[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
the spiritual world crowded in upon them. It was
inevitable that in the course of evolution the
possibility of beholding the spiritual should
gradually cease and man's gaze be limited to the
material world. This came about in the Graeco-
Latin epoch, when men's gaze was diverted to an
ever greater extent from the spiritual world and
limited to the world of the senses. And now we
ourselves are living in an era when it is becoming
more and more impossible for the soul to see or
detect spiritual reality in the life of the physical
environment. The Earth is now dying, withering
away, and man is deeply involved in this process.
Thus whereas in the Egypto-Chaldean epoch men
still beheld the spiritual around them, they now see
only what is material and actually boast of having
established a science which deals only with what
is physical and material. This process will go to
further and further lengths. A time will come when
men will lose interest in the direct impressions of
the world of the senses and will concentrate
attention on what is sub-material, sub-sensory.
Today, in fact, we can already detect the approach
of the time when men will be interested only in
what is sub-sensory, below the level of the sense-
world. This often becomes very obvious, for
example when modern physics no longer concerns
itself with colours as such. In reality it takes no
account of the actual quality of colour but
concerns itself only with the vibrations and
oscillations below colour. In many books today
you can read the nonsensical statement that a
yellow colour, for example, is merely a matter of
oscillations, wave-lengths. Observation here is
already diverted from the quality of the colour and
directed to something that is not in the yellow
colour at all but yet is considered to be the reality.
You can find books on physics and even on
physiology today in which it is emphasised that
attention should no longer be fettered to the direct
sense-impression but that everything resolves
itself into vibrations and wave-lengths. This kind
of observation will go to further and further
extremes. No attention will be paid to material
existence as such and account will be taken only
of the working of forces. Historically, one example
suffices in order to provide empirical evidence of
this. If you refer to du Bois-Reymond's lecture On
the Boundaries of Knowledge , given on 14th
August, 1872, you will find a peculiar expression
for something that Laplace already described, the
expression astronomical knowledge of a material
system that is to say when what lies behind a
light- or colour-process is presented as something
only brought about by mathematical-physical
forces. A time will come when human souls and
some of those who are being educated in certain
schools today will have the best possible
foundations for this attitude in their next
incarnation will have lost real interest in the
world of light and radiant colour and enquire only
into the working of forces. People will no longer
have any interest in violet or red but will be
concerned only with wave-lengths.
This withering of man's inner spirituality is
something that is approaching and Anthroposophy
is there to counter it in every detail. It is not only
our present form of education that helps to bring
about this withering; the trend is there in every
domain of life. It is in contrast to everyday life
when with our Anthroposophy we want to give
again to the souls of men something that fertilises
them, that is not only a maya of the senses but
springs forth as spirit. And this we can do when
we impart to human souls knowledge that will
enable them to live in the true world in their
following incarnations. We have to speak of these
things in a world which with its indifference to
form and colour is in such contrast to what we
ourselves desire; for it is particularly in regard to
colours that the world of today is preparing souls
to thwart what we want to achieve. We must work
not only according to the concepts and ideas of
everyday existence but with cosmological ideas.
Hence it is not a mere liking on our part when we
arrange surroundings such as those to be seen in
this room [Dr. Steiner recommended that restful
and refreshing colours should be displayed in
lecture halls and rooms used for the presentation
and study of Spiritual Science, also in rooms for
the sick.] but it is connected with the very nature
of Spiritual Science. Immediate response to what
is presented to the senses must again be generated
in the soul in order that active life in the spirit may
begin. Now, in this incarnation, each one of us can
assimilate Anthroposophy in the life of soul; and
what is now assimilated is transformed into
faculties for the new incarnation. Then, during his
life between death and the next birth, the
individual sends from his soul into his body that is
coming into being influences which prepare his
future bodily faculties to adopt a more spiritual
view of the world. This is impossible for him
without Anthroposophy. If he rejects
Anthroposophy he prepares his body to see
nothing but barren forces and to be blind to the
revelations of the senses.
And now something shall be said that enables a
seer to form a judgement of the mission of
Anthroposophy.
When a seer today directs his gaze to the life
between death and the new birth of souls who
have already passed beyond the above-mentioned
point of time and are contemplating the body that
is coming into being for a further existence, he
may realise that this body will afford the soul no
possibility of Developing faculties for the
comprehension of spiritual truths. For if such
faculties are to be part of life in the physical body,
they must have been implanted before birth. Hence
in the immediate future more and more human
beings will be devoid of the faculties needed for
the acceptance of spiritual knowledge a state of
things that has existed for some time already.
Before the seer there will be a vista of souls who
in previous lives deprived themselves of the
possibility of accepting any knowledge of a
spiritual kind. In their life between death and
rebirth such souls can indeed gaze at a process of
development, but it is a development in which
something is inevitably lacking that is the tragic
aspect. These vistas lead to a grasp of the mission
of Anthroposophy. It is a shattering experience to
see a soul whose gaze is directed towards its future
incarnation, its future body, beholding a budding,
burgeoning process and yet being obliged to
realise: something will be lacking in that body but
I cannot provide it because my previous
incarnation is responsible. In a more trivial sense
this experience may be compared with being
obliged to work at something knowing from the
outset that ultimately it is bound to be imperfect.
Try to be vividly aware of the difference: either
you can do the work perfectly and be happy in the
prospect, or you are condemned from the outset to
leave it imperfect.
This is the great question: are human souls in the
spiritual world to be condemned in increasing
numbers to look down upon bodies which must
remain imperfect, or can this be avoided? If this
fate is to be avoided, souls must accept during
their life in physical bodies the proclamation and
tidings of the spiritual worlds.
What those who make known these tidings regard
as their task is verily not derived from earthly
ideals but from the vista of the entire span of life,
that is to say, when to life on Earth is added the
period of existence between death and the new
birth. Herein is revealed the possibility of a fruitful
future for humanity, the possibility too of
militating against the withering of the souls of
men. The feeling can then be born in us that
Spiritual Science must be there, must exist in the
world. Spiritual Science is a sine qua non for the
life of mankind in the future but not in the sense
that is applicable to some other kind of
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]