriously. With certain sayings, they find: It is not right that the one who said them should be understood only as an ordinary human being. There are sayings in the Gospels that simply cannot be put into the mouth of a human being, a mere human being, in an honest way. And besides, they take the resurrection story seriously and so on. They now turn into Christologists as opposed to Jesus-ologists.

But now they arrive at something else. Read the book “Ecce Deus” and other books, and you will come to the conclusion that if you read the Gospels honestly, you cannot say that the Gospels are about a man. It is about a God, a real, true God. These people, in turn, lose Jesus. And they lose him very strongly, because they now say: the Gospels are all about a God; but the God cannot have existed, he cannot have existed, so we have to keep the Christ. The Christ is something that people talked about, but it did not live on earth. Christology without Jesus-ology, that is the other direction. But the two directions cannot come together. And so it is already really the case today: those who speak of the Christ have lost the Jesus, and those who speak of the Jesus have lost the Christ. The Christ has become an unreal god, and the Jesus has become an unreal man. It is imperative that we continue on this path, if nothing is added.

That which is added must be spiritual science, which in turn can comprehend how the Christ lived in Jesus. And that is basically one of the most important points of spiritual science teaching, that it can lead to an understanding of how the Christ, through the detour of the two Jesuses, could really become the being that placed itself at the center of the evolution of mankind on earth, because this spiritual science in turn has a view of what man is, how the spiritual, the soul and the physical are combined in man. And so, building on this, one can also understand how the Christ comes together with the Jesus. Of course, it is complicated and not easy to understand, but it can be understood. And so you see how, from the original, that which has been lost for humanity must be restored through spiritual science, also in relation to the understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha. When the Christ appeared in the world, it was not possible to understand Him. This understanding must be acquired little by little. What He has worked, He has worked in actuality. But the starting points are there everywhere. And starting points can be found even in the simplest Christmas play.

What is presented? It becomes particularly clear where the Paradiesspiele are still considered, how a person enters the world, from whom it becomes clear only through what happens incidentally that it is Jesus. The human being enters the world as a child. I said: the Paradiesspiel was connected with it - the beginning of the development of the earth - with the Mystery of Golgotha. Why is that? We must take into account the fact that at the beginning of the evolution of the earth, man was exposed to the Luciferic temptation. As a result, he became a different being than he would have become in the regular process of evolution. So when we have Adam, symbolically speaking, outside of paradise, he is a different being than he was destined to be before the Luciferic temptation. How does that come to light? Imagine: Lucifer had not approached the human being, the human being would live without the Luciferic impulse, then he would live quite differently in the etheric body. When the human being passes through the gate of death and still has his etheric body, and then sheds it, that etheric body remains, but in this etheric body is imprinted what the human being does and thinks through the Luciferic seduction. The human being dies, passes through the gate of death. The physical body is given over to the elements. After a few days, the etheric body detaches itself from the human being. The person then goes his or her own way. But in this ethereal body is contained that which this etheric body has become through the fact that the person thinks and feels and acts as he must think and feel and act after the Luciferic temptation. So now imagine the earth. The human physical body goes into the earth, it is handed over to the elements of the earth. But his ether body remains connected to the earth. There we have the ether bodies of human beings, which are now in the earth's atmosphere. They are different from what they would be if the Luciferic temptation had not come. Of course, everything I have said about the ether bodies refers to these ether bodies. But what I am hinting at today also relates to this, so that we can say: A human being is embedded in the earth. That which he leaves behind on earth, what his etheric body has become during his life, is drier, more woody than it would be if the Luciferic temptation had not come. Woody, dry — this difference really exists. Imagine that the temptation of Lucifer had never occurred. In that case, at his death man would leave behind a much more “young” etheric body, as it were a much greener etheric body. He leaves behind a much more withered, dried-up etheric body through the temptation of Lucifer than he would have left behind without the temptation of Lucifer. It is already expressed in the legend that the lignified Paradise Tree grows out of Adam's grave. But that which lives in the earth lived before the Mystery of Golgotha in the Luciferically infected etheric body. That was precisely the element into which the body of Jesus of Nazareth entered in a redeeming way, as a phantom, as I once indicated in the Karlsruhe lectures. Now then, imagine Adam's grave: Adam's physical body consigned to the elements of the earth, emerging from the grave with the sclerotic etheric body, which is the representative of that which is infected with Lucifer in the human being and remains after death. At the same time, this is the wood on which the human being can be crucified. And this crucifixion arises in the lingering of the phantom of Jesus of Nazareth after the Mystery of Golgotha, which connects with the earth precisely with the help of the latter. This is expressed in the legend by saying: This wood passed from generation to generation and formed the wood of the cross of Golgotha. This image is the image that corresponds to a real fact, namely that through the crucifixion the phantom of Jesus of Nazareth united with what lived ethereally in the earth from all the etheric bodies infected by Lucifer, which had naturally scattered and thinned and dissolved, but were still there in their powers. The fact that we have to face here is a very significant and infinitely profound one, shedding light on the secrets of the earth.

But how does man become related to this ethereal body infected by Lucifer? By becoming immersed in the physical world, where he becomes a child. It is not yet natural there, where he becomes a child. Therefore, if you look at the child with the right feeling when it enters the world, you really see the man who is free of Lucifer. And if you are able to look at the child with the right feeling as it enters the world, you will already see the man with his relationship to Christ. This is the feeling that should be achieved in those to whom Jesus was handed over in the Christmas play: to feel what I have indicated on the very first pages of the little writing about the progress of people and humanity, where I spoke of the first three years, of this entering. For if what is permeating the human being could penetrate him in the middle of his life – I have hinted at it in it – then one would have an idea of the way in which the Christ lived in Jesus. This ability to look at what is not yet infected by Lucifer in the child is what can happen in the Christmas play.

And think what all this ultimately is. It is actually something tremendous when you look at the child in this way. In this little writing, I have pointed out how we are wiser in our youth, even if unconsciously wiser, because we have to build up our body little by little, which we cannot do later. One is cleverer, one is much wiser than one is later, in the inner penetration of the human being, of the human entity, but one does not yet have anything Luciferic. By working inwardly in this way when one is a child, up to the point in time to which one later remembers, one works on the fine chiseling of one's body. One works there according to infinitely wise laws, of which one can never get an inkling later on in the luciferic-ahrimanic permeated knowledge. When one works in this essence, one is still free from everything one later enters into by experiencing the world together with the body. One is free from all differences, even from the great difference of male and female. As a child, one is not yet living in the masculine and feminine. One is not yet in a class, racial or national difference in it. One is human, a mere human being. One is really in it, in which even those who now face each other in war through hatred, through what they only experience externally, have once lived. That people face each other in the world hating as belonging to different nations, that is only developed through those forces in which one lives together with the physical body. Before the child has lived together with the physical body, it still lives in the 'in-between', which is beyond national and class differences. It lives in the in-between, in which souls can truly live, wherever they are born on earth. Just think, people can face each other in terrible fighting, angry fighting, shoot each other dead – and those who shoot each other dead can pass through the gate of death in the community of Christ, in that in which they are when they are not yet afflicted with the differences of people. What faces each other hating, that the human being acquires only in the physical body, that has nothing to do with what is outside of the physical body. The present has much to learn, especially the present, by finding its way back to the worship of Jesus in time, when he is presented as a child, since he has not yet entered into that which differentiates people and causes them to quarrel and fight with each other. It is only through what a person experiences when he becomes something other than the child spoken of at Christmas that war and strife arise. What is played at Christmas is the human being, truly in connection with the cosmic powers, but in such a way that what does not enter into conflict, what those in their hearts can carry in the same way, is revealed externally on the physical plane in a unique form, even though they fight each other to the death.

There is an enormous depth to the fact that it is precisely in connection with the Nathanian Jesus-child that this side is presented to humanity, so that the human being touches himself with that side through which he enters the world without the shadow of differentiation, before he has entered into nations, into other differences, into those differences that he enters only through living together with the body. On the one hand, the idea of Jesus touches the idea of Christ, which can only be fully realized in the child Jesus; on the other hand, the idea of Christ comes into being when one can grasp purely, in the Jesus between the ages of thirty and thirty-three, what is now also spiritual, the being of Christ. In a twofold way, through the Nathanic and the Solomonic Jesus, a body has been prepared that can now stand apart from all that differentiates itself through human beings. And only in such a body can the Christ reveal Himself.

Thus, in our spiritual scientific sense, we see, as I have indicated in the booklet on the progress of man and humanity, the Jesus idea and the Christ idea growing together. This is the greatest and most significant need of our time. So far, people have had only one Christmas and only one Easter, but these do not belong together. For Easter is a Christ festival, while Christmas is a Jesus festival. Easter and Christmas will only lead the way together if one can understand how Christ and Jesus belong together. And spiritual science will build the bridge between Christmas and Easter. And from the simple play of the shepherds, a bridge is built to the finest understanding that can be gained when we pursue spiritual science to the point where we find the Christ through it. We must only have the ability to go with the attitude of the shepherds, not with the attitude of the landlords. The contrast between materialism and spiritualism is wonderfully contrasted in the “landlords” and the “shepherds”. And basically, that is the big question of our time: whether people want to be hosts or shepherds. A great deal of the events of our time stem from the fact that people are hosts. Being a host is widespread in the world. To be shepherds, we must again try to become shepherds. There will certainly still be many doubters among the shepherds, and when one says, “I think I see a glow there, that is, I perceive something spiritual,” the other will still say for a long time, “That's just fantasy.” But if the human being can only now develop the sides in himself that are not based on what has been acquired on earth, but can find the connection with what the human being has brought out of the spiritual, heavenly in his inner being, then he will be able to be a shepherd. Today people are too absorbed with the house they live in and the possessions they own, the things they have brought in from the earth. This can only be measured in terms of earthly values. But those who still have a certain connection with the spiritual forces that surge through the world, who still have the nature of a shepherd within them, they should be able to find the way to realize that, basically, external knowledge only reveals appearances. We will gradually begin to understand Christmas when we learn to distinguish between the host nature and the shepherd nature, and when we know how much of the host nature there is in our time. But there is one small problem that needs to be overcome. Of course we have to distinguish between the innkeeper and shepherd natures, since we are surrounded by innkeepers, and wherever we go we are surrounded by innkeepers and feel very much like a shepherd. Of course we always feel like a shepherd! One must get over that, at least to do a little research into the innkeeper element that one carries within oneself, and not to see oneself as a shepherd at all. One will sometimes have to ask oneself: Do I already see the light that is to come and announce what is to come through the new spiritual science? — We will have to cultivate everything that can awaken in us the feelings: to be able to celebrate Christmas in our hearts in this new spiritual direction, to seek the light out of the darkness, but to seek within ourselves and really want to seek, really want to seek, and by really feel that it is not over at once, and that you have to keep coming back, like the shepherds did, who also promise to come back; they don't want to leave it over at once.

Yes, there is still much to be learned from this simple Christmas play, and so I think it is good that we cultivate this simplest way of experiencing the Christmas mystery in these simple forms among ourselves for a while. For many difficult struggles will confront spiritual striving in the coming time, and only those who have truly learned to become shepherds in the spiritual grasp of the Christmas mystery with all the humility of shepherds, but also with all the wise searching of the shepherd who is faithfully united with the world, will find the way. Let us inscribe this in our hearts and souls this Christmas season, so that we may become more and more seeking shepherds and learn in time to seek the sacred in the innermost soul mood of man, as it has been found out of the profane mood, as I have characterized it to you, as more out of a carnival, not a sacred conversation, the most solemn form of the Christmas play also gradually arose.

If we try to seek the spiritual in the context of what the Christmas plays showed us, then we will find it in the right sense as shepherds, not as innkeepers, who have already lost — as the Christmas play symbolically suggests — the connection with the Christmas child. And our time has a great need of it, a very great need of it, our time in which materialism has acquired such wide, wide areas of the outer world, of inner human feeling, and in which it is so difficult for a spiritual world view to even find the right words to express what the right words are, given the misused words with which one expresses oneself.

I have sought out of the esoteric aspect of the Easter thought to speak to you about how, when the course of Nature is permeated by spirit, it must come about that an autumn festival is added to the festivals of the year. This should be a kind of Michael festival, placed in relation to the fall equinox approximately in the same way as Christmas is to the winter solstice, Easter to the spring equinox, and St. John's to the summer solstice.

I should like to try to bring closer to you the Easter thought appropriate to the present age, particularly in its feeling content, so that tomorrow I can lay before you the whole significance of such a contemplation.

When we celebrate the Easter festival today, if we look about us into the consciousness of contemporary humanity and are honest with ourselves, we shall have to admit that the Easter thought is actually very little true for the greater part of humanity! On what does the truth of the Easter thought depend? The truth depends on a man's being able to link with this thought a mental image showing the Christ Being as having gone through death, having conquered Death, and then when He had undergone death and the succeeding Resurrection, having thereafter so united Himself with mankind that He could still give revelations to those who had formerly been His disciples, to the Apostles. But the Resurrection thought has more and more faded away, whereas when Christianity was in its inception it had been so living that Paul's words could sound across the ages from this epoch: “And if the Christ be not risen, then is... your faith vain!”

Paul has here linked Christianity directly with the Easter thought, that is with the thought of the Resurrection. People who have received the education of the present day call the Resurrection a miracle, and as miracle it is excluded from the realm of what is or can be reality. So that for all those who can no longer penetrate to the Resurrection thought, the Easter festival merely reflects an ancient custom, as do the rest of the Christian festivals. In the course of the years we have mentioned this from the most varied points of view.

It will first be necessary for mankind to reacquire a knowledge of the spiritual world as such in order to understand events which do not belong to the realm of sense reality; and what is connected with the Resurrection thought must be regarded as such an event. Then it will be possible for the Easter thought to become truly living again, which it cannot be for a humanity that relegates the Resurrection to the realm of unreal miracles.

The Easter thought arose in those epochs of mankind in which there were still remnants of the ancient primitive human knowledge of the spiritual world. We know that at the beginning of human earth-evolution, man had a certain instinctive clairvoyance by means of which he could gain glimpses of the spiritual world which led him to view this world as of equal validity with the physical sense world. This original instinctive clairvoyance is lost for earthly humanity. But in the first three centuries of the Christian era, the last remnants of it at least still existed. Hence in these centuries a certain understanding of the Easter thought based upon ancient human insight could still take root.

Such an understanding became blunted in the fourth century, when preparation began for what has come to full expression since the first third of the fifteenth century; namely, man's life in abstract, dead thoughts, which we have often mentioned. In these abstract, dead thoughts, in which natural science attains greatness, the Easter thought soon died. Today the time has come when it must again awaken as a living thought. But in order to awaken, it must pass over out of the state of death into a state of livingness.

That which is living is characterized by the fact that it puts forth something other than itself out of itself. In the early Christian centuries, when the Easter thought was spreading throughout Christendom, the “Gemuets”¹ of men were still sensitive enough to experience inwardly something very powerful when they pictured the grave of Christ and, rising out of the grave, that Being Who was now united with mankind. The Gemuets could experience with great inner force what appeared before their souls in this powerful image. And this inner experience was a reality in the human soul life.

Only that is a reality in the human soul life which this soul really lays hold of, just as the senses ordinarily lay hold of the outer sense world. The people of the early centuries felt that they were changed by beholding the event of the Death and the Resurrection of Christ. They felt that by this sight their souls were transformed, just as a man feels that he is changed by physical events in the course of his life on earth.

The human being is transformed at about the seventh year by the change of teeth, and again at about the fourteenth or fifteenth year by the onset of puberty. These are bodily transformations. In the contemplation of the Easter thought the early Christians felt themselves transformed in their inner soul life. They felt themselves thereby lifted out of one stage of human existence and transported into another.

In the course of time the Easter thought has lost this force, this power, and it can regain it only when the Resurrection, which cannot be understood according to natural laws, regains reality through spiritual science, a science which comprehends the spiritual. But what is spiritually conceived attains reality, not when this spiritual is conceived merely in abstract thoughts but only when it is also grasped in lively connection with the world appearing before the senses.

Anyone who wants to cling to the spiritual only in its abstraction, who says, for example, that we should not pull down the spiritual into the physical sense world, should at the same time maintain that the Divine Being is degraded when He is represented as having created the world. The Divine is comprehended in its greatness and power, not when we place it outside and beyond the sensible, but when we ascribe to it the power to work in this sensible world, to permeate this sensible world creatively. It is a debasing of the Divine to want to set it up yonder in abstract heights, in a “cloud-cuckoo-land.” And we will never live in spiritual realities if we conceive the spiritual only in its abstractness, if we cannot bring it into connection with the whole course of the world as this comes to meet us.

And this cosmic course, as far as our earthly life is concerned, meets us first of all in the fact that this earthly life comprises a certain number of years, and that these years present the return of certain events in a regular rhythm, as I indicated yesterday. After a year we return to approximately the same conditions of weather, of sun-position, and so forth. The course of the year thus enters into our earthly life in a rhythmical way.

We saw yesterday that this course of the year represents an in-and-out-breathing by the Earth itself of soul-spiritual elements. If we picture to ourselves once more the four high points of this Earth breathing-process, as we allowed them to come before our souls, we must say to ourselves: The time of the Christmas festival represents the time when the Earth holds its breath within it. The soul-spiritual part of the Earth is completely absorbed. Deep in the bosom of the Earth there rests all that the Earth unfolded during summer in order to let it be stimulated by the cosmos. All that opened up to the cosmos and was yielded up to its forces during the summertime has now been completely drawn in by the Earth, to rest in her deeps at Christmas time. Man of course does not dwell in the earthly depths; physically he lives on the surface of the Earth. Soul-spiritually also, he does not dwell in the depths of the Earth, for he lives actually in the Earth's periphery; he lives in the atmosphere that surrounds the Earth.

Therefore esoteric wisdom has always recognized the essential being of the Earth at the time of the winter solstice, at Christmas time, as something concealed at first, as something which cannot be penetrated by the ordinary forces of human knowledge, something which belongs in the sphere of the esoteric mysteries. And in all ancient times when something comparable to our present Christmas festival existed, it was recognized that what goes on in connection with the Earth at Christmas time could be grasped only by initiation into mystery-knowledge, by the initiation still known in Greece as the Chthonian Mysteries. By means of this initiation, man forsook in a certain way the periphery of the Earth in which he lived with his ordinary consciousness, to immerse himself in something into which he could not submerge physically. He immersed himself in the soul-spiritual element, and thus he learned to know what the Earth becomes during midwinter, when she draws her soul-spiritual element into herself.

And then a man came to know through this Mystery initiation, that at the time of the winter solstice the Earth is especially receptive to permeation by the Moon forces. This was regarded as the secret—if I may express myself in the modern sense—as the Christmas secret of the ancient mysteries: that just at Christmas time one comes to know how the Earth, by being permeated and saturated by her spirit-soul-being, becomes especially receptive in her inner being to the activity of the Moon forces.

In certain ancient times, for example, no one was entrusted with a knowledge of healing science unless he was initiated in the Winter Mysteries, and understood how the Earth, through the holding of her breath, becomes especially susceptible inwardly to the activity of the Moon forces, how at this time she permeates especially the plants with healing forces, how at this time she makes the plant world, and to a certain extent also the world of the lower animals into something entirely different.

The Christmas initiation was felt as a descent into the depths of the earthly world. But something else was connected with this Christmas initiation; namely, something that was felt in a certain sense to be a danger for the human being. A man said to himself: “When anyone really observes his consciousness in connection with what lives in the Earth as Moon forces at Christmastime, he comes into a state of consciousness in which he must be inwardly very strong, must have inwardly fortified himself, in order to withstand the attack from all sides of the Ahrimanic powers, who live in the Earth precisely because of its having taken in the Moon activity.” And only in the strength which a man had himself developed in his soul-spiritual being, in the strength to break the opposition of these forces, did he see what makes it possible to endure his earth existence over the long run.

But then some time after the celebration of these Christmas Mysteries, the teachers of the Mysteries gathered their pupils together, and as a sort of revelation, said to them the following: “Certainly, through initiation one can, in full consciousness, behold what is at work within the Earth at the time of the winter solstice. But with the oncoming of spring, when the plant world starts to grow, something rises up out of the depths of the Earth which permeates all that is growing and sprouting, permeates also man himself; namely, what the Ahrimanic powers bring about. At a time when man was still endowed with divine forces, as he was at the Earth's beginning, then through this primordial divine heritage men could still resist the attack of the Ahrimanic powers which broke over mankind in this way during the time of the winter moon. But (so the initiates told their pupils) a time will come when mankind will be rendered insensible to the spiritual through the agency of the Moon forces which the Earth takes up in the wintertime. With the growing and sprouting in the spring, a kind of intoxication with regard to the spiritual will come over mankind, depriving men of any consciousness that anything spiritual exists. Then, should mankind not find it possible to resist these intoxicating forces, the humanity of the Earth will go into decline and not be able to develop further with the Earth to future higher stages of earth evolution.”

The initiates painted in gloomy colors the age which had to break in for humanity in the fifteenth century, when mankind will excel to be sure in abstract, dead thoughts, but when man can again acquire spiritual capacities only by gaining new strength to overcome the intoxicating forces that rise out of the Earth. This he can do by developing the particular spiritual force now accessible to mankind.

When we form such visualizations, we transpose ourselves, so to speak, into the connection that exists between the course of the year in nature and what lives in the spirit. We bring together what is otherwise abstract, merely thought-out, with what is the natural sensible course as it confronts us, for example, in the seasons.

The polar opposite of this Christmas Mystery is the St. John's Mystery, at the time of the summer solstice. Then the Earth has completely exhaled. The spirit-soul element of the Earth is then utterly surrendered to the super-earthly powers, to the cosmic powers. Then the spirit-soul element of the Earth takes in all that is extraterrestrial. Just as the ancient initiates had said of the Christmas Mystery, so they said also of the St. John's Mystery (we use modern forms of expression, but there were appropriate forms in the ancient Mysteries also)—the initiates said that it was necessary to attain initiation in order to penetrate the secrets of the St. John's Mystery, that is, the secrets of the heavens. For man belongs to the periphery of the Earth; he belongs neither within the Earth, nor as earthly man does he belong to the heavens. Hence he must be initiated into the secrets of the sub-earthly in order to come to know the secrets of the super-earthly.

In a certain way, the Easter Mystery and the Michael or Autumn Mystery were seen as holding the balance between the super-earthly and the sub-earthly. And the Michael Mystery, as we have said, will first attain its proper significance in the time that is still future to our own.

The Easter Mystery in its full magnitude entered into the evolution of mankind through the Mystery of Golgotha. And this Easter Mystery was understood, as I have already said, because remnants of the ancient clairvoyance still existed. At that time people could still raise themselves up in their Gemuets or feeling souls to the resurrected Christ. The Easter Mystery was therefore woven into that ritual which was not an initiation ritual, but a ritual for mankind in general; it was woven into the ritual of the celebration of the Mass.

But with the retreat of primitive clairvoyance, the understanding of the Easter Mystery was lost. People begin to discuss a matter only when they no longer understand it. All the discussion that began after the first Christian centuries about how the Easter thought is to be understood derive from the fact that people could no longer comprehend it in a direct elementary way.

Now we have often been able to apply to the Easter thought what anthroposophical spiritual science gives to us. What is essential here is that this anthroposophical spiritual research points again to forms of life which are not exhausted between birth and death in the sense world; that it places what can be spiritually investigated over against what can be sensibly investigated; that it makes comprehensible how the Christ could converse with His disciples, even after the physical body was turned to dust. In the light of spiritual research, the Resurrection thought becomes alive again. But this Resurrection thought will be fully understood only if it is linked to what I might call its counter-pole. What then does the Resurrection thought really portray? The Christ Being descended from spiritual heights, entered into the body of Jesus and lived on Earth in this body, thereby bringing into the earthly sphere forces in themselves super-terrestrial. And these super-earthly forces which the Christ Being brought into the earthly sphere were from the time of the Mystery of Golgotha on, united with the forces of mankind's evolution. Since then that which the men of ancient times could behold only outside in cosmic space is to be feelingly perceived within the evolution of earthly humanity. Following the Resurrection, the Christ united Himself with mankind, and since then He lives, not only in the super-earthly heights, but also within the earth-existence; He lives in evolution, in the stream of mankind's evolution.

Above all, this event must be regarded not from the earthly point of view alone, but also from the super-earthly viewpoint. We can say that we should not view the Christ only in the way He comes to Earth out of heavenly worlds and becomes man, in the way He is given to men, but we should view this Christ Event also from the standpoint that the Christ actually departs from the spiritual world when He descends to the Earth.

Human beings saw the Christ arise in their realm. The Gods saw the Christ forsake the heavenly world and plunge down among mankind. For men the Christ appeared; for certain spiritual beings He vanished. Only when He passed through the Resurrection did He appear again to certain extraterrestrial spiritual beings, now shining out to them from the Earth like a star, a star which radiates out from the Earth into the spiritual world. Spiritual beings mark the Mystery of Golgotha by saying: “A star began to shine out from the Earth into the spiritual realm.” And it was felt to be of immense importance for the spiritual world that the Christ had submerged into a human body, and had gone through death in this body. For by partaking in death in a human body He was enabled immediately after this death to undertake something which His former divine companions could by no means have accomplished.

These former divine companions confronted, as an inimical world, what even in earlier times was called “hell.” But the efficacy of these spiritual beings stopped short at the gates of hell. These spiritual beings worked upon man. The forces of man extend even into hell. This signifies nothing other than man's subconscious projection into the Ahrimanic forces in the wintertime and also into the ascent of these Ahrimanic forces in the spring. The divine spiritual beings felt this as a world opposed to them. They saw it rise up out of the Earth and felt it to be an exceedingly problematic world. But they themselves had only a roundabout connection with it through man. They could only observe it in a certain way. But because the Christ had descended to the Earth, had Himself become man, He could descend into the realm of these Ahrimanic powers and overcome them. This is expressed in the Creed as “the Descent into Hell.”

This Descent into Hell provides the opposite pole to the Resurrection. This is what Christ has done for mankind: By descending from the divine heights and taking on the form of man, He became able actually to descend into the realm to whose dangers man is exposed, into which the other Gods, who had not been exposed to human death could not descend. In His way the Christ gained the victory over death. And therewith entered, I might say, as the opposite pole of the Descent into Hell, the ascent into the spiritual world, in spite of the fact that the Christ remained on Earth. For Christ had so united Himself with mankind that he had descended to that to which mankind is exposed. During the winter and spring seasons, He could win for man that which works out of extraterrestrial regions into the Earth again from St. John's to autumn. Thus in the Easter thought we see united in a certain way the Descent into the region of Hell, and through this descent the winning of the heavenly region for the further evolution of mankind.

All this belongs to a right conception of the Easter thought. But what would this Easter thought be if it could not become living! It was possible in ancient times to connect the right feeling awareness with the thought of the winter solstice only because they had on the other hand the St. John's thought. Schematically drawn: If one had the earthly with its deeply concealed winter nature (orange), then its counterpart was what in summer lay in the super-earthly periphery (orange). Both were to be reached only through initiation, yet they were connected by what was in the atmosphere surrounding the Earth, in the Earth's periphery (green), Christmas calls for St. John's. St. John's calls for Christmas. Man would rigidify under the influence of the Ahrimanic powers if he could not be exposed to the loosening Luciferic powers, who again give wings to thought, so that it need not remain rigid but can thaw again under the influence of the light.

At first humanity in its evolution had only the one pole, the Easter pole, and this Easter pole became paralyzed. The Easter festival lost its inner vitality. It will regain its inner life only when man can think about this festival in such a way that he can say to himself: “Through what is symbolically expressed in the Descent into Hell—which in reality can be understood as the Resurrection—a counterweight was given against something which had to come; namely, the paralyzing of all spiritual vision, its dying away in the earthly life. Prophetically, Christ Jesus wanted to prepare for what had to come; namely, the circumstance that man during his life on Earth between birth and death would have to forget the super-earthly, the spiritual, that he would in a certain way die to the spiritual. Opposed to this dying away of man in earthly life stands the Easter thought of the victory of super-earthly life over the earthly.”

On the one side is this: Man descends from his pre-earthly life; but in the period that dawned in the first half of the fifteenth century, he will in his earthly life more and more forget his super-earthly origin; as to his soul-being he will die away, as it were, in the earthly life. That stands on the one side.

On the other stands this: There was a spiritual, heavenly Being, Who by His deed, working out of the heavens into the Earth, set forth the counter-image. That spiritual Being descended into a human body, and in the Resurrection has, through His own being, placed the super-earthly spiritual among the men of Earth. In remembrance of this we have the Easter festival, which puts before mankind the picture of the burial of Christ Jesus and the Resurrection of Christ Jesus.

He was laid in the grave and thereafter He arose—this is the Easter thought, as it stands in cosmic records... “Look upon thyself, O Man; thou descendest out of the super-earthly worlds; thou art threatened by the danger that thy soul will die away in the earthly life. Therefore the Christ appears, Who sets before thine eyes how that from which thou also didst arise, how that super-earthly spiritual conquers death. There stands before thee in mighty images such as could be placed before mankind: the entombment of Christ Jesus, the Resurrection of Christ Jesus. He was laid in the grave. He rose from the grave and appeared to those who could behold Him.”

But with the paralyzed soul forces of man today, this image can no longer become living. Where could it become alive? In a traditional faith man can still look upon what the Easter festival gives him: Upon the sublime picture of the burial and the Resurrection. But out of the inner force of his soul, he can no longer, of himself, find anything to connect with this Easter thought, with the thought of the entombment and the Resurrection. It is out of spiritual knowledge that he must again unite something with it.

And this something is another thought, to which there can be no alternative. It is, however, possible for a human being to let spiritual knowledge approach him so that he may understand this “other.” Let us place this “other” before ourselves, so as to inscribe it deeply within our souls. Easter thought: He has been laid in the grave; He is risen. Now let us place before ourselves the other thought which must come over mankind: He is risen and can confidently be laid in the grave. Easter thought: He has been laid in the grave; He is risen. Michaelmas thought: He is risen and can confidently be laid in the grave.

The first thought, the Easter thought, pertains to the Christ; the second thought pertains to the human being. It pertains to the man who directly comprehends the power of the Easter thought, comprehends how when spiritual knowledge enters into the earthly life of the present, in which his soul-spiritual is dying away, his soul can resurrect, so that he becomes living between birth and death, so that in the earthly life he becomes inwardly alive.

The human being must through spiritual knowledge comprehend this inner resurrection, this inner awakening; then will he confidently be laid in the grave. Then he may be laid in the grave, through which he otherwise would fall prey to those Ahrimanic powers who work within the earth realm at the time of the winter solstice.

And the festival which contains this thought: “He is risen and can confidently be laid in the grave”—this festival must fall in the time when the leaves are beginning to turn yellow and fall from the trees, when the fruits have ripened, when the Sun has received that power which brings to maturity what in the spring was budding and sprouting, full of the forces of growth, but which also brings withering and the inclination to seek again the inner part of the Earth; when what is developing on the Earth begins to be a symbol of the grave.

If we place the Easter festival at the time when life begins to bud and to sprout, when the forces of growth attain their highest point, then the other festival, which contains: “He is risen and can confidently be laid in the grave,” we must place at the time when Earth nature begins to wither, when the mood of the grave is spreading abroad in Earth nature, when the symbol of the grave can appear before the soul of man. Then the Michael thought begins to stir in man, that thought which is not, like the Easter thought in the earliest centuries of Christianity, directed toward a kind of inner perceiving (Anschauung).²

In the first centuries of Christianity, this feeling perception was directed to the Christ laid in the grave and risen. In this perception the soul was made strong, was filled with its strongest forces. In the festival-thought at the time of the fall equinox, the soul must feel its strength when appeal is made not to its perceiving, but to its will. “Take into thyself the Michael thought which confers the Ahrimanic powers, that thought which makes thee strong to gain here on Earth knowledge of the spirit, so that thou canst overcome the powers of Death.”—As the Easter thought is directed to the perception, this thought is directed to the will-powers: to take up the Michael force, which means to take the force of spiritual knowledge into the will-forces. And so the Easter thought can become living, can be brought directly to the human soul and spirit, when now the Michael thought, the thought of the Michael festival in the autumn, is felt to be the counter-pole of the Easter thought—just as the St. John's thought was perceived to be the counter-pole of the Christmas thought. As the Christmas thought by its inner livingness, has brought forth the St. John's thought after a half-year, so must the Easter thought bring forth the Michael thought. Mankind must attain an esoteric maturity, so as to think, not merely abstractly, but to be able again to think so concretely that men can again become festival-creating. Then it will be possible again to unite something spiritual with the cycle of sense phenomena.

All our thoughts are so abstract! But no matter how remarkable they are, how intelligent, if they remain abstract, life will not be able to penetrate them. When today men reflect that Easter might be set abstractly on any day, no longer according to the constellations of the stars, when today all higher knowledge is darkened, when man no longer sees any relation between insight into the soul-spiritual and the natural-physical forces, the force must once more awaken in man which will be able to unite something spiritual directly with the sense phenomena of the world.

Wherein then did the spiritual strength of man consist, making him able to create festivals in the course of the year, in accordance with the yearly phenomena? It consisted in the primal spiritual force. Today men can continue to celebrate festivals according to the ancient traditional custom, but they must gain once more the esoteric force out of themselves to “speak” something into Nature that accords with natural events. It must become possible to grasp the Michael thought as the blossom of the Easter thought. While the Easter thought stems from physical blossoming, it will become possible to place the blossom of the Easter thought—the Michael thought—into the course of the year as the outcome of physical withering.

People must learn once more to “think” the spiritual “together with” the course of nature. It is not admissible today for a person merely to indulge in esoteric speculations; it is necessary today to be able once again to do the esoteric. But people will be able to do this only when they can conceive their thoughts so concretely, so livingly that they don't withdraw from everything that is going on around them when they think, but rather that they think with the course of events: “think together with” the fading of the leaves, with the ripening of the fruits, in a Michaelic way, just as at Easter one knows how to think with the sprouting, springing, blossoming plants and flowers.

When it is understood how to think with the course of the year, then forces will intermingle with the thoughts that will let men again hold a dialogue with the divine spiritual powers revealing themselves from the stars. Men have drawn down from the stars the power to establish festivals which have an inner human validity. Festivals must be founded out of inner esoteric force. Then from the dialogue with the fading, ripening plants, with the dying Earth, by finding the right inward festival mood, men will also again be able to hold converse with the Gods and link human existence with divine existence.

• 1. The Gemüt, or feeling soul, together with the intellectual soul forms the centermost of the three soul elements in Rudolf Steiner's picture of man. This soul element was predominant in the fourth post-Atlantean epoch, in which the event of Golgotha took place.
• 2. It is assumed that Anschauung here is intended to describe the way man's Gemuet could inwardly experience the Entombment and Resurrection, as was indicated earlier. This would be perceptively, feelingly, rather than through logic.