The Mission of the New Spirit Revelation

GA 127 — 30 November 1911, Heidenheim

VIII. The Threefold Call From The Spirit World

Notes from a lecture at the inauguration of the Heidenheim branch.

We have gathered here today to celebrate the inauguration of the Heidenheim branch. Friends from various regions have come together for this celebration to show their support for their local friends.

Over the years, a number of people have come together here in this city whose inner urge has brought them together for joint spiritual work in a spiritual scientific spirit.

Everything in life has an effect. If a person succumbs to an error or a lie, even if he is not aware of it in his ordinary consciousness, it is still present in the subconscious, where it acts as a destructive force not only for the individual person but for the whole evolution of the world. Likewise, when man unites with the forces of truth, it continues to work as a life-creating force for the whole evolution of the world and of humanity.

There are three decisive points in our seven cultural epochs for the further development of humanity. These are:

The first call that went out to humanity with a thundering voice from Mount Sinai, as the commandments of Jehovah!

The second call in the wilderness by John the Baptist, when the Baptist said to those who wanted to hear him: “Change your minds, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand”!

The third call, my dear friends, is that which is proclaimed from the spiritual worlds as a new revelation through spiritual science or theosophy!

The child at conception, when the soul descends from spiritual spheres into this world of physical laws, is a memory and a symbol of the moment of the first thunderclap from Sinai in the laws.

And when the child, in the first years of his life, experiences the moment when he begins to use language but does not yet think about learning it, learning language without yet using his dormant thinking abilities, this is, in the individual human being, the time of the second call to humanity through John the Baptist, the voice in the wilderness.

When, in a later period of his life, the child begins to understand language by using and developing his powers of thought, this is the reflection of the third call to humanity through spiritual science: the new revelation for understanding what is set forth in the Gospels as the Gospel of the Mystery of Golgotha.

Spiritual science brings man, as a new revelation from the spiritual worlds, an understanding of what was announced by the second call of John and was laid down in writing after the Mystery of Golgotha. Through spiritual science, the third call of our seven cultural epochs, man is brought to an understanding of what the Christ Jesus said: “Behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the earth cycle.

Just as only a small number of people heard the second call at that time, so it will also be only a small number in our time that hears the third call. But, my dear friends, should the call pass by without being heard, the evolution of humanity could not take place in the way intended by the high spiritual beings.

In retrospect, we may consider it an infinite mercy that there were people at that time who heard the second call, and we owe thanks to these souls that the development of humanity could continue as a result. Those who understand how to read the signs of the times know what it means to hear the third call of the living new revelation or to let it pass unheard. There was a time when it was said that there were only two paths for man: if he does good, he will receive eternal bliss after death; if he does evil, he must be cast into eternal damnation. — Spiritual science proclaims something different. My dear friends, we know that the human being is a complex creature, that he consists of a physical body, an etheric or life body, an astral body and an I. When a person begins to believe in a spiritual world, to imbue themselves with powers of faith, these powers of faith are a power of the astral body. Thus the astral body is the “body of faith”.

Through faith in the body of faith, man struggles up to the powers of love. These are the powers of the etheric or life body. Thus the etheric or life body is the “body of love”. If people could not penetrate to the spiritual worlds through the power of faith, their powers of imagination and thought would become ever more barren, empty and ossified. Man would be unable to rise to any power of love. What would man be without love? — He would have to suffer loneliness, he would be unable to have any connection with his fellow human beings and fellow creatures of nature. Man must be able to develop love, that alone gives him true vitality, by renouncing selfishness and shaping himself into true, unegoistic love in the love or etheric body.

When we look at nature, we learn to recognize the truth of the reincarnation of the individual soul. Look out there. What kind of feeling would you have to have when the plant world dies in the fall, when you would have to think: Everything is dead, it will never sprout, germinate, or bloom again! — It is often said: We do not know what tomorrow will bring. Yes, but is that really so? Do we really know nothing about tomorrow when we perform our work today with zeal and the most sacred sense of duty? We know that tomorrow the sun will begin its course again and conclude it in the evening. We know that the world order continues. Indeed, how would a person feel if he never knew whether the sun would shine the next day, whether the forces of day and night, rain and sunshine, whether the regulated rhythm of the stars would cease tomorrow or take a different form every day? Man would have to go to work without courage or strength if he did not know that he would resume work the following day and continue working on what he had started.

Just as spring follows winter and what rests as the dormant germ of plants within themselves is reawakened, so the soul that leaves the physical body will revive the germ that has been left behind and resume its life on the physical plane and continue its and humanity's development. Thus the forces of love give rise to the forces of hope. The physical body is the “body of hope”. What would man be without hope for the morrow, for the completion of the work he has begun, without hope of reunion with those he has loved in life? Thus the New Revelation of the Christ-message, theosophy or spiritual science, may proclaim the teaching of reincarnation despite the enlightened science and scholarship that is spreading throughout the world and wants to deny the supersensible worlds. Even if we are ridiculed and pitied for still being so superstitious, looking at what is happening in nature can be proof for us of what spiritual science proclaims.

If the third call were to pass unheeded, my dear friends, the development of humanity would be unable to progress, and those who would later look back on this time, when we ignored the call, would have to lay the blame at our door. But just as we look gratefully to the human souls who heard the call of St. John at that time, so will later people look gratefully to the souls who heard today's, third call, so that humanity may be led forward.

Just as the first few Christians had to hold their devotional meetings with the dead in the Roman catacombs, while above in the arena the people who set the tone at the time were wallowing in sensuality and throwing these first Christians to wild beasts or torches, as they did to them, but how these tone-setting people were suddenly carried off, so today we have to gather in rooms that our friends make available to us, or in rooms that are spiritual catacombs. But today's dominant materialism will also be swept away, and spiritual science will be allowed to lead humanity forward when the third call is heard. Who can say whether one or other of those who are here among us did not hear this call of John at the time? We have all heard this second call in one way or another and must hear the third in order to give humanity the opportunity to be led further.

In order that the teachings of the new Christ-Revelation may be heard in this city, the spiritual powers have brought together a number of people through an inner urge of the heart. Those high spiritual individuals who are called to make this call to humanity through their messengers are the guides of humanity.