Supplements to Member Lectures

GA 246 — 2 November 1914, Hamburg

70. About The War - What Happens Behind The Appearance Of Maya. Appearance of the Christ in the Ethereal

Our first thoughts in these fateful times must be dedicated to those who ... who in these fateful times stand up with blood and life ...

Our togetherness is under the protection of that great Spirit who continues our development and who has passed through the Mystery of Golgotha.

First, let us remember those of our friends who are out in the field, rising from our seats:

Ghosts of your souls, working guardians,
May your wings bring
Our souls' pleading love
To your guardianship trusted earthmen,
That united with your power
Our plea may radiate helping
To the souls it lovingly seeks.

If we know of someone that the physical shell has already been left, then the same is to be said with a single small change; instead of “earth people” it must then be “sphere people”.

My dear friends!

We are living in fateful days and are experiencing, on the one hand, a time that brings infinite suffering to a large part of the earth and, on the other hand, is great because it demands great things in every respect from the people of the present.

First of all, it behoves us to raise that which we have acquired from our spiritual striving for our feelings and our emotions, also for our knowledge, to the utmost seriousness and to the utmost dignity in this time and to permeate our being completely with it. We can do this best if we remain true to ourselves in the pursuit of knowledge and truth. This is more difficult than in other days because the events that surround us speak so much more powerfully to our souls that it is difficult for the forces of knowledge to arise. It is more difficult to achieve the inner stillness that is necessary [to] penetrate the great maya, the great deception, and to immerse ourselves in the truth, in the true, genuine reality. But this is precisely what we want to start from in our reflections today.

We can guess that what is now taking place on the physical plane is connected with the greatest event of our century, with the appearance of the Christ, as is also indicated in the “Gate of Initiation”.

It is difficult for today's observer to unravel the events, because the events take place in such a way that they come to a head, as it were, in the great event just described. I want to tell as unvarnished a story as possible about what is going on behind the appearance of Maya. Many friends will remember that I said that the war was a matter of time, only a short time. It was only held back by astral forces, held back on the physical plane. The fear of men only held it back; it is not difficult to see that it was fear, fear that held it back. But in the astral world, war was there. And how was it there? It was preparing itself as the event that must bring about a great decision in the course of the twentieth century was forming.

We know - some friends will remember - that it has been said that since the last third of the nineteenth century the sun spirit Michael has been fighting to bring about and prepare in the right sense what is to come.

First let us answer one question: Where does the spirit, who first has to prepare, find the spiritual terrain, as it were, for the next decades; where does he find a large part of the souls he needs? It will find a large part of the souls it needs in the souls of the Russian people. Those souls of Russian men who have the peculiarity of being taken up into the bosom of their Angelos when they pass through the gate of death, who have first passed through a stage of independence, a stage of being sheltered, of being guarded by a spiritual power, by a being like the Angelos; so that when we look up into the spiritual world, we see a great part of Russian souls gathering around the great fighter who has to bring about the decision in the next time. And because this is the case, the great astral battle of the Russian souls is directed against the French souls who ascend from French bodies into the spiritual world.

A fierce battle from East to West can be seen taking place in the spiritual world. It is a terrible spirit war that takes place between spiritual Russia and spiritual France, of the Russian souls against the French souls.

Where does this battle come from? It is, of course, the cooperation of Lucifer and Ahriman that wants to prevent the salvation of the event to which I have alluded. Lucifer and Ahriman want to prevent the event of the appearance of the Christ [in the etheric] from being prepared in the right way. To do this, Lucifer and Ahriman need souls who have the tragic destiny, when they pass through the gate of death, to bring with them certain moments that form moments of attack for Lucifer and Ahriman. (Our worldview makes it possible for us to survey humanity, the souls, without distinction of nationality or race.)

When a soul was incarnated in a French body and passed through the gate of death, it first has to struggle between death and a new birth with something that it brought with it. This is a certain fantasy image of itself; there is a tendency in the souls that were incarnated in French bodies to have a mental image of what a real Frenchman actually is; and to build up this image - “I am a real Frenchman” - with the help of the imagination, to build up what should correspond to the fantasy image of the French soul that the French soul wanted to make of itself, that was actually the struggle that the French nation fought in the course of the nineteenth century: To build something on the physical plane that wanted to build the French nation out of its fantasy images. The call for “gloire” was not a call for what the Frenchman was, but for what he wanted to make of himself. Every Frenchman carries another person within him, with whom he has to struggle after death. This, as it were, imagined person forms a point of attack for Ahriman. This is in the etheric body, these are etheric shadows and schemes. If they are present in sufficient numbers, then Lucifer can use them to make false images appear here and there of what the Christ is supposed to be on earth in the twentieth century.

This is the endeavor of Lucifer and Ahriman. That is why the most intense enmity is developing between East and West, the fierce battle between Russian and French souls, which is not called that in the physical world, where an alliance was made, but is true in the spiritual.

What happens in the spiritual world has its symbolism in the physical world, even if it is not recognized. If Ahriman has anything to do with this, then the expression for it would have to be found in the physical. And this is also the case in that twenty billion has been paid to Russia by France to equip the Russian army, the Russian military force. The physical plan reflects as a brotherhood in arms, as friendship, what battle is in the spiritual.

When we turn our gaze to the British Isles, we have the opportunity, through spiritual-scientific knowledge, to enlighten ourselves as to what the real mission of this people is as a nation. We must not associate any nuance of sympathy or antipathy with it. Modern times have the task of introducing materialism, the mechanism, into world development. Materialism had to come. The world is tested by it. And the British people have the task of cultivating materialism. The people who bring materialism to bear in terms of pure scientific experience in the real practical sense are the British people. No people would have been able to fulfill the mission like the British people. The fact that the impulse of materialism lives in the national shell forms a thorough point of attack for Ahriman. How often I have spoken of how Ahriman is connected with all materialism. I have often said in other lectures: Why is one a materialist? Because one has a secret fear, a fear of the spiritual. This is easy to see today, when decisions are being made, how the representative of materialism, the British people, are afflicted with a delusion of fear. Look to fear for the reasons for what is happening across the Channel.

When we look at the constellation that exists between the struggles in the East and the struggles in the West, we find in the souls that pass through British bodies (I now mean the spiritual struggle) how everything is being done to divide the West with the East, to stir up the struggle, to make the struggle ever greater. In the physical world it is played out in such a way that it has been called a policy of encirclement, in the spiritual realm it is a confrontation, an enmity. It is quite understandable that it takes place in this way, because Ahriman has every interest that where we fight over the material and repeat what took place on Golgotha, that people remain attached to the external, that we establish kingdoms that extend to as many territories as possible, that the appearance of the Christ [in the etheric] may remain absent.

Now there are peacemakers in the spiritual world whose job it is to bring souls together. These are the souls that pass through Central European bodies, which are now being led into battle against East and West and Northwest. I may confess to you, my dear friends, that this last time has brought much unforgettable suffering to the occult observer, and it is one of the most shocking things, of which I had no idea before, to see that those who have now left their blood below and have gone up into the spiritual world, that they become souls of peace, that they offer the sacrifice they make for their mission of peace in the spiritual world. Why the boldness of the armies of Germany? Why the courage to fight? Because the boldness and the fight are the image of the peace that already lies in the souls and which they carry up through the gate of death into the spiritual world, so that the ways are paved for Christ. And it also reigns in those who are preserved for further work on the physical plan. This spirit of peace reigns in them. Even on the physical plane we can be confronted by this peace, as in the souls, whether they know it or not, among those who lie in the trenches, even if they are not aware of it.

How many letters from the battlefields have come to us today that bear witness to this. Young anthroposophists who have gone into the field have taken “Theosophy” or one of our other books with them and are reading them! A field letter from an Austrian soldier has been printed in a magazine I bought at an Austrian railroad station, in which this soldier writes something like the following: We are going out and will do our utmost; those who have to stay at home should pray, then they will be there too; the power of prayer will come to us. Those who are unable to pray should concentrate their thoughts on the will to win, and in this way they will participate. - At this moment, time teaches a soldier spiritual wisdom.

This morning I received a letter from a friend written from the field. In the last few days, the image of the ascension of souls who are souls of peace has stood vividly before my soul.

(The letter is then read aloud.)

This is such a soul in which peace lived, peace of the kind that has just been spoken of. From what has been said we can see how powers lie behind the veil of maya. ...

It is true that man turns precisely against that which is the task of his higher spirit. Let us look to the East. The Russian souls are destined to join the leading spirit of the age, and they allow themselves to be seduced into doing exactly the opposite in the physical body. No man is further from war than the Russian man, nothing is worse for the Russian soul than to wage war.

All of us in the West can be people of peace, but not “Tolstoyans”. Tolstoy betrayed what is natural to the Russian soul: Not to fight, but to wait, which is its destiny. Souls should wait to receive once, as the West once received from Greekness and Romanity.

A soul that offers on the sacrificial altar of the future what man is in physical life often uses it against what the impressions of his higher self are. So it is in the East.

Those who are the leading spirits in Central Europe have a mission together with the whole people. They really have the mission - yes, it is almost unpleasant to say this of one's own people, because it looks like boasting - the spirits have the task of bringing about in Central Europe that which is really spiritual life, spiritual realization. And the souls are waiting to receive all (this also includes the Scandinavian and related peoples), to receive in peace all who wish to come to the spiritual. There are many living in the West in particular who represent something quite different outwardly, there are souls living in British and French bodies who long to receive the teaching of those who have prepared the impulse of the Mystery of Golgotha in Central Europe ... not the fighters, the others Among these souls are those who feel: They want to go, they should go to the spirituality in Central Europe. And there comes a rage against that which is destined to be incarnated in a Central European body. Because they long to be incarnated in a Central European body, they rage against it, because this incarnation fights against the next incarnation. When you see it illuminated in this way, however, the reincarnation doctrine begins to have a greater dignity than when it is presented to people merely as a doctrine. This war is a great teacher, it is now changing people quickly, which would otherwise have taken a long time, which would otherwise have taken fifty years. - Many a soul unconsciously knows what is in these Central European bodies, and it understands itself in such a way that it says: In these bodies there are only “barbaric” souls. It wants to be incarnated in such a barbaric body, and this is how it expresses itself.

This must give us cause to feel the spiritual truths in all seriousness. Materialism also lives in Central Europe, (it) is also spreading in Central Europe. I held my cycle in Kristiania in 1910 on the “Mission of individual Folk-souls” as a preparation for the present time.

The French people are living out the culture of the intellectual or emotional soul. The Italian-Spanish people express the culture of the sentient soul, the English people the consciousness soul, but the Russian soul is, so to speak, only a nature soul, there to receive. The Russian soul is there to receive the spirit-self or manas one day, for which it must first prepare itself. It has received; what lives in it is the Byzantine-Catholic religion, and it has not changed anything about it, it has remained as it was.

Since Peter 1, the outer material culture has come to Russia from the West. - All this is preparation for receiving the spirit self. As it is depicted in my “Theosophic”: It descends. The ego struggles out and works out what it is to receive (Faust nature). How often have I explained that we become aware of our ego by pushing ourselves against the outer world when we wake up in the morning. This must kindle the ego.

When I was still young, there was a lot of talk about Austria falling apart. But those of us who knew Austria could say that Austria would not fall apart due to internal causes as long as it was held together from the outside. Germany was founded from the outside, France was founded from the inside. If only people had patience, they would see: Everything proves true down to the smallest details.

Because the nations of the Italian and Spanish peninsulas live out the culture of the sentimental soul, they are a repetition of the Egyptian-Chaldean culture. The characteristic expression of the Egyptian-Chaldean culture is astrology, taken spiritually. How could this appear (in repetition) better and more grandiose than in Dante. (In him is) reborn the whole Egyptian-Chaldean astrology, from the soul reborn, ensorcelled, spiritual heaven.

The French people have to develop the culture of the intellectual or emotional soul. It is thus a repetition of Greek culture. Corneille, Voltaire, Racine strove to write poetry in Greek form, to become clear about the form, the unity of place, time and action.

In this fifth period, the material conquest of the earth could now come. For the Italian, the other is the foreigner, he fights for his homeland, to which he is as attached as a person is to something with his feelings. The Greek called other people “barbarians”. His successor in more recent times did the same.

The one who lives in the consciousness soul perceives strangers as competitors, as rivals. The one who has the ego sees the enemy in the opponent, where the other sees the barbarian, the rival, the stranger. The enemy is also the one you face in a duel. The basic character of the German is to see the enemy in the other, whom one respects equally. And the Russian sees the heretic everywhere, he sees religion everywhere, so every war has to be reinterpreted as a religious war. That's how it was in the Balkans. He wanted to bring Christianity to the Balkan peoples. The Russians in today's war have the awareness that they are fighting against evil.

Spiritual science has the effect of spreading light. The fact that we see deception, maya, is only up to us. When we enter the spiritual world, it presents itself in its true form. It is in the nature of the Central European soul to create peace. We have witnessed from where Ahriman has come against us with difficulty, where Ahriman lives most strongly. Our battle (with A. Besant) had to precede today's battle and in our field it already means the same thing.

The time wanted materialism to pass over us as well. How Goethe tried to show how evolution exists! But those who do not penetrate into the depths will only understand this when evolution is reinterpreted from the soul of consciousness as the struggle for existence.

Goethe's theory of color, this physics from the ego, has always been rejected; they accept Newton's theory of color. There are deep, deep forces in Central European people. One has heard of people who have sent back the English medals they had received as honors. Goethe sent back more! He sent back Newton! And it will be considered even better Germans who send back Darwinism, which was created out of the consciousness soul. Of course, nothing is said against the fact that Darwin also had great merit.

What the leading elements can be is embodied in the two powers that are trapped on both sides. This needed to be fanned. Evil had to come in. Evil is also needed to bring forth good. Ahriman is also used by the spiritual world to bring good. Something like a spark of life had to enter the materialism of Central Europe. How did it enter? Through the assassination in Sarajevo! In the physical world, death is death; in the spiritual world, it is something that revives. Who could have imagined that the Sarajevo attack would present itself to the occult observer in this way? Something as shocking as this has probably never been experienced before! - I myself have never experienced anything like it! Other occultists have not told me anything like this either.

You all know how the “going-through-the-gate-of-death” is described. Now the unique thing happens here. This soul of the murdered man, as it passes through the gate of death, and even before it wakes up, it becomes like a center that gathers to itself the elements of fear that I spoke of before, that were there, that held back the war on the physical plan; and this soul of Sarajevo becomes a cosmic power. Suddenly it was something cosmic, gigantic compared to all the other deceased, which now connects to it like a crystal (the spread fear) and radiates on all sides impulses that sparked the war. ... by crystallizing into this soul of Franz Ferdinand. ...

Those who shed their sacred sacrificial blood on the battlefields - I say sacred blood on purpose - they become heroes in a much higher sense than is expressed in words of ordinary language. The [leading souls] of Europe - Goethe, Fichte and so on - in their spiritual activity between death and new birth, wait for forces to come to them. They come to them from the forces of the young etheric bodies, of those who have fallen on the battlefield. The events in which we now find ourselves are among the greatest in world history. Many things repeat themselves, many things. We know that it repeats itself cyclically ...

This is what makes war a teacher for posterity. A sum of un-egoism must be mustered in order for spiritual leadership to achieve its goal. In addition to the word, through which one cannot get close enough to people today, there is the other teacher, war! When we compare hearts and souls, what were they like on July 25 and what were they like on August 15? What a flare-up in the souls as courage to fight, as courage to sacrifice, heroism, devotion and courage to care! Truly, the world had changed. What could not have been achieved in fifty years by the mere word happened in these days.

There also reigns the great Master who brings the world forward. If one day there will be peace or something else - I say this on purpose, my dear friends - peace or something else ... Truly, I could not describe to you what I have had to experience in the last few weeks in the spiritual world. It is terribly difficult to observe in the spiritual world now. How everything shakes and shakes back and forth ... how tumultuous it is in the spiritual world ... but that is a reality, it is there. The more spirits there are who have a true understanding of these things, the more fruit the victims of the war will bear ... into the striving that takes place in the balancing of the struggle.

I would like to approach your hearts with a single request, in the form of intercession, but also in a general way. ...

This time is a time of testing, also for anthroposophists. Now it will become clear to each individual whether he has taken anthroposophy seriously enough. If he has taken it seriously enough, then something will emerge from his soul ... Then he will bring forth from his soul that which can be worthy spiritual fruit ... for the sacrificial blood that flows in the East and in the West.

In the following, the last two of the seven lines are to be regarded as conditional clauses. The word “if” is missing before them for metrical reasons:

From the courage of the fighters,
From the blood of battles,
From the suffering of the forsaken,
From the sacrifices of the people
From the fruit of the spirit grows,
Souls steer spirit-consciously
Their mind into the spirit realm.