Supplements to Member Lectures

You can say, my dear friends, that the entry of the soul that was embodied in Christian Morgenstern into the spiritual worlds was an event for these spiritual worlds, that in a certain sense, if I may use the prosaic expression, it made an epoch in these spiritual worlds. Characteristic personalities have left the earth plan with their souls in the course of the last centuries. The most characteristic personalities among those who have left this earth plan have left it with a soul that was well versed in all that can be observed around the earth's horizon, in all that can be thought outstanding around the earth. Great spirits have walked the earth, and human earthly thinking has developed intensively. This human earthly thinking has illuminated the intimate material processes of life. That is precisely the characteristic of the last centuries, that the human earthly mind could only shine intensively into the material secrets of life. And souls have passed through the gate of death with distinctly intense earthly knowledge; they have carried up into the spiritual worlds infinitely much of what one can knowingly attain on earth. But probably never has so much of what the earthly intellect can conquer and what has no meaning for the spiritual worlds, what is there to explain the sensual worlds, what reveals deep spiritual secrets of the sensual worlds, been carried up through the gate of death into the spiritual worlds, especially by outstanding souls, insofar as these sensual worlds also have their origin in the spiritual. For the most outstanding spirits in particular, the environment into which they entered through the gate of death was a land in which strange phenomena shone towards their spiritual senses, their spiritual powers of comprehension. And they had to turn their inner gaze down to earth in order to realize that they were something at all. One could say aphoristically: We see in the spirit land an assembly of souls who have passed through the gate of death, who have carried earthly existence, the most outstanding cycles of earthly existence, up into the spiritual worlds. Into their circle entered Christian Morgenstern's soul, that soul which, equipped with the innermost urge for the spiritual-scientific or, let us say directly, spirit-language, already strove to experience in the earthly that which is supernatural to the senses, that which is supersensible -, to experience that which in the power of the soul at the same time animates and fires the earthly man, that which makes this soul receptive in the most eminent sense to that which shines towards the soul in the spirit land when it has passed through the gate of death. And like a bright star that rises, equipped with the life that is to be appropriated on earth for the spirit lands, Christian Morgenstern's soul stepped into the midst of those whose vision for such stars had already become dull. And many a one could be named of the most outstanding spirits of the past centuries - Fichte, Schelling, Hegel - who climbed up through the gate of death and said: “With our earthly understanding of the earth we have measured and explored secrets, but our understanding of that which now surrounds us remained empty; barren and empty remained that which gives an answer to the great meaningful question: ”What is man, the living man in the spirit land?" - And the spirit, which was embodied here on earth in Christian Morgenstern, brought up into their circle what man actually is through his intimate connection with the spirit language. And Hegel and Fichte could say: "We have tried to fathom on earth that which explains the secrets of the earth. But in all the extent of the concepts that we brought out of the earthly mind, out of the deep shafts of earthly knowledge, the question was not answered that is posed before us here: "What is man? What is man in truth in the whole cosmic context? - Come up here and explain it to us through what he is, through what he brings us, through what he has already prepared on earth for heaven, a man, a human star!"