{"corpus":"steiner","locus":"GA 44/05_02","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/44/05_02","ga":"44","lecture":"05_02","lecture_number":null,"title":"Related drafts for the first, second, and third scenes","site_heading":null,"date":null,"location":null,"lang":"en","edition":"English","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"passage_count":59,"word_count":7934,"translation_credit":{"scope":"unit","status":"established","translator":"Steiner Online Library","identified_edition":null,"book_title":null,"publisher":null,"publisher_inferred":false,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Articles/GA044/English/Dweller_05.html","evidence":"lecture_page_line"},"unit_kind":{"kind":"second_piece_same_name","base_unit":"GA 44/05","note":"Another piece with the same name as 05 in this volume; the suffix only separates the two."},"witnesses":[{"lang":"de","edition":"original","is_original":true,"is_default_edition":true,"first_passage":1,"last_passage":60,"passage_count":60,"word_count":7406},{"lang":"en","edition":"English","is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"first_passage":1,"last_passage":59,"passage_count":59,"word_count":7934,"completeness":{"ratio":1.07,"band":"comparable","note":null}}],"witness_completeness":{"ratio":1.07,"band":"comparable","note":null,"word_count":7934,"original_word_count":7406,"may_be_abridged":false},"passages":[{"locus":"GA 44/05_02/p001","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/44/05_02/p001","passage_number":1,"word_count":253,"text":"FERDINAND REINECKE: They want to give us a message that could be significant for us and also for those who called us. So it said in the letter they sent us. I have long been aware of the intentions of the spiritual alliance, which has hitherto kept itself strictly separate from us profane humans, and now considers the time ripe to come together with us. Until now, we were considered too immature to learn even the slightest thing about what it considers its secrets. They are supposed to solve the great riddles that torment the human heart and soul, and also to intervene in human history as the true impulses of progress. I am one of those who have always been averse to all mysterious striving in such matters. I adhere to sound reason, which is accessible to all people without a distinguished esoteric affiliation, and which, in constant progress, provides answers to the questions of existence and shows the goals of human striving. Until now, that spiritual brotherhood regarded people of this kind as mere instinctive beings who had to be unconsciously guided by the high insights of the initiates. It now seems to want to depart from its strict secrecy and seclusion. However, for special reasons, we will not be allowed to penetrate further than what they call the vestibule. I have appeared only so that no one can say that I am stubbornly resisting the hand offered to me. I do not have much confidence in what is to happen."},{"locus":"GA 44/05_02/p002","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/44/05_02/p002","passage_number":2,"word_count":153,"text":"3rd CITIZEN: I am completely unaware of what lives in the souls of the spiritual brothers who now want to break down the barrier that has always separated us from them. But I know many who belong to them, and I have been able to observe the wisdom they conceal in the deeds they perform in their lives toward their fellow human beings. I saw only good revealed in such deeds. Therefore, the hidden reasons always seemed good to me. And so I must tell myself that we should feel joy about the present moment. There must come a time in human progress when what has been carefully guarded in the narrowest circles becomes common property. It is up to us not to let this moment pass us by in foolish self-sufficiency. We should gratefully accept the hand offered to us by those who, through the world plan, have become guardians of knowledge."},{"locus":"GA 44/05_02/p003","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/44/05_02/p003","passage_number":3,"word_count":81,"text":"2nd CITIZEN: It seems to me that caution is the next duty here. The spiritual brothers probably think that in the future their secrets will have to stand the test of common sense. So they are wary. They want us to recognize them because they fear the power of their wisdom. If we can find that their aspirations are sound and their intentions wholesome, then they may come to us. But then their mystical glory will probably come to an end."},{"locus":"GA 44/05_02/p004","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/44/05_02/p004","passage_number":4,"word_count":79,"text":"2nd CITIZEN: You speak as if two armies were facing each other here as enemies. We have long since received the spiritual teachings of the brothers in a form that they considered appropriate for the present human race. And they have brought comfort and strength to souls who longed to become acquainted with their origins. How could we not welcome with enthusiasm a closer union with the bringers of the light that shines in the depths of our hearts?"},{"locus":"GA 44/05_02/p005","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/44/05_02/p005","passage_number":5,"word_count":208,"text":"DOCTOR STRADER: In me you see a man who was not only averse to everything that comes from that side. I did not merely resist them with my reason. I suffered the most severe struggles in life because my nature was contrary to that of the brothers. But little by little, not only my reason had to acknowledge the good. I also came close, as a human being, to a person whose nature is deeply connected with everything that comes from this union. Although I do not belong to it myself, I believe I recognize what its goal means. However, I do not want to talk about my personal attitude toward it. I only want to indicate that, in my pain, I once detached myself from all intellectual dreams and have long since served human knowledge only where it has a creative effect in practical life. Thus, I believe I know how the spirit works in matter. And precisely because I understand this, I also believe I have the right to openly confess here that the union of the high spiritual knowledge that works on that side with the practical experience of life, which rushes from triumph to triumph in the realm of matter, can only be beneficial."},{"locus":"GA 44/05_02/p006","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/44/05_02/p006","passage_number":6,"word_count":106,"text":"3. CITIZEN: It could only be beneficial if people like you wanted to take the lead in noble spiritual endeavors. As human beings, you would be able to speak openly to people. For although you may be superior to some in knowledge, you are connected to every human being by the foundations on which you build. You would not need to refer to hidden paths of the soul, which instead of leading to truth may only lead to error, because they rob the soul of its simple simplicity and first numb it, only to lull it into bliss with its own dreams instead of with knowledge."},{"locus":"GA 44/05_02/p007","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/44/05_02/p007","passage_number":7,"word_count":90,"text":"4. CITIZEN: So spoke those who always sought the truth but did not want to endure the efforts that open the gate to truth for us. Few people would think of throwing themselves into the water without being able to swim. Yet everyone wants to live in the realm of knowledge without first treading the paths of knowledge. It seems to me that faith that entrusts itself to those who choose the spiritual realm for their life is better than faith that serves only its own opinion in vain overestimation."},{"locus":"GA 44/05_02/p008","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/44/05_02/p008","passage_number":8,"word_count":84,"text":"4th CITIZEN: Man owes it to his dignity to choose his own soul as the sole judge in matters that bind him to spiritual worlds. Those who follow a leader other than the one who speaks to the depths of their hearts will soon lose sight of their true selves. Who can guarantee that they do not secretly and unconsciously harbor a human inclination toward a human leader, deceiving themselves into thinking that they are following the spirit when only earthly feelings are speaking?"},{"locus":"GA 44/05_02/p009","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/44/05_02/p009","passage_number":9,"word_count":77,"text":"5. CITIZEN: Those who follow such objections will always help to block the sources from which humanity's progress flows. The opponents of the leaders of humanity who wanted to lead the new age out of the dark Middle Ages drew on such thinking. The nature of resistance is changing; today, people do not light pyres or torture geniuses, but they resist them in other ways. The spirit of gloom remains the same, it only changes its forms."},{"locus":"GA 44/05_02/p010","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/44/05_02/p010","passage_number":10,"word_count":11,"text":"FELIX BALDE: Allow me to say a few words as well."},{"locus":"GA 44/05_02/p011","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/44/05_02/p011","passage_number":11,"word_count":256,"text":"In a long life, I have endeavored to find a path for the soul to the heights of the spirit. What the human spirit strives for in the realm of the senses and what now makes him a proud being through his mastery of nature: viewed from a high spiritual vantage point, it is only a path walked by the blind, who unconsciously follow the dark forces of their goals. And even the treasures of knowledge revealed to the common mind are only groping in dark realms. The soul must descend into deep shafts if it wants to reach the point that can reveal to it how human beings' ant-like work must be integrated into God's goals. I myself have struggled through my own strength, so that in humility I may believe that I have been allowed to see some rays of light. But when I was allowed to measure what I myself had found in the sun that shines from that spiritual union, it became clear to me that he had taken over the primordial wisdom of the human race from lofty predecessors and had been given the calling to transmit it appropriately to later generations. He will therefore best understand what Thomasius's deed means for true spiritual progress. And since it is in the spirit of the present that the manner in which Thomasius is allowed to proclaim high teachings must not remain restricted to the narrowest circles, the association is only doing its duty when it wants to combine its forces with yours."},{"locus":"GA 44/05_02/p012","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/44/05_02/p012","passage_number":12,"word_count":76,"text":"1ST CITIZEN: We would only have to look at ourselves in shame if we wanted to take the same position on Thomasius's actions as these initiates want us to. They will always make us feel that only they themselves recognize the true value of what has happened, and that we must stand in the antechamber of their wisdom in order to present, in their sense, the heralds of a spiritual message that conforms to their goals."},{"locus":"GA 44/05_02/p013","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/44/05_02/p013","passage_number":13,"word_count":248,"text":"DOCTOR STRADER: Many words are being exchanged here that do not seem worthy of the great task before us. Thomasius came to the work that is now to bring such tremendous light in a strange way. At the beginning of his present earthly life, he was not devoted to science. As a creative artist, he wanted to reveal his soul. Through a spiritual current deeply related to that which now wants to raise its voice for him, he was led to a work that, free of prejudice, like a miracle. I saw him at work on pieces that dismayed me, because at that time I could not gauge the sources from which his talent had been bestowed upon him. For him, however, all this was only a preliminary stage. He needed the inner strength that artistic sensibility bestows in order to achieve greater things. He left art behind and immersed himself in the study of nature, so that after ardent effort, everything that humanity has so far achieved in terms of insight into the secrets of nature was revealed to him. In his soul, artistic skill married with knowledge, and the deed was born that is now to flow like a mighty stream of spiritual power into human souls. Is not the effect of Thomasius' deed already prefigured in his life? It comes from deeply mysterious sources: must it not also find its way to the people from whom it itself originated through the power of those sources?"},{"locus":"GA 44/05_02/p014","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/44/05_02/p014","passage_number":14,"word_count":121,"text":"1. CITIZEN: The fruits of the new tree of wisdom do not truly reveal themselves in a way that can inspire us to become eager cultivators of its further development. People who look beyond the threshold they cross in death with pious faith can, in the consciousness of being a child of God, destroy many selfish impulses within themselves on earth. The prospect of recurring earthly lives makes everyone strive only for their own perfection; the bonds of blood and custom, which are believed to be only temporarily imposed by the great book of destiny on human beings, are loosened. Everywhere where Thomasius' new message is now spreading with stormy strides, it is spreading confusion about human feelings and human opinions."},{"locus":"GA 44/05_02/p015","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/44/05_02/p015","passage_number":15,"word_count":110,"text":"5. CITIZEN: And unfortunately, one must recognize more and more every day how quickly this light is spreading. Where once, in warm feeling, the heart approached the spirit in piety and the soul, sensing eternity, bowed down, now cool calculation of a mad striving for perfection strangles the heart and mind. The simple joy of sensory revelation, in which people once absorbed God's life within themselves, is now shunned as the great deception. And when life appears dark, many today cast off the burden, thinking that repetition must bring something else. I have had to witness all this again and again with a shudder wherever I found the new teaching."},{"locus":"GA 44/05_02/p016","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/44/05_02/p016","passage_number":16,"word_count":127,"text":"6. CITIZEN: That is precisely why we must ensure that the new message penetrates people's hearts with genuine power. That it must lead souls to what is right is proven by its very nature. If it still brings disaster, the reason lies in nothing other than the weakness of human beings, which has grown in the dullness of life that has surrounded them until now. Those who do not think with their heads alone, who feels permeated with the new light and its power with his whole being, knows that no source of soul life can dry up, no power of enthusiasm for true beauty can wane, no gift of true virtue can be lacking, when the noble revelation of truth fertilizes the field of human life."},{"locus":"GA 44/05_02/p017","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/44/05_02/p017","passage_number":17,"word_count":27,"text":"FERDINAND REINECKE: Already the bearers of wisdom announce their coming to us. Let us see what they will grant us poor fools from their treasure of light."},{"locus":"GA 44/05_02/p018","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/44/05_02/p018","passage_number":18,"word_count":198,"text":"2nd MASTER OF CEREMONIES: Dear friends, the signs of the times herald significant things. We, who feel called to be guardians of the forces that guide the course of human life, stand today at a turning point, and no less so do you, with whom we now have the task of uniting. Until now, the streams of work that lead humanity toward its goal had to flow separately in the course of time. Some of our human brothers did not know the foundations on which the soul must build if it wants to bind itself to the realm of the spirit. Many streams of light descended into their dull spiritual lives. And many believed that they knew the essence of that on which their faith depended. This essence itself had to be kept safe in the sacred places of consecration, where those who could bear the burden of the heavy trials of life could see the higher light. This is now to change. All people who are well-disposed toward the light of the spirit should be able to participate in the first degrees of enlightenment. This is how it is arranged in the plan of the world's progress."},{"locus":"GA 44/05_02/p019","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/44/05_02/p019","passage_number":19,"word_count":189,"text":"2. PRAECEPTOR: My brother was allowed to announce to you the serious work we now face. It is not only our own will that we want to make a covenant with your souls today. We are following a revelation that speaks to you as clearly as it calls us to action. Until now, the threshold of our sacred place has been strictly guarded. A strong guardian had to stand before our gates. We had to keep away those whose souls were not yet prepared to approach the source of the Spirit in a genuine spirit of consecration. For outside our places there was no spiritual power that could create in souls that sense which can be a mediator for the highest light of truth. Since Thomasius can show the soul the way with all the means of our time, every heart is able to feel the urge for that consecration which true wisdom needs if it is to flow into human beings. Thomasius can unite you with us. We see it in the thinking of the world spirit; you can also perceive it if you follow your true sense."},{"locus":"GA 44/05_02/p020","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/44/05_02/p020","passage_number":20,"word_count":402,"text":"THE GRAND MASTER: We feel ourselves to be guardians of ancient wisdom light. It was first entrusted to humanity shrouded in thick veils. It could be felt as dark impulses leading to the right. Humankind had to find itself in darkness before it was allowed to see its true origin. Only in this way could its nature be guided by its own power toward virtue, beauty, and wisdom. It would have had to drown in the foreign spirit if it had been spared the search. Only those who were willing to forego the happiness that springs from earthly spheres for the sake of human salvation were allowed to approach the source of the spirit. We do not say this out of arrogance that we may count ourselves among such people. We would only have to thank the grace of higher spiritual powers who chose us as their instruments. You will find it difficult to believe us now. But you will find faith when you realize that through many lives we had to let the treasures of the soul, which are to form your wealth in the future, dry up uncultivated. As much as appearances may conceal this, we were only allowed to guard the treasures of the temple because we proved ourselves indifferent to the gifts of the world. Thus we may approach you as brothers find brothers. We possess what you lack and what you shall become when your souls find their way back to the realms from which they sprang. Human souls today stand before times of great decision. And what Thomasius has accomplished is destined to significantly change the face of the spiritual striving of all people. The new science, which everyone can learn, incorporates the high spiritual light that until now could only be revealed to human beings who had struggled through hard trials and become familiar with the nature of the hard, to which we were appointed as guardians. That a man of Thomasius' kind must come one day: we have known since time immemorial, since our souls dwelt in bodies on earth in days long past. And our spiritual eyes were fixed on the moment when our mysterious signs would be imprinted in general forms of knowledge. The moment has come: it must also be recognized by human souls = knowledge of this kind can become yours if you come to yourselves in the right sense."},{"locus":"GA 44/05_02/p021","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/44/05_02/p021","passage_number":21,"word_count":65,"text":"FERDINAND REINECKE: May a simple human child, who has always been far from the threshold of your place of wisdom, be allowed to ask why this place needs protection, what Thomasius can proclaim. If it is the truth, it will find its way. Even if it must do without such protection. One will only truly recognize its power when it must prevail on its own."},{"locus":"GA 44/05_02/p022","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/44/05_02/p022","passage_number":22,"word_count":142,"text":"2nd PRAECEPTOR:  \nYou can only speak in this way,  \nBecause you are unaware of the confusion of the world's course.  \nGenuine truth has its own foundation;  \nBut whether it can find its way into human souls,  \nThat does not depend on it alone,  \nThese souls must take care of that.  \nThe truth may be ripe at a certain time,  \nBut without mindfulness,  \nPeople may pass it by.  \nThen it may be for a long time  \nThat the light is hidden,  \nAnd people remain in darkness to the detriment of the world's progress,  \nLonger than they should according to the world's plan.  \nThat the eyes of the spirit should be sharpened,  \nTo make people powerful guardians  \nOf the new light,  \nIt is necessary that the strong impulses,  \nWhich only the breath from our temple  \nIs able to awaken,  \nCarry enthusiasm in human hearts."},{"locus":"GA 44/05_02/p023","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/44/05_02/p023","passage_number":23,"word_count":148,"text":"HILARIUS:  \nAccording to a mysterious law,  \nSpiritual plants must be nurtured  \nBy forces from which they sprouted.  \nThomasius stood at the time when in him  \nAs an artist, the first gifts stirred,  \nWhich, transforming themselves, made him the creator  \nOf the far-reaching words of wisdom,  \nConnected with a spiritual current  \nThat is close to our work.  \nThe man who was once the leader of that circle,  \nWho cherished his friend Thomasius in his midst,  \nHas already withdrawn for many years  \nInto greater solitude,  \nDevoting himself to higher sacred service.  \nIt has now been entrusted to us by him  \nTo nurture the fruit in Thomasius,  \nWhose seed he once prepared.  \nThomasius' message would soon disappear  \nFrom the minds of men,  \nIf, removed from that spirit  \nTo which it owes its origin,  \nHad to work alone.  \nIt could only arouse  \nPeople's curiosity for a short time,  \nBefore falling into oblivion."},{"locus":"GA 44/05_02/p024","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/44/05_02/p024","passage_number":24,"word_count":73,"text":"1st MASTER OF CEREMONIES:  \nWe, who through many earthly lives  \nFeel connected to this dear man,  \nWho, from the fountain of his wisdom,  \nWanted to guide your thinking,  \nWe know that it is not human words alone  \nThat guide his tongue, but rather  \nInspiration from higher spiritual realms,  \nWhich he has to reveal in a solemn manner.  \nTherefore, everyone should praise as good fortune  \nThose who hear him and vigorously  \nFollow his instructions."},{"locus":"GA 44/05_02/p025","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/44/05_02/p025","passage_number":25,"word_count":46,"text":"FERD. REINECKE:  \nThe people he has summoned  \nTo hear his instructions  \nWill probably have different opinions,  \nAs will we, who stand outside your threshold,  \nHow we should behave.  \nAllow us, therefore, to withdraw,  \nTo deliberate on what we deem best,  \nThat we may do our part."},{"locus":"GA 44/05_02/p026","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/44/05_02/p026","passage_number":26,"word_count":43,"text":"DOCTOR STRADER:  \nBut I, who already feel close  \nTo your threshold,  \nGrant that I may remain a while longer.  \nThe wise member of your covenant  \nWill himself speak before you,  \nTo proclaim to you  \nHow I intend to sacrifice my services to you."},{"locus":"GA 44/05_02/p027","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/44/05_02/p027","passage_number":27,"word_count":179,"text":"2nd PRAECEPTOR: Sublime Master, the man  \nWho stands before you, after struggling through a difficult life  \nHas exchanged the path of pure science  \nFor practical work.  \nBut in his work  \nThe power of his acquired wealth of knowledge  \nHas proven itself fully.  \nHe has succeeded in solving a great mystery of life  \nIn the most daring way.  \nThe spirit of the new age  \nhas undermined human freedom.  \nThey had to live in masses,  \ncrowded together and surrounded by dangers,  \nin machine rooms. Much thought  \nhas already been given  \nto how human work  \nshould be organized in a humane way.  \nThe brave Doctor Strader  \nHas now, through his power distributor,  \nEnsured that the age of the machine  \nMust come to an end.  \nAnd free as individuals, all people  \nCan utilize the blessings of nature's forces for the good of the whole  \nIn separate homes.  \nThe man who has thus been able to transform the dark side of technology  \ninto light,  \nwants to stand valiantly by our side,  \nas we want to carry the light of the spirit into wider circles."},{"locus":"GA 44/05_02/p028","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/44/05_02/p028","passage_number":28,"word_count":69,"text":"DOCTOR STRADER:  \nThe paths I had to walk through life,  \nfirst through pain and then in bliss,  \nHave led me to recognize  \nHow only the deeds of the great Thomasius  \nCombined with your sacred temple treasure  \nCan grant blessings to the age  \nInto which humanity must now enter.  \nSo let me be in your midst,  \nTo offer my modest services  \nWith yours to give for the salvation of mankind."},{"locus":"GA 44/05_02/p029","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/44/05_02/p029","passage_number":29,"word_count":55,"text":"HILARIUS: My mind's eye recognizes in you  \nThe man who will be able to fill the place in our midst  \nThat I have had to see empty for so long.  \nTo the brother who spoke for you,  \nLet it be entrusted to prepare your soul  \nTo cross our threshold  \nIn a manner befitting his dignity."},{"locus":"GA 44/05_02/p030","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/44/05_02/p030","passage_number":30,"word_count":47,"text":"2nd MASTER OF CEREMONIES:  \nThomasius will now appear in our circle  \nFollowing the words we  \nHave addressed to him. He will be accompanied  \nMaria, with whom he is reunited in friendship  \nAfter the bold victories of his life,  \nHaving long had to avoid her  \nfor spiritual testing."},{"locus":"GA 44/05_02/p031","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/44/05_02/p031","passage_number":31,"word_count":10,"text":"(Thomasius and Maria enter, the latter in deep despondency.) —"},{"locus":"GA 44/05_02/p032","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/44/05_02/p032","passage_number":32,"word_count":142,"text":"1st MASTER OF CEREMONIES:  \nIn the name of those spiritual beings  \nTo whom our brotherhood is dedicated,  \nWe requested your presence, Johannes.  \nIt was foretold in the signs of the world  \nThat in these times something important  \nShould take place that would give our paths  \nA new turn should take.  \nWhen we heard of your spiritual achievement,  \nWe had to recognize that not only  \nThe general approval of the outside world  \nShould be given to it, which has indeed happened so abundantly.  \nIt became clear to us that in our consecrated work  \nIt must be worthily incorporated.  \nThrough you, the great feat of the spirit sprouted meaningfully from general science;  \nIt must henceforth be counted among those  \nOn whom the temple of consecration imprints its seal,  \nTo show how the spirit that flows from above  \nUnites with that which comes from below."},{"locus":"GA 44/05_02/p033","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/44/05_02/p033","passage_number":33,"word_count":186,"text":"HILARIUS:  \nMy son, what you have accomplished,  \nThe seal of ancient sacred science  \nMust be bestowed upon him,  \nAnd it will be carried  \nBy the mysterious power of our sacrificial service  \nThe spirits who are the masters of our temple,  \nTo high thrones that reign in the realm of the spirit  \nAnd also in the realm of nature.  \nIt flowed in the mother soil of humanity,  \nWhat we entrusted to hidden paths  \nIn the course of the earth's becoming.  \nAnd your well-prepared soul,  \nIt was allowed to fetch it from the human realm  \nAs fruit that we must recognize from our seed  \nFrom true wisdom.  \nThe heart that turns powerfully to you from the guardian of this temple  \nAt this moment,  \nIt belongs to a soul  \nThe wisdom of the gods of the spiritual realm  \nHas wanted to open by grace.  \nTherefore, take as a message from the spirit realm,  \nWhat my mouth has to say to you.  \nThe world will welcome your work  \nThrough its own strong essence  \nBut not only that, through all the powers  \nWhich can lend to the work of our temple."},{"locus":"GA 44/05_02/p034","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/44/05_02/p034","passage_number":34,"word_count":66,"text":"2. PRAECEPTOR:  \nThus, in the minds of many people,  \nA new age will surely blossom,  \nAnd new goals can be pursued,  \nWhat humanity strives for on earth;  \nFor what paralyzed so many powers,  \nUncertainty about many mysteries of the soul,  \nWill have to give way to the strength of the soul,  \nWhich, fully aware of its origin,  \nWill be able to joyfully incline itself to creation."},{"locus":"GA 44/05_02/p035","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/44/05_02/p035","passage_number":35,"word_count":768,"text":"THOMASIUS:  \nYou have a victor, O high bearers of wisdom,  \nIn me, who after many heated struggles  \nAnd years of mental effort  \nHas erected the proud edifice of knowledge,  \nAnd found it defended first  \nBy the spirit of inquiry of my own soul  \nAnd now by the confession of many people.  \nFinally, raise up as a member of your temple treasure  \nYou, this my work.  \nBlinded by such abundance of light,  \nIt seems to me that only astonishment is fitting  \nBefore what the power of the mind, through me,  \nA weak instrument, wanted to achieve.  \nAnd truly, if anything in the vast universe  \nCould drown out the voice of my own heart,  \nThe words of the high master  \nMust be able to do so, who just now  \nSpoke to me so fatherly.  \nBut in truth, man alone  \nMay approach this temple.  \nTherefore, it befits me to do something else  \nThan to ask for your high protection.  \nFor know that the accomplisher of the work,  \nWho found countless confessors,  \nTo whom you wish to give consecration:  \nHe stands as a renegade of his own message  \nIn this hour before your judgment seat,  \nAnd with his own soul's contradiction  \nThe terrible realization unites,  \nThat here in this place recognition  \nMay find what to the creator  \nCan only appear as error. —  \nAs long as the work held me in chains  \nAnd I was driven from conclusion to conclusion  \nRushing toward the deceptive goal,  \nThe structure appeared rock-solid to me.  \nAnd it remained so for a long time,  \nAfter the work was completed.  \nHad it been otherwise, I would have understood  \nThe effect  \nThat emanated from my message.  \nBut only late, when the numbness had faded,  \nThe creative forces poured over my self,  \nAnd I faced myself again,  \nThen the resistance could awaken,  \nWhich showed me in my own being  \nQuite clearly what an illusion  \nHad sprung from the spirit,  \nWhich believed itself so secure, yes, that  \nThe world could still hold firmly together at this hour.  \nThe world, for which my edifice of knowledge  \nWas to provide a firm foundation  \nAnd which, from the depths of its being  \nIn times when the spirit enters spiritual spheres  \nCan rise to conscious vision  \nAppeared in its own essence  \nAnd true form before my soul.  \nOh, how different everything was there,  \nThan it had been drawn in my soul's delusion  \nIn the well-constructed edifice of knowledge.  \nThere I had to see  \nHow error stands in relation to truth in reality.  \nDeath is not only the destruction  \nOf the physical being that envelops the core of man,  \nIt is also the destruction of what, as truth,  \nThe shell with its senses can ever conceive.  \nAnd when the man will one day appear  \nWho brings true images of what  \nLies beyond the threshold of death,  \nThen it will not be through harmony  \nwith all that reason recommends,  \nthe reality of the spiritual realm before the soul,  \nit will be through its conflict  \nwith all that is temporal that the eternal being  \nwill be brought to life in the heart.  \nYou imagine yourselves to be the messengers of a higher world;  \nyou want to have received from ancient times  \nA knowledge of the original forms of beings.  \nBy entrusting it to the signs  \nThat come from the realm of time,  \nYou have already married it to delusion and delusional beings.  \nYou have entered the realm of deception  \nAnd have the true essence of being,  \nThat was once bequeathed to you,  \nTransformed into a caricature even more distorted  \nThan those dull human souls  \nWhom you wish to guide as leaders.  \nIf delusion had departed from my errant soul at the right moment,  \nI would have found the strength  \nTo proclaim to the whole world:  \nTo cry out to the whole world:  \nO Avoid, O people, the error,  \nWhich with glitzy arts  \nCreeps into your souls. —  \nBefore I could, I received word  \nThat your protection is with my message.  \nI hurried to my friend,  \nWho knew best  \nHow I should find myself in this cruel hardship,  \nThat your light of wisdom would shine brightly  \nOver my deception.  \nWith words of wisdom deeply rooted  \nMy noble friend met me,  \nBut only a dark certainty seized me  \nThe certainty that I had deceived myself,  \nAnd since my evil art had succeeded  \nIn deceiving you too, that  \nIn all the wide world the pillars of truth  \nStand on rotten ground.  \nThe compulsion that drives me here  \nTo tell you freely that you too  \nCan only walk in darkness,  \nIt takes more from man  \nThan spiritual spheres can ever give him."},{"locus":"GA 44/05_02/p036","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/44/05_02/p036","passage_number":36,"word_count":25,"text":"2nd PRAECEPTOR:  \nOh, what is happening, our master's  \nIllustrious head is darkening;  \nWhat affected us so terribly,  \nHow can it also break his strong power?"},{"locus":"GA 44/05_02/p037","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/44/05_02/p037","passage_number":37,"word_count":32,"text":"1. MASTER OF CEREMONIES:  \nThere is no doubt, the clarity of mind,  \nIt has fled from Thomasius  \nAnd now stands before us, bewildered,  \nHe who drew from the deepest sources of knowledge."},{"locus":"GA 44/05_02/p038","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/44/05_02/p038","passage_number":38,"word_count":58,"text":"THOMASILTS:  \nOh, if only that were so, but I feel  \nThat what human wit calls clarity of mind  \nWas never more strongly mine  \nThan in this hour of difficult decision.  \nI must not spare you now either.  \nThrough me, the whole world will learn  \nHow the appearance of supreme wisdom  \nReveals itself to its own creator as error."},{"locus":"GA 44/05_02/p039","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/44/05_02/p039","passage_number":39,"word_count":43,"text":"HILARIUS:  \nSo this too shall be a deception,  \nWhat has been shown to us over many millennia  \nIn this spiritually consecrated place!  \nAway — as long as in our souls  \nA spark of such doubt lives,  \nWe are unworthy to wear this garment."},{"locus":"GA 44/05_02/p040","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/44/05_02/p040","passage_number":40,"word_count":4,"text":"(Exits with his brothers.)"},{"locus":"GA 44/05_02/p041","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/44/05_02/p041","passage_number":41,"word_count":109,"text":"MARY:  \nWhat was impossible has happened  \nIn the course of the world's becoming must remain,  \nWhoever has walked even a part of the way  \nIn faithful striving,  \nWhich leads to the realm of spiritual beings.  \nJohn, the time was too short  \nWhen, after a long separation,  \nWe were allowed to find each other again in love,  \nTo confide in me what happened  \nIn your sorely tried soul.  \nAnd to read with the eyes of the mind  \nIn your soul, too great was the blow That struck my power of vision.  \nYou must confide in me what  \nYou must confide in me what  \nhas opened the abyss in your soul."},{"locus":"GA 44/05_02/p042","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/44/05_02/p042","passage_number":42,"word_count":175,"text":"THOMASIUS:  \nKnow then, when I made the decision  \nto surrender myself to Lucifer's guidance,  \nit soon became clear to me  \nwhat consequences such an act would have.  \nI was soon able to descend into the deepest shafts of my being  \nand recognize  \nwhat my destiny had given me the power to do.  \nI discovered how artistic sensibility,  \ncombined with research and the power of thought,  \ncan be used to build a solid structure of the mind,  \nwhich my visionary powers had given me.  \nAnd such knowledge is always inseparable  \nFrom the urge to use all one's strength  \nTo accomplish what one's strength is sufficient for.  \nSo I acquired the treasures of knowledge  \nWith righteous greed and serious diligence,  \nAnd as if guided by high spiritual powers,  \nI recognized what I should accomplish,  \nIf a structure of thought were to arise,  \nThat could find belief among the powers of our time.  \nAnd like a creative fever  \nIt came over me.  \nWeeks flowed by like hours  \nIn the pursuit of research, which carried me  \nFull of enthusiasm."},{"locus":"GA 44/05_02/p043","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/44/05_02/p043","passage_number":43,"word_count":177,"text":"MARIA:  \nThrough such guidance it becomes clear,  \nHow in the world plan of evil power  \nIs used in the service of good.  \nThe inclination, my friend,  \nImplanted in you by creative powers,  \nIt entered those paths that belong to Lucifer,  \nFor there were desires in your soul,  \nWhich found expression in spiritual deeds.  \nAnd through one of those hard trials of the soul,  \nWhich are destined for human beings,  \nYou were seized by the pull of the leader  \nOf all forces of desire; but within you  \nGood was well laid by other powers.  \nThus, in your soul, what is good  \nHas arisen, which the enemy of humanity  \nWanted to steer toward evil.  \nThus, within the human being,  \nThe victories that the forces of good  \nMust achieve over the forces of evil  \nAre accomplished,  \nAnd field by field is wrested from the adversary  \nSo it seems to me that your deed  \nProclaims the victory of the wise powers,  \nTo whom we were once united,  \nAnd who did not abandon you,  \nEven when you wanted to follow their opponents."},{"locus":"GA 44/05_02/p044","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/44/05_02/p044","passage_number":44,"word_count":259,"text":"THOMASIUS:  \nSo it might seem, if everything  \nalready familiar to you, what I have experienced.  \nBut it is only half of my fate.  \nWhen I was allowed to direct the gaze of the spirit  \ninto past earthly lives,  \nI recognized myself as the brother of the woman  \nwho appeared to you and me in this life  \nas a seer with strong gifts.  \nAnd what I had not even suspected before,  \nIt arose after that spiritual stage,  \nThrough which I knowingly allowed myself to connect with the master of desire,  \nWith elemental force  \nIn my soul. When I was deeply immersed  \nIn my work, it often manifested itself  \nAs wild haste, but when  \nMy soul, weary, had to seek rest,  \nThen I could discover that the old bonds of blood  \nAs the deepest love for Theodora  \nHad taken root in my soul.  \nAs long as the work kept me busy,  \nI was numb and could believe  \nThat the longing was meaningless.  \nBut now that I have completed my work,  \nIt is clear to me that this inclination  \nTo see through its essence, fear prevents me.  \nI had to see how, through the bonds of fate,  \nThe woman I long for  \nIs united with the man who, through her,  \nWas able to find his path in life.  \nMay I doubt that future lives  \nWill preserve such a strong bond.  \nIn accordance with my own teaching  \nI should look at the situation with a confident gaze;  \nBut I tremble in cowardly fear  \nWhen I have to fathom the consequences of my inclination."},{"locus":"GA 44/05_02/p045","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/44/05_02/p045","passage_number":45,"word_count":104,"text":"MARIA:  \nThus man stands before the threshold of a strict guardian;  \nHe shows him what, before the encounter,  \nEscapes the gaze through wise providence;  \nHe releases the impulses of the soul  \nAnd lifts them into conscious being.  \nWe approach him and learn everything  \nWhat slumbers within our being.  \nIt must be the fate of the initiate  \nTo live on fearlessly with such knowledge,  \nWhich remains hidden from ignorance.  \nI see you, O friend, standing before this guardian.  \nOh, if the powers of our wise guide  \nWere now inclined toward you,  \nTo keep you far from those terrors,  \nWhich are the consequences of true self-knowledge."},{"locus":"GA 44/05_02/p046","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/44/05_02/p046","passage_number":46,"word_count":47,"text":"THOMASIUS:  \nO this being, which so eerily  \nShows me myself,  \nI have seen it often, it is within me  \nAnd guides my life's goals,  \nHidden from my will,  \nWhen it works in my earthly brain.  \nAm I a weakling if I  \nWant to compare myself to it?"},{"locus":"GA 44/05_02/p047","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/44/05_02/p047","passage_number":47,"word_count":43,"text":"THE DOUBLE:  \nSo Thomasius will let the paths  \nOf his life unfold,  \nAs I must want them to in him.  \nI work in him,  \nWithout him knowing it completely,  \nAnd what he can know,  \nHe must always accomplish,  \nWhat I mean in him."},{"locus":"GA 44/05_02/p048","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/44/05_02/p048","passage_number":48,"word_count":247,"text":"LUCIFER:  \nYou stand before the throne of the guardian of light,  \nWhom they call the master of desires  \nIn the realm of earthly existence.  \nIf I want to negotiate with Thomasius,  \nI turn to you.  \nHe will want nothing else  \nThan what my will  \nCan effect in you from time to time.  \nYou wanted to unite yourself with Mary.  \nA powerful urge draws you to her.  \nBut you walk in earthly existence  \nand imagine yourself to be Thomasius,  \nso you tell yourself in human dreams  \nthat you are connected only in spirit  \nand not through urges.  \nThus you deceive yourself through the delusion of light  \nabout the nature of darkness [yourself]  \nWithin yourself.  \nWhere light works in earthly delusion,  \nThere I may grasp being,  \nFor the truth of my being  \nIs only reflected in the earthly realm  \nAs delusion.  \nAs long as you wish to connect yourself to Mary  \nIn such a way,  \nI can impress upon your soul  \nThe miracle of the most sublime spiritual beauty.  \nI have no power over her.  \nShe is connected to my enemies  \nWith secure soul bonds,  \nAnd when she has served me  \nIn all that radiates from her  \nInto you,  \nThen she may go into my enemies' realm  \nWith her own soul.  \nThere she will lament for eternity  \nThe lost work she has done for you.  \nBut you will shine as king in my realm  \nAs a result of her work.  \nBut she herself you must  \nMiss at your throne."},{"locus":"GA 44/05_02/p049","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/44/05_02/p049","passage_number":49,"word_count":448,"text":"MARIA:  \nSo it seems to your nature,  \nYou ruler in the realm of desires,  \nAnd where you rule, you are right.  \nBut you do not count the powers  \nOf my soul in your worldly reckoning,  \nTherefore I myself have appeared before your throne  \nAs your adversary's faithful servant.  \nAnd the purpose of my coming shall be  \nTo proclaim to you what lives in my soul  \nAnd what you cannot see  \nDespite all your spiritual eyes;  \nWhat must therefore become your message.  \nYou will spare yourself  \nThe further pursuit of John's soul,  \nWhen you learn  \nWhat lives in my soul.  \nWhen I once stood in a spiritual vision  \nBefore the world tree,  \nWhich in human sense lives as a symbol  \nOf good and evil,  \nAnd felt myself  \nAs in the heart of the mother of life,  \nListening to your tempting voice,  \nI made a solemn vow to my soul.  \nI have come to know the high bliss That can bring a person  \nBy entering the high worlds of wisdom.  \nI know that whoever has felt the joys of knowledge  \nOnce in the true light,  \nNo other pleasure can compare with these;  \nTherefore I also know  \nThat no renunciation can ever be harder for a human being  \nThan that of the desire for knowledge.  \nBut I know from Benedict's high teachings  \nThat whoever strives alone for perfection  \nBut I know from Benedict's lofty teachings,  \nThat those who strive for perfection alone  \nAnd immediately stifle in the bud  \nAny pleasure in the knowledge they have attained,  \nThe power that consumes such pleasure  \nIn one's own self,  \nCan flow into that gift  \nThrough which we can bring another person  \nIn their pursuit of knowledge,  \nWhen we try to send our own spiritual content  \nLovingly into the soul of another.  \nSo I will continue to help John;  \nNot that he may attain for himself  \nThe summit of the highest wisdom,  \nBut rather that he may succeed  \nIn becoming human, in eradicating the selfishness  \nwhich has entered into all striving for knowledge  \nthrough your calling.  \nI know that Johannes alone  \nwould have to struggle for a long time  \nif he wanted to detach himself from you.  \nBut I offer him the sacrifice  \nthat Benedictus has interpreted for me,  \nand so the struggle will be easy for him.  \nYou proud ruler of the realm of desire,  \nYou must now choose  \nWhether you want to prolong the struggle for his soul  \nFor so long,  \nUntil my power grows to its full strength.  \nSince I am sure of my will,  \nYou will not be able to achieve anything  \nBut waste your power in a war,  \nWhich may last a long time,  \nBut can never yield you victory."},{"locus":"GA 44/05_02/p050","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/44/05_02/p050","passage_number":50,"word_count":244,"text":"LUCIFER:  \nIf I only had to fight you  \nAnd John alone,  \nThen it would be so.  \nAnd since unreasonableness is not my way,  \nI would give you back  \nYour protégé's soul at this very hour.  \nBut know that my spiritual adversaries  \nMust, according to a strict plan in the becoming of the world,  \nPlace a burden on the soul  \nThat bows to my kingdom.  \nTheodora, whom you in this earthly life  \nWith the gift of clairvoyance  \nAnd who in a past life  \nWas Johannes' blood relative,  \nShe hangs as such a burden on his soul.  \nNow I do not have the powers  \nThat command the blood,  \nAs long as life flows in the blood,  \nBut I may well command  \nOver the death of blood.  \nJohn's being is so deeply connected to Theodora  \nThat his life's ambition must be paralyzed  \nIf I can kill Theodora.  \nAnd I will tune the tones of the world so  \nThat to the extent that you  \nRemove John from me,  \nHe must draw closer to Theodora.  \nHe will find the urges ever growing,  \nWhich chain him to her.  \nAnd I must succeed.  \nAt the moment when I must see  \nYou snatch his soul from me,  \nI will let Theodora perish in the realm of the dead.  \nThat will mean the death of his soul.  \nYou may then go to your gods.  \nYou will abandon him  \nAnd what his spirit has achieved  \nWill be incorporated into my kingdom along with him."},{"locus":"GA 44/05_02/p051","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/44/05_02/p051","passage_number":51,"word_count":6,"text":"THOMASIUS WITH MARY BEFORE LUCIFER —"},{"locus":"GA 44/05_02/p052","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/44/05_02/p052","passage_number":52,"word_count":106,"text":"LUCIFER TO THE DOUBLE: I see you at Mary's side; what lives in your soul will not be able to leave her. My spiritual adversaries have implanted strong impulses in your being — which draw you to her; but they have well ensnared your spiritual eye with deception; so it seems to you that you are connected to her in spirit = that gives me strength for my work = you will not want to break the bonds with Mary, for you will not want to kill yourself — you will reinterpret her in a spiritual sense, and thus you will be lost to me —"},{"locus":"GA 44/05_02/p053","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/44/05_02/p053","passage_number":53,"word_count":102,"text":"DOPPELGÄNGER: I see the conflict thus  \nCondemned for long earthly times;  \nFor I must follow Johannes's mind,  \nAs long as Maria can influence him.  \nAdmittedly, this mind is only deception,  \nBut the deception is reality  \nIn the realm of the passage of time.  \nBut I am drawn to the other side  \nInto your sphere of high lords of light,  \nFor if I followed the urges  \nThat chain me to Theodora,  \nI could never feel free as a spiritual being  \nIn the universe;  \nI would be only a member of that entity  \nWho form themselves into the body of the world, your adversaries."},{"locus":"GA 44/05_02/p054","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/44/05_02/p054","passage_number":54,"word_count":78,"text":"LUCIFER:  \nThe true light of wisdom appears in you,  \nWhen you recognize me thus.  \nI do not want to make you a servant  \nIn my own being;  \nYou would become that in the realm of my adversaries.  \nI am the free son of the mighty prince of the world  \nand need nothing for the completion  \nof my own being  \nbut the sight of such beings  \nwho, fixing their gaze upon me,  \ndesire within themselves to be like me."},{"locus":"GA 44/05_02/p055","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/44/05_02/p055","passage_number":55,"word_count":67,"text":"DOUBLE:  \nSo I feel, like the wisdom  \nWhich belongs to my soul son  \nJohn as a human being,  \nMust always slander you.  \nTo make me a limb on the body of the gods,  \nYour opponents strive,  \nAs hands are limbs on humans,  \nSince you lead me to nothing else,  \nBut to freely imitate you in your essence  \nAnd to belong only to myself as my own being."},{"locus":"GA 44/05_02/p056","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/44/05_02/p056","passage_number":56,"word_count":216,"text":"MARIA: So you do not see how you now  \nWant to decide to bind yourself.  \nSublimity in proud beauty's splendor  \nShines from the sun-eye of the ruler of desires,  \nAs from the deepest depths of the worlds.  \nSuch a being comes from the fire of the soul  \nAnd is related to the fire spirit,  \nWhich blazes in the soul of man,  \nAnd easily ignites one another.  \nReflect, you father of my soul mate,  \nHow higher must appear to you  \nThe dignity that belongs to leadership,  \nWhich I can accomplish for you in the name of my gods  \nAt your side.  \nJohannes Knowledge is the gift of the good gods.  \nIt is only a seed in this time  \nAnd therefore needs the care of the powers of the spirit,  \nBut the seed will transform itself into fruit  \nAnd then shine freely in the realm of the spirit.  \nAnd freedom shall be yours in the future  \nOf a kind that does not yet exist.  \nThe freedom that blossoms for you in this realm  \nIs of a lower kind,  \nAs the world of old has long since produced.  \nIt can entice you because it already exists.  \nBut if you recognize your true power,  \nYou will incline yourself toward those worldly goods  \nThat are yet to come in the future."},{"locus":"GA 44/05_02/p057","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/44/05_02/p057","passage_number":57,"word_count":60,"text":"DOUBLE:  \nI am powerfully drawn to the familiar,  \nAnd if I am to decide on goals,  \nI can only do so with those powers  \nThat I possess and do not first have to find.  \nBut the other being approaches me,  \nWhich, together with you, inclines itself toward my soul.  \nIt shall reveal to me  \nWhat it can become for me."},{"locus":"GA 44/05_02/p058","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/44/05_02/p058","passage_number":58,"word_count":164,"text":"THEODORA: From the heights of good spirits springs  \nThe light that may illuminate my soul.  \nI have never fought for powers  \nTo open the eyes of my inner spirit.  \nI see such striving only in those people  \nWho follow only their thoughts with cold hearts.  \nAnd the spirit flows icily from them  \nInto the uniqueness of my being.  \nThis is how I felt at the side of that man,  \nTo whom the high powers of the spirit have assigned me  \nFor the course of one earthly life.  \nI know that in Straders' being  \nI had to resolve the heavy worries  \nThat plunged his soul into darkness.  \nBut I am also aware that this  \nwill only last for a short time.  \nThat a lasting bond with Johannes  \nwill connect me to him was revealed to me long ago  \nand is significantly indicated  \nin the blood ties of past earthly days.  \nWe were born of the same parents  \nas a symbol of our bond for eternity."},{"locus":"GA 44/05_02/p059","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/44/05_02/p059","passage_number":59,"word_count":185,"text":"BENEDICTUS:  \nWe stand here on the ground of the spiritual realm,  \nWhich lies beyond the realm of earthly existence.  \nAnd what is reflected on earth only as thoughts,  \nIs revealed here as strict reality. —  \nAs the fruit of his spiritual training, Johannes has been allowed to bring  \nbring the best earthly knowledge to mankind.  \nAnd if such knowledge alone  \ncould bring salvation and blessing to the world,  \nthe way in which he proclaimed his knowledge  \nwould have to prove itself effective in the long term.  \nBut this knowledge alone is meaningless.  \nIt works through those forces that unfold in man  \nAs his personal life unfolds.  \nJohannes' message mysteriously works  \nWith this, his soul being itself on people.  \nTherefore, the message will only bring salvation  \nIf he can find the way in the spiritual realm  \nThat is appropriate for the proclaimer of good wisdom.  \nHis work will be ruinous to earthly life,  \nWhen Theodora's life expires.  \nThe spirit before us is capable  \nOf erasing this life from the realm  \nIn which it alone is capable of working.  \nAnd this work of death has already begun."}]}