Lectures on Christian Religious Work II

GA 343 — 10 October 1921, Dornach

Twenty-ninth Lecture

My dear friends! Perhaps I may first say a few words about consecration in general, including the consecration of substances or the like, before we formulate the questions that still need to be asked. To do this, I must first give a brief characterization of the concept of consecration.

My dear friends! Consecration actually means to lead something back to the effectiveness of its origin. Take salt, for example, as it is deposited in water or similar. If we consider salt and how it has changed its properties in the course of the earth's development, we find that the further back we go, the more the salt ceases to have only those properties that it manifests to man today; it approaches the stage of existence that we have at the very beginning of a development, let us say, at the beginning of a planetary development. Salt is such that, as matter, it is at the same time permeated by spirit, and as it settles in water, what I have already characterized happens: the spreading of that which is actually the same power that permeates us when we become wiser and that radiates as thought power in the universe. It is indeed the case that we must be clear about how, for example, the process of our own becoming wise takes place. This process is such that it is not the case that our brain atoms or brain molecules start to vibrate, that these vibrations are the material correlate of thoughts – such an assertion contradicts the whole process of human development. The preparation for the grasping of the thought consists in the fact that the material at the nerve cord is broken down, so that, as it were, a hole is created in the material, and into this hole the thought ray pours. (It is drawn on the board.) So our brain is only necessary for our thoughts, in that it forms a reserve, just as the ground is necessary for me to step on it; and the one who claims that our brain activity has something direct to do with thinking makes a similar claim to like someone walking along a road with ruts in it and saying: There are ruts, I want to look for the force below the surface that created these ruts, what pulled or pushed there, so that I can understand how it came about, how these ruts became possible. Of course, they are not caused by forces in the earth at all, they are caused by the fact that wagon wheels have rolled over them, which has nothing to do with [forces in the earth]. Likewise, what brain processes are is nothing more than making room for our thought processes. That is the true process, that wherever salt is deposited by brain processes, as, say, on the surface of such a nerve cord, the possibility is offered for wisdom rays to work within. I could even say, without my dear friend, Pastor Geyer, resenting it: the cleverest person is the biggest blockhead, because he has to make the most holes in his brain so that wisdom can find room in him.

So we come to what I would call the still undifferentiated spirit materiality when we go back to the beginning of any substance.

I hope you have noticed that the substance underlying the world [the expression] was used at one point in the Credo: spiritual-physical. This is also related to this. At the starting point, at the origin of things, we do not have the completely separate matter that we have now. And so 'to consecrate' means nothing more than to give that which one applies sacramentally its original spiritual-material power. You now only need to know that by performing such a process, as I have shown in baptism, we attain precisely that which is significant for the baptismal act. There are other ways to consecrate water. It is not necessary to always use baptismal water, although this would be perfectly suitable for sacramental acts. But it is also possible to consecrate in such a way that one has pure water. Originally, in the beginning, water has the power to renew that which is perishing. Thus, the power of eternal renewal lives in water. Now the point is to try to give the water back what it had in the beginning in the sacramental form. So you have pure water, take salt, this salt will dissolve in the water when you throw it in, then you develop smoke by taking wood flour and sprinkling incense over it, you treat the smoke as that which absorbs our word, and you then speak this word to the water:

In this water lives the power of eternal renewal
With this power may this water be connected
As it was connected in the beginning.
In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
Amen.

So speaking the words into space always means something like forming the word in the material, so that in this way you bring the word to that which you want to consecrate. Then you can use such water, which has now received its original power sacramentally, to consecrate by sprinkling.

All you really need to know is that you can treat the ashes in the same way. And if you treat the ashes in the same way, then to consecrate them for the baptismal water, if you wanted to do so beforehand – although the act is sufficient as I said the other day – you would have to say:

In the ashes lives chaos,
From which new beings can be brought forth.
Let these ashes be joined again
As they were joined in the beginning.

And again: In the name of the triune God.

Now I would like to point out that the oil can be consecrated by knowing that the oil, by acting in a substance, imbues that substance. Actually, what I am saying essentially applies to plant substances in life. So, by permeating the plant substance, the oil makes it, as one might call it, more loving, so that everything that one does with the oil as a consecration should be related to making it more loving; that is why the anointing oil is used in the ordination of priests, as I explained this morning.

So when you get to know the different spiritual properties of the substances, then you will, through this principle, return the substances to what they were in the beginning, through the formula: In that and that, the power lives forever, what it now is or was, with it may the substantial be connected, as it was connected in the name of the Trinity, that is, the three forms of the Godhead.

Now I would like to answer, not as an example, but in response to a question from yesterday, which is the question about the passage in the 14th chapter of the Gospel of John, verse 28, which is usually read as follows: “If you loved me, you would rejoice, because I said, ‘I am going to the Father, because the Father is greater than I.’”

I do not believe, my dear friends, that this passage, when presented to us in this way, could ever evoke any feeling other than this: it is incomprehensible. For one hears only words, and these words, in turn, do not correspond to everything that is said in the Christian sense about the relationship between Christ and the Father. But I would like to draw your attention to the following, which can significantly help in translating this passage, namely that, especially in sacred language in earlier times, words were not used as they are used today. When we use words today, we actually always assume that the words stand side by side, and we trace things back to the words. A word means this or that. This is not the case in sacred language use. There, as in a living process, one word leads into another, so that one would not have felt authorized to simply say the word “child” without being aware of the context. Rather, one would have had to feel in the word “child” that the concept of growth is contained and that in this process of growth, which connects one with the essence of the child, one has the right, when aiming at the whole human being, to use the word “child”, “young man” or even “old man”. So there was a certain fluidity in the use of words. Now there was a relationship between this use of language in the mysteries and the use of language at the time when the mystery of Golgotha was approaching for humanity; there one used — however strange this may seem to you today — the word 'Father' for the ground of the world, alternating as if one were flowing into the other. But [it was felt with] the concept that this world reason through the events that are indeed hinted at in the Old Testament - which are then also clearly hinted at again by Paul in the old and new Adam, through the fall of the angels, with whom human beings also fell - that this fatherly world reason has gradually led to death. It was the case that in the mysteries, for a time, those who spoke in the mysteries used the words “father” and “death” in alternation, on all possible occasions. And so we would have to translate: If you truly loved me, you would rejoice that I have said that I am going to die, for death was once more powerful than I – one would actually have to say “more magical”. In the older mystery language, the word “magical” always has something to do with “powerful”. So here it is an indication of the conquering of death. It is therefore necessary, or rather, the disciples must rejoice that Christ Jesus has declared himself willing to go to the Father, but in this age that means to death.

I can well imagine how forced such an explanation may appear to one or the other, because the things that the interpreters do with the gospels today are just about the most forced things one can imagine, because they do not agree among themselves or they do not agree with the dogmatics and so on. So we have to be willing to go back a little to the living use of the words and not just interpret the words literally; this is absolutely essential for such a passage.

Question: It has been said that the laws of nature apply only within the earth's radius. How do you explain the prominences and the lines in the spectrum of the sun?

Rudolf Steiner: Today's physicists would be very surprised if they could design their airships in such a way that they could go to the place where they suspect all kinds of gas to evaporate and the like, while the matter is quite different. So, for example, one would have to say that even empty space still has an intensity, namely the intensity of zero. Take any intensity for a substance, let's say for air; air has a certain intensity, water has a greater intensity, earth an even greater intensity, and if you then go back again, you come to the so-called empty space, it has the intensity zero in relation to the effectiveness. Just as you can arrive at zero in your wallet and then, if you go further, incur debts and arrive at a negative figure, so intensity can also become negative, that is, holes can be drilled into outer space, so that you do not have space there, but negative intensity, hollowed-out space. Physicists would find it in the sun if they could travel there. But in doing so, you have already pointed out something that naturally precludes explaining the prominences in the way that today's physics explains them. So these things lead so far afield, and I can of course only hint that one should try here to get involved in spiritual science. Because that does not actually belong to our immediate path here, otherwise we would have to deal with the whole of anthroposophy here, and that is impossible.

Now I would like to believe that your questions, which rest on the seplen, could at least be answered in the main, as far as that is possible.

Question: What about the communication of individual parishioners with the chalice and bread?

Rudolf Steiner: Well, Communion should be celebrated in such a way that it is celebrated under both forms, because it is actually about the body #rd about the blood, and from the ritual you have also seen that the two parts of the action, the breaking of bread and the taking of bread and that which is done in relation to the cup, are not quite the same and that therefore [these actions] are two parts of a whole. At the time when there was a dispute about whether the cup should be given at all or not, the actual realization of this matter was essentially corrupted. And today one would even be inclined to look at the matter from a sanitary point of view, which is of course a terrible thing.

Question: How should we think about the distribution of the weekly verses over the months that last more than 28 days, when one time the verse is meditated on for two weeks?

Rudolf Steiner: I said that in the morning that I meant that one should try to integrate days for the saying. I thought that the weekly saying should not always be for seven days, but that one should try to distribute it so that it would last for a year. If you do a little calculating, you will get there. In such matters, it is never the absolute number that is important, but the rhythm that continues. Not that it should be done for two weeks, but that some weeks should be extended by days.

Question: To what extent can free speech pieces also be included in the rituals? What should be the position of the sermon in the service?

Rudolf Steiner: Well, it is best, although it is different in some church areas, to insert the sermon before the Gospel reading. The sermon should precede the Gospel reading. I have not had the opportunity to give you certain formulas for what, so to speak, entwines around the four main parts of the Mass. In Catholicism, for example, we have the relay prayers, that is, the prayers below [at the steps of the altar] before the steps of the altar are climbed; we have a certain reading on the right side of the altar, while the gospel is read from the left side; and the sermon should actually always be inserted before the gospel reading. But with the exception of the sermon and the communion of the faithful, which should be performed after the priest has taken communion and before the final formulas of the mass – which I have not yet been able to explain to you either, but I will send them to you send it to you in some form or other – so with the exception of the sermon and the Communion of the faithful, which is not even connected with a single word, extemporaneous speech should not take hold within the Mass and within the ceremonies.

Of course it cannot be that you regard what I have just formulated – and I have told you how difficult it is to formulate – as something dogmatically established, but what is ritual should be stereotyped in a certain sense.

Question: Do Catholic and anthroposophical views of worship and the sacrifice of the Mass flow from the same source? Does the Catholic chasuble go back to the recognition of the supersensible nature of the human being, and is there still an awareness of these things in Catholicism today?

Rudolf Steiner: This question is extremely difficult to answer in the absolute sense. Let us start with the first question: Does the Catholic chasuble go back to the realization of the supersensible nature of the human being? — One can say: It goes back to that, but this realization, which one would have to fall back on, actually lies in a time before the Catholic chasuble was introduced. It was introduced into the old service and retained at a time when one could no longer see these things. So it has been taken over traditionally, and today, if one has access to supersensible vision, one can recognize the extent to which these things apply. As far as I know, the symbolism given in the Catholic Church in relation to the chasuble is, compared to what I have told you, extremely arbitrary. At least, as far as I know, I have found little that can be traced back to the four limbs of the human being.

Constantin Neuhaus: I know of nothing.

Rudolf Steiner: You know nothing about it? So in Catholicism it is certainly the case that the symbolism appears much more arbitrary; it is certainly not the case that one would understand things immediately. So one can hardly say that the question “Is there still an awareness of these things in Catholicism today?” could be answered with an absolute yes.

Now the question: Do Catholic and anthroposophical views on worship and the sacrifice of the Mass flow from the same source?

Yes, as I said, what is there has simply been taken over from tradition, just as much has been based on tradition that has now been abandoned, let us say, for example, the golden backgrounds in Cimabue. Yes, they were used because it was simply traditional to have gold backgrounds when depicting saints or anything related to the transcendental world. Because the solar nature of the transcendental was how it was imagined, it was traditional for many to always paint the images of saints in the way they were painted at the time of Cimabue. Only Giotto began to break away from tradition. Of course, you can't find a golden background in the sensual world, but in the world to which, traditionally, what was depicted in Cimabue's time corresponded, it was quite possible that the gold could also be seen as a background.

Now, you can even see in certain pictures — anthroposophists have even gradually come to love some of these images — how the tradition of the two Jesus children was still present as a tradition for a long time. Since nothing is known about it today, people naturally scoff at these things. Well, people “scoff at themselves and know not how”.

Question: Does the new cult not also include an episcopal church constitution?

Rudolf Steiner: It seems necessary to me, my dear friends, that you take into account the development of the matter. We are really not yet so far that we need to delve deeper into an episcopal church constitution right now. There is no doubt that something like a church constitution will arise. But do you not see that what we have brought before our souls here as the beginning of the cult – and that is enough for the time being – is really practised without a fully developed episcopal church constitution? As for what will then have to be done in order to make a start on the cult, I believe that it will be done if this start can be made. I do not think it would be advisable to start with cult forms and ordinations before the matter is sufficiently well established, so that the individuals who want to stand up for this renewal of religious life have their full task in a very firm way. Then we will be ready to say: When those concerned have gathered their community, then we will answer the question of how this is to be done in detail. Now, of course, this is also related to the next question: Who can ordain, either only the one who has already been ordained or everyone involved in the religious renewal? If the first case applies, who can perform the ordination?

It is really only about the very first case. Then it is necessary – for there to be real unity – that things are done in such a way that the consecration comes from a first person. But the first from which this emanates is again something that must arise, and then, when it has arisen, when, so to speak, the self-evident agreement, of which I have spoken before, is there, then what must be done to bring about what is necessary will certainly be found.

Perhaps you have other questions?

The question is asked about the design of the altar.

Rudolf Steiner: Design of the altar? Well, it seems to me that first of all the altar should be designed in such a way that it works through its correctness on the one hand, but through its simplicity on the other. The essential thing about an altar would of course be the following in its simplest form: There is, of course, a kind of table, and it is good if, because it is about the sacrifice, this table also remains what it was intended for, actually a tomb; so you have a tomb in the form of a table, with steps leading up to it. There is now a lampstand in which lights are arranged in such a way that there are three on the right and three on the left, and one in the middle, which is elevated. There are seven lights on the altar, and above the seven lights, in some way, the triune God, that is, God in the three forms. It is important that we really relate ourselves to what is expressed in the Mystery of Golgotha: the taking up of death into the power of the Father, so that we do well if we – of course without superstition or idolatry — leave the Father in the form of an old man; the Christ is already best represented as he has been represented since the sixth century, even for the present time, because it is true for this time that the contrast of Christianity to earlier perceptions is sharply emphasized. You know, of course, that it is said of Buddha that he arrived at his teaching as a result of the sight of a corpse. According to the account that is usually given, it was actually from this sight of the corpse that the Buddha's teaching emerged, because Buddha was horrified by the corpse, because he recoiled from the corpse. Among the manifold things that... [space in the transcription], it is a fact that six centuries after the Mystery of Golgotha people looked up to the body on the cross in jubilation, while 600 years before the Mystery of Golgotha the Buddha turned away from the body in disgust. This memory, even if only in our feelings, is something that should be presented even today when it comes to the representation of the Trinity. For reasons that we have already mentioned, the Holy Ghost was [represented] in the form of the dove, the innocent winged creature. That is, after all, approximately what matters most at the altar. Everything else is then, in part, too much for today's consciousness or it is tendrils. What should be striven for, of course, if possible, is to have the Sanctissimum, that is, the monstrance, which I have drawn, wherein the consecrated host is located, and that is something that beginning and before the end of the sacrifice of the Mass, and it is also entirely appropriate to add to what is to happen through the sacrifice of the Mass the viewing of the consecrated host, the consecrated host.

The altar will naturally be covered with cloths, which in turn go through the same annual development as I have shown for the priest's robe. The altar is to be so equipped that it essentially matches the color of the cloths with which it is covered, the priest's robe, and the external chasuble. Of course, it is important to ensure that the implements that are used, the chalice and the monstrance, are also consecrated, and that only consecrated items are used to touch them. That is probably the most important thing to say about this.

A participant asks about the technical possibilities for performing the breviary prayer and asks for a statement on Catholic kneeling and folding the hands in connection with meditation.

Rudolf Steiner: The meditations are never Catholicizing and the question of bodily positions does not arise for them, because it is always emphasized that what constitutes meditation in our Western world is independent of bodily positions. The only thing that is good for the meditator of the West is that he does not choose a position that makes him too sensitive, so that he is not distracted by uncomfortable sensations but can be completely within himself. The oriental meditations, to which, by the way, things like kneeling and the like can be traced back, also take into account the immersion of the self into the currents of the universe. This is something that should not really be considered for prayer with a breviary, but the concentration that occurs should actually replace and balance these external aids. That is why I did not go into things like kneeling, because they really do not have the same significance for the [Western] human being who is more liberated in his organization as they once had, and who would actually lower the whole cultural experience by one level than we are allowed to place it today. I believe that, as some of you have already seen, in the Sunday activities in the Waldorf School, every movement, every position is made as simply as possible, just as it arises from the situation; and that is what should actually be aimed for: to do what is done in this direction, out of the immediate situation.

A participant: Pastoral physiology and pastoral psychology were mentioned this morning. This reminded me of an expression found in old dialects and still used today in popular speech: to put something through its paces. Is that related to what was said this morning?

Rudolf Steiner: Of course, if one wanted to give a complete answer, one would also have to go into anthroposophical medicine, anthroposophical anatomy and physiology. In every organ we see the outward sign of a spiritual connection in which the human being stands with the whole world. If we look at the human heart, we see everything concentrated in the heart that connects the human being with the forces that make up the will-like nature of his thoughts, so one might say, not the content of his thoughts, but the will-like nature of his thoughts, his volition in the spirit. In the kidneys we have to seek everything that is the feeling nature of the human soul; so that when we say “to test someone through their heart and kidneys”, we are saying in a vividly concrete and therefore true way what would mean in our present intellectualistic language, namely, one tests a person according to his volition and his feelings, not merely according to the content of his thoughts, but one tests a person according to his real inner attitude, when one puts him through his paces.

But these things are so far removed from today's consciousness that I believe one could have already come so far as to be embarrassed to say “through and through”, or on the other hand one could have come so far as to consider this to be crude materialism; crude materialism consists namely in looking at matter in a crude way, because one makes the spirit into an abstract in a nebulous way.

One participant feels that the Lord's Prayer and the High Priestly Prayer in John's Gospel convey two different impressions regarding the concept of the Father.

Rudolf Steiner: You have a different impression? If you examine it, you will see that precisely in the High Priestly Prayer the meaning [of the concept of the Father] shines forth more deeply if you take this [what I said about the Father God]. A participant: But in the Lord's Prayer...?

Rudolf Steiner: In the Lord's Prayer, one has to think of the foundation of the world. In the Lord's Prayer, the first sentence does not actually refer to the later becoming, but to the beginning, to the origin. The Lord's Prayer is actually intended as a measure of time, so it refers to the beginning... [gap in the transcript].

A participant: In the Catholic Church, it is necessary for the faithful to cleanse themselves through confession if they wish to partake of communion. What should take the place of confession in preparing the communicant [in our church]?

Rudolf Steiner: Well, this morning I also spoke about a kind of confession, my dear friends, at least about a connection between the community and the pastor, so that the pastor is already the confessor. These things can be taken up in a certain sense, if they are done in a free way, not in such a rigid form and almost business-like way, as is often the case in the Catholic Church. There is a difficulty that arises when Catholics become anthroposophists. On the contrary, one does not want to fight the denominations in the anthroposophical field. One would actually like everyone to progress through their denomination. I do not mean to progress to anthroposophy, but to progress religiously, as you would like to progress by speaking of a renewal of religious life. It is not the confessions that should be fought, nor the practice of the confessions. But now there is a difficulty with Roman Catholic believers that they say: Yes, how are we to practice communion when we do not receive it if we have not confessed beforehand? And that is indeed a difficulty that is insurmountable in the anthroposophical field, for example, because one cannot advise someone to make a compulsory confession that is of the kind that often occurs in Roman Catholicism. Thus, Roman Catholicism has organized things in such a way that they either require an absolutely firm adherence [to the Church] or a complete departure, in which case, however, damnation is pronounced. But much of what makes up the strength of Catholicism depends on this. You cannot be a real Catholic in a casual way, because you cannot even receive communion at Easter if you have not first made your Easter confession. The very fact that they exist in Catholicism shows that these things should be more free and also more true and sincere. After all, it is not that rare, comparatively speaking, to have a Catholic maid, and if chance would have it, you might find a note in the servant's room where she has written: I stole my master's gold watch – and only now realizes that she stole my gold watch; but she had written this down so as not to forget to confess it. Even if it is not always a matter of gold watches, these things do exist, and they make the whole thing seem trivial, untrue, un-Christian. This could be overcome precisely by the attitude that amounts to the communicant, if he feels it is necessary, first discussing it with the pastor, seeking him out, and that the pastor also knows whether he can give him Communion without having spoken to him. Much of what is always thought of in rigid terms and in rigid laws must be introduced into the practical side, into the whole management of parish life. That is what I meant this morning when I talked about parish life.

A participant: Many of us would be very grateful if we could get a hint about the right way to help the dying and how best to comfort and uplift the seriously ill.

Rudolf Steiner: Well, first of all, it has to be said that it is extremely difficult when one is obliged to try to lift someone's spirits at the moment of death or during a serious illness with some kind of catchphrase or pep talk. The essential thing should actually be to have so much influence on the whole life of the person turning to you as a pastor that the sick person or the person dying after death feels differently through this whole life, through their way of thinking, their powers of feeling, than they would if they only needed special strengthening in each individual case. But especially when one has previously entered into such a relationship with a member of the community, or when someone else who works in the same way has done so, the spoken word will always be valuable in that situation. But if in such moments something is simply to be said in the form of a formula, it will not usually help very much. For one can only speak to a person in a way that is truly understood if one is able to find an echo in his soul. Now, if a person is healthy, one will naturally be able to find an echo for many things, but in moments of illness or death, one needs preparation in order to find an echo for what is spoken out of the situation.

They could experience that at least anthroposophists fall ill and die differently than materialists, and that with them, comfort can very well be spoken out of the situation and out of the matter, and that — as I mentioned this morning — encouragement always helps if the person concerned feels lonely. Sometimes it is more important who says something and how they say it than what is said. But it is true that one can say: In all cases involving illness, when it is a matter of speaking to the dying person, and when it is a matter of consoling the bereaved, it is easier if one can speak on the very broad basis of leaning towards the spiritual through what has come before, than if there has not been a living previous influence. I would strongly urge anyone to try to attend the funeral of an Anthroposophist, to look at those left behind, to listen to how Anthroposophists have died, and they will see that they will ultimately have to answer the question as follows: What we do for the sick person, we should actually do for them while they are healthy; what we do for the dying, we should do for them during their lifetime, and what comfort we have to give to the bereaved, should also be there for them beforehand. Then these things can be done and they will be worthy, because these things sometimes have a very unworthy character.

A participant: I still have a question that could perhaps be answered. We have heard about the veneration of Christ and also that in the Catholic mass the “dominus vobiscum” was, as it were, a wrong translation and should be translated as “Christ in you”. But how is a veneration of the spiritual-physical reason for existence to be realized, since there are circles in the youth movement today that venerate God as the B. Sun?

Rudolf Steiner: Yes, what it is about is that one forms a relationship to what I have often called the triune God, because through this veneration or worship or however you want of the triune God, everything that, when it afflicts people, actually corrupts them or even makes them ill, is avoided. If you take the triune God, you avoid such one-sidedness as pure, naked worship of nature, as it is in a service to the sun, in whatever form it may appear. But at the same time you have also avoided – as the matter demands – then taking the idea of God so far away from the human being that you no longer have any concrete content for it at all. For in the second form of the Godhead, in the second person, in the Christ, the Godhead is to be conceived as thoroughly human within, while we know that in the Father God it has more of a symbolic character. It is absolutely the case that the expansion of our understanding of the divine through the Trinity – if we are not speaking merely in definitions, but are entering into something very concrete – also gives the content of God a fullness that cannot be attained by anything else. If today some people fall back into a nature service, into an idolatry, it is because through a non-supernatural understanding of the concept of God, it has been greatly removed from what we now have in the visible world as the so-called most perfect in us, in man.

I can only say that, because I don't know what you meant by your question. I mean, where do you see a difficulty?

The same participant: The question only arose for me because I feel the need to also include the Father, who is still to come as the Christ. It is just the way it is for me personally.

Rudolf Steiner: The Father? Yes, but in fact: to think of the Father without the Son is actually to fall back into the time before the Mystery of Golgotha. There is a strong tendency towards this today. The tendency towards this is so strong today that it is one of the most important world-historical phenomena of our time. Just consider what divides nations today. Individual nations do not feel the human context, which is felt in a Christian way, but the national context, and what they accomplish in the national context, they often accomplish “in the name of Christ”, while something that is to be accomplished from the national context can actually only be accomplished in the name of Yahweh. So that basically today, in the way we treat nationalities, we have the phenomenon – as grotesque as it may sound – that all nations have become Jews, except that each nation has its own Yahweh; there is no right to speak of the Christ. Now, of course, one can truly say today that one does not want the Christ, but if one does so, one must also be honest enough to return to Judaism if one values the Father more than the Son. A participant: I feel the need to honor the Father more than the Christ.

Rudolf Steiner: If you feel the need to honor the father more than the Christ, then you are not going along with the actual mission of the Christ. Of course it may be natural to you, but it is not Christian.

A participant: In the Catholic Church, after confession, the pastor assigns certain penance exercises. How and with what does one help a person so that he is able to overcome his spiritual distress himself?

Rudolf Steiner: What do you mean by what is given in the Catholic Church?

The same participant: Making amends for a debt incurred. That would also be possible here. I believe prayers or something like that.

Rudolf Steiner: But of course this also has its dangerous side. You see, within Catholicism you confess as a child. You say your sins, which sometimes can be very formulaic. At least that is how I was introduced to these things, that children confess sins for which they do not understand the words they say in the slightest. Isn't that right, the children get a piece of paper like that – I still know these papers quite well – all the sins are on it; you cross out the ones you haven't committed, and then you confess the ones you've left. Not so long ago, this was not uncommon. The child does not understand how superficial it is. Sometimes the most terrible things are written on these pieces of paper, which the child is better off not knowing. But sometimes it is just as superficial as when the priest says: “Say five Our Fathers and one Creed.” What does this praying of five Our Fathers and one Creed have to do with the commandments, and what does it have to do, in the abstract, with what is actually supposed to be achieved when there is real spiritual distress or even just dissatisfaction or something similar in the soul? Naturally, the community should not exceed a certain size. Through the encouragement of the word and through everything that the confessor – if I may call him that – then considers necessary, a certain amount of amends can of course be made, can't it? All sorts of things will happen, it is hardly possible to avoid them if one really seeks the advice of a confessor. But dangers lie in the imposition of prayers or, let us say, the payment of indulgences or the ordering of masses.

The same participant: I was thinking more of a simple meditation for one person.

Rudolf Steiner: That is right, a meditation can only be given individually. No prescription for a meditation can be given, and therefore, when the priestly practice is there, it will arise precisely from what I meant today. Of course it can be there, but it must not be externalized by making patterns for it.

Heisler: It was said a few days ago that it is difficult to establish a connection with deceased people who have died without an inner relationship to Christ. What specifically can be done to help such a deceased person to find a connection with Christ?

Rudolf Steiner: Yes, that is true. In fact, the only thing one can do is what I have already mentioned. One can try to establish a connection with the deceased through their thoughts, to cling to this connection. I did not say to Christ, but to the supersensible world in this case. Of course, for most people today, finding the supersensible world is in turn tied to a connection with Christ. The things that were indicated at the time must simply be tried. Otherwise it is of course necessary to bring about the possibility, precisely by constantly thinking of the dead person, by occupying oneself with him, to prepare oneself so that after one's own death one can then help him. It may well be the case, because he was too distant, that one cannot help him.

A participant: How should one behave in the following two cases: firstly, when a person has led such a life that one must assume that he is lost, and secondly, when one has to say a dying prayer for a seriously ill person who no longer knows anything about what is happening?

Rudolf Steiner: Well, of course [regarding the first part of the question] one must say that one should never make such decisions, that someone is lost. Because the karma of the person is clearly [to be considered], one must never take away the possibility of turning it around and helping. So under no circumstances should anyone be given to understand that he is lost, because to do so would be to add to the possibility of his loss by presenting it as a truth. Here one must remember that one should naturally avoid the thought that someone is lost, should not have it at all.

The second question is whether one should still say a prayer for a dying person if they have no sense of what is being said to them? You should definitely do that! I would ask you to always bear in mind that the soul, the spiritualized soul of the person, is indeed there, and that it is not at all just a matter of whether what the person can take in is done with the help of the physical instrument, but rather it is so that, for example, when one speaks a blessing over a person or otherwise speaks to his soul in any way, this can certainly also happen when one is quite sure that the person concerned cannot take it.

I must confess that I have always held the opinion, based entirely on the realization that many people who now listen to lectures on anthroposophy are not able to absorb things in this life. Nevertheless, I do not consider it unnecessary to speak to them, because their souls do absorb it, and they carry it through death into the next life on earth. Truly, to believe in the spirit is different from believing in the intellect, and to believe in the spirit of a person is different from believing in that person's intellect.

A participant asks whether advice could be given on how to cure mental illnesses from an anthroposophical perspective.

Rudolf Steiner: This is, of course, an extremely extensive chapter. You see, much more than one might think, so-called physical illnesses — in the sense in which I also spoke this morning — depend on spiritual-soul preconditions, and actually there are no real soul illnesses at all, but soul illnesses are basically always based, albeit sometimes on very distant, minute physical illnesses. I would like to emphasize that anthroposophy does not take the view that one speaks of mental illnesses and the like and also wants to heal the so-called mental illnesses spiritually. The point is that in this area in particular, today's external, materialistic medicine — which has almost entirely become a description of abnormal states of mind, in this respect there are indeed the most detailed medical histories — is very much mistaken. The cure for so-called mental illnesses is usually to be found in physical healing, because it is the case that the spiritual-soul is not ill, but can only fail to appear, cannot express itself, through the sick physical. One could even go as far as the paradox: physical illnesses go back to spiritual causes, mental illnesses go back to physical causes. Of course, one must not press such a paradox.

So we are being led beyond all the amateurishness that appears today in the teachings of hypnotism, suggestion or even psychoanalysis, to a healthy medicine that works with the physical and spiritual. It is true that you will sometimes have to ask yourself: Where is the possibility of treating a physical lunatic? — and one often encounters the greatest difficulties with this, because the things that are at issue are extraordinarily difficult to deal with.

A participant: Could we not learn something about the significance of the cult of Mary, especially the May devotions?

Rudolf Steiner: It should be said that the cult of Mary is related to the cult of the Holy Spirit, and that in a certain sense, one can look up to the Holy Spirit on the one hand and to Mary on the other. There is even an old trinity: Father, Mother, Son, and there are even sects that call the Holy Spirit “the Mother of God”. Indeed, in the female organization, one can already see something of the physical organization... [gap in the transcript], as I have explained in these days. On the other hand, however, the Catholic Church developed the cult of Mary at a time when far too little was understood about all these things, and so it allowed itself to exercise a certain amount of arbitrariness. In fact, you will find arbitrariness in all that has been hinted at to you in the Catholic breviary from Pentecost to the feasts of the apostles and saints. The saints' days have actually fallen into arbitrariness because one does not really have a real knowledge of these things, and some things, aren't they, are really set with the greatest arbitrariness, for example, the Feast of Corpus Christi. In the case of the Feast of Corpus Christi, it is actually not even clear — given the precisely defined dogmatic tradition — what it is really about, and, if it is about the body of Christ, for example, why this feast falls precisely at this time. You only have to look at the history of such festivals to see how numerous ambiguities have arisen from materializing knowledge.

Now I do not believe that it is necessary to go too far in the elaboration of such festivals from the very beginning. I have, for example, because I do not allow myself to speak quite objectively about things in the anthroposophical field, of course, also spoken in Protestant areas of the veneration of Mary and the like, of the position of Mary, and that has often greatly angered precisely Protestant minds. They could not bear it, they found it to be a Catholicizing tendency.

Constantin Neuhaus: If we have to free ourselves from personal sins through self-redemption, why do we need a sacramental act of repentance? And if we do, how does this sacramental act of repentance work?

Rudolf Steiner: It is true that the cause of committing a personal sin lies in the weakness brought about by the general sin. The personal sin, or the very personal part of the sin, as I once put it, must be removed in self-redemption. But is it not possible to help a person with something that he is supposed to accomplish through himself? Helping him and strengthening his strength does not contradict the principle of self-redemption. So the sacramental act is essentially a strengthening act. Now, what must be said here is actually that every sacramental act is power-strengthening, that every sacramental act, not just penance, contributes to acquiring this power in order to be able to bring about self-redemption in the course of one's life on earth. So one can express this in very pure terms, if I may express myself in this way. It is therefore quite possible to say that man should be helped as much as possible in this direction, precisely because he is dependent on self-redemption with regard to personal sin. A participant: There are very useful people today who, for some reason or other, do not want to know anything about Christianity on principle, for example Ellen Key. But surely we can ask whether these people do not unconsciously have a living relationship to Christ, or whether knowledge of the spiritual content must be added?

Rudolf Steiner: It is extremely difficult to answer this question in general. As for Ellen Key, for example, since you mentioned her yourself, you see, you have to take the reality into account. A person does not always show what is really in him, and it does not always express itself through his words either. You can, by living in a culture, say with your language, simply feel emotionally that it would make no sense to feel without Christ as one does. If you take Ellen Key's writings as a whole, there is a great deal about her. She denies what she herself has. That is absolutely the case; she has many ideas that she could not have [outside of the Christian context] because they could not have arisen in any other way than within the Christian context.

And so it is with what I said yesterday about Nietzsche. With Nietzsche it is like this: he is the son of a pastor, piously educated, his mother terribly pious, she was truly an extraordinarily pious woman even in old age. And from all this background... [gap in the transcription], there was an inner tragedy, a drilling against himself, that Nietzsche behaves like an executioner towards his own conceptual world – you can find the word from him, by the way. Now he turns against Christ, and when he finally fell into madness in Turin, he wrote letters in which he signed himself: “The Crucified”. So he wrote like that out of his madness, but a person's inclination towards the Christ cannot have disappeared, who signs 'The Crucified' in his madness, even if he wrote the book 'The Antichrist'. So these things are such that one should, I would say, handle them with great care.

Well, my dear friends, everything must come to an end sometime, and we may now conclude this course, as you must now hurry home. I will just refer to what I actually said this morning about community building as a kind of farewell word. I would like to believe that, above all, this course should be based on the most serious consideration of what religious renewal should be achieved by those who have already come together here and by those who will continue to find their way here. It is truly a relief in the deepest sense of the word to hear something like this today: a group of people are coming together to help bring about the ascent of humanity, which is so deeply involved in the movements of decline. But do not forget, my dear friends, that today it takes strength to work for something as you have set out to do. You will be able to muster this strength when you are aware of the full magnitude of the task and when, on the other hand, you are aware of how far humanity has strayed from that which is actually beneficial to it. Those who see the misfortunes of our time in the area on which you have focused as something small are simply being too complacent. Only when one sees the full extent of the decline and, at the same time, the magnitude of the task that we have, can one move forward.

If, from the content of what I have been able to give you, it has also emerged to some extent that you are looking at the current situation with all seriousness and are deciding your actions in the near future based on the seriousness of the matter, then the most important thing that these lectures and these negotiations have been able to strive for has been achieved. And what I would like to give you today from the bottom of my heart is given out of a consciousness that every word wants to shape out of the power of the spirit, that everything that can be connected in hopes, in strengthening wishes for this movement, will accompany you out into your effectiveness from me. My thoughts will be with you, my dear friends, because I see your work as extraordinarily important and meaningful for the present. If you succeed in finding the necessary strength, then it will be so – let us hope that we all find the necessary strength to do so, that we all immerse ourselves so deeply and that we can will so strongly – that what we have set out to do will happen.

In this sense, my dear friends, I would like the words and word attempts that have been presented to you during these days to continue to resound in your hearts, in your thinking, feeling and willing. Let us continue to work in this spirit!