Translated
by Christian von Arnim
Helena Blavatsky
If
we look at a phenomenon such as H.P. Blavatsky from the
perspective which will have become clear to you, we need to be
concerned first with her personality as such. The other aspect is
the impact she had on a large number of people. Now it is true,
of course, that this impact was in part quite negative. Those who
had a philosophical, psychological, literary, scientific —
let us say a well-educated — bent were glad to be rid of
this phenomenon in one way or another. They could achieve this
simply by saying that she had engaged in dishonest practices and
that there was no need to spend time on something where there was
evidence of that sort of thing.
Then there were
those who were in possession of ancient, traditional wisdom,
members of one or another secret society. One must never forget
that numerous events in the world are linked to actions from such
secret societies. They were concerned above all to find a way to
prevent such a depiction of the spiritual world having a wider
impact. Because, as we saw, these things could be read and
promulgated, and in this way the secret societies had been
deprived of a good deal of the power which they wanted to
preserve for themselves. That is why it is members of such
societies who are behind the accusations that Blavatsky engaged
in dishonest practices.
More important for
our present purpose, however, is that Blavatsky's writings and
everything else connected with her personality made a certain
impression on a large number of people. That led to the
establishment of movements which describe themselves in one way
or another as theosophical.
I would like you to
remember that in these discussions I always try to present my
material in such a way that it should correspond to the facts.
This becomes impossible nowadays in many circles, simply because
of the terminology one has to use. What happens today is that
when a person encounters a word it is very tempting for him to
seek a dictionary definition in order to avoid having to look at
the issue itself. When such literary people hear of theosophy
they open a dictionary — which may well be a dictionary in
their minds — and look up the word. Or they might go as far
as to study all kinds of literature in which a word like
theosophy occurs, and then use that as the basis for their
judgement. You have to be aware how much actually depends on this
kind of procedure.
This must always be
juxtaposed with the question: How did the societies which base
themselves on Blavatsky come to use the name Theosophical
Society? One thing which did not happen, when it was founded at
the end of the nineteenth century, was to found a Theosophical
Society with the aim of propagating theosophy as defined in the
dictionary. But a body of knowledge about the spiritual world
existed through Blavatsky, which initially was simply there. Then
it was found necessary to cultivate this knowledge through a
society and a society requires a name. It is pure coincidence
that the societies which are based on that called themselves the
Theosophical Society. No one could think of a better name —
it's as simple as that. This has to be clearly remembered. People
who have learnt about the historical development of their given
area of study are likely to have come across the term theosophy.
But the term they have come across has nothing to do with what
called itself the Theosophical Society. Within the
Anthroposophical Society, at any rate, such things ought to be
taken very seriously. There should be a certain drive for
accuracy, so that a proper feeling can develop for the
unobjective scribblings to which these things have gradually
given rise.
But there is one
question which should particularly concern us: Why is it that a
large number of our contemporaries have felt the urge to follow
up these revelations? Because that will provide us with the
bridge to something of a quite different nature: to the
Anthroposophical Society.
In considering
Blavatsky, it is important that her attitude was what might well
be called an anti-christian one. In her Secret Doctrine
she revealed in one large sweep the differing impulses and
development of the many ancient religions. But everything which
might have been expected as an objective depiction is clouded by
her subjective judgement, the judgement of her feelings. It
becomes abundantly clear that she had a deep sympathy for all
religions in the world other than Judaism and Christianity, and
that she had a deep antipathy towards Judaism and Christianity.
Blavatsky depicts everything which comes from the latter as
inferior to the great revelations of the various pagan religions:
in other words, an expressly anti-christian perspective, but an
expressly spiritual one.
She was able to
speak of spiritual beings and spiritual processes in the same way
that one normally speaks of the beings and processes of the
physical world; she was able to discuss aspects of this spiritual
world because she had the capacity to move among spiritual forces
in the same way that contemporary people normally move among
physical-sensory forces. On that basis she was able to bring to
the surface and clarify characteristic impulses of the various
pantheistic religions.
Now we might be
surprised by two things. First, that it is possible at all today
for someone to appear who perceives the salvation of mankind in
this anti-christian perspective. And second, we might be
surprised about the decisive and profound influence exerted by
such an anti-christian perspective specifically on people with a
Christian outlook — less so perhaps on those with a Jewish
background. These are two questions we must ponder when we speak
about conditions governing the existence of the contemporary life
of the spirit among the broader masses in general.
In respect of
Blavatsky's anti-christian perspective, I want only to recall
that someone who became much better known than she in Central
Europe, among certain circles at least, had as much of an
anti-christian perspective. That was Nietzsche. [ Note
1 ]
It is difficult to be more anti-christian than the author of The
Anti-Christ.
It would be adopting a very superficial attitude not to enquire
into the reason for the anti-christian outlook of these two
personalities. But to find an answer one needs to dig a little
bit deeper.
For we need to have
a clear understanding that increasing numbers of people today are
becoming divided in their spiritual life, something which they do
not always acknowledge and which they try to paper over with a
certain intellectual cowardice, but which is all the more active
in the unconscious depths of their mind.
One needs to have a
clear understanding of the way in which the European peoples and
their American cousins have been influenced by the educational
endeavours of the last three, four, five hundred years. One need
only consider how great the difference really is between the
content of today's secular education and the religious impulses
of humanity. From the time people enter elementary school all
thinking, their whole inner orientation, is directed toward this
modern education. Then they are also provided with what is meant
to satisfy their religious needs. A dreadful gap opens up between
the two. People never really have the opportunity to deal
inwardly with this chasm, preferring instead to submit to the
most dreadful illusions in this respect.
This raises
questions about the historical process which led to the creation
of this yawning chasm. For this we have to look back to those
centuries in which learning was the province of those few who
were thoroughly prepared for it. You can be quite certain that a
twelve-year-old schoolgirl today has a greater fund of worldly
knowledge than any educated person of the eleventh, twelfth or
thirteenth centuries. These things must not be overlooked.
Education has come to rely on an extraordinarily intense feeling
of authority, an almost invincible sense of authority. In the
course of the centuries modern education has increasingly
comprised only the knowledge of what can be demonstrated to the
outer senses, or by calculation. By excluding everything else it
became possible — because two times two equals four, and
the five senses are so persuasive — for modern education to
acquire its sense of authority. But that also increasingly gave
rise to the feeling that everything which human beings believe,
which they consider to be right, must be justified by the the
knowledge of which modern learning is so certain. It was
impossible to present in a corresponding fashion any truth from
the realms where mathematics and the senses no longer apply.
How were these
truths presented to humanity prior to the existence of modern
learning? They were presented in ritual images. The essential
element in the spread of religion over the centuries lay not in
the sermons, for instance, but in ceremonial, in the rituals. Try
to imagine for a moment what it was like in Christian countries
in the fourteenth or fifteenth centuries. The important thing was
for people to enter a world presented to them in mighty and
grandiose images. All around, frescoes on the walls reminded them
of the spiritual life. It was as if their earthly life could
reach as high as the tallest mountain, but at that point, if one
could climb just a little bit higher, the spiritual life began.
The language of the spiritual world was depicted in images which
stimulated the imagination, in the audible harmonies of music, or
in the words of set forms such as mantras and prayers. These ages
understood clearly that images, not concepts, were required for
the spiritual world. People needed something vividly pictorial
not something which could be debated. Something was required
which would allow the spirit to speak through what was accessible
to the senses. Christianity and its secrets, the Mystery of
Golgotha and everything connected with it, were essentially
spoken about in the form of images, even when words were used in
story form. The dogmas were also still understood as something
pictorial. And this Christian teaching remained unchallenged from
any quarter prior to the existence of intellectual learning, and
for as long as these things did not have to be justified by
reason.
Now just look at
historical processes in the thirteenth, fourteenth, fifteenth and
sixteenth centuries, the urgency with which human beings begin to
experience the drive to understand everything intellectually.
This introduced a critical attitude of world-historical
significance.
Thus, the majority
of human beings today [in Europe and America] are introduced to
religious life through Christianity but alongside that to modern
learning also. As a consequence, the two — Christianity and
modern learning — co-exist in each soul. And even if people
do not admit it, it transpires that the results of intellectual
education cannot be used to prove Christian truths. So from
childhood people are now taught the fact that two times two
equals four and that the five senses must only be used in such a
context, and they also begin to understand that such absolutes
are incompatible with Christianity.
Modern theologians
who have tried to marry the two have lost Christ, are no longer
able to speak to the broad spectrum of people about Christ; at
most they speak about the personality of Jesus. Thus Christianity
itself has been able to be preserved only in its old forms. But
modern people are simply no longer willing to accept this in
their souls, and they lose some of their inner security. Why?
Well, just look at
the way Christianity has developed historically. It is extremely
dishonest to use rationalism to put meaning into Christianity,
the Mystery of Golgotha and everything connected with it. One has
to talk about a spiritual world if one wants to speak about
Christ. Modern human beings did not have the means in their
innermost being to understand Christ on the basis of what they
had been taught at school, for rationalism and intellectualism
have robbed them of the spiritual world. Christ is still present
in name and tradition, but the feeling for what that means is
gone; the understanding of Christ as a spiritual being among
spiritual beings in a spiritual world has disappeared. The world
created by modern astronomy, biology and science is a world
devoid of spirit.
Thus numerous souls
grew up who, for these reasons, had quite specific needs. Time
really does progress, and the people of today are not the same as
people in earlier ages. You must have said to yourselves: Here I
meet with a certain number of others in a society to cultivate
spiritual truths. Why do you, each single one of you, do that?
What drives you? Well, the thing which drives people to do this
is usually so deeply embedded in the unconscious depths of their
soul life that there is little clarity about it. But here, where
we want to reflect on our position as anthroposophists, the
question has to be asked.
If you look back to
earlier times, it was self-evident that material things and
processes were not the totality, but that spirits were
everywhere. People perceived a spiritual world which surrounded
them in their environment. And because they found a spiritual
world they were able to understand Christ.
Modern
intellectualism makes it impossible to discover a spiritual
world, if one is honest, and as a consequence it is impossible to
understand Christ properly. The people who try so hard to
rediscover a spiritual life are very specific souls driven by two
things. First, most souls who come together in the kind of
societies we have been talking about start to experience a vague
feeling within themselves which they cannot describe. And if this
feeling is investigated with the means available in the spiritual
world it turns out to be a feeling which stems from earlier lives
on earth in which a spiritual environment still existed. Today,
people are appearing in whose souls something from their previous
lives on earth remains active. There would be neither
theosophists nor anthroposophists if such people did not exist.
They are to be found in all sections of society. They do not know
that their feeling is the result of earlier lives on earth, but
it is. And it makes them search for a very specific path, for
very specific knowledge. Indeed, what continues to have an effect
is the spiritual content of earlier lives on earth.
Human beings today
are affected in two ways. They can have the feeling that there is
something within them which affects them, which is simply there.
But even though they might know a great deal about the physical
world they cannot describe this feeling because nothing which was
not of a spiritual nature has been carried over. If, however, in
the present I am deprived of everything spiritual, then what has
come over from a previous life remains dissatisfied. That is the
one aspect.
The other effect
which lives in human beings is a vague feeling that their dreams
should really reveal more than the physical world. It is of
course an error, an illusion. But what is the origin of this
illusion, which has arisen in parallel with the development of
modern learning? When people who have had the benefit of a modern
education gather together in learned circles they have to show
their cultural breeding. If someone starts to talk about
spiritual effects in the world people adopt an air of ridicule,
because that is what being cultured demands. It is not acceptable
within our school education to talk about spiritual effects in
the world. To do so implies superstition, lack of education.
Two groups will
then often form in such circles. Frequently someone plucks up a
little courage to talk about spiritual things. People then adopt
an air of ridicule. The majority leave to play cards or indulge
in some other worthy pursuit. But a few are intrigued. They go
into a side-room and begin to talk about these things, they
listen with open mouths and cannot get enough of it; but it has
to be in a side-room because anything else shows a lack of
education. The things which a modern person can learn there are
mostly as incoherent and chaotic as dreaming, but people love it
all the same. Those who have gone to play cards would also love
it, except that their passion for cards is even stronger. At
least that is what they tell themselves.
Why do human beings
in our modern age feel the urge to investigate their dreams?
Because they feel quite instinctively, without any clear
understanding, that the content of their thoughts and what they
see depicted in the physical world is all very nice, but it does
not give them anything for their soul life. A secret thinking,
feeling and willing lives in me when I am awake, they feel, which
is as free as my dream life is free when I am sleeping. There is
something in the depths of the soul which is dreamt even when I
am awake. Modern people feel that, precisely because the
spiritual element is missing from the physical world. They can
only catch a glimpse of it when they are dreaming. In earlier
lives on earth they saw it in everything around them.
And now those souls
are being born who can feel working within themselves not only
impulses from their previous lives on earth, but what took place
in the spiritual world in their pre-earthly existence. This is
related to their internal dreaming. It is an echo of life before
birth.
But not only do the
historical processes deny them the spirit; an educational system
has been constructed which is hostile to the spirit, which proves
the spirit out of existence.
If we ask how
people found a common interest in such societies as we are
describing here, it is through these two features of the soul;
namely, that something is active both from their previous earth
lives and from their pre-earthly existence. This is the case for
most of you. You would not be sitting here if these two things
were not active in you.
In very ancient
times social institutions were determined by the Mysteries, and
were in harmony with the content of their spiritual teaching.
Take an Athenian for example. He revered the goddess Athene. He
was part of a social community which he knew to be constituted
according to Athene's intentions. The olive trees around Athens
were planted by her. The laws of the state had been dictated by
her. Human beings were part of a social community which was in
total accord with their inner beliefs. Nothing the gods had given
them had, as it were, been taken away.
Compare that with
modern human beings. They are placed in a social context in which
there is a huge gap between their inner experiences and the way
they are integrated into society. It feels to them as if their
souls are divorced from their bodies by social circumstances,
only they are not aware of it; it is embedded in the
subconscious. Through these impulses from earlier lives on earth
and pre-earthly existence, people feel connected with a spiritual
world. Their bodies have to behave in a way that will satisfy
social institutions. It provokes a persistent subconscious fear
that their physical bodies no longer really belong to them. Well,
there are modern states in which one feels that your clothes no
longer belong to you because the tax man is after them! But in a
larger context ones physical body is no longer ones property
either. It is claimed by society.
This is the fear
which lives in modern human beings, the fear that every day they
have to give up their bodies to something which is not connected
with their souls. And thus they become seekers after something
which does not belong to the earth, which belongs to the
spiritual world of their pre-earthly existence.
All this takes its
effect unconsciously, instinctively. And it has to be said that
the Anthroposophical Society as it has developed had its origins
in small beginnings. To begin with, it had to work in the most
basic way with very small groups, and there is much to be said
about the ways and means in which work took place in such small
groups.
For example, in the
first years in Berlin I had to lecture in a room in which beer
glasses were clinking in the background. And once we were shown
into something not unlike a stable. I lectured in a hall, parts
of which had no floor, where one had to be careful not to tumble
into a hole and break a leg. But that is where people gathered
who felt these impulses. Indeed, this movement aimed to make
itself accessible to everyone right from the beginning. Thus the
satisfaction was just as great when the simplest mind turned up
in such a location. At the same time it was no great worry when
people came together in order to launch the anthroposophical
movement in more aristocratic fashion, as happened in Munich,
because that, too, was part of humanity. No aspect of humanity
was excluded.
But the important
point was that the souls who met in this way always had the
qualities I have described. If such people had not existed, then
someone like Blavatsky would not have engendered any interest,
because it was among such people that she made her mark. What was
most important to them and what corresponded to their feelings?
Well, the concept
of reincarnation corresponded to the one thing which was active
in their souls. Now they could see themselves straddling the ages
as human beings, making them stronger than the forces which daily
tried to rob them of their bodies. This deep-seated, almost
will-like, inner feeling of human beings had to be met by the
teaching of reincarnation.
And the dreamlike,
out-of-body experience of the soul, which even the simplest
country person can experience, could never be satisfied with
knowledge which was based only on matter and its processes. That
could only be met by making it clear to them that the most
profound aspect of human nature exists as if it is woven out of
dreams, if I may put it in this radical way. This element has a
stronger reality, a stronger existence than dreams. We are like
fish out of water if we are forced to live our soul life in the
world which has been conjured up for people by modern education.
In the same way that fish cannot exist in air and begin to gasp,
so our souls live in the contemporary environment, gasping for
what they need. They fail to find it, because it is spiritual in
nature; because it is the echo of their experiences in life
before birth in the spiritual world. They want to hear about the
spirit, that the spirit exists, that the spirit is actually
present among us.
You have to
understand that the two most important concerns for a certain
section of mankind were to learn that human beings live more than
a single life on earth, and that among the natural things and
processes there are beings in the world like themselves,
spiritual beings. It was Blavatsky who initially presented this
to the world. It was necessary to possess that knowledge before
it was possible to understand Christ once again.
As far as Blavatsky
was concerned, however — and in saying this we should
emphasize her compassion for mankind — she realized that
these people were gasping for knowledge of the spiritual world,
and she thought that she would meet their spiritual needs by
revealing the ancient pagan religions to them. That was her
initial aim. It is quite clear that this had to result in a
tremendously partisan anti-christian standpoint, just as it is
clear that Nietzsche's observation of Christianity in its present
form, which he had outgrown, led him to adopt such a strong
anti-christian attitude.
This anti-christian
outlook, and how it might be healed, is the topic I want to
address in the next lectures. It remains only to emphasize that
what appeared with Blavatsky as an anti-christian standpoint was
absent right from the beginning in the anthroposophical movement,
because the first lecture cycle which I gave was “From
Buddha to Christ”. Thus the anthroposophical movement takes
an independent position within all these spiritual movements in
that, from the start, it pursued a path from the heathen
religions to Christianity. But it is equally necessary to
understand why others did not follow this path.
Thanks to the Rudolf Steiner Archive.
Continued in the
next issue of SCR
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