# The History of the Anthroposophical Society 1913–1922

## GA 251 — 11 December 1921, Dornach

### 36. A Report on the Trip to Oslo

*The Earthly, the Cosmic and the Present Christ*

My dear friends!

Before I say anything else, please allow me to give you a brief report on the last few weeks. I will mention only a few things so that you here at the Goetheanum may be informed about what is going on in our movement.

After I had left Dornach and had dealt with other, internal matters in Stuttgart, the beginning of my public activity was on November 19 in Berlin, where I had to give the second lecture — the first is known to you - in the great hall of the Philharmonie, which was again filled to capacity. Then, after a eurythmy performance in Berlin, the Kristiania tour began. The first lectures in Copenhagen were on November 23 and 24. These two lectures were held at the request of the Pedagogical Association in Copenhagen. In them I had to discuss the principles and methods of anthroposophical education and didactics and to say something about the way the Waldorf School is run in Stuttgart. These lectures took place at the “Nobel Institute” and were very well attended. They were mainly attended by teachers; only a small number of seats had been allocated to members of our society. The second lecture — that was on Thursday, November 24th — was preceded by a lecture on the Vidar branch in Kristiania.

On the 25th, I then had to give a public lecture in Kristiania, organized by the student body, on “The Paths to Supernatural Knowledge”. It is worth mentioning that the lecture was able to be held in the largest hall in Kristiania, which holds over 2000 people, and that this hall was full to the last seat. Considering that there may not be many people in Kristiania who understand German to any great extent, one must nevertheless come to the conclusion that the anthroposophical movement is currently expanding to some extent.

On Saturday, November 26, I had to give a lecture at the student body of Kristiania itself, as part of the weekly student gatherings held on Saturdays. The public lecture on the previous Friday was arranged by the student body, but was open to the public. This lecture on Saturday had the same topic, but was of course then treated for the student body and within the framework of student associations.

On Sunday we had a eurythmy performance at 1 p.m. in the Kristiania National Theatre. Our friends were a little anxious, because it was a risk to give a eurythmy performance in the National Theatre, and besides, the house holds 2400 people when it is fully occupied, I believe. But on this day, it was filled to capacity. Taking all the circumstances into account, the audience received this eurythmy performance with great friendliness.

At 6 p.m. the second event for the “Vidar branch” took place. That was on Sunday, November 27th. And on Monday morning we were inundated with a veritable flood of sewage from all possible newspapers in Kristiania. It presented the absolute opposite of the picture that could actually be gained from the previous day. I have already experienced very bad things from these pages, but what has been done here is pretty much one of the very worst newspaper diatribes that can be mustered.

I had to remind them that a long time ago, when the intention of presenting eurythmy to the public was expressed, I gave a lecture to our eurythmists in which I pointed out that if eurythmy was brought into the public eye, it would experience the very worst of abuse. And this prophecy has rarely been fulfilled in such a magnificent way as on that Monday and Tuesday. The things lasted for a long time, because some people ranted two or three times.

On Monday evening, the first public lecture on anthroposophy organized by our friends took place in the old university auditorium. It was well attended and very warmly received, and not the slightest hint of what had happened outside in journalism was to be noticed. Then, on Tuesday at noon, I was invited by the theological association in Kristiania to speak about the Christ problem in a university auditorium, and that same evening I gave the second anthroposophy lecture organized by our friends.

On Wednesday, the lecture on economic issues, “The Cardinal Question of Economic Life,” took place at the request of the State Economic Association, also in the university auditorium. This lecture was attended by both economic theorists and economic practitioners. This was followed, not in the hall, but at a supper that had been organized, by a lively discussion of the relevant economic issues. The topics of the previous days of anthroposophical lectures were on Monday: “The Foundations of Anthroposophy”, on Tuesday: “The Human Being in the Light of Anthroposophy”.

On Wednesday we also had a very special treat. There was a very excited debate about whether a second eurythmy performance should be organized after the way things had gone. I said: perhaps it would have been possible to discuss whether a second eurythmy performance should take place in a city that is not too big after all, considering that 2400 people had already seen it – if it hadn't been for the ranting. But as it was, it was self-evident that I, for one, could not do without the second performance, so that every effort had to be made to get the National Theater for the second time, and if it could not be obtained, then another theater would have to be taken. - Now the greatest efforts were really made.

In particular, our friend Ingerö has earned the greatest merit.

On Wednesday there was a meeting of the 'Theater Association'. Among others, the father of our friend Morgenstierne, who is a professor, belongs to it. When he came to the supper of the State Economic Association that evening, he declared, “I have been slaughtered.” It had been such an agitated meeting that he felt slaughtered, and rightly so. And now, of course, we were refused the theater.

I thought that we should now definitely take on a different theater. That happened, and rehearsals were to begin on Thursday. Then there was a fire at the power station. Kristiania was plunged into darkness, and of course the theater was in darkness all day, and we had to hold the rehearsals by candlelight, but of course we did not let that stop us. Of course, we couldn't do any light experiments, because it was dark. This darkness began on Friday. On Friday evening, my second public student lecture was to be held in the large university auditorium. It was very uncertain whether anyone would come at all, because it was simply impossible to illuminate the university auditorium. It didn't seem to me to be an obstacle either, and we boldly made the attempt. I arrived in the evening. It was difficult to pass through the corridors, one had to be guided by a candle light. Then the lecture was held in the packed University auditorium with three acetylene lights. The topic was: “On the Necessity of a Renewal of Culture”. The lecture was very well received. One could not notice anything of the newspaper ranting, because they had now smelled a rat and continued their ranting throughout the whole week. It was, however, typical that in the middle of the first week, for example, an article was published that was compiled from all the criticism of the “Kommende Tag” and the “Futurum” that had ever been published in German newspapers. It was a very select selection that was published. In response, our friend Morgenstierne sat down and wrote a reply. Another friend went to the editor and said: “It's all lies, how can you print such a thing?” He replied: “Yes, I don't know anything about the matter myself, I haven't read anything by Dr. Steiner, I don't know anything, but the article was sent to us from a proven source, and that's why I printed it.” — “Yes, but then you also have to print a reply.” — “Yes!”

Our friend Morgenstierne then sent the retort, the publication of which had been promised. The next day there was an even bigger rant, which took up almost the entire page, and the retort was printed in very small print at the back of the page in the classifieds section.

An employee of a more decent newspaper did, after all, report quite objectively, for example, about the pedagogical lectures and the public lecture. In general, the lectures were not even treated unobjectively.

Then Saturday came. A dress rehearsal had to be done with a specially compiled program for certain reasons that I don't want to discuss here. This dress rehearsal could only be carried out by candlelight, so there was no lighting test, and I said we would just have to wait until the electric light came back on. It came back on at 4 o'clock in the afternoon, and then the theater declared: We have to have the first rehearsal ourselves, because we've been waiting for it all these days. So we couldn't do the light test at 4 p.m., but only at 7 p.m. The performance was scheduled for 8 p.m. At 7:45 p.m., the doors were opened and the audience was let in. The performance was received in an extraordinarily friendly manner. The hall was not full; but that is only due to the fact that very few people could have considered that a theater might be lit in that particular neighborhood. But relatively speaking, the performance was not even poorly attended and, as I said, was received extremely warmly. On the other hand, the next day a review appeared in which it was said that it had been a scandalous success.

On Sunday I held the branch meeting for our members and that was the end of the campaign in Kristiania. There was then another eurythmy performance and then a branch event on Wednesday in Berlin. So these are the events that have taken place recently.

When I arrived here about three hours ago, I opened one of many letters by chance that was very interesting. Namely, three or four weeks ago a paper was published in Germany by a publisher in Hanover by a Dr. Michel called: “Rudolf Steiner, the Anthroposoph, a Philosophical Execution”. I believe that this paper has even been reviewed in the Threefolding newspaper. The letter I received today has the following content:

> Darmstadt, 14.11. 21, Saurbergstr. 66
> Dear Mr. Steiner,
> the publisher Paul Steegemann of Hanover announced in the latest issue of the German book trade journal, Börsenblatt, a pamphlet of mine with the title: “Rudolf Steiner, the Anthroposoph; a philosophical execution”. This pamphlet does not and will not exist; I have not written it and will not write it. It is true that I promised Steegemann Publishers a collection of essays, which would include my article “The Anthroposophists” that appeared in the Berliner Tageblatt. It is also true that I am opposed to what is referred to as anthroposophy and what was presented here as such a few months ago. But this brochure does not exist; I would not have chosen the crude title “Execution”, quite apart from the fact that I do not know those of your achievements that are most highly regarded by your followers. I would like to add with all due respect that I don't feel the need to get to know you, but I am so unhappy about the tasteless publicity that the publisher has done without my knowledge that I would like to distance myself from it in any case. The publisher also claims that I am from Keyserling's Wisdom School, which is also a blatant lie. I am sharing all this with you for the sake of truth and to get out of the false, distorted light that this kind of advertising casts on me.
> Yours very sincerely  
>
> Wilhelm Michel

So you see, you can't even rely on the authors anymore, because the authors declare that they didn't write the books!

Now, another letter stated that one can still say with a clear conscience today that anthroposophy is nevertheless making its way; but the anger is also growing ever greater, precisely because it is making its way. These things are definitely connected. So another letter brought a larger number of signatures from professors at the [Copenhagen] University, inviting me to give anthroposophical lectures there. What will come of it all, I do not know at present.

It is indeed the case that the anthroposophical movement is making its way through the world, and above all, it can be seen everywhere that there is a lively interest in the various branches that have emerged from the anthroposophical movement. On the other hand, however, the opposition is growing monstrously. Just to mention one example of this opposition: when I arrived in Berlin before the trip to Kristiania, our friend Mr. Gantenbein came to me and said: “I have just received a telephone call from Stuttgart telephone conversation that on the 24th in Munich a lecture will be given by the director of the Haeckel Archive, Professor Schmidt, on the basis of documents and letters that are in the Haeckel Archive. Now Dr. Kolisko wanted to know – because he might want to intervene in the discussion in Munich – what kind of criminal act the letters I once wrote to Haeckel could represent. I said that, of course, I could not at that moment reconstruct every single sentence that I had written to Haeckel about 25 years ago, but he should go there and see for himself what was going on. Well, he went. I then received a report about the Munich meeting.

Professor Schmidt gave a lecture in which he did not dare to say much about anthroposophy itself, as I believe he said himself. Instead, he read out some passages from letters that I had written to Haeckel. I was then sent the copies of these letters, and it was an extraordinary interest to me to read them again, for one after another begins [something like this]: “Dear Professor! I must express my most sincere thanks for the latest of your works, which you have again sent me.

The letters contain essentially nothing but expressions of gratitude for the books Haeckel had sent me about himself. But two letters that were not from me were particularly serious. I still have not seen them; but they were written to Haeckel by a friend of mine in 1901, I believe, without my knowing anything about it. Haeckel had known me for quite some time, to the extent that he had given me almost all of his works, bit by bit. Now this friend wrote to him that I was doing very badly and had no money, and that he should use his influence to get me a lectureship. I knew nothing about it, otherwise I would have pointed out the folly to him. I only learned of this fact now. And on the side of one of the letters was written, “Steiner — Theosophist,” in Haeckel's own pencil, so I heard. That seemed to be the only point of complaint, because it was used to construct: Aha! He didn't have any money back then, so he became a Theosophist to make as much money as possible. - I don't know, though, whether it would have been possible to get out of this dilemma that way, because Theosophical leadership in Germany was entirely honorless.

So that was contrived. The meeting seems to have been extraordinarily instructive, because it was held in a monist alliance. The chairman seems to have been extraordinarily amazed at this outpouring of monistic wisdom and says that he certainly cannot comprehend how it came about that this was organized; he is in favor of hearing about anthroposophy first and foremost. Dr. Kolisko was invited to speak, I believe. But that is something that perhaps should not be pointed out, otherwise it will be rescinded.

As you can see, the whole affair seems to have been a terrible embarrassment, but at least it shows you the means that are being resorted to. You have probably been able to read in the Dreigliederungszeitung what the “Bund zur Abwehr der anthroposophischen Gefahr” (Federation for the Defence against the Anthroposophical Danger), which was founded in Darmstadt, has achieved. As I said, I just wanted to give you this one example of the particular way in which such things are now being done. I could tell you a great deal about the most diverse kinds of opposition. But it is already clearly visible today that things grow with the spread of the movement.

After my return from Kristiania, I received an article from the “Kölnische Zeitung”, in which a geologist speaks out in an extraordinarily dismissive manner against the way in which I arranged the geological writings for the Weimar Goethe Edition in the 1890s; he would have arranged them quite differently, and he finds it completely ungeological the way I arranged them.

I do have my particular opinion about this kind of execution by a university geologist, however; because in the first paragraph of this newspaper article, it says that it is indeed strange when a young man writes such writings about Goethe; but he admits – the person in question – that he does not understand them. Well, I think that it is not particularly valuable to pass judgment on the fundamentally rather secondary question of whether a Goethe essay will be included in the edition sooner or later; after all, one can have the most diverse views on this, because one bases one's judgment on the principles one has formed about Goethe.

And if someone cannot understand these principles, then their judgment is not to be trusted. But I would like to give such gentlemen a piece of advice: they should dispute most vehemently any judgment of mine about linguistics. Because after going back so far in the decades, one should just go back a little further and check my school notebooks in Wiener Neustadt. I can guarantee that these school notebooks always contained a large number of grammatical errors up to the age of 14, and that punctuation in particular was extremely poor. I therefore believe that one can draw the justified conclusion from this that it is completely impossible for me to make a valid judgment about anything linguistic today! It seems to me that the investigations will soon have to be driven into this quagmire.

It occurred to me, without me wanting to draw a comparison, that the poet Robert Hamerling published his high school teaching certificate in his memoirs. This certificate, which was issued by the enlightened high school teaching examination board when Robert Hamerling was to take his high school teaching qualification, contains the following passage: The candidate is eminently qualified to teach Greek and Latin, however, one cannot help but say that with regard to the German language and style, he can hardly meet the most basic requirements of a grammar school teacher of the lower classes. Such samples could indeed be collected in many ways. Those who have experience in this field know how these things actually come about, that is, how they arise from the mind, because that is the more important thing.

That, my dear friends, is what I wanted to tell you about the progress of our movement. I must repeatedly draw your attention to the fact that you must be fully aware that the opposition is growing ever greater and greater.

Today I would like to say a few words that could be a kind of continuation of the explanations I gave you before my trip. I would like to talk about how, in a sense, what I have said on various occasions about the Christ problem can be summarized. I would like to do this because a paper has recently been published that characterizes, as it were, “newer religious movements,” and among these also discusses anthroposophy. In this paper, one might say, the tone is actually quite benevolent. You see, I have given our friends in Kristiania some consolation for the terrible things that they too have had to endure in the newspapers. I said: If the newspaper reviews had been so one-sided as to bring them extraordinary praise, then I would have had to consider what is wrong with anthroposophy and what can be improved. But now, for some time, one can be encouraged again; because it would have been very bad if things had turned out differently.

So, a publication has appeared that expresses itself in an actually benevolent intention about the religious content of anthroposophy. It is said that it would be quite nice if the religious feeling of the present were to receive support from anthroposophy. But that cannot be the case, because then the religious movement would have to watch as anthroposophy points people to the higher worlds. The higher worlds would be pointed out from a different side than that of the appointed representatives of religion, and if that were to attract followers, they would not be followers of religion, but followers of anthroposophy, from which one must therefore conclude that the life of anthroposophy means the death of religion.

This sentence is included in the first part of these discussions as something special. And there it is, as with so much, referred to the Cosmic Christ. Of course, everything that can be said about gnosticism and the like is brought up again, and then it is said: To present the Christ as an extraterrestrial, cosmic being is an insult to anyone who feels religious.

Now, since this is actually being said from a benevolent side, benevolent in relation to anthroposophy, as well as in relation to religious renewal, I must confess that I found that the matter had to be considered: How is it that people who, after all, cannot change their minds but are nonetheless well-meaning, come to the conclusion that the Christology of Anthroposophy is even offensive to a Christian, as he should be according to the opinion of such public representatives - because the person in question who wrote the book is a professor of theology. So it is a matter of considering what is actually at the root of this.

My dear friends, first of all we must consider what we have always presented regarding the twofold experience, the Father-experience, that is, the experience of God permeating the world, and the Christ-experience as such, which, for example, is not separated by people like Harnack from the general experience of God, from the Father-experience. I have presented this to you. It can be shown, and this must actually be striven for in the present, that there must be two experiences in man: one that comes from a truly correct contemplation of nature and of the physical existence of man, and the other that comes from the soul to the experience of the Son. The two experiences must occur in man in a completely separate way, so that the Christ-experience is a special experience. But this is not the case with most of the present official representatives of the Christian denominations. In his book 'The Essence of Christianity', for example, Harnack says that Christ does not belong in the Gospels, only the Father; so it should not be about having Christ or an image of Christ in the Gospels. The Gospels are not meant by rights to speak about the Christ, but only about what the Christ says about the Father.

This is extremely characteristic, because for anyone who can think impartially, Harnack's concept of Christ is denied the ability to be a Christianity at all. For there is no difference between the old teaching of Yahweh and Christology when it is said: the Christ does not belong in the Gospels, only the Father. For then the Christ is merely the Father's teacher, and then we really have no difference between the Christ-Jesus of these theologians and the Jesus whom, for example, an ordinary secular historian, Ranke, describes. That is just “the simple man from Nazareth,” certainly a peak of historical human development, but just the simple man from Nazareth. Actually, there is nothing of the Mystery of Golgotha in

such a so-called Christian discussion. But the individual human being can have the separate Christ-experience in the present, especially if he feels the modern sense of self in the right way. But then, I would like to say, one has the Christ who is present and walking among us spiritually, and not yet the historical Christ-Jesus who went through the Mystery of Golgotha.

Now it is a matter of also understanding this Christ-Jesus historically. This can be done in the following way. One follows the historical development of humanity up to the time when the Mystery of Golgotha took place. You know that this is the fourth post-Atlantean period.

Now let us assume that I have to talk to you today about the historical development of humanity without the Mystery of Golgotha having taken place in the Pauline sense; then I would not be able to talk to you about anything other than the pale skull site of Golgotha. Because what happened at this pale skull site of Golgotha would not have a supersensible significance. The Christ could not be understood as a supermundane, cosmic being.

During this period, the preliminary experience of the I first occurred. This can also be proven philologically by examining the languages. However, the actual experience of the I for Western humanity in the various branches of the life of consciousness did not occur until the first third of the 15th century, but it spread from the fourth post-Atlantic period.

The peoples who lived before the mystery of Golgotha had, as you know, an ancient wisdom in the most ancient times. This primal wisdom has indeed taken on very different forms among different peoples. But, however it may have been differentiated in the most diverse ways, in religious terms it was a wisdom of the Father-God, and anyone today who, in complete impartiality, takes in what can be established about the primal wisdom of different peoples, what can be gleaned from the records and documents of the nations, even in the Vedas, which I have often discussed, one will find that one must have the deepest reverence for what appeared in the most ancient times as primordial wisdom in the development of mankind

and has always been directed by the mysteries to the appropriate heights. But now this ancient wisdom is gradually dying out, and it is diminishing to the same extent that the instinctive old way of consciousness is diminishing. But to the same extent, self-awareness is also emerging in humanity, and with it the claim to human freedom.

Why was it that ancient pre-Christian humanity could have a wisdom of God that still instills the deepest reverence in us today when we look at it impartially? Precisely because consciousness had not yet penetrated to egoity, to the I, because what man brought forth from his being, when he considered himself in connection with the environment, gave him the Father consciousness in the most diverse forms. I have said it before: one cannot become an atheist if one is completely healthy. Atheism can be traced back to some kind of physical deficiency. But because these ancient peoples had a certain divine inheritance, this father consciousness arose from their overall feeling as human beings, from their total feeling and from the intuitive wisdom that flowed from it. As I said, this faded towards the fourth post-Atlantic period.

Everything is individual when it is really considered impartially, not in the sense of today's inadequate scientific method. In the deepest sense, it points to what has just occurred as a break in human development in this fourth post-Atlantic period, for example between Greek and Latin-Roman development. I have already mentioned many things, and I could still characterize many more. I just want to draw attention to one thing: if you still learn Greek today, you have to give the letters names: Alpha, Beta and so on, while in Roman times the names for the letters have already been absorbed; it is now just an “alphabet”, A, B, C and so on.

This happened during the transition to the abstract nature of the Roman language, the Romance language, and as a result, the understanding that something was originally given with language that had an inner connection, and that with language, humans were given a gift from the genius of language at the same time, was actually lost. These things must be researched because, as I am only able to hint at today, we cannot arrive at a thorough didactics of language teaching, as it must be in a truly serious school, such as a Waldorf school, if we do not pursue serious language studies; today's studies are not serious if we do not understand what it means that we now take the Greek letters alpha, beta, gamma and so on for granted, and merely refer to the Latin letters as letters: A, B, C and so on. Something of the genius of language was given to humanity, which I have to describe to you - as you know - as a real, actual being. In all kinds of orders one speaks of the “lost word”, but nowhere does one know what it is. It was simply with what we call the alphabet, if one simply pronounced the letters in succession, a world proclamation was given. Take for example the Greek Alpha. For anyone studying languages today, this is of the utmost importance. I hope that these language studies in particular can now be pursued in detail by Waldorf teachers, whom I have encouraged to do so, because we need these things in order to be able to use them practically in our teaching. If you form the word Alpha - but you have to take it fully - you have something that means “man”; and in “Beta” you have “house”. So that the word pronounced in the first two letters means: Man in his house. And then it continues through gamma and the other letters. And when you complete the alphabet, you get a deep meaning from the simple enumeration of the respective words that the letters mean.

This was later lost, completely disappeared in humanity, when the word that consists of all the letters of the alphabet. And today one speaks in “Freemason orders” of the “lost word”, but actually does not speak of something that really exists, because hardly anything suspects this reality.

But analyze the Greek alphabet and you will trace it back to the Hebrew: Aleph, Beth and so on, the alphabet always begins with: Man in his house. And then it continues. So world wisdom is revealed with the alphabet. Now, in the fourth post-Atlantic period, that which leads more and more to self-awareness emerged. It happened in stages, and I have already hinted at the important events that took place in the fourth Christian century, for example. However, as the sense of self emerged, something else emerged to the same extent. The I, the sense of self, that which the human being experiences by coming to full self-awareness, comes only from the physical body. Study everything else today, and you will receive influences from a supersensible existence, an existence from outside of life between birth and death. The sense of self that the human being has is a creation of what is experienced in the physical body between birth and death. In the next reflection, I will explain the full significance of self-awareness to you, but for now I would just like to mention it. However, the fact that the self-awareness of earthly man initially only comes from the physical body made those who were initiated through the mysteries in the fourth post-Atlantean period feel ill. They felt the culture was mentally ill. And that was a mystery view of the fourth post-Atlantic period: culture is mentally ill and needs a healer. This was deeply ingrained, and it is interesting to see how the Greek people, who were striving for health through and through, perceived this cultural illness.

You see, long, learned treatises have been written about the word “catharsis” associated with the mysteries. This was used to describe something that lives in the development of a tragedy by Aeschylus or Sophocles for the Greek tragedy. As I said, great scholarly treatises have been written about it. You know that from Lessing to the present day, speculations have been made about it; half-truths and quarter-truths have been found, but the right one has not been found. Lessing said: Fear and compassion should be stimulated, which in turn should be overcome. The soul should, so to speak, be healed of these passions by evoking them in this way.

But the most important thing is that “catharsis” is actually a medical term, and that it indicates that in Greece there was still an essential connection, let us say, for example, between Hippocrates and Aeschylus. The healthy Greek feeling sensed the cultural disease, and in the Aeschylus drama one sensed something like a healing. Therefore, one spoke in favor of the course, for the construction of the drama of catharsis, of the crisis that is overcome. One really spoke in medical terms of this catharsis. And if you look at historical development from this point of view, you will look with a special eye at the Essenes, especially at the therapists. Why did they call themselves “therapists”? Because they wanted to work on the recovery of the culture that had become ill.

And all this was preparation for the great healer, for Christ Jesus, for the actual savior. And it is not some superficiality, but is deeply rooted in the mystery knowledge of human development that the entry of the Mystery of Golgotha signifies a therapy for the historical development of humanity, and that if one were to speak of human development today without the Mystery of Golgotha having been there, one would have to say: human development is going downhill. One could only point to the bleaching skull place of Golgotha.

With full consciousness, it must be pointed out that the Mystery of Golgotha occurred at the right time and that it could not have come from the earth, but from outside the earth. For everything that had happened on earth in the development of humanity was at the stage in which the Greeks and the people of the Near East saw it, the therapists, until the “great therapist” came.

This actually leads to a correct and inward view of history. And from such a view of history, one is simply led to the historical event of the Mystery of Golgotha, to the historical Christ-Jesus. That is the way. This will be further explained next time.

But why does theology in particular oppose this extraterrestrial, this cosmic Christ? Why does theology say: That is insulting, that the Christ should be a sun being? Well, my dear friends, the reason for this is that theology itself has become materialistic. If we go back to the ancient wisdom, which was still instinctive, we see that people did not look up into the cosmic order and say: up there is the sun, which is a glowing ball of gas, but they looked up to the spiritual beings that were in the starry heavens. Whoever speaks of the being of the sun as the Christ does not speak of the material sun, but of the spiritual essence of the cosmos. We know how it is spoken of in theology today; there, too, one sees nothing but something that is calculated like a machine. And because extraterrestrial space is merely material — according to the view of such materialistic theologians —, anthroposophy, of course, makes the Christ, by declaring him to be a solar being, a merely material being as well.

So, because contemporary theology is so deeply infected by the materialism of the present day that it is taken for granted that when one speaks of the solar being, one is only talking about something material, it says: It is insulting. Because, isn't it true that anyone who, infected by conventional science, imagines a sun being coming to earth, imagines – and I don't mean to make a slip here, but I say this out of a desire to be understood – that something flies out of the sun and onto the earth, at most thinks of a shooting star. And so the theologian, based on his materialism, basically has the opinion: yes, when anthroposophy speaks of the Christ as a being of the sun that comes from the sun to the earth, it speaks of the Christ as a shooting star, a meteor. This can only come from materialism; people can no longer think in any other way than in material terms.

You have to go back to the elements if you want to understand at all why theologians might say that it is offensive when anthroposophy associates the Christ with an extraterrestrial being. Here you can see how contemporary theology is caught up in materialism, so to speak.

Now, I have tried to make it clear to you that Christ as the savior must be understood in a real, higher, medical sense. Of course, this will offend many theologians, because the fact that I have associated the word savior with the Heliand of German poetry, “Heliand,” has, it seems, deeply hurt Pastor Kully, who finds it extremely offensive and believes that it is as hollow as his own arguments. But I would like

emphasize: the benevolent theological writing I spoke to you about is not by Pastor Kully – lest you fall into the error of thinking it is – but from a slightly different source. From this, my dear friends, you can see that the Christology of anthroposophy can and must always be further deepened, because the present time demands that the Christ be understood again, that we can again rise to a real understanding of the Christ in the Jesus.