\

,I'

ESOTERICISM:

I.',

Four Lectures
by

CARL UNGER, Sc.Doc.

1930.
H. COLLISON,
27 CLAREVILLE GROVE, S.W.7.
 EDITORIAL NOTE.

The concluding lecture of the four here printed Was

,given at the Goetheanum, Dornach, Switzerland, on
The following are the authorised translations of Dr. "28th December, 1928. Besides its deeply Esoteric
Carl Unger's works now available:-
"', ,,,,,,.UL\:;, it will always carry a pathetic and tragic interest.
1. What is Anthroposophy?
2. Cosmic Understanding.
<It was the last one given by Carl Unger, given at the
3. Principles of Spiritual Science. ,',heighth of his spiritual and intellectual vigour at the
(L) The Ego and the Nature of Man. " "age of fifty; and yet only a few days later-4th January,
(IL) Natural Science and Spiritual Science. /:'1928-as he was about to deliver another lecture at
(III.) The Philosophy of Contradiction. "", Nuremberg, he was shot dead by a man proved later to
4. Life Forces from Anthroposophy. ,: be insane.
5. Thinking, Feeling, Willing. He had, from his youth, been a pupil and devoted
6. Esotericism. , friend of Rudolf Steiner, and always enjoyed his warm
(L & IL) Word, Thought, .. 1." 'confidence and esteem. He was a scientist, philosopher,
(111.) The Esoteric. and practical engineer, and was able to bring to all his
(IV.) The Langllage of Knowledge. the independent judgmeritof a well-balanced
At Rudolf Steiner's death he became one of the
Authorised Translation. All rights reserved. most prominent members of the Steinerian movement.
With no personal ambitions, it was his constant desire
to keep this movement free from the allurements of
personal sectarianism.
H. COLLISON.
 Esotericism.
INTRODUCTION.

:'T c!l a;;n:!: ~::e f~;rD~r~:~: f:!;,~

... . '
ImS
members of the Anthroposophical,
: Society. They embrace a period which
stretches from last Whitsuntide to last
Christmas.* If one really studies the
thought-sequence, one can feel how power-
fully this continuity is directed by an inner
necessity .
. In this way Carl Unger's work bears
'witness that it is possible to go Qn building
.on what Rudolf Steiner had given, relying
on the "new soul-substance" which is to
grow in the common work of a faithful
Discipleship. To this discipleship Rudolf
Steiner entrusted what he had to give man-
kind. But the" Mystery of Trust" requires
. an active readiness of spirit ; it is an act of
sacrifice in which the sacrificer is himself
turned into the victim.
* 1928.
5
 ESOTERICISM
The traces of this service are to be
found again in these lectures. One can
follow their course in the inner susceptibility
of the soul and receive the seeds which then
ne~d. ones own labour to bring them to
frUItion.
Carl Unger wanted to help mankind to
clear, strong and real ideas which are " f
g00 d. WI,
'11" so t h at Anthroposophy may b~ 0
:ecelVed as a revolutionary life-force. Listen-
mg to his last lectures one could feel an
approach, to something really tangible, a
suspens~ of the soul as before the lifting of
the veil. Through the strict thought-
. sequence "which sought no other end but
to ad~ thought to thought according to their
meamng poured a wave of spiritual light
and warmth like' a proclamation of new
hope and belief." . the loneliness of each separate Ego. In the
. The.complete self-dedication of humanity
In. ~he h~e 'Of thought alone can formulate
spInt~al Ideas; ideas which have the power
conscIously to bear the world's past, and
have the
. courage to will the world's fut ure.
Such Ideas Carl Unger created' the
hungers for them. ,age
6 7
ESOTERICISM
<lHere are a few words from a letter of
Carl Unger's dated 16th April, 1928. They
express the struggle of his spirit which filled
his work in his last years:
Faith is concerned with the life before
birth, Hope is concerned with the life
after death-both raise the soul into the
spiritual world. Love is concerned with
the life between birth and death; it
brings the spiritual to the soul ; it rises
from Faith and flows into Hope; it is
the final justification of the individual
in the eyes of the IIierarchic Beings."
The struggle proceeded round this
" justification" of the individual, as cosmic
experience, as historical event, as a call in
intimacy of work done among groups of
students Carl Unger has welded the thought-
substance of which these lectures are built
up. "J ustified " he approached the spiritual
life. A preparer, a colleague in what Rudolf
Steiner calls "conquest of evil, conquest of
matter by idea."
 '.
ESOTERICISM
t k That these lectures, wh1'ch were not
a en down in shorthand, still could be
preserved through the faithful reproduction
of Frl. Gretel Kreuzhage,is a sign that these
thoughts have life and can be lived.
P. COLAZZA, 1929.
.•. previously read at Dornach, and had left a
8 9
1.
WORD, THOUGHT, EGO (1).
Stuttgart, ~th June, 1928.
At Whitsuntide in a short conversation
with Frau Dr. Steiner the stimulus was
given to the speakers to link up their
exposition with the lecture which Rudolf
Steiner had given on 7th March, 1914, at
Pforzheim. * This lecture had been
very . strong impression. In it Rudolf
Steiner attempted to bring home the meaning
of Pentecost to his hearers by means of a
l1:ew interpretation of the living word ..
Rudolf Steiner made in this lecture an
attempt to introduce a variation to, and
carry further, the beginning of the Gospel
of St. John, based on the consciousness. and
spiritual facts of to-day. The following gives
the wording of this extension :-
"In the Beginning was the Word,
And the Word was with God.
And a God was the Word.
[pub!,: H. Collison, 1930.)
 ESOTERICISM
This was in the Beginning with God.
It was there where all things were made,
And nothing came into being save through
the Word.
In the Word was life,
And Life was the Light of Men."
" In the Beginning is Thought,
And Thought is with God,
And Thought is a Divinity.
In it is Life.
And Life is to become the Light of my Ego.
And may the Divine Thought shine into
my Self
That the Darkness of my Self may
comprehend
The Divine Thought."
" In the Beginning, is Thought,
And Thought is an Infinity,
And the Life of Thought is the Light of Self.
May the shining Thought fill the Darkness
(J)f my Self,
That the darkness of my Self may
comprehend the living Thought,
And I may live and have my being in its
Divine Beginning."
10
ESOTERICISM
~'Not I, but Christ in me."
"In the Beginning lives Memory,
And Memory continues living,
And Memory is Divine,
And Memory is, Life.
And this Life is the Self in Man,
That itself streams in Man.
Not he alone, but Christ in him.
When he remembers the Divine Life
Christ is in his Memory. '
And Christ will shine into the bright
Memory-Life,
Into that directly-present Darkness."
\
" In the Beginning was the Power of Memory.
The Power of Memory is to become Divine;
Is to become a Divinity.
All that arises in the Ego
That it consists of Memory pervaded by
Christ and by God.
In it shall Life be. And in it shall be the
shining Light
Which streams out of the Self-remembering
Thought
Into the Darkness of the Present.
11
 ESOTERICISM .. ESOTERICISM

And may the Darkness, which now is, anew to mankind by opening up to the
comprehend the powers of consciousness of to-day the way to
Light of Memory that has become Divine." the Mystery of Golgotha. ..
Word, Thought, Ego. If you let thIS
Word, Thought, Ego; it is an idea-
idea-sequence sink meditatively into the soul,
sequence, or better, a concept-sequence,
you can realise how it contains broad.
which is taken from the older esoteric
developing lines of the growth of human
connections, in which Rudolf Steiner gave
consciousness. It is a concept-sequence
them as an exercise. These older connections
which contains the march of humanity from
are to-day suspended, but whatever has
......•. security in God to separation of individual
emerged through meditation and study in
. human beings from God: the substance
the way of knowledge and soul-activity
. matter of man's sufferings on the evolutionary
survives, and may rightly, even if only in
. path to the birth of the Ego.
the shape of an address, be translated into
Anthroposophical terms. " Word." Its force worked as an.
inspiration in all that was potent in t~e
Rudolf Steiner's lecture breathes strong
¥ystery-centres of the third post-at1an~lc
hope, and it is hope which always filled the
civilisation. Ephesus stood on the frontler
soul as it contemplated the experience of
facing the oriental Mysteries. Into ~phesus
Pentecost. On the first Pentecost the
poured the different Mystery-revelatlons of
Disciples hoped to recover the living risen
Asia in their final echo. In Ephesus the
Cosmic Word; and hope strengthened the
magic-working Word had its last ~lOme,
Disciples of the first centtuies to partake
In the Ephesian Mysteries one ex~enence~
at Whitsuntide of the PaiIline experience,
in a quite specially intensive way, WIth on~ s
"Not I, but Christ in me." With us hope
whole person, that which later found l~S
may also be associated with the Pentecostal
expression in the opening words of St. John s
experience which Rudolf Steiner brought
Gospel.
12
13
 ESOTERICISM
Rudolf Steiner showed in the lectures
that were part of the Christmas celebration
of 1923 how at Ephesus the student of the
Mysteries was put in front of the statue of
Artemis, and in so far as he identified himself
utterly with this statue" which was full of
life, which everywhere radiated life" the
student wove himself into the World-Ether.
With his inner being he lifted himself up
above the mere Earth-life; through language,
which he realised as the human copy of
the cosmic Logos, it was made clear to him
"in what way the World-Word is wafted
creatively through the Cosmos." The
. student was led to see the events which are
bound up with speech. When man speaks,
when he stamps the word, on the breath,
through this act the course of his human
life is imprinted on the element of air. And
" while the breath formed into words streams
outward from our breast, the, rhythmic
swing descends into the watery element,"
the vehicle of our feelings. "But upwards,
to the head, goes the element of warmth,"..
and the waves of warmth, streaming upwards,
produce the result that we accompany the
14
ESOTERICISM
thoughts. The student learnt
these events as the microcosmic reproduction
'.' of the creative world-events; he learnt to
consider and form the human word as an
echo of the world-word which had magically
made the world. (
With the fall of Ephesus (336 B.C.) the
direct connection with the spiritual origin,
which had been fostered till then by the
Mysteries of the third post-atlantic civilis-
, ", ation, ceased, and only vibrated further in
the memory-inhabiting longing of the
,'rdigious individual. In all this ritual, which
,', '.later went on working through tradition to
our own time, one can sense an echo· of the
'irevelation of the Word; the Word itself was
lost.
The effectiveness of the third post-
',' .• ,atlantic civilisation grew through the striving
, of .the initiated to preserve the magic COll'"
nection with the Primeval Word. The third
civilisation is marked by the symbol of the
Lost Word.
Let us go on to Greek civilisation.
Guenther Schubert showed in his lecture on
Heraclitus, at Whitsuntide, how Heraclitus
15
 ESOTERICISM
still carried a lively memory of the World
Word. He showed also. how Heraclitus
fought in his "fiery" way against the rise
of thought . :1ife, how he tried "scoldingly"
to keep this down, because he discovered
that with it would follow for mankind a
further separation from the spiritual co~­
nection. Heraclitus saw in his lifetime how
the Word perishes in Thought, but he was
powerless in face of the urgent development
of man towards individualisation. Aristotle
shut the Temple door on Thought and set it out
on a physical plane. Thus the symbol of the
fourth civilisation became the. Sealed Thought.
. Then came the Mystery of Golgotha.
In Gnosis we see, following Plato, the
thinking consciousness of the fourth civilisa-
tion in intuitive ideas struggling with the
Mystery of Golgotha, and we see in the
resultant development a mighty battle taking
place over the question of Pentecost-·Are
Father and Son revealed in the Holy Ghost,
or only the Father Spirit? On that little
word" and" hung immense decisions, which
led to the separation of the Eastern and
Western Churches.
16
ESOTERICISM
.There developed later, after Aristotle,
.' broad school of thought called Schola-
which had for its object to bring
the Logos to the human understanding.
·.l?ut here appeared already the twofold facet
. .thought in the struggle of the scholiasts,
.' y in the struggle between Thomas
.Aquinas and Averrhoes. Averrhoes regarded
thought in its reality as still being in the
sph~re of etheric worlds, an experience that
echoed from former ages of cosmic perception.
. Word was for him only a symbol of
and for him thought had universal
. Individual man descended after
into the Divine Thought-Sphere; and
i
should strive already on earth to free
.u.u.u........
.u, from the Ego. Thomas Aquinas on
other hand fought for the. existence of
$eparatehuman individuality. He had the
..'. teness of the Scholastic School, and raised
his thought to the threshold of the Spiritual
World. Then he stopped, and sought in
i revelation, as handed down by Church
'tradition, experience of the Spirit of Christ,
-and found preserved in it each human
In this contest there was a
17 B
 ESOTERICISM
great strife concerning the human Ego, which .
must die out if it could find no hope in the
meaning of Pentecost.
In this conflict about man's dying Ego
arose the fifth post-atlantian civilisation, our
own age. We have to-day to reckon with
the Averrhoes-experience in its proper
meaning; every man must go through it.
The first part of The Philosophy of Spiritual
Activity,* which unfolds the contraries of
experience as SUbject and Object, leads
thought as far as the Averrhoes-phenomenon,
viz., the thinking that carries itself in pure
thought. To-day only he can reach it whose
thought is trained.
The second part goes beyond Averrhoes,
and answers the last question of Thomas
. Aquinas-How is thought made Christian ?
Thomas himself could find the answer ortly
in the revelation which was lit by ecclesiastical
tradition. After him the impulse of Scholas-
ticism was diverted and led, as the spiritual
content of tradition failed. to the later
* .. The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity," in one vol., with
.. Truth and Science." by R. Steiner (see advert. at back of
book).
18
ESOTERICISM
Unfolding of Materialism. The Ego dies;
thought, according to the modern view,
only to deny the Spirit. The Ego
.... deteriorates in the forms of abstract Scholastic
, and becomes Anti-Logos. 'fhe
stimulus of Thomas Aquinas is
up by the German Mystics. They
the meaning of Pentecost as a direct
, for the Ego still stands as
... receptacle in face of the results ·of thought,
brings to silence that which through
tradition speaks as revelation ; the Ego then
.. lit as a spark from the Holy Ghost.
This is the position of Cardinal Nicholas
Cusa or Cusanus at the beginning of the
Era. He was a Churchman, but, at
same time, a personality who had
bed all the knowledge of his day;
stood on the sound basis of the Scholiasts'
of thought. Nicholas of Cusa
.appears at the opening of the new Era as
the bearer of the Ego-doctrine. Alone he
sought for the Pentecostal inspiration, and
atthe Council of Basel he wanted to establish
. jt as a direct experience. He hoped to
overcome . the schism of the Church on the
19
 ESOTERICISM
question of communion-experience; if the
best minds of all lands were called together
in council to discuss and form conclusions
on spiritual matters, then-so he hoped-
this communion of the best might possibly,
result in the common experiencing .of
Pentecost.
Instead of this, at this Council, the:
general question of the receiving of the Holy
Ghost was taken out of its control and handed
over to the College of Cardinals. In 1870
grew out of t'his the Dogma of Papal
Infallibility. What Cusanus wished to win
back for all men was reserved for one
individual :-when the Pope acts and resolves.
officially, the Holy Ghost reveals itself
through him.
Nicholas of Cusa~ as he could not gain
his point, retired, laid aside all he possessed .• • , . Faust originally laying the Bible on
as a man of culture and learning, and went
into solitude. In this step of his lies an
endless tragedy. He turned his back at the
same time on the consecration of thought, , "'Thought, * Rudolf Steiner shows how
which he had received as the fruit of the
fourth civilisation; he turned his back on
the consecration of the " W~rd " of the third
20
j :
ESOTERICISM
vilisation and took his stand in I. learned
solely on the experience of the
' .....,UV.La,.L.L'-'-"
, the divine spark of the Mystic, awaiting
. direct spiritual experience the awakening
the Holy Ghost, If the Pentecostal
of the Apostles was that they
as" a community received from without the
(:otning of Fiery Tongues in order to speak
. all languages to all men, the meaning of
was how sought from the starting
i
of the innermost individual Ego, of
personality. - From the Ego was to
up the light of the Holy Ghost. This
:Li...,.",t><"1£'>1'.r-t> of the Mystic, as the innermost
of the soul, was safe from all
Cusanus himself remained a Priest,
his path as a Mystic led him near to
y.
II
:the shelf for a while" set aside the Church,
j
In the book 111ysticism and Modern
modern Natural Science grew methodically
i
*." Mysticism and Modern Thought," by Rudolf Steiner
(sef;ladvt.).
21
 ESOTERICISM
and entirely out of' Mysticism. Meditation
and observation, the two elements of the.,
Ego-life, are the bases of Natural Science;
It has tended to materialism only through
breaking away from the original spiritual '
impulse. As the Mystic through the deepest'
exercises of the soul, refusing all knowledge,
and all tradition, reaches complete silence
in the Ego and prepares himself for the '
direct spiritual revelation, so the Natural,
Scientist should in the same reverent attitude •
of soul' receive the revelations of the senses, '
Then observation of Nature becomes spiritual
knowledge. This path Rudolf Steiner points
out in the second part of The PhilosoPhy
ot Spiritual Activity, leading as he does
the thought of man beyond the Averrhoes- ,:
experience and opening up for him in medita-
tion the way to spiritual experience.
If the way out of the past was Word,
Thought, Ego, to-day progress must be based'
on the reversed order: Ego, Thought, Word.
In meditation it is important to bring'
thought as well as observation to the point,
of silence ; it is into the silence of the soul ,'.
that the will must enter, it is the will which
22
ESOTERICISM
'. ". .
'sets'the Ego alight. This Ego thus created
, fill itself with new experience, for it
into being a self-chosen content of a
nature, and resting therein,
the Sealed Thought into actual
pictorial experience, the Power of Imagina-
,tion.The "Lost Word" calls up the Ego
,the ,central part of the soul to new
spiritual birth. In Inspiration Pentecost
with the soul as a new Word-
as "Sounds of the Voice," as
;, The rustle of Thoughts," as " The lighting
of. the Ego."
'The dying Ego is re-born originally and
Vely out of the Holy Ghost.
In this way man justifies himself as
in relation to the beings of
spiritual world .
. Observation .and thought, the elements
, , ,his ,experience in the world of senseS, man
~OllCe:lltlrates in his El?o as human reflection
bLthat' which Rudoif Steiner describes as
>" the revelation of existence/' and" spiritual
" £ulfi1me1).t of the beings of the third Hier-
archy." 111 the re-birth of the Ego he rea,lises
in himself the Angel or (third Hierarchy).
23
 ESOTERICISM
Thus man purifies himself bit by bit
i 1 his existence up to the kind of existence
of the Hierarchy above him, and becomes a
member of the fourth or human Hierarchy.
I:ut then a new task is put before him which
Lorn to-day and getting ever more important
vrith time will face mankind; to invent a
language which carries news of human life
b the Spirit Beings, messages from the Earth
en which Christ suffered death.
If the revelation of existence has led the
Evolution of mankind out of the past and out
cfspiritual worlds, the spiritual communica-
t ion of men with Spirit Beings must show
the way into the future; they wait for alld
llunger after the spirit message of man.
Anthroposophy can give the world what
it is its task to give only if man's Ego is
1 ekindled every moment by it. Anthro- .
1)osophical activity must be remade ever
llew from the source of individual experience.
Nothing in an Anthroposophical Society must
1)ecome merely stereotyped, nothing of
: ,piritual Science must become a mere system.
:~udolf Steiner gave in his published books
all he wished to give man in formal thought.
24
ESOTERICISM
.All else must, in accordance with esoteric
life, be formed anew inl each age. The
cyc1es* also must not be. obliterated in
tradition. They were established in esoteric
, connections, and must be taken up in different
places with full regard for the requirements
.'Of the human soul. They represent at the
same time for the whole of ,Anthroposophy
. historic wanderings through soul-spheres.
Word, 'Thought, Ego: the path out of
,the past.
Ego, Thought, Word: -the path to hope
'Of new Pentecostal experience.
* Refers to the many courses or cycles of lectures g~ven by
Rudolf Steiner at different places. They can be obtaIned at
-the Rudolf Steiner Bookshop (see advt.).
J
25

II.
WORD, THOUGHT, EGO (2).
Stuttgart, lIth June, 1928.
We saw how by means of the words of
the Gospel of St. John and their variation
and continuation in Rudolf Steiner's lecture
of 7th March, 1914, we find it possible to
absorb into ourselves the sequence of ideas
"Word, Thought, Ego." This sequence of
ideas carries in itself wide phases of evolution,
and is given in order to see gradu'ally by
meditative practice the world-wide vistas
which it contains. For this reason it was
brought into esoteric connections ; it was to
be re-created over and over again for soul-
exercises. We often find in the spiritual
history of man such means of bringing
esoteric good to mankind. Thus, for
example, at Chartres, where whole
" Catalogues of Terms" of the soul-exercises
were handed down in books, and so also
the Aristotelian Thought-Categories, which
to-day are still waiting to come to life by
the/exercise of creative powers.
26
ESOTERICISM
l
.' Elsewhere also Rudolf Steiner gave out
'. •.•. . similar spiritual truths which only ~equire
, to be grasped. Think of the senes of
Hierarchies in Occult Science: " Spirits of Will,
.... of Wisdom, of Movement; and of Form" ; and
in out studies upon his" Leading Thoughts " :
'." Being, Revelation, Activity, Work."
Realise' the steps from one to the other,
'. realise what lies between as in Tone-
, Eurythmy you realise the transition from o~e
';"interval to the next. In other words reahse
\. the living movement from Will to Wisdom,
Movement, Form, and in the same way the
continuous thread from Word, to Thought,
to ,Ego.
", We saw the third, fourth and fifth
post-atlantic civilisations rising before us,
:the third under the Symbol of the Lost
"Void, the fourth ,under that of the Sealed
Thought, and the fifth as the bea:er .of. :he
Dying Ego. Our fifth,JPost-at~ant1c clv~hsa­
tion was born of man's seeking to kmdle
a new Ego' at Pentecost from the Mystery of
Golgotha. .
The lectures which Frau Dr. Stemer
read during Whitsuntide showed how the
27
 ESOTERICISM
Disciples experienced the Ascension in
gloomy and anxious mood. In the picture
of Christ's Ascension the fact stood out as
a warning to them: what Christ had done
for mankind on earth can also disappear
again from the earth. Before their eyes the
spiritual body vanished into the distant
ether. The question faced the Disciples:
Will map of himself be able to do something
in order to keep alive the act of Christ?
Hence the hopeful atmosphere which emanates
from Whitsuntide. Whitsuntide was the
affirmative reply to the warning question of
the Ascension. In the individual Ego man
can kindle the flame, can seize the tongue
of flame, to form audibly the" World Word."
For this reason the search for the Pentecostal
impulse is at the opening of our age so
significant.
That which the Disciples experienced
at Whitsuntide was afterwards sought by
mankind in the most diverse ways. The
controversy of "Gnosis" and of Scholas-
ticism round the Mystery of Golgotha was
in vain. The historical impulse of the
Crusades went awry, the effort of Nicholas
28
ESOTERICISM
of Cusa in his time remained without effect ;
and in Mysticism only a few individuals could
become messengers of the Pentecostal impulse.
Rudolf Steiner describes the new thing
. which man must of his own accord bring to
the cosmic act of Christ as the road of
meditative exercise to the crossing of the
threshold in his Knowledge of the Higher
Worlds and its Attainment.* It concerns
the fact that a man can add to selflessness
of. thought, which he can acquire by the
method of Natural Science, selflessness of
feeling and of will. Man must not stand
,still at the "Ego of the Mystic," but if
in the quiet of his soul he has kindled
. his Ego at the spirit then he must let that
.' spiritual conte?-t pour forth in picture or
word into his strengthened soul, so that his
thought itself moves in lively pictorial
creation; in other words that it attains the
Power of Imagination. 1).e advance into. the
future is made in the reversed sequence; from
the past to now: Word, Thought, Ego;
from now to the future: Ego, Thought, Word ..
, * .. Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and its Attainment ..
by Rudolf Steiner (see advert,).
29
 ESOTERICISM
What Rudolf Steiner would put before
us as "Memory" in the further explanation
of the Gospel Word is to be understood
from the point of view of the imaginative
power of experience; the Power of Memory
which in ordinary experience is exhibited in .
the physical body flames up in the etheric
world into imaginative power. There it is
no longer retrospective, but becomes
prospective.
In the lecture which gives us the variation
and continuation of the Gospel Word, Rudolf
Steiner pictures in a comprehensive manner
what, cosmically speaking, had been done
for man before the Mystery of Golgotha.
In doing so he refers to another lecture on
the same event which he had given at Stutt..,
gart two days earlier. In this Rudolf Steiner
described how at the beginning of human
evolution-in the Lemurian age-the human
organism was disturbed in its functions by
the Luciferic interference. And, in fact,
had the system of the senses been disorganised
through it, they would not have led the
perceptions altruistically to the Ego, but the
most intense sensations of burning pain or
30
ESOTERICISM
highest pleasure would have been connected
.with every impression. It was then that a
Spiritual Being, who had not shared human
.evolution since the age of Adam, but till
the Luciferic-Ahrimanic temptation had been
kept back" in the lap of the gods "-that
.Being who later was incarnated as the
Nathanic Being-permeated himself in
spiritual worlds with Christ, and thus
harmonised the human senses. *
.." At the beginning of the Atlantic age the
'vital functions became disorganised, so that
endless greed and' intense horror were
inseparable from every taking of food; and
,:~gain· it was that Spiritual Being who
: .permeated himself with Christ and harmonised
vital functions.
At the end of the Atlantic age human
thought, feeling, and will tendedin different
. directions, and. a third Clfristianising
v
of that
primeval Spirit Being harmonised these three
human soul-forces.
* This and the next two paragraphs are a very epitomized
description of certain lectures by R. Steiner dealing with the
gradual incarnation of Our Lord.
31
 ESOTERICISM
In the Pforzheim lecture the same.
arrangement was put by Rudolf Steiner as
follows :-
At the end of the Lemurian age man'
found his orientation in space; he achieved
the erect posture. At the beginning of the
Atlantean age he acquired the capacity to
express audibly his inner feelings; he'
achieved speech, in so far as speech is the '
expression of the inner feelings of man.
The third thing was that, at the end of the
Atlantean age, he discovered his relationship
to outer things, and created speech so far
as it expresses relationship with the world
around him. Man could achieve these three
steps in spite of the Luciferic-Ahrimanic
interference only because three times that
Spiritual Being was permeated in Spiritual
Worlds by Christ.
In this double presentation of one and
the same happening a mighty task and
warning is given us. Realise the great
difference in the presentations. You must
grow into it and create a way from one
presentation to the other by conscious
practice. Rudolf Steiner did not want to
32
ESOTERICISM
down Anthroposophic truth, but to give
.~as an. exercise for the. growing, changing,
to . understand. The attempt
to grasp the' connection between
two presentations was to lead us to four
meanings, which preceded the three,
otd;Thought, Ego."
We can give to what Rudolf Steiner
in the Stuttgart lecture an expression
. he himself always used in this con-
.u~."."J.VJ.J.·: the harmonising of the human
QI~~aIJ.l~a:r;:·lon so. that the Ego could control it.
last step was taken in the Mystery of
. There an Ego which contained in
the sum of the Spiritual Hierarchies,
. to incarnation in a human body
exterior was provided by that pre-
Spirit which in primeval times had
the three-fold permeation of
the Pforzheim
.
lecture
v
we meet, in
.variation and continuation of the opening
of St; John's Gospel, the last three
of civilisation. The procession from
"Word to Thought to Ego follows the past
the Egyptian-Chaldean, Epoch to the
33 c
 ESOTERICISM
beginning _of modern times, and contains an
echo of human evolution from the Lemurian
age to the end of Atlantis.
At the opening of the Lemurian age the
human form had advanced so far that souls '
could return from the planets into human
bodies. At this age the physical body found
its orientation in space; man raised up his
head, the concentration point of the twelve
sensory powers, to heaven, in order to receive'
by means of his senses, the cosmic forces from
the twelve signs of the Zodiac. He achieved
the erect posture. This orientation of the
human figure towards the twelve powers of
stellar space was the work of the ",Spirits
of Form." From the twelve cosmic directions
they poured their substance that was to
become the Ego-force of man. They
perfected the spiritual prototype to the
physical form of man to which the spiritual
creative force of all the Hierarchies since
Saturn had tended. It is just the human
physical body-the human form of the Ego
in process of becoming-w1:~ich the Hierarchies
had had as their main object from the be-
ginning of the world.-form (physical body).
34
ESOTERICISM
,The Ego-form of man succumbed to the
. Luciferic temptation in. the Lemurian age.
It was thrown into disorder, but placed in
,correct objective relationship to the cosmic
forces through the act of deliverance by that
Spiritual Being, after permeating himself
with the Christ. The human form, with
its twelve senses, was withdrawn from the
earth's gravity and turned, in the resting
head, to the cosmos. Here the "Word"
works as a creator of form.
In the third civilisation, which reflected
. its events the previous happenings of these
epochs, "the Word "as a creative force of
'.VV\../U.\"L" is lost; the germ of the human Ego
<by. means of its sense-life psychically becomes
of its surroundings; it learns experience.
as a sensitive soul. The" Word" becomes
the "unutterable Name of God," Who
revealed Himself to Moses in the burning
'·'bush. .~
Something new happened at the begin-
.nirig of the Atlantic period. The human
·'.form is strengthened by. the vital functions,
so as to become independent of its surround-
.ings. Organically this was expressed by the
35
 ESOTERICISM
powerful formative force body, which had
till then surrounded as it were the, physical
body, invading into the individual human
!:I
I'
i'
shape. It adapted its form to the physical
body and regulated the vital functions, bring-
ing with it the powers of growth and
reproduction. The individual etheric, body
enters into the physical body.
But that is also the period in which
the human Ego accustoms itself natura11y
to the body possessed of these powers and
begins to sound forth its experience from
inner consciousness in first speech-form.,
Again, it was the Spirits of Form which gave'
men the power of forming life within" and,
with the power of speech awoke the first
imaginative and thinking powers in man.-
Power (etheric body).
Through Luciferic influence the vital
functions and their spiritual activity in
speech fe11 into confusion, and speech must
have become ignoble. "Then for the second
time that Spirit-Being of the later Nathan
Jesus, having been permeated in Spirit-
Worlds by Christ, brought help to man in
his cosmic life in the universe. '
36
ESOTERICISM
The Greek exhibits an echo' of these
'events; he produced his art from an Ego
,that lived and developed in the etheric
,body, and his thought from the pictures of
the. world that existed in his mind and
understanding. But the Greek found him-
,.self forsaken by the World-Forming Word,
·"·,and his gods silenced; at the' most, oracles
'and sibyls a110wed him to advance as far as
the gods of Nature. The knowledge of his
sages, edged eVer closer to the physical
world; the Categories of Aristotle stand at
," the turning point of the decline of cosmic
thought-experience. Through them thought
became sealed. The Greek feared death,
: because experience from within in the body
i of Power was closed to him. ,
After the vital functions had reached
their objective expression; the human Ego
began to penetrate more and more into the
',physical organisation also with his astral
"body. At the end of the Atlantic era those
men were most advanced who had the
strongest Ego-consciousness and retained
.least the atavistic clairvoyance, i.e., dream-
consciousness. And here we touch on the
37
 ESOTERICISM
secret which it is most difficult to under-
stand, the secret of " Shooting into Number."
The human Ego, which was conceived as the
substance of the Spirits of Form, "shot"
out of the universal into the individual
into "Number," through its experience in
the astral body of the physical and etheric
body. The forces of inner experience,
Thought, Feeling and Will, achieved their
own stamp through Lucifer, the Ego showed
itself in individual soul-forms.-Number
(Astral Body).
It was now necessary to harmonise
anew the soul-forces which had been
disorganised by Lucifer with the experience
of the world, and this third harmonisation
of the human being was brought about
again by that Spiritual Being of the pre-
Adamite period letting himself for the third
time be permeated in Spirit Worlds by Christ.
He provided thereby the possibility for men
to grasp the ciuter world objectively with
his soul and· make his language a reflection
of the world.
This event repeated itself at the opening
of the fifth post-atlantean civilisation. The
38
ESOTERICISM
:'human intellect sought then to understand
.the world, and was itself lost. The Spiritual
.Soul-consciousness created itself from
< . experience in the outer world, but the Ego
'perished.
We might try to approach the secret
Number through a parable. In the
his,tory· of mankind the "Shooting into
Number" happened repeatedly, and it is
. in the oldest historical document that we
find the dates of these happenings recorded .
. . The first creation of man in the Lemurian
Period was connected with a "Shooting
. into Number." The old Testament gives
us the event literally: God created Adam
and Eve, a human pair, to whom He said
cafter the temptation and the expulsion from
Paradise: "Go and multiplY and fill the
earth." The form· was, turned into the
power of procreation, the prototype of the
,. human form" Shot into Number."
. But this prototype was more and more
condensed and corrupted by Lucifer; passion
pushed it into the sub-human, so that,
"God repented of having created man on
earth." And thus we come to the second
39
 ESOTERICISM
.. Shooting into Number," after the
-Atlantean flood which destroyed everything
except Noah whom God found just. At
God's bidding Noah took with him his wife,
his three sons and their wives, and a male
and female of all creature, "to keep them
alive with thee." After the Flood God
blesses Noah and his sons: " Be fruitful, and
multiply and replenish the earth." If in
the first instance it was something human,
a prototype, of all humanity, it is now a
multiplying in three directions: Shem, Ham,
Japhet; racial distinction was implanted in
human evolution.
And we see it happening a third time
with Abraham: "His progeny shall be
divided according to the number of the
stars." This represents the division into
peoples, i.e., the twelve tribes.
Out of this current the body of Jesus was
born, into which entered the Christ. The
Nathan Infant Jesus was the bearer of that
pre-Adamite Spirit entity. Of the Nathan
Entity Jesus jt is said in the third chapter
Df St. Luke's Gospel, after the enumeration
.of births through (7 x 11=77) generations:
40
ESOTERICISM
·.~Which was the Son of Seth, which was the
,"son of Adam, which was the Son of God."
"' 'He was not there to be tempted by Lucifer ,
he was kept back "in the lap of the gods"
"(see above).
In the twelfth year of' His life the
"viduality of Zarathustra was united with
the Ego of the Solo monic Jesus-Child
descent from Abraham can be traced
three times fourteen generations.
The prototype of man, made by the
tive Word of the World, which was
Adam in thelapof the gods, combined
the bearer of supreme wisdom in the
:corPC)re:l1 shell of the Nathan Jesus in order
" offer the three sheaths, after their
: permeation with the life of the Zarathustra-
, to Christ in John's baptism.
With the Mystery of Golgotha is bound
up a big event in the development of the
• human form. In *Cycle XIX. Rudolf Steiner
'describes in detail the prototype of' the
'physical human body, and calls it "the
. phantom." Through' Lucifer's and Ahri-
* ,Cycle ," From Jesus to Christ," see. advt.
41
 ESOTERICISM
ESOTERICISM
man's temptation the astral being of man. eyes the question presented itself:
was suppressed' and thereby the phantom.
man himself grasp the resurrection-
became more and more 0 bscured and pulse in Christ, or will the Mystery Of
hardened. It died away, so that to-day :Golgotha leave the earth, will Christ's
when man dies nothing is left. . sacrifice have been. nlade in vain? Hence
physical body is destroyed by death, leaving'
joyful hope that pervades Pentecost.
no residue behind. With this was bound up . . The certainty of Christ's presence was like
the disappearance of the Ego as a spiritual. ;':3. release to the Disciples. At Pentecost
being. ", they experienced the birth of the Ego out
To save the Ego of man was the act the Spirit of Christ.
of the Mystery of Golgotha. The Christ,
Thus to the thoughtful mind stand
gave resurrection to the original spirit-form
the spiritual contents of Word,
of man, he brought the powers of resurrection
Ego, as a continuation of the
to the spirit-body, the phantom" shot ip.to ,'pr'ece:dulg ideas of Form, Power and Number.
number." He thereby created the possibility
them stands the little word
of resurrection for the Ego of man in his.,
Harmony," unifying human' powers and
Spirit. In the Mystery of Golgotha the Ego .•
. its climax in the act of the Mystery
of the human race was saved in the \.:U;o,HH''- .. , of Golgotha. Out of its spirit the new Ego
sense as a fourth Hierarchy through the
'·of man is born which in its 'next step forms
rebirth of the Phantom. Now it resolves
•. the future force of Memory and Imagination.
itself into a taking part of the individual. Form (Physical Body).
hunian Ego in the Cosmic Act. Power (Etheric. Body).
Here is to be found the reason for the Number (Astral Body).
anxiety of the Disciples when they experienced,
Harmonising Ego.
the Ascension. Sorrowfully they watched. Word (Sentient-Soul).
the Phantom disappearing into space. Before Thought (Intelligence-Soul).
42
43
 ESOTERICISM ESOTERICISM

Ego (Consciousness-Soul), Memory. Imagina- ' by his Astral, Etheric, and Physical
tion. .,' body through the temptation of Lucifer~
During the whole of the time of man's IIi this liberated physical body the Christ
controversies on Peritecostal experience," ,Act can operate, His powers of resurrection
though tradition, the Councils, the research' ;c~n seize hold of the Physical body by
.of Scholasticism, and of the Mystics a1l, degrees and can animate the Phantom of
failed, one ritualistic way of mediation had man.
remained open :. the Holy Sacrament. In its Thus, in the sequence of seven spiritual
exoteric meaning the Lord's Supper made, meanings which we created in our soul by
it possible to experie1!-ce the unity of practice of common striving after the
and spirit, to reach the spirit through matter " the image of an ever-growing human-
The resurrection of the body, of the Phan " presents itself to us. Here stand
was retained for the consciousness of :,u.U.u,<;.u. what in the first two lectures seemed

in this image and this ritual.

Rudolf Steiner shows the esoteric pa
leading to the inner spiritual communion"
by which man proceeds. from conscious
thought to meditation. In The Philosophy
of Spiritual A ctivity Rudolf Steiner
dear how experience of the world in ideas
leads to Spiritual Communion with the, walk, to speak, and think.
world. By thus liberating his powers of'
thought from the body by, means of pure
thought, an~ by taking a further step
towards meditation and spiritual things, part
of man's physical body is set free of the sin
44
From beyond the Atlantean catastrophe
" words": Form, Power, Number act
a force creating the Physical, Etheric
and Astral body. This outer form is
to-day by the infant in the first
three years of its life, when he learns to
In the third, fourth and fifth post-
Atlantic Civilisation, Word (Sentient Soul),
Thought (Intelligence Soul), Ego (Conscious-
ness Soul) are still fairitly active in man.
In the middle i~ the harmonising fulfilment
45
 ESOTERICISM
·of the Mystery of Golgotha which brings;.
resurrection of the Spiritual Body to the
human Ego.
Thus in our anthroposophical Circle
the true impulse of Pentecost can be alive
all through the year. We can strive to . ······.·finds himself in the same difficult position
fulfil the task which has been set to·
anthroposophical work for the benefit of
humanity: to point to the redeeming act
Df the Mystery of Golgotha and to the coming." ;truly about Art means to speak about gods·
Df Christ in the Etheric Body in our time ..
46
III.
THE ESOTERIC.·
Stuttgart, 29th October, 1928·
;. He who would speak on Esotericism
the artist who would speak on Art. One
can speak on the Esoteric only in the same
. way as one speaks on Art. But to speak
recall in this connection Rudolf Steiner's
lecture on I< The Nature and Origin of the
," which was read by Frau Marie
at Michaelmas on the occasion of
. opening of the Goetheanum. There he
that to speak on Art is justified only
the speech is itself a work of art. Frau
:~.~~.~ . .~ Steiner . puts this lecture of Rudolf
St~iner's before our sou1s as a powerful
verbal work of art. I wou1d also remind
you of the many introductions of Rudolf
.. Steiner to the essence of Eurythmy; the
form in movement .becomes itself
the living vehicle of the Word.
In the, same way it is possible to speak
about Esotericism only if the words can
47
 ESOTERICISM
find a way to the innermost essence of the
human soul. This way into the innermost
part of man can rightly be termed esoteric.
In Rudolf Steiner's sense esoteric striving-
means transforming the soul itself gradua11y
by practice to see the spiritual; and as this
concerns intimate events in one's experience,.
one tries a11 the more not to speak about it~
"Can it be of importance· to speak
from ordinary consciousness on the Esoteric?",
I asked Rudolf Steiner this question many
years ago ; and I could read into the answer
he gave that it might be not only justifi~d.
and good, but even necessary. And he'
added in this connection that one can speak
from ordinary consciousness on any subject,
if one has studied the contents deeply
beforehand, so that one can speak from real
experience. But a11 the same one can easily"
understand that one keeps silent for years
and even tens of years.
Two facts induce me to give this address ..
The first· is that the Goetheanum has been.
dedicated to its purpose: the·presentation.
of Rudolf Steiner's Mystery Plays. This
purpose is derived from the Mystery-
48
ESOTERICISM
·performances at Munich. The building of
the Goetheanum was origina11y undertaken
for Mystery Plays, and everything else has
.,been added later.
But what did Rudolf Steiner himself
wish to attain through the Mystery Dnpnas?
That can be inferred from the addresses
:which he gave in connection with the Munich
performances. There he te11s us that for
.seven years the important thing in the
Society was the giving of the teachings of
. . the Spiritual Worlds, i.e., of Spiritual
'Science, and that its members should
:;incorporate this wisdom as the property of·
soul. But after these first seven years
became necessary to bring together more
the people who had met in the
.i . • later the anthroposophical
. Society, because they desired to be brought
. nearer to the experience of the Spiritual
. World. Rudolf Steiner wished to introduce
into the work an esoteric feature; and he
.,:did that by means of the Mystery Dramas.
. . To those who on the strength of many
years' stuQ-y were in a position to take up
the Esotericism he presented it through the
49 D
 ESOTERICISM
art of his Dramas. Rudolf Steiner displayed
in them pictures of psychical and spiritual
events just as they stand before the eyes of.
the spiritual investigator. The spectators
are expected to take a much greater part
than is usual at Dramatic. performances : .'
in a certain sense the audience belong to
the total events. It is important to break·
down the barriers between the events on
the stage and the audience, for it is just in
this mutual inter-dependence that the
Esoteric lies .. It is like the character of
Johannes Thomasius, who in the first . . .
Mystery Drama is first of all present at the
psychical events as spectator, though outside
the real stage scene, but afterwards, in the
seventh scene, steps into the frame of events
and becomes himself apIa yer. So it is also.
for the spectator; he becomes a player.
The second thing is this, that there is
a fellowship among members through the
opening of the Goetheanum, a common·
striving of hearts, in. which the true spiritual.·
meaning of Anthroposophy lives. And this
is something which corresponds with what
Rudolf Steiner wanted to implant at the
50
ESOTE;RICISM
Chris.tmas Celebration :. he wanted an esoteric
atmosphere to pervade the -society. Those
'. Rudolf· Steiner's words at Christmas
1923.' "
.' .. After Rudolf Steiner had left us in the
•.•. body, the gifts of the spirit which were
()ffered us by him in such overflowing measure
·could not continue. It must now be that
a community of human beings takes over
results of his research into the spiritual
them in trust in such a way that the;
alive .in the community. People
•must come together in anthroposophical
work, in a union of such a sort that Anthro-
. yosophy comes into its own. This union of
.hearts waS alive in the thousands of people
ho swarmed up in to the building; these
hearts were united by the true Esotericism
'. as it welled up out of love of Anthroposophy.
In this community of life also everything
was to find a fruitful reception which the
individual had worked out .for himself
,everything which he had won of capabilit;
and experience,. even experience of an
·esoteric kind. . .
51

ESOTERICISM
It is impossible to define the essence,'
of the Esoteric in a few words. I want to.
try to get a few aspects of the position of:
present-day Esotericism.
Rudolf Steiner often declared that there
was always something esoterlc in the dl1tet'ent
epochs, but that something else wa$ always
described as Esotericism. Nevertheless, in.;
all ages Esotericism included an attitude of
soul which lay outside the ordinary capaci
for living and knowledge of that age, a type
of soul which had to be won and 'which a
man had to take pains to develop.
Here I would like to point to the tran-.:
sitions from the Third Civilisation to the.
Fourth, and from this to the Fifth Epoch . '
The impulse of the Third Epoch is just'
appearing again in our time, and therefore
there is very great reason for us to occupy',.
ourselves with it.
From Rudolf, Steiner's Occult
we know how the cosmic evolutionary events
of a former period become the way of
initiation of a later.
In this sense we can look upon the old
Indian Mysteries as the repetition of the
52
."
ESOTERICISM
. Saturn-Evolution in the Polarian Epoch,
and the Persian way of initiation as the old
;Sun-Evolution which had repeated itself in
Hyperborean Period. Then we stand in
. the third Post-Atlantic Civilisation, the
Egyptian-Chaldean Epoch, whkh covers also
'.
'. the story of the Hebrew Race. The ancient
-cult reappears again in the form it
had taken on through the Lemurian Age.
I . ancient Lemuria man lived still in magical
.' union with the elements of the earth; to a
extent he could influence and control
fotces of nature. We find this magic
.power of the ancient time changed but
surviving in the Third Civilisation; in its
Mystery-centres; the Esotericism to be found
. ' them must undoubtedly be described as
.';magical. What remained as a mark of
tion from that period could be set
•. • up only under the influence of a magical
. Esotericism, only a few chosen ones, who
.. :were trained up to it by incredibly hard and
difficult tests had access to it. Selected
'. .often as young children they had to be
prepared ,to experience the, Mystic Death
through many years, by psychical and
53
 ESOTERICISM
spiritual training which affected even the
organic force-relationships -of their bodies
To this end the unconditional submission:
of the pupil to the teacher was a necessity,
who by manipulation of spiritual forces'
released their higher membersfronl the.
physical body and brought them back again~,;
The initiation could be attained only through
the magical co-opetationof the Hierophant,
and by means of magical forces and powerful;
suggestion the peoples of the Mystery- . ,
Centres were led on to an advanc~ in
civilisation.
The Mystery-Centres themselves were .
protected bi magic means against the intru.;.i'
sion 'of the unauthorised. Whoever pushed"
in without authority, whoever even did not
give proof, was smitten dead. '. References to
this protection of the holy places are found,
even in the Old Testament; .no one but,'
the High Priest may enter the Holy of Holies; ,
every uninitiated person Who went near it·
suffered death. I know of course that there
are materialistic explanations for this even
to the smallest details ; but they show that····'·.
those who give them or believe them under- . . .
54
ESOTERICISM
know nothing of' the things
.. '.' Then followed' the Gre~k Period, in
'" hich the Mystery-Cult was pervaded 'by a
partichlarly·· lively memory of Atlantis. It
' . had a. Secret Esotericism" which acted
It
longer indir~ct1y on what concerned the
-corporeal, but directly on the psychic
. in the awakening consciousness.
... encouraged enthusiasm, the forces of
, « the being filled with God," and
through Art spirit-creating forces
human life.
In proportion as the power· of protecting
Mysteries through Magic was lost, the
secrecy of Esotericism was introduced, and
attempt to achieve it' through oaths
threats. He who betrayed the Mysteries
vvas pursued and punished with death. We.'
",have still at present traces of the secret
.• ' Esotericismin various secret societies ; they
.still keep up in fornls and rituals, which they
. Jake great care to keep secret, the survivals
Of:"ancient times. And here also betrayal
55
 ESOT.EinCISM
But to-day we have to deal with quite"
different impulses. We are past the age of
magical activity,and the secret Esotericism,
for the Mystery was conducted in the light
of pUblicity. The Mystery of Golgotha
brought about the change, for Christ'
consciously broke through the walls. of
ancient activity-and then with His Death
qnd Resurrection "fulfilled ,i the mystery
wisdom of all ages, and indeed, " in the face
of all people." The wise men of that time
recognised it, too, and for that reason -He
was accused of betraying the Mysteries.
In the New Testament it is s.aid of Christ
" For He has made signs before the people" ;
and they sought how "they Inight find"
something against Him."
Rudolf Steiner in his book Christiam:ty
as Mystical Fact, and in many. )ectures,
shows just this basic difference between the
act of Christ and all previous Dedications.
The Mystery of Golgotha is meant for the ,,'
whole world, it is a cosmic experience; in
it we have the liberation of the mystery-life.
Since the Mystery of Golgotha we have to
recognise Esotericism as free, that is the
56
ESOTERICISM
.•.• important thing. Rudolf Steiner laid hold
oLthis fact' and during the second period
, "of, his work in the Anthroposophical Society
" 'led us with the Gospels ever deeper into
the Mystery of Golgotha. By communicating
,ito us the spiritual-scientific results of his
: research into the cosmic act of Jesus, Christ,
he opened to us also a new understanding
of the Biblical presentation; genuine awe
anew 'in the soul with such a glimpse
the sacred documents. Each single
of the Bible, placed in such a conjunc-
regained its holy world-embracing truth,
single word was vivified in its esoteric
Rudolf Steiner wanted to convey to, the
pIe who are gathered together in the
,-Anthroposophical Society an Esotericism
'that corresponds with the spjritual ,basis of
".'our Fifth Period of Civilisation. He wanted
, show them the way to a Christian esoteric
" development, by using his' understanding
old occult tradition to win the further
of the transcendental methods
,,'of research 'which correspond with the con-
'temporary age of the Consciousne~s Soul.
57
 ESOTERICISM
I should like to amplify this a little with·
words which he hiinself used. Rudolf Steiner·
once said: " People don't realise that eacK
of my Lectures, even the public ones, are,
ftill of Esotericism.But one must be able
to receive and understand .the Lectures
properly." He said this after it had become,
impossible during the years of war to stt1dy
Esotericism in the same manner as before,
and members came to him with the request
to take it up again .. Rudolf Steiner wanted
in this saying to define what he wished to
be understood to-day by "the Esoteric:",
Another time he said: " I want to draw your
attention to an esoteric book, which; though
it lies in front of everybody's eyes, is under7"
stood as such by nobodY. namely Fichte's
'·'Lore of Science." In the same sense
Rudolf Steiner described every logarithm
table as esoteric, i.e., an understanding of it
,that he brought it before all the Members
requires that a man masters through learning ,.
the scientific premises, and must have the
:wait:d a little longer he beg:n to gIve
good will to work out the necessary
preliminaries. It is our duty, to take· such
words seriously to heart.
58
ESOTERICISM
But how did Rudolf Steiner cultivate'
. Esotericismin our Society?
. ' Whoever has accompanied his progress
S1nce the turn of the century might have
had the following experience : .Rudolf Steiner
,perpetually sought the right soil for certain
presentations, and so it could happen that
he communicated-, ... by way of trial-so me-
.• '.' thing f~om his spiritual research to quit~ a
;small CIrcle, sometimes only to three; two,
,a?d even only to one person. At the same
'bme he was making an experiment to see how
'.'".'., far modern consciousness can bear in such
.' things. It was some new research which
(he put, in this way before a few people.
One could ask questions and discuss things.
,But after a time one noticed that he took
: ,. . same . question to a larger circle, e.g.,
to the CIrcle of people who formed an
'. Esoteric Group. ' Then it wotild come about
'. of the Anthroposophical Society' and if one
'Pubhc Lectures. on the same subject.
. You see how Esotericism, 't.e., the
Spiritual which is still out of reach of
59
 ESOTERICISM
ordinary experience, had to be implant~d
step by step in present day consciousness.
The soil had to be ploughed furrow by furrow
so that the seed could be str~wn. But from
the very begin~ing these things were meant.
for all men. Rudolf Steiner penetrated the .
wall which till the end of the Kaliyuga
surrounded the spiritual life of the New Age.
There are to-day still people dedicated to·
different views, "Progressionists" and
"Conservatives." But Rudolf Steinerwant~d
to give. men everything for which they
would show themselves ready. Just· as
Christ Jesus suffered the Mystery of Golgotha
for all men, so here none was to be shut out.
lt is however to be remembered that the
spiritual world also has its Jaws, and does
not allow a man to draw near who has not
the will to prepare himself beforehand. That
no unauthorised person approaches these.
things is guaranteed by the assiduity which
the individual has to exercise, and by the
circumstances and the condition.of his
consciousness. The Mystery protects itself
through itself; to-day it requires no Bonger
a means, either of magic or of sec.'ecy. "
60
ESOTERICISM
Rudolf Steiner revealed the protection
the Mystery in his System of approa'~h
to· Esotericism. This approach is of such a
kind that in the preparation, in that whkh
. Rud()lf Steiner calls the "Studium" of
.Anthroposophy, lies the power to awake 1lli~n
to self-knowledge. The cry" 0 Man knew
thyself," which resounds from the Mysteries,
rings in the soul which is earnestly striving
,'i with the spiritual knowledge of Anthw-
. 'posophy. In exercises of the soul it changes
.... th~ usual Ego-experiences into veritable Se:.f-
consciousness, out of which in a new sense
'grows the responsibility of man: the respoa-
'sibi1i~y of the spirit. In the awakening
: of Spirit-Self the soul finds its home among
:.i spiritual beings: under their eyes it acquires
... "a new moral attitude. Just as "ancielt
. ····.knowledge " required the protection of magic
or secrecy, so' the new knowledge stands
grounded on the true self-knowledge of m(~n
and on the spiritual responsibility th lt
blossoms out of it. For this reason Rud< Ilf
\ Steiner at Christmastide; 1923, broUglt
... everything out into the open. He wanted a
new, Mystery movement whose impulses,
61
 i
i
I:
ESOTERICISM

could lead direct to the Christ-event; free

ESO'l'ERICISM
I
I
jrom
It all people,"This is an unusuall:r t
Esotericism is to-day the only possible one.
Just as magic Esotericismacted on the
physical happenings, as secret Esoteridsm
..,. important event, in history, which show,:;
~hat it was not yet possible in that age to )r
if
maintain the freedom of Esotericism. And
awoke new powers of experience for the soul
,from . it resulted a Postponement of the
through Art, so. free Esotericism turns to
. uprising of spiritual consciousness in th~
the spirit of man.
,fifthPost-Atlantic epoch. Whatever eulturE
Now I want once more to look backou
'lives in our time through religious tradition
hist~rical events, so that we maY learn to
all based on the forms of. the magical
understand the separate details.
A few centilries after the Mystery of ..... . of the third Civilisation, and
'. ,,1-"'no.,. the Priesthood denies to the Lay-
Golgotha we find an attempt on the part of
.men arises from the impulses of the fourth. .
the Church to set up again the ancient
Most of the battles which the Christian
power of esoteric functions. In the first
. ·'Church ' had .to fight were round these
Christian time we see the facts brought ab()ut
by the mystery of Golgotha standing in'a , . What a terrific struggle arose
t the Lord's Supper, about the question
certain way before "the eyes of all." But
, the Chalice was to be handed also
then through the Priesthood of the Catholic
·.·' .... the layman, or if it was to be given to
Church. the Act of Christ was appropriated
the Priesthood alone !The people of that
to itself; the Mediatorship of the priests.
. . felt something of the direct activity of
was founded. The Church created a
9hrist; these questions harassed their souls
worship and reserved for her Priesthood the
spiritual-active participation in the. practice
to the· depths. The battles were so earnest
··.·.·because men saw part after part of their
of initiation. With the help of the methods
vividpartidpation taken back into
and. melilllS of the third Civilisation. the free ·:"secret:" ,. On the other hand there was
Mysteries of Christ were in this way withheld
·.~mpla~ted in their souls What had survived
62
63

ESOTERICISM
in the way of artistic form from the impulses .
of the fourth epoch. '. . ....
The meaning of Christianity is, accor~mg
t the traditional religious view, contamed
ino the Sacraments. The wor"d " Sacramen', t ,~
is found for the first time in the Vulga~e:;s
a translation of the Greek "Mystenon/'
Elsewhere "Secret" took the place of. the,
word "Mysterium." The Sacraments have
really been substituted for what t~e
Mysteries were in the earlier times; and m '.,
the Sacraments lay the Esotericism of t~e "
newer time. Esotericism was locked up in
the Sacraments by the Priests. The problem
is to release the Esoteric content, an~ to
smpe
1 1't anew for our present-day consclou. s~ "
ness. Sanctification through the Sacraments"
must be made directly available to each
individual human-being. . The transition was made by John's
The Sacraments of the, Cathohc Church .•.•
are as is known, seven in number.. I should '.'
lik~ to arrange them for the sake of· clearness
in a somewhat different order from the .. '
one: Baptism, Confirmation, Marna~e; ',"
Extreme-Unction; then Penance, Commull1otl, <:"
and Ordination. I have grouped them thus.
64
. 'Ii
I
"1
:,1
ESOTERICISM
that one can realise that they are four
and three. The first fotlr concern the life
of man, and accompany him from birth to
,death. The last three refer to the inner
,life and concern inner changes.
Let us now look more closely at the
jirst four. The first is Baptism. It was
in origin a part of the third Civilisation,
. something in the nature of a' magic act;
. was first an Adult-Baptism, and we find
, so in the case of John the Baptist. In
pre,-Christian Epoch the act of Baptism
meant to bring the person who under-
it into' renewed relationship with the
of the Father.. After the Mystery of
'-'V.L«CVL•.LLa.. the Adult is meant through Baptism
be taken into the Fellowship of the Holy
ptism of Christ, As John baptised Jesus
the Heavens were opened unto him, and
saw the Spirit of God descending like a .
" and lighting upon. him: and 10, a Voice
. heaven, saying, (This is my beloved
.in whom I reveal Myself.' "
, At a later period the baptism of infants
introduced by the Church, and with it
65
E
 ESOTERICISM
the meaning. of Baptism was changed. It
changed in so ·far as Infant-Baptism was.-
performed, not in the Name of the Holy
Ghost, as was the case in Adult-Baptism,
but in the name of Jesus Christ. With this
goes also the fact that Baptism was reserved
to' Priests. By extending Baptism to infants,
they were justified in baptising in the Name
.' of Christ, for infants were supposed to be.
received in Baptisim on the earth on which.'.
Christ had dwelt. The sma1l child was to
be taken on earth into the 'Fellowship of
Christ, whereas Baptism in the Name of the
Holy Ghost means that the person himself"
has something to say and to do in the matter.,:"
'If we look at these ,events from ali;l: '::;'''''-V.UU.LJ, how death here connotes birth
anthroposophical point of view , we· shall),
be able to perceive that there are two things"
concerning Baptism which come into question.
On one side we must note the manner in,
which the child is received into human life ;'
and on the other, how man through birth,
emerges from the Spiritual world. If we
look upon pre-natal existence as life in the
spiritual home of the soul, we say: " OU~.J
God' we are born" out of the Father-Splnt. ,,·'''h....,i-l- t~en we may say "Unless ve become
66
ESOTERICISM
]jut if we speak from the point of view of the
earth, in the Christian sense, we want to
. receive on earth the being who is born of the
Father, in the Name of Christ.
'. Thus we find anthroposophically a
rather different attitude to Baptism from that
which is .to-day current in the Church' and
this may become, ·for us, an experien~e of
significance,
If . we look now at the Sacrament of
,{·J:~xt:relm Unction, we find the reve~se
'happening .. Here also we must consider
has happened froin two aspects. We
regard death from the point of view of
man who is about to leave the earth',
.
the beyond, into the Spiritual World.
. we approach the threshold of death
'Y'ith the words, "Father, into thy hands I
commend my spirit." When one leaves the
one gives up the' spirit in the name 6f
Father.' One shoUld really consider
"·"·H.V1-."o.,.,.,o Unction as' being given on the
-principle. If we look, in the moment
death, on the act of being born in the
67
 ESOTERICISM
as little children, ye can in no wise enter into
the Kingdom of Heaven."
This other view we must, from the
position of Anthroposophy, add to the,"
Church's interpretation of Extreme Unction,
and express as the spiritual birth in death;
"In Christo Morimur:" Against. the'
Church's interpretation of 'Baptism and
Extreme Unction let us set, from the Anthro~
posophical point of view, the two Rosicrucian'
definitions: Birth as "Ex Deo nascimur,"
"Out of God we are born," and .Death in,
the sense of the "In. ClIristo Morimur/",;"
" In Christ· we die," Only in this way
we reveal the mysteries which lie in the
Sacraments, of Baptism and Extreme'
Unction.
Let us take the two intermediate steps, ..
Confirmation and Marriage. Confirmation'
can be traced to the Blessing through the :';
laying-on of hands of the. Apostles.
Confirmation the Church 'performs a, rit~
for the adolescent child by means of the:
laying-on of the Priest's hands! whereby the,
Holy Ghost is to enter the individual being.
The religious feeling of YOung people is to"-day
68
ESOTERICISM
<iirected on to quite specific religious doctrines
and· d()gmas. Originally Confirniation was
meant to sanctify the inner creative energies
. . of the young, and to point to the acf of
Christ's Sacrifice, but the Church soon
tervened with one-sided interests of its own.
As opposed to this, from his knowledge
human nature, Rudolf Steiner brought
. into. relationship with the
of the young child. If education
really enter into those creative powers
stir in a child, which are given their
before birth, then it can address
his religious side as such, so that
child carries with him the Spiritual into
awakening consciousness. That points
a true sanctification of each individuality.
• the point, qf view of Anthroposophy
. shall have to add to Confirmation what
.' Steiner has given Pedagogy in free
unimpeded . Sunday Scripture lessons,
to t.qeage of children. It is not .a
. society; the teachers carry out,
Rudolf Steiner's direction, an education
the soul. . This free, unfettered religious
was begun at the request of
69
 ESOTERICISM
children and parents; of children who lo'uged . .
for something religious, and of parents, who':
as Anthroposophists begged Rudolf Steiner··
to give religious instruction to .their children; .
In this way this religious instruction came
about like a branGh of the Anthtoposophical
Society in the *Waldorf School at Stuttgart.
We can see how it proceeds, not from
religious act, but rather that it hangs together .
with a growing consciousness of what is·
Anthroposophical.
Let us look at the Sacrament of Marriage.
The Church view of it takes its stand on the
words of St. Paul in the Epistle to the'"
Ephesians v., "Wives· submit yourselves;:
unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord.
For the husband is the head of the wife,
even as Christ is the head of the Church:.·
and he is the Saviour·of the body. Therefore,';
as the Church is subject unto Christ, so let;
the wiyes be to their own husbands in every-:
thing. Husbands love your wives, even. as'
Christ also loved the Church, and gave.
Himself for it."
* The Waldorf School for children, founded by Rudolf·':
Steiner, has been a great success; and the method has drawn the:
attention of educationists throughout the· world.·
70.
ESOTERICISM
.. . One can feel how St. Paul with thesr~
; words clothes the protot""'pe of a
.Ch .. ' . . .Y
11.
rea T
. r~stlan .ull1~n. A social life together, whicjl
.carnes. wlth It a freedom which b e1ongs '·t()
er ery
r . belllg through Christ, cannot h~
proscnbed ~ny further by means of externa l
, a~d s~ St. Paul stamps the secret 0:
a ull1~n 1n pictures which at that timf:
. still considered sacred. Marriage i~;
~sed . as ..an" example of the much wide]'
. s~?Jectton, within the Christian com.
,. ~Ull1ty. In this period of his life man seek~
.>hls relationship to other men, and was i
those d~ys .really taken, through marriag:
. .. . soclal hfe as it was formed through the
,feehngs . of men .among themselves. Fo!
. every step .into this life St. Paul points men
·to the relatlonshipof Christ to His community:
. Paul says: ~'This is a great Mystery; I
>:speak of Chnst and the community."
'. In the anthroposophicalmeaning, the
. Astral. bod~ carries those powers which place
,man 1U. hls relationship with other men
.' Each individual, from his knowledge of
'. 11~man. nature, suchas Anthroposophy gives
.
111m; :V111 have much to experience and much
71
 ESOTERICISM
to work at in himself, in order to purify the .
Astral body up to such impulses as ca,n make
him the bearer of a union based on the spirit
of mankind.
So we have in the first four Sacraments
studied religious cultural actions which
accompany man in his earthly life to the day .
of death, and which are meant to sanctify
the separate stages of his development. We .
can feel how the real nature of man remains
sealed in the Sacraments. Rudolf Steiner
released, as it were, also this hidden nature,
by discovering to us the separate parts of
. human nature in their development. We
learn to understand how in Baptism the
physical body of the child is to be surrendered'
to the earth-forces. Through Confirmation,
the life-forces, the etheric b.ody are to be
kept in purity. The .Sacrament of Marriage
is concerned with the nature of the astral
body; man forms through it. his relationship
to other men. Extreme·· Unction was to
lead the human Ego to the awakening in
the spirit;
The three last Sacrame~ts of Penance,.
of Communion; and of Ordination, were
72
ESOTERICISM
" ......,.........·.'-u by the Church entire1y for the narrow
of the Pri"ests.
.' Penance was taken in the sense of a
tion ,'ofthe passions. Holy Com-
as a participation of the human
Christ's sacrifice, and Ordination
/:repn~seJl1te~d the highest step of the spiritual
ty of the Priests.
If we go back to origins we find, instead
. the words "Do penanr::e" the esoteric
" Change the disposition." That
man's resolution is called upon to
his inner life. Everything which
to the details of repentance and
to-day still bears clearly the
·';;~"''''I'>''''''''U.L· marks of conversion; self-knowledge
practised as a conversion of the soul.
astral body must be purified from the
point of the ego. The Sacrament of
is in this sense the way to .the
Spirit-Self"· of man.
The striving for inner conversion is the
.....~'-I'> ..." ...............LF. of the esoteric Hfe, and, therefore,
'.' the last three Sacraments especially we
point to the esoteric element. We tOUch
subject which Rudolf Steiner has dealt
73
 ESOTERICISM
with i~ his book How to Acquire Knowledge
of the Higher Worlds. . meated with the power of Christ man is ablE
In the Sacrament of the Last Supper we
have a Sanctification of what can be an
illumination from Spiritual Worlds. When
man as an "awakened one" receives the
power of the Holy Ghost in his Spirit-S~lf. '.'
he.is able to impart it to the dead matenal··
. powers by his spirit. and transmute them to .
living ones. " Lifeaspirit" in Anthroposophy
is experiencing Christ with the forces ,~f ~he ...
etheric body converted by the Ego. Life-,
spirit" is the substance of Christ w~i~h at,
the last Supper he distributed t6theDlsclp~es! •
in the Mysteries of the Bread and Wille.
In Holy Communion man experiences the"
cosmic communion out of the spirit. 1ft ):
Anthroposophy, Holy Communion can . '
longer exist. as a ceremonial religi~us act,:,
but is a summons to the present consclOUSne~? . •. .
of' man, to raise himself to the cosmlC .'
experience in order to receive the gif~ of the ..
Life-Spirit. In the sense of the Phtloso~hY
of Spiritual Activity cosmic, c~mmUtii0n
represents the objective of SCientific
By the power of the Life-spirit it has
74
ESOTERICISM
good sense, 'a magic creative effect. Per·
to accomplish' the 'Transubstantiation. .
In connection with Christmas 1922,
'Rudolf Steiner spoke on the spiritual com-
"munion of mankind. In his last lecture
delivered in the old Goetheanum (31st Dec.,
1922), Rudolf Steiner says: "Thus spiritual
knowledge
-
is rea:1
< \~
communion, the beginning
for man of a cosmic religion adapted to the
present;" .
Here Rudolf Steiner. created a new
religion, which is connected with the old,
.but ill such a manner that individual man can
.:find his way through the, old Mysteries,
by taking up Anthroposophy, and with its
'aid transform his Thought, Feeling and Will
into higher powers of knowledge.
The last' stage of the Sacraments is
.. . Ordination. In the. meaning of the Church
. that is the ceremony by which the Priest
'" receives spiritual maturity for his service. It
is not an outward introduction into a teaching
office, but the witness of spiritual maturity.
It is not surprising that this introduction
the Catholic Church follows from the
75
 ESOTERICISM
Hierarchy, for mediatorship in
goes by grades.
We learn· from Rudolf Steiner the
spiritual reality which underlies Ordination.
In the book Theosophy Rudolf Steiner
writes about it in the Introduction in a
simple way which can easily be read. Here
he differentiates three stages of experience'
of spiritual events; the vision of the Seer
corresponds with the pure sense perception,
and the knowledge-activity of the spiritual'
researcher with the scientific work on the
earth. But to be a "Teacher" for the
spiritual province of existence ,a "spiritual .
.call" is required. The first favour which
can be won by man is the revelation of
Spiritual Beings. One cannot force it, one.
must know how to wait for it.
The second stage is that one becol1:ies
wiser and more initiated. Only then can
the third step come in, that the Spiritual .
World calls in the initiate as a co-operator, .
which is the "spiritual call" and is what
Ordination should mean. It is a will-
expression of Spiritual Beings which lays'
76
. ESOTERICISM
upon him who receives it "a responsibilitr
that passes all measure." ,
.. It is all a question of seeing that in th!
s p1r1tual. call, the Spiritual World speaks to
man. Slllce Rudolf Steiner experienced .thi(~
call, the anthroposophical movement wa~,
'made possible. We all live in Anthro-
phy through the function of this call.
In this way Rudolf Steiner released the
three higher .elements of the human being
Were enclosed in the Church Sacra-
of Penance, Holy Communion and
u.,u"a"j·,u.lL; the "Spirit-Self," the "Life-
" and the" Spirit-Man." He put before
eyes the Mysteries of free Esotericism'
the anthroposophical esoteric experienc~
.' the Sacraments something of the impulse
••.• ?f the Mystery of Golgotha is released,
·.and can be grasped again by the individual
by means of a step by step effort.
. The Esotericism
. of to-day must be free , .
.
use. 1t can only be Christian; and
...... that is bound by ancient means
>18 Luciferic.
. , . The knowledge which Anthroposophy
gIves ()f the rise of civilIsations. is suited to
77
 ESO'l'ERICISM
call up in the t:ight way that which is preserved .
in us as memory of the past. All esotericism
is an inner calling up of human nature through
knowledge of the cosmic evolution-processes . .
of the past and their future objective. That·
has been established as far as concerns the
different post-Atlantic civilisations. ·The
Mystery-Life of to-day has nothing more
to repeat; as content and impulse of the
new Esoteric, Christ "fulfilled" the Mystery
of Golgotha as a divinely free act before all.
men. Rudolf Steiner is the founder of the
free Esotericism by revealing to our time. the·.
secret of the cosmic origin of the Christ-
. Nature.
But the traces of the old civilisations
deeply penetrate our whole life,· whether in
the religious views and dogmas which.
repudiate Science, or in the power of Science
which reduces Art to pure Aestheticism, or
even in the fading experience of. the religious
person which still at most shows itself at
work in artistic matters.
In old time religion, art and s9ience
represented a Spirit-filled unity. As the
human soul-forces of Will, Feeling, and.
78
ESO'l'ERICISM
:Thought in the age-s~quences· of thE·
Egyptians and the Greeks up to our own
•. age were released from the Mystery-existence,
the three spheres, till then aunity, separated.
. Rudolf Steiner re,..created them into a new
. unity, by freeing Science from Dogma; for
.he pointed out the way for Thought to
•.• liberate itself from its corporeal fetters,
and to raise itself by artistically vivid
. • education to the power of Imagination;
dead Science was revived through the
of Art. But new life grows out of
up Art, for man's sense of feeling is
•.. created the art of speech for spiritual
experience; religious power renews the·
creation in Art. But Religion is freed from
•its paralysis, for knowledge of Spiritual
Worlds, that is Spiritual Science, takes the
place of the, old. beliefs.
Thus Rudolf Steiner changed the
. which was hemmed in by· cults
and secrecy in.to the Science which to-day
.•. is alone possible. In place of the protection
through Magic and Oath, we have free self
consciousness and free power of the moral
i:espons~l?i1ity which know only one vow ~
79
 ESOTERICISM
that of truthfulness to one's own higher ,.
self.
Esotericism consists 6f spiritual facts
which, received by the human consciousness'
work for its recreation. The whole of
Rudolf Steiner's Spiritual Science is Esoteric;
-and the product of meditation..
. Apart from the content of meditatio.n,
there is also, and especially, the form. While'
in the case of the content it is necessary for
man to shape it with his habitual mental
faculties, the form of meditation depends
·on the soul, completely at rest, opening '.,
itself to its power of creating super-sensual,.
spiritual organs. In this event, of thesom,
strengthening itself, Esotericismstill. has:
to-'day a magic element, but in its right '.
place. Rudolf Steiner. always, in. every
meditation which he gave, started. from,
:general human values; for instance, from
the sun's light flooding the earth or from'
the warmth quivering in the air.' He sought·
to lead man through the content of
.Meditation out of himself into the Cosmos,'
The Cosmic past produces spirituality in
'soul at rest in it, and produces in man's"
80
ESOTERICISM
thought wiSdom, in feeling love, and 1:1
,will morality. The Cosmic past unfold:;
to the earth-bound soul in ordinar: T
consciousness as Destiny. In the meditativ/!
·'soul man, led by Michael, experiences Chris1;
. •. . the Cosmos, experiences how Christ,
. striding through the ranks of the HierarchieE
the originally divine substance into
. a human body and there revealed it; His
th enabled man to travel back from
Cosmos to his Self, and lends the Ego
power to maintain itself in the truth
the saying: tt Not I, but Christ in me."
Every meditation and even every real
involves a double journey; a
----------0 out into the Cosmos in the light
idea-carried power of Michael up .to
, and a return to the Ego, through the "
of Christ; Rudolf Steiner has built
. free Esotericism on man's insight into
. We all see how hard it is to attain
insight froni the difficulties we have
our Teacher 'left us. He laid a test
. mankind; we must learn to become
'of it~· Freedom is not something
man has or has not, but something
81
F
 ESOTERICISM
which has to be won by way of inner
development. '. . . .
'the way to this inner unfoldlllg is s~l~wn
in The Philosophy of Spiritual Act~v~ty;
it is an esoteric book through and throug~.
In it he leads the human spirit to Cosmic
Communion. People do not notice that in
the Philosophy ot Spiritual Activit~ ?race .
is dealt with in ati extremely llltlmate
sense, for they forget that man derives ~1l
knowledge out of that which comes to hun.
intuitively from above, from Grace. But·
the most important thing for our . ".
efforts is that we take our attitude of soul
from 'the Philosophy ot Spiritual Activity.
So I wanted ,to make an attempt to
break the spell which lies on the :w~rd
"Esotericism," to break with everything"
which to-day still has influence in the anthro..;·
, posophical movement· from the cU!ilJtoms'
the 'theosophical Society. One cannot . . .•
Esotericism on anyone, nor can one mak: a.'.
profession of it. In the Anthroposophlcal
Society can only free insight and ~ree'
fellowship be sought. It should be .posSlble.
in the Society that in its fellowship there
82
ESOTERICISM
.a "plus," over and above what
the individual can contribute. All Esoteric
effort of an individual is Luciferic ; one can
only complete it if one brings its fruits into
~,so.cial fellowship, so that this fellowship'
'. is Witness for the message of the shepherds
,which is to last for all time: To-day and here
:<our Saviour is born! That is the esoteric
.·.u~".au..LJ.·J.~ of Anthroposophy. It depends on
fellowship whether it can carry this
,:~",'-";:'al;!:C; . through. One can speak only of .
anthroposophical work where one can hope
to find entrance to the heart. .
. It was just that which the Sacrament
surrounded with the cloak of secrecy. What
know cannot be abused; in universal
. . lies the protection. I felt. 0 bliged
say all this in the Society at the moment
this struggle is put before us in the
..rd-"' ...·" Plays in the new Goetheanum.
Mystery Dramas lie open to all beholders,
only those souls which contain in them-
ves esoteric impulses can break down the
so that the figures live among
in spiritual reality. We are· summoned
take a part in· the Drama. In the
83
 ESOTERICISM·
Goetheanum, where the Spiritual
nurtured, where the Mystery Plays. appear ..
before our eyes, spiritual life and the Impulse .
to freedom will best be able to show them- .•.
selves. All mankind should be able to enter .'
the doors of the Goetheanum. and come to.
these plays! 'the free Esoter~c of 0.ur day
- must function in the spiritual It.self ; It m~st '. ,
be a science, a spiritual SCIence, whIch
t ins in itself the artistic eletnent, aJ1.d.
con a . . . h . of
leads thereligious-mmded ·to t e power
experience.
84
...
IV,
THE LANGUAGE OF KNOWLEDGE.
Dornach, 28th Dec., 1928.
In . the primal beginning of human
development, the soul of man had its being
.and lay in the divine lap of the world. The
image of man sprat;lg out of the power of
the Word. Ceaselessly Rudolf Steiner
'pictured for us in cosmic images the creative
• adyance of the. Logos through world-reons
·'.up to the point where earth history begins.
. The first earthly periods reflect in a changed
•form the previous events of past evolution,
and Rudolf Steiner s1;lowed again and again
.• how the first historical eras of human history
. . . on earth contain consequences of cosmic
.past. The Lemurian could still be connected
the power of the Word in direct weight
. and authority, and could make the life-
element of fire subject to his will. The
Atlantean.could hear the World-:-word through
·the power of the Planet-mysteries. Echoing
still from' this experience the Sun-word,
which revealed itself in the mysteries of the
85

ESOTERICISM
first post-Atlantean civilisations"
magic power, till, spreading out
elemental utterances of the Greek pythian
goddess, it lost the effectiveness which it
had brought out of the past. A lament
for the lost Word now filled men's souls,
and the deepest longing for it harassed the '
times in which the central event of the whole
process of human development became a,
legend. The World-Word advanced to
incarnation in an earthly body. After the'
Mystery of Golgotha we must look in Earth-
forces, for what could in bId times be found';
only in Cosmic experience.
There was a time when the Word had
to remain a secret of the Mysteries, and
the tradition of this secrecy lasts itlto OUf
time. But for this reason all ,the dangers
of subjective experience were woven ,into
it. To-day one may not speak of the" Lost
Word" ; to-day the power of the Word has
become knowledge: Rudolf Steiner made,
in Anthroposophy, "the Word" ' ipto
knowledge-language, and this for all men.
Rudolf Steiner often brought before our
eyes the transition from the old world-age
86
i, ,
ESOTERICISM
... to the new ; again and again he pictured the
advance from the third to the fourth and into
1;1
our fifth post-Atlantean civilisation, so that :]1 1
'j
we can recognise the old Egyptian and the ill.:1
old Greek in our natures to-day. We must ".Ii
make a· great point of following thoughtfully Ai
+
'ji:
the ways which enabled Rudolf Steiner to
'Ii
.1
..re-discover the lost Word. They will lead
us to. the impulses which can make our
present work give' direction for the future.
, A 'letter of Rudolf Steitler'sto Friedrich
Eckstein, which was published in The
Goetheanum of 23rd December, 1928, is
particularly illuminating. And if we ask,
who is Friedrich Eckstein, we find him ill
.. RUclolf Steiner's book The Story of my Life;
,po 281 et seq., when Rudolf Steiner was faced,
'with the most weighty decision. We reac.
the following :--
. " In imparting to the public that whicll
'.. Anthroposophy ~ contains as knowledge 0::
:.the spiritual world, decisions are necessarv
"... which are not altogether easy. The charact~~
," of these decisions q:m best be understood i E
one glances at a single historical fact.
87
 ESO'fERICISM
" In accordance with the quite differently
constituted temper of mind of. an earlier .
humanity, there has always been a knowledge
of the spiritual world up to the beginning
of the modern age, approximately until
the fourteenth century. This knowledge;
however, was quite different from Anthro-
posophy, which is adapted to the conditions
of cognition characterising the present day.
" After the period mentioned, humanity
could at first bring forth no knowledge of
the spiritual world. .Men could only confirm. '
the 'ancient knowledge,' which the mind.'
had beheld in the form of pictures, and which •.
was also available later only in symbolic-'
picture form. . . .
" This' ancient-knowledge' was practlsed
in remote times only within the · mysteries.'"
It was imparted to those who had first been
made ripe for it, the 'initiates.' It was not
to reach the public because there the tendency
was too strong to use it in an unworthy
manner. This practice has been maintained '
only by those later personalities who received
the lore of the • ancient knowledge' and
continued to foster it. They did this in ."
88
ESO'fERICISM
.' . most restricted circles with men whom
they had' previously prepared.
"And thus it has continued even to
.thepresent time.
'.' ." '. '. '.' "Of the persons maintaining such a
'1?osition, in relation to .. spiritual knowledge
: whom I have' encountered, I may select one
was active within the Viennese circle
'of Frau Lang to which I have referred but
whom I also met in other circles with which
was. associated in Vienna. This. was
E~kstein, the 'distinguished expert
.l.LU.J.J.LU
• ancient knowledge.' While I was
with Friedrich Eckstein he had.
written much,but what he did write
. filled with the spirit. No one, however,.
.:.
se::nse:.C1 •fron: his essays the intimate expert
the anClent knowledge.' This was active
the background of his spiritual work.
after life had removed me from this
also, I' read in a collection of his
a very significant paper on the
Brothers.
. •• Friedrich .Eck;stein represented the.
earnest . conviction' that esoteric spiritual
should not. be publicly propagated
89
 ESOTItRICISM
like ordinary knowledge. He was. not
in this conviction; it was and is that··
almost all experts in the ' ancient wisdom ..
To what extent this conviction of the
dians of' the 'ancient wisdom,' strongly'
enforced as a rule, was broken through in .
Theosophical Society, founded by H. ' .•
Blavatsky-of this I shall have occasion to
speak later~
"Friedrich Eckstein wished that
'initiate in the ancient knowledge,'
should clothe what one treats publicly
the force which comes from this ' . anyone to guard mysteries, for I received
but that one should separate the
strictly from the esoteric, which
remain within the most restricted circles
those who fully understood how to
it.
" If I was to develop a public acti
on behalf of spiritual knowledge, I had.
determine to break with this tradition.
found myself faced by the requirements
the contemporary intellectual life. In
presence of these the preservation of
such as were inevitable in ancient times
an impossibility .. We live in the time
90
ESOTItRICISM
. . '. . p'ublicity wherever any sort of
,,:knowledge appears. The point of view
favouring the preservation of mysteries is
an . anachronism. The sole and only
possibility is that persons should be taught
. knowledge by stages, and that no
should be admitted to a stage at which
, . : higher portions of this knowledge are to
,be imparted until he knows the lower. This,
·.p.U.lCCIll.. corresponds with the practice in lower
higher s.c11ools· even of an ordinary sort.
H Moreover, I was uuder no obligation
.from the < ancient wisdom' ; what
possess of spiritual knowledge is entirely
, result of my own researches. When any
has come to me, only then I set
it whatever of the' ancient knowledge'
already been made public from any side,
order to point out the harmony in mood, -
at the same time, the advance which is
ble to contemporary research.
~'So, after a certain point of time. it
. '
qUlte clear to me that in coming before
public with spiritual knowledge I shoUld
be doing the right thing."
91
 ESOTERICISM
At the beginning of Chapter XXX., p.
284, Dr. Steiner says :-. . :
" The decision to give publicexpresslOn
to the esoteric from my own inner experience
impelled me to write for the Magazine for
28th August, 1899, on the occasion of the'
one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of'
Goethe's birth, an article on Goethe's fairy
tale of The Green' Sna!?e and the Beautiful.
Lily. under the title 'Goethe's Geheime
Offe~barung' ; , Goethe's Secret Revelation.'"
So we learn how Rudolf Steiner had to
struggle to find the ways he wanted to go.:.
He speaks of " decisions" which" had to . .
taken," of the" will" .which " drove."
future of humanity depends on the
act of one man. Here is Drama in its
form, emb,racing the fates of men and
Rudolf Steiner had to decide whether
break with the" tradition of long' ages.
spoke to us of two currents in Occultism.· '.
that of the Right and of the Left.
described himself as belonging to the Left;
for to him secrecy was to-day
" anachronisnl."
92
ESOTERICISM
That meant the separation of Rudolf
• Steiner from Friedrich Eckstein.
Rudolf Steiner's struggle with his
decisions took place in a solitude of which
the "Life" repeatedly and in the plainest
.,.lU.a,UJl.lC:.l bears witness. He found the answer
to his search for the " Lost Word" in his
Knowledge of human nature. His decision
to give again the Word to be takenup by all
men led to the " language of knowledge " -
Anthroposophical way of knowledge
ted in· spiritual
.
activity. .
Here we find, as Rudolf Steiner thinks
. and decides on his path, that Speech
Word have a destiny as well as man.
wing this path in the light of his
s'piritual science, I wish to lead you to..;day
.. the three last periods in the formation
,human consciousness. Let me put it
<to you in an illustration.
There are transitions from the old stages
. ,. knowledge to present,;.day experience.
. Riddles of· Philosophy Rudolf Stdner
. . traces the development of human soul-
experience from antiquity to the present,
93

ESOTERIC-ISM
'religious' e~perience. It sought a connection
and he does itin such a way that his expo-
sition includes at the same time the meaning
of everything philosophical. Following the.
path of our soul's changes we find in ourselves
the traces . of this path as spiritual facts,.
Rudolf Steiner wanted to prove that in' the
. course of evolution, as he saw it from old
times.' to now, the soul would reach self-
consciousness and become master of .itself.
In the " Riddles of Philosophy" we can.
discern three great epochs.
In the beginning, so it is pictured, the
intuition of the spiritual was placed in the'
world as a gift,' in which man shared.····•.·
Thought-life was also intuition. When men,
regarded the things of the world with external
observation, they took in also at the same
time the concept of them. Only gradually
did thought make its appearance in an inner'.
perception, and with it the soul beg3:n to
separate itself from the world. Full of deep
longing the Greek Jelt the duality of sout
and world.
In the next epoch the human soul strove,
for its self-assertion with the questions of
94,
ESOTERIC-ISM
of. the mental contents with the impulses,
.' such as had been bwught into being by the
: Christ-Event. Thought's capacity to observe
:, disappeared more and more. The ideas and
: ~onceptions had to be produced much more
by inner activity, which allowed the soul to
share the revelation . of the universally
.. And in this struggle for the
life awoke human consciousness.
'. In the transition from the Middle Ages i i
" . the New Age the Ego frees itself from the
in self-conscious experience, as earlier
soul· had freed itself from the world.
. At the third' stage the Ego finds itself ,
a part of the .. spiritual world, struggling
. the forces of nature. The New Age
('t.... "r"' ..." the pro blem of the soul between
and spirit. The soul feels itself
O,C.tJ.l.U.u;LJ;:... between two worlds, yet a part from
Its observation by means ofthesenses
nothing more of the world, it is
ective; its thought is human thought,
longer world-thought. So it stands before
.its own" life as a riddle in nothingness, a
· stranger to the, world both of the body and
Cl 95

ESOTERICISM
of the spirit. It is this proble~ of the
between worlds with which Philosophy
must deal. Philosophy is becoming
trichotomy of human nature: that is the first,,'
'Sound of Rudolf Steiner's "
language." In the book Theosophy
invokes human nature asbody~soul
spirit. He shows the soul's
dependence on the body, but also the
of its spirit in the re-incarnation of individu-;"
ality. The discovery of the threefold
character of human nature gave to'
sciences a new creative incentive.
_ We stand in the turmoil of
times. Rudolf Steiner's life chanced in
transition where the destiny of gods
human tragedy meet. The, strife applies
to the ,individual. The gods suffer
destiny, and men too. But destiny
also the word and conceptions and ideaS.
The loss of the Word, the' sealing
Thought, the death of the Ego are
marks in the destiny of the Lopn~~-the
separation of the soul from the world,
of the ego from the soul, point out to cotlSCllOU~S"
96
ESOTERICISM
ness the path to the three-fold division of
':hu.~an nature based on body, soul and
splnt ..
Aristotle stood at the completion of the
first tra~sition, the separation of the soul
,from the resounding World-Word. He is
:thefouuder of the science of thought, of
; and he created it purely out of the
phenomenology of thought, by which he
'
•. pleted the step from human soul to
., spiritual world. Plato still saw the Real
the spiritual prototypes that hovered
things, and so turned his face away
,• j, na~ure. Aristotle. seized the spiritual
In thlllgS. Ideasvamsh, through Aristotle
the grave of God, into the outer world.
seals up the ancient wisdom through the
o~ thought. In logic, thought senses
Volce of the vVord, in logic the Logos
"Therefore logic demanded absolute
" " and man may not resist it. Its laws
,are the description of thought-phenomena
themselves, of, magic word-force. This
, is complete in itself. Till now
advance has been made on Aristotelian
In its province it is conclusive.
• 97 G
 , ESOTERICISM ESOT:ttRICISM

Another individual is witn:ss of the most.. "He represented, quite in the sense of antiquity,
' 'fi nt fight m the second ,', the thought-life as universally cosmic, of
intense and slgnl ca , ,
th Middle Ages: Thomas Aqumas. which only a drop is revealed in the thought
epoc, h e ~ ,, f d to as the
T' M'ddl Ages are often re erre of single men on earth; in the same way the
r!.:k ~ge:, though in that, timeir:~:alm~~:, ,thought of 'each individual man is the
critical questions of, human sp ' e ' " out flowIng of an absolute power. Averrhoes
, d The religious questlOns wer , saw it as flowing out of universal World-
were ralse . f r whiCh
resse'd wl'th a'n l'nwardness of ee . mg ' ," Thought, out of God the Father, and return-
P rdly realise. It IS a ,question
we can,t0- day ha. " to be or not, to b" e ','
:ing again at, death to Him,
for men of an, mner IT' ht was Bttt Thomas wanted the taking up of
r the human personality,J..houg , f'i
fo d 'th 11 the force 0 ,,' :'the "Word" to be through the power of
schooled and inspire w:' a, ,: Son, He, did not wish to give the lie
the soul fighting for its eXlstence. From E ',.
. 'battles the soul wrested the human go. Averrhoes, ,but to prevail over him and
Inner, . f his time Thomas '. , the ancient thought method which left
As representative 0 '
Aquinas stood at the zenith of the "!Jilt of account the Mystery of Golgotha.
school of thought. He fought ;' verrhoes wanted to find the absoluteness
severest spiritual battle for the 0,Oll·Ull,Ua,~·~'., thought in the Ego which had released
of human individuality after death, ,and from the soul, and to regard the coming
1 d his name for all tlme , the I.,ogos in the sense of antiquity, But
fight has coup e ,
that of his opponent Averrhoes. , •the time had already come when the deeper
In order to appreciate the contro forces of the human soul were no longer
look more closely for in' this direction and so it was
properly we must ,
t at the Averrhoes possible for the absoluteness of thought to
momen '. f become' a force which worked inimically
Averrhoes was a representative 0'.
· . m as it had reached Europema ctJ;<:\,H'1;' the reception of the Son-power.
1lanlS , ' '
98 99

ESOTERICISM
The Averrhoes-phenomenon of ~hought
must be properly understood; we still meet .....
it everywhere to-day, and we must see how . . . .
far it is justified. . . '
R u d0 1f Steiner describes this m the first
A ' 't
part of his Philosophy of Spiritttal ctt~t y.'
He pictures it by leading thought, described ...
in the sense of a phenomenon, to pure,
thou ht. And there we have the Averrhoes:
g.. . 'fi d'
experience Just! e m our , ' .
day The content··.
.,
of a conception is absolute, and mferences .•
from the absolute are irrefutable; they can
have no individuality; as far as ~he contents,
of the conception are concerned 1t makes no
difference if 'A or B or C thinks i:.
For this reason Thomas Aqut nas
to prevail against Aver~hoes and call
deeper powers of expenence than
'. absolute thought. He wanted to absorb.
the power of the soul, ;Vhich. he had won'
by schooling and clarifymg h1S .thought
the uttermost, into the very depths of
heart, so that feeling should. . bec?me
selfless as to be able to practise the.o ". . 1"'1+·'"
of thought. He wanted to carry mto
the power of .the I{ogos which hitherto had,
.100
ESOTERICISM .
obtained only in thought; he founded the
Logic of . Feeling. In innermost soul-
struggles he fought so to refine and clarify
". feeling that it might attain the certainty of
thought. and become knowledge-powet. He
brought the .logical knowledge-power that
had grown out of the ancient thought-
observation to the highest perfection, as we
'. . meet it in .. the most flourishing period of
Scholastic:ism, and then transferred it into
. heart~power, to revive feeling and purify it
. into universal knowledge-power.
As Aristotle had founded the Logic of
so Thomas Aquinas founded the
.Logic of . 'Feeling. With this feeling,
<'permeated by the Logos, he turned to
·.religious revelations, and with his soul glowing
,with the power of Christ, he won in Him
the vindication of human individuality
beyond. death;
That which Thomas had won in untold
, inner conflict with his own soul resulted,ill
. the course of the following centuries, in the
development of German Mysticism as the
, fruits qf the life of feeling. Thus Thomas
/ crefLted, in the Logic of Feeling,
101
 ESOTERICISM
a way to the" "rord" as the power of
Son. . ~n ad vance towards its solution by putting
In modern tim~s however Rudolf . ..
stands as the founder of the. Logic of. WilL:,
He points out a way by which the Wi~ can
be translumined by the' Logos and attalUs to <,
the accuracy and clearness of thought. . . '
the Philosophy of Spiritual Activity he lays
down clearly and strongly the' will a.s a new;
spiritual province. Just as in the ~td4lesol.
Philosophy he fashioned the. h~story of
philosophic evolution from antiqUity up
to-day for the purpose of stimulating
development of our own spiritual
ness so, in his method of ~_r,"''''''''''
in~he Philosophy. of Spiritual
Rudolf Steiner. turns' also to the .
powers of the soul. It is ~n~~nt to
and found.; the spiritual activity of man
a spontaneous act of the human so~l..
took upon himself the task of form.m g ou~,
of the facts of present-day conSClOusness
and a new phenomenology a new
and a new path of knowledge. . .
In the quest for the spiritual act1Vity'
of man he shows the fallacy in which
102
ESOTERICISM
blem had till now been set out, and makes
thus: What h~ppens to Will when one
L.llJ.j.U~::; of its nature?
At ,the end of the first chapter we must
. notice the' 'paiticularly important turn of
sentence, p. 13: "From whatever point
regard the subject, it. becomes more and
clear that the question of the nature of
action presupposes that of the origin
thought." ,This origin of thought is
us in the next chapter, "Why the Desire
., . KtlOwledge is Fundamental," as a part
l1aturaL:forces in man: "This quality of
in us we must seek out (p. 22) I • ••"
in the third chapter, preceding know-
is brought into review. In practising
0n the subject of thought, where
is spontaneously "creature" (object),
.' " creator" (observing subject), you have
origin of thought as something willed.
page 39: " In thinking we have got hold
one bit of the world process which requires
presence if anything i~ to' happen."
This being-present, actively, Rudolf
defines in another connection as the
103
", )' •. " , ". ,.,., I.,
 ESOTERICISM
condition of meditation. In Knowledge of
the Higher Worlds and Its Attainment, he'
describes how in meditation one can put
before one's soul a pictorial and synoptic
thought-connection; how then, letting 'go ..
the separate thoughts, one must remain '.'
quite still in the visual image, in the creation:
of images. When thought stands still, it·
reveals its origin as Will, as creative Will.
The origin of thought is found to be Will.
There Rudolf Steiner puts forward as a.
solution of the natural . ", <.111 WhICh It sleeps like the seed of future hope ..
(Antinomy) the generative power of con
diction as an active soul-impulse: in··
way he founds the Logic of Will.
The first part of the Philosophy
Spiritual Activity is not merely theory of
knowledge, but it is a practical path leadmgto
human nature itself. The second part show~'
how the 'Logic of Will can be practised
each individual, in order that the Will
be raised in its function to the absolu.",_u,-,,,.
of ideas. The Logic of \Vill has to be
by showing how the will can be purified
such a state of spirituality that it draws'
. the moral. bltuition of spiritual worlds.'
104
ESOTERICISM
. unison with moral intuitions man creab~s.
•..•. . . . . . his spiritual activity.
. So there stand before us three great
figures-Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas an d.
. RUdolf Steiner-three landmarks of the
greateSt transition periods in the evolution Df
hU1i1,an soul-life. .
"The battles which have been fought in.
eac~ of these epochs have had an immen se
\~ffect. ri~ht up to our present experience,
Reflecting on the path of Rudolf Steiner :,et
us awa]<:e in ourselves the tnices of these
past batt1~s, because all the stages of past
development must be traversed in the mi nd
'. in;a shortened repetition. For the m)st'
part these traces'remain in us as host Ie,.
. hindering forces, because we do not 'examine
~hem and transform them in a proper w::ty,.
lnto forces that give future strength.'
Rudolf Steiner has shown us by an,
example the transformation and continuation
.o~ forces through consecutive ~ges. In
,h1s ',book Mysticism and Modern ThouJht
"he describes how the attitude of soul" i~,
105
 ESOTERICISM
E~OTERICISM
mysticism grew out of the germs of Thomas
, causes when' he speaks of the acts aUli
Aquinas' Logic of Feeling, but found its real ; sUffering of light.
continuation in that whichledto the methods
" " Knowledge of divine intention kindle 3
of Nature-Study in its beginning. Later
the P?wers of love in the heart of man to
however the impulses were diverted through
work 111 free-will in the sense of a wholes~m:!
that Arabian Aristotelianism, saturated one- advance of man and world.
sidedly with the Averrhoes experience, which
This freeqom to which Rudolf Steiner
had pushed through, to Europe by w~y of
opens the way by taking up the impulses of
Spain. This current ~;ed Natural SCience ,the Mystery of Golgotha was not previous!-T
into Materialism.
to be found on earth. In antiquity th:~
To-day the conscious experietH~e
"secret power of destiny ruled beyond men
Averrhoes phenomenon in the sense of the
• 'and, beyond gods. The unsympatheti~
Philosophy of Spiritual ActivUy is the first
ughter of the gods at the fate of men run :;
step on the road of knowledge; it must
Romer's descriptions, and yet th:!
become a self-understood factor of
are subject ~o the same power of destiny.
consciousness.
arose In the individual struggl:!
Only when we have realised the growth , ,''''f~U..LJ''.':''" fate; but tragedy also stalks throug:'l
out of the pastas a personal experience may,
gods' heaven; it is reflected in Genna'l
we approach the mystery' of spiritual,
in The Twilight of the Gods. Tb'="
activity. In the sense of this mystery
" , Age in Greece arose with the courag =
dearness of ,thought sinks in as far as the
',and strength to" endtlre the might of destiny.
will. The doings of men are then deeds
When the" soul was released' from it~
,which germinate as ideas in the spiritual'
in divine regions, and individual sOu]:'
world , and in the natural' world become . .'e~m~~rHmc:e actually came to pass, the safety
events, caused by' man's free creation.
the Mysteries as a guide gradually
Goethe notices moral effects in natural
ppeared." The "Word" was silent, the
106
107

ESO'l'ERICISM
Greek Oracles were no longer understood.;
Aristotle closed the door to the ancient
knowledge of the gods, to the ancient
"Mythos." He saw the spiritual active in
things themselves, atld turned his face .....
therefore towards the outer world, in ordeJ;'
to fathom the· inevitability of its idea~
carried behaviour and form. His Logic of
Thought is witness that.in man a destiny.
.can become consciousness-power.
This development from destiny to'
consciousness-power showed itself in quite
another way among· the 'Old Testament
peoples. There the all-powerful idea was.·· .
that of the world derived from t h e '
This race was faced by the revelation of the . .
" Word" through the Law. As a parallel
to Aristotle's Logic .in this case stands the
Law; Jehovah gives the Law on Sinai;:
amid thunder and lightning, to Moses i-the
Ten Commandments. The Father makes
terms with the people whom he has
chosen.· Just as Logic does for thought,:
so the Law is to preserve the
with the power of the Father for the' J..LLU."''-'''
will flowing in the blood of a people to vvHUHJ.
108
\
ESO'l'ERICISM
the expectation of the Son had been
...
prop eSled.
. ; h. ' " Here a1so we see later as
lndlv.ldual consciousness appears like a seed
,gr0.wmg out of ~atiortal feeling, e.g., in Job,
... frUltless
n. . .struggling .. 'against the Al mig. h ty
. . IV1~e Will. Let us look at Greece. What
. was m Palestine prophecy and expectation
'. appeared there as longing for release from
destiny.
. 'Through the Mystery of Golgotha the
pro~lem of fate and spiritual activity was
,enhrely changed.· In pre-Christian times fate
,ru~ed. the "world-the Law as Father-
.~nnclple; in the Mystery of Golgotha the
'. Son through Grace released mankind from thE
Law. ~egarded with the consciousness oj
,~lder hmes appears next spiritual activity,
the power of the Son as Grac~, in the senSE
'ofreleasefrbm the Law. In this sense GracE
,~ppeared among the Gnostics who observe<5
. ,the approach of the Son; in this sense J ohI.
,was the first to bear witness :-" And of
, . F~ness have all we ~eceived, and Grac{!
".' Grace. For theI.aw was given by Mose~l
but Grace and Truth came by Jesus Christ."
109

ESOTERICISlY.[
Rudolf Steiner gives the following
definition of Grace: "One defines Grace in
the Christian sense as the capacity of the."
free soul, out of its inner self, to do the good.
Grace and Truth that one recognises in
one's own heart have come through Christ."*
"The capacity of the .free 'soul out of its
inner self to do the good "-that means the
release from the Fall, which- was completed
in thought. So we can follow the genesis
of a conception to its origin in cosmic history.
But through the knowledge of good and eVil.
the impulse of spiritual activity was implanted·
in mankind. The coming.of Grace in Christ'
completed the freedom of man before the gods.
In the Middle Ages the Church began
the unfolding of its power ; th~ idea of Grace ,.•
as a freedop1-impulse became an obstacle to "
it. Therefore the institution of the Church·
cut off the real impulse of Grace by extending .
it to include the destiny-law. Long lasted'·
the fight over the question: Does Grace··
proceed from the Father or theSon ? and the
Church always took car~ to attribute it to ..•.
the Father. It could not· do with release
.. Cycle III., lecture IV.
110
ESO?,ERICISM.
from the Law; Grace was taken over inb
the ~eeping of the Church, which meant the
locklllg up of the impulse of spiritual activity.
In place of Grace through the Son, the Churc~
developed. the conception of original sin, out
of. a destlllY working in thought. pestiny
mlllUS Grace equals original sin.
,w. e find in Augustine the first repn -
. se~tatlvel of. the doctrine of original sin, 8S
th1S ~onceptlOn. wormed itself deep into th e
so~-life of the whole Middle Ages. Inb
.th1S .came. theqa.ttle of the Church agaimt
the!lberatlon of Grace in the sense of esoteric
Chnstendom. .
. Later the idea of Predestination, d
divine preordination of human destiny· in
·after-death ,experi~nce without man being
able to doanythlllg to free himself, w::s
pound ~p. with the idea of original sin. In
·.t~e; doct:llle of Predestination mankind :8
,dlvldedmto one part 'to which Gra re ..8
d..
. r ~llled, and all. the remaining part
Isdoomed to original sin. .
To-day. ma~ carries the· fact of origin:ll
. . only In .h1S . consciousness. But old
pIctures representing the Judgment with He
III
 ESOTERICISM
ESOTERICISM
. .' Since
who the Reforma t'Ion the
Lamb of God in the midst give us a deep , .IC h 'before mostl . 5
question
layed ." . y concerned th.e Churc]
insight into the struggles of that ~time.· P . an lUcreaslUg rt. 1
Science took up A . pa .lU all civilised life.
The Son-power was sealed by the·Aristotelian . . nstotel1an Lo . .
.0 b Jectlve in its ab 1 glC, made 1:
Logic .. In thought which had separated as law to th" so uteness, and applied i-
itself from its cosmic origin, which arose in . e outer ld . -r
created .a metaph sic wor. ' and thereb:
,a world which had become empty of gods, . beyond the b Y ' whIch reached ou·;
we have the rule of original sin. . . A .' . . . 0 served world Th .
'.. nstotle describes as he . at WhlcI t
Thomas Aquinas fought with all his still withil1 h . P ~omenon of thought
. . uman conscIoUs .. . '
being for the originally Christian gift of two concepts f .' . ness, under th(~
cause and
~Clence applied to th . . ' consequence,
• . .' '.' 0
Grace. He was faced with the question:..--,
"How can thought be made Christian? " i.ndependent. obJ' t' e vIsIble world as thE!
o'f cause .. .' ,
and ec lvel y active
ff .' , natural lav.'
'The Father-principle as it held the field in
.thi . .' . e ect. The impU1 f
the Dogmas of his Church had diverted'; .' rd post-Atlantean C' T" se 0 thE:
Grace into the doctrines of original sin and, .. . finds it" ~V1ls.atlon, namely law,
.' . s expressIOn lUn t 1
predestination; but he wanted to have' ,lll the outward f ". a ura sciencE:
, .' . . ". orm naturall , , ' .
preserved the co-operation of individual ,. .. the sense ." . of AntI"tqUI y, law 10' aw. Desttny
"
in Grace. The h~art-forces of man Slll, survlvei'n the th ,gIC, onglllaJ .
be. able to fill themselves with the act . • ~1Uder . the 'concepti oughft of natural SciencE
.. .'. . ons 0 natural nece 't
Christ, who brought " fullness" upon earth,' . ..... lllescapable causalit . T SSl Y:
and with it freedom for . gods ~nd men. '. . nature testify m
.' .
y he modern lawf
ore concernin th' ,
Original sin arose in the individual, its fa ....•. man than .the n t . g e natUrE:
'. " On ...•. a ure of Nature ..
consequences concern all mankind. Grace. .' the other hand th '.
has come to aU men on earth; the individual ''I.)r,eOf,c::t1 t' . e conceptlon of
. .str
Ion 1 changed. It . appeared
must call up in himself the strength to gain, 'ong y in Cal vinisln and ha::
his share of it. 113 H
, 112
 ESO'tERICISM
ESO'tEIHCISM

. u to the extremebf " . . created the new language of knowledre.

become matenal . p (D Roman Boos . " He often set the task of freeing the origi1l al
. dern AmericaUlsm. r. . -ideas· of Aristotelian Philosophy from tIe
mo . 'b dthis in his lectures.)
has desCrl e . .. ether it penetrates abstractness in which they are used to-day.
tt\h' view of hfe, wh. . t a of The ,two basic elements of mode:n
. .L 1 S '. ..
11 provmce -- sand . stra
knowledge are observation and thoug1.t~
as a technlque a d fi s as a philosophY,
human soCle, . ·ty or e ne . , kn wledge, IS , . th. e.
Nature in her completeness reveals hersc~lf
b ndaries of human 0,.. . to, man through his senses of observation.
the oU s iritual activlty. " Observation is "simply something given,"
death of human P , . d'.'c'ted .
f St iner ,s wo rk IS 1!e .,. ..... man is passive towards it ; he does nothing
,. But Rudol e, h·' humanity t() ..
f preserVlng IS . to help, so that one could say-through mat.'s
to the en 0.. d . f human nature
develops out 0 ~ , T senses 'the world is observed. He must
man. H e d consc10usness .~, 0 wait for what appears. Something of the
create . the t h
k of mo ern..
the two tas s reefold division (trich()to1U
.'. 'ty . ThePh'tZo:
!: •)
..
old fate obtains in observation. But new
. ,'t 1 aetlV! ' Rudolf Steiner opens up a province with in
and human. S?1!! ua .vit· seeks to point a . ' the world of the "simple gift," where lUan
sophy at sp'tntual Act~ or ~odern thought-,. must be 'actively "present" if he wishes
way of knowledge ott h s that human • 'to observe anything; this is the thougbt-
, .., . This way s ow. . k
Posslblhtles. . . d 1 pment and sees.• .'. activity of man, the power of logic givl~n
nature IS . capa . bie of ., eve 0" the 0b'Ject·. . ,
. . S ' r defines as. . . him by God. Man forms imag~s,-judgmen1:s,
't· Rudolf teme .. d unfoldlng,
1 .. " the" all-roun .. .' and concepts. In the act of ordina ~y
of all knowledge " The word ,perception he. connects observation altd
, 1 h man nature~
of the ~h~,e u , he idea of developme~t conception with reality. But rtow thoug It
"unfoldmg ta~es \ nature into the psychlc '. itself has. become observation. Observation
of the modernvlew 0 . along' natural-:-, thought has become thought's ovrn
Advancmg , .'
life . of man. ht ,Rudolf Stemer . vity. Observatiortand conception here
. tl'fic lines
selen . of
. thoug ,
114 . 115 Hl
 BSOTERICISM
ESOTERICISM

.' . the Ego, which has to be is revealed, Rudolf Steiner discovers the fr =e
become one, ~,e" 'f 1 and creatively by : mysteries of the Holy Ghost ..
1Ve -In thece1!.tral chapter of his book
comprehended intUl y. hurled backinto
the Will, otherwi~e luan 1S fthinkingabbut Theosophy Rudolf Steiner shows modern
, . ':th1s way 0 thought the way to realising the doctrbe
nothlllgness . . d that divides the
thought leads. to the oor of spirit' ego- . of Re;.incarnation, with its Karma activity,
f the wo~ld " by proceeding from the idea of species to tIe
sense wor1d ro~ thought givlllg up
·t'
willing, res ln g. . In pure '
t' . through the idea of, biography which is applicable alo:le
1 d and percep lon to man; Here he arms theconsciousne~s­
all know e liSe . new knowledge in
n may recelve a " '1 soul with the means of knowledge so that it .
senses, ma ~ the revelation ofSp1rttua ." '.
the form of Gtace " . 1ft snesS is, the green comprehends its nature in the Ego wi:h
. Where thls se es .' . * .. spirit-strengthened thought, In" ':the Leading
Bemgs, 'the bridge over the stream; .
serpent can bUl1d. l' d to itself leads Thoughts" and letters which he wrote at tIe
The formality of loglC, app le 'f ". observing last we find the most significant: "Anthro-
. . ' "power 0 . ' .•..
to the "format1ve . ' ':the .' real" posophy Js a way of kll10wledge which can
" t n
ImagmatlO " . . . . .;
thought, . o f ' t ;.;day is to kmdle the,; lead the. spiritual in human nature· to t~e
historical lmpulse 0 0 " ... '.• •.• • spiritual in the universe."
.
"free-WI . '11" upon " the Law, , . nd . . ... ' Going beyond the book Knowledge of
. , h h the Law a
Christ entered t roug · . · t . the the Higher Worlds and its Attainment, he
. f 1fi1 ent of the Law on 0 . . ., '. turns. here in a new sense and with a dE ar
brought the u m". lculab'Ie ", as th.e. '
of the Inca ' . . .' '.' .call to the new esoteric power of experien(:e,
earth out . . " u ht the power o f ,
" Son of Man, he bro. g f S irit-Self; . In: ' .to the awakening of our minds to see the
Hol Ghost, the dawn:ng o..p .' ...• . spirittiaLWe can see in it a witness of the
y, w'n t whIch wIthlll the . ' .', ,hour in which we live, That which the seul
the log1C o,f 1 h' 0 fspiritual actiyity .';'
of the ph110soP yo. '. . ." - :' in 'the study of Anthroposophy 'hammered
.
' .
"
S ke See advt; •..•
F' Tale of the Green na .
'" out for it~elf.· as individual" knowledge it
'" Refers to 'Goethe s airy 117
116
"."~,
 ESOTERICISM
ESO':rERICISM
" into an active being in cosmic and human history. This
d ingly transfor m W'11 ,insight works to establish new being, and 10
:nust ungru g , ht Feeling and' 1
" t 1 organ. 'fhoug , ., - form the seed for all men who " are of goo d
nplr1 ua , '. th powers of Imagma
:trow in the soul lnto e.. ,. wilL" Let us try by selfless practice to
:> .' t' nand Intult10 tl· make Anthroposophy, our own as the ne'v
tion, Insp1r~ 10 f the Spirit-Self man stands
In the hght 0 ld' the transformed language of knowledge, for then it cannct
then on the thres~o t 111, , he stands in the lead to pride or vanity; it becomes a sou}-
emory JUs as enlightening power. We learn to understan,l
power 0 f m ' icture of memory
life after death bef.orel'fthe pder the " judicial RUcl,olf Steiner's oft repeated warning:
k pon hlS 1 e un . bf 1 , Spiritual knowledge cannot be forced; mall
and 100 s u .. ~h pow,er of falt u,..
eyes " 0 f the "Sp1!ltS, .1. Se irit-Self comes t 0 must learn to wait until it opens itself to
ards hlS own p , him.-This capacity to wait leads the. humalL
nesS tow
hi
him from memory h therwise speaks to will,to'selfless meditations,; opening the soul
And tha~ w cOn inl u1se from his in inner peace lends it moral power and b
him as ' consclence-as a p in his a guard against deception, One must b(~
1 ex erience-changes ' ,. able to wait for Grace with the help of the
pre-nat~, . P, e ower of moral intUltlOn, ,,'
perceptlve wlll to .th P 11 it in his PhilosophY inmost soul.
, Rudolf Ste111er ca s , , The knowledge which in this way grow~
or, as .' the moral fantasy.
ot spiritual Actwdy,. ' . , bear witness , in the soul is spiritual; the spiritually moraJ
and conSclence , ." , 'becomes effeCtive on earth through the free
Memor~ 'r;;, and destiny, working
of repeated 111carnat~on", f human life in the ',' conscious activity of man.
in 'them, is the VOlce 0 d th and re-birth. The Holy Ghost ruled as Comforter over
h s between ea . history of gods and men. In Rudolf
spiritua1 sp ere f' h Logos that lives 1ll
~h power 0 t e . ,t 0 , s "Language of Knowledge" the
.1. e , th expulsion in
h . freed from e ' " ,• ' Word" becomes the mediator between
thoug t lS d . " unsealed thought ,
the grave of t~e .go s. 't the rule of spiritual , ture and spirit. It contains the message
. for itself inSight 1U 0
Wlns 119
118
 "ESO'rERICISM

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